Morrigan

by Jonathan King

  The thing that had been Cora dropped to all fours with a roar and a spurt of poisoned flame, sending Abel and the gods ducking for cover behind the tombstones. Then she shot up into the air, circling the graveyard, ready to attack again.

  “She’s a dragon,” said Abel.

  “You’re surprised?” Morrigan asked.

  “Nothing surprises me anymore,” said Abel. “This monster’s just going to be a little hard to kill, and given what we’ve been fighting, that’s saying something.”

  “Relax,” said Morrigan, strutting out into the open and crouching as the Caorthannach descended toward her. “This is right up my alley.”

  The dragon opened her jaws to snap down on Morrigan, but the goddess leaped into the air and landed lightly on top of her scaly head, hacking and stabbing and balancing like a ballerina as the creature soared away.

  “Be careful,” Abel whispered. He couldn’t lose anyone else today.

  “Look out!” Brigid called. Abel turned to see the Dullahan coming straight for him. He fumbled for his necklace.

  “Hey!” Mac called. The Dullahan paused and turned its body to face him. “Remember me? I drowned you, you choked me, we came out even. It’s time to declare a winner.” He spun Fragarach in his hand.

  The Dullahan charged. Mac slipped off his coat and tossed it to Abel. “Take this, lad! Shake it out. Stay safe.” He raced off, leading the headless horseman away.

  “I don’t want to stay safe,” muttered Abel. “I want to help.”

  “Well, we want you safe,” said Brigid, putting her back to his, torch in hand. “And there’s one more monster here, and I’ve lost sight of her.”

  Abel looked around, but the Dearg-Due was nowhere to be seen. “Guess we better make that even.” He slipped Mac’s coat onto his shoulders and then took it by the lapels and shook tendrils of mist from it until the graveyard was covered in a fog of invisibility.

  Together, boy and goddess crept through the tombstones, the sounds of steel on scale and dragon roars ringing out above them and Mac’s battle cries echoing beyond them. Abel’s heart pounded. Cold fingers of mist stroked his face … and then real fingers brushed his cheek.

  Abel shrieked and jerked away, pointing his sword into empty air. Brigid spun and cranked up her torch until it spit fire like a flamethrower, but the Dearg-Due was already gone.

  “You think I need to see you to kill you?” the vampire’s voice drifted on the mist. “I can hear the blood pounding through your arteries. I can smell its coppery tang. I know right where you are, lover boy, and we have unfinished business, you and I.”

  “Great,” Abel muttered. “Please tell me you know how to kill her, Brigid.”

  “Sorry, dear heart,” said Brigid. “She’s very much undead. We’ve fought her before, but never killed her. Best we’ve been able to do is stick her back in her grave for a few hundred years.”

  Abel sighed. “Not much point in fighting her, then.”

  “I don’t know. Staying alive is always nice.”

  “Maybe she can be reasoned with.” Abel cleared his throat. “Look, Dearg-Due … or is there another name you’d prefer?” Silence was his answer, so he went on. “You don’t have to do this. Just because Cora tells you to kill me—”

  “Oh, baby,” the Dearg-Due interrupted, “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t want to. Sucking you dry turns me on. Winning favor with an ancient and powerful demon lady is icing on the blood.”

  Abel opened his mouth, but two strong and slender arms wrapped around him from behind. Shamgar fell from his hands as he was dragged away into the mists and dark of night. Brigid shot a jet of flame after them, but the Dearg-Due dropped and rolled away, putting out the flames that lapped at the back of her dress.

  “Abel!” Brigid called, but the fog of invisibility had already obscured him from sight.

  “Don’t cry out for help,” the Dearg-Due whispered in Abel’s ear, pulling him further away. “This is going to be painful enough without me snapping your bones.”

  Abel scrambled for something, anything, that she would care about, as she nuzzled his neck, scraping the tips of her fangs along his skin. She started humming her song, and a thought sprang to Abel’s mind.

  “What about your lover?” he asked. “The one things ended badly with. What would he think of what you’re doing now?”

  The vampire stilled against his neck.

  “He was a good man, wasn’t he?” Abel pressed. “He wouldn’t want you killing the innocent, would he?”

  The Dearg-Due finally spoke, a growl that made his skin tremble. “If he cared so much, he should have been there when I needed him. He should have come for me, rescued me from that tower, from my husband who bled me night after night just to see the red on my skin, the sick bastard. I never should have had to escape myself, the only way I knew how.” She sucked in air hard and heavy. “If he ever loved me, he wouldn’t have let me suffer like that.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know,” Abel suggested.

  “He knew,” the Dearg-Due snarled, hurling him away. “Everyone knew. But my husband was rich and powerful, so they kept to their village and left the tower alone. The world left me to my fate, and so it deserves to lose everything I take from it and then some.”

  The thought made Abel’s stomach writhe, but he had to admit, now that he knew where she was coming from, he could almost understand her bloodlust. And he didn’t want her dead quite as much as he had before. But he really didn’t want to be dead again, either.

  He crawled away—and his palms slipped on the edge of the open grave, leaving him dangling six feet above the fingerless corpse. He scampered back, choking on the foul smell of rot, and turned to find himself face to face with the Dearg-Due, crawling after him on all fours like a jungle cat on the hunt.

  “Okay, he didn’t save you,” said Abel, covering his neck with his hand. “But I bet he wanted to. It must have killed him not to be able to help you. That song of yours, I bet he sang that over your grave every night. He hated that he was too late to save you.”

  “You didn’t know him,” said the Dearg-Due, but her eyes reflected moonlight in tears. Her fingers shook as they tried to pry his away from his throat.

  “I don’t have to,” said Abel. “I know what it feels like to be in love.”

  A flash of yellow caught his eye, and he spotted Brigid in her bright blouse sneaking up behind the Dearg-Due. Dirt crumbled behind him, and he remembered what Brigid had said about sticking the vampire back in her grave.

  This wasn’t her grave, but it would do.

  He took a deep breath. This was dangerous, and it might get him killed, and it would certainly hurt the Dearg-Due. But it was the only way out of this.

  “And if he saw you now, turned into this blood-sucking monster, he’d be sickened. He’d see you twisted and wicked and foul and wonder why he ever loved you.”

  “Shut up,” the Dearg-Due growled.

  “He’d know at last that not saving you from that tower was saving himself from the fate of being tied to you for the rest of his miserable life,” Abel finished.

  “I said shut up!” The Dearg-Due lunged at him. Abel shifted back, planting his knees in her stomach and rolling backwards. Too far—there wasn’t enough solid ground beneath him. They both tumbled into space. Abel flailed, grabbing for a handhold…

  Brigid’s hand grabbed his, pulled him up and out. The Dearg-Due tried to follow, but Brigid blasted her full in the face with her torch. The vampire shrieked, batting at the flames that consumed her face and hair.

  “This won’t hold her long!” Brigid shouted. “The grave liner!”

  Abel saw the heavy concrete slab sitting at an angle on the mound of cemetery dirt. He ran to its side, braced himself, and pushed against it with his feet. It was too heavy to lift, but on its bed of loose dirt, it slowly began to slide out over the edge. The Dearg-Due grabbed at it, tried to push it back, but gravity worked against her. The grave liner toppled over the edge
, pinning her underneath.

  Brigid let up her barrage of flame. “That’ll do it! Get her covered up quick. I need to go help Mac.” She raced off toward the sound of Mac’s battle cries, growing ever more frustrated in the distance.

  Abel grabbed a shovel and started piling dirt into the grave. It writhed as wriggling limbs struggled to free themselves, but with each shovelful of earth tipped over the side, the wriggling grew less and less, until the whole grave was filled and Abel stood sweaty and dirty on the side.

  It seemed wrong, somehow, the way he’d tricked her, torn her down. But she was a monster. She’d been trying to kill him. This was no different from stealing that car to escape from Cora, right?

  There was no time to pursue the question. The gods were still fighting, and he wasn’t about to leave them hanging. He found his sword and opened Mac’s coat wide, hoping that … yes, the mists were going back into the coat, leaving the graveyard clear again.

  He could see Morrigan and Cora in the skies above him, barrel rolling across the dark expanse. On a hill not far distant, Mac and Brigid were trying to hold back the Dullahan. Not fight him—it wasn’t interested in either of them, or, it seemed, in Abel—they were trying to hold him back from going somewhere. Abel followed the Dullahan’s line of sight, or where he imagined its line of sight would be if its eyes were in their proper place and not in a box.

  And there was that very box, sitting in the roots of a bare oak tree.

  He ran to the box and snatched it up. It was surprisingly heavy, even for a box made of such thick wood; it felt like it held a bowling ball. And it seemed to be breathing.

  Everything in Abel wanted to throw it away, but he kept it close. Mac and Brigid were fighting the Dullahan with a wall of fire and heavy rain from a single dark cloud, but it was still pushing its way free. It wanted its head, which meant Abel had to keep the box far away from it.

  He took off, sheltering behind a crypt. I really hope this thing doesn’t have a way of sensing where his head is, or I’m in trouble.

  Something heavy hit the ground beside him, and Abel swung his sword blindly with a shriek.

  Morrigan knocked it aside with her own blade. “Watch it, will you?”

  “Sorry,” said Abel. “I thought you were something else. Are you okay?”

  “You didn’t hurt me any, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Morrigan peered up at the sky. “But Cora’s tough. None of my attacks are causing her any real damage. I need to try something different.” Her eyes fell to the box in Abel’s hands, and they widened. “You’ve got the Dullahan’s head?”

  “Yep. He seems to want it.”

  “No wonder,” said Morrigan. “If that thing gets a chance to open its mouth and say one of our names, we’re dead, just like at the church.”

  “But Cora killed me, not the Dullahan,” said Abel.

  “That thing marks you for death,” said Morrigan. “It’s even more certain than one of my dream visions. So you make sure it stays in there, or else—”

  There was a rush of wind, and massive green jaws snatched Morrigan back up into the air. Abel threw himself to the ground as the Caorthannach’s bulk passed overhead and back into the sky. For a moment, dragon and prey were silhouetted against the orange moon. Then Cora threw back her head, mouth open wide, and Morrigan sailed upward, floated for a second, and dropped back into the gaping, hungry chasm below.

  “No!” Abel screamed, but she was gone.

  Or was she? Cora stayed in the air, twisting and screeching as though Morrigan had given her indigestion. Maybe she has. Cora swallowed her whole, sword and all. If she’s still fighting in there…

  She’ll need help.

  Abel looked down at his sword and the Dullahan’s box. Nothing there that could defeat a dragon, and he certainly didn’t have the skills to do it without some really powerful weapon.

  He closed his eyes. Hey, God. It’s me, Abel. I could really use one of those miracles right about now.

  The Dullahan’s box rattled. Abel opened his eyes and stared at it … and smiled.

  That was quick. Thanks, God. Abel out.

  He started to unlatch the box, but stopped. Once it was out, it was way more likely to say his name than the one he wanted. He could threaten it with the necklace, but that was a gamble he wasn’t ready to take, not so soon after coming back from the dead. There had to be a way to make it say exactly and only what he wanted it to say.

  Abel glanced back at where the gods were fighting the Dullahan’s body. They’d given up on their elemental attacks; now they each had an arm and were anchoring it back as best they could, but the Dullahan was dragging itself forward. Brigid’s torch lay to the side, bent and twisted, and Mac’s sword stuck out of the ground behind them.

  Fragarach.

  In an instant, Abel had a plan. And it was only once he started running directly for the Dullahan with the box in tow that he realized the first part of that plan was a suicide run.

  The necklace. He tossed Shamgar aside, grabbed the cross from around his neck, and lobbed it into the air like a basketball. It went down the Dullahan’s collar, right into the hole where his throat should have been. The box let out a shriek as the Dullahan staggered free of the gods and clawed at its shoulders, but it was too late for the creature. Yellow smoke drifted up from its neck-hole in acrid puffs. Abel slammed his shoulder into the Dullahan’s chest, and it dropped to the ground, withering away to dust beneath its leather sheath.

  “He shoots, he scores,” Abel muttered.

  He grabbed Fragarach, unlatched the box, and threw back the lid. The head inside shook from side to side as though it were having a seizure. Its skin sloughed off in moldy strips. Soon it would be nothing but dust, just like its body. Only seconds for this to work.

  Abel pointed the sword at the head, heard it buzzing in his brain, felt the energy of truth tingling against his fingertips. “Who told you to kill me?”

  The thing clamped its mouth shut in one last act of defiance.

  “It’s no use,” said Mac, leaning over the box. “This is Fragarach, the Answerer, and no one beneath its blade can speak a lie or fail to speak. Not even you.”

  The decaying lips trembled, giving off small clouds of yellow silt. The cheeks bellowed in and out, coming apart along sinewy seams. The eyes bulged with the effort of keeping silent. But at last, the mouth snapped wide, and a name echoed out on the dying wind of the Dullahan’s last breath.

  “Caorthannach!” it screeched, and collapsed into a formless pile of foul-smelling ash.

  Above them, an ear-splitting scream split the night. Abel looked up to see the dragon that had been Cora arched backwards in the air, wings splayed out, head thrown back, as a silver flash and a crimson fall spewed forth from her stomach. The gods took shelter, but Abel, too stunned to move, got splattered in dragon blood.

  “Ugh, not again,” he groaned, slinging the hot, foul fluid off as best he could, and wiped his eyes clear.

  And that’s when he saw the dragon falling straight for him.

  Abel dropped Fragarach and dove sideways as the Caorthannach plummeted to earth. The ground shook. Gravestones cracked beneath her bulk. Dust rose, and when it cleared, the dragon was gone. In her place were two figures.

  One was something between human and dragon, naked and contorted, with green wrinkled skin, long clawed fingers that clutched at her gaping stomach, and red eyes that darted about, asking for mercy. That must be Cora, Abel thought. Is that what she really looks like?

  But he didn’t have time to wonder. The other figure stood up, and even covered in blood and bile, she was all too familiar.

  “Morrigan!” Abel ran to her and threw his arms around her. “I thought I’d lost you this time.”

  “Nah,” said Morrigan. “Just taking the battle to a different front.”

  “Glad to see you alive, dear heart,” said Brigid, hugging them both despite the blood that rubbed off on her overalls.

  Mac joined in the group h
ug, crushing them all in his arms. “They’re all dead or gone, lass. You’re safe.”

  Morrigan pulled away. “Not quite.” She picked up her sword and turned to the Cora creature, or the Caorthannach, or whatever it was.

  Cora looked up at her, burning eyes round. She opened her mouth, and blood dripped from her lips. “I … love … you…” she choked out.

  Morrigan’s body turned rigid, her breathing fast. Her eyes burned with a green fire that Abel had never seen before. With a scream of pure rage, Morrigan drove the blade of her sword through Cora’s face. Again. And again. And again and again and again, until the skull beneath was in shards and the features were pulp. And still she stabbed and stabbed and hacked and screamed until her energy was spent, until her voice ran raw and the sword dropped from her hands and she fell to her knees.

  Abel felt cold. That kind of rage, of pure hatred … seeing it come from someone he loved, it scared him more than all the dragons and vampires and headless horsemen in the world. Even the gods looked disturbed. This wasn’t battle. It wasn’t even execution. It was the worst kind of retribution.

  When silence and stillness fell at last, Abel took a tentative step forward and put a hand on Morrigan’s shoulder. She looked up at him, and the fire was gone, extinguished by tears.

  “It’s over,” she croaked. She shook beneath his hand. “It’s finally over.”

  Abel wrapped her in his arms and held her close as the tightness faded from her muscles, as the struggle of two hundred years finally ended and she could relax once more, and she wept from exhaustion and joy and a million other emotions he couldn’t identify and she likely couldn’t either. And he cried too, cried for the girl she could have been if Cora had never entered her life, for new beginnings, for the second chance his father never got to live out.

  Morrigan’s sobs turned to laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Abel asked.

  “Why is it always this way?” Morrigan said. “You and me, covered in blood.”

  Abel chuckled. “That’s the kind of dates we go on, I guess.”

  They helped each other up, and Morrigan took his hand. “Come on. I’ve got something I want to show you. We’ll be right back,” she added to Mac and Brigid.