With raw energy coursing through my body, I moved faster than blinking eyelids. Jade cut bullets out of air with precise accuracy. It was magic. It was Good Luck.
A few got past my defenses, but ricocheted off of the Fir Bolg’s tough pocked skin. He winced as if they were mere BB gun balls. An enraged roar rumbled from his mouth. With a great thunderclap of his meaty palms he knocked the officers off their feet for the moment.
As one we all took shelter on the side of a neighbor’s house away from the officers and the terrified civilians.
The giant’s hand engulfed mine with an iron grip.
“Iarfhlaith. So good to see you.”
“Master O’Farrell. You look terrible.”
“I had a run in with Manann mac Lir. I stole his boat again. He took back Fragarach though. How’d you know we were here?”
“I didn’t,” said the giant. “I came because the Chaos is amassing here like a black hole.”
“So you were determined to fight whatever you came across here, all by yourself?”
The giant’s mohawk-mullet bobbed as he nodded in confirmation.
Smiling, I slugged his arm. “Well it’s good to see you friend. Donn is trying to uproot the Oak tree in my mom’s front yard...or what’s left of it.”
I pointed to the tiers levitating above us.
As I wondered how I’d even get to the floating island that upheld the childhood house I grew up in, the sidewalk literally ripped free of the ground and snaked skyward, creating a direct but narrow path to Mom’s house. Entire clumps of dirt stuck to the underside of the sidewalk, looking like earthen stalactites. The hovering pathway rose in a circle, a steep climb with no rails. I’d need my Luck just to circle the levitating walkway without falling off.
“You ready, Boss?” Rob asked me.
I stared up at the trials that lay ahead of us. High overhead it looked like vultures were already circling, waiting to gorge on the dead. But I realized they were not vultures. They were Sluagh so high up that they appeared as normal sized birds, and not the man-eating monstrosities that they were. And if Sluagh were here, it meant Donn brought over every other kind of monster imaginable.
I eyed each friend in turn. Iarfhlaith, Rob the Hob, Charice, Gavin, and Tain. “If we don’t make it through this—”
Charice cut me off. “Of course we’ll make it through this, Sean. Just like every other challenge you’ve faced. We have to, or we’ll die. Right, Shamrock Samurai?”
Despite the insanity happening around me, I smiled. If ever there was a group of people I didn’t mind dying with, it was these friends, fighting by my side.
“Let’s destroy Donn, and save my family.”
Wasting no time, Gavin stepped over to a flaming house and inhaled. The raging inferno shot towards him like a laser beam. He sucked the flames into his mouth and down his throat. Flames crawled across his skin, but they did not burn him. Wings exploded from his back, horns sprouted from his forehead, and a tail whipped from his backside, but he retained his human shape, like a draconic hell-guy. His throat pulsed with firelight, eyes glowing as orange as embers.
I can’t lie. My brother looked so sick. And between him, Charice, the Fir Bolg, Tain, Enbarr, and myself we were a formidable force, in appearance and raw power.
Except for one shapeshifting, muppet-like, Celtic jersey wearing hobgoblin.
“Rob Swellfellow,” I said. “You’ve been a fantastic servant. Don’t make me regret this.”
I reached into my jacket of holding and shoved the AR-15 into Rob’s stubby hands. Due to his small stature, the modified rifle looked massive. He reminded me of Rambo hefting an M60. A wide smile split his face from ear to ear. His eyes twinkled.
“No friendly fire.”
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At a loss for words, Rob saluted me.
I mounted Enbarr and gave Jade a test swing. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
As Enbarr charged up the path, Iarflaith, and Tain trailed close behind. Gavin and Charice flew alongside us, while Rob hovered at my side. Part of me feared that the floating cement was some sort of trap that would collapse once we were high enough to fall to our deaths. Another part of me worried that Iarflaith’s weight alone would bring the whole thing crashing down. But dark magic held it firm under our combined weight.
Sensing our presence, Sluagh rained from the sky.
Howling with laughter, Rob held down the trigger of the illegally modified fully automatic AR-15, firing on the freakish fowls. The recoils of the rifle shook his entire hob body.
Iarfhlaith took care of the ones that got past the bullets by ripping them in half with his bare bulking hands. Charice battered the Sluagh that flew too close to us with blasts of Bad Luck, and Gavin set some on fire. Massive bird bodies plummeted on either side of the floating sidewalk to the street below.
We made one revolution around the spiraling curb. Two more to go before we reached the next tier.
A wave of decrepit Fear Gortcha hobbled onto the sidewalk. The mass of bodies pulsed like a singular entity with hundreds of mouths and outstretched hands ready to tear our skin off. The moans and groans echoing from their emaciated throats sent shivers across my skin.
Enbarr charged into the fray. I hacked away with Jade. Emerald magic cast a green light on the hollow faces of the undead as my katana cut down the opposition.
Gavin spewed fire into their ranks while Charice’s amethyst wing blasts knocked them off of the sidewalk to splatter on the ground far below. Rob hovered to the side of the curb flanking the Celtic zombies that tottered on the sidewalk’s edge. Muzzle flare illuminated his twisted hobgoblin grin in bursts. “Die! Die! Die!”
Iarfhlaith punched a mass of the Fear Gotcha, scattering them like bowling pins. But no sooner did he pound ‘em did more zombies swarm over his massive arm. They dogpiled him, suffocating the Fir Bolg with sheer numbers. Enbarr drew near him and bucked off the creeps with devastating hooves. My katana carved into the undead monsters silencing their wordless whining. Tain remained locked in his German Shephard state but tugged Fear Gortcha off of Iarfhlaith with his strong canine jaws.
Somehow we pushed through the onslaught of grotesque bodies until we left the stilled undead in piles on the second revolution.
By the third and final journey around the spiral sidewalk I was pissed off. How many freakin’ monsters did Donn have at his disposal? Sluagh continued to divebomb us, but more often than not exploded against Iarfhlaith’s fists like feathered fireworks.
They didn’t worry me though. It was the Banshee sisters that bothered me. I recognized their faces from my darkened dream, my living nightmare when my inner Ban-he took over and I became Asen Scáth. They did not like me.
Beautiful female faces contorted as their mouths stretched open. Sonic screams erupted, shooting right at me. With the narrow path of the sidewalk, I had nowhere to dodge, even with Luck coursing through me. The force of the screams battered into me, flipping me off of Enbarr and beyond sidewalk into an open air freefall. My stomach dropped as I fell.
Charice and Gavin caught me by my jacket. My neck whiplashed as gravity pulled me down while they tugged me up. I’d be sore later. If I even survived this fight, I’d worry about it then. Together they beat their wings, lifting me out of range of the shrieking Banshees. Or at least they tried to.
A sonic Banshee blast ripped into Charice blowing her off course. Another one rocked Gavin. They tried to hold on but their grips only served to rip my jacket of holding. I fell some twenty feet into Mom’s backyard.
Falling at an angle helped, but not by much. As soon as my feet touched down, I tucked and rolled, coming up with my sword. Still, the impact rocked me and I took a breath to get my bearings. Also because my Mom’s property was essentially a mini floating island, my landing loosed the earth beneath me. A sinkhole opened like a mouth. I clawed my way up and out, thankful that my kid brother Aiden hadn’t mowed the lawn in a while, giving me grass to pull myself up. I rolled onto the back porch, chest heaving. I eyed the hole and the earth far beneath and experienced vertigo. I almost just died like a sucker. Yikes.
I shook my head. Focus. Save Mom and Aiden.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I rushed inside through the sliding glass door and threw it shut behind me.
“Mom! Aiden?”
I ran through room after room until I found them in Mom’s walk-in closet.
Mom and Aiden held fast to each other the way you would during a massive earthquake or tornado. Blasts and vibrations rocked the house. In response, the house creaked like a wounded animal. It felt like a storm tossed ship lost at sea. I stumbled a bit trying to find my balance.
When I touched Mom she freaked out and tried to bat at me with her fist until she realized who I was.
“Are you hurt?” I asked both of them.
Only minor cuts and bruises. I was amazed more damage wasn’t done considering the whole house had ripped free and gone full NASA liftoff.
“What’s happening, Sean?”
“Can’t explain, but it’s bad. I’m here to handle it.”
Out of nowhere everything stilled. The house stopped bobbing. The screams outside died down.
My grip tightened on Jade’s hilt.
I stepped into the living room.
A heavy knock rapped on the front door.
“Who is it?” I yelled.
A serpentine voice answered me in Gaelic. Even without my magic cap I understood the reply.
“Donn the Red. Lord of the Dead.”