Death's Hand

by N. P. Martin

  She was holding her belly. "Not particularly."

  "What did she do to you?"

  Dalia shook her head dismissively. "Nothing. A mere energy punch to the belly."

  I frowned at her. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, are you all right?"

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. "Fine, I guess. That was… unexpected."

  "Unexpected, but hardly surprising."

  "You knew she would find us at some point, didn’t you?"

  "I had a feeling."

  I shook my head. "If you’d said we could’ve been more prepared."

  Dalia stared at me with angry eyes. "Prepared? How do you prepare for what just happened?"

  I looked away from her, noticing two cars coming up behind us. Putting the Spitfire in gear, I started driving again, having no idea of where I was supposed to be going. After what just happened, it seemed foolish to go chasing after Sorcha again, since it was clear that she would unhesitatingly follow through on her death threats. Clearly, we needed a better plan.

  "Where are we going?" Dalia asked.

  "Where I always go when times are bad," I said. "The pub."

  8

  After what happened with Dalia and the woman from the shop earlier that morning, I decided to skip Goleen and drive to the next town over, which was Schull (pronounced Skull). Schull is a seaside town, that although small, is as close to cosmopolitan as you’re going to get in this part of the country. It’s basically one main street with a few side streets, a harbor and a small park area. Unsurprisingly, it was also crawling with tourists, many of them browsing at the little market near the harbor. I parked the car on the main street and then we walked into the nearest pub, which although it was tiny and full of holidaymakers, we still managed to get a quiet spot in the corner away from them.

  Dalia sat in broody silence for quite a while as she nursed her drink, as did I. It was one thing knowing what we were up against, but actually experiencing it in the flesh was a different matter. Sorcha and her powers had become real now, for me at least. For Dalia, Sorcha’s appearance had probably confirmed what she had secretly feared all along, which was that we didn’t stand much of a chance against her as things stood.

  "I still think we need Hedrema with us," I said after swallowing a mouthful of Guinness. "We can’t stop Sorcha by ourselves."

  "I agree," Dalia said. "But she won’t accompany us out here."

  I shook my head. "Why the hell not? It’s her world at stake here as much as ours. Why does she have to be such a dick?"

  Dalia smiled slightly. "She can certainly be a dick all right, but that’s not why she’s reluctant to join the hunt. She didn’t tell you everything back at the castle."

  "What do you mean?"

  She held her empty glass up. "Get me another drink and I’ll explain everything."

  Sighing, I got up and went to the bar, ordering two more drinks. As I waited on the barman to do his thing, one of the holidaymakers saddled up beside me. "Yir a Dublin man, are ye?"

  I turned to see a man in his forties standing there, wearing a red football jersey. His eyes were a watery blue and he seemed half drunk as he stood holding a near empty pint glass. I smiled politely at him and nodded. "I am."

  "North or South?"

  "North."

  The man winced and shook his head as if he felt sorry for me. "I’m a southsider meself. 'Ow’d yer end up in dis Bejasus forsaken place? Me struggle an' strife dragged me 'ere. Oi wanted ter go ter Spain, yer nu, on a proper 'oliday, but nu, Spain’s too dear accordin' ter 'er, so we end up in dis feckin’ 'ole in de 'edge instead." He glanced at the young barman, who had just given him a dirty look. "No offense loike, young lad."

  "There’s worse places than this," I said, having no interest in talking to the man.

  "Oi suppose loike. We cud be up North, den we’d feckin’ nu aboyt it, wouldn’t we?" He laughed drunkenly. "Bunch av 'ard-nosed bastards up dare, aren’t they? Al' dat bombin' an' shootin' 'as made dem feckin’ cuckoo."

  Jesus, I’d never heard such nonsense. "If you say so." I turned away from him, wishing the barman would hurry up with the drinks.

  "Listen fella," he said, nudging my arm to get my attention. "I can’t 'elp but notice yir wan av de gang, if yer nu waat oi mean."

  "One of the gang?"

  He leaned in conspiratorially, his breath reeking of lager. "Touched."

  "What if I am?" I said, pushing him away slightly.

  "Well, oi wus 'opin' yer cud do me a favor, loike. Yer nu, cos we’re on de seem team, so ter spake."

  The barman set up the drinks I had ordered and I handed him a note and told him to keep the change just so I wouldn’t have to hang around any longer listening to the drunken buffoon next to me. "Sorry pal, but there’s someone waiting on me."

  "Ah roi." The guy looked behind him at Dalia, who was staring up at us. "Well, dis won’t take long. You’d really be 'elpin' me oyt."

  He was standing right in front of me now, blocking my path. "I said I can’t."

  "Please," he said, seeming desperate now. "I’ve lost me weddin' rin' yer see, an' oi nade sum 'elp ter git it back. If oi a go up ter de struggle an' strife withoyt on me she’ll bleeding’ kill me for she’ll tink i’ve been messin' raun wi' sum young tin'."

  The idea of this man messing around with some young thing, as he put it, seemed preposterous. "Why would you need me to get your wedding ring back? Where is it?"

  "It’s somewhere oi can’t git it."

  "Clearly. Why not?"

  He sighed and shook his head. "Even though I’m loike yer an' al', oi don’t use me magic much so it’s kinda weak. Oi nade someone wi' strong magic ter retrieve de rin'. Please, you’d be savin' me life."

  After a moment, I decided to call his bluff. If he was telling the truth about his missing ring, then fair enough, I’d help him out. But if he was messing with me in some way, I was going to make sure he paid for it as I was in no mood to have the piss taken out of me. "All right, fine. Give me a minute."

  The man smiled broadly with some relief. "Gran’ man yerself. De name’s Paul, by de way."

  "Corvin," I said. "Wait here."

  When I went back to the table I placed the drinks down and explained the situation to Dalia. "Are you serious?" she asked.

  "Unfortunately. I’ll not be long."

  Paul seemed slightly nervous as he stood at the bar waiting on me, though I don’t know why. I put it down to his drunkenness as I walked out of the bar with him. "It’s this way," he said as he took me down toward the harbor and then onto a pathway that ran alongside the shore, finally coming to a halt right next a large wooden box that appeared to be made out of pallets, and which was filled with pieces of wood, clumps of straw and broken red bricks, all of which was held in by chicken wire around the outside. The words BUG HOTEL were painted on the small roof. Obviously someone thought a bug hotel would be cool for kids to look at, but there didn’t appear to be any bugs in it.

  "It’s in dare," Paul said, pointing at the box as he appeared to be keeping his distance.

  I just stood shaking my head as I looked from the box to him. "You lost your wedding ring in a bug hotel?"

  Paul nodded. "It’s what’s in dare dat tuk it."

  This is getting weirder by the minute, I thought. "What’s in there?"

  He looked around him as if to check that no one was watching him. "Unfortunately for you lad, you’re aboyt ter fend oyt." Before I realized what he was doing, the sneaky bastard said something to me that I couldn’t understand. In my gut, though, from within the beer I had just drank, I could feel a potion activate at the sound of his words.

  "No!" I shouted, but it was too late. Within seconds, I felt myself shrink to tiny proportions, until I was no bigger than a mouse. Suddenly the world seemed like a much different place, and much more dangerous, especially when Paul’s massive hand reached down and wrapped itself around me, lifting me up until I was level with his sunburnt face and reeking alcoho
lic breath.

  "I’m really sorry aboyt dis," he said, his voice booming in my tiny ears. "It’s de only way oi can git me weddin' rin' back from that… thin' in dare."

  I struggled pointlessly against his grip, screaming at him, calling him all the lying tricksters of the day. When I went to cast a healing spell on myself to try to make myself normal sized again, I found that my magic didn’t work. The bastard or his potion was blocking my magic! "I’ll kill you!" I squeaked. "You are so dead! You’re going to… wait, what are you doing? No, don’t put me in there!"

  He was now moving me toward the bug hotel, and as he did so, I glimpsed a horrible face peering out through the chicken wire. It was the face of gray-skinned Fae-creature with huge bright yellow eyes and long ears that appeared to point downward. The round face also had a wide mouth that was filled with needle-sharp teeth, and the creature appeared to have tufts of grass for hair. The delight in its eyes as it watched me coming toward it was frightening, and I felt like Alice about to go tumbling down the rabbit hole. "Yes!" the Fae screeched. "Perfect! You will do!"

  Before I knew it, I was being pushed through the chicken wire and then let go so that I fell into a cramped space that was lined with branches and broken bricks. As soon as I landed, I jumped immediately to my feet to stare at the Fae, who I now realized was standing beside a huge gold ring, which it proceeded to haul across the floor to that bastard Paul’s waiting fingers. "Thankin’ you," his voice boomed. "No 'ard feelings, Corvin, eh?"

  "Screw you!" I shouted, though I doubted he could even hear my tiny voice. "When I get out of here I’ll make you wish you’d never met me, you fucking twat!"

  If he even heard me, he gave no indication of it as I listened to his thundering footsteps walk away. With him now gone, it was just me stuck inside a bug hotel with the ugliest goddamn Faery I’d ever seen. The thing was standing by the chicken wire window, grinning at me like a Cheshire cat, its eyes full of some unknown hunger. I could now see that the creature had wings that appeared to be fashioned out of Sycamore pods, and short stumpy legs that struggled to support a huge pot belly. Clumps of course hair poked out from the Fae’s armpits, and rather disgustingly, from between her two saggy breasts as well. Once again, I tried to use my magic to make myself bigger again, but it seemed the Fae was blocking me now.

  "Just you and me it is now," she said, rubbing her gnarly hands together.

  "What do you want?" I asked her, trying not to sound too freaked out by the whole situation.

  "Corvin is your name, I heard him say it." She grinned again, still rubbing her hands together. "Belch be my name."

  "Nice to meet you, Belch, but I think there’s been some sort of mistake here—"

  "Mistake no! I tell him to here bring somebody!"

  I shook my head helplessly. "What for?"

  Belch began to knead her own swinging breasts as she came toward me, causing my stomach to turn when I noticed a milky fluid squirt from her large nipples. "Belch friend need… make tiny Belch’s."

  My jaw dropped open as I began to back away from her. This can’t be happening, I thought. Sorcha must’ve put some hallucinatory spell on me. I must still be in the car. Something like this just can’t happen. It can’t.

  But it was. This was no hallucination. This was real, as underlined by the musky smell emanating from the still advancing Fae. "Baby Belch’s we make… we rut like beetles."

  She was almost upon me, so I made a break for it, hoping to reach the chicken wire so I could dive through it. I didn’t care if the fall ended up killing me. Death was surely preferable than having to mate with this disgusting creature.

  But as soon as I went to run, Belch jumped in my way with lightning speed, and the next thing I knew her bony fingers were around my arms, holding them down as she forced her face toward mine, her maw opening to reveal a long, pointed tongue that began to probe its way toward my mouth. Struggling fruitlessly, I could only make fearful groaning sounds as I tried to turn my head away to avoid that slimy appendage coming my way. But no matter how far I turned my head away, it wasn’t enough, and the next thing that tongue ran its way slowly up my cheek, before bending around into my mouth, causing me to gag uncontrollably. As all this was happening, Belch made continual moaning and groaning sounds as if she was getting off on the whole situation already. She then lifted me up and slammed me down to the filthy floor, immediately mounting me, grinding her hips into me, kneading her breasts once more as they continued to drip their foul milk.

  "Oh Jesus!" I cried. "Please stop!"

  "Stop when Corvin’s milk inside me," was her sickening reply, to which I thought:

  I’m getting raped by a Faery. How did this happen?

  Not that I had time to debate my relative bad luck mind, for Belch was now pulling at my trousers. "Milk!" she screeched as she bared her teeth at me. "Fill me with it you will!"

  As much as I struggled, I couldn’t get her off me, for she was too strong, the weight of that massive pot belly holding me down. In my mind, any hope I had of escaping the situation had well and truly gone, and I was now left with the stone cold reality that this was going to happen, this gross violation of my body that, if I ever got out of this hovel, would most certainly haunt me for the rest of my days, if not traumatize me into becoming a mute. Things were so bad, I found myself praying for someone to come and help me, knowing even as I did so that no one would.

  But as it turned out, I was wrong about that, for my prayers were answered when the roof of the bug hotel was suddenly ripped off as if by a powerful tornado. Then, hovering up above in the shimmering sunlight like the face of God, I saw Dalia’s face looking down, her huge eyes registering shock, dismay and disgust in rapid succession. "Help me, Dalia!" I squeaked. "Get her off me!"

  Dalia immediately reached down and plucked Belch off me, lifting the screaming Fae high into the air where she examined her for a second before tossing her away. Then she reached down and gently gripped me between her fingers, lifting me up and out of the bug hotel before holding me in the palm of her hand and shaking her head. "I can’t believe you," she said, sounding like a giant.

  "Put me down," I said, and she placed me gently on the grass next to the bug hotel. Straight away, I cast my healing spell to reverse the potion and make myself big again, and a few seconds later, I was back to my normal size. "Oh, thank Christ…"

  Dalia just stood staring at me. "I can’t believe you got played like that."

  "Stop it," I said. "Where is that fucking thing? It nearly raped me!"

  "I could see that. I tossed it away in the long grass. It’s gone now."

  I shook my head, still shuttering from the horror of the situation. "How did you know?"

  "That you were here? I nabbed that guy you left the pub with. I knew something was up just by looking at him."

  I felt my anger rise. "Where is the bastard? I’m going to kill him."

  "He won’t be bothering anyone for a while," Dalia said. "I left him in the pub toilets, trapped in his own mind, inside his worst nightmare."

  "That’s too good for him."

  "It’ll have to do. We have more important things to worry about."

  "Sorcha you mean?"

  Dalia sighed as she looked around for a moment, seemingly to make sure no one was watching her. Frowning, I watched her then lift up her dress until her belly was revealed. "I mean this."

  Aghast, I saw that her belly was spiderwebbed with what looked like black veins. "Holy shit, D. What is that?"

  "Sorcha," she said as she allowed her dress to fall down again. "She cursed me with her magic."

  I shook my head, thinking this day couldn’t get any worse. "How? I never even seen her do anything."

  "Her thoughts were enough."

  "So what did she do to you exactly? Are you sick now?"

  "I’m slowly weakening," she said. "The dark magic is spreading quickly." She looked at me then with wet eyes then, as pained as I’d ever seen her. "I think I’m going to die
, Corvin…"

  9

  "Stay with me, D!"

  On the drive back to the cottage, Dalia’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly. The dark magic in her spread from her belly to her chest, and then began to work its way up her neck and down her arms. It was like it was trying to consume her from the inside out, and as it did so, it brought agonizing pain with it, for Dalia soon started screaming that she couldn’t take it anymore. At that point, I pulled the car over by the side of the road and used a Healing Spell on her. For a moment, it looked like the spell was working, for the black veins began to recede a bit. But before I could breathe any sigh of relief, the poisonous magic started spreading again unabated, even more rapidly this time than before, pushing its way up into her face, turning her skin a greenish-black. As Dalia continued to scream in pain, I sat in a panic wondering what to do. All I could think was that I had to do something or she was surely going to die, and there was no way I was going to let that happen. Besides Sorcha, there was only one other person I could think off who could possibly help, and that was Hedrema. So I turned the car around and drove like a maniac to Glandore, a journey that seemed to take far too long, and during which time Dalia began to slip in and out of consciousness. When she would come to, she would do so with a tortured scream that chilled my blood and brought despair to my heart.

  When I finally reached Glandore, I all but abandoned the car at the side of the road and started to carry Dalia across the fields to the Druid Circle, hoping there would be no sightseer’s there at this time of day, which thankfully there wasn’t. I was glad that most of the tourists were more interested in sitting in the pub or on the beach than checking out the local heritage.

  As I laid Dalia down inside the Druid Circle, she emerged from a long period of unconsciousness and gripped my hand in her own, just as a bout of extreme pain caused her to arch her back off the ground, making her look like someone who had just been hit with a thousand volts of electricity. The best I could do was to hold her hand until the spasm passed, at which point I recited the Healing Spell on her, which again only slowed the progress of the poison by a small amount, though it was enough to bring her into full consciousness again.