Highland Tales Series Box Set

by Rory B. Byrne

  “Where are you going?” James asked. He watched Alice and Marcia start the long walk down the thin road that ran parallel to the property.

  “We’re going in the back way.”

  “What back way?”

  “James, stop. Just trust me. When this is all over, we’ll talk about it. But right now, just drive down to the front gate and get them to pay attention.”

  Alice didn’t wait for James to get into the car and drive off toward the main entrance to Equinox Technologies. She trotted to catch up to Marcia as the pech slipped through the dark like a shadow.

  “You think we can close the portal from this side?” Alice asked.

  “Aye, lass. You will to take Rory through the gate with you.”

  “How do we know where to find him?”

  “I can find him.”

  “How will I get back home again?” Alice asked.

  Marcia didn’t answer.

  Escape the Void

  They heard the sirens from nearly a kilometer from the front gate of the facility. Marcia ripped a hole through the chain-link fence like facial tissue. Her strength and her ethereal beauty were gifts from Elphame. James only saw Alice and not the horrible scars all over her body, telling her that the secrets of Elphame protected her more than she needed to preserve her life. If MacIomhair capitalized on the place’s souvenirs, it would take humans no time at all to wreak havoc in a brand new world.

  “We won’t have to take a long way around,” Alice said.

  They waited in the dewy grass, watching as the mercenaries had a newly constructed tunnel that went straight through the wall of the Quonset hut that covered the original fairy mound.

  “It took me a few hours to cover that portal,” Marcia said.

  Alice wasn’t someone to criticize the pech. She considered heaping tons of earth over an ancient gateway to another world wasn’t the savviest way to hide a volatile doorway. Yet, the woman had saved Alice’s life, and whatever she had left, she knew giving back to Marcia meant she might not return from her quest.

  “We can go through that area. How much time do you think you need to find Rory?”

  Marcia lifted her chin. She closed her eyes, and Alice saw her nostrils flare. The tips of the long pointed eyes flickered, picking up sounds only Marcia heard. She turned her face to Alice and opened her eyes.

  “He’s four hundred and ninety-two paces from here. I can get him, while you get to the gate. But you need to take Rory with you. They cannot use him again if he is in Elphame.”

  “How will I know what it—never mind.” Alice stopped talking when Marcia gave her a look that suggested her patience for humans had run out.

  They heard the chirp of the police sirens. The blue lights flickered on the buildings. From the small hillside, they didn’t see James’ vehicle. Marcia stood, bent forward, and looked back at Alice momentarily.

  “Try to keep up.” Marcia bolted in a full sprint. It was impossible to track her and keep up. Her bare feet and nails that dug into the soil gave her speed and traction.

  Alice didn’t feel the ache and sting from the fire anymore. Her heart hammered strong in her chest. Filled with fear and adrenaline, Alice ran after the pech. Before she reached the tear in the fence closest to the complex, she saw two men lying on the ground. Alice ducked behind the heavy earth-moving equipment. She had the shotgun ready but only wanted to use it as a last resort. She saw another guy inside the tunnel lying in a way that suggested he somehow snapped in half. Alice saw three more men secured behind the stacked pallets near the new entrance into the structure. For Alice to get inside, she had to sneak behind the three men watching the police car at the security gate. Each of them had weapons, but from what Alice saw, no one wanted to shoot a cop. It made her feel a little better when she managed to get by them. Inside the tunnel, Alice ignored the broken man. She stepped around the other two men lying in the gravel, avoiding stepping in the blood.

  She felt a little better wearing the bulletproof vest after seeing that the dead and unconscious men all had sidearms and carbines. Alice stopped long enough next to one of the bodies that still had a head and wasn’t completely pulverized. She collected the carbine, slung it over her shoulder, and pulled off the guy’s utility belt. She wanted as much ammunition as she could carry.

  At the last few steps to the edge of the chamber, Alice saw the ATVs driving through the hole between two worlds. It wasn’t a spectacularly dazzling or flashy light show. It was a gaping hole that allowed men to carry cases into the Elphame as easy as walking through a warehouse with the garage door open. They moved through the passage with organized indifference.

  There were more men on the other side of the gate than on her side. Alice didn’t see any sign of Marcia. The men appeared focused, trained, and heavily armed. The few men who had encountered Marcia were dead, dying, or unconscious. The pech had split from the garage tunnel directly, leading to the gateway in search of Rory. Alice had a place against the remaining stacks of military supplies. She needed to wait for Marcia.

  Alice saw Cole Fraser and Brian MacIomhair standing on the platform, overlooking the gateway into another world. They had a conversation going on while the rest of the mercenaries worked to take as many supplies into Elphame as they had laying around. She wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation, but she saw MacIomhair gesturing in the direction of the front gate to the compound, meaning he knew about James’ distraction.

  Before Alice had time to consider the rest of the plan, that’s when Marcia made a sudden appearance inside the chamber. Rory, it looked, didn’t want to go willingly. Marcia had him slung over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Alice remembered that feeling from when Marcia saved her from the fire.

  Marcia burst into the chambers through the double doors at the platform. Alice saw the power and allure of a striking young woman, the real pech that had hidden for millennia under the guise of slobbery old flesh. Before any of the men recovered from seeing the attractive woman with elfish features, Marcia stuck out her arm and backhanded Brian MacIomhair. The man spun wildly away, spilling over the side railing to the hard ground under the platform.

  Fraser reached for his sidearm, but Marcia kicked him in the chest. He spun downstairs, and she leaped over the railing toward the threshold. Alice broke from hiding. The next guy ready to drive the ATV through the gateway got a shotgun butt against his skull that knocked him off the four-wheeler. Alice jumped on the ATV as Marcia hopped on and landed beside her. She spun Rory around and plopped him on the ATV saddle. It was a smooth, coordinated movement between the women.

  “Go, he’s fine. I need to close the gate. Go!”

  Someone took a shot at them. Alice flinched, and Marcia had a look on her face that suggested something terrible had happened. She dodged away from the four-wheeler as Alice throttled it. Rory jerked and leaned before Alice braked, grabbed his arm, and throttled again. The ATV bounced over the guy Alice knocked off the machine. She veered into the opening and held her breath as she went through the doorway to another world.

  Passing through the tunnel, heading toward the gate, Alice turned, looking for the pech. She saw Marcia moving toward Beth Weatherspoon’s body. Alice didn’t want to believe she saw the bullet hole in the woman’s dress. The oily black stain that splashed across Marcia’s torso wasn’t scarlet blood like that of a human.

  Alice then saw Cole Fraser. He recovered and took two more shots at Marcia. Alice saw more flower bursts of black, one on Marcia’s upper chest, another on her abdomen, and the woman heaved Beth Weatherspoon’s body through the portal.

  Alice drove as fast as she could into the closing void. She heard the unmistakable bellowing of Brian MacIomhair as the illegal portal in the fairy mound closed forever.

  In the dark of Elphame, Cole Fraser took a shot at Alice on the ATV. She drove blindly without direction. The 9mm slug slammed her in the
ribcage. She refused to fall over. She wasn’t going to let the man kill her in a foreign land. Alice switched off the four-wheeler lights. She held on tight and pressed the throttle fully. Rory gripped her middle, holding on. The ATV bounced over uneven and familiar territory. She felt Rory’s arms slip around her waist more. He pressed his face into her back and felt the young man crying. His mother had died that day, becoming another victim of a greedy rich man.

  Alice didn’t know how long she continued to drive. After five minutes without the headlights, she switched them on again. She drove in one direction as best she could over the marshland and low scrub brush. The sun rose. The ATV sputtered to a stop, and Rory spilled off the saddle and fell to his knees in the mud. He hammered his fists into the soil.

  “Bastards,” he screamed.

  Alice let him have his grief. She reached down on her side and gingerly tested the area where the bullet had hit her vest—no blood but excruciating pain, perhaps a cracked rib. Alice couldn’t get a deep breath. She pulled the giant amethyst from under the bulletproof vest. She looked at its flawlessness.

  Alice was in a world she didn’t understand. Everything she understood about life and living was kilometers away and in a different world. Her police training kicked into high gear. Alice felt confident counting at least twenty men made it through the portal along with Cole Fraser.

  The man who funded the whole terrible ordeal, Brian MacIomhair, had to suffer his fate in the town of Eskdale, Scotland, where he would have to answer for the disappearance of several people. Alice knew that after Constable James Abernathy had a say, Chief Inspector Westland would grant any search warrants needed to recover his lost inspector and the missing American women.

  “Rory, are you injured?” she asked.

  He sniffled and ran his wrist under his nose. He looked up at Alice from the ground. He shook his head slowly.

  “We thought you died,” he said. “I thought you died in the fire.”

  “Me, too. Marcia saved me.”

  “Our Marcia?” Rory asked. He got to his feet. Kidnapped in the night, locked away in the Equinox Technologies facility, it was disorientating for him. Beth wore a nightgown when Alice saw the woman’s body pass through the threshold. Rory scanned the area. Overcast, heavy with moisture, the Highland mountains blocked the rising sun in the east.

  “Who was that girl that saved me? She was a lot stronger than I expected. I think they shot her,” Rory said. A lot was going on all at once, and Alice needed to parcel out the information accordingly. He’d lost his mother to something inconceivable before they went to the fairy mound. Alice had to break the news. The girl with the elfish features was his ancient grandmother in her pure form.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  Alice lifted the amethyst. It glinted purple in the ambient light. “Marcia gave this to me. I’m supposed to give it to Nicneven.”

  Rory snickered. It wasn’t humorous. “You’re talking about the fairy queen.”

  “I know, Rory. I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but Marcia wasn’t who you thought she was, and I am sorry about your mother.”

  “She had cancer,” Rory said. “We were going to sell the guesthouse. I wanted her to get treatment. Mum wanted to join Dad as fast as she could.”

  “I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

  He wiped his dirty hands together. Rory stood near the four-wheeler, still trying to take in the scene and absorb the idea that they weren’t in Scotland anymore. Shirtless, in a pair of black sweatpants and barefoot, Alice knew they had to get him clothed before they searched for the queen.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “You happen to know how to shoot a gun?”

  “Aye.”

  “What about wielding a sword?”

  “I might know a little. How hard can it be,” he said. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  Alice lifted the precious purple crystal. She turned it around in her hand a few times. She lifted it to see how light refracted through the marquis cut. What she found was a beacon. Looking through the flat side of the stone, Alice saw a distant glow. It pulsed like a flaming pinprick.

  She tossed it to Rory who caught it with both hands.

  “Look through it, tell me what you see,” she said.

  Rory pressed it to one eye. He turned, looking through the stone until he faced the same direction Alice saw the pulsing purple light.

  “I see something.”

  “Marcia said we could use that to find the queen. I think that’s what she meant. She said the sword belonged to one of Nicneven’s guards, and when we meet her, she’ll know we’re on her side because of the amethyst.”

  Rory handed the jewel back to Alice. She slipped it under the bulletproof vest.

  “So, we ride?”

  “No more petrol.”

  “So, we walk?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You think you can tell me more about what happened?”

  “I think we’ll have plenty of time for that.”

  “This place,” Rory said. He looked around as if carefully trying to take in all of the landscape. “This place seems familiar to me.”

  “I think I can help a little with that.”

  Alice dismounted the ATV. She pulled at the baldric to straighten the long sword over her back. They started walking in the direction of the pulsing purple glow in the distance.

  “Marcia was a pech. You know what that is?” Alice asked.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “She said Harper is here, too. She’s a warrior or something.”

  “Harper’s alive?”

  “Yup, that’s what Marcia said. I have no reason not to believe her.”

  “She was a fat, lazy old woman,” Rory said. “But, I loved her.”

  “I think you’ll be surprised when I explain a few things.”

  “Who was that woman that saved me?” he asked.

  “I think that’s part of the same story. It looks like we’ve got time to talk about all of it. Are your feet okay in the mud?”

  “Aye. Are you okay wearing Marcia’s housecoat?”

  “I am.” They walked in silence for a while. Alice took many deep breaths. The purity of the air made her head lighter. The scent of cigarettes and death fell away. She saw Rory looking at her several times during their quiet hiking time.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You look different. You look younger.”

  It was the fairy magic, Alice knew. Because when she saw her hands or part of her body not covered by fabric, all Alice saw were the horrible burns and scarring. Instead of explaining it to Rory, she said, “I feel younger.”

  They walked together into Elphame in search of the fairy queen.

  Secret of the Knife

  I expected to drown in the cold, murky pit of a weed-infested lake, but when I opened my eyes again, I found that the world had changed. Something was illuminating in the dark. The cave walls glowed in a subtle violet hue that was both comforting and eerie. I couldn’t understand the lighting sources when all I saw were rocks. The thick cones of stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the cave looked like different sized stone icicles. There were as many stalagmites rising from the floor. The air was heavy with moisture. I gasped and coughed as I lifted my upper body from the sediment on shaky arms.

  I’d lost my boots, and I’d lost the dagger. The moment I had something in my hands that could change my place in the weird world from victim to independent, I dropped it because the selkie I meant to save tried to drown me. Oddly, though, I had survived again. The limited light provided outlines of the subterranean world. When I managed to clear the seaweed from my face and hair, I saw more than one set of round eye
s staring at me from the dark. The eyes absorbed and reflected the purple from the glowing crystals inside the cave.

  I took a breath and coughed again. Whatever little critters lived in the bottom of the loch were making a home in my stomach. I swallowed a lot of water being dragged through the darkness.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. It was all I had in me.

  Soaked to the bone, barefoot, and shivering, I didn’t know how much longer I could take living in a strange new world. I heard sloshing around me. I laid on the rocky edge of a pool inside the cave. When I turned around, I saw more eyes, wet heads peeking at me from the surface of the black water. The lilac illumination reflected off the subtle waves and twinkled in the many pairs of eyes.

  “Thank you for saving my life,” I said. I cleared my throat. The sound made a few of the selkie shift uneasily.

  I moved with deliberate slowness. Like any animal in the wild, they needed to know I wasn’t going to harm them. They had invited me into their underground cave, away from the rest of the world. I looked at them in their aquatic forms. Still elegant, still remotely humanoid, they had more silky skin than I saw on the one on land. I regretted not getting to know the female I helped escape. I knew she was one of the many that looked on me with wonder, or as their next meal. The selkies didn’t have to be cannibals to eat people. Maybe they liked their meals warm when they tore people to shreds.

  “I wish I knew your name,” I said. I gazed at many faces staring back at me in muted silence. If they had a language or if they shared words, I didn’t know either.

  I heard a sucking sound, like something big hauled from the water. I turned to see one of the females slip from the icy pool and crouch as she moved toward me. It was relatively easy to distinguish males from females. It had to do with the upper body muscles and the legs. I looked at the creatures as if I saw a modern dance troop in skin-tight aquatic outfits that removed their lumpy bits and replaced hard edges with a smoother design.

  A pair of water-logged hiking boots with rabbit fur-lined tops dropped on the shore in front of me. Seeing my boots gave me such overwhelming joy that I felt the stinging in my sinuses caused by emotion and not the water up my nose. I felt the edges of my eyes burning with tears.