by Renée Jaggér
I sensed the swift movement of his arm, his hand, and the chain in it a mere second before it lashed toward me. I whirled and ducked, and the chain hit the ground with a thunderous ring. I directed my flashing gaze to the leader, who bared his teeth, fury in his red eyes.
Wait, red?
Dawes shouted something, and he and three of the guards ducked. From what, I did not know until I saw the chain rising again. He swung it with amazing strength but missed, then again, the hand with the chain rose. “No!” I cried out and operating on instinct, I lunged.
McAroy swung his chain at Dawes, slamming him across the chest before I could reach him. The sickening crunch reached my ears and I skidded to a stop several feet from him. McAroy’s flashing eyes turned to me, and I could see now that he wasn’t only a man. What in the actual hell?
My thought trailed off as I froze, drinking in his transformation.
His form was still human but was changing at a rapid pace. He grew taller. His eyes turned from red to gold, and his skin was blue.
He snarled, the sound having an animalistic quality, and lunged.
This time, Dawes cried out, and before I knew what was happening, he flung himself between me and the creature with the chain.
McAroy snarled again. His attention was once more directed at Dawes.
“Run!” I screamed. My heart thundered, and adrenaline raced through my veins, although my body was frozen.
Dawes had no time to run, no matter how much he wanted to. His baton, which had served little purpose, clattered to the ground. A second later, I turned my eyes back to McAroy. His skin was bristling with blue and black fur, and his hands had sharp, curved claws.
Alarm and panic flashed through me. Seeing an enormous wolf was one thing, but I didn’t know what the fuck was in front of me now. Whatever it was, his claws were wrapped around Dawes’ throat.
I stood stunned, my eyes following the creature as he picked Dawes up by the throat like a doll and slammed him on the concrete.
I screamed, but I could not move. Whatever sound of pain Dawes had uttered was lost in the creature’s snarls. The next instant, the creature released his hold on the policeman’s throat, raised his extended claws, and brought them slashing down.
Dawes went silent, and four enormous gashes marked his neck and collarbones, blood gushing out. His eyes were blank, his skin pale.
Dead.
I screamed again. Before I could register what I wanted to do, I charged toward the looming beast, a snarl of my own wrenching itself out of my body.
I was upon him in an instant, kicking and punching and screaming. Where my strength and speed came from, I did not know, but I allowed them to rush through me. It felt like I had been consumed by something, and I didn’t give a shit.
The beast howled and fell back, and I threw my fists into him. I heard a snap and was wrenched out of my fury-filled haze. “Oh, no,” I muttered as I scrambled off the creature. He lay below me, crumpled on the pavement, head sagging to the side.
I realized his neck was broken.
I stood, breathing hard, blood dripping from my nose. I wiped it away with the back of my hand and slowly turned to where the other three men stood. They were still human, and I was relieved to see their open mouths and gawking expressions. I heard a sizzling sound and whirled to see that the beast was shriveling, dark, smokeless fire rising above it as it disintegrated. A strong, foul odor rose where the creature had been. With a sound of disgust, I covered my nose.
I looked at the dead policeman whose blood had stained the concrete bright red. Tears burned my eyes. I had only known him for twenty minutes or so, but now...
Ripped to shreds. I looked at my hands. They were normal, I realized. No claws. How had I done that? I looked at the ground where the creature had been. He was nowhere to be seen.
The three men playing guards had dropped their makeshift weapons and were fidgeting uncomfortably. I found my voice at last, and my tone was firm and authoritative. “Two of you take him to the police on the other side of the building. Tell them you had no part in it. Tell them your boss was mental but that he was taken care of.”
All three of them scrambled forward, but only two grabbed the policeman’s corpse. The third stayed behind. He trembled as he stood before me.
Before he could run or say anything, we heard frantic voices over the static in my radio. Shit, I forgot about that, I realized. How the hell was I supposed to explain what just happened? I lifted the radio to my mouth. “Yes, I’m here. I’m going in.”
Objections followed, but I ignored them. I turned to the remaining man in the yard. “Take me inside.”
The interior of the building was in darkness.
I had to grope along the walls behind the man from the yard, who was by this time breathing heavily from fear.
He’s afraid of me, no doubt. He saw what I did. I swallowed hard, still not sure how I had managed it, let alone if I was okay with it. Something about it felt wrong but right at the same time. I’d think about this later, I decided as we reached a rickety staircase. I clung to the banister all the way up. The man led in silence. It was clear he had climbed this staircase many times.
Now that we were on the third floor, I began to distinguish between the sounds from inside the building from those outside. The sirens still whined, and the crowd was still making a commotion. I heard low snarls and taunting voices coming from behind a closed door. The man halted before the door but hesitated. My eyes widened with alarm. Even he doesn’t want to open the door leading to his cronies.
I addressed him. “You can go. Turn yourself in. Tell them you weren’t involved in anything and you helped me. I’ll back your story up.”
The man dipped his head. “Th-th-thank you,” he stammered, then turned and fled down the stairs. Whether he was afraid of me or the people I was about to encounter, I did not know. Time to find out.
I clenched my fists, drew in a long breath, and gathered my courage. You and me are doing pretty well so far, I thought at the Way of Kings as if it were another person. I’ve scared off a wolf. I’ve got this. I’ll finish it.
I opened the door without knocking, and dozens of eyes turned upon me. I swallowed hard and straightened my posture. I was weaponless, and they all could see that. Use the power they don’t see. The thought came to me like a warm breath, like someone else speaking to me.
I stalked into the room, eyeing the dozens of men and women holding makeshift weapons. Next, I took stock of how many hostages they had taken. I had never looked into the faces of so many fearful policemen at one time. I counted over twenty. I folded my arms and searched the room for the leader. I could not, as hard as I tried, pick him out. The people pressed too tightly together and fixed me with sinister stares. No one wore masks.
“Call it off. We’re done.” I spoke as if I were addressing a room full of children who had just thrown a combined temper tantrum. “We’re trying to help you, not harm you. The police and the hospital are trying to work together to keep everyone safe, but this isn’t helping.”
I eyed each of them in turn. Some shifted uneasily. Good, I thought. It’s having an effect. Others were eyeing me with wariness as if they were wondering why an emergency medical technician with no weapon had been sent in. Except they didn’t know my profession. I hadn’t shown up in scrubs.
I softened my gaze and tone. “Leave now and let your hostages go, and no harm will come to anyone.” I allowed my expression to reveal the mounting sorrow within me. “We’ve lost enough lives tonight. We don’t need to lose any more.”
With these words, the people began looking at one another, their eyes filled with a new fear. Their raised arms fell slack to their sides. In a moment, the sounds of weapons being dropped filled the room. Murmurs and whimpers followed. Some of them helped the hostages up. The police looked with bewildered expressions at me and their enemies-turned helpers. The aggravators began to escort the former hostages out of the room. I moved out of the doorway t
o let them through.
Some spared me glances but looked away soon after.
I sighed. What a night this had been. Without Gran, without the Way of Kings, I would be dead too. My heart and fists clenched.
I was far from done.
Five men remained, and their expressions hadn’t changed. They still wore menacing smiles, and I started as their eyes began to change from red to gold. Five of them? One beast, or whatever it had been, was one thing, but five?
I stumbled back against the swinging door as they began stalking toward me. Stand your ground, I told myself, remembering my encounter with the wolf. I had survived so far. Running would ensure my death, and as fucked up as the world was, I wasn’t ready to leave it.
Before I could decide what to say or how to defend myself, a low, rumbling laugh slipped from one of the men’s lips and filled the room. I shuddered. It was the laugh from my dream. The laugh that had shaken the street, split the ground open, and swallowed the wails of the people.
Where were the children? Were they trapped here too?
Before I could wonder further, the men began to change. Their eyes were gold, and the color and texture of their skin also began to morph until they were the same as the creature I had fought outside.
Stand. Your. Ground, I told myself. Get them out.
The laugh sounded again, and the creature in front, who had no need for his weapon now that he had claws, sauntered toward me. His tail whipped behind him, his ears laid back against his head, and his eyes flashed. His fur bristled as he snarled, “You chose to crash the wrong party, little witch.”
I found my voice. “You’ll be wishing I was a witch in a second.” My words sounded more confident than I felt. One of them was one thing, but I knew I couldn’t fight off five at once.
Just as I finished thinking that, I heard three sounds in quick succession. First was the combined snarls of the five men-turned-beasts. The second was shouting mixed with static over the radio. The third was the tremendous crash of the window on the opposite side of the room as it was broken.
I ducked by instinct as a cloud of moving dark figures entered. The room filled with wind and caws, mixed with the rapid beats of wings. Screams came next. Crows, I realized. For once, I was glad to see them. Alarmed but not unhappy. I ducked and cowered, but the birds, though they were flying around the entire room, did not touch me. The screams continued, and I saw that the crows had flown at the creatures and were attacking their faces.
I stood stunned, not knowing what to do or where to move.
The crows continued, and I could not tear my eyes from them until a large black shape on the other side of the room caught my eye in the dim light. It rushed by me, and I felt its strong, heavy body as it brushed past and vanished into the darkness of the hall. “The black wolf,” I gasped.
The crows fluttered, cawed, and pecked for a moment longer as the cries of the beasts rose in an excruciating crescendo before falling silent. The crows dispersed through the window through which they had come, leaving me panting in the moonlit room.
I sank to my knees as the gravity of what had just happened washed over me. The odor of the dying creatures filled the room. The night air drifting through the open window wasn’t enough to quell it.
How the hell was I going to explain this? I could tell them they killed themselves. As the creatures began to shrivel, leaving the scent of burnt hair behind, I realized there would be no bodies left. I wouldn’t have to explain. I could just tell them I had reasoned with them, and they had left.
“Morgan! Morgan!”
I was wrenched out of my trance by a frantic voice on the radio.
I lifted it to my mouth with a shaking hand. “We’re good. All clear.”
Next, I had to find where the children were and get them out.
Within a short time, the rest of the police force had entered the building and was helping me search. Almost every flat had at least one child huddled in a corner.
I’d gotten them out, but somehow, I felt this was just the beginning. I’d better get a weapon of some kind for next time.
The Third Morrigan
The Na Staighrí Dubha, that is, the Blackstairs Mountains, which were located south of Dublin, Ireland, were the perfect place for Sun to hide.
At least for a time. The mountains hid her well from both men and gods. And her two sisters.
The sky dripped the last remnants of a storm, during which she had nestled inside a cave on the side of the mountain. The towering rock rose around her, as ominous and dark as if some gigantic creature squatted here, cloaked in black robes. She shivered as she pressed herself against the damp walls of the cave. Her fire had been reduced to embers, but it didn’t matter. With her power draining, she could feel little warmth.
If she could view herself, she would see her pale complexion and paler lips. She would see her too-wide eyes sunken in her thinning face. It is consuming me, she thought. But better me than the world.
She had made every effort to block that memory of the city on fire from her flames. She had done everything she could not to remember her youngest sister’s panicked face and how she had run toward her, begging her to end it.
Sun had told her sister she was going to her temple one last time, but the truth was, she hadn’t been back since her encounter with the god of war. “When you’re ready to give it up, goddess, let us know. We’ll take the darkness away from you,” had been his words.
Never. Never would she allow a god to take her power. She would sooner spill it into the mountains and waste it there, but even that wasn’t the plan.
Sun rose on wobbling legs and made her way to the entrance of the cave. A long, narrow path wound down the mountain to the beaches lining the Irish sea.
Sun could sense the woman coming before she saw her. When the woman did come into view, Sun saw that she was clad in a crimson cloak. Her jet-black hair was loose in the wind, scattering across her pale face, from which two shrewd eyes peered at the world.
She looks just as she did when we were children, Sun thought, except...better. Healthier. She sighed, remembering what she had been like before taking on the power of the Morrigan. She looks ready to take on the world, was her final thought. Then the woman was before her, shivering in the aftermath of the rainfall.
The woman spoke in a dry voice. “Nice walk.” She glanced beyond Sun into the cave where her belongings were piled and where the fire had died out. “Nice house, too.”
Sun gave her a weak smile. “You must be wondering why I made you come all the way out here.”
The other woman laughed in a bitter tone. “I know why you want to see me, but I don’t know why it had to be here.”
Sun narrowed her eyes. Did she know? “It had to be here because it is hidden. This is between you and me for now. After this…well, we’ll tell them later.”
“Your sisters?” The woman’s left brow rose, and she laughed. “Sun, Moon, and Stars. Quite the name changes from the ones your parents gave you. Don’t forget that I remember.” She folded her arms and straightened her shoulders.
“How did you know?” Sun asked, her body stiffening.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize my own cousin? And with all that you’ve been doing, starting wars and such—”
“We don’t start them,” Sun interjected. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea.
“Ah, yes. You end them.”
“We bring them into fullness. War is a natural occurrence in the world of men, but so is healing.”
The younger woman waved a dismissive hand. “And saving, yes. I know all about that.”
“I began hearing about the Morrigan long before you and your sisters left me.”
Left me, Sun’s mind echoed. Those words pierced her, and for a second, she was transported back to their home village. This young woman standing before her had been a scrawny child, chasing princes in her dreams and wishing to be more. We all wanted to be more, Sun thought.
She tried to use a gentle tone. “You had to find your own path.”
The woman’s expression grew hard. “I was your sister too, though not by blood. Our souls were tied together. We were bound together, and you treated our bond like a string you could sever. You walked away from me. I remember the day you left. I remember the hope I had that you might come back for me. I was a fool.”
Sun’s eyes filled with tears. “I walked into war, Ev—”
“Don’t call me that,” the woman interrupted. “I don’t go by that name anymore.”
Sun’s brows furrowed. “What name, then?”
The woman’s lips parted in a feline smile. “Night.”
“Night,” Sun echoed. She tried to give her cousin a gentle smile. “I like it.”
Night scoffed. “You should.”
“You should have been with us.” Night did not answer with words, but her sharp gaze told Sun she agreed. “There could only be three.”
Night shrugged. “Or one.”
Sun’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “You have to work with them. Moon and Stars, they…well, they’ve been doing this for a long time. They will help you.”
“I didn’t need your help before, so why should I now?”
Sun replied in a voice carrying bitterness, “It is a dangerous power.”
“Danger, danger.” Night chortled. “I’ve laughed in the face of danger before.”
Sun sighed. This isn’t going well. As she thought this, Night’s expression softened, and her voice became gentle. “Where are you going to go?”
Sun stilled. She had avoided thinking about it. “I-I don’t know. I might go back to our village just to...just to see.”
“It’s painful.” Night’s voice held remorse.
Sun nodded, then inched forward and reached out a hand, but she pulled it back. Night didn’t look like she wanted to be embraced by a family member she hadn’t seen since she was a child. “You’ve been hurt too many times, I know.”