I had to stand and step back as searing hot blue flame burst from his chest. The skin on my face tightened, and again I smelled burnt hair in my nostrils. I moved back further as the flames grew higher and hotter.
It was over in less than a minute.
McBarnette was gone. Only a charred, black lump of ash and bone remained.
Arcand stepped forward.
I put my hand in my pocket and took out the remaining clasp. I showed it to him.
“Would you like to throw yourself on a sword as well?”
He laughed, long and loud.
“Pointless displays of courage and sacrifice were Karl’s thing. Not mine.”
He kicked at the ash. It scattered in the wind.
“Besides,” he continued. “You win.”
He pointed out to the horizon, where the sky was just beginning to turn pink.
“So what’s it to be?” Arcand said softly.
“The same deal you offered the Elf?” I asked.
“One and the same.”
“What the fuck’s he on about?” Broken Nose said. He was still rubbing his throat from where he’d been grabbed by Arcand.
I laid it out for the youths.
They all went silent.
“So,” Broken Nose said when I was done. “We get to join the pack? And there’s no strings attached? No comeback later?”
“No strings,” Arcand said. “You’ll do as I say, and you’ll hunt with us.
“Son,” I said softly. “You’re not actually considering this are you?”
His eyes took on a faraway stare.
“Aren’t you? That minute, back in the barn, when we changed…that was the best fucking minute of my life.”
“Me too,” another said.
“And me,” replied a third.
Broken Nose looked straight at me.
“What about you?”
Truthfully, I was tempted, remembering.
My world went silver-gray.
I’d lost my connection to the Elf, but I was past caring. I smelled blood in the air, blood and sweat and urine. Above that, the fresh odor of pine trees.
My joints cracked and swelled, wiry hair forcing its way out all over my body in a fiery tingle like an electric shock.
My nose felt too big for my face, my teeth too big for my mouth.
But overall, what I felt was free.
I felt at my injured shoulder, and my fingers came away bloody.
“What about this?” I said to Arcand. “Am I going to change now? Or at the next full moon?”
He laughed.
“No. That’s just a fairy story to keep people from asking too many questions.”
“Then how is it done?”
He tapped at the side of his nose.
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“Come on big man,” Broken Nose said. “You cannae tell me you prefer Glesca to this?” He waved his arms expansively. “What is there to think about? A life of wild freedom, or more of doing the same fucking shitty things, every shitty day?”
“Well, if you put it like that,” I said, smiling. “Where do I sign up?”
But I couldn’t.
Yes, I was tempted. But I still had Mark Turner’s face in my head, could still hear his piteous cries back in the cellar.
I owed him too much to let my decision be the easy one.
“I’ll need my passport,” I said to Arcand.
He nodded. “Your things are back at the ranch. I’ll have someone bring them here.”
He put out a hand.
As I shook it I felt the tender skin where I’d burned him.
“The offer’s a life time deal,” he said. “Come back any time you want to redeem it.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” I replied.
I was only half joking.
The youths, every one of them, decided to take Arcand up on the offer.
Broken Nose came over and shook my hand before leaving.
“Thanks big man,” he said. “Because of you, we’re going to be free.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Surer than anything else I’ve ever done.”
“Can I take a message back to Glesca for you?”
He didn’t even think about it.
“No. I’m finished wi’that shit hole.”
He raised his head and howled at the sky. The other youths joined in.
“I think you’ll fit right in,” I said.
“Come back in a year or two,” he replied. “I’ll be top dog.”
They drove off in a small convoy, the jeep, the 4x4 and the van, leaving Arcand and myself alone on the shore as the sun came up.
I got back to Glasgow two days later.
Betty wasn’t happy, George was rebuilding a wrecked bar, and I had to spend two days in Partick police station going over the same ground until they got bored and threw me out.
But I’d found a check for one hundred thousand dollars in my pocket on the flight home, so it wasn’t all bad news.
Twelve
DOG TIRED
When I felt ready for it, I visited Mark Turner in hospital.
He looked pale and wan, but managed a smile when I entered the room.
“Mr. Adams,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”
“I had to come,” I replied. “I owe you a story.”
I ate his grapes and told the tale. He took it all, without speaking. When I’d finished, he nodded.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For not letting them kill me in the bar for one. And for telling me the full story.”
“That’s not all I came for,” I replied.
I handed him an envelope.
“There’s a check for thirty grand in there. The rest went to George for services rendered.”
“I can’t take that,” he said.
“You can, and you will. It’s my price for helping you.”
Turner actually laughed.
“Well, it’ll cover most of what the bookies ripped me off for,” he said. “Looks like you took my case after all Mr. Adams.”
“Looks like I did at that son,” I replied. “And I’ve got a souvenir for you.”
I handed him the remaining silver clasp.
He had a tear in his eye as he turned it over in his hand.
“I miss it,” he whispered. “Dear God forgive me, I miss it.”
“Well lad, you know where to go,” I said quietly as I left and closed the door gently behind me.
As I walked away along the corridor I knew exactly how he felt.
Since my return Glasgow has been nothing but cold, gray and empty. I’m just going through the motions, sifting paper, answering the phone, and not getting any work.
I daydream, of open spaces, hills and streams, of moonlight on water and the smell of pine in the wind.
Every night I find myself reading Fraser’s Journal. And every night the last line haunts me.
It haunts me still.
I feel the call of the wild.
The End
The Forth Protocol
A Midnight Eye Files Story
By William Meikle
The Forth Protocol
I do some of my best work when I’m drunk… and some of my worst. The trick is to know which is which.
The night the case started, I scarcely knew my arse from my elbow. My on-again, off-again, relationship with Liz was currently off, Doug was away at a conference on medieval middens somewhere in Germany and I had money to burn… or rather, to drink. I arrived in The Twa Dugs at lunchtime, and didn’t intend leaving until I had to. George at the bar kept anyone who looked like they wanted to talk away from me, and I drank, whisky chased down with beer and smoke. As my old mum would say, I was scunnered and crabbit – no fit company for man nor beast.
Beer helped. Beer always helps, if you have enough of it. I hadn’t had enough of it yet, but I was working on it
.
Some time in the late evening I became aware that there was a man I didn’t know sitting across the table from me. He looked thin, to the point of emaciation, and intense, with a stare that told me he didn't like to be crossed. Everything about him, from the set of his mouth to the cut of his suit, looked too tight. He had a half-pint glass of beer in front of him, which was enough to tell me he wasn’t a local. And he drank like an amateur, with small, careful sips, wiping the froth fastidiously from his lips each time. I already didn’t like him, and he hadn’t even spoken yet.
“Mr. Adams,” he said. There was an accent there, for sure, but I couldn’t quite place it. “I have a proposition for you.”
“If it involves bending over in the lavvie, then there’s a lad at the edge of the bar who’ll see you right,” I said. Much to my dismay it didn’t annoy him… either that or the proposition was more important than any slight he might have taken.
“My needs are more of a spiritual than a physical nature,” he said, as if I’d just asked after his religious sensibilities. “But I have no problem with money, and I have plenty of it that could see its way into your wallet… if you are interested?”
It had taken me long enough, but I started to pay attention. I didn’t stop drinking though, so perhaps my attentiveness wasn’t all that it should have been. I only found that out later, of course. That first evening, the story had sounded plausible enough. I lit a fresh smoke, ordered another beer, and let him talk.
“I need you to find me a book,” he started.
“You’ve got the wrong man for that,” I said. “And there’s a few big buildings full of them in the Town Center…”
He didn’t seem to mind my interruption, but went on as if I hadn’t spoken.
“I’ve been burgled,” he said.
That told me a lot more than he thought. He didn’t want the police involved, so something wasn’t quite kosher… and he’d come looking for me in particular, so it was probably something funky. My reputation was getting around. It kept me in work, but I was starting to yearn for the days when the strangest thing I encountered was a cat in a coat or a husband in his wife’s underwear. But I also needed to work.
I had missed a bit while ruminating and forced myself to pay attention.
“It was taken from my boat in Leith last night,” he said. “And I need it back, urgently. There is a certain time constraint in play here. If I do not have it in forty-eight hours, then I will never need it again. If you are willing to undertake a promise to return it to me on time, I am willing to promise you five thousand pounds on delivery.”
The rest was unspoken.
No delivery, no payment.
I’d read that much in his eyes. I don’t usually work that way. Then again, I don’t usually earn five grand for a couple of days work either. I nodded, and put out a hand to be shaken. He looked at it as if it was a small naughty dog.
“I don’t do physical contact,” he said, primly.
“I’d guessed that already,” I replied, but the innuendo went straight past him without stopping. “Tell me about the book.”
He took another small sip from his beer. I was near the bottom of mine, but he’d barely supped half an inch from his. I considered offering him another, but old age might get me before he got round to finishing it. Then, for the first time in our chat, he showed some animation as he talked of the book; his eyes lit with fervor, and something that looked too close to fanaticism for my liking.
“It’s Fifteenth Century, and about so big,” he said, outlining a ten inch box with his hands. “It can hardly be taken for anything other than what it is; a diary, of a sailor; a tall tale to be sure, but one of which I have developed a great fondness.”
That is the moment when I should have walked away. I can see that now, looking back on it. But a combination of booze and the thought of making an easy five grand had me bewitched. I just sat there as he described some peculiarities that would ensure I would recognize the book when I found it.
I ordered another beer for myself, he passed me a business card, nodded briskly, and left.
E. Penderton, Antiquities, and an Edinburgh phone number. I turned it over. There was no address. I considered following him to check him out, but I couldn’t trust myself to be discreet with so much booze in me. I concentrated instead on my beer.
At some point later I staggered home and fell asleep.
I didn't dream.
The next morning arrived bright and clear, which was nice, for I was neither.
The prospect of spending a day in Edinburgh didn’t improve my mood any.
Like many people from Glasgow I have an ambivalent relationship with the capital city. I can admire the architecture, the castle and the classical beauty of the New Town. But it’s hard to ignore the shrill yet expert fleecing of the hordes of tourists, or the too-loud claims of artistic excellence that emanate like noxious farts from the mouths of punters in the faux posh bars. And don’t get me started on estate agents.
All fur coat and no knickers.
That sums Edinburgh up for me. It looks lovely on the surface, but there’s something sleazy that always makes me yearn for the rough and ready streets of Glasgow, and I’m always glad to leave. The fact that I was having these thoughts as my train pulled in to Waverley Station did not bode well for the rest of the day.
My reception was as I’d have expected given my mood. I stepped onto the platform, took out a cigarette, and had my first encounter with the accent.
“You will not be lighting that up, young man.”
I knew even before I turned round that it was going to be a well-groomed, elderly lady with too strong a sense of her own importance, and I was not disappointed.
I got out my lighter, smiled at her, and applied it to the end of the smoke. The lady looked like she might have a fit.
“Well, I never,” she said.
I gave her a mock salute.
“Surely not, madam? I’m sure you were better looking when you were younger.”
I left her in my wake before she could think of a rejoinder, and suddenly I was feeling a bit better about the trip. Seeing blue skies stretch over the castle lifted my spirits further, and I was almost jaunty as I headed for my first port of call in Leith Walk.
Sadly that was as good as the morning was going to get.
I should have known it wasn’t going to be my day after the bookshops did their three wise monkeys act on me. It seemed that accusing a bookshop owner of fencing stolen materials was a hanging offence in these parts, and I was told, in no uncertain terms, never to darken their doors again. Back in Glasgow, I’d have known exactly which shops to visit and the people I had to speak to. But over in the East, I was lost without a compass.
I yielded to the inevitable at lunchtime and went to the one place where I would feel most comfortable -- the nearest bar. Even here the differences between Scotland’s two largest cities could be clearly felt. The bar I entered was one I hadn’t been in before. It was neat, clean and polite; three things rarely found in such close proximity back in the West. And the beer tasted different somehow; with less malt, and a burnt taste that wasn’t exactly pleasant.
One thing remains constant, no matter which city you were in. Barmen are always willing to talk, if the price is right. I used George’s name and that opened some other doors for me.
“Give me half an hour,” the barman said, and made my twenty vanish into his pocket as he turned away. I took my beer outside to a walled back yard that had a bench, a parasol and two dead pot plants in what they had the cheek to call a garden. It also was the only place I could light up without becoming a pariah. I sucked smoke and stared at the walls, switched off and idling in neutral for a while. Nobody bothered me, and that suited me just fine.
I made the beer last the full half an hour, having to fight the urge to get another one in. When I went back in to the bar, the barmen had an address for me, written on a beer mat. He handed it to me.
“Tony Jones. You’ll find him there. He’s just a lad really,” he said. “But word is he did a job for a gentleman from out in Linlithgow, a special request… for what he called a wee scary book.”
“And this is kosher?” I said, putting the mat away in an inside pocket.
“It cost me ten of your twenty, so it had better be,” he replied.
I thanked him, and headed back out into the city to look for a cab.
I found Tony Jones right where the barman said he’d be - playing pool in a dockside bar in Leith. He was wary of me at first, concerned I might be the polis, but a few free pints of lager, and the mention, again, of George’s name brought him round. I even let him beat me, twice, at pool before we settled in a table near the window where we wouldn’t be disturbed.
“It was a piece of piss,” he said as he downed a liberal gulp of lager, as if afraid I might take it off him at any second. “In and out in two minutes, and two hundred quid in my pocket that same night.”
“And who paid you?”
“A guy fae Linlithgow,” he said. “The whole thing was set up ower the phone at first. Then, when the job was done, I delivered the book to him there… he was waiting when I got off the train. I gave him the book, he gave me the cash, and I was on a train back here five minutes later. Sweet as a nut.”
I’ll give him this, he was the proudest wee burglar I’d ever talked to. He wasn’t helping me much though.
“Can you describe him?”
“Soft,” the lad said. “Soft all over, like a lump of wet dough. And posh… you know? Fae one of those schools where they talk funny, I thought. About your height, but fatter. Grey hair and big lips.”
Like I said… not helping much. I bought him another lager and left him to it. It was only when I was on the train to Linlithgow that I realized I should have asked him where he’d been when he had burgled the book. That way I’d at least have known where my client berthed the boat.
Linlithgow is fifteen minutes out of Edinburgh by train, and about fifty years away. It’s dominated, like Edinburgh, by an old building, a palace in this case, but the streets are mostly quiet, calm even. When I walked into The Three Queens I was the only customer in the place, and the barman was as pleased as a particularly excited puppy to see me. He liked the color of my money too, and made a twenty vanish as fast as the one had earlier.
The Midnight Eye Files: Volume 1 (Midnight Eye Collections) Page 61