Fate's Hand: Book One of The Celtic Prophecy
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Authors: Melissa Macfie
Book One of the Celtic Prophecy
Fate’s
Hand
by
Melissa Macfie
Can’t Put It Down Books
An Imprint of
Open Door Publications
Fate’s Hand
Book One of The Celtic Prophecy
Copyright 2015 by Melissa Macfie
ISBN: 978-0-9972024-0-3
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons or locales, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by
Can’t Put It Down Books
An imprint of
Open Door Publications
2113 Stackhouse Dr.
Yardley, PA 19067
Cover Design by Genevieve Lavo Cosdon, lavodesign.com
This book is dedicated to my parents, Thomas and Nancy Hughes, who taught me that the only limits there are in this world are the ones you give yourself.
When a thing is first conceived all things are possible;
but only when a choice is made, does fate take a hand.
Table of Contents
The Oracle, the most revered and feared of the Vates, cocked her head, her milky white eye rounding on the dying man. She dropped to a predatory crouch, the ragged shawl resettling around her shoulders like ruffled feathers, its ends trailing on the ground, soaking up the spreading blood. She patted his hand, giving the man some solace, helping him to die, when she had set him on this path. Unaware that her succor flowed from a poisoned teat, the deluded bastard scrambled to get closer to her, but his arms and legs found no purchase on the ground slick with his blood.
Cormac MacBrehon’s stomach heaved, but he turned away too late, glimpsing her poking at the exposed intestines, leaning closer, hooked nose almost touching—
“What the fuck is taking so long?”
Momentarily relieved that his morbid trance was broken, he glanced aside and read the impatience etched in the clenched fists and the cords that stuck out from the acolyte’s scrawny neck. Relief soured into rage. “Death, then rigor mortis.” He had to fight back an urge to snap the boy’s spine at his blank, puzzled countenance still after eighty years of lessons. “In time,” he instructed, more for himself than his student. “Several more hours, a’ least, because th’ weather is unseasonably warm.”
“Fuck patience.” The novice rounded on him to stand just inches away from his face, “Master, we’ve waited long enough. The time to strike is now. The prophecies have decreed it.”
“Insolent bastard,” thought Cormac. If only he were free to act. “Hmm and how d’ye propose we dae tha’? We doonae ken whaur ta begin.”
“And you want to let this, this…” sweeping his hand in the direction of the old woman, “this thing dictate…”
Fury spilling over, adrenaline pumping, he seized his student’s neck; it would be easy to snap the fragile bones under his fingers. Pressure in just the right spot and…lift…blood pooling in the boy’s face...such a lovely shade of purple. He relished the dawning submission in the boy’s eyes and smiled, his temper leveling. So unsuspecting, so naïve the young are; part of their nature, to have this illusion of invulnerability that blinds them to danger. “Hold yer tongue, laddie. And for all ‘tis holy, keep yer voice doon.”
The boy scrabbled at the ground trying to find a toehold, anything that would keep his weight on the ground as he clawed at the imprisoning hand.
Cormac squeezed again to educate; the student does not instruct the teacher.
Audible gasping gave way to breathless grunts, and the fumbling fingers lost their urgency. Hands flailed, but the fingers caressed, and once he saw respect reflected in the dying eyes, he released his grip. The boy stumbled away choking, gasping for breath. He stood over him, “Or I might volunteer ye ta be th’ next ta receive her attentions.”
The acolyte cringed, crawling away but keeping his teacher and the Oracle in sight.
“No’ so daft then. Perhaps ye’r learning after all these years.” He walked away, turning his back on the boy.
As Master Bard, Cormac’s duties were to serve as a living anthology for the Order, but his skill set lay particularly with extracting secrets. Mandated to pass along the office to his descendants, his secret, the most prized of all, was that it was all for naught; he had no intention of leaving—ever.
The bard looked at the Oracle still squatting by the body, dipping her fingers in entrails, using the blood as ink to scribe Ogham symbols at equidistant points around the sacrifice. He needed her for now. Her methods were unpleasant, but he would bring people in droves—lambs to the slaughter, willing or no. He would even participate in the eviscerations if it would help clear the murky visions. Frustration bubbled up from his impotence to bring matters to a close. Bound by dictates created by the elders, it was not his jurisdiction yet, for that he had to rely on this brazen pup.
“If ye are no’ pleased wi’ th’ progress,” eyeing the acolyte still crumpled on the ground, “then I suggest ye lift th’ strictures put on her. Interpreting signs would be verra much easier with a group as opposed ta only one. Thaur is no’ much she can glean from one.”
The boy sat up and coughed to clear his throat, but his voice was strained still, “It is my appointed task…hu humph…to ascertain…uh, the threat from the authorities before we’re set to move. Humph. I have done that…done that for centuries, uh hmphm.”
“Aye, but by yer own assessment, we are no closer ta finding th’ priestess. Perhaps ‘tis not th’ fault o’ th’ Vate’s, but yer own.”
Clearing his throat, he spit, “Do you not remember England? The barn? Careful plans were laid; a false history was planted for the Wickerman’s volunteers. Chalk it all up to zealotry, but it all went to shit—turned into a fucking charnel house!” The boy paced away and then turned. “Do you know or care how difficult it was for me to cover up the remnants of the ritual? The fire did not burn hot enough to turn all evidence to ash, the remains of thirty-three people, contorted in the last throes of death.”
Cormac crossed his arms and leaned against the portico’s upright post. “Ye concocted th’ plan and built th’ Wickerman inside tha’ abandoned barn. Did ye no’ think th’ barn would be engulfed?”
“Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that. You know that I planned for that, but she refused to allow the use of the accelerant.”
“And ye verra well ken why. Gasoline raises th’ temperature o’ th’ flame, incinerating th’ delicacy o’ th’ sacrifice. She takes in everythin’, th’ time it takes for th’ sacrifice ta be overcome, th’ height and temperature o’ th’ flames, th’ length o’ th’ burn, th’ weather conditions, th’ behavior o’ th’ surrounding fauna; and all this afore readin’ th’ final omen,” he pointed to the body, “th’ results such as those yonder.”
“We cannot continue in this fashion for the likes of a seer, no matter her power in divination.”
“T’was through her divination we narrowed th’ search. Afore th’ Wickerman incident we would ha’ been better served looking for th’ proverbial needle in a haystack. We noo ha’ a time and a location.
“Granted, but we are fighting two battles. The more sensational the rituals are, the more likely it is that they will garner public attention. The priestess needs to be found quietly. If the entire Order is made aware of her existence in this time we won’t be able to get our hands on her. She’ll be heavily guarded with sycophants who have elevated her position to that of messiah. She is a mere woman.”
Cormac nodded. It was true, she was just a woman, but her potential was legendary, thanks to prophecy and augury, a vulnerable woman with the power to topple a god.
“In our efforts to find her quickly and quietly, technology—forensic science—has advanced even though your thinking hasn’t. All it would take would be one fingerprint, one piece of DNA thoughtlessly left behind to give the authorities a lead they have been champing for to send them directly to us. Wanton actions such as these have dire consequences now.”
“T’was easy for ye, if I remember correctly, ta pass off th’ charnel house as religious zealotry. A group who in yer words, though I doonae understand th’ reference, ‘Drank their own brand o’ Kool-Aid,’ I ken it was. Aye?”
“Do your own damned research. In fact, why don’t you adapt like the rest of us? Live in the times, perhaps?”
Eyebrow raised, Cormac scoffed, and advanced on his apprentice, who sat back on the retaining wall. The boy tried to cringe back but the bard grabbed his sweatshirt and hoisted him up, “Like ye, I suppose. Go ta university; get an education and a measly job, doin’ wha’? Hm? Ye say ye work in guise only, but yer nothin’ more than cattle. Settle down, get a wife, impregnate her? Th’ only minutely appealing thing ‘tis th’ ever so brief relief I’d find between some cow’s legs. Thaur’ll be tha’ in abundance soon. Whate’er I want, I’ll take.
“As for diverting th’ attentions o’ th’ authorities, tha’ falls to ye, too. And believe me when I tell ye, if necessary, ye will take th’ fall for this. Let yerself be captured, imprisoned, and put ta death if necessary, all ta ensure th’ fruition o’ our plans.”
Scuffling attracted their attention in time to see the Oracle scuttle to the head of her victim as he burbled the last of his breath, mouth thick with blood. Satisfied, she sat back on her haunches and sniffed the air. Her head turned and the milky eye pierced them, growing wide as if she had just realized they were in attendance.
The creaking of joints echoed in the portico as the Oracle ambled barefoot through the pool of blood unheeding, leaving the corpse unattended. Cormac grabbed the acolyte and held fast as she approached, with arms locked outstretched, shackling his offering, a human shield. Take him. Take him.
The woman was of small stature, a homunculus, made even smaller by the hump on her back. She jabbed the arrogant boy in the belly, hard enough to make him bend in reflex, then she grabbed his chin and pulled his face close to hers. Fingertips dug in, leaving bloody smears on his jaw.
“Impatient, are ye? I ha’ a mind ta take yer instructor’s advice.” She clawed at the sweatshirt, pushing it up so his rib cage was exposed. The knife appeared out of the voluminous folds of her cloak, still bloody, and pressed into his flesh. Visibly excited by the welling of blood, she angled the knife and sliced ever so lightly along the rib cage. A thin line of blood followed the blade, and the boy hissed through his teeth. “Ye bleed well.”
The bard offered, “If t’would help, take him. I ha’ other apprentices.” He knew full well that she wouldn’t, a slave to prophecy herself, but the just the idea of silencing the arrogance once and for all gave him some release.
“Ye ken better than I tha’ I cannae. It has been deemed tha’ whaur wha’ will, must be. We are no’ ta question.” Motioning to Cormac, “However, the lad requires a lesson. Bring him.”
Careful to avoid her bloody footprints, they reached the side of the body. She was the Oracle, but had the vanity of a woman nonetheless. What did one say for this? Cormac settled, “Nicely done,” as he swiftly kicked the back of his novice’s knee, forcing the boy down closer to the body. Keeping a heavy hand on each shoulder, “Teach him wha’ ye will.”
Instead of directing his gaze to the corpse in front of him as Cormac expected her to do, she sat next to the acolyte and shooed his hands off the boy’s shoulders, dismissing him like a schoolboy. He had no choice but to step back and just observe, fuming at her impudence. She was the angel of mercy to the initiates who all but clamored to sacrifice themselves at her hands. She was doting and patient, allowing the acolyte to absorb the information at his own pace. To Cormac, though, she was someone to be feared; the eye, the dead eye, followed him, looking into his soul to extract his secrets.
She patted the boy’s hand, “Leuk around ye, laddie. Tell me wha’ ye see.”
“What? Um…I don’t know. Wall of the house there, roof of the carport overhead…”
“Leuk deeper,” she interrupted.
“Some household supplies there by the wall, old paint cans, a dented and rusted garbage can, empty, an upturned gasoline canister for a lawnmower which is just beyond in the high grass, a broken window there, yellow paint peeling off the wooden ledge.”
“Aye. Tell me more.”
“Unpruned trees are overhanging the gravel driveway almost indistinct amongst the infiltrating weeds. No sound of traffic, children, or car doors closing, just the chatter of birds in the trees.”
“Wha’ does this tell ye?”
“Um… no one cares for the property?” He looked at her expectantly.
“True, but if ye were payin’ attention, when the initiate was first cut he made enough noise ta scatter those birds. But they didna fly. They remained thaur, hopping from branch to branch searching out food or minding their eggs, unconcerned about th’ skelloch haur. Can ye learn anything from tha’?”
Looking up at the tree, behind at his teacher, and then back to the woman, “I don’t know.”
“Well, ‘tis only one o’ th’ signs, th’ first o’ many. We are in th’ right land ta search for her. If they flew, of course, depending on th’ length of their flight, it would mean tha’ we are searching in th’ wrong place, time, or even both. But they stayed. Th’ birds’ behavior is not th’ only factor for this determination, though. Leuk at th’ body o’ th’ initiate.”
“Ugh.” The skin was peeled back from sternum to groin revealing the peritoneum, which was cut delicately down the center exposing the bulging intestines, which showed no outward sign of breach.
“Wha’ can ye tell me about this?”
“Ugh, the human body reeks.”
She laughed. “Och, aye. A natural smell.” Sniffing close to him, “Much like body odor is a sign o’ life, this is a sign o’ decay. It happens quickly. But this is no’ th’ answer I want. Leuk closer. Dae ye have th’ basic knowledge o’ human anatomy?”
“A little.” Pointing, “Large intestine, small intestine.”
“Tis sufficient. Give me observations.”
He shied away, turning his body as if deciding to deny the corpse’s existence, and closed his eyes, but he did as she asked, holding out an arm, vaguely gesticulating to observations obviously scarred in his memory. “Um, the large intestine is kinda bunched up there towards the top, while that length of small intestine is out of its cavity and draped a bit on the ground next to him.”
The Vate gripped his outstretched hand and forced it into the pile of innards. He violently resisted. Cormac moved to intervene, but she motioned him to stay where he was. “Tis more than thirty feet o’ intestine in th’ human body and once th’ sac tha’ holds th’ intestines is pierced, it usually spills out, but haur, it didna, despite th’ initiate’s writhing on th’ ground. Only this small section,” holding it up reverently, “escaped its bonds.”