The clarity he’d felt at being the knight had been swept away. The monsters were gone. The closest thing to them were the Named, and he feared what would happen if they turned – though considering the way the humans down here were treating them, he’d be hard pressed to blame the wolves if they did. Travelling here to Tony’s house earlier, Wily and Larka had been the subject of much abuse. The wolves were the only plainly otherworldly creatures now in sight, despite the fact that, if not for their heroics …
But that was the rub, wasn’t it?
His actions, those of the wolves, they’d made no difference. At least, not to the people trapped down here. Those who the Named had saved from death had escaped, allowed to live in Ireland Above. Those who had been killed before the Named could intervene had been forced to stick around, to live in this perpetual darkness and seeing a horde of talking wolves stalking the crimson streets of Belfast at one in the afternoon did little to improve their outlook, whether the televisions were working again or not.
Apathy was overwhelming him. He could feel it rising up from his bones to choke his spirit, and yet he could think of nothing to spur him into fighting it off.
You have your family to take care of, he told himself. But did he? If death wasn’t even possible here, what looking after would they require, exactly?
He could see the future stretching out before him. It was filled with two kinds of people – those who would cower in their homes, too old or too young or too timid to understand what kind of world they’d found themselves in; and the other sort, the ones who would adapt in all the wrong ways to this place.
How were they supposed to save people? Three humans and a group of talking wolves, versus an ancient and incredibly powerful witch who already, it seemed, had a fair portion of the country’s governing machinery behind her.
How were they supposed to save people who didn’t need saving? If Carman was trying to win some sort of popularity contest here in order to power her magic, she wasn’t likely to start breeding her hellish minions and sending them to the four corners of the country to terrorise people. And even if she did, he’d witnessed first hand that anyone killed would simply spring back to life again.
Worst of all, how were they meant to save people who didn’t want saving?
His phone rang. He started in surprise and fished it from his back pocket.
As he looked at the name displayed, his fingers became as dextrous as oven mitts, and the phone slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor.
PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, STORMONT, BELFAST BELOW, NOW
She had an aide now. He wasn’t a giant spider like Dother’s had been, but she could fix that. The little man didn’t have a spidery look about him. He was more of a rat …
He scurried over to her, holding her mobile. ‘First Minister,’ he gabbled excitedly, ‘it’s him.’
She waved for everyone to leave the assembly chambers. ‘Danny,’ she purred. ‘I had a feeling you’d be calling …’
LIRCOM TOWER, BELFAST ABOVE, NOW
‘You broke the oath.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Carman replied, indignant. ‘This decision has been taken by your world’s leaders, Danny. Shocking lack of humanity. As the leader of a sovereign nation, you can rest assured I shall be sending a strongly worded email.’
‘You expect me to believe you didn’t cause this?’ Danny said.
‘I expect you to remember that the clock is ticking. We can stand here and debate who’s lying to whom but I have a feeling your side of this call’s about to experience some transmission issues. Unless you plan to learn how to saddle a giant cockroach and buy some three-legged trousers, I suggest you be a dear and have my son set up a – what are they called, rat? Oh yes – a videoconference, won’t you?’
Danny reeled off a number to Dother and a large LCD screen slid down from the ceiling, like something off a Bond film. If Danny had had time, he’d have been jealous. Carman’s image appeared on the screen.
‘How am I even able to talk to you, let alone see you? You said we couldn’t breach the gap between you and us anymore,’ Danny said.
‘No,’ Carman replied. Danny saw, with a sinking heart, that she was currently sitting in the assembly chambers in Stormont looking like she owned the fucking place, ‘I didn’t say we couldn’t, Danny. I just said I wouldn’t as part of our agreement,’ and she flashed him a dazzling smile that seemed to have too many teeth, far too many teeth. ‘But that is what we’re here to discuss, isn’t it? Dother, be a good boy and show him how precarious his situation is. I know you can.’
Dother worked more controls, pausing to look at Danny once again. There it was, a flicker, a gleam, some intangible fragment of a message that Danny was supposed to be picking up on, gone as quickly as it had appeared. As he worked with the screen, a video feed appeared in the corner of the conference call.
‘Missile trajectories,’ Carman said.
‘Fuckin’ hairy Christ,’ Danny breathed. There were dozens of the things, all heading for Ireland. ‘Stop them. Stop them!’
Carman shrugged. ‘That power lies within me, but, as someone wise once said, if you’re good at something, never do it for free.’
He looked at Ellie, and saw his own growing suspicion mirrored on her face. He turned to face the video screen.
‘What do you want?’
‘What does any self-respecting goddess want?’ she replied, leaning forward. She was staring directly at Luke, her eyes glittering. ‘Sacrifice.’
BELFAST BELOW, NOW
Larka had brought him here as quickly as she could. Steve dismounted and nodded to her in gratitude, as he always did. She returned the gesture, but did not move to follow him, for which he was grateful.
She was there already, leaning on the railings and looking out across the Lagan. Her hair was whipping in the cold wind, and Steve noticed that there was no scent of the sea in the air – perhaps because, beyond the shores of Ireland, no true sea now existed. He didn’t know and right now, he didn’t really care.
‘Maggie?’ he said softly, when he had reached her.
She didn’t turn. Her phone, he saw, was still in her hands. He saw her pocket it and, unsure how to proceed, unsure whether he should embrace her in case she reacted badly for some reason, he settled for standing beside her at the river’s edge, the Lagan Weir footbridge immediately to their right.
He couldn’t stop himself from looking at her, mostly to reassure himself that this wasn’t some hideous prank Carman was pulling. It wasn’t. He couldn’t stop the fingers of his left hand from covering the fingers of her right. He intertwined them with hers. She made no effort to stop him.
‘Maggie?’ he tried again.
Her make up was streaked and her eyes were red. She had the look of someone who was cried out. She still didn’t look at him, staring ahead to some point at the head of Belfast harbour.
‘I thought,’ he began, and had to gather himself. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘I wanted to,’ she whispered.
Not enough, you didn’t, he thought. He said nothing, content for now just to hold her hand.
‘This place …’ she said, shivering, finally tearing her gaze away from the watery horizon, which presumably now led to nowhere. ‘It’s awful. It’s horrible. It terrifies me. I didn’t think in a million years that I’d want to stay in a place like this.’
‘Then why did you?’
She turned. Instead of the love he’d hoped to see, there was hardness and anger on her face. ‘For you,’ she said. ‘I stayed for you, Steve. I’ve got no family here. I’ve left everything behind. Everyone. To be with you.’
There were a thousand different responses to that, but in the end, Steve went for the simplest, and, without doubt, the most heartfelt. ‘Thank you.’
‘I must … I must want this. Us. Right? Otherwise I would have gone, right?’
‘You’re stronger than you think you are,’ he told her.
‘How can we
make this work? Here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What will we do? How will we live?’
‘I think,’ he said carefully, in the instant before he kissed her, ‘this is where we find out.’
LIRCOM TOWER, BELFAST ABOVE, NOW
‘Away and fuck yourself.’
‘Send him to me, Danny. My mistake before was taking him from you. This time, you’ll send him back to his loving Mitéra. Oh, and in addition you’ll forfeit any and all agreements for me to stay away from those lovely sunlit lands up above, but I expect you already knew that.’
‘Hi,’ Ellie broke in suddenly, stepping in front of Danny to address Carman directly. ‘Remember me? I was the one who punched your ugly oul cunting face across this room. Give you Luke? You ever come near my baby again I’ll make before look like a picnic in the fuckin’ park, do you get me?’
Carman shrugged. ‘As you wish. I hear Boots has a 3 for 2 on Ambre Solaire. I suggest you go there now. Avoid the rush.’
‘I’d think about this if I were you,’ Dother said mildly. He addressed Danny directly, eye-to-eye, and Danny was overpowered with synaesthesia – sensations flooded him with every word Dother spoke, one in particular, over and over again. ‘Sending your child below is better than having him end up as radioactive dust when those missiles hit in … four minutes from now. And there’s the small matter of the millions of others about to be obliterated.’
Purple. Purple. Purple. The colour was flashing in every word Dother spoke. It was Ellie’s colour, Ellie’s taste, the sensation that had brought him around in the bizarro-Belfast; it was his echo-location of truth, his epicentre of rightness, and right now it was coming off Dother in droves.
Danny wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream. He wanted to put his fist through every faerie, every fucking person in the world. Looking at Ellie now, as she held her sleeping baby close, he saw she was going through the same hell. How was anyone supposed to make a choice like this?
Giving Luke away, however much their hands were twisted behind their backs, was still giving him away. Considering what they’d both gone through to get him back, he knew sacrificing their child would destroy him and inevitably destroy Ellie.
He had an impossible choice to make, and he had four minutes to make it.
BELGRAVIA AVENUE, BELFAST BELOW, NOW
Larka returned to Steve’s house alone.
‘How did it go?’ Wily asked her, when Tony and Dermot were out of earshot.
‘The boy has his purpose back.’
‘Larka, I understand your connection with the boy …’
‘He must never know,’ the she-wolf said, flattening herself and growling at Wily, ready to launch herself despite his height and weight advantage.
Wily made the proper gesture of submission. ‘You think she will honestly come to believe that deep down this is what she wanted? To stay here?’
‘How will she know otherwise?’ Larka countered defensively. ‘In keeping her here, I acted out of kindness. Without her, he would have lost all hope.’
‘Their entire relationship will be based on a lie. She was not prepared to sacrifice everything to be with him.’
‘So what?’ Larka countered hotly. ‘Why should anyone have to make that choice, let alone a human? Carman delights in playing to their concept of what true love is – some grand sacrificial gesture – and those who are not prepared to accept it are left to think of themselves as weak. I do not think that is love.’
‘You’re right,’ Wily replied evenly. ‘It may not be love. But it may be human.’
Larka sighed. ‘How do we know? We were such simple creatures before the Morrigan changed us. Now we have emotions and feelings. How will we live? As wolves pretending to be human, or as humans who look like wolves?’
Wily nuzzled her. ‘We will live as we wish to,’ he said firmly. ‘We are the Named, and nothing will–’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she broke in.
‘Oh, balls.’
LIRCOM TOWER, BELFAST ABOVE, NOW
‘Portal,’ Carman said and, with that one word, a crack appeared in the world directly between the video wall and where Danny and Ellie stood, a crack through which he could see the assembly office in Stormont and Carman herself, standing not ten feet away. Slowly, with an evil smile spreading across her face, she spread her arms wide as though expecting to receive a present.
‘I can’t,’ Ellie sobbed. She turned away from Danny, as though fearing he was about to lunge for her, or for their son. He burned to see the movement, the sudden flaring of distrust, because he knew it too would be heavenly for Carman to witness.
‘I can’t, I can’t, I CAN’T! I WON’T EVER!’ she screamed, and somehow the baby slept on, even as every remaining window in that magically rebuilt penthouse office blew outward, glass shattering. Shock passed over Ellie’s face as she realised she was the source of the explosion.
‘There’s that family heri–’ Carman began, and then coughed. Just once. She recovered herself, patting her chest, a momentary look of puzzlement on her face.
Despite Ellie’s distress, Danny found his attention inexorably drawn to Dother. The man, or whatever approximation of a man he was, remained seated. Tastes flooded Danny’s mouth, smells assaulted his nostrils. Phantom sounds rang through his ears. It was nothing short of a full-scale assault on the senses, but it was not done to confuse or to obfuscate, he knew that now. It was a message.
Purple. The colour of trust.
Trust me, Dother was telling Danny.
He flashed back to storming back into the office. One last job, Dother had said. Danny had assumed Dother meant one final task to be performed for his mother. What if he hadn’t?
The sword, hollow and useless, shrivelled. Carman standing near the portal’s edge, reaching forward eagerly to retake his son, ravenous for his power. He saw her cough again, lose her concentration for a moment, and in that instant Dother’s placid expression wavered and the sensory tsunami he was sending Danny’s way increased a hundredfold.
And Danny understood what he had to do.
You will know, Danny. You will know when the time comes. The Morrigan’s final words, before she had been swallowed whole by Carman. Love will form your choice.
‘Make your choice, Danny,’ Carman said.
In the end, it all came down to this.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told Ellie, and he held out his hand toward her.
‘What are – NO!’ she said, and she felt her arms and legs freeze in place, just they had in the stone circle the first time they’d faced off against Carman together. Danny was doing this, he was holding her securely in place.
He took the sleeping baby from her paralysed grip. Ellie screamed and cursed and called him all the bastards and the fuckers of the day, promising and pleading and sobbing.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, and he took their son away from her. As soon as Luke was in his arms his eyes opened and he began to wail. The sound of it cut through Danny. He had never seen his son act like this. The baby thrashed and screamed and threw out his arms to get back to Ellie, and all she could do was scream in response.
Danny turned away from Ellie, toward Carman. He moved toward the portal at a run, extending his arms to thrust Luke through the crack and into the waiting arms of Carman who rushed forward from the other side.
She stopped, another cough wracking through her body. Confused, she raised a hand to her mouth and, as Danny watched, she pulled something from her mouth, something long and black.
And feathered.
She belongs to this world and to yours, to both and to neither …
‘NOW!’ Danny called.
Mid-stride, he turned and threw Luke back to Ellie like a rugby player passing the ball. He used all the abilities he had to ensure the baby had a smooth passage through the air before dropping into Ellie’s outstretched arms once more. Coming out of her paralysis, Ellie clutched her son to her with a grip no earthly power could have shif
ted. Mother and baby crumpled into a ball.
Erupting from his seat like something out of legend, Dother threw the Sword end-over-end.
Danny reached through the portal, as a large and satisfied crow stuck its big ugly head out of Carman’s horrified mouth. ‘Haven’t got all fucking day!’ it said in a familiar female voice.
With his right hand, without looking, Danny caught the Sword of Nuada. The crow leapt from Carman’s mouth and plunged forward, merging with the blackened ruin of the Sword. Becoming the Sword. Silver light erupted across the length of the blade.
With his left hand, he pulled Carman halfway through the portal, halfway between our world and theirs, halfway between the realms of magic and science, and he looked her straight in the eyes as he said, ‘I choose this.’
With that, he drove the Sword hilt-deep right through her black heart, a stroke that began in our world, passed through the nether space between and ended in the Otherworld she called her own.
NOWHERE
Danny found himself back in the whitespace between spaces, the blank canvas from which he had created a universe. Here, after being ripped apart by Carman’s faeries and tossed into the Dagda’s cauldron, left alone for a time beyond time, he had come to terms with his abilities, but not before the solitude had almost driven him mad.
He was not alone here now.
‘WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?’ Carman thundered, a lumbering black mass lunging toward him, still with the Sword thrust through her.
The elevator cable of creation snapped.
In a featureless white nothing, it should have been impossible to feel a sensation of falling, and yet Danny felt as though he were plummeting, accelerating beyond the speed of light. He was aware that Carman was also falling, but he was too busy trying to stop screaming to care.
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