Morrigan by Jonathan King (cat reading book txt) 📕

around him from behind. Shamgar fell from his hands as he was dragged away into the mists and dark of night. Brigid shot a jet of flame after them, but the Dearg-Due dropped and rolled away, putting out the flames that lapped at the back of her dress.

“Abel!” Brigid called, but the fog of invisibility had already obscured him from sight.

“Don’t cry out for help,” the Dearg-Due whispered in Abel’s ear, pulling him further away. “This is going to be painful enough without me snapping your bones.”

Abel scrambled for something, anything, that she would care about, as she nuzzled his neck, scraping the tips of her fangs along his skin. She started humming her song, and a thought sprang to Abel’s mind.

“What about your lover?” he asked. “The one things ended badly with. What would he think of what you’re doing now?”

The vampire stilled against his neck.

“He was a good man, wasn’t he?” Abel pressed. “He wouldn’t want you killing the innocent, would he?”

The Dearg-Due finally spoke, a growl that made his skin tremble. “If he cared so much, he should have been there when I needed him. He should have come for me, rescued me from that tower, from my husband who bled me night after night just to see the red on my skin, the sick bastard. I never should have had to escape myself, the only way I knew how.” She sucked in air hard and heavy. “If he ever loved me, he wouldn’t have let me suffer like that.”

“Maybe he didn’t know,” Abel suggested.

“He knew,” the Dearg-Due snarled, hurling him away. “Everyone knew. But my husband was rich and powerful, so they kept to their village and left the tower alone. The world left me to my fate, and so it deserves to lose everything I take from it and then some.”

The thought made Abel’s stomach writhe, but he had to admit, now that he knew where she was coming from, he could almost understand her bloodlust. And he didn’t want her dead quite as much as he had before. But he really didn’t want to be dead again, either.

He crawled away—and his palms slipped on the edge of the open grave, leaving him dangling six feet above the fingerless corpse. He scampered back, choking on the foul smell of rot, and turned to find himself face to face with the Dearg-Due, crawling after him on all fours like a jungle cat on the hunt.

“Okay, he didn’t save you,” said Abel, covering his neck with his hand. “But I bet he wanted to. It must have killed him not to be able to help you. That song of yours, I bet he sang that over your grave every night. He hated that he was too late to save you.”

“You didn’t know him,” said the Dearg-Due, but her eyes reflected moonlight in tears. Her fingers shook as they tried to pry his away from his throat.

“I don’t have to,” said Abel. “I know what it feels like to be in love.”

A flash of yellow caught his eye, and he spotted Brigid in her bright blouse sneaking up behind the Dearg-Due. Dirt crumbled behind him, and he remembered what Brigid had said about sticking the vampire back in her grave.

This wasn’t her grave, but it would do.

He took a deep breath. This was dangerous, and it might get him killed, and it would certainly hurt the Dearg-Due. But it was the only way out of this.

“And if he saw you now, turned into this blood-sucking monster, he’d be sickened. He’d see you twisted and wicked and foul and wonder why he ever loved you.”

“Shut up,” the Dearg-Due growled.

“He’d know at last that not saving you from that tower was saving himself from the fate of being tied to you for the rest of his miserable life,” Abel finished.

“I said shut up!” The Dearg-Due lunged at him. Abel shifted back, planting his knees in her stomach and rolling backwards. Too far—there wasn’t enough solid ground beneath him. They both tumbled into space. Abel flailed, grabbing for a handhold…

Brigid’s hand grabbed his, pulled him up and out. The Dearg-Due tried to follow, but Brigid blasted her full in the face with her torch. The vampire shrieked, batting at the flames that consumed her face and hair.

“This won’t hold her long!” Brigid shouted. “The grave liner!”

Abel saw the heavy concrete slab sitting at an angle on the mound of cemetery dirt. He ran to its side, braced himself, and pushed against it with his feet. It was too heavy to lift, but on its bed of loose dirt, it slowly began to slide out over the edge. The Dearg-Due grabbed at it, tried to push it back, but gravity worked against her. The grave liner toppled over the edge, pinning her underneath.

Brigid let up her barrage of flame. “That’ll do it! Get her covered up quick. I need to go help Mac.” She raced off toward the sound of Mac’s battle cries, growing ever more frustrated in the distance.

Abel grabbed a shovel and started piling dirt into the grave. It writhed as wriggling limbs struggled to free themselves, but with each shovelful of earth tipped over the side, the wriggling grew less and less, until the whole grave was filled and Abel stood sweaty and dirty on the side.

It seemed wrong, somehow, the way he’d tricked her, torn her down. But she was a monster. She’d been trying to kill him. This was no different from stealing that car to escape from Cora, right?

There was no time to pursue the question. The gods were still fighting, and he wasn’t about to leave them hanging. He found his sword and opened Mac’s coat wide, hoping that … yes, the mists were going back into the coat, leaving the graveyard clear again.

He could see Morrigan and Cora in the skies above him, barrel rolling across the dark expanse. On a hill not far distant, Mac and Brigid were trying to hold back the