Shadow's Edge

by Maureen Lipinski

  “I’m a warrior who kills enemies of the Créatúir.” I put my fake sword in the holster on my belt. “I’m pretty

  bad-ass.”

  “Oh. Never heard of it,” Lindsay said, shifting her wand from left to right. She laughed.

  I shrugged as I turned toward the stands, spotting my sisters waiting by the exit gate. “Gotta run,” I said, and began to jog away.

  “Leah!” Brooke called after me. “Wait!”

  I stopped and turned around. “What?”

  “I’m coming with you. I want to help,” she said, her two crowns still balanced on her head.

  I shook my head, my green sword hitting my hip. “I can’t let you get any more involved than—”

  “What if he shows up?” Brooke said, giving a long glance toward the football players, who were heading back to the locker room to change before the dance.

  I sighed. She had a point.

  “Okay, just stand back and don’t say anything.

  Got it?” I started to jog toward the gate again, Brooke following me.

  As we reached the edge of the field, my three sisters were waiting.

  “She’s going to help,” I said, nodding toward Brooke.

  Morgana shot me a questioning look, but held out a black backpack. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go.” I pointed to the car.

  Morgana drove, weaving in between parents and teenagers before pulling up to the construction site. We got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the new stadium.

  “Hurry, hurry, c’mon,” I said, quickly kneeling down on the ground and opening up a drawstring bag. I handed Morgana a bottle of water and a glass bowl. I passed Gia a stick of incense and tossed Rhea a candle.

  We paused and locked eyes for a moment.

  “Here you are!” a familiar voice from behind me said.

  I whipped my head around and saw Melissa standing behind us.

  “I can’t let you do this, Melissa,” I said to her.

  “You!” Brooke jumped up. “You’ve been working with Gregg—”

  “Ignore her, Brooke!” Morgana cried out. The wind began to pick up, rustling the faraway trees and scattering leaves across the concrete rocks around us.

  I stood up and turned to face Melissa. She smirked at me and crossed her arms across her chest. It was only then that I noticed a figure next to her. A diminutive girl with long dark hair and wide green eyes—the same girl I’d seen with her at Buzz.

  “You can’t stop us,” the girl said.

  The blood in my veins ran cold as her voice pinged my eardrums. I’d heard that voice before … in my dreams. When I was the Shaman, I never slept a full night thanks to constant dreams—nightmares—with unintelligible voices I assumed were from the Créatúir.

  “Who … ” I started to say, as Melissa and the girl laughed. I saw the girl’s wide green eyes turn into

  diamonds.

  A demon. A Fomoriian.

  “I’m Macabee. I’ve been waiting a long time for one of you Shamans to listen to me,” she said. “But none of you would ever listen. Too strong, I suppose.” Melissa flinched but remained in place.

  “How did you—I mean, I thought you were all defeated,” I said.

  “Most of us were. I hid during that horrible battle years ago, remained in-between the worlds. Waiting for someone to listen, to understand. To agree to destroy,” Macabee said. Her fingernails grew long, into black talons like I’d seen in the woodcuts.

  “You were supposed to protect them,” I said to Melissa.

  “Leah, forget her!” Gia’s voice broke through. “Let’s finish it!”

  “I—” I began.

  “Yeah, ‘I.’ It was always about you, wasn’t it?” Melissa looked at me and clucked her tongue. “No matter. Macabee promised that if I summoned her kind, I would gain control over all the Créatúir magic. And what was happening at the construction site was just the icing on the cake. Right place, right time.”

  My mind reeling, my words sputtered out. “But—I thought—Alex knew—”

  Melissa’s eyes glinted green and the reptilian appearance returned. “You’re so stupid.” She clapped her hands together and threw her head back, laughing. She squared her head and met Macabee’s gaze. “Ready for Créatúir target practice?” she called. The corners of her mouth turned up and her teeth shifted into black points; her eyes blinked horizontally and began to move independently, like they were rolling out of her head.

  “Melissa, I think you’re turning into one of them. I think they’re consuming you. You’re becoming possessed by them,” I said. “They’re making you do these things.”

  Melissa laughed again, a deep growl that emanated from her gut. Macabee smiled at me and pointed a long talon at Melissa’s arm, scratching it so deeply that a river of blood spilled out. Melissa didn’t flinch as Macabee licked her nail and smiled.

  “Melissa—”

  “Leah, please!” Morgana cried out. She ran over to me and grabbed my elbow. “C’mon. You can’t save her too,” she whispered into my ear.

  “Yeah! Let’s do this!” Brooke called out from the rock she was perched on.

  Morgana and I sprinted back to the circle, about twenty feet away. I sat down next to my sisters and nodded. Morgana poured the water into the glass bowl. Rhea struck a match to light the candle but paused as we heard maniacal laughter. Macabee had removed the box with the orchid latch from a bag. I murmured a silent thanks that we already had the scroll.

  I looked at Morgana and muttered, “Did your cat happen to predict any rain?”

  “Nope. She said it would be a clear night,” Morgana answered.

  “Let’s hope this is one of the one-in-ten times that she’s right,” I said. “Go ahead,” I said to Rhea, and she lit the candle. She passed the matches to Gia, who lit the incense, blew it out, and fanned it around until it began to smoke.

  “I’d hoped you’d be taken down too, once I gave you the sob story about Fiona,” Melissa shouted toward me. “I heard she hardly even put up a struggle when the poison took over.”

  I met my sisters’ eyes before pouring salt onto the earth. I began to recite the wording on the scroll. “Sword, Spear, Stone, Cauld—”

  “What the—” Melissa had opened the box and was staring at what lay inside. She held up a men’s magazine with a woman in a bikini on the cover—which was what I’d grabbed off the desk in the club office and shoved into the box.

  “Hey, that’s sacred to some people,” Rhea called to Melissa.

  Macabee stretched her head backward, tilting it unnaturally until it almost touched the middle of her back. She let out a scream that whipped through my bones, chilling my body through my costume as I covered my ears from the piercing shrieks. Melissa stood upright, very still for a moment, like a statue, before launching into a run toward our circle.

  “I got this!” Brooke called out, standing up from her rock.

  “Brooke, be careful! She’s possessed!” I screamed as the wind began to howl around us.

  “Oh yeah? Well, I’m a cheerleader!” Brooke threw her body against Melissa’s, intercepting her like a football player as she charged toward us. They landed on the ground about ten feet from us, the sound of Melissa’s body hitting the ground a thud reverberating through the dirt.

  Melissa growled as she tried to throw the Homecoming Queen off of her. Brooke, crowns still bobby-pinned to her head, sat atop Melissa, pinning her to the ground. Melissa reached up and grabbed a handful of Brooke’s cornsilk hair as they tumbled on the ground, screeching and hair-pulling, the contrast of their white and tan skins mixed together like a human checkerboard. It was then that I noticed Macabee had disappeared.

  “Leah, we have to keep going!” Morgana said. “Brooke’s got her occupied!”

>   I turned and nodded to my sisters. “Let’s do this!”

  We placed our hands on top of the four elements and I whispered, “Stone, Spear, Sword, Cauldron. Let thy power—”

  My chant was interrupted by a scream from Brooke. Melissa had ripped out a chunk of her hair, stunning her. She took that opportunity to toss Brooke aside, my friend’s body spilling out in a mess of tanned limbs, all tiara rhinestones and highlighted blond hair.

  Still holding the clump of hair in her hands, Melissa bent down, picked up the box again, and pressed the orchid flower latch on the front. This time, the back of the box shifted and another compartment opened. She removed a piece of paper.

  “Good thing I kept some secrets safe,” she said triumphantly, licking her lips. “How about some Fomoriian company right now?” She smiled at me, her features switching places for a moment so that her eyes were on her chin and her ears were in the center of her face.

  She looked down at the paper and bellowed, “Orcas balor auryn á daearen uasail ceallach!” Then she reached her white arms skyward.

  “NO!” I screamed.

  Above Melissa, a black cloud of energy began to cycle, like a small, black tornado of dark magic. The wind picked up and whipped across my sisters and me, extinguishing our candle and tipping the bowl of water to the ground.

  A loud buzz began to emanate from the black tornado as Melissa stretched out her arms, fingers splayed in the air, guiding the midnight energy to the earth.

  The Fomoriians were coming.

  I stood up, bracing myself against Rhea, who was still sitting on the ground. I closed my eyes and called for the Créatúir, both Light and Dark. I chanted their names, asking them to come to the mortal realm, to appear before the Fomoriians took shape and became organized and killed them all. Called for them to fight for the Créatúir in a battle against their ancient enemy.

  In the center of the circle that my sisters and I formed, tiny white orbs began to appear, circling like headlights on the horizon. A moment later, black mosquito dots began to circle next to the lights, first creating their own swirls before intermingling with the light dots. The black and white spheres circled together as though in a dance.

  “Get back!” I said to my sisters, tugging Rhea up by her arm. My sisters scrambled across the dirt, crawling back to where Brooke sat on the ground clutching a bleeding, bald patch of her scalp.

  Melissa was moving backward, making room for a purple cloud taking shape in front of her. Amidst the dirt and gravel of the construction site, the physical margins of ancient, mystical beings formed. We faced each other.

  A flash of lightning separated the sky, illuminating the machinery around us.

  And in that instant—in that spark—They were in our realm.

  In front of us, Light and Dark Créatúir formed a battle line. The Noves monster bared his rows of teeth, his purple wings extended, as Queen Anya stood at attention, her leopard spots slick with anticipation. A siabra, white hair flowing down his back, looked briefly at the unicorn next to him, while an olive green ogre with yellow eyes held a wooden club to his chest, ready to battle.

  They stood next to one another, a jumble of deep purple, ethereal white, glowing orange, and inky black fur. The Light and the Dark, together.

  It was beautiful.

  “Oohhh,” I heard Gia sigh as she looked at the Créatúir. “They’re so beautiful!” My sisters seemed stunned by the beauty and exquisite wonder in front of us. I can imagine it was like discovering that ice cream is made in flavors other than vanilla.

  Through the crowd of Créatúir in front of us, in between the black-clad shoulder of a baobhan sith and the green head of a leaf dragon, I saw the Fomoriians. Despite all of the nightmares, all of the macabre horrors, that I’d seen on Inis Mor, nothing could have prepared me to see the Fomoriians.

  Putrid black and green scales covered their bodies like concrete exoskeletons. They stood six feet tall, with thick waists surrounded by rusty chain-metal armor. Parasitic worms erupted from their skulls, as if feeding off of their brains. The worms’ slimy bodies trailed down the Fomoriians’ thick shoulders like dreadlocks. Their chunky fingers were enclosed around various iron weapons of torture—a glowing hot poker to brand Créatúir, a long silver sword with shingled spikes for maximum damage to delicate Créatúir wings and horns. They stood, silent, like decaying tree trunks. At the end of their battle line was an enormous stone bowl and rod; a mortar and pestle for grinding up any ethereal soldier caught in battle.

  “They don’t stand a chance,” I whispered to myself.

  “Can’t we say the incantations now?” Gia tugged on my sleeve.

  “We can try,” I said, and nodded to my sisters. We gathered our relics and placed them on the ground before us. “Sword, Spear, Stone, Cauldron, let thy power come to me. Gaaladriel orcas infitium nambh.” I whispered the incantation with my eyes closed. I waited for a surge of power, for the elements to appear, for the earth to open up. For something to happen.

  But I opened my eyes and all I saw were the dejected faces of my sisters, the elemental relics quietly sitting in front of us.

  “It must not work after they’re already here,” Morgana said, her eyes wide in terror.

  “Faire Ó!” one of the ogres called out as they began to charge toward the Fomoriians. The two groups collided in a mess of sparkling colors and swinging weapons. The sky opened up as soon as the first contact occurred, raining down water in thick sheets that soaked the ground and turned the site into a giant mud puddle.

  “Get back!” I shrieked to my sisters and Brooke as a hoggle’s body came sailing toward us, landing at our feet. We scrambled behind a mound of gravel at the edge of the site.

  In front of us, a Fomoriian came up behind Myrddin, who was forming energy balls in his palms and thrusting them at the warriors. The Fomoriian swung a metal spiked club at him and roared as the dark elf crumpled to the ground, centuries of life lost in an instant.

  Gia screamed as the Fomoriian tossed Myrddin’s body into the mortar and pestle, grinding him up with a sickening crunch. Alerted by her scream, the Fomoriian fixed his black eyes upon my sister, huddled behind a rock.

  “Gia!” I called out as I tried to stand up to pull her away from the Fomoriian. But the Fomoriian got to her first, picking her up by one ear as she struggled and thrashed about, screaming for help. Her blond hair tangled around the Fomoriian’s thick fingers as he brought her head to him, baring his teeth, ready to sink his knifelike jaws into her scalp.

  My sisters were frozen. But I wasn’t.

  I didn’t think as I stood up and ran through the mud, the brown muck, flying across my body, nearly blinding me. I threw my body at the Fomoriian, my bones crunching against him with a sick thud, like running into a concrete wall. The Fomoriian roared again as he threw Gia to the ground, her body splashing into a mud puddle. He reached down and grabbed my neck and squeezed. Instant blackness fell over my eyes, as if everything was happening in slow motion. I could hear the screams of the Créatúir as they were slaughtered; heard the sound of their magic falling to the earth.

  And once again, I wondered if I was going to die.

  Until, suddenly, the squeezing around my neck stopped and I was dropped to the ground. As I gasped for breath, I looked up, the rain falling into my eyes, and saw Slade plunging a sword into the Fomoriian. The monster’s eyes turned to stone and his body cracked into a million pieces, vanishing into the wet air like black sand.

  “Yeah, Slade!” I heard Rhea cheer from across the battlefield.

  Slade bent down and offered me his hand. He pulled me to a standing position as I surveyed the battle around us.

  On the muddy ground of the construction site, the bodies of Créatúir, both Light and Dark, lay motionless, awaiting their fate in the mortar and pestle as a Fomoriian went around collectin
g the dead.

  Next to me lay a dead Fomoriian, his sword still sheathed. The sounds of battle and pain were all around us, but the drumming rain was all that screeched in

  my ears.

  I turned back to my sisters, who watched me as I stood in the center of the battlefield. I bent down and pulled the Fomoriian’s sword from his belt and held it in the air.

  “Grab their weapons! The Créatúir can’t fight with iron, but we can! Grab whatever you can, and let’s end this. It’s the only way!” I thrust my sword higher in the air as I felt my adrenaline surge through me.

  “I don’t think so, Shaman,” a voice behind me said. I whirled around and saw Melissa. She bent down, ready to grab a thick metal chain from the ground, ready to swing it at me.

  A tiara flashed behind Melissa as Brooke said, “We’re not done yet!” Brooke jumped into the air and kicked Melissa in the back before she could turn around. It was a high kick, like the kind I’d seen the cheerleaders do in their halftime routine. With Melissa on the ground, Brooke kicked her again and punched her in the stomach. “I bet you don’t think cheerleading is a sport!”

  With Melissa occupied by Brooke, I turned back to my sisters, who were approaching me with swords, chains, and daggers in their hands.

  “You okay?” I asked Gia. She nodded. “Protect her,” I commanded Slade, who answered affirmatively.

  “Time to send these demons back to hell, Spencer-sister style!” I shouted. We charged toward the battle, iron weapons drawn. I clashed against a Fomoriian, rain puddles splashing up against me as he knocked me to the ground and threw himself on top of me. His spiked sword was inches from my neck, ready to decapitate me.

  You are all my treasures, my mother’s voice said in

  my head.

  “Sword, Spear, Stone, Cauldron, let thy power come to me!” I shouted into the air as the Fomoriian’s sword nearly made contact with my jugular. Suddenly, it was as though a white light filled my soul. Tingling energy burst through my fingertips as I effortlessly thrust the Fomoriian off of me with a quick shove and drove my sword into his torso. He sputtered, and a green mist came out from between his knife-teeth before he lay back in the mud, his body turned to stone.