As the Team’s Raptor took off Mary looked down on the stone circle below, now surrounded by several metre high earthworks, with a recently misplaced standing stone off centre and the deep hole where their ‘cargo’ had broken free. Perhaps she thought, it was for the best that she was leaving with the Aontacht Éire as the villagers didn’t seem too pleased with the recent ‘alterations’ to their famous tourist attraction. Ah well, restoring that mess was a task thankfully for the Éire government to resolve.
The orb was being flown back to Dublin and from there it would be transported to the ARC facility in London by armoured security vehicle. Mary had been asked to accompany it but decided as she still had six days left of her ‘holiday’ she would take the opportunity to revisit the ancestral homestead and try and see what else she could find out about the other Mary, her family and in particular confirm what had happened to the MacCarty’s banshee from this universe.
She was now convinced that the acquisition of the harp by the other Mary had somehow led her to discover the Daur da Bláo chants and that it was probably what she had used to mystically power her abilities. Knowing what may have happened did not make up for not knowing how, but she could live with that. It still didn’t account for her twin’s immortality though, or her longevity at least. In her own case that had been a direct result of her symbiotic relationship.
It didn’t help that there wasn’t a lot of information about the other Banshee on record and her powers were listed as primarily the ability to levitate and unleash sonic cries. Any ability to turn insubstantial wasn’t recorded in the public records at least. Possibly Dalton would have records if she could just figure out how to access them. A sudden vision of a smiling Annie flashed before her eyes and she found herself wondering if the ends in this case justified the means?
She picked up her harp and examined it closely. It didn’t look ancient and there was no possible way it could be the original ancient harp known as Uaithne. No, whatever magic resided in it had been placed there and fairly recently, within her extended lifetime anyway. She was sure though that her theory about the source of the other Mary’s powers was correct. It also explained how her nephew Shamus came to be merged with the family banshee turning them into the abomination known as Abyss, just not how and to learn that she needed to revisit her para-twin’s family home and investigate what had happened to Shamus that resulted in him becoming a mage-killing monster.
Both Mary and her para-twin had been born and raised on a small croft near the village of Préacháin Adhmaid about 50 kilometres south of the city of Dublin, in County Wicklow. Her chat with Colm prior to his passing 1 had revealed that it was to here that Shamus had fled when he’d escaped and it had presumably been somewhere close by that he’d subsequently been altered into Abyss by the darkest of dark magic.
Several hours later Mary once more stood in the ruins of the croft that in another parallel universe she’d once called home and stared around her, reabsorbing the view. There was an ancient cairn nearby, in front of it laid an ornately carved stone known as the Cloch Mharú or slaughter stone. Local legend claimed that it was an altar and that it had been used for blasphemous rites for centuries.
The cairn and stone were in a field called locally Réimse an Mharaithe, the ‘Field of Slaughter’ and archaeological evidence had proved that the meadow had once been an ancient battle site. The stone was believed to be a sacrificial altar in part because the carved hollows on its upper surface, when filled with rainwater turned red – supposedly from the blood of the victims sacrificed upon it, but in fact due to iron in the stone and the particular algae growing on it. If anywhere was intended for dark rites in the locality that would be her first choice. She hoped by finding the location she might get some sort of mystical confirmation from it, perhaps sufficient that she would be able to persuade Akira to do a reading of its past.
Leaving her bag hidden in the ruins, she strapped on her harp and set out for the cairn. It was early evening when she finally reached the cairn and looked on the Cloch Mharú. It looked as she had remembered it when she had played here as a little child. When she’d become a woman she’d had too many other worldly concerns to revisit the site. The locality seemed serene but something felt off and she couldn’t help jump slightly as a crow landed on the stone and cawed loudly at her before flying back a few metres and landing on top of the cairn.
She stepped forward, gently touched the carvings on the stone with her fingertips and immediately collapsed. She swore later that she heard the crow laughing at her as she fell. She awoke a second later but she was no longer alone. Facing her was her Banshee, a silver cord extended through their clothes to each other’s navel. Mary couldn’t help wonder what Akira’s ‘mumbo-jumbo’ would make of that. She was about to say hello when she took in the blood-red sky and the flocks of skeletal crows flying around them. Had they somehow crossed over into the Faerie realm once more? If so, it was definitely not a return to the Summerlands.
She turned and looked behind her. They stood in a dead dustbowl of a plain, the dust rust-red like dried blood. In the distance, she could see what appeared to be an ocean of magma fed by violent fiery flows that fell from the edge of a distant mountain. An overwhelming stench of sulphur assaulted their sense of smell even as lightning lit up the plain with continuous strikes. A large crowd of what looked like people could be seen congregating around the shore.
Then the cawing of the crows was replaced with the ringing of music so beautiful it was painful to their souls and made them feel unworthy to be in its presence. Mary was immediately convinced that she had been here many times before but she couldn’t remember when. She tried to speak but her bound partner shushed her and pointed at the stone slab. While the cairn and field had vanished, the slaughter stone had been transported to this hellish realm with them.
Had the Slaughter Stone somehow been magicked into some form of a Devil’s snare, a trap that she’d somehow, accidentally activated? She was immediately convinced that the cairn and the altar had once been the site of a blasphemous ritual, possibly one that had turned a mortal man, admittedly one consumed by revenge and hate, into a hell beast. Enough residual energy from that ritual may had remained on the site to act as a trap for the mystically unwary and it had succeeded in trapping both her and her companion and in the process separated both into their component parts for the first time since they had merged.
What was certain was that floating opposite her in this hellscape and connected at the navel by a silver cord, was the family’s Bhean Sidhe. She seemed as though she was focused on the dust cloud rushing towards them. <<Prepare for battle sister; those that approach would do us harm. I do not plan to go into the darkness without a fight.>> Her banshee could speak?
As the dust cleared, Mary could see that the approaching them was a demonic entity, easily ten metres tall. It sort of resembled a giant winged gargoyle as though it had just ‘liberated’ itself from the walls of the Notre Dame. It was accompanied by a dozen flying spectre-like figures. Mary tried to change into Banshee and failed. She heard a snigger from her companion, <<No, in this here and now sister we must fight as individuals and as a team. Unleash Uaithne and ready your magic, we fight for our eternity for I believe that the spectres are the original coven that Abyss slaughtered when he broke free of their control a hundred years ago. They mean to remake us into an enslaved beast I fear and complete the task of slaughtering innocents set by their master…>>
Mary chuckled at her own naïveté and nodded her understanding to her alter ego. “Do you recall the reason why I took to carrying a staff for us, sister? Good, then let us be having at the devils.” There was little need of speech between them now; they well knew each other’s thoughts and minds.
Mary watched as the demonic figure ripped away at its talons until it could pull large, bloodied scythe-like claws out. It then started to do the same with its other hand, licking the blood away and unleashing a hellish, fanged smile on them. The spectres also readied their own long, claw-like nails as though they expected their ghost-like forms to be capable of inflicting physical damage. She counted. There were twelve of them but a coven generally consisted of thirteen didn’t it, including the high priest? Had the spell backfiring killed the other summoners and enslaved their souls to the demonic presence now hurling towards them? Had the high priest survived and set this trap? The two of them prepared for battle against overwhelming odds. Questions would have to come later.
The Banshee took hold of the extended staff offered by Mary, turned insubstantial and immediately flew towards the approaching host, letting out her Wail as she did so. Within seconds, three of the spectres had vanished as though banished.
Mary followed on foot, as briskly as she could whilst unslinging the harp. She wasn’t used to fighting in her human form and in truth has not made much use of her harp until now – a little healing here and there, a little pacification by means of a lullaby. She has always thought the middle register was for weaving illusions – which Akira had usually taken care of – but… “Joy?” Well, there is one way to find out. She started to strum the strings only to have to try to dodge as several spike-like talons were fired from the demon’s fingertips and the hooks of its wings at Mary. She managed to dodge all but one of the missiles, which sliced through her shoulder.
She ignored the pain and set to trying to dredge up memories of joyfulness from her past and recreate it within the music she started playing. To her surprise, her tune immediately dulled the pain of the ethereal music and seemed to cause the demon to pull itself away as though scalded.
She couldn’t risk rushing too far from Banshee as the spectral, silver umbilical cord pulled taut confirming that they were still bound together and needed to fight as one. Even as Banshee began to lay into her attackers, Mary tried to focus again on recreating the sense of Joy. Then, to her amazement the landscape around her began to alter.
A thin, crystalline shell immediately began to form on the ground around her, beneath which the blood-like dust began to form into admittedly warped and diseased plants and grasses, as though an alien reality was trying to break through. It also seemed to be acting as a deterrent to the demon as though the music was creating a disruption in this hell and the landscape itself seemed to rebel against the chant causing an inter-dimensional breakthrough… It was almost as though it was creating an astral cyst in the hellish landscape around them.
This plane, like the faerie realms, appeared to be formed of some sort of ectoplasm – a substance part thought, part matter but that was where the similarity ended. Whereas that realm was formed by will, glamour and even a certain whimsy this hellscape seemed to be formed out of fear, of despair and shaped by self-loathing. There was a sense that this was a form of self-imposed punishment and those present felt they deserved to be here even as they hoped against hope for a means to escape – a very Judeo-Christianic concept of Hell.
If a person’s mind could form constructs of their own out of ectoplasm then what could be done with multiple minds programmed to believe in the same ‘eternal reward’? Could they create a biblical heaven or hell? Did that mean that somewhere there was also a Hindu realm of Naraka? What about the Greek Hell of Tartarus or the Norse realm of Niflheim, did they still exist somewhere?
Unlike in the faerie realms, its ‘residents’ did not even try to appear more human but used fear and a desire for punishment to shape their demonic appearance. Were demons then the incarnations of people’s hate, fear and rage and if so, how do you kill something that she assumed didn’t really have a physical body? Banish yes but kill?
Mary had met demons before, well imps really, when she’d helped cast several of them out of Jeeves’ mind.2 She just had to figure out how to do the same now or alternatively, did she need to figure out a way to banish both Banshee and herself back to the mortal realm?
Before she could react, three more of the colourless, transparent spectral entities were upon her, their nakedness only just made bearable to her Victorian sensibilities by their shrivelled sexuality. She tried to swing at them with her fists but her blows passed right through their insubstantial forms though their own sharpened talons seem to draw blood once more from Mary, thankfully their wounds were superficial. Their cries for vengeance were thin and hollow sounding then they screamed what she assumed was a name, ‘Anshar’, the demons’ possibly?
Knowing the true name of a demon supposedly gave you power over it or at least so it said in almost every Dennis Wheatley book Mary had ever read. Her own experience however, had revealed that knowing a creature’s true name did not grant you power over it no matter what the books might say – they merely gave you the potential means to research their powers, personality and weaknesses. Not only was Anshar unlikely to be the creature’s real name but there was no means in the here and now of researching its weaknesses anyway.
To Mary’s joy, as she accidentally swung her harp at one of the ghostly attackers it connected and the female ghost immediately vanished. She might be limited in her ability to fight these lost souls but her harp wasn’t. She continued strumming the gleeful tune towards the horde, imagining their subjection to its power. Beneath her, the astral cyst and its alien ‘reality’ slowly expanded outwards even as the rest of the spectral horde kept their distance from her.
Banshee did not initially resort to parrying or dodging her spectral attackers until she realised that they were capable of attacking her in her insubstantial form. Thankfully, the influence of Mary’s harp seemed to cause them to hesitate, which allowed her to fly through them, right up to the demon and round the back of its head. She immediately tried to thrust the insubstantialised staff into its brain and then let go of it… Unfortunately, it just bounced off its skull and she had to catch it as it fell.
With the music washing over her, Mary allowed herself the momentary opportunity to consider her situation as she heard Banshee tell her to try and attack the ghosts, <<What remains is just so much hate, so much rage and what is rage but an open wound, the shadow of pain? What is needed is a healing, a restoration through a laying-on of hands, or fists?>> With that, Banshee unleashed another shriek that dissipated yet another of the attacking spectres.
The demonic figure warped as its mouth grew larger and it cackled, “She has returned and is whole this time. Shades rejoice, the day of your eternal rest beckons if another Abyss can be created for your master.”
Mary could hear Banshee mutter, <<…Whole? Had the MacCarty family’s Bhean Sidhe from this universe been ‘incomplete’ somehow when it had been merged with a human?>> Mary initially ignored the comment as she squinted up at the Big Mouth and said, “Did your mammy never teach ye not to count your eggs as chickens?” She had picked up on what she hoped was a hint from her ‘sister’ and began to tune her harp to the healing chant even as ‘Anshar’ continued talking, seemingly enjoying in its victims the suspense as to when it would attack…
“Lucius Tarlbot made a Faustian pact in return for three demands of me, the first was for the gift of immortality, which was granted in return for twelve souls and a geas that he must either destroy the Vervaine bloodline completely or be destroyed by one of them himself. The second demand was to create the hell beast Abyss which he intended to use to hunt down and exterminate that cursed lineage when he failed to do so himself. Unfortunately, the casting went awry when both the coven and the sacrifice fought back. Instead of seeking out the last of the Vervaine’s it escaped and went after any and all magic users, including Tarlbot.
The last time he called on me he commanded me to seek out those Vervaine’s that still survived and kill them myself. I would have succeeded had I not been banished from your Earthly Realm by the only survivor of a car accident that killed both of his parents, a mere baby. His mother sacrificed herself to cast a protection spell on the child, a spell that imprisoned me back here when I attempted to take his life, which unfortunately means I still owe Tarlbot one more task before I am again free. Now I have a chance to create another hell-beast, another Abyss, to do Tarlbot’s bidding and unleash it to complete the extinction of the Vervaine lineage once and for all. By doing so, the remaining task will be fulfilled and I will be set free to seek my own reward upon this plane…”
Tarlbot? The name sounded familiar, could this be the same person as the lawyer and nasty piece of work, Lucius Cabot ? As Mary pondered that question she found the chords she needed on her harp to unleash the healing chant and lets it ‘fly’ loose as strongly as she could even as ‘Anshar’ unleashed more of its ‘missiles’, this time at both of them. The Banshee managed to dodge but Mary was not so lucky. Two of the talons hit; one spinning as it headed towards her and the flat edge hit her in the temple leaving a massive bruise and slightly concussed while the other sliced her leg open. As the blood hit the crystal beneath her feet, the vitreous substance suddenly erupted in front of her forming a shield against the other fired claws.
The Banshee meanwhile was puzzled as to why her staff, whilst insubstantial, had bounced off the demon’s head. Was the creature also insubstantial or similarly phased in some way? That seemed possible, so as she dodged the shards fired at her by the demon and tried the same trick in reverse. She turned substantial and slammed the staff against the side of its demonic head drawing green ooze from the skin even as she turned insubstantial and tried to ram it in to its head. It pierced the skin but again failed to pierce the skull.
In frustration, she aimed a Wail at the demon’s head at point blank range and again rammed the staff, this time into one of its eyes. In its insubstantial form it went in but didn’t hurt until she took her hands off the staff allowing it turn substantial again… The staff materialised inside the demon’s eye. Banshee had wanted to remove the staff and try again but the demon shattered the staff with its claw even as doing so resulted in it plucked its own eye out in an intense scream of pain.
Before Banshee could respond further, four of the remaining spectral coven was upon her trying to tear at her and she was forced to flee back to Mary who was busy trying to focus again on recovering the tune despite the pain and blood loss. Regardless of the effect on their attackers, she needed the healing now herself.
Gritting her teeth with pain, Mary concentrated on the healing chant – needing it for herself first and foremost, but then also for the damaged things around her, including even the half-blinded demon though it wouldn’t be powerful enough to regenerate its plucked out eye. As she watched, she realised that the demon was also regenerating its missile-like talons; was this natural to it or the result of her healing chant?
Meanwhile the Banshee addressed the gabby demon, hoping at least to distract it a little. “What kind of fool are you, Anshar, to let this Tarlbot dupe you so – commanding you to fulfil the terms of the very geas you laid on him? Such an elementary trick! Surely it would have been better to let him be destroyed as a reward for his arrogance and perfidy, so that you and yours might all go free? You may be trapped here, but we – I and our Vervaine colleague, can operate in the mundane plane, and there fulfil the curse of his failure, which would be our pleasure.”
“Do not judge little mortal, The Dark Lady demanded the contract be accepted and unlike you mundanes we cannot lie, though we may not always tell the truth… Unknowingly the creature has served the Dark Lady’s purpose well in that realm and even if he were to succeed and all of that particular lineage died, Vervaine blood will still ensure he will receive his just ‘reward’ in the end.”
Even as it spoke, it rushed towards Mary and tried to grab her by smashing through the crystal barrier, shards of which sliced into its arm. Mary’s own harp playing washed over her and she felt her wounds start to heal over even as it seemed to have the opposite effect on the demon as its own wounds became infected (though in Hell might that be what you would expect?)Mary dodged, and to her surprise, the shards from the smashed barrier reformed into glass spires like a crystal palisade between her and the demon still intent on trying to tear her in two. Whatever she had summoned with her music was acting intelligently and seemed determined to protect her. She just wished she knew why.
Above her, Banshee struggled with the remaining spectres as they swarmed around her and tried to do her harm. She felt their talons scrape across her face and chest despite still being insubstantial, and ripping her dress but thankfully not doing her any serious damage. She unleashed another Wail, which caused two more of the apparitions to go unconscious and fall towards the ground where the crystal stakes speared and dissipated them. The broken tips of the shards fell to the ground where the crystalline substance below reabsorbed it. It also flowed over and pierced the demon’s arm even as it tried to attack Mary who also successfully dissipated another of her own attackers when it collided with the point of the harp’s pillar.
As she felt herself grow stronger and less distracted, Mary leaned into the healing tune giving it her all, while the Banshee continued to engage and run interference in the sky above.
<<Oh, Anshar,>> the Banshee cried, <<Do you have so much greed for your own suffering? Why not accept oblivion and peace? Can you not think for yourself and act for your own satisfaction? Why do you think your Dark Lady demanded this contract, if not to torment you as well as to eliminate those of the Vervaine lineage? There were so many other deals she could have struck to achieve that single end. She may be your Mistress, but she is not your friend. She does not use you well. Return her spite for spite!>>
As she talked to the demon, she drew even closer to her human ‘sister’, deriving some protection herself from the curious crystal ‘stockade’ that was growing around Mary. Even as she spoke, she remained alert for further attacks by the spectres. One chanced to get close enough to try to grab her but she reached out with her Corrupting Touch up close and personal. It too vanished with a scream, either banished or destroyed. Unfortunately, the demon was both keeping its distance from them and was made of tougher stuff.
Mary could only wonder how she and her ‘sister’ were going to get out of this, though they did seem have achieved something of a stalemate. It occurred to her that she had only tried two of the three chants so far and since the effects of those seemed to be proliferating under their own steam she took a chance and turned her fingers to the blessing of rest and peace. Meanwhile the Banshee tried to keep its attention focused on her. <<Anshar, if you do not release us to our home plane now we will annihilate you! Already your forces and being are depleted and dwindling, while ours continue to grow. You cannot win! Open the way and we will spare you. Open the way and we will destroy Tarlbot and release you. Release us and you’ll help release yourself; or suffer every suffering. Now!>>
It responded with a snarl as it rushed forward and tried to grab at them both. The crystal shards suddenly shot up and sliced into its arms, wings and legs but still they were forced to dodge its scythe-like claws and fall back towards the slaughter stone.
It seemed their attempts to pacify or intimidate the monster-demon were doomed to fail. Mary fell back desperately on one of her long-prepared but almost never used, magical spells, making the Sign of Brigit (or as Akira called it, the sign of the Modrossus) in the air, ashar even as both she and the Banshee fell as far back as they could within the crystal’s sphere of defence. A scream, half pain, half defiance, filled the air as the light seared into Anshar.
One chance. It was clear that despite the illusion of their wounds and blood loss, they were here only in astral form. The silver cord that bound the two of them together proved that. She just needed to find a way for them to wake up. Behind her and away from the crystal platform she stood on, this world’s version of the Slaughter Stone was still visible. Mary had to wonder what would happen if both she and Banshee were to touch it together, would it reverse the transport that had thrown them into in this reality in astral form? Could she force it to respond?
She signalled for Banshee to follow her lead, but it seemed she had once last message she had to share before they hopefully, merged once more. <<Sister, before we once more bond into silent co-operation, I believe that the other world Banshee had to have been badly injured before they dragged her here and forced her to bond with the mortal. We of the Sidhe are capable of forming an immature sentient by splitting part of ourselves off and creating a separate independent entity if it combines with a segment from another Sidhe. A newly formed and wounded segment however would have just one thought, to survive by bonding with something or something compatible, to retain its life energy. In the absence of another willing Sidhe then the nearest mortal of the lineage it was attached to would be its only other choice if its to survive. The nearest other MacCarty other than the newly created hell beast would have been your double surely? Its damaged presence might have been insufficient to give the recipient all the powers of a Bhean Sidhe, but could have granted her longevity.
It also explains how my counterpart in this universe was weak enough to be forced against her will to merge with the mortal into a hellfire-wielding beast.>>
Mary shook her head, was now the time? They were seconds away from possible destruction as the demon finally managed to shred the glowing sign she’d manifested and, ignoring the attack of the crystals, made to again grab them. “Focus sister, now together on three… One, two…”
They rushed across the rust-red dust and both reached out together to touch the surface of the stone even as the dust seemed to try and suck them down and they felt the pressure of air hurling towards them from behind indicated that Anshar’s claws were swiping towards them…
A second later, Mary awoke on the grass at the base of the Slaughter Stone. Banshee was inside her once more. She checked her leg and found scar tissue from a recently healed wound. A psychosomatic injury perhaps?
She got herself up, careful to not touch the stone. She had to ensure this was deactivated forever, she pulled out her now restored staff to use as a wand and using the last of her mana started to craft a spell she’d learned in the Library, the nullifying of Modrossus, to drain the last of the mystical energy from the stone. With that completed she now felt completely exhausted, as though she’d just ran a marathon. “What was it about Éire that she’d encountered so much ‘wylde magic’ is such a short period of time?” She shrugged, just lucky I guess.
AS Mary hobbled away she failed to see the small, fragile crystalline flower that had just appeared behind the slaughter stone or notice the way its transparent ‘leaves’ tilted to welcome the rays of the setting sun.
- See Living Genealogy
- See When Two Tribes go to War (to see how the possession of Jeeves was really removed.)
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 