The Invasion Read online

  What is she even talking about? Anto just wants to sleep; that’s all he wants.

  ‘I’m going to live now, Anto. Not so that we can win, but to … to, you know …’ He doesn’t. ‘So that I can make some difference to somebody else. To anybody. If I’d taken the pill I’d never have had the chance. But I do now. Do you see?’

  Perhaps Aoife thinks his sleep-heavy head nods, because she nods back and finally – finally! – she closes her eyes and he can rest. Oh, gods, how he needs it.

  But then he suddenly remembers the young man they rescued from the farm. Morris. He must still be in the cold kitchen alone.

  Anto forces himself into wakefulness. Why should it matter? Why should anything matter? But the thought of being vulnerable before this stranger makes him deeply uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh, relax the cacks,’ Morris whispers when the boy comes in. ‘I’m happy to take first watch. I imagine I’m more rested than you lot. We Sligo men are tougher than we look.’

  ‘You’re from Sligo?’

  ‘Was from Sligo! Past tense. Hashtag OMG. Whole place is taken over. They have a king now. That’s all the Sídhe needed. Somebody to revoke the treaty that banned them from coming back to Ireland.’ He grins as though the whole thing is a joke. Then he stretches like a cat, perfectly at home.

  ‘Well,’ says Anto, ‘I’m sorry, Morris, but I’m going to have to tie you up for the night.’

  The stranger’s eyes narrow. The two of them are as good as alone now, for a bomb wouldn’t wake the others. Morris holds a rifle. He is at the very peak of physical fitness and looks as relaxed as a man climbing out of a warm bath.

  ‘I see your arm there, lad,’ he says. ‘How do I know you’re not one of their creations?’

  ‘We just pulled you out of a trap.’

  ‘Too right. You just rescued me. From the Sídhe. That’s why you should trust me.’

  Anto is too tired to argue.

  The stranger grins. ‘A point for me!’ he says.

  His face is so … clean. There’s no other word for it. He reminds Anto of a pop star from one of Granny’s boy bands, his teeth straight enough that a master builder might have placed each of them by hand. He seems to swim in Anto’s vision, so tired is he. His knees are trembling.

  ‘All right then,’ Anto says, nodding.

  Morris nods back, and that’s when Anto hits him – right hand only, but hard enough to distract so that his long and irresistible left arm can wrap around the man and pin him to the ground.

  ‘What … WTF! Don’t you know who I am?’

  ‘No,’ says Anto, flipping him over onto his stomach. ‘That’s the point.’

  Anto puts his knee in the small of Morris’s back to hold him down. There’s something hard there, but he ignores it. He stuffs a dusty rag into the man’s mouth and ties his hands with his own belt. Then, to sounds of muffled outrage and the bucking of his prisoner, he finds a bit of rope from one of the packs and ties Morris’s wrists to his ankles.

  Then, and only then, can he sleep.

  The Hurt

  ‘Up! Wake up!’

  Sergeant Taaft can rock entire buildings when she shouts. They’ve all been asleep, huddled together in a pile for warmth. Aoife stares around herself as if she has no idea who any of them are. Liz Sweeney curses the rifle she must have been sleeping on the whole night.

  ‘Up!’ says Taaft again.

  Nabil is at her shoulder, his scarred face serene. ‘We’re not under attack,’ he says, ‘but you must explain why this man has been tied up.’

  It’s Morris of course. Groaning and shaking in the corner. The room smells of his urine, and from the quality of the light through the crack in the curtains, Anto realizes they must have slept through to until late afternoon, with Morris unable to get out to relieve himself, lying alone in the freezing cold.

  ‘Well?’ says Taaft, looking around.

  ‘I’m … I …’ Anto scrambles to his feet. ‘I’ll let him go now, Sergeant.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, her face hard as marble. ‘You bet your ass you will!’

  Anto has no idea how he managed to make such fine knots last night, but the huge fingers of his left hand are far too clumsy to untie them now, so he cuts them open with his knife instead.

  Morris is gibbering, unable to get even a sob out through his chattering teeth. Anto tries to help him stand – what was I thinking? – but the man pushes him violently away before falling over due to a lack of circulation. Everyone can see the stain on the front of his fine trousers.

  ‘You’ve lost it, kid,’ says Taaft to Anto. But there’s no heat in her words. His sin is minor in the scheme of things. She’s about to say something else, but the moment she opens her mouth she is drowned out by the singing.

  They’ve all heard angels before. Their beautiful voices are a promise of attacks, but now it’s like a huge choir has come to life right above them. A thousand throats opening up, and every one in perfect harmony with its fellows, male and female, piping children, baritones, sopranos, bass.

  The room shakes with sound, so that everybody reaches for something to hold on to. Mitch weeps. Aoife’s round face is stretched towards the ceiling as though she wishes she could fly up through it to join the singers.

  And then it fades.

  ‘Listen,’ says Nabil, ‘my friends. There is some news.’ They can tell from his face what kind of news it is already. The only kind of news there ever is. ‘We caught one of the talking snakes last night. It … it was boasting. Galway has fallen. Limerick too maybe.’

  ‘And Dublin?’ Anto asks. He hasn’t thought of his family in days. How could he be so selfish?

  ‘It’s under siege. Or it soon will be. While you slept we saw three behemoths made of at least a hundred people each heading down the Dublin road. Some of the victims … I am so sorry, my friends. Some of them were wearing army uniforms.’

  By now Morris has found his feet again. He throws a look of pure hatred at Anto.

  ‘Well, lad,’ he growls, ‘you can go shag yourself, so you can.’ Anto should feel guilty, but there’s something about the phrasing the man has chosen that he can’t quite put his finger on. For a second he wonders if Morris is one of those Sídhe that have taken over a human’s body. Like Frank O’Leary back at school.

  And yet, why should Anto feel suspicious of somebody the Sídhe were working so hard to kill?

  ‘I’m out of here,’ says Morris.

  ‘No,’ says Nabil. ‘You heard the angels, my friend. You could be seen from the air.’

  ‘Well, I doubt they’d treat me worse than you assholes did. I’m going, and you can’t stop me.’ He shoves his way past Krishnan and out the front door.

  Taaft rolls her eyes. ‘Oh, let him go, Froggy. What do we care?’

  Nabil turns to her, working every muscle in his body to hide his fury. ‘You wanted to rescue him, Sarah.’ Anybody else would have added that they lost two comrades as a result, but Nabil is too polite for that. ‘I will talk to him some sense.’

  Anto moves as if to follow, but Liz Sweeney grabs him by his giant arm. Oh! It comes so close to ripping itself free! He needs all his control just to keep the evil in check. Perhaps she realizes it too, because she releases him at once. ‘It’s none of our business, Anto,’ she says.

  ‘This is my fault. Maybe if I apologize, he’ll come back. I won’t be long.’ And off he goes.

  The two others are out of sight behind the hedge, but he can hear Nabil well enough when he says, ‘Listen, my friend, we did not mean disrespect, we—’ The Frenchman stops for some reason and Morris’s next words sound like they’re coming through a smirk.

  ‘Is this a pistol I have in my pocket, my friend? Or am I just glad to see you?’

  A pistol! Anto had tied Morris up, yet never even thought to search him!

  A shot rings out. Anto breaks into a run, catching himself on the hedge, ripping free, slipping on frosty ground, before wrenching open the gate.

  An
d it’s too late! It’s too late! Nabil is on his knees, hands pressed tightly to his throat. His eyes bulge in astonishment, terror, shock. And Morris, like a character in one of those western movies who has just made an impossible shot, mimes the blowing of smoke from the barrel. Blood pours between the dam of Nabil’s fingers. Then he falls, right onto his face, smacking against the cracked, frosty footpath.

  Morris grins and points his gun again.

  ‘I want you to know, you big-armed freak, you had the king of Sligo in your hands and you blew it.’ He grins, enjoying himself too much to pull the trigger just yet.

  Anto feels no fear. ‘You’re a traitor. You’re mad. The likes of you have destroyed the whole country.’

  Morris frowns, as though surprised. ‘OMG, really? Destroyed this dying little bog hole? The country that fired me from every job? Humiliated by all those thick-ankled cows who wouldn’t give a lad the time of day? Well –’ he spits, making sure it lands on Nabil’s corpse – ‘they’re not laughing at me now. I’ve hunted enough of them down, and just as soon as I get back to my kingdom and gather another gang of beasts, why, I’ll come right back here for those friends of yours in the house there. It’s not like they’re going far anyway.’

  He stretches out his hand, weaving little circles with the barrel. What is he waiting for? Pleading? Anto doesn’t have it in him any more, but he should feel something, shouldn’t he? The man lying dead at his feet is one of the finest human beings he has ever met. Strong, but gentle. Eternally polite and protective of the students. But he might as well be a stranger now.

  Nessa’s betrayal has ripped everything human away, every normal emotion. Only the arm feels anything now. And it wants what it always wants: to break something.

  ‘You killed Nabil,’ Anto says. His voice sounds like it belongs to a machine.

  ‘And you’re next, bucko,’ says Morris with a cheeky grin.

  The front door opens and Anto knows Taaft and the others must have heard the gunshot, but they’re being cautious, not charging into the street. This gives Morris all the time he needs to pull the trigger once more.

  Nothing happens but a dry click.

  ‘Ah,’ is all Morris can say. He flings the gun at Anto’s head and runs off down the street.

  It’s getting dark again. There are probably monsters in the area. Anto doesn’t care. He charges after the young man, who, although unburdened by a giant’s arm, lacks the fury that drives the boy.

  Morris squeezes past the wooden back gate of a garden. Anto knocks it right off its hinges with a single punch and batters his way through the trees behind it and out on to the road where Morris is already tiring. The man is cursing under his breath. He calls on saints; on Jesus; on Mary and Joseph. The boy is almost close enough. Almost. He reaches out with his longer left arm just as Morris leaps—

  There’s a body lying in the street. Anto trips over it, topples, rolling down the hill to land in a heap.

  The king of Sligo laughs, full of joy and relief. He can’t resist a final taunt. ‘Good luck in getting back to Dublin!’

  Anto doesn’t even try getting up. He’s had a vision, just a flash really, of a lovely, lovely face, and he thinks, Is Nessa really a creature like Morris? Could she ever be so callous? And yet, she must be even worse than him if she now looks like a Sídhe. What other explanation can there be?

  ‘Hang on…’ he calls. ‘Wait …’

  Morris keeps his distance, ready to run, but he cocks an eyebrow in the fading light.

  ‘What did they give you? What did the Sídhe promise you in return for revoking the treaty?’

  Morris laughs, still a little out of breath. But he spreads his arms wide, as if to say, Behold the man. And he replies, ‘This! Youth! Handsomeness! My new life is awesome!’

  And off he goes before Anto can recover his feet.

  Youth. Of course. Anto realizes now what has puzzled him about Morris all along. Despite his appearance, he speaks like an old man. Words like ‘WTF’ and ‘awesome’ belong to his granny’s generation.

  Back at the house, he is confronted with Nabil’s corpse all over again. Taaft is acting nothing like herself. She has turned the body around and is frantically trying to clean away blood with what looks like a curtain. All she has done is spread it around. But Nabil doesn’t object. Even in death, he seems embarrassed by the fuss, all the more so when Taaft kisses him. She sobs. Taaft of all people! Taaft whose voice dripped with contempt whenever she spoke to the Frenchman.

  ‘Ah, Walid …’ she sobs. Was that his first name? Walid?

  Anto’s stomach is in a knot. His muscles too. The arm still wants to hurt somebody, but who? He can’t stand to watch any more.

  How, he wonders, how can the world still be here without Nabil around to steady it? Without Nessa? With armies of monsters marching right now towards Dublin, ready to perform unspeakable acts on his mam and da? He goes to open the front door with the wrong arm and almost wrenches it from its hinges.

  Inside, Liz Sweeney is waiting for him.

  She takes his human hand and leads him up to the box bedroom. The curtains are closed and the last of the day has fled. Her lips are hot against his, but she senses his hesitation.

  He shouldn’t be doing this, whispers his old self. He should be happily married in Donegal. Planting, laughing. Growing a beard and climbing mountains or whatever twisted thing they do up there.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Liz Sweeney growls, and Anto knows exactly who she’s talking about. ‘By Crom, I’m here. I’m still alive. For a while. Alive.’

  Oh, Danú, she is! Her body, her skin. The smell of her! Her breath fast, her hands inside his clothing … And he can’t stop it then. A hundred Sídhe at the door couldn’t stop it. He literally tears her clothes away and then his own. Who knows who last slept in this bed, smelling of must? Who knows how Anto got here or why he hasn’t had the decency to die yet?

  That’ll teach you! he thinks. That’ll teach you!

  But who is he talking to? Nessa? Or the part of himself that’s too Crom-twisted stupid to break free of her? She’s another king of Sligo. That’s all there is to it. A traitor, that, should he ever see her again, he will kill with his own two hands.

  Later Liz Sweeney falls asleep, though the whole bed shakes with his sobs as drip by drip the last of his love seeps away, and he is free.

  The Immortals

  Who knows how many days have passed, or if time has moved at all?

  A storm forces Nessa and Ambrosio into a cave for shelter. It scours the earth with great spiralling fingers of dust and vegetation. Mighty trees are ripped up by the roots and sent screaming into the sides of mountains.

  Yes, they actually scream.

  At first the cave seems less intimidating. A monster lived here once, but an intelligent one, and Nessa makes a torch of her finger so she can study the designs daubed on the walls.

  ‘Is it writing, do you think?’ she asks.

  And Fr Ambrosio snorts. ‘Greeks,’ he sneers. ‘Schismatics. No wonder they were damned here. And no, I can’t read it. The only word I know is “fish” and I don’t see that. The drawings should be easier.’

  ‘Drawings?’

  ‘Above your head, my child.’

  Five little stick figures. Two adults, two children. A baby. A flat-roofed home.

  She might not be able to read Greek, but the artist’s loneliness reminds her of her own. She has to turn away then, before the sadness can smother her.

  ‘Oh, by Our Saviour’s wounds!’ cries the priest. ‘Save your pity. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it drew those pictures in blood. Yes!’ He grins at the look on her face. ‘Did you think our creators provided us with paints now? And who do you think filled this cave with so many bones?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t the poor creature who drew these pictures,’ she says.

  ‘Of course it was, child! Who else?’

  ‘I mean that the blame lies with the Sídhe for making it the way it was. They are t
he real monsters.’

  ‘And who made the Sídhe the way they are?’

  ‘Not me,’ Nessa whispers. ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t anybody I know. The ones responsible are dead a long time ago.’

  ‘Ah, the famous Milesians,’ he says. ‘Your ancestors, no? They were the ones who forced the Sídhe to suffer such horror for all eternity! Your only crime, child, was to profit from it. To live in their homes while they continued to suffer.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  He flutters up on to her shoulder, his wings so much stronger now.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she tells him.

  ‘I always think about it, child. But I won’t. I’m not even hungry.’

  The two of them watch the storm. Already its force is fading here as it moves off in the direction that she too must follow if she is to keep her promises and escape. And suddenly it strikes her that if she is trapped by her own words, what must it be like for the enemy.

  ‘All those promises the Sídhe make, Father. Are they fools?’

  ‘Not at all, child. Strange, yes. Cruel, capricious. Joyful and playful and sometimes as innocent as babes. What they are not, however, is stupid. At least not where promises are concerned. They word them ever so carefully!’

  ‘But … but they can’t keep them all, Father.’

  ‘You are right. It’s like … It’s like a gamble they take, my child. The two worlds drift slowly about each other on a great ocean, theirs and yours, each too tiny for the other to see.’

  ‘That … that doesn’t make any sense, Father.’

  ‘But it makes perfect sense, child! God and Lucifer each see each other as the devil, do they not? Between humans and Sídhe, it is the same. Ack!’ He pounds a tiny fist on to the skin of her shoulder. And then the momentary energy leaves him again. ‘But what do I care about sense? I who sent both astronomers and astrologers to the stake? It is simply the way of it. The worlds attract or repel one another over lifetimes, and the rules are complex beyond my understanding. But look at it this way: we humans are the treasure ship and they the filthy pirates. We need to keep them away, for in those times that they are close enough to board they steal away the likes of me to share their hell with them. They work all kinds of wickedness! But then the currents pull us apart once more, spinning us away for generations, maybe whole centuries …’