Devoured Stars Over Dublin

by Méabh de Brún

  I hadn’t a head on me for abuse. Not with my stomach in bits, the monkey-thing’s feathery pleading rattling round my brain, and a pervasive need to make cash quick. “Eerie, be gleeth. When are you meeting the cultists?”

  “Are you foetid?” she gaped, all squamous with me now, like being mo grá, mo croí and my ultimate eerie doesn’t get her a little more healthsome living than most. “Fhtagn hell, you won’t work with me, but you want my work? I can do what you do Reg, it ‘ent as hard as you make out.”

  “Eerie-”

  “I ‘ent your fucken’ eerie, and I ‘ent telling you shit. Fuck off. Ululate all you like. Go down to Kilderry and piss in the moon-bog.”

  A cry went up, and the crowd by the distillery scattered. The Ghast and the Daemon were out-and-out brawling now, with the Ghast wrapping a wrongly-jointed limb around its combatant, slamming it against the side of the building. I threw an arm around Niamh as bits of brick rained down, yanking her to me and turning my back against flying debris. Breaking free, the Daemon fled the attack, galloping on all fours across the face of the building before jumping and landing with a teeth-rattling thud, making its way back to the Christchurch crypts.

  Throwing back its head and letting out an unearthly screech, the Ghast gave chase. As the monstrosity thudded and slammed its way in pursuit, bits of falling masonry gouged holes in the cobblestones below. The ground shook under my boots, and we both went down hard. Hard, and that was how my head hit the cobbles, purple lights flashing in front of my eyes and Niamh falling from my arms. “Reg!” she shrieked. “Mind!” and I turned and rolled as a black mass smashed into the street beside me, ricocheting stones cutting my skin.

  After a minute or two, I uncurled and clambered to my feet. The street was silent, save for the settling dust and slow emergence of its occupants. At least no one got their face sucked off. Though to be fair, that’s the sole excitement you get round here. One thing about living in eternal damnation under the rule of unutterable gods is how fucken’ repetitive it is. You know things are rank when boredom outpaces terror.

  I recognised the fallen black mass that almost ended Reg Barry: One of the Wingéd Victories, a giant black-bronze angel robbed from the monument on O’Connell’s street. She fell so hard her jagged wing cut into the cobblestone, like a hot knife through fat. How the denizens of the distillery managed to nick it and cart it to this side of town, I’d never know. The ropes around its neck and waist hinted that it was hung like some sort of ward, futile protection for the nights the Upper Classes came calling. The full size of the statue blocked off the alley. She had an axe in one hand and a bullet in her chest – a remnant of the Rising. I’d put coin on saying her mug mirrored my own.

  “Piss’n yig on it,” I muttered, casting about for my coat before finding it and beating off bits of street. “Niamh? Where you at, love?”

  No answer. For a split second my heart was in my mouth, but then I clocked her standing on the other side of the angel, a little way down the street.

  The coin-filled leather bag in her hand.

  “Cut me in on the job,” she called out. Voice calm, face pale and impassive. She shook the sack to set the coins clinking.

  “I will in me fucken’ hole,” I spat, fury gripping my tongue before sense could. I took a step forward and she took one back. The wide wing of the Victory jutted into the sky between us.

  ‘Twas almost dark, the blood-moon creeping ever higher, but there was still light enough for me to see the sharp smile on my eerie’s mouth as she turned and ran. As soon as I saw her red hair flash, I put a boot in a fold of the angel’s robes and vaulted… but my bones rattled when I came down the other side. I stumbled and fell, head pounding and groaning from its previous meeting with ground. The world tilted, and black stains spread across my eyes.

  When I managed to crack a lid, Niamh was well gone.

  A lesson on the returns of giving trust in Dublin: Fuck all, and a head wound.

  #

  Back when I was a feral pup, I spent my time sitting on the ruins of the O’Connell monument, surrounded by the Wingéd Victories. All dirt and teeth, I’d bite you as soon as look at you, and thought nothing of running South of the Liffey just to gawp at the sky. Squinting at the black, hoping for a glimpse of shining, distant light. A stupid runt, who couldn’t cop that there’s no such things as stars anymore. The Angels never joined my search (last thing I needed was for them to go Gloon) and after a while I took a leaf out of their grimoire and quit looking up at all. No point, nothing happening up there. Keep the eyes straight. Keep awake.

  Now I was back in the proper Pale, down South and patrolling Waterloo Road. The glow of the blood moon was smothered by thick clouds, and warm rain fell from the sky. Georgian monstrosities stood on either side of the street, guarded by regiments of aesthetically placed trees with stabbing black branches and curling tendrils. There were ornamental letter boxes that had the unutterable names of Old Gods calligrified in gold. The road underneath my feet shifted like it was sleep-breathing.

  Niamh was the one who proffered the who and the where, all I was lacking was when. I’d been knocked out longer than I thought, but the angle of the moon told me there was still a couple of hours before midnight. We were just swinging in on prime-time for cultist house-calls. She’d show. She had clients to satisfy. In this gig-economy there’s few who can afford to let coin go.

  Find the gig. Find Niamh who’s been yigging around the city with a hundred and twenty of my fucken’ coin. Shake her ‘til her teeth bleed. Sell to the cultists to make up the final thirty. Buy the monkey-thing for one-fifty. Wipe out my debt. Easy.

  I stalked the cobbled streets, trying to get gleeth. Hard to say who I was readier to rend, Niamh or me. I never should’ve told her about the monkey-thing in the first place. She couldn’t be party to the deal I had going, the awful fucken’ geas on me, but I got langered and ran my mouth.

  It’s always Niamh I want to tell things to, regardless of festered wounds between us.

  There. Hunched pricks bedecked in black robes, heading up marble steps into a mansion. I broke into a gallop but missed the chance to catch her, reaching the gate as the last robed figure paused at the door.

  “Mz. Barry,” sez the figure, all hizzing zzzz’s like he’s an insect of Shaggai himself. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  I tilted my head and clocked him proper, squinting my eyes against the tepid rain. I knew the geezer. Face like a craggy cliff, with carved lines from the edges of his mouth. He ‘ent got enough bile in his belly-sac to be proper disrespectful of me.

  “Bishop Ronan,” sez I, laying on smarm. “What a mutually beneficial state of affairs.”

  The post-postulant prick was pustulant. He let out a stenchly sigh, an indication of the festering sores on his insides. “How can I be of assistance?”

  “Give us a robe and free entry. I’ll give you a discount when you want to get in a religious state of mind.” I would in me hole. I had thirty coin to make off this crowd. I’d have to wait til’ after the mass at this stage, but beggers who choose are corpses.

  I watched him weigh the benefits of getting pissy and insisting that his beliefs, his worship, his fear of the True Gods, that’s what got him off, but he abandoned it and nodded, reaching into a leather sack at his side. I pulled on the cloak he tossed me. It reeked of spoiled meat and goat.

  “Twice tonight,” he sighed nonsensically, watching me pull up the hood. “Don’t do anything,” he added, like I was fucken’ feotid.

  I scratched my lips with thumb and forefinger, like I was sewing them shut with a rusty needle.

  We walked to the still-open door, where there was a butler with a bit of an Innsmouth look about him. The butler grimaced, his scabrous skin folding like warm wax, before nodding and letting out a low croak. He turned and walked down the dimly lit corridor while the doorframe warped towards us like a gaping mouth. The Bishop stepped in. Fervently wishing I had
the foresight to pack a naggin, I followed.

  Reg Barry in a Big House, did yiz ever think ye’d see the day? I’d never set foot in one, not even when selling the normie with the stammer. I conducted that unpleasant business in a wide open space, conducive to hasty getaways. The true green-bloods have mastered the art of social standing to mask their savagery, but put a juicy morsel in their midst and things get unspeakable.

  Dáithí, it said its name was.

  It lost the stammer when it screamed.

  The carpet underfoot was lush and thick. It moved and pressed against my boots, the colours flowing and changing like a time lapse of rotting fruit. The light pouring from the lamps was oily. I pulled my paws inside my robes so none of that piss-yellow luminescence would touch my skin.

  The batrachian butler turned around and peered at us through the gloom with bulbous wet eyes. He resumed his loping, bobbing walk down the corridor to where the cultists congregated. We followed him into a dainty drawing room with rippling green wallpaper and a flickering candle-laden chandelier that gave the illusion of being fathoms deep beneath a murky sea.

  The robed parties were standing sombre and ready for their employers, their hoods rendering them faceless in the dim light. The butler bowed low, then left.

  Somewhere above us, something thumped and scraped and then went still.

  Despite being reminiscent of the dark oceanic abyss, the room howled luxury and fine living. There were strange twisted knick-knacks on fine thin tables that were good for nothing but showcasing ostentations. Framed daguerreotypes bedecked the walls (subjects best left unexamined) and the elegant furniture boasted such fripperies as throw-pillows and crochet. The cultists stood in a semi-circle facing a hunched and lumped divan that matched the wallpaper, its lace like dirty foam from some barren beach. ‘Twas surely there the Royalty lounged, while their devotees chanted and Niamh sang.

  Could’ve been the décor, more likely it was the blood in my ears, but either way the sea crashed in my skull as I pushed through the robes, looking for the smallest one that smelled like lilies.

  “Barry!” I heard Ronan hiss from a distance, but he could have been in R'lyeh for all the mind I paid him. “We wait in silence while they lie dreaming!”

  There – a figure turning away, a red curl slipping from under their hood. Too quick for her, I grabbed Niamh and shook the bitch. “The fuck d’you think you’re at? Think you’re ultraviolet, is it? You little gobshite.”

  Another thump from upstairs, this one loud enough to set the bloated chandelier tinkling. I barely copped it. I was too busy gripping my mot’s arm while she twisted and spat fire. “Fuck you,” Niamh panted, her breath caught in her throat. “I got the thirty coin, I snuck it here, and I’m doing the sale. You want to keep me under your heel, but I’ll make three times the coin back, and you know it!”

  “What’re you-” I stopped, my brain catching up and my eyes landing on a shaking figure behind her. With creeping horror, I reached out and yanked off its hood. There it was. The filthy, tear-streaked face that had haunted me all day. “Niamh,” I said, tongue like lead. “What’ve you done?”

  “She- she said she’d take me home,” Elaine stammered. Niamh had done her up in ashes and grease to take the health from her face and fool the cultists. The dirt and the stink of the Menagerie had done the rest. She tried to take a step back and almost tripped on the over-sized robe. “I just want to go home!”

  “What’s going on?” Bishop Ronan appeared at my side, the agitated cultists moving in around us as though they could smother our offensive behaviour. “Mz. Barry, leave before-”

  Upstairs, the thumping started. Heavy, rhythmic thumping that made its way across the ceiling and began to pick up speed. A noise then. A noise you wouldn’t expect to hear from a distance. Like the noise of someone rubbing their hands together, soft and slow. A whispered sound that made its way down the corridor. A skin sound. A hideous friction. A noise that sounded wet.

  Niamh only knew them when they were sitting pretty and applauding her fine singing. She knew them from a distance, all carriages and fine suits and crinolines hiding the horrors.

  I knew them otherwise.

  As the thumping and slithering came closer and closer, the cultists raised their arms and began to chant black and guttural benedictions, in ecstasies at the approach of their Royals, their Gods, their Betters. I grabbed them both, my girl and my goal, and pulled them behind me as I ran.

  We sprinted for the front door, but the bones of the house writhed and contorted around us, the opulent non-Euclidean architecture folding us into its depths. Instead of the street, we burst into a tenebrous bathroom with a wall of slimy, undulating pipes and a heaving bath of scummy water. The pounding in the walls and the sounds of slick twisting limbs followed us, underscored by ceaseless chanting, as we ran through the next door and the next. We ran across an attic crowded by still figures wrapped in stained white shrouds. Then we were in a pantry with swarms of fat flies and sweating jars of entrails floating in green brine. Again and we were in an ancient library choking on dust and a miasma of death and madness. Again and we were somewhere dark and cold and silent, and we had no hands or mouths or eyes, and then finally we were in a dining room with floral wallpaper that twisted into screaming faces, and wide windows facing out onto the street. Now the chanting changed, it warped into the terrible, brutal shrieking of torn vocal chords and broken minds, and it came from the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the chair I picked up and hefted in my hands.

  “Reg, send it back to them.” Niamh’s voice was hoarse and frantic, her face bloodless. “They’re only chasing us ‘cos they want its head.”

  Elaine just sobbed, hiding in the stained sleeve of her robe, mind wracked with terror and overblown with the incomprehensible.

  I defenestrated the chair, the glass blowing outwards in sparkling shards, and for a split second my mind said Look. There. Stars.

  “Jump,” I told Elaine, but merely as a nicety. I was already hoiking her up by the waist, pushing her to the windowsill. She’d get a bit of glass in her, but sure what harm. “They’re after you, so jump.”

  She jumped. Not a second’s thought. Wise little monkey-thing.

  “Why’d you save it?” Niamh was dead white and shaking. “They want it, Reg. You could’ve left it and we’d be out.”

  “You’re next, come on.” I tried to jerk her towards the window but she stepped back, confusion and betrayal writ large on her face, mixing and mingling with hideous dread and rising madness. Thudding, slithering and screaming, all of it getting louder and louder, closer and closer. I made a grab for her again, and in that second I saw her mind crack as she stepped back towards the impermeable darkness of the house, eyes wide and locked on mine.

  “You could’ve left it Reg, why did y

  #

  On my hands and knees in the dark, I vomited. I gripped slimy leaves between my fists, small stones digging into my palms, my nose filled with a hideous creamy burning. On a wet footpath under the blood-moon, I vomited my stinking guts up.

  For a shining minute, I couldn't think beyond that. For a glorious handful of seconds, getting sick on the side of the road was the most pertinent of my problems.

  The fog cleared and I jerked onto my knees. I dug my fingers into my skull like I could crack it open and sieve through the wet chunks, to find the missing pieces of what just happened.

  Before I could even begin to think, something screeching rose out of the darkness. The ghoul-thing threw itself on me, and I slammed against the wet footpath, jagged nails clawing and scratching at my eyes. Twisting my head, I balled a fist and hit hard beneath its hood. It crumpled and fell as I rolled and scrabbled to my feet, mind locked on keeping it down. When I stamped on its ribs something cracked, and the dark figure let out a normie-sounding moan. It was one of the robed cultists, crying and screaming and clawing. “Gone!” He shrieked, climbing hands and knees towards me, grabbing at
my trousers. “Gone! Gone!”

  The moon came out from behind a cloud and in the light I could see his eyes were empty sockets. His fingers dripped with blood and vitreous.

  Then he launched, his hands around my throat, squeezing, crushing. I went down choking and kicking, while the cords stood out on his neck and tiny beads of blood formed where his clenched teeth met his gums.

  The world started going thick velvet black, and all I could think was sure listen, how bad?

  A crunching, wet sound.

  The blind cultists’ features went slack. His fingers peeled from my skin and he crumpled to the ground, skull hitting the pavement with a sickly thud.

  “Oh,” Elaine said in a small voice, as I coughed and gagged, bent double and seeing flashing lights. She was holding one of those fhtagn ornamental letter boxes in her hands. It was dented. “Oh fuck.”

  “Aye yeah,” I agreed, head hung and croaking like I hailed from Innsmouth. “That about sums it up.”

  #

  The Olympia Theatre was all flaking gold and former glory. Theatrical endeavours are thin on the ground, and most plays focus on the wonderful ascension of our rulers from the sea’s frozen depths. ‘Ent much for hocking in a theatre, all the gold is paint and the gilt is brass, so it was easy enough to break inside.

  In a glorious show of nationalism, patriotism and any other ism you care to lay hands on, the interior was bedecked with the Irish flag. Green for the royal blood of our rulers, white to represent the peace they‘ve brung to our land and gold for this glorious age we live in.

  Éire, land of Saints and Scholars. Pity both are banned.

  Elaine was shivering and shaking under the robe, but all my bones ached individually, so I can’t say I had much sympathy. A grip on her arm, I pulled her across dirty floorboards and over stained threadbare carpet to the back of the theatre, behind the stage. She watched as I fished around the dust and the dirt, finding a thick length of rope hidden in the gloom. Teeth gritted, I grabbed the loop of rope and pulled. Slowly, ponderously, a section of the floor lifted away, revealing an opening into the ground. Cold wind rushed up from the darkness, bringing the sound of running water.