Shiver the Whole Night Through

by Darragh McManus

  I smiled again, different this time – a genuinely happy smile, given the circumstances.

  Sláine stared at me. She lit the rollie and I inhaled greedily, its tip glowing lava-red, engorged, enflamed. She whispered, ‘The time has come. And you know what to do.’

  Then she winked.

  And I did. Just like that, I knew. Sláine didn’t say anything more. She didn’t need to. She didn’t have to get inside my head with words because we were already inside each other’s souls. She was lonely and I was lonely and we had ruptured the fabric of space and time. We were hearts talking across continents. Across the boundary between life and death.

  I called out, ‘Yo, Joey?’

  His head lifted, perplexed at my tone of voice.

  I returned the wink to Sláine. ‘Health warning for you, pal: my smoking can kill you.’

  Then the bottle was slipped from my hand by Sláine’s hand and the cigarette was in my hand and she was moving, faster than a shooting star, faster than I would have thought it possible to move, spinning from me and towards Joseph Kinvara and smashing that heavy glass bottle across the fucker’s head, an explosion of glittering shards, a volcanic splash of whisky all over his face and clothes as he howled in shock and pain, blood running from his face and mingling with the scotch. With all that alcohol.

  I flicked the cigarette at him and it arced in slow motion through the air like the shining-white ape’s bone in that old sci-fi movie, and before it even reached Joseph the spark ignited the fumes rising off him like a toxic spill, and he was engulfed in flame. Then Sláine was moving again, fwit-fwit-fwit-fwit, running angles, stretching physics to breaking point, grabbing both lamps and swinging them in turn at Joseph’s head – smash-crash-flash, oil catching fire, further nourishing the blaze.

  Hair melting off his skull, skin lifting and bubbling like fat in a pan, clothes sticking to his body. It was horrific to watch but I had to keep looking. Joseph screamed like a baying pack of underworld hounds and tried to rise but Sláine pushed him down, forcing him back onto the armchair, that tatty piece of shit, that four-legged fire hazard. The furniture went up in flames too, the fabric curling and burning to nothingness, the stuffing inside feeding hungrily on the fireball. Joseph’s gun clattered to the ground.

  More screams, but this wasn’t just the man, it was the thing inside him too. A blood-curdling screech – not only pain, fear also. The demon was scared, and no surprise: Sláine, my Sláine, was at full fury now, fury and love, a force of nature, beyond nature. She thrust her hands into the inferno, ignoring the flames and wrenching Joseph out of the chair, flinging him against the wall, ancient brick bursting apart as he hit and came crashing down, dust settling on him like a pall, still burning, still screaming, a human firestorm.

  I understood now why and how she could do those things to my bullies, do them for me even when she knew it was wrong. I loved her more than ever.

  And Sláine loved me. She hadn’t betrayed us.

  She lifted Joseph from the floor and hammered his head into the wall, again and again, a whizzing blur of white violence and red fire. He swooned in agony and Sláine kept hammering. I couldn’t move my legs or tear my eyes away. And I didn’t want to.

  A different type of fire was beginning to well up in my stomach, a pure thrill of excitement and bloodlust and vindication …

  I hollered, almost feverish with vengeance, ‘Kick his ass, Sláine! Pound his ass into the ground! Kill him!’

  She leaped for the ceiling and Joseph’s head went through the rafters, old wood shattering like crystal, flames flaking from his dying body. Sláine pulled him down and grabbed his head, her fingers like a vice grip. Her hands began to turn. Sláine gasped, ‘Get out of him get out get out get out … ’

  Joseph somehow regained his equilibrium and tried to fight back, arms flailing like pinwheels of sparks from a bonfire. He was a trapped animal, crazed, acting on instinct. No longer the smooth master of a new universe. Kinvara was just another bully, a chicken-shit coward when he met someone stronger.

  ‘Kill him!’ I shouted. ‘Smash the bastard’s skull to dust!’

  With a desperate effort she pressed harder, her throat opening with a sound like the earthy blood-roar of a woman in childbirth. Joseph gave a last unearthly scream and the thing, that accursed demon, exited his flesh and flitted away from its host, its smallish form darting out of the lodge into the sheltering blackness of Shook Woods. What d’you know? Even demons are chicken-shit when someone stands up to them.

  Sláine loosened her grip and Joseph mindlessly barrelled out the door past me, a fireball, a tumble of roasting meat, no longer a man, running a few yards before collapsing into the snow, facedown. He was done for.

  Silence, broken by the sound of my heavy breathing. Sioda was so far in shock by now I don’t think he was even capable of that much. He stared at Sláine and babbled, ‘Muh-muh-muh … ’

  I ran to my girl. There, by the wall, as plaster dust and wood splinters fell onto our heads like bizarre confetti, I threw my arms around her and held Sláine close enough to crush her. Never had absolute cold felt so warm to me. Our hearts together, a conflagration in the centre of a raging snowstorm.

  She whispered, ‘I have to go after it. Can’t let it get away.’ Then she stood, took three sharp breaths, rolled her neck, rolled her shoulder muscles. Sláine looked nerveless, resolute, incredibly capable. Incredibly powerful. I didn’t think it was possible, but I was more in awe of this girl than ever.

  She took my hands, squeezed them, released. ‘I don’t have time to explain. Get back to town and stay in your house.’ She aimed a thumb in Sioda’s direction. ‘Bring him with you. And don’t leave until I contact you.’

  ‘No way. I’m staying. Not letting you out of my sight again.’

  ‘Just stay well back.’

  ‘That I can definitely do.’

  Sláine stared at the floor. She said quietly, ‘Maybe I can free those poor souls they’ve already taken. Like in the stories, you know? When you kill the head vampire, you release his victims. You save them.’ She looked at me, uncertain, pleading. ‘It’s not a vampire, but … It has to be worth a shot. Doesn’t it?’

  I nodded and gritted my teeth. ‘It’s worth a shot. Let’s go get the bastard. Mr Kinvara, wait here. We’ll be back.’

  He didn’t respond, or move, or do anything, except stare at the spot where an angel of death had driven his brother into hell.

  Outside. The crescent moon a knife cutting through the firmament. I started to ask, ‘What direc—?’ when Sláine shushed me, closed her eyes, held a finger to the breeze. Her dark-grey eyes opened and she pointed into the darkness.

  ‘There.’

  Then we were running through Shook Woods, giant pines on all sides as silent and inscrutable as an alien monolith on the moon, a flying squadron of crows in relief against the sky, screaming, driving us onwards. Sláine raced ahead, I could see her flashing white through gaps in the trees, before the forest’s shadow swallowed the view once more. The darkness of this place, it kind of washed over you, seeming to be more than the mere absence of light but a thing, a presence, maybe the spirit of the forest itself, standing guard, keeping watch, leaning in …

  Then I was entering a large clearing and there was the demon, zipping and glowing through the night like a will-o’-the-wisp towards something odd – I couldn’t quite see what because it was so goddamn dark in …

  Sláine was covering the ground at terrific speed, making a trajectory for the demon, a missile set to explode. It glanced back, looking scared now, its malignant face full of terror and hatred and fury.

  ‘Come on, Sláine,’ I gasped, running as hard as I could, my lungs burning, legs turning to acidified jelly. ‘Bring it down … ’

  But even as I said it I could see that the creature had reached the odd something and could see what that something was and my heart sank. We were screwed.

  A door. A portal. An exit. A sort of shimmering in space
, a dull, nauseating vibration. Oval in shape, maybe eight feet high, five across. This door, I somehow knew, opened onto another dimension or realm or universe, some other place where that demon could find escape. Could plot its return. We’d never be free, never feel safe, knowing it was over there, wherever that place was.

  I kept going, pushing every last ounce of energy into it. Sláine was still gunning for the demon like a heat-seeking missile but it was halfway through the portal, one side of its body disappearing into the nothingness beyond, the image sort of being scrubbed out. It grimaced at us, a sight to make the blood run cold, yowling like a rabid cat, throwing its curse to heaven. Then it turned to go, and I knew once it was through the door would close behind it, and we’d be as damned as that hell-bound thing.

  Sláine screamed, a wordless cry of grief and anger, and launched herself across the sky, practically flying, stretching for that portal to keep it open, if she could just reach it before the demon disappeared forever and keep the bloody thing open …

  She didn’t make it. But she didn’t need to.

  Because, bringing up the rear my heart had been battering my chest, heat rising there inside my parka with exertion and fear and exhilaration, and I realised that something really was battering my chest. An object, a physical thing, bouncing back and forth as I ran. I kept running and reached my inside pocket and pulled out the old locket that lady gave me, Meredith. It had remained in there all this time. I guess I’d told myself I’d find photos of Sláine and me to put in it, then got distracted and forgot about it.

  It was warm. Not tepid, from being close to my body, but definitively warm, like a cup of tea made five minutes before. And it was … this might have been the moonlight playing tricks again, but the little disc seemed to be glowing, a muted throb. Warm and bright, I held it tight in my hands and ran towards Sláine as the demon vanished and she screamed and lunged, too late …

  And I hurled that locket – I swear to God, it told me to do this, it practically spoke to me. I threw it towards the portal just as the creature moved through fully, my arm almost wrenching out of its socket. I threw with every ounce of strength I would ever possess. Somehow it worked. That door to another dimension remained open, just about. It was buzzing crazily now, like a swarm of molecules in hot water, straining to pull themselves apart into chaos.

  Sláine’s voice died away. She realised what had happened. She looked at me, smiling in a sort of pleased amazement.

  I shrugged laconically. ‘What? I have to contribute something to this effort, surely?’

  She nodded once and tumbled through. The portal collapsed on itself and vanished completely. Sláine had vanished. The locket lay on the ground. I mechanically returned it to my jacket then gulped in dismay and brought chilled fingers to my sweat-soaked head and was about to scream myself, when suddenly light exploded from that spot, beginning as a minuscule point before enlarging rapidly, whoooosh, like a nuclear bomb. A flare of energy hurled me back, landing me flat on my ass, the light blinding me temporarily, shockwaves reverberating in my ears. I was sightless and deaf and completely ignorant.

  And then her voice – celestial choirs never sounded so wonderful – distant and muffled at first but getting louder and sharper and nearer, and my vision cleared and I could see Sláine walking towards me, calling my name.

  ‘Did you … ?’ I gasped. ‘Is … is it … ?’ I was unable to say the words.

  Sláine nodded, slumped to the ground and hugged me. I could almost feel it physically, her exhaustion, as though it were a black hole collapsed in empty space.

  She said weakly, ‘It’s dead. That thing is … I followed it down into the jaws of hell and I … I … ’ Her head flopped back, she moaned in pain, her eyes fluttering. ‘Oh shit. I think that took quite a bit out of me.’

  I squeezed her tightly. After a minute Sláine added, ‘It’s over, Aidan. For good. I destroyed it. I destroyed it.’

  Something immense had happened beyond the door – I had the strangest sense she had aged in that split second, changed in some elemental way – but Sláine wasn’t being forthcoming with details, so I decided not to press it. There’d be plenty of time for all that later; we had the rest of our lives to talk together, or I guess, the rest of mine at least. I broke our embrace and smiled, about to thank her. And shit, she was crying.

  I said drolly, ‘How can someone so badass get upset enough to cry?’

  Sláine laughed. ‘Don’t know. Tiredness? Feel kind of … emptied out.’

  ‘Take it easy. You must have … Just … just rest here for a minute.’

  She nodded in agreement, like a child being willingly put down for her nap. I cradled Sláine’s head in the curve of my arm. After another few minutes I said gently, ‘It’s all right. Everything is all right now. Thanks to you.’

  For the first time since I’d met this strange, marvellous girl, I felt like the senior one in the relationship, the more mature of the two. I felt like an adult. And that felt good.

  Gradually, she got some of her strength back, enough to fill me in on recent events: how Joseph Kinvara had appeared at the lodge, in person, that evening – around the time I’d been dreaming about her, I reckoned – and laid out his intentions for their joint world domination. Sláine hadn’t time to make any sort of plan herself, or contact me; besides, she assumed he’d be able to ‘read her thoughts’, being in such close proximity. This was also why she didn’t tell me anything en route to the lodge – he might have ‘heard’. For all she knew, Joseph could have been watching from the trees the whole way in.

  ‘It was a stupid move,’ she sighed. ‘Thinking we’d a day or two to work something out.’

  ‘Yeah, but be fair, what would you expect? We’re just two kids.’

  She’d been forced to wing it, flying on blind hope, pretending to go along with Joseph’s schemes – which included murdering me.

  ‘He was going to kill you himself, tonight probably,’ Sláine said. ‘He’d already sent the walker to the cemetery, that poor O’Leary woman. I volunteered to do it instead. Prove my love for him, whatever. Which in turn was a set-up. I had to pretend to be – interested in him.’ She shuddered. ‘Ech. The sleaze. Made my skin crawl. But I reciprocated his romantic suggestions.’

  I said, ‘So you were tricking him? To get his guard down?’

  She nodded. ‘Get his guard down, get him relaxed, even a little drunk. And get close. I had to separate them, Kinvara and the demon inside. That was the only way I could think to nail them. Too powerful for me to face together.’

  ‘You looked pretty powerful yourself, driving his dumb head into the ceiling.’

  ‘Nah, they would have beaten me. Probably. I mean Kinvara’d have powers of his own, like I do. And coupled with the demon’s … ? Anyway. Doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘No it goddamn does not,’ I said with satisfaction.

  She continued, ‘I figured, their strength lies in the cold, right? I mean that’s what the thing was, essentially: coldness, come to life. And what better weapon to use against that than fire?’

  ‘Good thinking, Holmes. So this was your grand plan – set Kinvara alight and … ’

  ‘Plan is too ambitious a word for it. But yes. Set him on fire and hope to God it’d loosen the bonds between them. Enough for me to pummel the shit out of the mortal man and basically beat that demon’s ass out of him.’ She shrugged, said, ‘It worked,’ then smiled awkwardly. ‘I promised you I wouldn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘I think in this case you get a pass, morally speaking. Counts as self-defence.’ My own ass was freezing, I realised. ‘You mind if I – stand up? I’m in danger of getting glued to the ground.’

  We both rose.

  Sláine said hesitantly, ‘I think their souls – those souls Kinvara claimed? I think they’re free now. At peace.’

  ‘Me too. You did good, girl.’

  ‘As did you. Throwing that disc – what was it?’

  I pulled it out. She examined
it, turning the locket in the moonlight. Eventually she said, ‘Would you believe, I think I know this. Think I’ve seen it in an old photograph.’

  ‘Yeah? No way.’

  Sláine nodded. ‘Looks like … I can’t be sure, but it looks like this locket my ancestor used to own. Eleanor.’

  ‘McAuley’s wife.’

  ‘The very same. An old family heirloom, you know, passed down the generations. Lost years ago, but I’ve seen it in pictures of my great-grandmother. Eleanor’s granddaughter, I guess? Not sure exactly.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why it had – power,’ I said, ‘for good, I mean. Maybe William John gave it to his wife as a symbol of love, and it represented, like, something good. Whatever decency was in him. This locket had held on to some of that, his love for Eleanor, his good side.’ I thought of the ring Sláine wore, the one that creep had put there. ‘That ring of yours meant something to Kinvara … I guess the locket means something to me.’

  ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘From this very interesting old dear called Meredith. Runs an antiques shop. You think she … ?’

  Sláine gave a little smile. ‘Maybe.’

  I put the locket away and said, half-teasing, ‘You know, you were banking an awful lot on me understanding your purpose back there. I mightn’t have clocked at all what you wanted me to do, with the scotch and the fag. Bit slow on the uptake, you know?’

  She shook her head adamantly. ‘I knew you’d get it. I know you, Aidan. How you think, what you’ll do.’ She kissed me hard on the mouth. My fingers shot outwards in shivering bursts of delight. ‘I know you better than I know myself. And trust me, when you’ve got this much free time, you get to know yourself pretty well.’

  We laughed and I said, ‘Why not just set him alight yourself? Out of curiosity. Why take the tiny risk that I’d be too dumb to follow your lead?’

  She thought about this. ‘I needed you there when I took him down. I can’t – I can’t explain it … I told you before, you make me stronger, more powerful, like I can do anything. But I need you there to do it with. Does that make sense? It had to be a team effort. You and me, taking on the world.’