'But who can do that?' Caitlin said, still not understanding.
' You can, you idiot! That's why you were chosen. You're supposed to be better than everyone else — a champion of life. The Blue Fire was in you… and now it's going.'
'Going?' Caitlin looked down at her hands.
'You betrayed it. You-'
'Do not treat her harshly.' The voice was like a cold wind through a night forest. Briony slid off the rock and cowered behind it. Brigid stopped cackling, and Amy ran behind her, clutching at the old woman's hair.
The Morrigan emerged from the shadows at the back of the shelter, fierce and beautiful, her hair the deepest, most lustrous black, her skin pale, her lips the brightest red.
'Any mother would have done the same,' Caitlin protested. 'To get their son back… I don't care what you all say. That was the only choice I could make.'
The Morrigan held out her slim hand, and though she was afraid, Caitlin took it. It was filled with a cool power that made Caitlin's head spin. The Morrigan led her to the centre of the sheltered area, and then stood facing her so that Caitlin could lose herself in those dark, unfathomable eyes.
'Women also understand sacrifice, more, much more than men.' Her voice, though frightening, was also somehow soothing. 'Sacrifice… the burning heart… for the sake of sisters and brothers, however much pain it causes inside. And you, Caitlin Shepherd, would have been able, when the need came, for you were a Sister of Dragons, one with the flow of Existence. But you were driven from the path… forced into the wilderness…'
'I don't understand,' Caitlin said. 'Who did that?'
'A man. Always a man, for since the dawn of your age only they have been capable of plumbing the depths of heartlessness, of manipulating women in the age-old struggle. The seasons have shifted, and the sisterhood is coming back to power once more. But some men will not stand for that. They cannot bear women with power. They cannot accept a sister standing shoulder to shoulder with them. And so they will play their male games of power and manipulation, of violence and unnecessary slaughter. To crush us down, sister. To make us lesser.'
Caitlin's mind was racing at the Morrigan's hypnotic words. 'I was manipulated…?'
'Until the boy's death, you would have chosen the sacrifice to save all Fragile Creatures, despite the hurt you would have felt. His death changed everything. And it was done in the full knowledge that it would take your power away.'
'I don't understand. It was done to-?'
'To stop you achieving your potential, sister. As simple as that.'
Caitlin slumped to the cold, hard ground and hugged her knees. 'But I got Liam back.'
'Yeah, but at what price.' Briony had found the nerve to speak. 'All those people are going to die — horribly, their spirits infected, just so you can have a bit of happiness… a happiness that should never have been! Your little boy should have moved on. But the monster behind all this held him back, just so you could make this stupid move. A broken Sister of Dragons is better than a dead one. It causes despair… it carries on infecting
'Nobody should be asked to make that kind of decision!' Caitlin said.
'No,' the Morrigan said. 'Nobody should.'
'I can't put it right,' Caitlin said. 'I can't give him up, not now I've got him back.' 'It doesn't matter — it's already too late, you stupid bitch.' Briony rocked backwards and forwards in her hiding place. 'We're all going to hell in a handcart. You made the choice. The Blue Fire is leaving you. You've blown it.'
Caitlin looked to the Morrigan and thought she saw a hint of sympathy in those cold features. 'True,' the goddess said. 'You are no longer a Sister of Dragons.'
Amy marched forward with the forced haughtiness of the very young. 'Can't you help us?' she asked the Morrigan.
'I was sent here for a purpose, and that purpose has now passed,' the Morrigan replied. 'Here and now, I take my leave of you.' She turned back to Caitlin and her voice softened. 'You are a good sister, Caitlin Shepherd, whatever this outcome may mean for your kind.'
Then she turned and disappeared into the shadows at the back of the shelter. Beyond the rocks, the howling wind grew more intense; it was getting colder.
'That's it, then,' Briony said. 'It's all over.'
Chapter Eighteen
'Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one.'
Caitlin spasmed and a large hooded crow burst from her chest. Jack bounded back in shock. Matt watched the bird circle the prone form once and then fly off into the dark.
When the beating of its wings had faded, Caitlin's eyelids fluttered and she sat up. Matt dropped down beside her to slip an arm round her shoulders.
'It's OK,' she said woozily.
'A crow just came out of you. What the hell was that all about?'
'It doesn't matter now.' Caitlin, still dazed, tried to assimilate the Morrigan's final words. She looked round and panic pushed all thoughts out of her mind. 'Where's Liam?'
'He went over that way.' Jack pointed into the dark ahead. 'I think he said he'd found another room.'
Caitlin jumped to her feet and ran on, Matt and Jack hurrying behind, trying to keep up. The next room was lighter and smaller, and there was an opening in the far wall that led on to another place that was brighter still.
Caitlin ran through it and stopped sharply. Liam's tiny figure was frozen in the middle of the massive chamber, staring at what lay ahead. The rear of the House of Pain was missing, and instead there was space, vast and endless, filled with galaxies and comets, seething gas giants, white dwarfs, gravity wells — a twelve-storey picture window looking out over the whole immeasurable spread of Existence. Around the edges, the warp field shimmered with psychedelic colours,'where one reality merged with another.
'I never imagined it was so… big!' Jack gasped.
'Is that where this place crawled from?' Matt asked.
As the words left his lips, Caitlin saw movement far, far away, on the very edge of the universe, though she had no idea how she could see that far; it was as though the more she stared, the more she could see. A shadow was coming towards them. In the context of all that lay there, it appeared minuscule and slow-moving. Caitlin knew that was a lie of perception: it was vast — entire galaxies disappeared behind it as it travelled — and it was hurding towards them in a manner, she knew, somehow she knew, that transcended the laws of physics.
'The Void,' she mouthed.
And even though the words were soundless, the Void appeared to hear her, for she felt the fall force of its intellect turned on her. It was as if it had looked at her across immeasurable light years, looked direcdy into the deepest part of her where her darkest secrets lay. She staggered back, crushed by the weight of the dread and terror it elicited.
'It's coming,' she said.
And in that instant the connection was gone, but she knew what waited for them, in the days, or weeks, or millions of years it would take for it to arrive.
She slipped her arm around Liam to turn him away from that awful sight, and as she did so another chill swept through her. Behind them, purple mist drifted in the dead heat. The army of the Lament-Brood had slipped in silently to fill the chamber and all the rooms beyond. Mary basked in a feeling of utter peace. The air was warm, the sound of the spring soothing, and the sanctity of that place made her feel so secure that she never wanted to leave. More potent was the sense of presence; an intelligence enveloped her, at once immense yet also intimate, as if it were there just for her.
She's coming, Mary thought, and she had no idea how she knew that, but an instant later a woman appeared in the billowing steam around the hot spring. Mary didn't know what she had expected — a figure filled with lights and stars, she guessed — but what actually emerged was a woman that resembled the Virgin. Mary knew she was seeing the Goddess in a way her mind could comprehend, drawn from the once-comforting iconic images she had seen during her Catholic childhood.