Mortal Souls

by Amy Hoff

  They went down the stairs and opened the door. The mist was thick, roiling around the hotel and blanking out the mountainous landscape.

  “Don't get too far,” said Leah, “I don't know if we're going to find anything in this.”

  Dorian's eyes glowed.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  She walked into the mist.

  “Dorian?” she said. He had vanished.

  And the keening cry sounded again, very close.

  As she peered through the mist, she suddenly backed up and fell over. A monster towered over her. A real monster, not like Dorian or Ben or Milo – a fleshless man, with lidless eyes yellow with a strange light, and long arms at the end of which were claws. He rode a fleshless horse, and both horse and man had scything teeth like an anglerfish.

  She made a strange noise in her throat. She knew what it was, but she had never realised the nightmare of its reality.

  The mist circled around them, and hid the Nuckelavee from sight once again, as it leaned its head back, opened the needle-teeth, and made the same keening wail. It acted as if it had not seen her.

  “Leah?” said a voice beside her shoulder. She hit Dorian on the arm.

  “Where were you?” she said.

  “What do you mean? I was right here,” he replied.

  “Liar,” she said. “There’s a Nuckelavee here. It was maybe three steps from me!”

  “I thought as much,” said Dorian, “I heard its cry, just now.”

  “So, what should we do?” she asked. “Do we arrest it? How?”

  “I'm not sure it's done anything illegal,” he said.

  “That monster? I’m pretty sure it has!” she said.

  “Looks aren't everything,” he said. “One of the Guardians of Glasgow is a Nuckelavee.”

  “So you think this one might be the missing Guardian?” she asked. “What’s the big deal, anyway? A lot of Glasgow monsters are here; seems like a weird place for a holiday, and strange timing.”

  “A lot of monsters want to see Magnus brought to justice,” Dorian said.

  “Including you?” she asked.

  His mouth set, he nodded.

  They walked down the narrow stairs of the hotel and went into the pub. Robert was behind the bar, cleaning up. He saw them enter, and threw a white towel over his shoulder, leaning against the bar in a way that told Leah exactly what he’d be like if she pushed him up against the counter and –

  “Did you hear that?” asked Dorian.

  “Yes,” Robert said, and turned to take an old shotgun off the wall. Very old. The folklorist in Leah was curious, and as he passed by her, the nickel plate on the gun winked in the low light.

  For RB. From Des.

  She narrowed her eyes. Des? It had to be a coincidence. Not Desdemona, the grumpy cabaret vampire in Glasgow? It couldn’t be.

  They walked outside into the mist and silence of a Highland night. It was nearly 3 am; the sun would be up soon, chasing the fog away until the shadows of the mountains brought the chill and darkness again in the early afternoon. There was not much light up here in the mountains, thought Leah. She looked at Robert’s white face, the slight rosy blush to his cheeks, the innocence that still played across his features, and his sharpened teeth, and she wondered who he was saving himself for. He could be living it up in Glasgow, Edinburgh – hell, even outside of Scotland, if he wanted – but it was clear to her that he’d chosen this darkness for some reason.

  The loud scream and sudden appearance of the Nuckelavee would not have startled Leah as much as it did if she hadn’t been distracted by Robert Burns, but as it was, she headbutted it in its horselike face, like any good Glasgow girl would do. It went down heavily, both horse and fused rider, with a whimper, and rolled over, unconscious.

  The Nuckelavee, one of the greatest horrors Scotland had to offer, was a skinless horse-and-rider, with scything teeth in both the jaws of the horse and the human, which had long arms with wicked claws that dragged along the ground. Now, silent in its sleep, it was horrifying but sad somehow, as if its legend had died along with it.

  Dorian and Robert exchanged a glance. Robert looked down at his unused rifle and back at the Nuckelavee. Dorian leaned down and examined the still form of the monster.

  “Do you see this, Robert?” asked Dorian.

  He turned the arm of the Nuckelavee over, pointing at several pockmarks at the monster’s elbow, a contrasting dark blue to the red of its fleshless body. Robert nodded and sighed.

  “Not all that appears evil is evil,” Robert said to Leah. “Nuckelavee are normally cruel and vicious monsters. Not this one. This is the missing Guardian of your city. He must have returned to the Highlands, in the hallucinations near the end.”

  “Near the end of what?” asked Leah. Robert’s delicate eyebrows arched.

  “The end of his life,” said Robert. “It was an addict, Leah.”

  “An addict? Addicted to what?” she asked. This time, Robert didn’t answer, staring down at the body.

  “I did not think we would see fae opium again,” Dorian sighed.

  “Is that the drug you were talking about before? Either of you want to fill me in?” asked Leah. “I thought that the Guardian was killed, back during Sebastian’s murder spree.”

  The Nuckelavee took a last, shuddering breath, and expired.

  “It is truly dead, now,” said Robert. “But it died a living death a long time ago. You see?”

  “The moment it was incapable of caretaking, Dylan was called,” Dorian explained.

  “Why would someone want them dead anyway?” Leah asked, “Guardians are replaced.”

  “Yes, but a new and inexperienced one is different than an older Guardian,” Robert explained.

  A loud, keening wail echoed through the glen. They looked at each other.

  “What was that?” asked Leah. “The Nuckelavee is dead!”

  Robert looked at Dorian, and then shouldered the rifle.

  “Get inside now,” he growled. “Get behind me.”

  Dorian and Leah broke into a run, slamming into the hotel’s red front door and struggling with the latch before throwing the door open and all but falling inside. Robert backed away as quickly as he could, the sound of great hoofbeats in the distance getting closer, and something clawing the ground, throwing up great clods of dirt.

  Robert edged sideways into the doorway, kicking the door shut just as something huge thundered into it, shaking the entire building to its very beams. Robert shot the lock home, and then backed away, shouldering the gun again and sighting down the barrel. He cocked the lever-action rifle, breathing heavily, his eyes sparked red with fear.

  The thing slammed against the side of the hotel again and again. Then the sound of some great animal snuffling at the door could be heard, and at the windows Leah and Dorian wisely stayed away from, their backs against the wall.

  The thing made a sighing sound, and its hoofbeats could be heard, receding away down the glen. There was not much darkness left in the night, it being the height of summer, and Robert let out a breath as he lowered the gun. His entire body relaxed. He stared at the floor, exhausted, collecting himself.

  After a moment, he went back into the bar and put the rifle back on its hooks, touching it with a strange reverence Leah found curious before he turned away. He then went to the bar and set a bottle of whisky on the counter next to three glasses.

  “We should be safe inside tonight,” he said, a tremor in his voice. The whisky bottle chattered against the glass as he poured. “I think we need this. There's not a day I've been that frightened since I wrote Tam o'Shanter.”

  Leah studied him, confused. If he were truly immortal, as he claimed, what could be worrying him? Surely he could not care so much about a human he just met, or even Dorian. She sensed that he had some particular interest in self-preservation, and again wondered why.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CALEDONIA INTERPOL

  Chief Ben hazarded a look outside, as
he climbed the ivy-covered staircase and walked out of Interpol for his cigarette. The sight that met his eyes unnerved him, as he cupped his hands around his lighter and inhaled deeply.

  Glasgow was empty, the city streets bare of people. A few stragglers walked past hurriedly, but the streets held the quiet of death. Fear was a strange thing for humans, a creeping terror or a violent one, but these were the kinds of things none of the Fae could do anything about. Disease was a mystery human doctors had to solve.

  Ben breathed out, watching the smoke dissipate in the sunrise. The water of the Clyde danced in the sunlight, just as it always had and probably always would. The giant bowed his head in the face of things they couldn’t change, even with all their powers. He hoped, as he always did, that they wouldn’t find themselves alone after all, the inheritors of the earth after the human race hand vanished.

  This was the trouble, after all, with immortality. Ben put out his cigarette and placed his palm against the red sandstone, the silence of the city ringing out around him until he could close the door to the relative peace of the staircase and the strange fae creatures tittering in the ivy, watching him with their strange alien eyes.

  THE ANGEL’S SHARE

  SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

  Leah sipped the whisky, the peat-smoke flavour warming her. Robert pushed the coals around in the grate of the fire. Dorian snoozed against the wall, his posture perfect even in slumber.

  “You did write a lot about the supernatural,” she said, to encourage conversation. She was a detective, and her curiosity had been piqued.

  Robert quirked a smile and half-laughed. Leah was momentarily captivated. He’s so fuckin’ hot, she thought. Yes, and that’s exactly how all those other women got in trouble with him, she reprimanded herself.

  “Little did I know that I would become one of them,” Robert was saying. “That was a surprise. I can't say I regret it.”

  Leah shook herself. The slight action wakened Dorian from his nap, although he had apparently been following the conversation.

  “Some of us do not get a choice in the matter,” said Dorian. “What do you think that was, Robert? There is something going on here and I can't put my finger on it.”

  “You're the detective,” said Robert. “Ever since we last met.”

  “Yes,” smiled Dorian. “I remember. That was quite a night.”

  Leah could tell her questions weren’t going to be answered that night. The three of them sat in the pub, warmed by the fire in the hearth. It was quiet and calm, as usual; it was difficult to believe they had just been chased by a monster.

  Leah yawned widely.

  "I don't know about the two of you, but I'm beat," said Leah. "I'm off to bed."

  Robert nodded.

  "Let me know if you need anything," he said, "I'll keep watch tonight."

  Dorian stood, smoothing out his coat. He hid a yawn behind one porcelain-perfect hand.

  "Thank you, Robert," he said, bowing. "We'll see you in the morning."

  Alone in the bar, Robert Burns turned and touched the gun on the wall with something like a lover’s caress. He gazed at the inscription, running a finger softly around it, his strange whisky eyes all firelight and sorrow.

  “What price, these mortal souls?” he murmured. “Mine for yours. Forever.”

  ***

  Leah paced back and forth in her room, grinning to herself.

  “Robert Burns,” she said, out loud, because she still couldn’t quite believe it.

  She remembered her university days, where she’d learned about his life and poetry. She’d read that he was handsome, of course, and that many women had been a part of his life despite his somewhat assholish behaviour. She’d frequently wondered why, as he didn’t seem all that good-looking based on the paintings, so they weren’t much to go on. Men that behaved the way he did weren’t always so lucky in love. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen, she had told herself back then.

  But now, seeing him in flesh and blood, there was something about his personal beauty that begged to be touched. He seemed more innocent than anything, wide-eyed, peaches and cream sweet, and Leah wanted nothing more than to taste that innocence on his lips and skin, even though she knew his history and that there was nothing innocent about the man. The images running through her mind made her palms itch, wanting to shove him against the nearest available surface. He was intoxicating, in the most literal sense of the word.

  She sighed, clearing her head. She was here to solve a mystery, not perv on Robert Burns.

  “A Guardian is dead,” she said, clearing her throat. “The Nuckelavee, leaving that part of Glasgow open to attack. An Attendant was killed – a brownie. Sebastian said that it wasn’t his work, and the real mystery was to do with why Dylan was called. So here we are. Dylan was called because the Nuckelavee left its post and came here to die, but the brownie Attendant died first. That means it was probably the Nuckelavee’s Attendant.”

  She walked back and forth across the room. The first tendrils of a purple dawn were beginning to make themselves known through the frost on the window.

  “Monster passports,” she continued. “Immigration. Anti-immigration? Do monsters have prejudices against other monsters? What are they suspected of? Drug running? Does that mean the brownie that Tearlach found was taking fae opium? But why would that bother the Nuckelavee, unless it was also addicted? We saw a lot of Attendants up here, Dorian said they’d be here for the trial but that seemed like too many. Maybe they really are interested in the fate of one selkie, but that looked a lot more like a queue for something. But if only the Attendants were addicted, the person would have had to kill them to get to the Guardians, so they must be linked somehow –”

  Leah stood still as Chief Ben’s words came back to her in a rush.

  “Even the faeries have drug problems...”

  She ran out of her hotel room and pounded on Dorian’s door. He answered, looking more annoyed than before. She pushed the door open to see a room with a roaring fire in the fireplace, a large armchair in front of it. She turned to him in disbelief, taking in his silk smoking jacket and slippers.

  “Okay, Masterpiece Theatre,” she said, walking into his room and throwing herself into the chair.

  “Excuse me, Leah, but that’s my ch –” he began.

  “Find another one,” she interrupted.

  Dorian sighed, and sat down across from her. She noted the glass of whisky by the fire.

  “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of this interruption?” he asked.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Dorian?” she asked. “You’ve been secretive since we got here.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, but there was a slight quaver to his voice.

  “The Guardians,” she said. “You said the Attendants are bound to them. Physically?”

  “I’m not quite sure what you mean,” said Dorian. “They aren’t shackled, in any case. They do share a physical connection – or maybe a spiritual one.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “You need to tell me more about fae opium. If the Nuckelavee was bound to its Attendants, then the brownie may have died because of their connection.”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Dorian. “Addiction is a personal thing. The Fae are usually unaffected by drugs, but –”

  “But fae opium was different,” Leah finished for him. “Or there wouldn’t have been a war.”

  Dorian stood from his chair and went to the window. He was quiet for so long Leah wondered if he had decided their talk was over.

  “Yes,” he said, in a soft voice, as if she weren’t there. “I thought our drug epidemic was all over. The war ended years ago. We do get a few addicts, of course, mostly in the large cities, but nothing like in the old days of the runners.”

  “Runners?” asked Leah. “What, like during Prohibition?”

  “Yes,” said Dorian, “but instead of Prohibition, there was a war. The largest scale war that Faerie has ever se
en, and those that were not dying by the needle were dying by the sword. It lasted for centuries. We never thought we’d see the end of it.”

  Dorian turned back to face her.

  “The runners dealt in Fae opium. Our Great War was over the use of a drug, and the runners served addicts on both sides. At first, no one knew how dangerous it was,” he explained. “It was common. Fae used to keep it in their kitchens, the same way humans once did with cocaine, in jars on the counter alongside the sugar.”

  “What is it, Dorian?” asked Leah. “The drug? You call it opium but I don’t think it’s quite the same.”

  “It is opium, in a sense,” Dorian said, “but not the human kind. It is ingested the same way, through injection or inhalation. Most of the Fae who partook in the drug preferred the inhalation method, especially those who wanted to flaunt their use of it. Eventually everyone simply came to call it the Smoke.”

  “So, if the Guardian and the Attendant were linked,” Leah asked, “then if one had overdosed, could the other die?”

  “Technically, yes,” said Dorian. “But we haven't seen fae opium in centuries, and I did not want to believe it had returned, because the true danger is not to the Fae.”

  “Let me guess who it was dangerous to,” said Leah flatly. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear Dorian say it.

  “Like anything the Fae do, there are ripples that effect entire worlds, universes,” said Dorian. “Especially the human one.”

  “How?” Leah asked.

  “You may have heard of the Black Death,” Dorian said.

  Leah stared at him.

  “That was…because of you?” she asked. “Because the Fae liked to get high?”

  “Because the Fae got addicted,” Dorian said. “The effects of the drug mimic the bubonic plague, but aren’t the same. Those humans feeling the effects were beyond saving, even for us. Ingestion of the smoke would cause humans to weaken and die, and since many of us smoked it around humans – in clubs, bars, indeed even opium dens – they couldn’t have known to get away from it. We didn’t know ourselves, for a while, because of the Plague itself which caused similar reactions. Everyone assumed it was the same thing until it became obvious they were two different problems with similar symptoms.”