He awoke shivering on the floor of the tent, sweat-soaked and lost, his gut coiled from a cold that’d chilled through every aching part of him. For an absent moment he’d stared spellbound at the light bulb swaying from the ceiling, unsure if this were life or death, and even more uncertain as to which he’d rather if given the choice. His memory retained no more than snippets of indecipherable noise. A blinding flare of pain had sent him toppling from his chair; Sean remembered that much. He’d held the seams of his skull together as that ungodly scream sought to tear them apart, and then the walls of the tent darkened around him.
He rolled onto his side and squinted to the tent’s door trailing in the wind. Young as he was, he was too old in spirit to change his ways now. He needed to know what was responsible, regardless of whatever accursed caveats such knowledge concealed. Sean pushed himself up onto his feet and lurched toward the starlight, willed on by that same obsessive curiosity that was the cause of all this carnage.
The site’s perimeter of light – once so sweeping – had faltered, leaving the darkness to invite itself where it wasn’t welcome. Few halogens remained, but they were sufficient to illume the edges of the colossal crater now hollowed into the surface. The chamber’s ceiling had collapsed within, swallowing Ian’s winch into the darkness. But the greatest oddity of all – and that which Sean struggled to weave some explanation around – were the great shards of rubble strewn around the cavity, as though some force had blasted them into the air.
He felt as though he were adrift in some horrible nightmare; one that his awakening consciousness was beginning to doubt. The stones he’d come to know so well had changed since last he’d tread upon them; the floodlit battlefield of his research had been brutalised. Sean raged against the wind, clambering over the fallen rocks for a better vantage point. Now more than ever, alone beneath the stars, the Burren resembled some desolate planet too hostile to ever support life. Atop a boulder, near the pit’s edge, he shone his torchlight into the depths of the cavern, expecting to find some remains of the many tools and bodies he’d abandoned there. But it was empty. Pools of blood splashed the grey stone black, but the dead were missing. Even Caitriona’s pink jacket was nowhere to be seen.
The horror he’d encountered in the catacombs couldn’t have possibly wreaked such havoc. But there’d been no explosives on site, no means to shatter that ancient shell of stone. Unless there’d been something else down there – something worse. But the seal hadn’t been opened, had it? Someone would have told him if—
‘You left me,’ said a voice that almost startled Sean over the ledge.
His emotions liquesced into a pool, mixing both his fear and felicity into a colour beyond the spectrum of his comprehension. ‘Ash,’ he said, fingers held to his mouth, ‘I thought… How did you…’
A childish laugh blurted through his lips when he saw her trembling amidst the rubble. Ash’s clothes were tattered and torn across their every stitch. Though the gilet remained, the sleeves had been ripped from her sweater, leaving frayed threads streaming by her elbows. Her feet were bare, and her pants had been cut at the thigh, leaving her slender legs exposed to the biting gale that howled around them like a choir of phantoms.
‘You left me,’ she repeated, her glazed eyes staring right through him. ‘You left all of us.’
Sean was stunned speechless at the sight of her – tarred in a blend of blood and filth – but she was alive, and that’s all he cared about as he threw his arms around her.
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he whispered.
Ash didn’t respond. The horrors she’d been through clearly still held their spell over her.
‘What happened down there?’ he asked, taking a step back to examine the woman more closely.
Despite the blood that painted her skin – there were no visible wounds that he could see. Even Sean hadn’t escaped without his own share of cuts and bruises. He couldn’t understand how she’d lost so much of her clothing without suffering a scratch. But she was the cleverest woman he’d ever met. Of course she had found a way. Maybe she’d crawled into a narrow space to avoid detection or used strips of fabric to lead that creature off her scent. Whatever the answer, it would have to wait.
‘Come on,’ he whispered, guiding her toward the tent, ‘let’s get you out of the cold.’
All had not been lost. The only person whose death he’d truly grieved that day had somehow survived their mystifying ordeal. He led her inside to where the wind screamed softer, and raised his hand to caress the woman’s cheek, just as he’d always dreamt of doing. But she didn’t react. It was as though she hadn’t felt his touch at all.
‘Ash, it’s okay. You’re still in shock.’
How much could she have possibly known? All those who’d been privy to Sean’s betrayal were gone. There could still be a future for them, together, in spite of everything.
He clicked his fingers to call her back to him. ‘Ash, can you hear me?’
Still nothing.
Frustrated now, Sean clapped his hands in front of her face
‘Come on, Ash, come back to me.’
The woman finally snapped out of her daze and looked to him. Sean faltered back, collapsing to the floor at the sight of her eyes. They glowed an unearthly amber – two orbs of fire laced with wisps of gold.
‘Ash, what’s happened to you? Your eyes?’
A seductive smile spread across her lips as she considered his words.
‘They were blue, weren’t they?’ she whispered.
Ash closed her eyes and stole a long breath of air, taking her time as though the clocks themselves had frozen from the wildering horror of that moment. And when she opened them again, they’d returned to that same creamy blue that Sean had fawned over since the day they’d met.
‘Is that better?’ She laughed mischievously.
‘You’re not Ash,’ he said, too fearful to speak above a whisper.
She strode towards him, so close that he quickly drew his feet away from her. ‘Of course I am, Sean. You know me. You love me. You’ve always loved me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you thrill whenever we touch. You want to fuck me, don’t you?’
‘No,’ he shrieked, ‘you’re not Ash. You’re the thing that killed her!’
‘Oh,’ she said with a sigh, ‘you Kilmartin boys and your theories.’
Sean was stupefied by how she’d spoken – so flippant, so indifferent to his distress. It was as though she were revelling in the terror that had taken the legs from under him.
‘I mean, I can understand your reasoning, don’t get me wrong,’ she continued, unable to contain her smile. ‘We’re certainly no strangers to surviving underground. But being trapped in there amidst all that stone with nothing to feed on wouldn’t do wonders for one’s immortality, Sean. No, I regret to say that those who’d stormed this keep and slaughtered your kind were dead long before we ever made your astonishing discovery.’
But if that lightless kingdom housed no more than dust and bone, then what foul creature had Sean stared down in its darkness? He replayed those last moments, hastily rearranging the haphazard memories in his mind. Ash had run ahead of him. He’d heard the hollow echo of her footsteps fade into the distance. But she hadn’t called for help. She hadn’t made a sound.
‘They were your eyes that I saw in the torchlight,’ Sean said.
Ash giggled. ‘Look at you, finally answering questions without my help. This is a first, isn’t it? You looked right at me, Sean, and then you went and ran into the wall, didn’t you?’
She was one of them – one of those who’d driven his father to the edge of madness: a changeling secreted in human society. But the masquerade was so much more than just a mask. Ash was the most perfect, most beautiful woman that Sean had ever met, and yet it had all been a performance – a cruel and calculated deception.
‘But how?’ he said. ‘You’re so…’
‘Human?’ she replied, grinning down at her hands and feet. ‘I am good, aren’t I? You forget though, I’ve been doing this for a very long time, Sean, and the truth is that I do strangely enjoy it. Manipulating the human race has always been something of a hobby of mine. I can play any role. I can be anyone. And for you, darling, I’ve been Aisling.’
She drifted breezily over to the desk and reached for Caitriona’s notepad. Sean heard her chuckling under her breath as she flipped through its pages.
‘This one was actually pretty sharp, wasn’t she?’ Ash said, keeping her back turned to him. ‘I didn’t expect any of them to translate this much, nor with such accuracy.’
‘What you told me earlier,’ he said, forcing the words through his throat, ‘I know you didn’t read it off the walls.’
‘Still asking questions, even now?’
‘Just tell me,’ he whimpered, desperate to die clutching the knowledge that his father had never held. ‘Was any of it true? How did you know that they’d been betrayed? Please, I need to know.’
Ash turned to stare at him with those bewitching blue eyes. ‘Because I was there. I watched my people descend into the darkness. I watched the deceivers seal them down there. And I watched them celebrate their betrayal, Sean, as if they’d won a war. But I, like many others, knew better than to trust them. We didn’t change like the rest. We didn’t forget what it was to feel the sun on our skin.’
‘You were there,’ he whispered.
It was true. The ending was just as he’d imagined it. And she had witnessed it all.
‘Is that what you wanted?’ Ash scoffed. ‘You’re so much like your father. Do you know that? A cheap copy of a more interesting man. And to think it was my kind who were chastised for stealing the likenesses of others.’
‘You knew my father?’
‘We spoke a few times, yes,’ Ash replied, seemingly enjoying herself. ‘His charms were leagues above your own, of course. Well, until the end anyway. I always found his lectures to be genuinely enjoyable, if perhaps a tad inaccurate when it came down to the finer points. We watched him very closely, Sean. If a man of his resolve couldn’t convince the world that we were real, then what hope had anybody else?’
The old man was right. The changelings had been watching him all along.
‘But why did you bring so many here? Why all this?’ he asked, casting his bleary eyes around the tent and its many technologies.
‘Why?’ Ash echoed, arching her back with an audible crack. ‘With man’s inventions you’ve uncovered the one place that your ancestors tried so hard to hide from us. I couldn’t risk losing her again after having come so close. And she has grown weak over the centuries, let’s not forget that – waiting in the darkness to be found, too resilient and far too vengeful to die so long as your kind lives. Powerful as she is, Sean, she still has to feed, just like you or I, and she has been hungry for a long, long time. She needs flesh and blood to recoup her strength. And all those able young bodies that so kindly volunteered for this little dig of yours have already been thrown into her tomb and devoured.’
Sean was sickened by the thought of it. This vile thing that had infested his mind – whose phantom voice had spurred him on like a slave to discover the seal – was no more than something monstrous to be fed dead meat.
Ash rested her back against the desk, crossing her legs and flexing her toes as though she were still teasing Sean’s heart.
‘It was quite clever really,’ she remarked, ‘the way they trapped her down there. The spears were an especially nice touch – I’ll give them that. I suppose, should she have ever escaped, they would have prevented her from changing into anything too horrific without impaling herself.’
‘I don’t…’ Sean stammered, ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
The questions would never let him rest.
‘The banishment, as you seem to enjoy calling it,’ Ash replied, casually wiping the dried blood from her arm, ‘would never have worked had they not first removed her from the equation. Not only could she have seen through their lies, Sean, but she would have inspired my kind to retaliate. Your ancestors’ little coup would have died in the same second it had been born. That’s why they lured her down there. That’s why they stood guard over her for so long, living their days and nights by firelight, sacrificing everything to keep her contained. And when eventually her prison was discovered, they were wise enough to bury it before others came. But all they did was buy themselves some time. I would never have stopped searching for her.’
‘Who is she?’
Ash grinned excitedly, as though she’d been waiting for this moment to come. ‘You know who she is, Sean. She is your favourite after all.’
He looked to her expectant eyes. ‘She’s real?’
Ash held that wicked smile as she nodded.
‘The Morrigan,’ Sean whispered, weakened by the very sound of her name.
‘My queen,’ Ash said, straightening her shoulders. ‘And soon to be yours.’
‘But where is she now?’
Ash’s eyes lifted suggestively to the tent’s ceiling. ‘Free,’ she replied. ‘She’s coursing across the night’s sky as we speak, drawing her armies from the earth. All those who were once imprisoned will rise again. The woodlands will shake from their screams. And any who have hidden amongst your people will heed her call. Even those who’ve forgotten their ancient roots won’t be able to resist. They’ll kill anyone they can get their claws into, Sean. And just think, none of this could have been possible without you.’
‘My God,’ he said, holding his head in his hands. ‘What have I done?’
‘You did what your father failed to do. You’ve finally proven to the world that we’re real. And how does that feel – as satisfying as you had hoped? Is it everything you’d dreamt it would be?’
That familiar music of Ash’s laughter filled the tent as he ruminated over the ruins of his actions. The horrors had been forgotten. They’d been hidden deep in the past where no one would ever find them. And now, because of Sean, they were free.
‘One question,’ Ash said, picking at her nails now. ‘Ian? Did he fall or did you…’
It was no different than a cat toying with a mouse pinned down by its tail.
She smirked down at him, waiting for him to close the sentence. Sean held his gaze on her bloodied feet as he nodded his head, too defeated now to utter a word.
‘I knew you had it in you,’ she said, the tone of her voice darkening.
‘What are you going to do to me?’ he cried, blinking the tears from his eyes. ‘Are you going to kill me? If that’s what you want, then just get it over with.’
Gone was that perfect smile and the humour that had flayed the last shreds from his soul, the woman finally resembled the devious creature that she truly was.
‘I never understood the appeal of your people, Sean,’ Ash replied, tilting her head as she studied him, heartbroken on the floor. ‘I was one of those who didn’t support the idea of coexistence – that harmony you spoke of. Why would a race as proud and powerful as mine ever choose to live alongside humanity’s filth? If I’d had my way, we would have kept you all as pets.’
She knelt in front of him, waiting for their eyes to meet.
‘And that’s what I’m going to do with you now. You’ve been enslaved to my kind since the day you were born, Sean. I’m just making it official.’