by C. E. Murphy
“What,” I said to her, “were you singing?”
A blush of laugher crept up her cheeks. “The old Star Trek theme song. You said Trek shields…”
“You’re a genius.” I totally meant it, and gave her a sloppy hug. “Holy crap. We kicked their asses. Damn, we’re good.”
“I would like to learn that magic,” Méabh said. “The power to be unseen. It might change the flow of history.”
I’d gotten the idea from comic books and wanted to suggest she go read some. Instead I said, “Except it hasn’t, so either you didn’t learn it or it didn’t matter. Besides, we have enough screwed-up history to fix, or haul back toward center. Let’s not add another loop to the timeline.” Between losing Gary and my mother’s captivity it was hard to remember that taking the Morrígan out to restore some balance was how my day had gotten started. Lugh’s scarlet blood splashed over the Lia Fáil was visceral, but not as personal as losing Gary. I looked up at the castle towering over us. “If we take the O’Brien banshee down, is that going to get your mother’s attention, Méabh? Because I’m tired of pussyfooting around. I’m feeling ready for a showdown.”
Méabh, guarded, said, “It will, but it’s your mother we’re here to save, not mine we’re here to defeat.”
“It’s all the same.” I kept expecting the banshees to converge again, but instead I got glimpses of white faces and flowing hair as they rushed from one castle window to another. All that was left of their sisters was dust, so I wasn’t sure how many we’d killed, but I thought it was at least half—half of which, in turn, Méabh alone had been responsible for. “The banshees perform ritual murders to strengthen the Master, but there’s obviously a hierarchy here. He probably doesn’t give the orders to them himself, you know? It goes to the Morrígan to Aibhill to the blades.” It wasn’t that the one I’d met was the Blade. It was all of them, voices like blades, nails like blades, faces like blades. Maybe a grouping of banshees was a blade of banshees, like a group of crows was a murder. It didn’t matter. What did matter was, “I’ll work my way up to the top one by one if I have to.”
“You would face him?” Gancanagh sounded impressed, and I found myself stalking toward the nearest castle doors as I answered.
“You know what, a week ago I’d have said no, but a lot’s changed since then. I wasn’t ready then, and maybe I’m still not, but we’re getting one step closer to a throw-down every day, and if that means it’s on right here and right now, then fine. I’ve got too much riding on this one to run away, so I’ll take it. We’ll do our best. I. Will do my best.” Since I couldn’t really drag the others into my fight just on a say-so.
“You have a warrior’s spirit after all,” Méabh said in approval. Caitríona, spear still in hand, ran to catch up with us, and Gancanagh, when I looked back, was sauntering along behind like he wasn’t really part of the group but didn’t want to miss any of the action, either. Morrison wouldn’t have been so coy, which made me feel better about the resemblance I saw. Armed with that knowledge, I shoved the doors open and walked into a great hall.
Stone arched dozens of feet above the floor, supported by oak beams and the grace of God. I had one of those moments where it seemed more likely aliens had built the pyramids than humans had been able to create such soaring masterpieces without the help of modern technology. Stained glass found sunlight somewhere and spilled a riot of color onto the gray stone floors, but they weren’t the religious figures I was used to seeing depicted in stained glass. A whole different history of the world unfolded up above us, and before I had even the slightest chance to begin appreciating it, a woman came gracefully down a stairway I hadn’t noticed.
She was beautiful.
I simply hadn’t expected that, not after the banshees I’d encountered, up to and including my mother, who’d been pretty in life. I’d expected skeletal and clawed and papery, not fair and blue-eyed and curvaceous. Aibhill—because it had to be Aibhill—wore white, lots and lots of flowing white. So flowing I couldn’t really call it a style or name an era it might have come from. It was like she’d been dressed in breezes dipped in white to make them visible, the way the light fabric flowed and folded and wove around her. That seemed almost likely, given that we were inside and there was no actual wind to give the cloth motion. Her hair wove the same way, tangling delicate hands and soft white arms, then releasing them again. Somehow her face was never obscured. Even I, who had had a crop cut since I was fifteen, might wear my hair long if I could make it never fall in my face.
She came down the stairs toward us, her hands extended in greeting. Prudently, and without discussing it, we all took a step back. Even Gancanagh, whose gaze was a mix between starstruck and avaricious, retreated. I wondered if Aibhill was like him, a seducer, and I wondered what happened if two of them started working their wiles on each other. I bet it would either lead to instant all-out warfare or fantasmagorically good sex. “You,” she said to all of us in what could be legitimately called dulcet tones, “you have all been very naughty. Which of you is the child of Sheila MacNamarra?”
Quite certain I would regret it, but also not entirely able to help myself, I reversed the step I’d taken and put myself forward. “That would be me.”
Aibhill pursed her lips. Fine full lips of a perfect pearly pink. Women spent vast amounts of money on lipstick trying to achieve that shade, but as she came closer it became clear it was her natural coloring, as was the milky pale skin and the honestly blond hair. No honey-colored roots saying the blond came from sun bleaching: she was one of those rare adults who made it to adulthood and remained towheaded. Why, I wondered, were the banshees so impossibly ugly, if Aibhill was so lovely, and at the back of my mind the suggestion of a penny dropped. I scrabbled after it, lost the thought and tried to focus on the unearthly beauty in front of me. “I’m Joanne Walker. Sheila’s daughter.”
“And you’ll be wanting her back,” Aibhill said with gentle amusement. Gancanagh took a step toward her, drawn like a cat to cream, and she smiled at him so sweetly that jealousy spiked in me. I didn’t want anybody smiling at Morrison like that except me.
He wasn’t Morrison. And my mother wasn’t Aibhill’s yet, not even halfway, because we’d burned her bones. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
“No.” Aibhill looked Gancanagh up and down, still smiling, then turned her attention back to me in a way that suggested I was a trifle to be dealt with and Morrison—Gancanagh��was far, far more interesting. “No,” she repeated, idly, “I suppose she doesn’t quite, not yet, but I can hardly afford to let her go, can I? Not when you’ve struck down so many of my blades. Did you not think to ask? Ask, rather than come as warriors?”
I wet my lips and glanced at my companions. Gancanagh paid me no mind, his very breathing in tandem with Aibhill’s. I wanted to slap him. So, from Méabh’s expression, did she. I cleared my throat, trying to shake off caring how the banshee queen affected a fairy man, and said, “Well, no.” There was a reason I hadn’t come asking, either. I was sure of it. I was just having a hard time remembering, what with Morrison salivating over the white-gowned woman.
“It’s hard work,” Aibhill explained rather earnestly. Morrison cast me a condemnatory look, like I should be ashamed for not believing her. “Making the blades. Shaping their grief and anger into weapons. I give them revenge, you understand.”
I knotted my hand into a fist and stared at Aibhill’s hem so I couldn’t see Gancanagh-Morrison. “You mean revenge on innocent people they’ve never met, all so a horrible death monster can grow stronger.”
“Revenge on the lovers who scorned them,” Aibhill corrected. “As you would no doubt like revenge on Lucas, mmm? Or you on Ailill,” she said to Méabh while my stomach went heavy. Méabh made a sound like what I felt, and Aibhill’s smile broadened. “Shall we go to him together, Morrígan’s daughter? Shall we give him a taste of your anger?”
“He’s tasted my revenge already, and will again soon enough,” Méabh said th
ickly. I could hear the temptation in her voice, but really, she’d killed him once. That was probably enough for most people. Except she probably thought my captain, standing there mesmerized by Aibhill, was her Ailill, which meant she was not only deluded but that Morrison was potentially in trouble. I edged half a step forward.
Aibhill, unconcerned by me or by Méabh, turned her smile back to me. “Then think of the sweetness of your revenge, Sheila’s daughter. Served cold, all unexpected, all rich and savory. Would it not be a delicious dish?”
There was nothing even slightly cold about the revenge I was plotting on Méabh just then. My fist worked itself open and closed again. I might be able to take her, if I surprised her enough. Failing all else, I could turn to the wolf.
Heat flared in my left arm like excitement had taken up residence there. It would hurt for a second or two, but then I’d have Méabh’s long throat in my teeth and Gancanagh would be mine. I might have to rip Aibhill’s throat out, too, but I distantly thought that was what I was there for anyway. My voice had an awful lot of growl to it as I asked, “How do you even know what I want, anyway?”
Surprise filtered across her lovely face. “I see into women’s hearts, of course. Every score, every mark, every bleeding place a man has left, I see, and offer succor.”
Gancanagh drifted even closer to Aibhill, all moth-to-flame. Jealousy flared toward rage. He needed to stay away from the banshee queen. I didn’t like his expression of adoration. I didn’t like how she turned to him with a welcoming smile, or how their gazes met with a profound understanding. They were too much alike to be happy. I bet he could also see into the hearts of men—or women. I bet that was how he was so shiveringly appealing. Aibhill’s smile grew wider still, and she offered him a hand. Smitten, he extended his own.
Méabh, with a barbaric shriek, chopped it off.
Everybody in the room started screaming. Gancanagh, because he was holding the—not bloody, but dusty—stump of his arm in his remaining hand. Aibhill, for no reason that I could see except she was a banshee, which was reason enough. Caitríona, out of shock. Méabh, because she was going after Gancanagh again, sword whicking through the air.
And me, because my great-grandmother had just chopped off Morrison’s hand. Utterly ignoring my lack of weapons, I launched myself at her, knocking her aside just before another blow would’ve severed Gancanagh’s pretty head from his shoulders. Her hand hit the stone floor hard enough to loosen her grip on her sword. I batted it away, then punched her in the mouth.
She bit me, slammed an elbow up, caught me in the windpipe, then kicked me as I rolled around on the floor gasping and she jumped to her feet. Her sword wasn’t very far away. I didn’t have my breath back by the time she got it. Nothing to fight with. No chance against the warrior queen.
Not unless I gave in to the thickness in my arm, the poison running through my blood. Gancanagh’s screams, thin and high and furious with pain, reverberated against my skin. Méabh had hurt my Gancanagh, and a little lupine vengeance sounded just the thing.
Agony crackled in my arm as I relaxed my fight against the wolf. I rolled to all fours, struggling out of my coat, and lowered my head as the itch became unbearable, then delicious—
—and then stopped. Stopped cold, stopped entirely, stopped beneath the vicious cut of Aibhill’s harpy voice. “Both betrayed by Gancanagh’s love. I could ask for no more, with my host so depleted.”
Beautiful, gentle, sweet Aibhill stepped into my line of vision, unleashed a handful of claws and drove them into Méabh’s stomach.
I should have seen it coming. We all should have seen it coming, except the part of me that could still think about something besides Gancanagh had expected her to go for me. Méabh made a horrible soft sound of pain and wrapped her hands around Aibhill’s wrist, but moved no farther. Caitríona had never stopped screaming. I crawled one tiny jerky step toward the entangled pair, but Aibhill clenched her fist and Méabh went whiter and I held still again.
Only Gancanagh responded quickly. I didn’t see him move. He simply landed on Aibhill with all fours—all fours, his hand had grown back—and he slammed her to the ground. She shrieked, an ordinary woman’s scream, but the longer it went on, the more banshee cries I heard in it. They piled in, one on top of another, until her voice could peel paint from the walls, separate solderings, hell, split atoms. It was unbearable, blasting out my eardrums and making my nose bleed. Horrible, itchy, painful blood, except I had it easy, because Méabh was bleeding from everywhere.
From her nose, from her ears, from her belly. She fell to the floor in slow stages: knees, hip, hand, collapse. I forgot the rivalry that had driven me to tackle her in the first place, and crawled another inch toward her. She lay barely three feet away, but Aibhill’s screams were a physical barrier. I focused, trying to make my shields pointy so they would slide through the sound more easily, but there was nothing easy about it. Méabh was dying, and I wasn’t going to be able to save her. I was afraid to even look at Caitríona for fear her head would have exploded from Aibhill’s cries.
I didn’t know how the banshee queen could keep screaming while she and Gancanagh fought. They’d rolled several feet away, weight changing from one to the other, but she didn’t seem to need to draw breath in order to scream. I wasn’t even sure she needed to open her mouth. The screams came off her in relentless waves, and somehow Gancanagh still held on. I could all but see his fury rolling off him, fury that he, of all creatures, had been caught in Aibhill’s net. He wasn’t fighting for me or Méabh or against the Master. He was fighting for his own lost dignity, for having been the seduced instead of the seducer. He was fighting to restore his sense of self, and he would do anything to achieve that.
Anything. Even die. And he was about to, because he was a thing of small magics, and Aibhill was fed not only by the Master but by the banshees she reigned over. The thought finally came all the way clear: youth and beauty retained by draining the vitality from others. It was classic, in a fairy-tale sense. With half of her host already obliterated, Aibhill was at the weakest she’d ever be.
And it wasn’t weak enough. Not for Gancanagh to take her out. But he could distract her, hurt her, give me time to get Méabh back on her feet and maybe, just maybe, give the Morrígan’s daughters a fighting chance.
I bellowed from the bottom of my lungs and surged the foot or two to Méabh’s side. Collapsed beside her and called for the healing power as triumph entered Aibhill’s scream and dust filled the air. Fairy dust, I thought inanely, and wondered if it could make me fly.
What it could not do, it seemed, was make me heal. The power stuttered and ended at my fingertips, as it had done in the past when I’d been making bad choices. I whimpered in shock, which wasn’t very grown-up, but at least it was heartfelt. I tried again. No magic, no healing, though since I hadn’t turned completely into a werewolf I assumed the power was still running rampant in my veins.
“It’s my territory, lass,” Aibhill said, and the mockery in her voice was so sweet it could have been sympathy. “There are things I cannot stop you from doing, perhaps, but there are others that I can. Be grateful, little shaman. If I release your power now, the wolf will take you.”
I smiled, vicious invitation, and she blanched, backing off as if I had already become the wolf. Then a sneer marred her lovely features and she lifted her voice in another scream.
The walls crumbled, mortar shuddering from between enormous squares of stone. The tall roof I’d admired so much was collapsing, and I could barely focus enough to keep huge chunks from flattening us. It wasn’t fair. Whether Mom wanted it to be or not, until the banshee queen was dead, her scream was part of Aibhill’s. That let Aibhill get under my shields. They shivered and broke apart, hairline fractures reappearing as quickly as I repaired them. The weight of stone crashing down didn’t help. I flinched again and again, feeling impacts against my flesh, though none of them broke through to crush bone and body. Not yet, anyway. I rolled my jaw
, fingers dug against the gray stone floor.
Incongruous golden sunlight spilled over my hands, sunset revealed by the falling walls. I took a little heart from that: it seemed like a tether back to the Middle World, and although I wasn’t at all sure I could get myself home, I thought I could at least shove Cat back into reality. I wished I dared call Coyote and ask for his help, but I lacked the concentration and was afraid that if I succeeded, it would open a channel straight from Aibhill to him, and that would be unacceptable. I had to do it on my own. Just this once, and I’d apologize to him later.
Easy enough to say, when I doubted there would be a later. My laugh broke and Caitríona seized my arm. I said, “It’s okay. We’re going home. I’m going to open a path back home. As soon as you see it, run. I’ll cover you and be right on your heels.”
“We won’t save Sheila if we run! The fight will be over, we’ll—”
“The fight’s already over. Do as I say, Cat. Just do as I say.” I had nothing left for words. Coyote was so good at opening passageways between the Middle and Lower Worlds. I tried to remember how he did it, calling yellow roads and low red sunlight. The light tinted more toward crimson, either the oncoming night or a successful path. I decided it was the path and envisioned it more fully, remembering what it had looked like when Coyote sent me into the Lower World to fight the wendigo. Caitríona gasped, signal that she saw it, too, and I said, “Run.”
She ran, and I shut the road down behind her.