Lords of Misrule

Part Two - Transgression

Servants awe children and keep them in subjection,
By telling them of Rawhead-and-Bloody Bones...
John Locke (1693)

Discourse with the Sidhe

Winter is the season for death. All of nature is at its lowest ebb.

Virgin snow drifted against the dark stones of the north wall of Peterborough Cathedral, settled over the living and the dead alike. Thomas English stood beyond the implied barrier of bright yellow incident tape, looking up at the intricate stonework on the square Norman tower, seemingly oblivious to the police activity down among the graves. His dead eye ached in the biting cold, the blind orb numb beneath the eyepatch. Plain-clothed officers made subdued conservation with coverall-attired attendants from the Coroner's Office, as they waited patiently for SOC to release the body.

English scanned the monuments in the Cathedral grounds, keeping the police in his limited peripheral vision. He could sense nothing out of the ordinary; except the ghost of pain that lingered about the frozen, eviscerated body, half-buried in the snow and hidden beneath a blue plastic sheet.

Despite himself, English was getting used to it, this being the third such death in as many weeks. And he already knew what they would discover if Koto hacked into the police computer system; the coroner would record it as death through shock due to blood-loss, occasioned by massive trauma to the thoracic cavity. Weapon or weapons would remain unidentified, though signature marks might indicate some form of artificial animal claw. Internal organs would be missing.

Koto Kannon stirred at his elbow; she looked unusually concerned, her calm demeanour for once ruffled. 'This is too blatant. Those who understand will start to question why.'

English rocked on his heels and turned away from the small group of bystanders clustered against the vibrant yellow tape. 'It almost feels like they're issuing a challenge.' He didn't speak again for nearly a minute, as they walked slowly across the cathedral precincts. 'Which they can't hope to meet!'

English wondered what species of anarchy would break loose if the eldritch took openly to the streets. But they were a fading people, spiralling down toward extinction. Why would they risk a conflict, one that could only hasten their ultimate demise?

Through a covenant forged between the upstart race of man and the waning world of the aes sidhe, the eldritch kept to the darker passageways that industrial man had built then promptly forgotten. Every village, town and city had them, created by the piling of one society upon the ruin of the previous; iron over stone, nuclear over steam. Each generation built the world anew, left gaps to catch the unwanted and the unwary. It was within those man-made crevices that the other inhabitants of the world existed, those that mankind now failed to see because their very existence upset the status quo society strove so very hard to maintain. In the Information Age no one believed in fairies or ghosts or demons. English pursed his lips. Well maybe they ought to, before terminal complacency set in.

By agreement they met on neutral ground, a crypt beneath St John the Baptist's with access to the Victorian sewers that ran in a grid under Cathedral Square; halfway between the darkness and the light.

When the rituals were finished the eldritch tore away his human guise, to regard the human male and the female through large, blood-red eyes, set deep in moon-pale skin. English had long-since ceased to react to the inhuman beauty of the older races. Kannon's thoughts remained hidden behind the calm exterior she habitually displayed.

Thin, bloodless lips parted across ivory-razor teeth as the eldritch spoke.

'Rawhead is loose upon your world. It has a taste for hearts and stomachs.' The sidhe looked almost abashed, slanted eyes downcast. 'We have tried calling, but it refuses to listen. Your world is so much more attractive than our own.'