“Yes, we were. Someone wants us dead. That’s why we wanted to find you.”
“Oh, hay…” Calum flicked crumbs from his nose and shook his head. “Can see yer already looked after. We’re no bodyguards. Not here for tourists to hire.”
“I’m not trying to hire you for anything. I’m trying to find out who’s attacking us. We have good reason to think you might know.”
“Your reason’s shoddy then, innit?” Frim crossed his arms, glaring.
“Could be they’re not talking all mince,” Calum said with another swig. “Ya know, we’ve been feeling a bit about. Right? Felt it last night, right enough.” He prodded Frim, who shrugged. “Figured it was yer scries, looking about for us. Be it magic after ya?”
I shot my eyes toward Jason, sharp reader of people, and he gave a tiny nod.
I swallowed. “We were attacked by reavers.”
Silence. Calum’s eyebrows gradually lifted: a startled reaction slowed on a screen. Frim’s muscles tightened, crossed arms bunching against his chest, anger flashing in his eyes.
“You’re doaty,” he snarled, tone changing abruptly.
“Nay, nay,” Calum said, face still changing with that slow look of surprise. “Can’t have that, nowt at all … can’t have it.”
“You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“It’ll be yer mistaken.” Calum seemed to have decided he needed to smooth over the situation. “There are shifters here in Scotland. Big and powerful like that. Could be illusions too. Casters having a laugh at ya.”
“About ten reavers, or soul-breaks, attacked us late last night on the road out of Lanlith,” I said, staring into their eyes in turn. “They were huge, varying shapes and structures, made up of elements of slain faie. Their eyes slashed out, stinking, dead, blind beasts that tried to rip us all apart. We got away with magic and everything we could throw at them. This morning they’d all been cleared away so there was no trace for mundanes or anyone else to find. And you’re telling me—even though you seem likely to be the two most powerful casters in Scotland, the only ones capable of such magic as awakening reavers—that you know nothing about them and played no part in what happened last night?”
The two men exchanged a look. Then back to me, disbelieving, maybe angry.
“Look—” I stood up, pulling Gabriel’s arm to do the same. “He was bitten. Do you want to see it? Sorry…”
But Gabriel nodded and stepped around to the end of their bench. In the flickering, faint fire and torch light, he opened his belt and lowered his trousers to show the red and black, deeply bruised puncture wounds above his knee.
Frowning, Calum, who was closest, held his palm out toward it. He was scrying the wound itself, a moment in the past. With the subject in touching range I was pretty sure it would work through any warding.
It did work.
Calum sprang to his feet, knocking over the bench and sending Frim toppling to his back on grass with yelled oaths. Calum pounded his fist on the table.
“The bloody bawbags! What the fuck are they playing at?” Shouting, weaving, losing his center of gravity, Calum tottered back and nearly fell as Frim clambered to his feet. Much more steady than his fellow, he rounded on us while Gabriel did up his pants.
“Who is it?” Frim demanded. “Who’s making reavers?”
I blinked, still on my feet, Jason and Isaac flanking me. I was also aware of a more distant audience. Those slinking, glowing-eyed wolves. Three members of our pack remained just out of sight.
“That’s what we’re asking you. Who? Where? Someone has stirred up a lot of trouble in the community. Now they’re sending reavers after us to stop us from surviving long enough to find them.”
“The swine! Hackit swine!” Calum howled as he scrambled and finally gripped the corner of the table to stay upright. “Coming in here! Own the place! Fucking bastards!”
“Who?” I asked.
“How should we know who?” Frim snapped. “There’s no mage in Scotland like us. No one who could make them—”
“But you could…?” I tried delicately.
“Could.” Frim pounded his right fist into his left palm. “Could because it’s our home and our Highlands and our beasts and our faie! If we wanted a reaver we’d have one. Not some dobber foreigner barging in and taking over.”
“The bastards—” Calum managed to grab his cup for another drink, found it empty, tossed it over his shoulder, and swilled from the last of the wine in the bottle. “Have to be French.”
I shuddered. “I don’t think anyone from that house in Paris is running around Great Britain making reavers.”
“What do you know about Paris?” Frim suddenly looked very focused.
“I know you had training there,” I said. “With wild mages. You’re skill extends to things like reavers—as you just noted. That’s why we came to meet you in the first place.”
Calum thunked the bottle on the table and wagged a finger at me, failing to muster his words.
“There are other wild mages in the world,” I said. “Not just you two and Paris. If you haven’t been creating reavers, perhaps we could work together to figure out who has. We need to find them. Soon. It sounds like you’d like to also?”
“All pals now?” Frim sneered. “Hey—” He shoved Calum’s shoulder, nearly making him fall again. “That English bugger, what’s his name?”
“Oh, aye. He was a right prick, he was. Liked to have set a reaver on him…”
“They mentioned an Englishman had been through there in the past few years,” I said, mouth dry. “You know him? Where he might be now?”
Calum screwed up his face and tried the bottle again. “Can’t … recall. But it’ll be him … storming about like he owns our faie, our elements, our Highlands. Fucking, fucking bastard…” Slurring his words.
“What part of England was he from?” I asked.
“Midlands. No … Surrey…”
“Down south,” Frim said. “Wasn’t it? He has no place here.”
“We’ll scry the bawbag… Cut his own bleeding eyes out,” Calum muttered. He waved the empty bottle in my face across the table, causing the wolves to stiffen, but it was a gesture only. “Tell ya what. He’ll not be taking our faie in our lands under our noses anymore…”
“Do you think you can scry him?” I asked. “If you can find him we’ll help you. We could work together—”
“Can’t ward everything.” Calum waved me off, turning away.
Reaching the same conclusion at once, the two men marched around the table and past us, back toward the bonfire—with surprising steadiness. Frim paused only to snatch up his badger from the grass and sling it across his shoulders.
“Wait, please—” We hurried with them. “We’re also trying to find these people.”
“We’ll have better chances if we work together,” Isaac said. “We already know something about this. You don’t even know if you’ll be able to find this man. Or if he’s behind the reavers.”
“So let’s help each other,” I said. “We have to find out who this is.”
They ignored us, muttering to one another. Indeed, it was as if they’d switched us off. As if a magic bubble insulated them. Without pausing for goodbyes or acknowledgments to the festive gathering, they marched out through the farmyard, past dozens of cars, with us following.
“We could hire you,” Gabriel tried. “We’ll pay you to … consult.”
“Please,” I said, “if you can find the person behind the reavers it would be worth something to us.”
They started down that very long drive. Calum threw up his hand with a jolt of tiny white sparks from his fingertips and—thunk.
We walked into a clear energy barrier.
We stood calling them, making offers, asking for more about this Englishman, while the mages strode away—weaving a bit—and soon vanished through darkness.
Chapter 34
The eight of us walked to the Jeep in silence. What was there to say? Once again, a
path narrowing to a point had turned into an open jungle. Once again, the task before us seemed too big to contemplate. What did we do now? Try to talk to faie? Try to scry Calum and Frim and get them talking? Try to find a single wild mage who may or may not be somewhere in the whole of the United Kingdom, and about whom we knew nothing useful?
That word over and over. Try. Not do anything. Just try.
I was sick of trying. So fed up with trying I wanted to scream and rip my hair and sob and run and explode and just … give up.
So there was nothing to say.
We walked back. Kage asked Isaac if he knew a place we could park for the night without trouble. Andrew suggested staying right here. No one would care. That was true. But Jason had the nerve to make the perfectly intelligent and logical point that we hadn’t wanted to come around casters for this party in the first place. If anyone had noticed we were here, we were digging our own graves to sleep on the spot.
“We’ll find somewhere,” Isaac said, and everyone shuffled for various doors.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Forgive me, this is not my … show.” He was addressing me in the dark—the country lane where we were pulled over being lit by nothing but moon and starlight. “I appreciate that if you are tracked you don’t want to be found around innocents who could be placed in harm’s way. Nor separated into rooms beyond earshot of one another. That being said, just for a night … would you consider a hotel?”
We all only looked at him, a couple of hands on door handles.
“A hotel?” I repeated slowly, as if unfamiliar with the word. “It’s too late to try getting a B&B room in these villages. There are no real hotels out here.”
“Edinburgh is only an hour away.” He started speaking very quickly and quietly, as if to confide in me. “We could call ahead, look for someone with, say, four rooms. Two each so no one is actually separated. I’d be glad to look them up and call, make the arrangements, pay. Somewhere with a breakfast included? Where we can sit in the morning and decide on … what’s next. Somewhere with … electricity.”
“With WiFi,” I said. “We could read about the stone circle. I could call Stefan on one of your phones and give him another number. Melanie had Isaac’s but he didn’t.”
“With telly and running water,” Gabriel said.
“With dry sheets and a thermostat.”
“With shaver outlets and complimentary shampoo.”
“With a pool? No … that might—”
“Certainly—at least worth a look. We should have options. It’s mid-week.” He was perking up, speech stronger. For a second there, I even thought he smiled.
“Either way. A pool is hardly necessary. Something a little out would be nice. We have to be able to take the Jeep and caravan. That’s more important. And shopping nearby. If you guys need anything else? I need a backpack and we’ll want a fresh round of groceries before we set out again. Wherever … we’re going.”
Gabriel was nodding. “I’ll check the locations before ringing anyone. Four rooms? Is that all right?”
“Perfect. Try to get at least a couple of them with two beds.”
Gabriel panted a breathless little laugh that sounded like weak-kneed relief. “Pure luxury…”
“You ride up front with Isaac,” I said. “You’ll have to navigate for us.”
He nodded.
I hugged him. “You must think we’re all crazy.”
“Not at all… ‘Mad’ we usually say.”
I pulled back. “How’s your leg? Maybe a doctor also?”
“Fine. It’ll be fine.”
He’d limped all the way down here. It wasn’t fine. But that could be another matter for the morning.
I climbed in the back. There was a scramble between Kage and Andrew, swearing, and a minute later we set out—Jed and Zar in the caravan, Kage and Jason on the bench seat with me, and Andrew in the far back.
The drive flashed past, a blur of competing thoughts between murderers, mages, faie, phones, hotels, Zar, Gabriel, Melanie, Stefan, stone circles, notebooks and backpacks, until I felt dazed, heart hammering, vaguely panicky about all there was to deal with. Or maybe it was because of the dead end.
I needed a list. One thing at a time. Having neither phone nor notebook, even the inability to make a list weighed heavy on my list of stresses.
Zar. Through that drive and all those circles, I kept coming back to him. One thing at a time and Zar was still first.
When we actually did arrive at a six-story building with parking for us and four rooms—two with two queens and two with a king each—well-lit and temperature controlled, with a lobby smelling of chlorine and faintly of fried food from each morning’s hot breakfast, it took my thoughts away. The first moment I’d been in Scotland that didn’t feel like Scotland. It felt like an all-American road trip somehow snuck onto the sidelines of a medieval city. It felt like the good sort of coming home. Of loving your travels and your new places and the people you meet, but still giving a sigh of relief when you step off the plane in your own country. It almost felt like worries didn’t matter. At least not for a few hours.
“Come swim,” I told Zar while we were all still just making our ways to the elevators. Elevators. Of all the modern wonders.
He gave me a funny look, like he also thought I was mad. “I had my swim for this trip.”
“Really. It’s soothing. No one will be in there. You can wear boxer shorts. Anyone who wants to swim come back down. Let’s just see the rooms first.”
They hadn’t been able to get us all onto one floor, but two and two. No one asked, protested, or even commented about the sleeping arrangements. I realized only as Gabriel opened the door to the first king room and I walked in—while they all waited for Zar to follow and set his rucksack down—that Jason and Andrew were not the only ones who had noticed Zar being off.
Beside our room was the other king, with Kage and Jason. Upstairs, where we all trooped to know where everyone was, were Isaac and Andrew in one, Gabriel and Jed in the other, at different ends of the corridor.
I stopped in each to ward it, visualizing the power of those wards filling the entire hotel, bundling us as if in a magic comforter, through which no other magic, no prying eyes, could penetrate. Tiring but rewarding. I was able to breathe easy with it all done. If they found us now I had no idea how—and couldn’t have stopped it.
With territories staked out by all, I returned with Zar and changed into the bathing suit I still had with me, though I’d used only once on the trip. The bathroom was nearly the size of the whole camper trailer. I felt an urge to pace, just to appreciate the space.
Before I went down, I embraced Zar, kissed his cheek. He held me in return, tight, engaging, and I felt jittery heartbeats ease, my breaths deepen almost into a sigh.
“You don’t have to come down if you don’t want to.”
But he did. In black boxers he joined me in the indoor pool with a row of dark windows belying the brightly lit swimming hall. They made me think of black water and I looked quickly away with a shudder, refocusing on the clear pool, only six feet at the deep end but long enough for small laps.
Andrew, Jason, and Kage also joined us, though not in the water. Jason and Andrew were only being social, lying on their backs on white towels at the edge of the pool as if we were at the beach. I wished fleetingly Jed had come down. We’d talked about swimming once, how he liked to swim in fur and me in skin—something we could do together. Of course, it wouldn’t have done him any favors to be here now, trapped in his skin. Maybe a beach one day… It would be harder to be afraid of dark water with a wolf at my side.
To my surprise and gratitude, Kage left me alone. He floated on his back, relaxing with us, talking to Andrew and Jason about the hotel and TV channels. Kage wanted cooking programs and Andrew broke the news that such things were not generally on BBC at 11:00 p.m.
I swam in a sluggish breaststroke, back and forth around Zar, who only bobbed and drifted, treading water, ey
es often shut. I felt the lethargy as well, even moving. I kept my face below water for long stretches, finding a meditative hush in this embrace.
Before long I also drifted on my back, loose and trying to meditate. Kage walked over in five feet of water and played with my hair, spreading out strands around my head, though I’d pulled it back to avoid a mess.
I glared. He smiled. I flipped, touched my toes to the bottom, and held a hand out to Zar for invitation. “Meditate with me?”
I took one hand of each. Shutting my eyes, I bounced slightly and drifted on my toes, water up to my chin, almost weightless, holding Kage’s right and Zar’s left hand.
“Imagine the water a cradle,” I said. “You are safe. Nothing can reach you here. The sunlight is warm and comfortable. You’re tired, ready for a nap after a long day, so you drift in safety.”
While I murmured more to them, I took myself to the waterfall, pool, and shallow cave behind it. The place that merged where I’d walked with Isaac that night in Bavaria and where the faie had brought me when they’d asked for help. I drifted in this pool instead, warmed in sunlight, no longer night, and asked them to come forward.
We want to help you. We want to know who is doing this to you. If you know anything, please, help us.
I felt but could not see them, only waiting, drifting. At last, disinclined to leave my pool, I rallied myself and went looking. Around the shore, into the cave. A shadow flickered in there. A faint cry for help reached my mind, an echo of a former cry. A light vanished. The elemental spirits were gone.
With a shiver I returned to the hotel swimming pool. After a few minutes I guided Kage and Zar back, unsure how well either might actually be meditating. I kissed each before swimming reluctantly for the shallow end and the steps out.
Zar and I said goodnight to the others on our way up, then took quick showers to wash off the chlorine.
While Zar was in there I switched the TV on, sitting on the turned-down bed in pajamas and carefully brushing my hair. I found a show on BBC Two about people traveling the world without any flights. Fascinating to see the places. I wished we also had a cash prize at the end. Though camera crews in our faces might be a problem.
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