The Special Dead

by Lin Anderson

  There was no point taking her frustration out on Sean. It wasn’t his fault. She said so.

  ‘It is possible to have a personal life outside work,’ Sean declared firmly.

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ she said, her cynicism obvious.

  ‘I do, although I know you and McNab don’t.’

  ‘The Irish have a fine way with words,’ Rhona countered.

  ‘Exactly what McNab said. You’re more alike than you’re prepared to admit.’

  Rhona was grateful when her mobile rang. Despite Sean’s look suggesting she ignore it, she answered, even though it was McNab’s name on the screen.

  ‘She’s not at the library and neither is Grant Buchanan, the guy in charge of the Ferguson collection. Apparently he checked out a book earlier on runic scripts in Witchcraft.’

  Rhona could taste McNab’s concern. What he really wanted to ask her was where the hell they had gone to study it. A question she might be able to answer.

  ‘Freya has a key to the old Ferguson collection library. She took it from Shannon’s desk. There were two keys. One for Leila’s altar in the Lion Chambers. The other to the old library.’

  ‘You think she’s there?’ McNab said eagerly.

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Somewhere in the main building. That’s all I know.’

  64

  If you are reading this then I am dead.

  There was no doubt what the message on the shield said, and no doubt in Freya’s mind that Leila had hoped, or even intended, that someone should find this message in the event of her death.

  The fact that it was placed here on the drawing of herself as the Goddess and in the foreword to her section on the Nine seemed also significant.

  Freya checked the Warrior Queen again in case she’d missed anything else, then flipped over the page and began on the spell cast for the first of the Nine.

  So deep in concentration was she that she didn’t hear Grant’s entry.

  ‘Coffee’s here.’

  Freya caught the aroma at the same time as she heard the words.

  The door opening had brought another blast of wind from the spiral staircase that led from the cloister to the tower. It flapped at the pages of the Book of Shadows, sending them scurrying towards the end.

  Grant forced the door shut.

  ‘Have you got the key? We may have to lock it to prevent it blowing open again.’

  Freya pointed to her rucksack. ‘It’s in the front pouch with my mobile.’

  The door secured, Grant handed over her coffee.

  ‘How’s the translation going?’

  ‘Quite well,’ she told him. ‘I’ve figured out the mix of scripts Leila used and, since she’s been pretty consistent about the pattern of usage, I’m getting a little faster in translation now.’

  ‘Good,’ Grant said, offering her a biscuit. ‘How long will this take? I’ll have to head home soon.’

  ‘You’ve been great, Grant. Go home. This may take some time. When I finish, I’ll call DS McNab and hand the book and the translation to the police as you suggested.’

  Grant nodded. ‘You could leave the other book in here and I’ll pick it up in the morning.’

  ‘One thing,’ Freya said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think Leila believed herself to be in danger.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Freya explained about the shield. ‘The translated message said, “If you are reading this then I am dead.”’

  Grant’s face paled. ‘That’s not good. Maybe she had a premonition.’

  ‘Maybe. One other thing?’

  ‘Yes?’ Grant was staring out of the window, where the rising wind was tearing at the trees.

  ‘One of the nine figures Leila drew is wearing a signet ring engraved with a crest featuring a unicorn. I wondered about its significance.’

  Grant turned. ‘Was it the unicorn alone or the unicorn and the lion?’

  ‘Only the unicorn.’

  ‘When they’re together, Scottish Unicorn on the right, English Lion on the left, they symbolize the union of the crowns of Scotland and England on the marriage of James VI of Scotland to Margaret Tudor. Dr Charles wears one like that. Maybe he’s related to royalty.’ He smiled. ‘If the unicorn is on its own, it’s probably merely decorative.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’d better get going. Will you be all right here alone?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Freya assured him.

  ‘I’ll see you on Monday, then. And good luck.’

  The main gates were shut and locked, but the right-hand side gate still stood open. With no sign of anyone they could ask to direct them, they had no choice but to head into the main building and trust to luck that they would meet someone who knew their way around. McNab had visited Rhona’s lab on a number of occasions, but that wasn’t in the old building and he had no idea of the geography of the place.

  They eventually found their way into the cloisters, fighting the wind that seemed to be coming from all directions, but every door into the main building they met was firmly locked.

  McNab came to a grinding halt and pulled out his mobile.

  He’d tried Freya’s number three times since leaving the cafeteria. Surely eventually she had to pick up? He let it ring until it went to voicemail, then simply begged her to tell him where she was.

  He made a second call, this one to the station to check the outcome of the watch on Freya’s flat, and found she hadn’t been there. This time when he rang off, he turned his wrath on Danny.

  ‘If you hadn’t given her that fucking book, this would never have happened.’

  Danny didn’t have an answer to that. ‘So what do we do now?’ he said.

  ‘We find whoever looks after this place at night and get them to let us in.’

  Rhona had night access to her own block at the foot of the hill, but had no access to the main university building after hours.

  Eventually, after a few calls, she was passed to one of the caretakers, who arranged to meet her at the gate, provided she could produce her ID.

  When they finally met up, the man was pretty flustered by being called out at this late hour, and even more perplexed at being asked to direct her to a place he didn’t know existed.

  ‘The old library where the Ferguson collection was held before it was moved to the main library,’ Rhona tried again.

  He shook his head. ‘Never heard of the Ferguson collection.’

  ‘I think it was in one of the towers.’

  ‘We can check the towers, but it’ll be pretty dark by now. No one’s supposed to be in the building.’

  ‘My colleague, Detective Sergeant McNab, is somewhere around here,’ Rhona said.

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’ The caretaker looked affronted.

  Rhona rang McNab’s number again, grateful when he answered.

  ‘I’m here and I have a caretaker with me,’ she said. ‘Where are you exactly?’

  ‘In the west quad,’ came the reply.

  ‘Stay there.’

  Freya wasn’t aware of the surrounding darkness or the circling wind that buffeted the thick stone walls and lattice windows of the tower room. She had just completed a translation of what she thought might be the final spell, and had discovered it was more of a declaration.

  I am the Warrior Queen!

  Defender of my people

  With strong arms do I bend the bow

  And wield the Moon-axe

  I am sister to the stars

  And mother to the Moon

  Within my womb lies the destiny of my people

  For I am the Creatrix

  I am also she whom all must face

  at the appointed hour

  Yet am not to be feared

  For I am sister, lover, daughter

  Death is but the beginning of life

  And I am the one who turns the key.


  Should I die, I ask the first reader

  To burn my Book of Shadows

  For its death will avenge my own.

  Freya sat back, and rubbed her eyes. Outside the window, all was dark. In here she had only a desk light to work by. But she’d translated enough to know what Leila had been doing. And to know that she’d taken risks with her worship that might well have threatened her life.

  Grant’s revelation that the chief suspect had confessed, Freya hoped was true. Otherwise, she believed, one or all of the Nine were implicated in Leila’s death.

  She was ready now to talk to Michael about this. To show him the translated notes and to give him at least the magic names Leila had allotted to the members of the group, their birthdates and therefore their age. That and the spells they’d requested Leila to conjure up.

  All of which may have gone against the Wiccan Rede.

  Now she understood why Leila was asking her to burn the book. It was traditional that the Book of Shadows be burned on the owner’s death, but that wasn’t why Leila wanted it to happen. Her desire was for vengeance on those who had taken her life and Shannon’s.

  Whether there was a possibility of that happening, Freya didn’t know.

  She rose from the table and went in search of her mobile. She would arrange to meet Michael at the jazz club and hand the Book of Shadows over. She had promised Danny she would tell him the result of her translation first, but she now feared what he might do with her findings.

  It was better for everyone if she handed the book directly to Michael.

  As she searched in vain for her mobile in the front pocket of the backpack, then in the main pouch, she caught the faint scent of smoke. Setting the bag down, she saw the first trail of it coming under the door.

  Then she heard a crackling sound from the outer room, like kindling sticks sparking and catching alight. The room, she knew, was still filled with the debris of old, dry, varnished shelves, stripped from the walls.

  A veritable tinderbox.

  Freya grabbed at the door, remembering that Grant had left and she hadn’t locked it behind him. When it wouldn’t open she was seized by confusion.

  Had she locked it after all?

  The curls of smoke were increasing, rising to the ceiling of the small room, catching the back of her throat.

  She must have locked the door against the wind. What had she done with the key? Now the light was no longer enough, illuminating as it did only a portion of the desk.

  Frantic now, Freya dropped to her knees and began feeling the floor around the desk. When that didn’t produce the key, she up-ended the backpack and shook it, to no avail.

  By now she was coughing, the acrid taste of smoke deep in her throat.

  She had to get out of here.

  Freya tried the door again, using all of her remaining strength. When that didn’t work, she took off her jacket and laid it along the foot of the door to try and slow the flow of smoke. A solution that would prove only temporary.

  Coughing and spluttering, her eyes on fire, she moved the chair close to the window and stood up on it. If she could open the window, then maybe she could breathe again.

  The catch was stiff but manageable.

  Freya flung open the window and the wind surged in, scattering her papers from the desk, flapping the pages of the Book of Shadows. As the oxygen surged into the room, helping Freya to take a breath, it also rattled the door, forcing its way round the edge and beneath, giving sustenance to the flames in the room next door.

  Freya heard a roar as the fire beyond the door gained momentum, and a crash as a window exploded.

  As she slumped in the furthest corner from the door, she saw the first sparks arrive, whipped in on the wind, landing on the flapping pages of the Book of Shadows.

  Freya knew she should try to save it, shelter it between her body and the wall. Make it survive, even if she didn’t. But another voice told her to let it burn. That way those responsible would pay the price.

  Freya began her own chant, echoing Leila’s words because all three Witches, she, Leila and Shannon, would soon be reunited.

  ‘I, moon lady

  Salute my sisters

  Of the stars and the trees.

  We are She whom all men must face

  At the appointed hour

  Yet I am not afraid

  Death is but the beginning of life

  And I am the one who holds the key.’

  They were crossing the west quad when McNab picked up the scent, faint but immediately recognizable. In moments they saw flames coming from the nearest tower.

  The caretaker began babbling about dialling 999. McNab grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and told him to open the lower door first and let him in.

  The man thrust a set of keys into his hand. ‘It’s the one marked “tower2”,’ he said, then pulled out his mobile and began his emergency call.

  McNab thumbed his way through the keys, cursing the lack of light and his own ineptitude. Eventually he thrust a key into the lock and tried to turn it, outwardly praying it was the right one. There was a moment’s hesitation as the lock resisted. In that moment McNab found himself praying to any god that was willing to listen that it would work.

  ‘Thank you!’ he shouted as the key turned and his prayer was answered.

  McNab pushed the door open and smoke billowed out, engulfing them. As he headed inside, Rhona’s hand caught his arm. ‘The old library is on the second floor.’

  McNab sensed Danny behind him as he darted upwards through the swirling smoke. By the first-floor landing he could hear the crackle and spit of the fire. Running up the staircase had taken its toll and McNab instinctively took in air, regretting it immediately as his lungs and throat objected, sending him into a paroxysm of coughing.

  ‘Cover your mouth and nose,’ Danny shouted at him.

  McNab copied Danny as he took off his jacket and held it to his face.

  Now Danny darted ahead, disappearing up the spiral staircase that led to the next level. McNab raced after him through the thickening smoke and the increasing noise from above. He found himself mouthing, ‘Please don’t let her be up there. Please God she’s in a different tower. Please let her be alive.’ And all the time he could picture Freya, already comatose, her smoke-filled lungs no longer taking in oxygen to pump her precious heart.

  McNab threw himself onto the second level, to find no sign of Danny.

  Ahead a set of double doors flapped madly in the gusts that whined up the stairwell from the open door below and blasted in through the shattered windows of the old library. Beyond the doors, as seen through the missing glass, the fire raged like a mad red beast intent on devouring everything in its path.

  Freya can’t be alive in that.

  Horror engulfed McNab as he tried to breathe through the jacket, his eyes streaming. Pushing open the door, he could see that the fire had taken hold among the discarded timber of old shelves. Like a fifth of November bonfire, it blazed in the centre of the room but hadn’t yet engulfed the high ceiling, although it was already licking the right-hand wall.

  This couldn’t be the room Freya had been working in, but he had to be sure. Entering, he heard Danny screaming Freya’s name. McNab lowered his jacket and joined in, desperately trying to raise his voice above the roar of the fire.

  Then he saw her or thought he did. A female figure through the flames looking directly at him as though challenging him to come to her.

  ‘Freya!’ McNab shouted, fearing his voice had been snatched and devoured by the din.

  ‘In there,’ he heard Danny shout in return, pointing to a door in the right-hand wall.

  As they both moved towards the door, McNab from the right, Danny from the left, another window suddenly burst in the heat, shooting shards of glass like confetti in Danny’s direction. McNab saw Danny try to cover his face with his arms but not speedily enough. He crumpled and fell, his face a mess of blood.

  ‘Danny!’


  Danny urged McNab onwards to the door as he tried to right himself. ‘Get Freya.’

  McNab hesitated, but only for a moment, then darted round the bonfire which licked at his legs and feet. He stumbled at its touch and, reaching out a hand to steady himself, met the blistering heat of the right-hand wall. The burning pain of the connection seemed to belong to someone else as McNab grabbed the door handle and tried to turn it. For a split second it appeared to give, before a sudden halt.

  ‘Fucking bastard!’ McNab screamed.

  This time he put his shoulder to the door. He’d done this before. Many times. Forced a door with his shoulder. He could do it again now. The flames were licking from behind as he retreated to harness more power. He felt the burst of heat on the bullet wound in his back, and he remembered with sudden clarity what it meant to die.

  That couldn’t happen to Freya. Not Freya.

  His first attempt shook the door on its hinges. His second attempt, he knew, had torn the lock. Once more and he would blast the fucking door from its frame. McNab retreated one more time, backing further into the heat and flames. This time he had to do it.

  He launched himself at the door. As he slammed against it, he felt his right arm exit his shoulder with a sickening pop, but not before the door had sprung open.

  McNab fell into the room, his right arm now hanging uselessly from its socket.

  ‘Freya? Are you in here?’

  He strove to focus in the darkness, his eyes blurred by the biting smoke. The fire, having eaten its way through the intervening wall, was now licking its way across the ceiling.

  ‘Freya! Where are you?’

  A series of sparks as the flames met the varnish of the bookshelves suddenly lit up the room like fireworks and for a moment McNab caught a glimpse of the layout. Shelves, a desk and chair, and nothing else.

  She’s not here. She’s not in here.

  As McNab stood, sensing defeat, but not yet willing to accept it, there was an explosion behind him, its force propelling him further into the room. Then he saw it laid open on the desk, the pages already curling in the heat. The Book of Shadows.

  If it’s here, so is Freya.

  At that moment, the book flared like a paper taper and began to burn before his eyes. In its cold green light he saw her tucked under the desk, her arms about her legs, her head resting on them.