The Edinburgh Seer Complete Trilogy

by Alisha Klapheke

  “I don’t know.” Thane pictured all those French ships in the channel. “He’ll be pressured to get this over with quick. He has another war going on.”

  “Why would he waste money on cannon and ammo if he can simply scare the place into submission by starving the place for a few days?” Aini said.

  Thane shrugged, a chill going through him. “I don’t know. It’s just what I’m feeling.”

  Aini touched his arm, and an electric warmth replaced the shiver. “Did you Dream it?”

  “No. No, I didn’t. But I want us to be prepared if this thing doesn’t start quietly. All right?”

  Vera pinched Thane’s cheek. “Smart and gorgeous.”

  Aini lightly slapped her fingers away. “Respect your Heir.”

  Vera laughed as she sauntered away. “Oh I respect him. I respect him every night in my own kind of dream.”

  Smile slipping, Aini started toward Vera, but Thane held her back. “Hen. Save it for the fight. The real fight.”

  Shrugging his hold off, Aini grinned. “Fine. But I’m the only one who gets to dream about you, okay?” Her gaze burned its way from his toes to his head and he felt every fiery inch of its intent.

  Body humming, he pressed her gently against the cave wall. Her chest moved in time with his. “Okay,” he said in his best colonial accent.

  She broke into laughter. “That was terrible.”

  “Oh shut your gob or I’ll shut it for you.”

  With a smirk, she leaned close. Her lips met his. They were warm and soft and lovely and absolutely made Thane so glad they had this one moment before the worst came crashing down.

  His hand found the small of her back and he pulled her to him. She smelled like coconut shampoo and salt. The feel of her breath on his neck and her fingers climbing his back worked his heart into a bit of frenzy.

  “Aini. Let’s find a quiet spot, aye?”

  While the rest of the rebels gathered weapons and broke into units for their instructions, Thane led Aini down a carved-out passageway and into a room with low benches chipped from the walls. Three tall candles lit the space and a small table held maps of Edinburgh. It must’ve been where some of the elders met earlier.

  Aini didn’t wait for Thane to start the kissing again. She held his head between her hands and dusted her lips over his. A feeling like electricity sizzled down his middle. He lowered her onto a bench. With her body flush against his, all the fatigue and stress flew away in a rush.

  He dropped a kiss behind her ear and eased his weight onto her. She moaned lightly and he whispered her name. “You’re all right with this?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes blazed. She drew her fingers across his forehead, then along his jawline. A sudden smile broke over her face. “Do you see our light?” Her gaze went from his head to her own fingers, their breath mingling. “Our auras are mixing. Your blue. My blue. It’s dark, but somehow illuminated. It’s beautiful.”

  “I can’t see it. But what I do see is you, and that is more than enough.”

  She locked eyes with him, and suddenly he acutely felt the limited amount of time before they had to leave. He wanted to enjoy every breath he had in this room with her.

  He jerked her weapons belt off and set it on the ground. Kissing her throat, he felt her body soft under his, rising and falling. He shifted to run his mouth across the fragile skin over her chest. With trembling fingers, she unpinned his tartan and helped him rip his jacket off. Shirt mostly unbuttoned, he lifted her with one hand and helped her remove her jacket too. As smoothly as he could, he fell onto her and she ran her warm hands under his shirt, along the waistband of his kilt. He shivered hard. Her fingers danced over the muscles in his lower back, urging him to come closer. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, but he didn’t care one bit.

  “Thane Campbell, I love you.”

  “And I you, Aini MacGregor.”

  She leaned forward to press her mouth to his chest and her hips moved under his and all the blood ran away from his head, making him dizzy. He pressed against her, and she exhaled in his ear and ran a greedy hand over his thigh, knocking up his kilt a bit. Sparks lit down his legs and back up again. He couldn’t get enough of her taste, scent, skin, her soul. It was like they’d starved for one another their entire lives. The room buzzed with their power and suddenly a light glanced off the walls. It was them. Their magic blending. Thane couldn’t tell where one of them ended and the other began. Her joy was his joy and only now did Thane realize the strength of the physical demonstration of a soul-filling, true love. No one could defeat this, break this apart, ruin this power they had together. No one.

  Chapter 18

  To the Sky

  Dressed in her clothing for the night’s operation—dark trousers, suspenders, a charcoal shirt, and a hooded cloak someone had made—Aini lined up her fellow Ghost Talkers and handed out Cone5 taffy. “Keep some on you at all times. First thing when you see a spirit, you must question them.”

  A woman in green and blue raised a hand. “We’ll actually be able to see them like you do? Like when they chose to be seen, even if they don’t want to be seen? Even though you’re the Seer? That’s not a special thing?”

  She smiled, trying to be patient. “I think they still have to want to be seen for any of it to work. But with the taffy, if they chose to be…physically present, you’ll see them quite clearly. It’s not a Seer thing. It’s a Cone5 thing. You’ll see other colors too and not just on the ghosts. You’ll see energy and energy imprints all around you. It can be distracting, so you must do you best to focus on the task at hand.”

  There were whispers and traded looks of worry.

  Aini walked calmly around the group, listing the steps they had to take to be the integral part of this battle she knew they could be.

  “Now, ask the spirits politely if they know what is happening with King John. If they are a weaker ghost, they may not have any idea about the goings-on in the present time. They may be stuck in their own memories. Be gentle with them. Don’t make them angry and don’t tell them any details about our strategies, positions in the city, or allies until you feel strongly they are supportive to our cause. Although we all know John kills any sixth-senser he finds, there may well be some hiding in his ranks. There is always the possibility that some ghosts may support the king and England. You can also draw on their clothing, the sounds you hear when you see them, and perhaps their shackles or cage.” She told them about Bathilda and Lady Margaret.

  “If you find some willing spirits, see if they can shake up the enemy camp. They can send a chill down a back and make a finger miss a trigger. Some may be able to even bump a soldier or throw one off with a strong gust of the wind they seem able to summon. We can ask them to keep John’s men up at night with that deeply cold air they hold around them. They can whisper to those who can hear, but pretend not to. Anything they can do to give us an edge is great.”

  “Time to go.” Bran and his explosives team joined the Ghost Talker group.

  Aini gave the gathered men and women a nod and what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Her own stomach was flipping unpleasantly, and it most likely showed on her face, but Neve and Vera and Myles—standing at the sidelines—looked positive enough so she guessed she’d done the job all right.

  Thane joined her at the mouth of the cave, dressed similarly to her. He held out his arm, looking every inch a king in that medieval-looking cloak. The stars breaking through the clouds glimmered over high cheekbones and proud nose. His serious gray eyes regarded her with a confidence she could lean in to.

  “You truly believe we can do this, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Strangely enough, I do.”

  She took his arm, and after checking she had Macbeth’s knife, the brooch, and a revolver securely in her belt, she accompanied him to a flatbed truck where the rest of their group waited.

  All the rebels loaded into some type of vehicle—lorries, cars, and some motorbikes. It was a managed sort of chaos
and the air was ripe with fear. John was closing in and they needed to get inside the city walls for protection or they’d be taken down before they had a chance to defend Edinburgh.

  Just past an old gate into the city, Aini hopped from the back of the truck. Thane, Myles, Neve, Bran, and Vera followed, each of them still chewing their strength chocolate. Owen had told them about an old secret passage through Telfer’s Wall. They’d found it on a crumbling map and sketched out a route without letting anyone outside their little group hear a word about it.

  For now though, Aini’s boots pounded the cobblestones and smacked through wet grass as the group traveled the route Nathair and Owen had decided on for the larger group, the unit they pretended they would stay with. The night grew darker, the dove-white moon struggling to be seen through black, talon-shaped clouds.

  “Now,” Aini whispered, eating another piece of Cone5 taffy.

  She and the others broke off from the main assembly as a shout erupted from the city walls. Two kingsmen had climbed the wall, early to the fight. Maybe scouts. But now they’d been spotted.

  The unit following Jack’s commands—coming up just beside the large unit—had eaten speed caramels. Five of them ran at King John’s men and had them down before Aini could cross the next street.

  The Ghost Talker group moved like cats, skulking through Old Town and toward the secondary headquarters that Senga and Lewis were running. Sprits swirled around the team in streams of red, green, ocean blue, and sparkling white. Aini said a silent prayer for them.

  The moon—shades of silver, pearl, and the palest pink—beat back the wispy clouds. The time-worn road glistened, weaving through rented flats, stores, and petrol pumps. The city was oddly silent, and the hairs on Aini’s arms lifted. Ice filled her stomach. A cat screeched and toppled a rubbish bin in an alley. She jumped and heard Myles yelp behind her. Thane started to whisper something as they ran, but a blast shook the ground. Smoke rose like a lost cloak in the wind beyond the walls. Fear grabbed Aini’s throat.

  John had arrived.

  A volley of gunfire rattled against the city walls. A voice called out over a speaker.

  “Surrender now, rebels, and you might be allowed to live. Send someone out with a white flag.”

  It wasn’t John’s voice. What if he didn’t come here at all? What if he sent his generals to fight this battle? If he wasn’t here and they couldn’t attempt to take him down, this whole plan would go awry.

  Thane’s hand warmed Aini’s back as they shuffled through a tight passage between buildings. She saw Bran’s dark eyes over his shoulder. Moss fell from the old bricks onto Aini’s dirty fingernails as she braced herself to keep from slipping. The scent of mud and sulfur strangled the night’s cold breath.

  They couldn’t be too far from the spot in the walls where the secret passage hid. It had to be just around the corner. But would they make it in time?

  Shouts and another blast sounded toward Edinburgh Castle. Then another on the far side of the Royal Mile, near Holyrood.

  A smoking haze filled Aini’s nose, acrid and terrifying. This was war.

  Thane and the rest on her heels, she jumped over a tangled mess of wires and a metal box that was probably once a public telephone box. Rushing past a gaping hole in the city wall, she caught a glimpse of dark clouds rolling along faraway hills and the flash of gunfire.

  A blast sounded above. Aini’s ears rang. Thane shouted behind her and Myles called out. A deep crack echoed from the stone building to Aini’s right, and she twisted to look up awkwardly as she ran. From the building’s top edge, stones tumbled down and hit the first window ledge, then the ground between her and Thane.

  “Aini!” Thane was suddenly beside her and pulling her out of the way.

  The foundation rumbled, and the whole place began tearing apart. Myles, Vera, and Neve were going to be buried.

  “Stop. Go back!” She held her hands out, waving, trying to get their attention amid the artillery noise.

  The entire building collapsed into a heap and foul dust mushroomed into the air. Neve’s wide brown eyes was the last thing she saw as the debris clogged Aini’s vision and her throat too. She coughed and tried to shout for Neve.

  Thane gripped her and hugged her tight. “They’re all right. Just stuck on the other side of this. Should we go around?”

  Aini didn’t bother answering, she just took off in the direction he’d indicated. A dying street lamp flickered through the clouds of dust.

  “We’re here. Over here.” Neve was coughing and running through the polluted air.

  Aini caught her in a quick, fierce hug, feeling her friend’s heart beat against her own for a blessed moment. Myles and Vera appeared too. A thick line of blood ran through the dust on Vera’s face.

  “It’s just a cut,” she said, noticing Aini’s worry. But Vera stumbled over a rock and Myles caught her arm.

  “Just a cut, my rear end.” Aini smoothed Vera’s hair away from the injury. Blood pooled over her fingers and Vera made a little hissing noise.

  “Such language, Seer,” Myles said.

  Thane and Bran cleared away one of the larger chunks of rubble so Vera could have a small place to sit. Neve gave Vera a sip from her canteen.

  Aini scanned the courtyard. A sea-green plume of energy drifted by.

  But Aini struggled to focus. The buzzing in her ears and the effects of the taffy were disorienting. The blood on Vera wasn’t simply red. It had a thousand shades to it and Aini fought to stop staring and focus on the task at hand.

  Finding a ghost.

  Another column of what she was beginning to think of as “spirit smoke” curled high above the fallen building, high enough to blend in with the rubble’s dust if one wasn’t a Ghost Talker who’d eaten the taffy. The spirit’s smoke was a dusky pink and had the same other unnameable color to it that the ghost from Callum’s hometown had possessed.

  “Please, could you help me?” she asked the spirit.

  The slightly transparent man zipped over, bringing a vicious chill with him. “This is a terrible thing, this war in my city.”

  The blue-white shades of his light grew stronger. Everyone around Aini gasped as he made himself visible to all, Ghost Talkers and those with no sixth sense.

  “It is,” Aini said. “Can you give me some of your energy and help me heal this woman?”

  “Can I do that?”

  “I think maybe you can do it through me.”

  “Just tell me what to do,” the spirit said, words drifting like leaves in water. “She has a lot of energy herself. Surprised anyone could hurt one like that, Seer.”

  Adjusting Vera in Myles’s arms, Aini coughed at the smell of gunpowder and blood.

  Neve edged closer. “I can see him. Just barely. Ask him if he knows who you are.”

  “I’m dead not stupid,” the spirit said.

  Aini cut her eyes to Neve, a wry grin tugging at her lips. “He knows.”

  “We need to move, Aini.” Thane’s aura flashed blue and gold as he watched the distant fighting under the moon’s watery light. He looked very kingly. More so every minute.

  The boom of heavy artillery shook the city. Nathair and Jack were firing back with French weapons. Never in her life did Aini think she’d be on the side of men like that. She swallowed bile and took a breath.

  “Yes, we do. Just a minute,” she said to Thane. They had to take a minute or Vera was going to die of blood loss before she could even have a chance to die of infection.

  Aini took the ghost’s hand—well, she entwined her fingers in the wispy memory of flesh and bone—then moved it to her shoulder. “Try imagining a light and a warmth flowing from you to me.”

  The ghost pulled his hand back. “I can’t do this. I haven’t felt warmth since my death.”

  “You can do this. I’ve done it with other spirits. One named Bathilda. Trust me.”

  Nodding tentatively, the ghost set his hand on her shoulder. Immediately a wave of that strange c
old-hot sensation she’d felt when Bathilda healed her gunshot wound flowed through her body. She closed her eyes and envisioned the flesh knitting together as Bathilda had taught. A bright white light glowed behind her eyelids and she imagined it floating from her shoulder, through her own core, then into Vera. The scent of sage permeated the cold.

  Vera gasped.

  Aini blinked her eyes open. “Feel any better?”

  The wound had closed. Crusted blood marred the area and Vera winced as she touched it, but then she smiled. The ghost flitted above their heads in a cloud of blue-green as he eyed Vera curiously. Bran, Vera, Myles, and Neve whispered together, Bran guarding the group with his gun. The side of Thane’s mouth lifted and he brushed Aini’s hand with his.

  “It worked, my Seer.” Vera stood on her own. She looked to the East. A Saltire flapped in the icy wind above a row of shops that leaked black smoke. “Now, let’s get going.”

  The moon peered between the clouds and lit the path in front of them. Stones, dust, and rubbish all of kinds—torn paper, dropped plastic cups, even a child’s dirty sweater—littered the ground. Aini lifted her hood and led them over the debris and back toward the opening in the Flodden Wall. They followed her like silent shadows, the spirits of long-dead Scots trailing the party in shimmering streams of blue, white, pink, and green.

  She glanced at the spirits as they ran. “Please don’t make yourself visible. It will give away our position.”

  Several nodded and their colors dulled. Nearly all became invisible.

  In Greyfriars kirkyard, the old city wall held true all along its original lines, except for one spot where a hole the size of a car gaped wide. The whole place smelled sickly sweet. Aini crossed through, very glad the moon was shrouded for the moment. Thane moved past her, holding his gun ready and watching their right as Bran kept an eye on their left. Vera and Neve rushed between them, then hurried to catch up with Aini who was already climbing the small hill that hid a secret passageway through the Telfer Wall. At the top of the rise, Aini looked back to see the giant Saltire flag—the rebel’s symbol—flutter down and out of sight. Screams pealed from distant streets.