C.E. Murphy - Raven Calls

Caitríona was screaming her fool head off. Red Cap swung at her again and I snaked an arm out, grabbed her ankle and hauled her off her feet. The scythe zipped through the air where her head had been and she hit the ground with a grunt, her screams cut short. I bellowed, “Rumpelstiltskin! Rumpelstiltskin! Rumpelstiltskin!” into the silence, which only had the effect of making Red Cap and Méabh both gape. I slumped, for all I was on the ground. It had been worth a shot.

The reprieve caused by my shouting didn’t last nearly long enough. Red Cap swung his scythe high and brought it down at me like a pickax. I threw my arm up, which was a stupid, stupid thing to do if I ever wanted to drive a manual clutch again. I almost had time to regret it.

The scythe reverberated off more than just my power. Red Cap hit so hard he wobbled away, and Caitríona screamed again, this time in confusion. Even Méabh took a moment to stare curiously at the small round shield suddenly clamped to my arm.

It was copper embedded with gold and purple. I didn’t have to see to know there were stylized animals etched around the shield’s edge, because the bracelet my father had given me had those animals on it. Nor did I have to see the gold interior quartered by a purple cross to know they were marked with the weight of honor. I had only ever once brought those things together smoothly, and that had been for a dreamscape battle. I’d carried this very shield then, so it was as familiar as it was totally unexpected. I hadn’t called for it the way I’d called for my sword in the past. It had just appeared on its own.

Part of me wondered why it hadn’t done that when I was, oh, say, fighting zombies, but I didn’t have to look very far for the answer. My damned shields were finally instinctive, and more, my power was finally, finally, becoming an integrated whole. I only just now had all those needs and pieces functioning together in the real world. Of course, that flew in the face of being unable to heal the damned werewolf bite, but my burst of enlightenment ended as Red Cap wobbled, snarled and struck at me again.

I had, time and again, tried to use my magic and my sword together as a weapon. Time and again it had backfired. Warrior’s path or no, my healing magic was not meant to do damage. But right now I didn’t have the sword, and I didn’t need the healing power. All I needed was a little change, the tenet of shamanism. The shield’s edges were relatively dull. I willed them to be sharp, and swung the shield up to catch the scythe.

Its metal haft parted like butter under a hot knife. The blade bounced away, nearly skewering Caitríona, and Red Cap paused long enough for a fatal gawk. I crunched up, swung the shield again and opened the nasty little gnome from hip to collarbone.

By all rights, viscera and goo should have spattered from him. Instead, magic poured out of him. Blood red, to be sure, but magic, not blood, as if it was magic and magic alone that sustained him. I flinched under the onslaught until I realized I wasn’t being covered in gunk, and then, as it slowed, had a look at Méabh. Cernunnos bled: I knew that for a fact. I wondered if the aos sí were more like him, or more like Red Cap, creatures made entirely of magic. Nuada had a silver arm, after all. Anything could happen. But then, Lugh had done a pretty good job of bleeding. It was possible I would never fully understand magic. Of course, if it could be fully understood it’d be science, and the things I did were entirely comfortable with ignoring scientific probability.

Méabh studied me like I’d become something new and much more interesting. “It’s wrong I was, Granddaughter. You’re a worthy warrior after all.”

“Oh gosh, thanks.” The shield faded now that the need was gone, but I could feel its weight now, just like I could feel the sword I didn’t exactly carry. I got to my feet, feeling a little grim. “That was not your mother.”

“No. But it was her creature, and any one of us dead here today w—”

“That was a bloody Red Cap!” Caitríona bounced to her feet. “A fear darrig! A leprechaun, for sweet God’s sake! They don’t exist! They don’t—they’re not—they—they—!!”

I made a note to go back and apologize profusely to everybody I’d ever said anything like that to, then, inanely, said, “Leprechaun? I thought they wore green. And gave people pots of gold, not razor-close shaves. And lived at the end of rainbows.” I gave the still-power-enriched earth a nervous glance as I said that last. I’d triggered an end-times sign once because my newborn power had emitted all the colors of the rainbow. For a horrible moment I thought maybe I’d done it again, making a rainbow’s end on top of Croagh Patrick and thus inviting a leprechaun to visit, but the vestiges of power were the silver-blue they were supposed to be.

“Bloody tourist boards,” Caitríona muttered. “Turning the Red Caps green and giving them fairy powers. A real Red Cap is—” She gestured at the body, which, released of the magic that had sustained it, was now shriveling into dust. Magic-born things seemed to do that. “But they’re not supposed to be real! Will someone please tell me what is going on!”

Méabh and I exchanged glances, and I shrugged. Caitríona’d asked. I figured she deserved the answer. “This is Méabh, warrior queen of Ireland, daughter of Nuada of the Silver Hand and the Morrígan, who spent a few generations murdering the aos sí high kings to gain power for her master, who I refuse to accept is the Devil Himself. Seriously, I don’t think he is,” I said to Caitríona’s widening eyes, “but he’s absolutely a death power in this world, maybe the death power. My mother, your aunt, spent her whole life fighting against him, and I managed to screw it up not once but twice, and the price for that is she saved me but ended up in thrall to the Master as one of his murderous, blighted banshees. We have…” I turned my wrist up, found the bandages and bracelet there instead of a watch, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t need the exact time anyway. “Until sunset to burn her bones, find her captured spirit and free her before she becomes the Master’s forever. I also probably have just about that much time to find my friend Gary, who went off to fight a major battle with the Morrígan and the Master several thousand years ago, and if I don’t find him I’m going back to the beginning of time and rewriting this whole goddamned world’s history, which I can do because I’m a shaman, which means I have healing powers and also that I kick ass.” I turned to Méabh. “Did I miss anything?”

She nodded at the bandages I’d just re-noticed and I lifted my arm. “Oh yeah, right, yeah. All that and I’m turning into a werewolf. The end.”

Caitríona fainted.

People fall down fast when they faint. There’s not usually time to catch them, and neither Méabh nor I even tried. In fact, we both watched Caitríona collapse with a sort of clinical awfulness, me wincing as her cheek bounced off a sharp stone and a bruise began to blossom under a sudden rivulet of blood.

“You’re a healer,” Méabh said after a moment, and gentle-hearted me shrugged.

“She already believes some of this, but I might as well wait for her to wake up and notice she’s— Hi, are you okay?” Faints didn’t usually last very long, either. I crouched beside an exceedingly bewildered Caitríona and patted her shoulder. “You fainted. Perfectly understandable, it’s been a rough day. It’s going to get worse. Or differently interesting, anyway. How’s your cheek?”

“It hurts.” Poor Caitríona was too overwhelmed to even whine. At worst her statement qualified as a whimper. I felt around in the pockets of my brand-new coat like I’d find a mirror there—as if I ever carried a compact mirror—then waved my hand at Méabh.