Outcasts

by Claire McFall

  “Yeah, well,” she said quietly. “Some souls, they get to you.”

  Jack didn’t reply. He stayed by the fire, staring into the flames.

  “I’m going to keep my promise to you, Jack,” Susanna whispered, quietly enough that he might not have heard her. He didn’t react if he did. “I will. I’ll get you there.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Where do we even start?” Dylan stared at the giant map spread across her bed. It was her dad’s, from the days before satnav, and it was ancient, the paper yellowed and slightly torn at several of the folds. Still, a map was a map, and the area it detailed hadn’t changed that much over the years. Plus, given its condition Dylan doubted her dad would care that Tristan was scribbling all over it with felt tip-pen. Large blue dots identified the tunnel where Dylan had died, Jack’s alley in Denny and the wraith attacks in Kilsyth.

  Tristan stood back from the map, assessing it. “We’re going to search for any unexplained deaths – people or animals – over the last month—”

  “Month?”

  “We don’t know when the wraith got here,” Tristan reminded her. He grimaced. “Or how.”

  “All right.” Dylan took a deep breath and grabbed her phone; Tristan already had her laptop open on her desk. “Let’s do this.”

  Tapping away at the screen, her stomach tightened and twisted. She didn’t know if she wanted to find anything or not. On the one hand, they needed the wraith to leave clues for them… but the more they found, the more likely it was the wraith had already snagged the Inquisitor’s attention, or would do soon.

  A frustrating hour later, she flung her phone aside. Twisting up on her knees, she looked at the map, where they’d marked everything they’d found so far in red. All four of them – and they weren’t anywhere near the blue dots.

  Oh, there were plenty of deaths. Dylan had found car crashes, stabbings, a drowning. Some poor woman had even died plugging her kettle into a dodgy socket. But a death, animal or human, that couldn’t be explained? Almost nothing.

  “Well, that didn’t help,” Dylan muttered. She gazed down at their work, the dots that refused to organise themselves into any kind of pattern that could be connected, and felt panic paralyse her. They didn’t know how the wraith had got through, or where. They didn’t know where it was now.

  They didn’t know anything.

  “It could be that some weren’t reported, if they were just animal deaths. A dog, or a few chickens,” Tristan offered.

  “I suppose,” Dylan replied doubtfully. Then she shook her head. “A wraith that only eats animals, though?”

  “I know. It’s more likely that it’s only been here a few days, that it’s responsible for the two attacks we know about. Which is good.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, it means that it’s likely that the farm in Kilsyth is where it got through.”

  Dylan nodded. “And it means it hasn’t had time to do anything really bad, anything that would bring the Inquisitor.”

  “Exactly.” He offered her a small smile. “Something to be thankful for.”

  “But what do we do?” Dylan pursed her lips and went back to glowering at the map. “We know it’s already moved on. How are we supposed to find it now?”

  “We need to wait,” Tristan replied, sounding as uneasy as Dylan felt. “I don’t like the idea of it being out there, looking for prey, any more than you do, but the wraith will kill again, it can’t help it. When it does, we’ll know where it is.”

  “We’ll know where it was,” Dylan bit out. “It could be gone again by the time we get there. And it could kill someone this time, Tristan. A person. And that would be on us.”

  Tristan didn’t argue; he knew she was right.

  “We can’t afford to chase it from death to death! What are we going to do?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know.”

  That was the final nail in the coffin for Dylan. If Tristan didn’t know what to do, they were lost. And if they weren’t able to find the wraith, find it and kill it, then—

  “The Inquisitor will come.” Dylan glanced around the room, as if saying the being’s name might somehow make it suddenly appear.

  “It won’t,” Tristan vowed.

  “It will!” Panic was beginning to spread through Dylan’s body now, and she could feel herself spiralling. “We promised it we’d deal with any wraiths that came through. Tristan, if we can’t deal with this one—”

  “Dylan!” Tristan grabbed her face in both his hands and forced her to look at him. Dylan tried, but it was hard to focus, to keep still.

  She wanted to run.

  “Angel, calm down. Breathe.” Tristan kept his voice low, his eyes leaving hers briefly to cast a quick glance at the door. Dylan realised she’d been shouting.

  Joan was in bed, sleeping after a twelve-hour night shift, and her dad was in the living room, just a few more feet away, watching football on the television. They didn’t want either parent to overhear their words and start asking questions they couldn’t answer; Dylan’s dad already knew too much.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “But Tristan—”

  “It’s all right,” he assured her.

  “How is it all right?”

  “It will be all right, then. How about that? We’ll work out a plan. Before the Inquisitor comes looking.”

  Dylan threw him a dubious look and Tristan forced out a smile.

  “Trust me,” he said softly. “It will be all right. We have time.”

  She didn’t share his optimism, but he was right about one thing: they didn’t have any leads to chase, so there was nothing to do but wait.

  “I hate this,” she told him. “I feel helpless.”

  Tristan smoothed her cheek, gently tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “I know, Dylan. I know.”

  * * *

  He did know how Dylan felt, but he didn’t know how to help. They needed to be patient, to let the wraith reveal itself. It didn’t sit well with Tristan, at all, but it was the only option they had.

  He had lots of experience with waiting. Dylan didn’t; it was going to be hard for her.

  Tristan would just need to keep her distracted, to make sure she didn’t have time to dwell on their precarious situation. Taking in the wild look in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, he knew he needed to stop her growing panic.

  “Let’s leave it for now.” He slid his palms down her arms until he gripped both her hands. “Let’s do something else, take our minds off it.”

  Dylan shot him a look. “Are you serious? Nothing is going to take my mind off it! Tristan, this is bad!”

  “Is that a challenge?” He arched an eyebrow, then went in for the attack. He grabbed the icy cold can he’d been drinking from off the desk and snuck it under Dylan’s T-shirt, pressing it against her bare skin. It took a fraction of a moment for Dylan to react, but then she gasped and squealed loudly, twisting violently away from him.

  They both waited breathlessly, but there was no sign of movement from Dylan’s parents.

  “That was cruel,” Dylan whispered once they were sure the coast was clear.

  “Want me to do it again?”

  She responded by snatching the can from him and shoving it against the sensitive skin of his inner arm – the closest she could get to his body with his arms outstretched to fend her off. Unable to hold in a little yelp, he reacted by tickling her until she was wriggling and gasping helplessly, up against the wall in an attempt to evade his fingers.

  “No, no, no,” she wheezed, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Tristan. Stop!”

  He did, getting rid of the can and pulling her close. He kissed her softly, tugging her up onto the map-covered bed. “Giving up already?” he asked when he drew back.

  “It’s not fair!” Dylan complained. “You’re not ticklish.”

  “Nope,” he agreed.

  “Not here…” Dylan ran a finger down his throat, the touch achingly ticklish on his sensitive skin –
not that he’d ever tell her that. “Or here…” She softly ran the back of her fingers up his arm, raising the tiny hairs there. It was all Tristan could do to keep still. Or keep his breathing even. “Or even here…” Dylan said quietly. This time her fingers snuck under his T-shirt and she slowly skimmed her fingernails down his side. Goosebumps erupted over Tristan’s entire body and he grabbed her hand, not quite sure what he was going to do with it.

  They were entering dangerous territory and—

  The door opened.

  “Tristan,” James said quietly.

  “Dad!” Dylan sat bolt upright, launching herself away from Tristan. “We were just…”

  She tailed off, blushing furiously, and Tristan winced, knowing what James would now assume they’d been up to. That thought was confirmed when Dylan’s dad held up his hand to ward off any further comments, a pained look on his face.

  “I don’t want to know,” he told Dylan. Then he looked at Tristan. “I need to talk to you. Now.”

  Tristan raised an eyebrow at James’s blasé attitude. It was one thing to suspect your daughter’s boyfriend was sneaking into her bed at night, quite another to come face to face with what they might be doing in that bed. He expected James to be… angry. Uneasy. Something. But then Tristan realised he held a tablet in his free hand, the screen glowing against the white fabric of his T-shirt. There was something else going on.

  “Now?” Tristan asked.

  James gave a brief nod then jerked his head in the direction of the living room. “This way.”

  It had been clear that it was Tristan James was looking to speak to, but Dylan slithered out of the room behind him and he made no move to stop her. He kept no secrets from her – he’d learned the harm of that the hard way – and whatever James had to say, he could say it to both of them.

  James must have understood that, because he made no complaints when Dylan followed Tristan into the living room, sitting close beside him on the sofa. James muted the television and then ignored the armchair he usually sat in, instead perching on the coffee table, the tablet in his hands. Tristan tried to peer at the screen, but Dylan’s dad kept it tilted away just enough that he couldn’t make anything out.

  “All right,” James said quietly. He paused, flicking his eyes towards the doorway, but it was empty. He obviously didn’t want Joan to know about the little chat he was about to have with them – which meant it could only be about one thing.

  “If this is about what I think it’s about… we can’t talk about it,” Tristan said, wanting to get that out there as early as possible. The Inquisitor had left them in no doubt as to the need for secrecy, and it had also impressed firmly upon them that they’d used up its entire stock of mercy and patience. “Please don’t ask us any questions, because we won’t be able to answer them.”

  “I know,” James lifted his hand to stop Tristan, then dropped it to grip Dylan’s knee. “I know there are things you can’t tell me, and I know there are things going on between the two of you that I don’t understand. Although,” he shot Tristan a hard look, “you and I are going to have an uncomfortable conversation sometime in the very near future about physical boundaries.”

  “Dad!” Dylan spluttered.

  James patted her knee. “If you’re old enough to do it, baby, you’re old enough to talk about it.”

  “That’s— I mean… We are not, Dad! And we’re not having this conversation. Ever.” Dylan’s voice was a horrified shriek and Tristan shushed her quietly. He didn’t want Joan to catch them, to stop them before James could share what was on the tablet. If he didn’t want to ask them questions, what did he want?

  “Tristan and I will be having a talk, Dylan,” James repeated firmly.

  “But that isn’t what you want to talk about right now.” Tristan phrased it as a statement, not a question. A not-so-subtle hint for James to get on with it.

  “No,” James agreed, then he looked down at the tablet screen again, still keeping it angled away from Tristan, who had to fight the urge to grab it and see for himself what had Dylan’s dad ready to break the unspoken pact they’d made, to leave the unsaid secrets between them just that: unsaid.

  Tristan waited impatiently. Just when he was about to prompt James to speak, the older man sighed.

  “So,” he said. “Since, you know—”

  “Since you decided to let me stay,” Tristan said.

  “Since then,” James agreed. “Since the things I saw that day, things I can’t explain… Well, I – no, I know you can’t talk about it,” he said, forestalling Tristan’s interruption, obviously reading it on his face. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t investigate. Try to find things out for myself.”

  Tristan kept his mouth shut. James couldn’t possibly find any answers to his questions. Not in this world. Not even on the internet.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye out, doing a little digging and… well, there isn’t much to find.”

  Tristan tried not to smirk – and failed.

  If James saw it, he ignored him. His attention was once again on the screen, and this time he held it out towards Tristan.

  “Then today,” James said quietly, “I found this.”

  He didn’t seem inclined to say anything else, to describe the video – Tristan could now see that was what it was – in any way. Tristan waited a heartbeat longer, then pressed play.

  It had been uploaded onto YouTube, a site he and Dylan hadn’t even thought to look at as they’d trawled through the news websites. As the file loaded the little circle cycled round for a few seconds, the screen maddeningly black, before kicking into gear. The video was jerky and unfocused. Whoever had filmed it had probably used a smartphone, and the view jumped and spun with every arm movement. Ragged breathing hissed out of the speakers.

  “Do you see it?” someone asked. “Where did it go?”

  The camera flew almost one hundred and eighty degrees as the cameraman twisted, presumably hunting for whatever ‘it’ was. It wasn’t dark, exactly, but the light was dim and in the few brief moments that the camera held still, Tristan could see trees.

  “I think it’s scared of the fire,” another voice said.

  The cameraman obligingly turned around to show Tristan a shot of the campfire they’d set up in a little clearing. Two trunks angled in a V shape behind the fire acted as seating, though there was no one sitting there now. Tristan couldn’t see any of the speakers, but judging by the pitch and tone – and the fact that they were messing about in the woods – he figured it was a group of teenage boys. Older teenage boys, he amended, catching sight of several beer bottles balanced on one of the downed trunks.

  “Is it gone, d’you reckon?” Whoever held the camera spoke at last. Another male, his voice tight with restrained fear.

  “Dunno.” The camera swung and Tristan got a view of one of the boys for the first time. He was younger than Tristan would have guessed, small and skinny with pale skin that looked as if it hadn’t met a razor yet.

  He looked a lot like the idiot boys who went to Dylan’s school.

  Weak-looking or not, there was a grim determination on his face, and he had a good grip on the stout length of branch in his left hand.

  “If you see it, Mark, bash it!” the cameraman advised, and Mark nodded.

  “Did you hear that?” Not Mark this time. Maybe the first speaker? It was hard for Tristan to keep track of who was who, or even how many boys were there.

  The cameraman turned to the speaker and Tristan saw the back of his head as he stared off into the woods. He, too, had grabbed a makeshift weapon from the woodland floor.

  “What did you hear?” the cameraman asked.

  “I dunno. A scream? Listen.”

  The cameraman walked up to stand beside the boy, whose head panned left and right as he searched. The whole group were deathly silent as they listened for another scream. Tristan held his breath as he listened too. The sound quality was terrible – it was hard to hear anything over the camera
man’s breathing, the rustle of the trees and the occasional snap of—

  Then he heard it. Tristan’s breath froze in his lungs as Mark jerked and said, “There! Hear it?”

  Yes, he did. He heard it ‒ and recognised it. The unmistakeable scream of a wraith.

  “Oh my God,” Dylan breathed beside him. She clutched at his arm, her fingernails digging into his skin. Tristan took a moment to lift his gaze from the screen, saw James watching him intently. There was grim satisfaction in the man’s face and Tristan knew he’d given something away.

  Well, it was too late now. Filing it away for future consideration, he went back to watching the video as the boys shifted nervously. They were waiting for something – he guessed the reappearance of the wraith. They were right, it would be scared of the flames, and that was likely the only reason they were still alive.

  For now.

  “Dylan, maybe you shouldn’t watch this,” he said, starting to angle it away from her, knowing she wouldn’t go without a fight.

  “Not a chance,” Dylan replied firmly. Tristan sighed, but if James had presumably seen the whole video and wasn’t objecting, perhaps the concluding scene didn’t feature the boys’ blood and guts strewn around the clearing. Astounding as that seemed, surely if they had, the story would have been splashed all over the news and he and Dylan would have found it.

  “There!” The cameraman’s squawk erupted out of the speakers and Tristan’s world became a blur as the boy spun, trying to focus on something that swooped across the clearing at lightning speed. Like a bat, but ten times bigger.

  And ten thousand times deadlier.

  “Maybe we should just leave it alone,” the as-yet-nameless first speaker suggested.

  “Right, Andy. Brilliant idea.” Tristan couldn’t see Mark on the screen – the phone camera was pointing uselessly into the tree canopy, the thick covering of leaves too dark to see anything – but he recognised his voice now. “And what happens when we’ve got to go home? Did you see what it did to Danny’s arm?”

  On cue, the camera turned and a fourth boy was thrust into the spotlight. Tristan could see why he hadn’t spoken until now. He looked almost catatonic, his features grey.