I surveyed the wreckage.

Crumpled metal fenders, scattered bits of glass, plastic, and blood all mingled together like a mosaic of mortality. The police blocked the intersection and an officer redirected what little traffic existed that late at night onto a detour with an orange glowing baton. Meanwhile ambulances pulled up and wove their way through the fire trucks.

I decided it was best to park at the Taco Bell on the corner. Tain, Rob, and I approached a heavyset Hispanic bystander who paced along the curb. “What’s going on?” I asked him.

The guy was in his late forties sporting a worn out hoodie. One hand held a to-go Taco Bell bag, the other pointed as he spoke. “I saw the whole thing. Huge pile up. These thugs were running from the cops and had a full on shootout. They ran this intersection. Light turned red way before they got here. They tried to go through oncoming traffic. I swear, kids these days playing too many video games and think they’re invincible.”

“Innocent people got hurt, I assume.”

“Yeah. There’s at least one dead thug. Serves ‘em right. Scum. But I think there’s a cop that won’t make it, not to mention a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He shook his head and spat on the ground in disgust. “Some people have no value for life, man. No value at all.”

“Thanks.”

He tipped his SF Giants cap to me. “Take care now.”

I stepped closer to the tragedy but stopped a few feet away. A rushing wind blew as if from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It nearly blew me off my feet. I looked around to see if the Hispanic guy experienced it, but he looked unaffected still gazing on the wreckage. I heard the flapping of huge wings before I saw her.

The Morrigan descended from the evening sky, a great oversized crow as big as a bald eagle. She landed on the ground next to me, her long beak coming up to my waist. Again I checked to see if anyone noticed but it appeared that she was invisible to everyone but me, Rob, and Tain. By the time I looked from the crowd back to her she had shifted into a seven foot plus woman of matchless beauty. Her lean face lay shrouded in shadow. Her nose pointed down like a beak but was still attractive. Hair as ebony as midnight black feathers fell in thick locks around her collar bone that would have put a Venus commercial to shame.

“Sean,” she addressed me with a nod.

“Morrigan,” I replied.

The first time we spoke last week, the Morrigan got me out of a drive-by shooting and then revealed herself to me. But that wasn’t the first time we met. She’d helped me before that, when I was stuck in Tech Duinn. My friends and I would have died at the webbed hands of Donn the Red if not for a mysterious crow reminding me of the Oak leaf and the power it lent me. And after that she showed me who killed my sister and showed me a way to kill the Kelpie by way of Fragarach, the aquatic sword of the sea realm, Tir fo Thuinn.

“I can’t thank you enough for the Fragarach tip. I avenged my sister.”

“I know. I witnessed it.”

It was a little creepy, the way she admitted stalking and spying on me, all casual like. No biggie. I changed the subject.

“I need your help again.”

“And I’m inclined to help you, depending on your request.” She stepped forward and looked back once indicating that I should follow her. She stepped off the curb, her bare ivory feet contrasted against the filthy uneven asphalt of the highway road. My eyes shifted from side to side as I eyed the officers and other first responders, but the Morrigan strutted past the coned-off section and the caution signs, full of confidence.

She moved over to a thug lying on the ground panting heavily. He lay sprawled in a puddle of his own scarlet life liquid. His chest moved up and down as if it was the hardest thing he did in his life. Probably because a few of his ribs protruded through his chest.

The Morrigan bent over him and looked him in the eyes. At first his eyes were glazed over as if she were invisible to him, but then his eyes focused on her and he gasped.

As he exhaled I got the sense that it was his last breath. The Morrigan reveled in it as if she were smelling a bouquet of flowers. She inhaled deep and stood upright again throwing her shoulders back and stretching her arms as if she awakened from a refreshing catnap.

She noted the open disdain on my face, and probably a hint of disgust.

“Life is such a frail thing, Sean. The mortality of humans, so fickle. From the moment you are born you are placed upon an edge of life, teetering over a precipice of death. One nudge is all it takes, one push over that edge, and your frail lives come to an end. In those moments in the tension between life and death, I find power.”

I grimaced. “Poetic. And creepy.”

She moved to a police officer who was in much the same state as the former thug who was now just a corpse. The officer looked like he had been launched through his front windshield, his forehead split open. Though in immense pain, he seemed aware of his surroundings, his eyes not yet glazed over. Before she could do her life-suck thing, the paramedics lifted the officer into the ambulance.

“A servant of the law, of Order, putting his life on the line to stop a servant of Chaos.” The Morrigan spread her hands pointing at the two men. “Such is life. A cosmic battle waged, a balance struck between Order and Chaos.”

“And which do you serve?” I asked her.

“Neither,” she said. “I serve the balance.”

“And what am I? Some pawn in a larger game?”

The Morrigan turned on her heel and stepped close to me forcing me to backpedal. I looked up into her black eyes and they smiled back at me. “No Sean. You’re much more than that.”

I couldn’t stand all this death and poetry and gothic crypticness.

“Cool story. But I’d really like to get out of here before I hurl my dinner. I’ve done a lot of vomiting lately. Which is why it’s nice that I ran into you.”

“I couldn’t pretend to help you with medical ailments.”

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“Well it’s not like that. A vampire bit me,” I showed her the scars.

“Healed quite well,” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s part of the problem. Shouldn’t I have turned by now?”

Her eyes narrowed at me as if she gazed into my soul. “Remove your shirt.”

“What?”

“Do as I say.”

Again, I looked around at the first responders expecting them to jerk their heads in my direction, but none of them reacted. Still, my cheeks burned red as my hair.

“They cannot see us, I’ve shrouded us.”

With reasonable apprehension I removed my jacket, then my shirt. Goosebumps swarmed across my skin. It was a cold night after all. The massive blemish in the center of my chest, the Keening that the Banshee laid on me a little over a month ago, made me extremely self-conscious. It was redder than usual, gnarly, and inflamed.

The Morrigan held out her slender ivory hands, hesitated a mere breath away from the scar, then proceeded to trace the rune with her black talon-like fingernail. I resisted the urge to shiver or giggle and flexed my chest instead. She closed her eyes then put her palm over my Keening completely. Her eyebrows furrowed as she searched within. At least that’s what I assumed she was doing. I didn’t feel any power transferring to me or coming out of me. I didn’t sense anything.

After a while she pulled her hand back, opening her eyes. “A battle rages within. Something else assaults your body.”

“Well yeah. Kind of figured that since I was sick. It’s like a magic virus or something?”

The Morrigan shook her head. “It’s nothing as elementary as a parasite from the physical plane. This thing transcends mortality. A wicked magic nestles deep within. And yet there’s something familiar about it, as if it is a part of you.”

“So you’re saying I’m gonna turn into a vampire.”

“If the vampire venom succeeded, you would be a vampire now. The Keening was victorious.

“Then why is my body struggling?”

“The bite from the Dearg Due’s child caused a reaction within the Keening, antagonizing the curse, making it overzealous.”

“But I’m already cursed.”

“That is but a byproduct of the curse. The curse itself was being held at bay by your Good Luck.” She spread her arms out taking in the carnage around us once more. “We are all part of the cosmic struggle between Order and Chaos. Your magic is from Order, but the Keening is of Chaos. War wages within your body. But now one side of the fight has been strengthened.”

“Let me guess, the Chaos side?”

The Morrigan leveled her eyes affirming my suspicion.

“So what happens now? I wait it out and see who wins? Continue with this magic flu until I succumb to it? Aren’t there magical antibiotics? Magic ibuprofen?”

“There are ways you could be healed. Many of them require you traveling to Tir na nOg. However I would not recommend that.”

“Why not?”

“As your power grows whenever you step over to the Otherside, I fear that this war raging within you would be amplified by the unearthly nature of Tir na nOg. I am only surmising, but I would wager that I am correct.”

“Okay... any other options?”

“I could aid you, Sean. At a price, that is.”

I didn’t like the tone of her voice. It implied both a simple solution to my problem, and some sort of binding contract that would bite me in the butt later down the road.

“It’ll cost me? That’s not fair. I got Fragarach for you last time. Isn’t that enough?”

“The sword was for you, Sean. You obtaining Fragarach didn’t benefit me in any way. It was solely a gesture of good faith. Nothing more.”

“But all you did was tell me it existed. I did all the work to get the dang thing.”

“Knowledge is power.”

“No thanks. I’ll pass on your help.”

The Morrigan looked taken aback. “But you have not even entertained my proposition.”

“I’m good. I’ve pissed off Donn the lord of the dead. My friend holds the Dullahan’s whip, so at any moment the headless horseman could come looking for that. I also borrowed or stole Manann mac Lir’s sea sword, depending on how you look at it. Oh, my blood gives vampires the runs. So I think I have enough Celtic champions of both Order and Chaos on my tail already. No need to add any more to the list.”

“But I fear that if you do not address the issue within you soon, the outcome may be unsavory.”

“What? Will I develop magic asthma and need a magic inhaler? Will I be bedridden and at constant risk of vomiting up Good Luck?”

“You could die.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

She nodded and turned her back on me, escorting me back to my Mustang.

“Let’s talk Tir na nOg for a second,” I said. “Where would I go to get healed once I’m on the Otherside?”

“It’s not about where, but whom. Brigid would be the most sympathetic to your plight. I believe she is somewhere local even.”

“Is she a Tuatha too?”

The Morrigan nodded.

“Nope. Pass.”

“Why not at least consider my offer then?”

I thought about it for a few seconds then frowned. I shook my head rejecting her. “No. And for the same reason. I’m tired of getting intertwined with Tuatha and Fomorians. I’ve got enough of my own problems. Like the fact that I’ve been trying to kill myself.”

The Morrigan’s eyelids narrowed to slits, questioning me.

“There’s an imposter Sean running around.”

“An apparition of yourself?”

I folded my arms and scowled. “Yep.”

She asked for more details. I gave her the whole spiel of my encounter with copycat Sean thus far.

“Then your predicament is far worse than I feared. You are haunted by a Fetch.”

My lips spread into a smile. “It has a name?” I glared at Rob. “I knew I wasn’t imagining things.”

“Yes the Fetch is real. Your sanity is not in question. It’s an omen of your impending demise.”

“Come again?”

“Because the Keening should have claimed your life, you have attracted a phantom spirit that has assumed your form to herald your imminent death.”

I paused, unsure how to respond. “So that’s it then? I’ll just drop dead any day now?”

“No, the omen is not absolute. It simply means the likelihood of your death is close at hand.”

“But how? I just feel under the weather. I’m not decrepit on a deathbed. I’m still running around, and I’ve been eating like a horse.”

“The death is magically induced and threatens your physical self, but the Good Luck is halting the process. The Keening is taking over your person from the inside out. At some point you will cease to exist and the Keening will inhabit the shell of your body. Sean O’Farrell will be no more, but your body will roam Earth, Tir na nOg, or beyond, causing whatever Chaos it can.

“To slow the spread of the curse, you should draw healing from the Oak tree at your mother’s residence.”

“Tried that. The tree rejected me.”

She shook her head, but seemed like she expected that answer. “Because of this and many more obvious reasons you should accept my assistance.” She pursed her lips irritated with my stubbornness. “Hold out your hand.”

I extended my palm.

She dropped two pieces of a small black beak into my hands.

“If you change your mind or are in a dire predicament, crush these beaks and I will be summoned to you to offer you aid. But if you reject me then, it will be the last time I ever offer you help on my terms.”

“Uh, thanks. I hope these are clean.” I pocketed the beaks.

When I looked up she disappeared.

At this point Rob butted in. “Her calling card is the best thing you have going for you,”

“I took it as a courtesy. I’m not gonna get tied up in any more messes.”

“You heard what she said. You’ll die if the Chaos virus wins.”