Her answer was immediate, and it was about what he expected.
It didn’t matter. He had to see his little boy again. Had to do whatever it took to make that happen. If that meant walking into the gingerbread house and prostrating himself at the feet of the woman licking her lips and pointing toward the oven…well…so be it.
And there was the desperate cry he’d heard before the call had died. It hadn’t come from his father. Which left only one possibility. Ellie was in trouble. Luke was gone. In terms of motivation, he wasn’t immediately lacking.
“What are we waiting for,” he whispered to himself. Patting Wily’s massive back, he pointed to his destination with as much heroic intent as he could muster. “Let’s go.”
The crowds parted to let them pass.
* * *
The Hard Choices
Belfast, 1990 AD
High-pitched squeals rang throughout the house. Those emitting them rocked back and forth, fingers scrabbling, only to emit fresh shrieks seconds later. It was enough to bring tears to the eyes.
“Look at him!” Linda Morrigan roared, her sides shaking in laughter as she pointed down at the photograph in question. The big brown album was balanced, left leaf on her right knee, right leaf on the left knee of Shelley Brogan, little sister and co-squealer.
Tony Morrigan glared up at them from the page below, wearing his groom’s suit and waistcoat, looking like he’d rather have hot needles rammed through soft areas of his body than be standing there getting his photograph taken. The photographer must have been urging him to smile, smile – and smile he had, in a fashion; if smiles had musical accompaniments, this one would have been the theme from Jaws.
“Ach dear love him,” Shelley sympathised, rubbing tears from her eyes. She reached for her cup of tea and took a sip, still chuckling, even as her sister turned a few more pages. “That’s a lovely one.”
“That’s me and him the day we moved in here. Four years ago now – can you believe it?”
“Four years!” Shelley spluttered. “You’re jokin!”
Linda shook her head and exhaled. The smile she’d been wearing since they’d began this little nostalgia-fest together wilted a little for the first time. “I remember looking round this place,” she said, glancing at the living room in which they sat, “and thinking how big it seemed and how empty and…”
Shelley, freshly arrived from a fortnight-long hol…”vacation” from America where she’d emigrated three years previously, diplomatically held her tongue about the scale of the house. In Colorado a place like this would have been seen as cramped. But she knew that wasn’t really what was bothering her sister anyway.
“Are yous still…?”
Linda nodded.
“Is he still away a fair bit?”
Linda nodded again. Shelley licked her lips. This was going to be a riskier question, but she couldn’t count herself a sister and shirk away from it.
“You don’t think he’s-“
“No.”
The answer was immediate; clearly Linda had been expecting the question. Just as clearly though, she couldn’t fold at the first sign of trouble. “It’s just that he’s away so much and-“
“No,” Linda said, in a door-slamming tone. She sucked in a breath and looked over at her sister in a way that contained enough apology to assure her that she knew the reasons for asking. “Shelley, he’s not like that. And I love ye, I really do, but ye haven’t been here. If ye had been…you’d see he’s wantin this for us as much as I am. Sometimes more, I think. Since I’ve known him all he’s talked about is havin a wee son.”
Not knowing what to say, Shelley simply accepted this and for a moment they sat in silence, the big old album still sitting on their shared laps. Linda flicked the pages back to the wedding photographs and to the double-page spread of bride and groom, she and Tony, staring at the camera. The huge levels of discomfort Tony had felt being photographed solo seemed conspicuously absent when Linda stood beside him.
“He said to me,” she said quietly, “when we got married, he said…he wished his Da had been there to see it. He’d have been proud, he said.”
“It was terrible what happened to him,” Shelley murmured, the memory resurfacing. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. “I always felt so sorry for Tony.”
Linda nodded. “I could never really get him to talk about it. But when he did…I swear, it was almost like he thought it was his fault or somethin. He was an only child, y’see. Him and his Da were so close. I think that’s what he wants with our son…if,” she smiled ruefully and cradled her stomach unconsciously, “he ever decides to put in an appearance, that is.”
“What if it’s a daughter?” Shelley asked, with a wicked gleam in her eye.
Linda didn’t smile. She shrugged. “It’s weird,” she said, “every time I ask him that, he just smiles and says – it’ll be a boy. Trust me.”
Shelley snorted. “Fellas. What do they know?”
At this reassuring re-emergence of feminine togetherness, Linda couldn’t help but regain some of their former cheeriness. She lifted the big album off her knee and set it reverentially in the stereo storage unit where it sat, its last half unfilled.
“C’mon,” she said, “he’ll not be back til tonight. Another meetin. Will we hit the shops?”
“Now you’re talkin…”
**
“You’re sure?”
The doctor didn’t look away, didn’t break eye contact. There was sympathy in his eyes, Tony gave him that much. “Few things are certain in this field of medicine, Mr Morrigan…” he said, obviously getting out his rose-tinted paint and applying it liberally to the news he’d just broken. “But it’s fair to say, that from the results of the tests, that the chances of you being able to conceive a child with your wife are extremely limited.”
He sat in the uncomfortable chair in the too-bright, sterile little antechamber of the Royal and absorbed the most devastating news of his life.
“Limited…” he said slowly, “…can you…could you…I mean…is there like a number…? I mean, if the bookies were coverin it, what odds would they give?”
He wasn’t making this easy on Dr. Sinnet. Tony could see the sympathy upscale itself into a frown of outright concern. “Tony…I’m not a betting man.”
“But if you were,” Tony replied, a mite sharper than he’d intended to. He bit his tongue almost immediately, but too late.
“I wouldn’t put my house on it. You’re looking at hundreds to one, Tony. Maybe thousands. These things are difficult to gauge accurately.”
“So you might be wrong.”
“I might be, yes,” Dr. Sinnet admitted readily, “but given that you’ve told me that you and your wife have been trying regularly for – what? – coming up on four years is it now? – without success, I’m inclined to believe what the tests are indicating.”
He was right. Of course he was right. Tony felt his hands bunch into fists; he’d never felt as helpless, as…impotent…in his entire fucking life as right now. Coming here and having these tests had been difficult to his pride; so difficult that Linda thought he was away working now. Ironic to have covered up one lie with another– her idea of what he did for a living was, of course, rather different from the truth.
Keep the line going.
He could almost see his father in front of him. His face, contorted in pain but staying strong. He had died that night because of Tony, because of Tony’s stupidity and incompetence, and now he was going to go one huge step beyond that fuck-up; he was going to be responsible for the foundering of the entire family line. There would be no new generation of Morrigan to take on the mantle. No-one to train.
It was more than that, of course. He didn’t ache for a protégé, for a student. He had idolised his father, even before that afternoon in the Mournes when he had learned the full extent of the family secrets. Afterward, seeing his Da in action, that hero worship had only deepened. Only at the end, when he’d gotten too f
ucking selfish, too wrapped up in his own desires, had he turned from him, and look how that had ended.
Having a son of his own would be about more than just continuing the family line. More than just making up for his own mistakes, or living up to his own father’s legacy. It would involve all of those things. It would also mean the world to Linda. He knew his wife, saw her spoil her nieces and nephews to ever increasing lengths with every Christmas that trickled past. Mystical destinies be damned - they were steady, they were in love. Ready for a child.
A child that would never come.
“There are options,” Dr. Sinnet said. “Fertilisation methods. A few have gotten results, good results.”
Tony frowned. “You don’t seem too excited about them,” he observed.
“I just don’t want to get your hopes up, Tony. There’s a long waiting list. The rates of success aren’t great. And frankly, given your test results…even with the assisted fertilisation methods…”
He couldn’t take it any longer. “What about these fuckin results?” he said, irritated and ashamed in equal measure. “What was so fuckin horrific about them anyway? What’s wrong with me? Are they lazy bastards down there, is that it? What’s my sperm count? Six? What?”
Dr. Sinnet spread his hands helplessly. “It’s…it’s got me a bit puzzled Tony, to be honest. You’ll recall I asked you after the first set came back and I had you re-take them about your job.”
Tony stiffened. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you did.”
“Including whether you’d ever worked in hazardous environments. Been exposed to toxic substances. Worked with pesticides or,” Dr. Sinnet gave a humourless laugh, “radioactive materials, although I doubt there’s much chance of that…!”
Trailing off, he felt his concern go up another notch. Tony Morrigan had gone deathly pale. He was definitely a candidate for counselling over this, although the chances of getting a man to talk about his feelings at being diagnosed as sterile in this day and age were…well, ranking somewhat alongside his patient fathering octuplets in the next year.
“Is that what the results showed? Exposure to…something?”
“They were consistent with it, yes, but as we’ve established you’ve never come into contact with any such materials. The truth is Tony, that the cause of some infertility is never properly determined,” and Dr. Sinnet, who was a kind man and a good doctor, smiled at his patient and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, “Tony, I really am sorry. I wish I had better news for you, I really do. I’ve known you most of your life. I remember your Ma and Da. They were good people. I’m sure they were good parents. I know you’d make a good Da yourself. Who knows. If there’s someone up there, watching,” and he felt Tony twitch when he said this, “maybe they’ll see fit to intervene.”
“Yeah,” Tony said, staring at the floor. “Maybe they will.”
“Not as simple as that. You see, your little…mistake…will have consequences for you, Tony my boy. You’ll find out what those are, in time…”
Words Dother had spoken. The night he…
The night his father died.
He stood up and shook Dr. Sinnet’s hand, thanking him, promised to contact him if he decided to proceed with the fertilisation options, and took a leaflet for a counselling service about dealing with the news. He walked out of the room, paused to bin the leaflet, and walked out of the hospital to where his car was parked to where the man sitting in the passenger seat lifted his head from the newspaper he was engrossed in.
“Well? What’s the plan, chief?” Dermot Scully said cheerfully. “Linda’s expecting you back for this big dinner in with her Yankee sis, remember?”
He gunned the engine and the car jerked forward, so forcefully Dermot had to brace himself to stop from suffering mild whiplash. “Jesus!” he said, reaching for the seatbelt. “What’s going on? I take it we’re not going to dinner?”
“No,” Tony replied, his mouth set in a thin line. “No we’re not. I’ve got someone to see.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
“Dother.”
He could practically hear the other’s mouth drop open from his left. “Aye right…” Dermot said, laughing nervously. “I’m sure. What’s the plan? Drive up to his building, walk in the front door and ask for a meeting?”
“Yep. That’s the plan.”
As they moved into Belfast traffic and headed for the city centre, there was a strangled choking noise from his passenger. “Have you gone absolutely fuckin out of your head?” Dermot demanded. “You know what sort of security he’s got in that place. We tried hittin it last year and look what happened. Lucky the Provos got the blame. What’s gonna be different now?”
Tony’s mouth curled. “This time,” he said, “the bastard’s expecting me.”
**
Tallest building in Belfast by some distance, Lircom Tower loomed large over the Lagan, dominating the city skyline effortlessly; the City Hall, well under a quarter its height, seemed modest by comparison. Construction on the twenty-four storey concrete and glass monolith had finished the previous year.
In a country where large-scale building projects were unheard of due to the inevitable delays caused by bomb alerts, both hoax and genuine, Lircom Tower had been constructed three months ahead of schedule and more than a million pounds under budget.
In a country where the rooftops of much smaller buildings in areas affording a far poorer view of the surrounding city had quickly been commandeered by the Army to provide an observation post, Lircom Tower’s roof was entirely untouched.
The telecommunications spire atop its summit thrust high into the Belfast skies, the city’s newest landmark, a jagged finger stabbing accusingly at the heavens above.
Standing in his office on the top floor, overlooking the city, the CEO of the company found himself staring at the white dome of City Hall. From this height it looked no more than a stone’s throw away. Quite an apt unit of measurement for this particular era. He couldn’t help a smile tugging his lips upward at the thought.
A lot of attention had been directed at this particular part of the world over the best part of the last two decades; horror and revulsion at the barbaric acts that were being committed in a country not sufficiently East, or South, or populated by inhabitants with skin colour of a reassuringly dusky hue.
The idiots had no idea. Not the first clue what the world had once been like.
They lived in a time so gentle that even the minor skirmishes that had erupted in this small corner of this tiny island had sent shockwaves through them. Nothing he had seen in the last few centuries had come close to recapturing the flawless brutality, the majesty of the epoch he had termed home.
Since the Industrial Revolution, it was an inescapable truth that the way humans thought had changed. Even their so-called ‘World Wars’…what was glorious about taking something as inherently poetic as death, and applying production-line efficiency to slaughter?
His desk phone chirruped for attention. He walked to it and accepted the call, listening to what it told him and speaking only three words.
“Send them up.”
Still with that smile tickling his lips, he sat on his comfortable black leather chair and steepled his fingers as he waited passively for the doors to his office to-
He did not have long to wait.
The doors were flung open. The man responsible for the storming entrance carried right on walking until he was standing at the other side of the desk, his chest rising and falling in shallow bursts, his clothes damp with perspiration.
“Tony,” said Dother.
Tony Morrigan made no reply, merely leaned on the desk and studied Dother, his eyes burning with hatred. Dother, for his part, ignored this scrutiny and tilted his head to the side to note the second arrival into his office. “And you’ve brought a friend, I see,” he observed. “Dermot. Dermot Scully, I believe? Nice to meet you, Dermot. You remind me of someone...”
Blinking furiously in the harsh a
rtificial light of the office, gawping at the almost three-sixty view of the Belfast cityscape afforded by the wraparound glass windows, Dermot Scully looked as though, given the opportunity, he would rather be abseiling into the mouth of an active volcano wearing a tweed mankini than be here now. His eyes bugged at Dother’s words and his casual identification.
For a second his mouth twitched as if he were about to reply to Dother’s greeting, but a quick glance to Tony seemed to stiffen his resolve. He said nothing, but did not fail to notice the two very large security guards that had drifted into the office to stand by the doors. If you looked at them in a certain light, on a certain night, both of the guards may have struck the onlooker as being everso slightly lupine in their movements.
The guards’ eyes met Dother’s questioningly. He shook his head a fraction. They stayed put, for the moment.
“Where’s the bug?”
Dother frowned. “The bug?” he echoed with distaste. “You’re referring to Sarah?”
“You’re naming them now?”
“Just her,” Dother replied calmly. “If you must know, she’s otherwise detained this afternoon. But I have every confidence in her replacements…” he continued, eyes glittering. The day he needed wolf-faeries to bail him out of a fight with a human, or Sarah come to that, would be a sad day indeed. But he kept his temper and his smile.
This day was crucial. Everything for the last decade had been building to this.
He had to play it just right.
“What did you do to me?”
Dother pondered the question. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific than that, Tony. I’ve done many things to you over the years-”
Tony vaulted onto the desk, drawing the silver dagger in one smooth motion. He dove for Dother, who pressed with his foot into the desk and propelled himself backward on the executive chair’s wheels.
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