“Ye little scamp, ye just want me to take ye t’ town so’s ye can ogle the new dresses at Cannock’s...”

He touched the edge of her jawbone, cracked by heat and time and final screams. “Och, of course Tommy O’Reilly pulled yer pigtails. They be made fer pullin’, no?”

“Ice cream! Do I be made of money for ye?”

“Manure be the food of the land. If ye think it stinks, don’t eat from the garden!”

He paused as a footbone caressed his fingers, and another red tear joined the ones going down his face. “Aye, Spottie-boy, ye were a good dog,” he told the Carin Terrier whose broken body had been thrown into the fire with his masters. “Did ye nae catch so many of the thieving varmints for us over the years? Did ye nae pull on my sister’s skirts like a proper dog? Good dog, good dog...”

Ahhh...

He lifted the silver earring up, and his heart lurched. “Nay, Mamai, ye look finer than the Lady, o’ course. She’s a harridan proper, a jealous witch, thinking yer temptin’ the Lord...”

A white rib rose from ash at his finger. “Aye, and I found me a girl at last, Mamai. She’s got a serpent hiding in her tongue and a spine like burning iron, a good proper woman. Ye can see her here, waiting for me, slow-witted coward that I am. She had me come back, y’see, nagging her fool of a man t’ doin’ what’s proper and right...

An ankle bone... “Posh, dinna mind it’s the Lady’s cast-off, Mamai, ye’re twice the dancer she is an’ ever be. Ye and the ol’ fart just go off an’ have a night of it, now...”

A shinbone was pulled forth, and he flinched. “Aye, ye auld man, I’m movin’, I’m movin’, no need to kick. Doin’ the job right, I am, as long as it takes...

One of the wristbones came forth, and he flinched again. “Not so hard on the head, auld man! I learned, I did, and I came back, dinnae I? Aye, I needed a nag t’ do it, just like yer lazy arse needed Mamai t’ get out of bed in the morning. Did she nae tell ye that ye couldn’t find yer hands at the ends o’ yer arms without her? ‘twas true, ye hardarse old fart...

“Ye wanted me to sing in the church, Mamai?” A tooth rolled between his fingers. “I couldnae, I’m sorry. The priest, he was a sanctimonious fucktard, what bangin’ the MacDonnel widow and all, an’ him preening so much up there, I couldnae hold me stomach.

“Aye, auld man, I saw him there. Ye’ll be happy t’know that the last thing I did afore I ran with the hunters on me tail all those years ago was strangle the two-faced fucktard t’ death an’ impale him with his precious candelabra on that altar he profaned.

“I cannae comb your hair now, ya little scamp. Y’know that were Mamai’s private thing, did ye not? No? Aye, she combed yer hair as Granny once combed hers...

“St. Patty did nae drive all the snakes from Ireland, scamp, or the Ocras would nae be here, would they?”

He touched something hidden under the center of the pile, and paused once again, his words trailing off. It took a minute for his resolve to strengthen before he could reach down, find the eye holes, and pull up the yellowed and brackened bone, to look upon the stern and dour skull of his father.

“Aye, they did hunt me like a dog, auld man. When they tired o’ doin’ it themselves, they put a bounty on me an’ let the greedy do the work for ‘em. I had to run a good long ways, halfway ‘round the world...

“Aye, I weren’t a fighter fer the clan. I had t’ learn on me own, scrap and claw, in a world where the Blooded couldnae hide so well anymore, feared as hard as the dead bastards rulin’ the Clans.

“It was a time and a tale, but, ye might see I’ve made a wee bit o’ something o’ myself.”

He reached out again, sure despite himself, there and there, forcing his hands into ash too hot and far too cold, grasping, pulling forth, and gently setting them side by side.

He sat back on his white-shoed heels, facing his family.

“There’s a few of the clan about, here and there,” he told them somberly. “Nae the lords, as far be I know, ‘less there’s a half-Blood among the common folk from His Lordship’s philandering. Dinnae care about their blood, auld man.

“Found me a new Patron. Right heroic Jesus-girl, goin’ t’ save the whole world. Och, ye knew her already? Well, nae a surprise. She showed me some powerful things, her and her friends, put me on a path where finally I might be able t’ do something about something.

“Ye know what yer fool of a son an’ brother be goin’ t’ be? I’ll be King of Ireland Herself, Mamai, auld man, ye scamp.

“But before then, there be a few things that have t’ be done.”

He reached out slowly to stroke the blackened, yellowed bones, laying so long in ash hot cold.

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“I’ll let ye rest, at last. Ye’re goin’ t’ get a proper burial now, a proper grave, an’ a proper stone. Well, mayhap not so proper a stone, ye know ai got t’ be meself.

“And then, well, I’m goin’ to head me on down to County Cork, an’ I’m goin’ t’ be covering their fine green lawns in the red o’ the Fir Ocras.

“Aye, ‘tis a cycle of hate, Mamai. But me girl, she’s a razor, she is, an’ she told me t’ hie off to the temple an’ make the crimes against us known, an’ judgement rendered.”

He withdrew another strip of paper from his pocket, and it de-Itemized, revealing three plain ivory plaques, shaped like old shields, smooth and white... and the bottom of them were dipped in crimson.

“Ye not be knowin’ of these new gods, mayhaps. These here be Uskvaran Ivory Shields. I did confess all that I had seen an’ learned of those days to the Inquisitors of Harse, under Seal an’ Oath and magic an’ all that rot.

“They did their investigatin’ on their own, an’ returned to me with these.

“By no law of Ireland will these three names be caught an’ tried, nae before a court of men. By Harse an’ by Uskvar, these three names on here be judged guilty o’ murder, arson, theft, pillaging, and inciting riots, among sundry an’ other despicable acts such as I’ll not be inflictin’ upon yer ears. I knew the bastards were rot and filth back then, an’ they’ve not stopped with the blood e’er since.

“If I bring them t’ justice, they be brought to justice. If I fail, they go free. This be more about more than me now, auld man, Mamai. When I look into the face of the heartless scum an’ filth what killed so many, I get to be sayin’ I’m about the true holy work.”

His chuckle was deep and pained, and heavy with anger and hate. “I’ll not be failin’ about this holy task, auld man, Mamai. ‘tis as executioner I’m goin’, and their time is upon them.

“Now, quiet ye, for a time, and let me get ye together. I’ll miss nothing, an’ then I’ll lay ye down softly in Ireland’s embrace. Hah, I’ll e’en Sing to ye, in the auld tongue...”

He began to croon out the old songs, and the whole clearing shivered as the Heartsong began to rise, and if the crimson tears were a quiet counterpart, and the black and the white mixed with red, he was still careful and sure and very, very thorough as he found the scattered bones of his kin and their faithful dog, and placed them together.

And when he had found each and every one, he reached out, picked up the heavy shovel and began to dig.

---------

He set the headstones himself, and he pulled out a Bible he’d not touched in decades, nigh as old as his clan, and over them he said the funeral rite of a faith which had all but died in this world.

The Clerics he’d asked said that sincerity and ceremony and Faith were as important or more than having any fool of a holy man presiding over such a thing, and who would know such better than he, in this place? Was he himself not the relief from the gods, old or new, come to lay them to rest? Would they care at all if someone of the new gods was there for them?

No, the crosses upon the stones were of the old ways, the way that would put them at ease, in honor and peace.

“May the love of God and the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ bless and console us

And gently wipe every tear from our eyes.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Amen,” Amaretta said from behind him, as she had stood as the witness to the ceremony.

“Go, in the peace of Christ,” Mickal McCallick sighed, and a last bloody thumbprint ended the old words that likely would never be spoken from the ancient book again.

“Thanks be to God,” Amaretta finished, bowing her head.

Even the new Priests did not deny that God existed, only that He would not answer. It were not His task to do so, it were theirs.

The Mick knelt down, and a bloody red flame, girt in unwhite, burned about his right hand as he pressed it to the freshly tossed and turned ashen soil.

It billowed out softly, dancing across the barren ground. White and black seemed to recede into the brown of good, hearty loam, cleansing away the hate and fear and pain that had claimed this ground for so long.

He watched it all burn, this cleansing flame that could eat the negative energies carried by the undead and damned, and felt a last, final link calling to his blood gently recede, as if taken into a great and sleeping embrace, and be finally gone from this place.

He had asked Traveler about the fate of souls in the Shroud, if released to it they be, and her answer had reassured him not at all.

Not released until all the worlds were free of the Shroud? How could he do that to his family?

Better they lie with Ireland, and he could know wherever he walked in these lands, they’d always be with him, and with the Mother of them all.

He turned and accepted his suitcoat and longcoat from his lady, leaving the shovel leaning against a patient old oak there.

Three crosses of white granite carved with slow care and love rose behind him, and one plaque at the foot of them all.

Seamus Denis McCallick, Auld Man and Hardarse 1873-1941

Hanora Mary McCallick, Endless Proper Nag and Beloved Mamai 1877-1941

Aileen Eliza McCallick, Always a Scamp 1930-1941

Spottie, Proudest of the McCallicks, Treated all Rats the Same 1932-1941

---------

He tore the swollen and rotted boards off the floor of what had once been his parent’s bedroom, and lifted out the rotting leather case there, cracked with age and time. Bloody light stole over it, and the once fondly oiled hide finally crumbled away, finally giving up its vigil.

The walking stick was not made of knobby blackthorn. Nay, this stick made by his great-grandfather was also slick and gleaming black, rubbed with the blood of the Blooded to be dark and sleek and warm to his hand.

It was also of hawthorn, for what other wood would a proper shillelagh of the Blooded be made of?

Blessed, empowered, or Tainted with the blood of the Blooded, the stick had shrugged off the passing years without effort, and gleamed with readiness in his hand.

Very few Blooded ever died of old age. Violence ran in the family, and age meant power, so strikes were always made at the older Blooded, before they might rise to the rank of Elder. His great-grandfather had not made it to a century, either, although it was known that any Blooded could live to see two centuries and more.

Certainly none of them had ever made Eight as he had. All the strength and power of the Elders while still alive... few indeed were the Blooded who made it here afore a rival tried to make them dead, and the Elders holding back the means and ways hadn’t helped. A strong Blooded created a stronger Elder, a rival, and the Elders always had more descendants...

He was going to find the Elders of the Fir Ocras, and he was going to stake them and burn them down with the weapon of his forefathers. And when their mealy-mouthed bottom-feeding descendants tried to stop them, he would do the proper work of the gods and Feed them to the Land to join his parents and little sister. But there was one more thing he had to do...