The guards moved, but by the time they’d covered merely the first few steps – on all fours, their glammers slipping – Tony had already impacted his quarry bodily and yanked him to his feet, turning and pinning his arms to his sides with his left arm while the right held the dagger’s silver blade across the white skin of his opponent’s throat.
“Don’t fuckin move,” he hissed.
The only person to disobey this command in the room was Dermot, whose legs gave way from under him. White as a sheet and shaking, he pulled himself up from the floor and sat himself in one of the guest chairs, moving as far away from the two guards as possible.
“Recognise the blade?”
Dother looked down insofar as he could without risking his tongue becoming a necktie. “One of James’ heirlooms?”
“I buried the other one.”
“Ah,” Dother nodded. Again the gesture was minute, but the intention carried. “That would be the one you accidentally killed him with?”
The blade broke flesh. Blood welled up. The guards took a long step forward.
“What are you doing-!” Dermot squawked in alarm, retreating further back until he was alongside Tony and his hostage.
“What,” Tony said again, each word coming from him causing his voice to rise another notch, “did you do…to me. You killed my granda. You killed my Da. And now you’ve taken my son from me? I told you that I’d be the one to kill you. That day is today.”
Dother sighed. “As you wish.”
He moved with such speed Tony was only able to piece the sequence together later. With a thrust his arms were free of Tony’s hold; his right hand snapped upward and found Tony’s wrist holding the knife and there was a squeeze and a brief, a thankfully brief sensation of incredible agony and the blade clattered from his grip.
This done, Dother simply stepped forward out of Tony’s grasp and casually, slowly, he raised a leg and almost lazily unfolded it, directly into Tony’s stomach-
The entrance to the office got a lot further away. It wasn’t moving, he was, his body arcing through the air from Dother’s kick.
His mind could only process what was happening to him in flashes.
Very tall building. Floor to ceiling windows. Fast moving body.
Impact.
The glass spiderwebbed to such a degree that Sarah, were she there, would have found the effect quite beautiful.
But the glass held.
Slumped against it, pain radiating outward from his stomach and from his head where Dother’s foot and the thick glass window had both made their respective marks, Tony managed to haul himself from foetal position to his hands and knees, from where the pain rippling through his innards caused him to throw up. Tears flooded his eyes.
Someone was standing over him.
“I told you there’d be consequences for what you did that day. The charm cast by your glorious ancestor wasn’t designed to be broken lightly, Tony. If one Morrigan ever killed another, well then, it would be reasonable to assume that Morrigan wouldn’t be a particularly good tutor for the next generation, would it?”
Hands on him, pulling him to his feet. He didn’t resist. If Dother had wanted him dead, he would have kicked him just that little bit harder and he’d be pavement vomit by now, a spectacular footnote of interest on the illustrious new landmark building. Through returning vision he could see the guards standing over Dermot as he sat in his chair. Not touching him. Not yet.
“I also told you when you realised what the consequences of your actions were, that you would come to me for help. To borrow your own phrase…today is that day, Tony.”
“Help me? Why would you help me?” he bit.
Through vision still somewhat hazy, he saw the man before him lick his lips. It was a small movement, involuntary, over in a moment. Yet seeing it, Tony had the sudden chilling insight that Dother, too, was wearing a glammer – one much more sophisticated than those that cloaked his wolf-soliders and his spider-general…
Because what it hid, he knew in that moment, was an order of magnitude more monstrous.
“You’re familiar with the prophecy regarding the line of Morrigans?”
The day in the Mournes. His excitement at thinking it might be him, quickly dashed by his father’s words. “Yes.”
“I know you think of us as enemies, Tony,” Dother said, his voice low and urgent, as if he knew he had only a limited time to say what needed to be said, “but in reality we’re two sides of a very ancient arrangement. It is our role to try to reclaim what was once ours. It is yours to try to prevent it. We accept this. We honour it. You are held in high esteem among us.”
“High esteem!” Tony choked. “You’ve killed, destroyed my family!”
“We’ve met your line in battle and won some victories. Your ancestors won some too over the last few hundred years, believe me. But we’ve done so according to the laws. Do you really think,” Dother said, his voice now like silk, “for one moment, that we didn’t know where your father lived? Your mother, Marie – a lovely woman,” he said, ignoring Tony’s look of horror, “do you seriously believe if I had given the order, a legion of my warriors couldn’t have torn her apart while her husband battled at the other end of the country?”
Tony found himself unable to reply. Memories of his mother and her death flashed back. It had been cancer that had taken her. Nothing unnatural.
“Do you think,” Dother went right on, as if discussing pleasantries over a pint, “that I don’t know where to find Linda? Her sister Shelley’s home from America, yes? How is she? Still have that laugh that sounds like a donkey being castrated?”
“You fuckin touch her-”
Dother waved a hand impatiently. “You’re not listening, Tony. I have no intention of harming Linda. My point is that although you Morrigans and my people are enemies, we do not extend that war to the innocent. Your father and grandfather were actively engaged in war against us. Forgive us for wishing to defend ourselves. So when I tell you that you are held in high esteem amongst us, believe me on that.”
“Okay,” Tony said, curiosity temporarily winning out over the other emotions raging within him, “so what the fuck’s this got to do with helping me? With the prophecy? Shouldn’t you be delighted if the Morrigan line dies with me?”
Dother shook his head. “The Morrigan the prophecy spoke of is the one to be present during the final days, when this intolerable stalemate we’ve descended into is finally capable of being broken. His role is to stop our victory, and destroy us all…or,” and Tony could see that animal hunger descend over him again, “or to cause it, to release our forces trapped in the Otherworld. To usher in a new age of magic. But without him, without the possibility of him existing, neither can ever occur.”
It was Dermot who spoke up, to Tony’s surprise. “Then it’s vital you don’t have a son,” he said. “He said himself – if that Morrigan never exists, they can never win.”
“Neither can we be destroyed,” Dother shot back, shooting Dermot a poisonous look that caused the smaller man to blanch. “And those of us, like me, like my erstwhile brother and our creations, who remain in your world…we will remain here. Forever. Able to spawn more of our number. Look at what I have constructed in the decade since we last met. Imagine what I could do in another century. If the Morrigan the prophecy speaks of never comes to pass…you lose the opportunity to banish us forever.”
“All of this is fuckin pointless,” Tony said, anger bubbling within him again. “Even if I believed anything you’re tellin me, if some curse is on me stopping me from having a son, what am I meant to do about it?”
Dother smiled. He walked to an otherwise innocuous-looking part of the office wall and pressed a hidden switch set into the pattern.
Seconds later, silver light bathed the office.
“I assume you remember this,” he said, retrieving the Sword and moving it through the air with a few easy thrusts. It looked sharp enough to cut the oxygen from the very air around it.
&nbs
p; “This sword,” Dother said, “can be used to remake reality. Bend it to the wishes of the one who wields it. There are limits on its power, of course; were there not, I’d have simply raised the remainder of my people from the Otherworld and we wouldn’t be having this conversation, on account that I’d have happily sliced you open by this point. But,” and he smiled, “I can use it to help you. To give you a son.”
“How?”
Dother smiled. “In good time. I have explained what I have to offer. Now I need to know if you are prepared to accept your end of the bargain.”
“Tony, don’t do this,” Dermot warned. One of the guards raised a hand as if to silence him. Dother lifted a hand immediately and the guard’s massive arm lowered, although the low growl that escaped his lips betrayed his frustration at having his strike rescinded. “You can’t trust him. Everything he’s saying is a lie. That’s what they do. That’s all they do.”
Dother shrugged. “I suppose that’s possible,” he admitted. “But ask yourself – why would I bother with all of this? I have you both here. I could kill you without effort, ending the Morrigan threat to my kind. I’m freely admitting that I only want to help you to try and align circumstances so that one day my people can win our final victory and overrun your world in an orgy of blood and death. But, in doing so, I will also give you a chance – your only chance – to be rid of us from your world. I hide nothing. I only ask – are you prepared for what you must do?”
“And that is?”
“Tony, no-!”
“He’s right,” Tony shrugged, turning to his companion and trying to ignore the betrayal written across Dermot’s face. “He’s not hiding anything. And he could have killed Linda at any time, and more than likely me along with her. He hasn’t.”
“But he’s a cunt!”
Dother actually gasped. “Dermot,” he said, rebukingly. “Keep it classy, will you? Any more of that and I’ll have to ask you to leave the office. Via the window. You people are entirely too fond of that word these days.”
Tony turned away from his partner. It was a deliberate gesture. “So?” he said. “What is my end of the bargain? What would I need to do?”
Dother planted the tip of the sword into the floor and leant forward to rest his chin on the hilt. With his face bathed in the silver light, he looked even less human than before
“I’m not just giving you a son,” he said softly. “Not just a Morrigan. Your son must be the one prophesied. You must see to it that he is. If you fail, if you move away from what the prophecy demands must happen…I swear, we will break all bonds of behaviour. We will massacre you, your wife, your son. Everyone that you care about. Do you accept?”
Keep the line going. His father had told him that the night he died. The only way to do that was to place his trust in a being saturated in lies. To make a deal with the demon that had plagued his forefathers for generations.
It was more than that. He well remembered the full extent of the prophecy his father had told him that day in the Triumph. What happened to the Morrigan it spoke of. What he would have to do when the time came.
Another not altogether welcome thought presented itself. As Dother had pointed out, he was deep in the lion’s den, helpless and weak from the single kick he’d received and the impact on the glass that had almost spelled his end.
If he said no…if he refused this offer, what exactly was there to stop Dother from killing him?
It would give him a son. A little boy. He pictured the look on his wife’s face.
“I accept,” he said.
Seeing the look of triumph Dother was unable to disguise at his decision, he swore to himself in that moment that somehow, he would find a way to make it work.
**
“What is it, love?” he said.
Standing at the doorway, unwilling to let her husband get any further into the house, Linda Morrigan rubbed away the tears from her eyes and tried to stop trembling. Three days he’d been out of touch in some godforsaken place deep down South, three days of jumping up every time she heard a car pull up outside. If those “mobile” fuckin phones the flash Harrys on the TV were carrying about didn’t cost an arm and a leg, she’d have bought him one ages ago. But it didn’t matter now. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, because-
“I’m pregnant,” she said, and promptly dissolved into a torrent of tears. She came to him and he to her and they embraced tightly and he picked her up and spun her around and hugged her fiercely for a moment…and then he seemed to freeze,his grip loosening as he lowered her gently to the ground, his eyes wide.
“I didn’t mean to squeeze ye love…oh God, you don’t think I…”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Jesus God, would you listen to yourself! Ten seconds you know and already you’re frettin! I’m fine, the baby’s gonna be fine, and you’re gonna make a fantastic Daddy. I just know it.”
Kissing him then, she felt the tension of the last few years, the disappointment and the waiting melt away. She was going to have a baby with the man she loved and right now the world was perfect.
“Aye,” he smiled back. “Aye, I hope so.”
“Right,” she inhaled sharply and patted him on the cheek, “now that that’s finally done, I’m away to use the phone. I’ll be done in about four days.”
“You’re…you’re going to tell everyone? Now?” Tony frowned. “Already?”
“Are you jokin?” she returned. “If you’d been away much longer it was to hell with ya and I was gonna take out ads in the national dailies. You have any idea how long I’ve been waitin for this, love?”
“But don’t…I mean, don’t people usually wait until the baby…until you’re about 12 weeks gone?”
Linda just shrugged happily. “That’s the thing,” she said, “the doctor said I was already 14 weeks gone. Which sounds crazy because I haven’t missed my time of the month until a week ago. I asked the doctor about it – he says it’s rare, but it can happen alright. Just one of life’s wee surprises I suppose!”
With that, and a final featherlight kiss on his cheek, she skipped into the living room, hellbent on grabbing the phone, her little floral patterned book of numbers, and enough hankies to make a small quilt.
He watched her go.
**
Belfast, 20th September, 2000 AD
Up, down. Dip. Up, down. Up, down. Dip. Fuckin paint fumes were stinging his eyes, stinging them with tears; he wiped them with a sleeve and continued right on lying to himself.
“Da?”
The voice startled him, and as he turned, the paintbrush freshly dipped spattered a few drops of white matt on the landing carpet. Tony swore, replaced the brush in the pot and scrabbled for a cloth and some white spirit. If Linda saw that she’d squeal the place down; he was already fast approaching doghouse status for taking too long with this.
“Son fer Jesus sake…” he muttered to Danny, standing there meekly in his school uniform looking up at his father from a few stairs down. The paint was shifting. That was something at least. “Don’t creep up on me like that, will ye? What is it anyway?”
Danny Morrigan blinked, as if trying to work out whether to say what he wanted to say or whether to just go back down the stairs. Finally the urge to speak won out.
“…I thought you were gonna pick me up. From school.”
Tony closed his eyes, his back to his nine-year-old son. Fuckin paint fumes. “…I had to get the house done, son,” he said. “Sorry. It’s a big job, you know, and with me bein away it doesn’t get done and then yer Ma, she…well, you know how she is,” and he turned and gave a half-shrug of male empathy toward females everywhere which caused his son’s mouth to curl upward as he’d hoped it would.
“It’s okay, Da,” Danny said.
No. No it wasn’t okay. Tony’s fingers curled around the brush as he gripped it and raised it. It wasn’t one bit okay. It was another lie. But what was another one to add to the list, what was another made-up story about what
arsehole of the countryside needed proper surveying now, to cover for his real activities there, his actual work.
Work. That was a fucking laugh. At least when his father had fought them, it had been a fight, a genuine battle. He knew that the occasional soldier faerie or banshee spirit he was called out to combat wasn’t the real problem.
The real problem lay in the centre of the city, in what had started out once upon a time as a small company with a big-for-its-boots headquarters, a situation now turned on its head entirely; these days it was common comment how a continental leader like Lircom had shown admirable loyalty to Belfast in remaining in the city given its standing across Europe.
He was being thrown scraps from the table, leftovers to keep him occupied while the real work went on. For a few years he hadn’t cared much. He had gloried in having a son, particularly one as wonderful as the one that stood behind him now. Danny was everything he’d ever wanted – intelligent, questioning, shrewd, kind, decent.
He reminded Tony of his own father in a way that just about broke his heart.
Time had ticked on. Relentlessly. Inevitably.
Danny’s tenth birthday was six days away.
“Can I…can I help ye out, Da? I’m pretty good with the oul brush like…”
Of course, it wasn’t paint fumes. The tears that filled his eyes now had fuck all to do with the pot of white paint by his feet. He could feel them running down his face and he knew he’d be unable to disguise them to his son, who would ask why. He couldn’t know why. Couldn’t know anything.
“No, you can’t!” Tony said, keeping his back to the boy, forcing harshness into his voice; the ragged quality of his tone from his sadness made the act only more convincing. “You’ll only get in the way, Danny! Now go on, go and call for Steve or somethin! Be back for dinner!”
“Da…?”
There was shock in his son’s voice. He wanted nothing more in the world right at that moment than to turn and take him in his arms, to tell him he was sorry for snapping and that he loved him. To tell him everything; to tell him what he had to do, and why he had to do it.
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