Crimson Secrets

by Garnet Davenport

  The Morrígan finally nodded to her hunters, and they came toward her and Declan. They bent down and picked Declan up from the ground by his arms and held him securely.

  “Declan will be taken back to his property after you turn yourself over,” she said.

  I nodded my head yes. “Fine. Where’s Duncan?” I asked with a firm voice that I hadn’t used before.

  “Your Duncan is by the river being held. If there are any problems my hunters have been ordered to decapitate him on the mac tire stone.” I was only confused for a moment and then realized that the stone she was talking about was the same stone that I tripped on when I talked to Duncan that first day in the woods.

  “There won’t be any problems.”

  She nodded. “Start walking.”

  I couldn’t until I knew Declan was in a better situation. “Take the chains off Declan,” I called out. She made a motion with her hand and the hunters took the rope from his neck.

  “When you walk to me, he will be released.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  She stood about a hundred feet away. I took a deep breath and then picked up my right foot for my first step. I stepped slowly as I heard the hunters move with me as I walked closer, the snow squeaked beneath my brownish-gray converses. It was probably the longest distance I had to travel knowing where I would end.

  Declan looked at me. “Shay, don’t do this.” He shook his head at me as they jerked him around for the comment.

  “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I made a deal for you and for Duncan to find love and live your life, no matter what happens here tonight.”

  He stood there shaking his head while I walked closer. I watched her as the hunters removed the silver cuffs and the chain coming from him. I stood within just ten feet of them. “Let him go.”

  She motioned as the hunters came around to me. One stood on either side. “We will need to tie your hands, and then I will release him.” I dropped my hands to my sides then moved them behind my back. One hunter came and grabbed my hands pulling them together to tie. He was rough with me. My body jerked some as he tied the rope tight. I saw the look on Declan’s face, he was angry and sad, but I can’t let him feel how I am feeling. The hunters had me by the arms as we took just the few steps closer to the Morrígan.

  They stood me in front of her so we would be face to face. “I always get what I want.” She smiled at me.

  “I want to speak to Declan.”

  She looked over at him. “Speak then.”

  I turned to him. “Don’t.” I didn’t want to let him speak first. He cocked his head a bit and made a sad face at me. “I want you to know I could have seen us growing old together.” I sniffed from the cold and because these were hard words to deliver, I smiled at him. My heart started beating just a bit faster.

  “Shay.”

  I shook my head at him. “No.” I paused, taking in air and looking at the sky. “The stars look powerful tonight.”

  He gave me an odd look. “Shay.”

  I shook my head as my heart beat even faster. “You need to get to your brother. I don’t want either of you to worry about me. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. “Shay, I love you.” He took that small step toward me to close the space and kissed me. My heart hummed, it was beating so fast. It was that moment that nothing bad could touch us. I made sure that I passed the abilities from me that he would need to save Duncan. The hunters pulled us away from each other as we opened eyes, his were a red tint and my vision was an icy blue. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then his arms came around his back in a fiery blaze as he struck one of the hunters in the neck. Everyone’s attention was on him. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, burning the rope that tied my hands.

  Declan slayed two more hunters before they realized that I was free.

  I shouted to Declan. “Save Duncan!” He looked at me with concern. “Now!” I demanded. He ran as quickly as he could away from me as I lifted my fiery hands into the air, trying to break free from the hunters that gripped my arms. I felt bullet after bullet hit into my burning flesh. I did not waver from my intention, my vision started to change to an orange-red as I felt more pain ripping from the wounds. The bullets were dislodging from the cavities they had created as the wounds healed just as quickly as they had been made. I turned for a second and saw Declan making his way toward the river and then looked back to me his eyes glowed red as he turned and ran to Duncan.

  “Stop her!” the Morrígan demanded loudly. Her composure was changing as I fought my way through the hunters that held me. Looking around at the dark figures advancing toward me in the snow, I tried to count how many hunters there were, but it started to snow harder as they grabbed at me to pull me to the ground.

  I would not let them hold tight enough to make me fall, I knew if I became my mac tire, I would die. I wasn’t as strong or nimble as a mac tire as I was a human. My mac tire was freedom from my life. I could run and live in happiness and no one would force me to give them my freedom. I was stronger than they wanted me to be.

  As the hunters took blades to my sides, I screamed out in pain. I closed my eyes and felt the full extent of the pain they were inflicting. I opened my eyes to everything in my sight red. I could see the Morrígan had turned and started walking away from her hunters. I couldn’t understand why.

  The wounds closed rapidly as my heart beat hard and fast. I was enraged as my fist engulfed with fire. I turned and swung at one of the hunters, creating a flame extending from my fist as I hit his ribcage, hearing a crack and knocking him backward to the frozen ground covered in fresh snow. When he hit the ground with his force the white snow ascended into the air. He moved his hand to his side and did not move once the snow fell to his black hunter’s uniform.

  I turned when another hunter put his hands on me forcing him back with that same voltage of energy with both of my hands. He lifted from his footing and flew into another hunter as he approached. I was angrier that the Morrígan was nowhere to be seen, I was worried about Duncan and if Declan made it to him in time.

  While I was distracted I was hit with an arrow just below my collarbone. I heard a howl from the woods. I had to move. I grabbed the arrow and pulled it from my skin. I looked at the edge of the forest and ran toward the river trying to leave the hunters behind me. I ran quickly with my body creating a fiery trail behind me. I kept running, even with the hunters following behind shooting their arrows. I dodged and weaved through the familiar trees. I knew exactly where I was. I had the advantage as I knew that the vastest part of the river was coming up and only a mac tire could make it across. With the snow still falling they would hopefully have no idea until it was too late. I sped up knowing I was just steps away from the edge as the hunters continued to get close.

  I could just barely hear the water moving as I made my way closer to the edge, trying to force my body just a bit further and seeing the hunters on the other side, and seeing Duncan tied to the ground with his neck centered on the stone. Declan was fighting for his brother’s life as I could see the red fade from his eyes turning them back to his icy blue.

  I was at the edge about to take my leap when I heard musical notes coming from behind me. It instantly stopped me and pulled me to the ground as my head hit the snow and I watched the hunters walk closer to me as I lay there, my arms and hands curled up to my chest and I could feel all the wounds on my body filling with unbearable pain. I could not move, not even to blink; my vision turned to a gray scale as the music continued.

  I heard the fighting continue on the other side of the river as the water became more rapid until I could no longer hear anything but the silence from the music. A dark figure appeared in the distance, walking closer, carrying some kind of instrument and playing it as he came closer. The snow was lighter now and I could see further away as this dark figure became more visible. I could see a small medieval harp in his hands as he played. As he stepped forward a steam came from his body, as i
f he contained so much heat that the cold air had to show his sinister movements coming toward me.

  The tune sounded like a lullaby that I once heard. He continued playing as the hunters closed in; I could see one of the hunters was talking, but I could not hear anything but the lullaby as I lay motionless. That hunter came close, clasping the metal cuffs and chain around my wrists; it closed with a sharp clink as the lullaby stopped, returning my hearing as it started to come back to muffled sounds of the hunters speaking then pointing at the other side of the river. I had no abilities with this thing around my wrists.

  The man that played the music walked closer. His body draped in robes of dark cloth and wolf furs. He placed the harp on a strap that hung from his body and came closer tilting his head in different directions with each step leaning downward toward me as he stepped. His black hair was pulled away from his face. There was a streak of silver that started on the right side of his head, and it looked like it was braided into the rest of his black hair with leather rope, his beard was dark and thick with silver streaks that extended from the edges of his mouth to his neck, his eyes were almost black, as pitch black as darkest night, with dark red stripes painted across them and then one at an angle starting at his temple then crossing his nose and continuing through his cheek entwined in his beard.

  His appearance scared me as he came closer, not speaking a word. He was just inches away from my face as I lay on the ground. I could see three scars under the red that was painted across his aged face. He looked into my eyes and stood up straight. I could see him as he opened his mouth and spit at me. His spit flew toward me landing in front of my face as I closed my eyes and flinched. Before I reopened my eyes, I heard a gruff voice with an Irish accent speak as he walked away to his hunters. “This filthy creature believes that it can have victory!” I opened my eyes to the hunters around him laughing and spitting at the ground after he spoke.

  I lay in the snow taking in small breaths while resting, since I had no way out of this prison.

  “From the beginning of time we have vowed to take no honor from our victory,” he said. He moved one of his robes made of wolfs skin and grabbed the grip of a sword dressed in a silver Celtic knot with jagged points at each end. “Victory is in the extinction of these filthy creatures.”

  He drew the sword from its sheath. Each of the hunters raised a fist in the air and cried out in excitement, moving their fists up and down. “Bás leo go léir!”

  As I heard the words they came to me—death to them all. I was terrified for the mac tire breed.

  This ominous man raised his sword again. “Bás leo go léir!” He turned to the river and cried out, “I take no solace in the massacre of your queenship.”

  I couldn’t even turn my head to see them for the last time. I could feel my heart hurting with the sorrow that they had for me. I had done my duty. Declan and Duncan were in fact free of the hunters. I needed them to run. I just kept thinking it over and over—run, please run. There was panic and pleading going through my mind. I had to get them to walk away from me.

  I looked at this man with a scowl, I didn’t even know who he was, this dirty huntsman that had captured me with a magical lullaby. He came back over to me and my heart jumped as I could feel what Declan and Duncan both felt standing just across the river that separated us. He bent down grabbing me by the jacket and lifting me up with one arm high into the air to bring me face to face with him.

  It was silent. He moved his jaw around and then his tongue inside his mouth making a disgusting sound before he opened it to speak. “Look at the fear in this filthy creature.” He looked into my eyes and smiled. “You do not even know what you are capable of, and yet you will be used for so much more.” He held his sword in his right hand while he kept me lifted high. He looked at his hunters standing around him with idolizing gaze.

  I opened my mouth to speak. “You are a coward.”

  He whipped his head around to face me. “Know your place, wolf,” he growled. Then he brought me closer to him as my legs dangled in the air, and I had grabbed onto his gigantic hands.

  He growled again. He lifted me up again, this time higher in the air, as I used any energy to break free. He turned to his followers. “Tradition has been set. We will drain her tonight!” He let go of me, and I fell, hitting the ground hard. I lay there giving in to what was happening to me.

  “Take her!” he ordered. They had picked up my feet and dragged me on the cold ground as they walked. I was brought to the other side of the river and dropped where I could see that the Morrígan had reappeared and was giving orders quietly that I couldn’t make out. “Cas, be ready.” When she said that name, I remembered hearing it before.

  I didn’t know what was happening until I saw Sophia brought out to the Morrígan. The Morrígan grabbed her face in her hand to intimidate her and spoke something unclear to me as she held the sword that Cas Corach had held to his followers. Two of her hunters had tied Sophia to a blackened tree that had a crooked branch. She was lifted off the ground just enough for her to dangle. The Morrígan came behind her and used this sword to cut through her clothes until they fell to the ground. I heard Sophia beg for her life as the Morrígan used the sword to cut into her flesh on her back.

  She screamed out in agony, and I closed my eyes so that I didn’t have to watch her last few breaths. My hearing was so sensitive that I could hear her blood drip down her body and land making a splashing sound as it hit below her. I felt doomed that this would be my same fate. There was a quick motion that cut through the rope that hung Sophia up to the tree and then a thud. When I opened my eyes I saw a body lying on the ground, limp and lifeless. I panicked about what I would endure this night. The hunters that had hung her to the tree picked up her body and drug her out of my sight.

  I heard some of the other hunters starting to move around. The Morrígan had killed Sophia Gahlonaghan for her blood and now she wanted mine. There was a gold basin with handles that looked like horns attached by gold wrapped around the tip of the horns that had sat on the mac tire stones below where Sophia had hung. As the Morrígan came closer she looked at the basin with the blood and then to me with a fascinated smile. Her hands were covered in a bright red blood as she held the sword. The smirk on her face was a smirk of victory.

  This dirty huntsman walked to her and leaned in, kissing her. Then he backed up and bowed to her. “My Goddess.”

  She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “Cas, are all the components ready?”

  The Morrígan was dressed in ceremonial looking clothes. She really was quite stunning just as Aodhan O’Dorcha had described. Her skin a porcelain white with faint colored freckles, her eyes were red this time instead of the green he talked about, her hair was as black as night and flowing down her back wild. Although she looked like a true beauty, she was the filthy creature that this huntsman named Cas Corach was talking about. She treated him better than he deserved and gave him the attention that he warranted.

  Cas Corach answered her question as he bowed. “Yes, my Goddess.” He lifted his eyes to hers. She looked so pleased with her hunter.

  A hunter came over to the Morrígan and bowed. “We have a perimeter set. The Callamore boys have retreated.” She nodded. The man I now knew as Cas Corach reached for the sword in the Morrígan’s hands, giving it to a hunter to stand beside him waiting. Then he turned to pick up an urn and poured water over her hands. Some of the blood just washed away. She looked at Cas Corach endearingly. I couldn’t believe that she could put so many men under her powers. He set the urn back down and grabbed a cloth to dry her hands. She never once did anything for herself.

  She then looked over to me laying on the ground in defeat. “Miss Evans, I am so pleased you were able to join us for the ritual.” She smiled and came closer, and as she walked I could hear the crunch of the dead leaves beneath the snow. “It is time for you to join your bloodlines.” She looked down at the basin.

  I let out the air in my lungs as tears f
illed my eyes. She must have killed Emily already and that was the blood that was drained from both of their bodies. I would meet the same end, but I had already known what was to come. That is what she wanted. She wanted me to see exactly what was going to happen to me, to show fear for my own life.

  She stood over me. “You were marked for death the moment you were born.” She knelt down and caressed my cheek with the outside of her fingers then stopped quickly as she stood, lifting a part of her hair up then forming the start of a braid as she spoke again. “Your death will not be in vain, your bloodline is the most powerful of my daughters. I thought that the bloodline was lost for centuries. And then one day out of surprise I was told of twins born to two mac tires. I knew you had to be real.”

  She smiled and turned taking a few steps away then continued. “With your blood I can offer the winter solstice ritual to the Donn.”

  She raised her arms into the sky as the snow began to fall heavy once more. She turned back around. “You will die so others can live. But do not have fear. Your death will in fact come as you will not heal from the sword of Gael Fearg. It has the power of the wind backing the wielder, to cut through even a shield of armor, to pierce the flesh of its victim whom will never recover.” She smiled and walked away disappearing into the darkness of the trees once again.

  Cas Corach laughed and watched his hunters remove the last objects they had brought with them. I was left alone with the huntsman named Cas Corach, awaiting the torture of my death, and I didn’t feel strong enough to face it. I was overcome with sadness and the silence that I listened to as I lay flat on my back and looked up at the stars until I saw nothing but darkness to focus on.

  ➢30 As I Lay Dying

  I felt myself running through the trees dodging the branches as I leapt from step to step. I could see something moving in the distance and it was coming at me fast. I stopped and watched as it approached me. It was a mac tire, and he was elegant as he ran. I already trusted him as he ran toward me. His coat was black as can be, while he had a white patch of color on his chest that started in a point at his neck and widened as it went down between his legs and then narrowed as it closed off in the shape of an arrowhead, his eyes were deep blue. He came closer as I stood waiting for him to meet me. As he walked closer, his stride slowed. I knelt to the ground in the spring grass and sat on my legs as he continued, step by step, toward me. He stopped right in front of me and bowed. Then he lifted his head and looked me straight in the eye. That was the one thing that never changed. The eyes always look the same on some level. His eyes were so familiar, I reached out to him, but before I got to him I stopped and spoke in a whisper. “Tommy.” Everything disappeared in a spinning cloud of smoke as I reached for him. Then I was pulled back to my reality of death.