Prologue

And, anyway, he didn't sleep well these days, so there was no sense tossing out some poor soul before he was ready to go, because, truth be told, he didn't mind a bit of company in the wee hours. He knew that if he went home and to bed, he'd only be twisting and turning in the sheets, unable to calm his thoughts enough to sleep.

That's why he'd started tidying the bar at night instead of leaving it for the morning. The rhythmic tasks soothed him. Rinsing and drying the glasses, rubbing down the bar.

Wiping the tables, giving the floor a bit of a sweep. That's what he was doing, shuffling along behind a push broom to clear away all the dropped cigarette butts and matches and dirt carried in on cleated winter boots. He braced himself for the blast of cold and opened the door to sweep it all out, back where it belonged. But it wasn't the cold that took his breath away. It was a bird, a big crow, and it walked right in.

"And what do you think you're doing?" he demanded, feeling a large hollowness growing inside him.

"You know quite well, don't you?" replied the crow, hopping up onto the bar with a neat flap of his wings. The bird cocked his head and looked him in the eye. "Don't tell me an Irishman like you, born and bred in the old country, has forgotten the tale of Cú Chulainn?"

He'd not forgotten. He'd heard the story often as a boy, long ago in Ireland, where his mother dished up the old stories with his morning bowl of oats. "Eat up," she'd say, "so you'll be as strong as Cú Chulainn."

He found his mind wandering and followed it down the dark paths of memory. Had it really been that long? Sixty odd years? More than half a century? It seemed like yesterday that he was tagging along behind his ma when she made the monthly trek to the post office to pay the bills.

" 'Tisn't the sort of thing you can forget," he told the crow. "Especially that statue in the Dublin General Post Office. A handsome piece of work that is, illustrating how Cú Chulainn knew death was near and tied himself to a post so he could die standing upright, like the hero he was."

"Cú Chulainn was a hero indeed," admitted the crow. "And his enemies couldn't kill him until the Morrighan lit on his shoulder, stealing his strength, weakening him. . . ."

"Right you are. The Morrighan," he said. The very thought of that fearsome warrior goddess, with her crimson cloak and chariot, set his heart to pounding in his bony old chest.

"And what form did the Morrighan take, might I ask?" inquired the bird.

"A crow," he said, feeling a great trembling overtake him. "So is that it? Are you the Morrighan come for me?"

"What do you think, Daniel Malone?" replied the crow, stretching out its wings with a snap and a flap and growing larger, until its great immensity blocked out the light— first the amber glow of the neon Guinness sign, then the yellow light from the spotted ceiling fixture, the greenish light from the streetlamp outside, and finally, even the silvery light from the moon—and all was darkness.