Leannan

Once, in ancient times, the hill had been one of the country's most sacred places of lust. Once it had been topped by a thick forest known as the Wood of Joy. Long before the Celts and the Romans, long before Kentigern bound the place with his Christian curses, the indigenous peoples of the land would have wild orgies within the trees. They would burn fires and drink and eat the mushrooms and fuck and fuck and fuck. Leannan remembered those days fondly.

Now, sadly, it was filled with hotels and offices of local businesses. Banks and Insurance companies occupied the elegant town-houses which were once actually occupied by their owners. All that was left was a little park fenced off amongst the buildings. The Wood of Joy, Blythe's Wood, was now little more than a square. The city had neutered the land but it was still notorious within the psycho-geographies of the citizens as being the haunt of whores, even if decades of gentrification had pushed the girls down the south face of the hill to less well lit, less fancy streets.

As she stood on one of those filthy, dismal streets Leannan waited with increasing impatience. The orange street-lights buzzed and illuminated little save for the cold mists swirling in their immediate vicinity. The colour reminded Leannan of sickness. she'd seen a man once, that very same colour, a kind of saturated jaundiced hue. The mists signalled the onset of another winter, a transition of seasons and, of course, aspects. She had felt its approach in her bones for several weeks now about two days before the harvest festival began with another slaughtering of the virgins.

In these lean and degenerate times she knew that the millions who infested their little brick prisons did not think of it as such. If the girls were lucky they might end up as a news article but no one in this day and age cared if the girls died. The ritual had little meaning in their lives. Five dead prossies would be the gist of it. Four thousand odd years of it and the masses had never woken up enough to see a connection. Or perhaps they had and had instead chosen to ignore it. Leannan considered that worse, an affront to her people, to their duties.

Samhain was on its way, she would soon change aspect again becoming hard and bitter, merciless. She was the same every winter, the cold inside her during those months hurt like perpetual menstrual cramps. Was it any wonder she was cranky?

Still, that night she was not cold, stood there on the corner between Bothwell and St Vincent Street in her tiny skirt and stupid heels she still felt empowered, the five had been taken, her duties were almost at an end.

A car drove up slowly beside her. Two nervous young Asian boys glanced up at her from behind a smoked glass window. They were the age where they still thought everything was a movie in which they were the stars. She stared back at them and laughed. Leannan could see that naïve certainty in their pale white eyes, watched it shatter and then saw the two confused children behind that masque. She knew it would not be the last time that harsh reality would burst their bubble but wondered if it was the first. They drove on.

She felt hunger for the first time in days but she had promised Sheila she would wait here until she came back. The two of them could go for a cuppa and a bite when she did. Leannan wondered what was keeping her. It has been almost an hour since she'd went off with that random guy. And they were only going up to the park. She decided to give it ten more minutes and then she would act.

Some shouting wankers were marching up the street towards her. Last year's had worn “Frankie says Relax” t-shirts, this years, golf jumpers and tracksuit bottoms. Their collective gait make them look similar to a pack of apes in the dull light. One had his hands in the air and was trying to get a song going. This was good, they were not in murderous spirits. They went quiet as they walked past her, she liked that, they may have been animals but they still showed some kind of instinctive reverence for her, for her arts. It was enough, even if they didn't know why. They would again someday.

As they crossed the street they began singing some current popular folk song, which seemed designed specifically for drunks to howl at the top of their voice. A racket that even her sisters would have a hard time in beating no matter how keen they were to wail. One of the lads looked back at her, his fat neck seemed to grow as he did and then he gave her a nod, slow, with his eyes closed. He knew, she realised, he knew.

She in turn smiled and nodded back, gave him a wink. The lad turned and went back to singing “get down get down get down on me babe” with the rest of his drunken associates.

The moment had been revitalising in a way she could not express. By recognising her position, unconsciously or otherwise, the lad had made her and what she did feel worthwhile again. It was a feeling she had felt rarely in the last fifty years, validated. She would take that moment of warmth with her into winter.

Leannan looked at her watch, increasingly concerned about young Sheila. Nineteen years of age and with a bloodstream with more junk in it than in the Clyde, the child was not one who made good decisions.

“She should have been back by now.” Leannan hissed into the frozen night. She would have to go check but already feared the worst. Something was prickling at her and she knew whatever it was spelt a terrible night.

She approached the park from St Vincent Street. There was a coach on the square, and a few people were milling about, smoking outside the hotels but the Square's park was seemingly empty. Leannan crossed the road and walked towards the entrance furthest away from the coach. She slipped in through the gate, which was always left unlocked. The place was dark, the remaining trees suffocating the dim light from outside the park but this provided no problem for Leannan. It wasn't long before she spotted Sheila's bare legs poking out from the bushes, pale, bruised and immobile. Her knickers and skirt were close by. She was face down with her rump stuck up in the air. Leannan noticed the side of her head had been bashed in with one of the stones used to border the well kept bushes. The stone remained stuck in her collapsed skull. The bastard had left her like that deliberately.

Murder did not phase Leannan, she had seen and engaged in enough of it over the centuries for the act itself to be meaningless. However the five had already been taken for the season. That meant one of the humans was murdering the girls for fun. Some wolf was murdering her livestock. It was an outrage. The humans might not care much but Leannan knew that it was part of the debased age that they lived in. Many of the others may have given up their duties but Leannan would not. She was determined she would find the murderer before the Police did, which she knew gave her plenty of time to do her own investigations. The cops may play lip service to their duties but she knew they would be as disinterested as the public.

With a deep sigh she reached down, took the index finger of her left hand and slid it gently into the dead girl's vagina until it was past the second knuckle. She pulled it out to find it thick with cooling juices and the yellowing semen of her murderer. She then popped the finger into her mouth. She could taste him, taste the genetic material, more unique than a fingerprint, more telling than an autobiography. The viscous goo was saturated with flavours of caffine, nicotine, amphetamines and booze. Leannan swirled it around her mouth as if sampling an expensive vintage and allowed the chemical slop to unfold in her mind as she inhaled the damp night. In the eye of her vast inhuman mind, she managed to find the scent of him and unfolded her spirit into the mists to better identify her prey. He was short, bordering on obesity and baldness, though not vain enough to cling on to what little greying blond hair he had, he'd instead shaved it off. She could tell he was sick. He'd spent his life numb, uncaring of the lives and feelings of others, a user and abuser. He made the pretence at being aloof, above it all, but really was little more that a petulant vindictive child when he didn't get his own way. His jism unlocked all these secrets and more, all the dirty, hidden secrets of his lineage. It did not take long going back down his genetic line before Leannan found a familiar face. Bill McGregor, the Ironmonger from Renfrew. He was the last of that old line to still give offerings to her kind. He had died in 1824. That posed no problem for Leannan.

She forced the name from old McGregor, Tony Pettigrew. Thanks to the detailed records kept in the City's registry by the following evening she had an address and knew his movements. So it was she ended up sat at the back of his local, listening to him talk self-aggrandising shite with his fat little friends. As she passed through the door of The Goat and Faun she sensed something was strange about the place but dismissed it, this was after all, her territory not grounds the Sisters had ceded, temporarily, to Alec Morton and his boys.

Nursing a single malt for over an hour she sat and watched Pettigrew in order to get a better understanding of what made the vile little animal tick; to use it against him. His death would be painful, long and entirely enjoyable, for her at least. Her attempts at eavesdropping were made marginally difficult by a juke-box which played old songs she recognised from years gone past. At one point Pettigrew even went over and poured in a few ten pence pieces, selected some choices and went back to the bar to regale his friends with more of his bawdy lies.

About half an hour of this lead nowhere and she grew impatient. A song came on, a staccato guitar, a female voice sang “when I look out of my window”. It was an old one but one she recognised, Julie Driscoll singing a Donovan song. That bard had been born not far from this pub, she recalled. She looked at Pettigrew's reflection in the mirror and just as the song hit it's chorus, he glanced at the mirror and back at her making eye contact.

“Must be the season of the witch” sang Driscoll and Leannan knew, right then, that she was not the hunter trapping her prey, quite the opposite. She put down her glass, stood up and walked towards the door of the pub, just as three men walked in, one of them pointed a gun at her forehead.

“Alright Leannan?” A voice chuckled from behind the door. He walked in, the tall tattooed foundling who had left Dunnoch a decade before. His bulging eyes stared at her seemed to grin.

“Skinner.” she growled.

“The very same, Auld yin.” Skinner said, he pushed his way past his thugs and gave an over-theatrical bow.

Her frustration at her own idiocy exploded, and with it so did all the bottles behind the bar. She stood up straight and confident and stated her demand. “Be gone you worthless footpad.”

“Ah, I'm afraid not. See I've planned for this moment for a long long time. You and your bitch sisters fucked me over a decade ago, now it's my turn.” He explained.

“You think?” She said, dismissively.

“Oh I know, darlin', I know.”

Leannan had come here for one reason and one reason only and this irksome little upstart was not about to get in her way. All she had to do was lose her form, to become weather, shed the human shape and become the season. She sensed, not far, a wind whipping up and rustling a small swarm of dead leaves and attempted to shift into it, to be away but she could not. Her face registered surprise.

The piscine face of Skinner leered. “I've learned some tricks of my own.”

“Clever. I'm impressed, now please undo this binding.” Leannan said courteously.

“Hah. I Don't think so. See, I know that come Thursday you'll be gone and the crone will be running the show. She's not likely to be as dumb as you and take human form, not her style eh?”

“No, it is not. What are your intentions here Gordon?”

“Did a lot of reading the last few years, found out that after the last full moon before Samhain you lose most of your strength. So I began to wonder how much. I wondered, Leannan, if in fact, you lost the lot. Learned a lot of other things too, a lot of other things.”

“And so you decided to kidnap me, learn my secrets. I'm disappointed you think yourself capable.”

“Oh no no no. You misunderstand. I want to see if you can be killed.”

Leanann found herself laughing at that. “Excuse me?”

Skinner just continued smiling and gave her a wink. “Boys, get the bitch in the back of the van.”

“This will not end well for you Gordon.” She warned as Skinner's henchmen grabbed at her. She decided not to fight, to save her energy, she'd need it.

“We'll see.” He replied as they dragged her out and bundled her into the back of a red transit van.

Realising that whatever spell he had used to lock her in this form was not located in or around the pub, but was somehow focussed on her, Leannan began to ponder just where the foundling had learned such magic. She began to list the dozen or so other humans in the city that might have given him ideas but after she got to Raving Rory, she stopped, it served no purpose, not at that time. Later, definitely. She sat silently in the back, almost amused by this drama but more insulted at the nerve of this affront to her. Skinner and all his little chums would regret this, long before their blood fed the soil, that she knew but as to what he had planned, she was uncertain. If he could bind her, what else could he do to her?

The vehicle started and in utter silence she and the three others drove though city. Time passed as orange strobe pulses, each illuminating the interior of the van and then being swallowed by the dark. They were heading eastwards she sensed and somehow knew they were taking her to Grimry. Immediately she thought of the scourge that was Keller Row, that insane hole that even she and her sisters, not to mention the various Unseelie and other supernatural denizens, avoided as readily as the humans. She dismissed it, even Skinner was not that stupid. Discounting that left her again wondering his intention. He was a slippery as a randy salmon that one, smart enough not to even be in the vehicle with her, just in case.

Annoyed at her own complacency, Leannan decided to try and unleash herself, become the swirling mist, or the night breeze floating through the high rise forecourts. She was still unable leave her body, she felt like a rock trying to swim the ocean. The van stopped. One of Skinner's hired muscle shoved her and said “oot”.

The back doors swung open and she was once again out on the street, looking up at the condemned Springvale High Rise flats. She was shoved again and lead into the dirty building where clouds of dust and piles of rubbish were the only inhabitants. When the council decided to clear the place out two year previously, they met with much resistance from many of those living there but that was another story. Now it was a mausoleum, a monument to urban degeneration. Past graffiti covered walls they went, into a functioning elevator and eventually out onto the twelfth floor. Halfway down the corridor she was directed into an empty flat where Skinner stood along with Pettigrew and a few other people she did not recognise.

What she did recognise was the graffiti. The auld signs. “Italic” alphabet as the humans referred to it, unaware of it's true deeper nature. Skinner had been learning. A pang of anxiousness shot through her and outside the wind rattled the rotten window-frames. Skinner nodded. “Right tie the bitch up.”

His hirelings did as they were asked. Leannan did not struggle, understanding it would do no use, especially since she was already struggling to maintain her aspect, the cold was growing within and without, it would only be a day or two more until Cailleach arrived. Sadly it seemed, it was a day or two she did not have.

“So, here's the thing auld yin,” Skinner began. “This building is due for demolition in the morning. We've paid off the inspectors, no one's going to discover you in the last minutes and rescue you, time to see if you can really be put to rest for once and for all.”

“I concede.” Leannan said.

“Excuse me?” Skinner replied, not believing he'd heard her correctly.

“You've learned our words and our ways, gained the power to lock us down and shut us out, just like the priests and druids, well done.”

“Well thanks.” Skinner answered, uncertain as to her intent.

“Now, will you be magnanimous in your victory?” Leannan asked.

“What do you want?”

Leannan looked at the fat little rapist and murderer Pettigrew. He stood next to Skinner filled with pride and delusion, if she was to go, to return to the other lands finally, she wanted to do so with a smile on her face. “I would like you to cut Tony Pettigrew's throat. I want to see his eyes as the life drains out of them, for him to know, really know what it was he did.”

Skinner laughed at that and gave Pettigrew a playful elbow, causing Pettigrew, who had been momentarily nervous, to laugh too, with relief. Skinner then turned to one of his hirelings. “Barry, slit this fat cunt's throat will you?”

Pettigrew erupted. “Whit? Fuck right off. I do you a fuckin' solid an' this is the thanks I get?”

He made for the door but was too slow and fat to escape. One of Skinner's goons grabbed him and said “jist fuckin' stoap it.”

Pettigrew did not stop and so it took the others to subdue him while Skinner and Leannan just watched the proceedings. One of the men took out a four inch blade from the inside of his jacket while another pulled Pettigrew's head back. The first man stuck the knife deep into Pettigrew's throat. There was a rapid, panicked, gurgling rasp coming from the hole as he withdrew the knife. Blood trickled down from this amateur tracheotomy. The knife then swiped across, and a jet of blood arced across the room before the pressure dropped and it poured then dribbled down Pettigrew's front, soaking him. All the while his eyes looked utterly terrified, utterly confused. The thugs felt him go limp and dropped him like a large sackful of suet. Pettigrew plopped and splattered onto the floor.

“Thank you Gordon.” Leannan said.

“Wouldn't be fair to not grant the last wish of the condemned.” He joked.

Leannan gave a nod which said “fair enough” and then waited for the next move. Skinner was about to speak when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something small and white. She glanced over to the window, outside, there were flecks of snow. She felt her heart shrivel in icy joy, the change was coming early. It happened occasionally but never so fortuitously. She could not contain her grin.

“What are you so happy about?” He asked.

Leannan felt her skin tighten, wrinkle, felt her eyes skin and the frozen fire surge through her. She groaned and forced the words out. “Tha mi a 'moladh dhut ruith”

Skinner knew the old tongue, knew what she was telling him. “I suggest you run” she had said. She meant him though, only him and he knew it, it was the reason she had spoken it in such a manner. He was a bright one, the foundling, she wanted to toy with him for decades, his men however were easily dispensable, his cost for doing business with the sisters.

Skinner nodded. “Boys look after her for five minutes. I'll be right back.”

The “boys” did as they were told. Frost began to appear at the edge of her breath, the transformation was beginning. It was becoming too cold for her to think, to maintain this personality, best sleep now, best let her sister become and do her work.

She heard the thump of Skinner's shoes as he ran down the corridor and then the howling, swirling, singing of Cailleach took over her mind, and her body and the storm outside and the air inside the room.

The crone emerged in a fury of white frozen anger. Skinner's thug's did not even have time to comprehend what was happening before the blood solidified in their veins, before their soft warm brains became inanimate lumps of dead matter. There was no screams, no pleading, no attempts to escape. There was only death, and ice and the sound of the wind howling through the flat and the building and the city.

It was the banshee's howl.