Number Seven stood in the pool, holding the corpse of Number Four, stewing in his rage. The water around the body began to glow. The glow coalesced to a single point of light. The Morrigan crouched on the edge of the pool. She dipped her fingers into the water and the point of light darted into her hand.

'You can release the body now,' said the Goddess, 'Everything that was her has left it.'

'No,' said Number Seven. 'We’re taking the body home.' Now that no-one was trying to kill anyone he had time to think and he was thinking about the suit. How had Four known about it? Had she seen through it or had someone told her? It would have had to be someone persuasive, someone who knew about the suit and had a reason to hate it. Currently there was just one person on the suspect list and it was about time that she was faced with the consequences of her actions.

He looked up at Sorrow, still standing on the bank, the terrible harpoon held loosely in hand. Her wounds were knitting together as he watched. Black feathers springing forth to remake her wings like time lapse footage of flowers appearing in spring.

Sorrow was looking down, not at him, but at the body in his arms. She was deciding something, he could see it in her frown and in the stillness of her body. And then she shrugged. Mind made up, she met his eyes, just for a moment, and he saw a terrible resolve.

She rounded on the Morrigan, grabbed the Goddess by the throat and brandished the Gáe Bulg close to her face. 'Never again,' said Sorrow.

'I am your Goddess.'

'You’re about to be a Goddess with no face,' said Sorrow. 'This never happens again.'

'She was a murderer. You would happily have shot her given the chance.' The Morrigan showed no sign that she feared the terrible weapon but she also didn’t resist.

'But you didn’t give me the chance. So she had to die in agony, in front of a fucking audience. Your handmaidens deserve better.'

'Mother,' it was the red haired woman, 'Don’t you think she’s earned the right to demand this of you?'

The Morrigan sighed, 'So be it. All future duels will end at first blood. Good enough?'

'It’ll do,' said Sorrow. She handed the weapon to the red-headed woman.

Seven floated the body of Number Four to the edge of the pool. Six was waiting for him and took Four out of his hands to allow him to climb out.

'What the hell was she thinking?' said Six, looking down at the body in his arms.

Seven said nothing. He didn’t trust himself to explain the suit without sounding crazier than Number Four.

'It’s my fault,' said Five, approaching from the direction of the cauldron with Two following close behind.

'No,' said Seven but Five interrupted him before he could work out what he was going to say.

'It is. I told the Boss that she needed to do something, anything, so that Four would believe I’d been punished.'

'You told the boss?' said Six, before Seven could say it.

'Well, yeah. I shot a civilian in the head. I wasn’t going to keep that to myself,' said Five.

'I told her too,' said Six. 'She said she wasn’t going to act on it because group cohesion was too important.'

'I tried to take responsibility,' said Seven. 'She shouted for a bit but the only thing she actually did was to use it as leverage the next time she needed a favour from the CIA.'

'When I told her,' said Two, 'she said that she’d sent Five for intensive therapy to deal with his underlying emotional trauma.'

'No,' said Five, 'She sent me to South America to keep an eye on stuff she wasn’t supposed to be involved with.'

'Probably what she needed the leverage for,' said Six. 'The CIA don’t like it when anyone else comes to play on their side of the pond.'

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

'We need to get back to London.' Seven was suddenly aware of all the non-suit related questions that the Boss needed to answer and the sooner the better.

#

Sorrow turned her back on Seven and his colleagues and walked away from the Morrigan. She looked around for Jude and saw him over by the cauldron, talking to the raven.

Jude looked up inquiringly as she approached.

'Does it ever get any easier?' she said.

'If it ever does you need to sign yourself off for a few weeks, go and look at some nature or some art, and don’t come back until you’ve sorted out some counselling.' He didn’t seem to be joking but it was sometimes hard to tell with Jude. 'Can you put off the inevitable breakdown until we get everyone home?' That was probably an attempt at humour.

Sorrow nodded.

'There might be a problem with that,' said the raven. 'I can get Five and Six back to their bodies but there’s not much I can do for the rest of you. Even if one of them does release me from my penance.'

'I don’t think I can summon the Washer from inside Avalon,' said Sorrow.

'You can’t,' that was Scáthach. 'Most of the easy routes out are closed and have been for years. Now that Mother has taken a mortal favourite again she might be persuaded to open them but that won’t help right now.'

'Jude?' said Sorrow.

'Maybe,' said Jude, 'If Scáthach can tell me where the weak spots are.'

Scáthach smiled, 'I think together the two of us might test the limits of your blade and find a solution.'

'We’ll get out of your way then,' said the raven, inching around the rim of the cauldron toward Sorrow.'Any room on your shoulder for a passenger?'

'Fine,' said Sorrow, 'Just don’t crap down my back.'

The body of Number Four lay in the centre of the grove, Number Seven’s torn jacket over her face, and two shades standing over her. Sorrow could barely see them but if she squinted and concentrated hard she could see just enough to know that they had been Numbers One and Three.

'You guys ok?' she said and almost kicked herself. 'I mean as ok as possible under the circumstances.'

'And you are?' said Number Three, turning his sightless face towards the sound of her voice.

'She’s Lucky’s bodyguard,' said Number One. 'The one that beat Four.'

Sorrow took a step back at that. She did not want to get into a fight with a couple of dead men.

'Thank you,' said Three.

From both of us,' said One. He looked towards the living blanks and then down at his feet. 'And thanks from Lucky too. He’s probably going to forget to say it but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it.'

'Try to take care of him,' said Three.

'He won’t make it easy,' One put a hand on Three’s shoulder and Sorrow couldn’t tell if he was reassuring Three or drawing strength from him. 'He gets self destructive.'

'Tell him not to worry about us.' Three was actually smiling. It didn’t make his face look any better but it seemed genuine. 'Scáthach has promised to look after us and that’s more of an afterlife than I ever expected.'

#

Number Five awoke to a stranger’s face. A middle-aged East Asian man was bent low over him. He felt a hand on his wrist, taking his pulse.

'You had us worried for a bit there,' said the stranger.

Five said nothing. His training wouldn’t let him.

'You might be thinking of leaping out of bed but I really don’t advise it. At least until we’ve removed all the hardware you’re attached to,' said the stranger.

Five had not been thinking of leaping out of bed. He was biding his time, waiting to find out exactly how much trouble he was in.

'Don’t worry about it, boss.' That was the voice of the raven that Five supposed he was now going to have to start calling Orion. 'Safe and sound back in the real world.'

'But is it though?' said Five, startled by how dry his throat was and how rough he sounded. 'Is it real?' Avalon had felt real enough while he was there.

'Oh God, don’t tell me you’ve caught philosophy.' That was the voice of Number Six.

Five turned his head toward the sound and was rewarded by the sight of Six, naked from the waist up, face down on a hospital bed.

'Are we safe?' said Five.

'As far as I can tell,' said Six.

'Sit him up. He really should be upright to face me.' A new voice. Female, sharp and generically posh.

Someone grabbed the remote controls and he felt the bed shift and fold, forcing his body into a seated position. The woman standing at the end of the bed wasn’t very big, physically, but she burned with life and cast a shadow of death that he could see flowing out behind her like a wedding train. Scáthach had warned him that the sight might persist after he got back but he hadn’t been expecting to see anything like this.

'Who are you?' said Five

'This is Cepha. She’s in charge around here.' Six was still face down. He must have recognised her by her voice. He hadn’t seen her. He wasn’t seeing what Five was seeing.

'We have a message for you,' said Orion. Five wondered if the bird was seeing it.

'It’s from Jude,' said Five. If he told her then maybe she’d go away. 'He says it’s hard to cut through from Avalon and it needs to be somewhere the barrier is thin. He says there’s only a couple of spots in London so he’ll see you on the banker’s bridge in time for cocktails.' Hopefully the message was so vague that it would only make sense to the right person.

Cepha looked down at the slender silver wristwatch on her left wrist, 'About forty minutes then. I shall have to debrief you three later.' She swept out taking both the fire and the shadow with her.