Always Forever (4 page)

Of them all, Laura was undoubtedly the most unstable. Her paranoia
brought about an argument with Church that drove her to storm off. She
attempted to lose herself in hedonism at some seedy nightclub, only to
encounter the Cailleach Bheur. Reeling under the influence of some drug or
other, she managed to escape only after a discovery that drove her to the edge.
A minor wound bled green blood that had a life of its own, destroying the bars
on a window so she could flee.

Desperate, she had no choice but to return to the others. However, her unreliable actions had convinced Veitch that she had something to do with Ruth's
disappearance.

With the strain telling, they made plans to investigate the Well of Fire
beneath Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano overlooking the city. Tom told them it
was once a tremendous source of the Blue Fire but over the years had grown dormant. Somehow they had to find a way to reignite the Well so the spiritual energy
would spread out across that part of the land, weakening the grip of the Fomorii.

Once again they decided to consult the spirits. Shavi visited one of Edinburgh's most haunted locations, where the dead revealed Ruth was still alive,
imprisoned beneath the castle where the Fomorii had made their den. Other
answers were typically cryptic: the Well of Fire would not be enough to help them defeat the Fomorii. To halt the Cailleach Bheur they would need an extra power,
something called the Good Son. There was also a price to pay for the answer-the
dead sent the spirit of Shavi's murdered boyfriend, Lee, to haunt him.

Tom knew exactly who the mysterious Good Son was-the Tuatha De
Danann god Maponus, missing for millennia. Tremendously powerful, he was
the son of Dagda, the Allfather, yet the Golden Ones always refused to speak of
what had happened to him. Tom, however, knew Maponus had been imprisoned
at nearby Rosslyn Chapel, a mediaeval sacred site renowned for its Celtic and
Masonic iconography.

Researching this new information at the Central Library, Church and Laura
were attacked by whatever had been stalking them since Loch Maree. After a
failed attempt to sever Church's finger, it fled before they had a chance to get
sight of whatever it was.

During all this, Ruth was undergoing terrible torture in the secret Fomorii
burrow beneath Edinburgh Castle, but while trapped in her cell, a strange thing
was happening: her familiar manifested as a voice in her head, teaching her the
great secret knowledge that was her heritage. Eventually, Calatin made her
suffer the worst torture of all, forcing a large black pearl down her throat.

Finally it was time for the companions to go their separate ways: Church
and Tom to find the Well of Fire, Laura and Shavi to seek out Maponus, and
Veitch to launch a desperate attempt to rescue Ruth.

At Rosslyn Chapel, Shavi and Laura encountered another Watchman. The
chapel's carvings pointed to something terrible hidden there, but although
Laura was open to the warnings, Shavi appeared under the control of some spell,
driving him onwards. The Bone Inspector was also drawn there by what they
were attempting. He tried to prevent them, but they locked him outside the
chapel so they could continue. While Shavi and the Watchmen dug into a secret
chamber beneath the chapel, Laura listened to the Bone Inspector's warning.

He told her Maponus was struck down by the Fomorii as he attempted to
cross over to our world from T'ir n'a n'Og. Whatever the Fomorii did to him
drove him mad, so that when he arrived in our world he was an uncontrollable
force, slaughtering hundreds and laying waste to many villages. Only a ritual
enacted by the Culture, the Bone Inspector's people, could stop him, and then
he was not destroyed, only bound in the sacred spot beneath the chapel that was
raised up as both a marker and a warning. If he was freed, the Bone Inspector
warned, devastation would be laid on the land once more.

Before Laura could act, Maponus was freed, slaying the Watchman on the
spot. Laura and Shavi escaped as the mad god stalked out across the countryside.
It appeared to be yet another of their great failures.

Back at Arthur's Seat, Tom helped Church through his first steps in learning
how to perceive the Blue Fire in everything. The energy guided them through
a magical doorway into Otherwordly tunnels beneath the volcano where the two
were separated. In a massive cavern where time and space had no meaning,
Church experienced visions of the past, present, and future. Reuniting with
Tom, they came across an enormous hole plunging down into the bowels of the
earth-the Well of Fire-ready to be reignited by what Tom called a leap of
faith. Church decided to use the locket given to him by the young Marianne; he
had always believed it was a powerful symbol.

Before he could act, Church glimpsed a giant wolf, the same Laura witnessed before Ruth was taken, the thing that had attacked him in the library.
Tom told him it wasn't really a wolf, once the old gods had tampered with
someone, the results confused the mind's perceptions; the real person lay somewhere behind the perceived image.

The two of them edged out around the abyss to hide, but their pursuer followed them. Church slipped into the well, dropping the locket into the depths.
Somehow this created a tear in the fabric of reality. Blue fire licked out, the
energy carrying Church, along with Tom, out to the foot of Arthur's Seat, where
they could see Fabulous Beasts moving towards the Old Town.

Veitch, meanwhile, had entered the Old Town, where Maponus was already
in conflict with the Cailleach Bheur. Making his way past the Fomorii defences
into the burrows beneath the castle, he stumbled across a strange ritual where
the Fomorii gathered before Calatin and a warrior, bigger and more frightening
than all the others.

After rescuing Ruth, the two of them escaped the tunnels to discover the Fabulous Beasts destroying everything corrupted by the Fomorii evil, while the Blue
Fire ran out from Arthur's Seat in a lattice of reinvigorating energy; the land was
beginning to come alive. Maponus and the Cailleach Bheur were both forced to flee
in the face of the Fabulous Beasts. And then, finally, the castle and the burrows
beneath were destroyed in the conflagration.

The companions were finally reunited in Greyfriars Kirkyard, but their joy
was short lived. The spirits of the dead rose to drive them out, saying they were
"unclean." Weary but elated, they fled the city: not only had they rescued Ruth,
they had also stopped the plan to bring back Balor.

That night, while they rested by the campfire, they met two minor members
of the Tuatha De Danann pantheon who were wandering the land in search of experience. Cormorel and Baccharus told Church if he wished to remove the Fomorii
corruption within him he should visit something called the Pool of Wishes in the
Western Isles, a fabulous place in T'r n'a n'Og where the home of the Gods lay.

Heading south they came to a strangely quiet village-my village-where
people refused to answer their doors after sunset. A few of us were gathered in
the local pub and I remember how I felt the moment they wandered through the
door. I was a rough and ready journalist. I'd met people from all walks of life,
but I'd never met anyone like them before. They were apart from everyone else,
as if they'd witnessed things none of us could ever dream of; which, of course,
they had.

We rarely saw strange faces in that haunted place so I went over to introduce
myself, and to tell them what kind of hell they'd wandered into. For weeks we'd
been the prey of strange creatures we couldn't identify. They roamed the lonely
fields during the day, but under cover of darkness they came into the village,
looking like nothing more than sheets flapping in the wind-but one of our local
farmers had seen them reduce a sheep to bloody chunks in seconds. Some people
died before we learned they couldn't get into houses past locked doors. But even
though we'd warned everyone to lock their doors at sunset, people were still getting killed in their homes. It was a mystery we couldn't understand. Naturally,
those six brave people agreed to help us solve our problem.

After Shavi expressed his guilt at freeing Maponus, Church summoned
Niamh, who agreed to marshall the Tuatha De Danann to bring back their
errant god on one condition: that Church broke off his relationship with Laura
so that he could learn to love her. Although it confirmed what Church had suspected about Niamh's feelings, it was still a shock. His relationship with Laura
was in a state of flux, and he had no idea how he really felt about her, but to put
her on one side seemed so callous. Yet the burden of responsibility proved too
great. How could he set their petty emotions above the chance to prevent
Maponus murdering more people? He agreed, reluctantly, and though he didn't
recognise it at the time, his decision was swayed by that strange emotional
power the Tuatha De Danann held over mortals.

Ruth was concerned that she had had no contact with her familiar since her
imprisonment. She embarked on a tantric sex ritual with Veitch, during which
the familiar came to her to tell her she was tainted-she must seek help or die.
Tom obviously feared the worst; he told her she had to be examined by the
Tuatha De Danann.

I drove Church, Tom, and Ruth to Richmond in Yorkshire, where a path
was found beneath the castle to T'ir n'an n'Og and the Court of the Final Word.
This was a disturbing place that claimed to be dedicated to healing but where
much darker probings into the mystery of existence continued away in the
shadows. Here they met the god the Celts called Dian Cecht, the master healer,
who agreed to help them. I don't mind admitting he terrified me. He prepped Ruth for an op and set his Caraprix free for an internal investigation of her head.
It didn't last long. The Caraprix erupted out of her head like it had been fired
out of a gun. "The Sister of Dragons has been corrupted beyond all meaning of
the word," Dian Cecht said to us. "She is the medium for the return of the Heart
of Shadows." It didn't sink in straightaway, but when it did, I felt like throwing
up. The Black Pearl she'd swallowed back in Edinburgh had contained the
essence of Balor. It had been distilled from all that black gunk Church and the
others had found in Salisbury and beneath Dartmoor. Ruth was to be the receptacle that would allow its rebirth, but that doesn't begin to illuminate the true
horror of the situation. In a matter of weeks, Balor would burst out of her, fully
formed, killing her instantly. They'd obviously chosen her because she was powerful enough to cope with the rigours of what lay ahead. The pearl wasn't actually, truly, inside her, I don't think; I'm no good at getting my head around the
physics of this.

Naturally, Dian Cecht refused to help her further. The Tuatha De Danann
had a problem in dealing with anything corrupted by the Fomorii, and here was
the corruption to end them all. So they threw us out, consigning Ruth to the
worst fate of all. She took it well, under the circumstances, but it wouldn't be
wrong to say we were all devastated. The others thought they'd done their bit
to stop Balor being reborn, and all along they were doing the things that would
make it actually happen. And there was the ultimate moral dilemma: could
Church kill Ruth to prevent Balor from coming back into the world, even
knowing she would die when the birth happened anyway?

On the way back from Richmond we encountered the terrifying Fomorii
warrior Witch had first seen beneath Edinburgh Castle. It was like a tank, enormous, unstoppable, ploughing through cars at a phenomenal speed. We escaped
-just. The Fomorii had obviously unleashed it to retrieve Balor. That was the
one bright spot for the companions, that the Fomorii must have been tearing
themselves apart to know their supreme god was now in the hands of the enemy.

Meanwhile, Veitch, Shavi, and Laura continued to investigate the deaths in
the village. It was Veitch who made the big discovery: the doors of the latest victims had been forced open, allowing the predators in. The trail led back to some
of our supposedly friendly village's more well-heeled residents. They'd been sacrificing those they considered undesirable by breaking open their houses so the
creatures could get in, leaving the rich free to carry on with their lives and businesses. Witch dragged off the ringleader for summary punishment, much to the
concern of Shavi and Laura.

I waved goodbye to them that day, not quite realizing how much they'd
changed my life. For the first time I'd seen some hope in a world that had gone mad. Right then we desperately needed heroes, and I was determined to tell
everyone who they were. That was my calling in life.

They continued south along the Pennines, with no idea what they were supposed to be doing anymore. Meanwhile, Ruth was growing sicker and sicker.
Finally they sent out two missions to seek help for Ruth: one to Cernunnos and
one to the Queen responsible for Tom's suffering. Church and Laura would stay
to guard Ruth at Mam Tor in the Peaks, a place saturated in the earth energy
which would blind the searching Fomorii to their presence.

Shavi went south towards Windsor Park where Cernunnos could be summoned, eventually hooking up with a group of travellers. But he woke one
morning to find a woman murdered, her finger missing. Whatever had been
pursuing them since Loch Maree was now after him alone.

Tom and Veitch headed north, through several adventures, including an
encounter with a race of manwolves, the Lupinari, and the discovery that the
Tuatha De Danann nature gods were reforesting the land. Finally they arrived at
Inverness, where they were taken by the Queen's guard to the Court of the
Yearning Heart.

The Queen proved an expert at manipulation. She focused her attention on
Witch, but Tom had already warned him to obey the rules of T'ir n'a n'Og: not
to eat or drink anything there or he would become a prisoner of the Queen forever. She agreed to help if Veitch undertook one mission for her: to kill or capture the Questing Beast, a mysterious but fierce primaeval creature that had
escaped from the Court into our world.