The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy

by Alisha Klapheke

  “Now he’s looking toward the castle though.”

  “Aye. There’s no way past him.”

  Myles popped a chocolate into his mouth. “I’m ready to take him down. Just give me a minute.” He cracked his neck.

  Bran shrugged. “I guess it’s worth a shot. We’ll be here if your distraction goes south.”

  Myles walked out of the dark, putting a lorry-load of swagger into his walk. “Hello, kingsman. How is the evening treating you?” He laid the southern colonial accent on thick as clotted cream. Or, Bran supposed, thick as sausage gravy?

  The kingsman jumped and pulled his gun free. “Fine and thank you. Move on, now. Get back to your whisky.”

  Myles ventured closer. Closer.

  The kingsman pulled his gun’s hammer back and raised the weapon. “I said, move on.”

  “Awfully angry lately, aren’t you all? What is going on in this country these days? Everyone is acting like there’s going to be some kind of ruckus. Should I be worried?”

  The kingsman lowered his gun. “No. We will take care of any…issues that arise. Everything is under control.” He looked down to slide his gun back into place.

  Myles kicked him in the stomach. The man flew back against the newspaper stand. Wood splintered around him, but Myles didn’t wait for the man to find his feet in the aftermath. The colonial, chocolates giving him ridiculous strength, lifted the kingsman up by the coat. He released the coat with one hand, then threw a nasty hook into the man’s jaw.

  The kingsman fell to the ground, unconscious, as Myles dusted his hands off. “That was fun.”

  Fun. Bran pressed his palms into his eyelids, a hysterical laugh climbing up his throat. He shook off the mania and jogged to catch up with Myles. If anyone noticed that unconscious kingsman, they were in for trouble.

  Edinburgh Castle’s bridge stretched out in front of them and Bran led the team past the statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, two of Scotland’s greatest heroes.

  He drew up short.

  Thane was following in their metaphorical footsteps. If the rebels won, Thane would be a grand leader of Scotland. He would be king.

  “Bran. You all right?” Vera elbowed him. She looked from him to William Wallace. “Interesting, are they? Get it together, tall, dark, and handsome. We have a job to do.”

  Scowling at Vera’s swaying hips as she walked away, Bran hurried through the gate and up the incline.

  “Take the contraption out carefully and set it there,” he said to Hawes, pointing to the ticket booth. His explosion team watched him with wide eyes. “Yes, lads. This is your moment.”

  The ticket booth was nothing more than thin metal and wooden slats. It would go up easily and make a good sound doing it. No one was inside this time of night, so they wouldn’t have to harm anyone unnecessarily.

  Hawes did as ordered, then the lads arranged the plastic contraption and its fuse. Vera and Myles kept watch on either side.

  Bran stood and wiped his palms on his trousers. The air smelled like metal, like rain was about to fall from the billowing clouds overhead. “It’s ready.”

  The group moved to a spot near the downed kingsman. The man groaned as Hawes gagged him and tied his wrists together. The clock on the building across the street chimed lightly, old brass bells doing the same job they had for at least one hundred years. It was almost time.

  Bran breathed the cold air in through his nose. “Three, two, one.” With a swell of healthy fear, he pressed the chilly metal lever down. Light bloomed in front of the castle, noise following in its wake.

  Myles had hit the ground. His hands covered the back of his head. He started to say something but two other, far off explosions boomed across the city. “That means we go now, right?”

  “Aye, and this looks a fine way to do it.” Vera hopped on a motorbike parked in front of a hotel. She gestured to three more behind hers. She revved the engine. “What’s wrong? Haven’t you been on a motorbike?”

  Tucking his explosive materials neatly away, Bran climbed onto the next bike. “I have.” He cleared a green button of mud and pressed it. The engine rumbled to life. “But…” He looked at the rest of the group, then wondered how long they had until the kingsmen arrived to see what had blown to Heaven near Edinburgh Castle.

  Myles raised a hand, then claimed the next motorbike. “This is what I drove when I first came over from the colonies for the apprenticeship with Lewis MacGregor.” He talked too loudly, like the blast had messed with his hearing.

  Hawes motioned to the rider seat behind Myles, and Myles nodded. The explosion lads looked more nervous about the bikes than they did the explosives.

  “Just run, then, lads,” Bran said, taking off into the night. “It’s not far.”

  Vera shouted over her shoulder. “Anyone else worried about how there aren’t enough kingsmen around?”

  Bran studied the dark spaces between the buildings—alleys were the perfect place to hide a small unit set for an ambush. The bikes buzzed down the street and they took a corner. Myles pulled up next to Bran, Hawes with him.

  The wind threw Hawes’s hair into her face. She held onto Myles with one hand and tangled her locks into a knot with the other. “But our explosions drew the kingsmen away. Should we be worried?” She glanced at Vera, who ran her bike much too close to a tree.

  “Definitely,” Vera said loudly. “This stinks of Nathair. Even with some of the kingsmen heading off to investigate the explosions, there should’ve been more around.”

  Myles’s bike wobbled a bit and he leaned forward, his elbows sticking out awkwardly. “Why would Nathair want us to infiltrate Edinburgh?”

  “To trap us here?” Bran followed Vera over a rough spot of pavement and the bike jarred his teeth together. “To wipe us off God’s good earth once and for all?”

  Myles caught up.

  Hawes shouted to be heard over the engines. “If he downed us all, he’d have a lot less ammo to use against the king when he comes. It takes a good amount of work to dig bullets from corpses.”

  Myles glanced over his shoulder, then trained his sights on the road ahead. “I do not want to know how you know that. You can keep that little tale to yourself, please and thank you.”

  Bran’s stomach churned. He recalled a night spent digging very suspicious holes in a forest with Thane and Seanie.

  Now, the flashing lights of kingsmen cars lit up the sky, near the explosion sites. So there were some kingsmen out. Just not as many as there should’ve been. He swallowed as they zipped down Johnston Terrace, coming to a stop just past The Little Inn.

  Bran parked the bike in the shadows beside the inn. Vera and Myles followed suit. A few people peeked out the front door.

  “What’s the story?” a man with an Irish accent said.

  A hand pulled him back inside and a woman’s voice scolded him. “Get in here. They said not to go out this night.” The front door was promptly slammed.

  “You’ll have no story if you don’t break the rules sometimes, lovelies!” Vera knocked once on the door, then began a quick jog toward the Lawnmarket.

  The cathedral stretched a long gray neck into the cloud-strewn stars as Bran, Myles, and Vera slipped beyond St. Giles and behind a shuttered ghost tour ticket office at the mouth of Mercat Cross.

  A solid group of twenty kingsmen—most in Campbell tartan—stood at the Signet Library’s front door with a secondary group beside the fiercely ugly statue of King John. The Parliament of Scotland used to meet in one of those buildings beyond John’s bronze profile. Now it was home only to Nathair and his machinations.

  The rebels were doing as they’d been ordered by Vera. Creating chaos. Some darted from one building’s moonshadow to another. Three women shrieked, “Freedom!” before high-tailing it across the cobblestones and back to relative safety down the street. A kingsman shot his gun into the air. Another aimed at more rebels running from the shadows, but it was an off shot. Nathair’s men weren’t trying to kill. A bab
y cried somewhere far off, and the sounds of hand-to-hand fighting echoed from the darkness. There were shouts and orders given through walkie talkies.

  Vera took a wrapped candy from her cleavage. “I’ll take one of the caramels and drag their attention toward me as you slip around the side, to that door there. Our team from the road behind should be inside now and ready to help you in.”

  Bran’s explosion team ran up behind them, panting like dogs. “There are some rebels downed by gunshot in the inner courtyard,” the skinniest of the lot said. Bran hated himself for forgetting the man’s name. It was something basic like John or James. “We overheard it on a kingsman’s talkie as he ran past. They ordered all of their own to stop firing though. This is wild, aye? Anarchy in the city.”

  Vera was already on her phone. “Yes. Send in another unit to retrieve the wounded…no…but…she wasn’t supposed to be there. She should be over by the—hello?” Vera banged her phone with the heel of her hand, then tucked it away, swearing. “We need to move now.”

  Bran grabbed her arm to keep her from taking the caramel. “No, we need you when we get inside. As a Threader. I need to see the connection if there is one to see. If the men have a stronger connection, or markedly lesser, to someone inside one of the holding cells or upstairs in the rooms, we need to know about that. If any of us show a strong tie to anyone there—it’ll help us find Thane.”

  Vera clicked her tongue as gunshots sounded far off. “Fine. Who goes then?”

  “We’ll give a go.” The explosives team looked at the gathered kingsmen, then held out hands for speed caramels. It was like they shared a brain.

  Shaking his head, Bran handed each lad one of the candies. “Scatter once you’re clear of this corner.”

  They did.

  With shouts and warnings and gasps of shock at the men’s speed echoing around them, Bran and the rest slipped through the shadow of the king’s assembly chambers next to the library, where Nathair ran his business beside a slew of other government workers.

  Bran had briefly considered having them all take the caramels, but Myles couldn’t since he’d used the strength chocolate so recently. Thane had been very clear about the possible damage to the brain and nervous system. And the rest of them might need to use another type of altered sweet to finish this job.

  At a side door, Bran pulled the group up short and said a silent prayer for the lads who’d drawn off the remaining kingsmen. He tried the doorknob, found it locked, and peered through the old, wavy glass. An emergency light glowed over a hallway and a set of stairs carpeted in green and gold. An elaborate J had been carved into the baluster. King John sure was a humble man, Bran thought wryly as he smashed a fist through the window and twisted the lock.

  Bran moved into the carpeted area, his boots crunching on the broken glass. He switched on a torch. Myles, Hawes, and Vera did the same behind him.

  “Where should we go first?” Hawes had obviously decided they had enough light because she put her torch back in her satchel and pulled out a gun instead.

  Bran patted his shot pouch. The tranquilizing darts hid inside, tucked side-by-side in a sardine tin. “It’s a good guess that he’s in one of two rooms upstairs. Near Nathair’s office,”

  They started up the steps.

  “Guard,” Myles hissed.

  He pushed the lot of them against the wall with a long arm as a man in a kingsman jacket left the hallway and walked right past.

  Bran held his breath. Vera put a hand on her gun, but Bran covered her fingers with his to stop her. The kingsman lifted a foot to show the glint of broken glass in the carpet. He clicked the button on his walkie talkie and began to turn around. He was going to spot them. Even though it was dark and they’d covered their torches with palms. Bran’s heart beat hard against his chest. If they waited to play their cards, one of them would most likely fold. If they attacked and didn’t need to, they might alert a score of waiting kingsmen and lose the hand completely.

  Vera leaped off the fifth step and landed on the kingsman’s back. Bran couldn’t breathe. She roped the man’s neck with an arm and he thrashed against her, hitting her tucked head and arms but not getting much of anywhere with it. The man fell to his knees, gurgling, then Vera set him down gently like she was a kind nanny seeing to her ward. She ruined that quite well with a kick to the unconscious man’s stomach.

  Dusting her hands, she began climbing the stairs. “Come on. No time to waste!” Two steps at a time, she led them, Bran shaking his head.

  At the second level, Bran shut his torch off and waved at the rest to do the same.

  A quiet creak sounded behind them, down the stairs. Every nerve buzzing, Bran turned to see some of their own approaching. It was one of Callum’s men and another man in Campbell tartan. Hawes nodded at the second man as if she knew him.

  “Can we help?” Callum’s man whispered.

  Bran motioned for the idiot to shut his mouth. The man nodded, then Vera gestured for Bran to join her as she moved forward. Myles and Hawes and the other two pulled out their darts and guns, holding them ready. Together, they peered around the corner. Four men guarded two doors in a long corridor. Vera frowned, most likely trying to distinguish between the strings of light she saw as a Threader.

  “One room is a decoy,” Bran said into her ear. “It’s one of Nathair’s favorite tricks.”

  She yanked him down and whispered, barely audible. “God above there are threads like mad here. It’s tangled. Bright. I can’t…The guards have a bright connection with the person in the first room there. It’s a violent connection. I’m guessing they hate the person. They would hate him. He is their enemy. That is most likely the jagged violence I see in the thread. Has to be Thane.”

  Bran nodded. Vera’s sixth sense had been improving of late. She’d told them plenty about it at breakfast. He didn’t mind the bragging. It was better than the vitriol she’d been tossing about before Thane’s abduction.

  Vera tapped her red, red lips.

  “Any threads connecting them to the person in the second room?” Bran whispered. Myles peered around the corner. Bran scowled at him and he jumped quickly out of view. “Or is it just empty?”

  “There is a fine silvery thread there…” A wrinkle appeared between Vera’s eyebrows. “They have someone important in there. Could be a trap. I, I’m just not sure.”

  Bran lowered his tranquilizer gun and slid darts into each one of the five slots in the cylinder. It was quieter than a gun. And these men would be left alive to fight against the king if they managed some kind of truce. This was a complicated war to be sure.

  He pulled the trigger, and in quick succession, he landed darts in one, two, three, four guards. The men slumped to the floor in varying degrees of uncomfortable-looking positions. “Myles, Vera. You watch there. Hawes, take the far end of the corridor.”

  They raced down the hallway and Bran stopped at the first door. He tried the knob, not surprised when he found it locked. It’d been reinforced and was more of a prison lock than a guest room type of handle. Good thing he’d brought Aini’s lock picking set.

  He pulled the tiny set out of his shot pouch and went to work, fingers shaking and heart in his mouth. If they heard him, if they opened this door, if anyone came up the stairs…

  The lock gave way. Tasting metal, Bran kicked the door open and fired at the first person who wasn’t Thane. Bran missed. His target—a grimace tugging at the man’s thin lips—slipped right, and came up beside Bran. A fist clocked Bran hard on the ear, making the room ring. Bran put his hands up and looked around.

  Where was Thane?

  “Not here,” said the man who had hit him. He was pale, looked underfed, and spoke with a strong Glaswegian accent. One of Nathair’s new gang—the Glasgow branch anyway.

  A gunshot sounded somewhere outside.

  “He’s not here!” Bran hoped the team could hear him. He prayed they were inspecting the next room.

  The man put a gun to Bran’s tem
ple and forced him to the window. An inner courtyard splayed below. Men and women from the rebel groups threw punches at Nathair’s kingsmen and new gang members, who were all wearing charcoal gray. It was an ugly fight with most of the rebels retreating, outnumbered.

  Aini ran across the night-shrouded cobblestones. She paused to look over her shoulder, then shouted something.

  Why was she sprinting toward the side of the courtyard that Nathair’s men still held strong? Maybe it wasn’t as it seemed. Maybe Bran was mistaken.

  “Aini!” Bran pulled away from his captor, toward the glass, as if she could somehow hear his warning.

  Beyond her, where she was headed, a light flashed. The crack of a gun popped Bran’s ears.

  Aini jerked back, then fell.

  Bran couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

  The distance masked most of the details, but a darkening stain showed on Aini’s shoulder. Her open mouth moved and her eyes were wide, shocked. The strength went out of Bran’s legs and he caught himself on the windowsill.

  The man dragged Bran backward, out of the room, then threw him to the carpeted floor.

  Bran’s mind spun. “You shot her,” he stammered.

  The man pulled the curtain further back and peered down. “If that is indeed the Seer, we will care for her. We are on the same side, even if you don’t believe it.”

  The Seer. Their leader. Thane gone and now her. He was shaking hard enough to rattle his teeth. “But that shot…”

  “Aye.” The Glaswegian looked again. “I do think she’s left us. Dead before her time. A sadness. Shouldn’t have rushed our man like she did.” Nodding, the Glaswegian removed his cap, then held it to his chest as if he was already at a funeral for Aini. “We will make sure her body is properly cared for. Now, off with you before I do the same with you.”

  Bran found his feet and rushed toward the next room. “Thane. Thane!”

  But the next room was locked and his team was nowhere to be seen. Vera hadn’t managed to get in. Where was the team now? The corridor was empty. He kicked the locked door hard, panic rising in his chest.