Gallowglass

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “Oh.” My mouth went dry, and I grabbed my water bottle from my pack. Robert’s words rattled me; my brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it time with Jared had soured my view of relationships, so much so that I doubted that men could feel both love any loyalty. I mean, Chris had been in love with Olivia, but that hadn’t stopped him from hitting on the local girls in every pub we’d stopped in across the UK. His behavior had made me wonder if I was the only person left with old fashioned morals. Then again, Robert sure did put a new spin on the term ‘old fashioned’.

  Robert noticed that I’d gone silent, and grimaced. I wondered if he had bared a bit more of himself than he’d meant to, since he touched my elbow and gently guided me back toward the priory.

  “Come along, Karina lass,” Robert said, “I would hate for ye to miss a spot on your tour after all ye went through to—”

  Robert grabbed my arm like a vise, and dragged me to a halt. “’Tis one o’ the fuath,” he growled.

  “The who-ah?” I asked.

  “Foo ah,” Robert repeated, stretching out the syllables. “They are water demons that act as Nicnevin’s assassins. Like as no’, she has sent this one to collect me.”

  “I thought you were her assassin.”

  He ignored my comment, and said, “We must leave, lass. Fetch your brother.”

  “Leave the tour?” I asked. “Can’t we just walk around to the other side of the ruin?”

  “No. We must leave this place altogether.”

  “We’re on an island,” I reminded him. “We have to wait for the ferry.”

  “We canna,” he hissed. “’Tis no safe.”

  “Um, okay.” I scanned the tour group; it was comprised of a rather harried looking guide, a gaggle of senior citizens armed with cameras and fanny packs, and my brother, the only individual under sixty. None of them looked to be likely candidates for a fairy assassin. “Where exactly is this fuath?”

  “At the rear o’ that gathering.” Robert jerked his chin toward a white haired woman leaning on a cane who looked so frail, I worried the breeze would topple her.

  “Are you sure?” I pressed.

  “’Tis one o’ them, o’ that ye can be certain,” he insisted, his grip on my arm tightening. “The beast is wearing a glamour.”

  I stared at Robert, the man I’d known for less than twenty four hours, who had claimed that I’d liberated him from centuries imprisoned within the Seelie Court. The man I had believed, until he started avoiding my questions. “You haven’t answered me. I thought you were her assassin?”

  “I was but the deadliest of many,” he replied, then he spied Chris. “Come, we’ll collect Christopher and commandeer a vessel.”

  “What? No!” I shook my arm free, and glared at him. “That little old lady can’t hurt anyone, and we are not stealing a boat!”

  “The boat? Ye are concerned about a wee boat when a killer’s naught but twenty paces from ye?”

  “This is insane,” I muttered. “Just insane.” I turned my back to him, rubbing my temples. Chris had been right; Robert was nothing but a gigolo, one who was now playing his part a bit too intensely, and I was his willing mark. I’d crossed half the world to get away from one man that had used me, only to run smack into another.

  The tour group had noticed Robert’s and my argument, and a few of the old ladies were whispering about us. I smiled and waved, trying to impress upon them that everything was fine, just in case anyone was of a mind to call for enforcements. The last thing I needed was a headline that read “American Graduate Student Arrested For Making A Scene At Scottish Landmark” making its way back to my grant funders.

  One by one, the ladies lost interest in us, and followed the guide to the next location. All of them, except the one Robert had labeled as an assassin. She was standing stock still, leaning on her cane and peering at me.

  “Why isn’t she moving on?” I wondered. I glanced over my shoulder; Robert had stalked off toward the trees again, muttering to himself. “Robert, could you come here, please?” I called. “I think someone needs help.” All I could think of was that something of a medical nature was happening with the woman, maybe a stroke or a heart attack, and Robert—or whatever his name was—was a big guy, and could carry her if necessary. As soon as I called his name he returned to my side.

  “Who is needin’ help, then?” Robert demanded. He looked past me, the blood draining from his face.

  “Gallowglass,” a voice hissed. I tore my gaze from Robert and back to the old woman, who wasn’t looking so feeble any longer. Her eyes glowed red, and her mouth was packed with long, needlelike teeth, way too many teeth to be in such a small opening. I stood, mesmerized, as she kept opening her mouth, wider and wider until her jaw unhinged, her teeth growing longer and sharper with each passing second.

  “Behind me,” Robert shouted as the woman sprang at us. She crossed the twenty or more paces in a single leap, landing like a cat on Robert’s chest. Then she screamed, a horrible, shrill noise that physically hurt my ears, and reared back to bite Robert’s neck.

  I shrieked, certain this monster was about to take Robert’s head off, when he pitched himself forward, throwing his full weight on top of the much smaller creature and knocking them both to the ground. While the monster was still dazed, Robert leapt to his feet. He extended his arm to the side, and the claymore he’d carried the day before materialized out of thin air. Robert grasped the sword with both hands, and with a single swing he decapitated the creature.

  I was shaking like a leaf, staring from the body to Robert. There was blood everywhere, black stinking blood marring the lush grass, some of the foul liquid having sprayed onto Robert’s chest. I hated gore, even the fake gore in horror movies and in cheesy Halloween displays. I swayed, certain that I was going to faint, when Robert caught me.

  “’Tis all right,” he murmured, his arm about my waist. “It canna hurt ye now.” I pressed myself against Robert’s side, hiding under his arm and trying not to touch the bloody parts of his shirt. All of my doubts about Robert had ceased just as surely as that creature’s life had ceased. I would never doubt him again.

  “What the holy hell was that?” Chris demanded.

  I looked up and saw my brother jogging towards us. Behind him, the tour group was screaming and pointing at the man with the gigantic, bloody sword, and at the body at his feet. “Robert had to,” I whispered.

  “Had to?” Chris repeated. “He had to kill a little old lady?

  “Not a lady,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Old man, whatever—”

  “Chris!” I pointed at the creature’s head. “Look at the mouth.” He did, squatting down to get a better view. I stayed where I was; I already knew more than I wanted to know about that thing.

  “Shit,” Chris murmured. Being that Chris considered such language beneath a man of his stature, I inferred that he understood the gravity of our situation. He reached toward its teeth, and I looked away. Did he have to touch it? He couldn’t tell just by looking at it that it was wrong? As I tried not to lose my breakfast I noticed an official-looking man striding toward us.

  “Lose the sword,” I muttered. Robert crouched down, and took what I thought was an inordinately long time wiping the blade on the grass. Once it was as shiny as it was going to get, Robert stood and extended his arm to the side. A moment later, the sword was gone. While I stood gaping at the empty space where there had just been a freaking sword, the official-looking man started yelling at us about defiling a holy place, not to mention defacing a registered historical monument. The dead tourist had not made his list of priorities.

  “About stealing that boat,” I began, then I turned to my brother. “Chris, we are going to steal a boat.”

  Chris nodded. “Good plan.”

  Robert grabbed me by the elbow, and the three of us raced toward the dock.

  Chapter Seven

  Karina

  The commotion behind the priory had drawn the ferry’s crew, so, being th
at the boat was unoccupied, we hopped onboard and ran toward the front and the dashboard control panel. It was covered in a blinking lights and switches and I had no idea how to work any of them.

  “Start the engine or something,” I said.

  “How exactly am I supposed to do that?” Chris snapped. “I’ve never operated anything like this.”

  “You and Olivia used to take vacations at that yacht place!”

  “This is a commercial ferry,” he shot back, “not a pleasure boat!”

  “Shit,” I said. “Then how are we going to get away?”

  “What about that one?” Robert asked. Chris and I followed his gaze, and we saw a much smaller motorboat docked nearby.

  “That, I can handle,” Chris said. He moved to leave, then he spied a black binder and grabbed it. A second later we were running off of the ferry, then we were scurrying about the motor boat as Chris jumped into the driver’s seat and Robert unwound the rope that secured it to the dock. The engine started up, and Chris guided the boat across the lake not loch.

  “What’s that?” I asked, nodding at the binder on Chris’s lap.

  “Passenger log,” he replied. “Has our names in it.”

  “Oh.” I had nothing more to say. I was just glad Chris knew how to drive a boat.

  Once we reached the opposite shore, Robert docked the boat while Chris wiped down the hard surfaces. After all what had happened on the island, the fact that my brother was a criminal mastermind hadn’t even registered on the weird factor.

  No, the fuath had pretty much heightened the weird up to epic levels.

  My brother, the man who’d killed either a tourist or a monster, and I were silent as we drove toward the Kingdom of Fife, where a prepaid rental cottage awaited us in Crail. Chris was driving again, despite the fact that he’d taken a few shots of his single malt before we’d set out. I’d taken a shot myself, hoping it would calm my nerves. Instead, my hands were shaking so hard my wrists ached.

  About an hour into our drive we stopped on a deserted stretch of road. Chris put the rental in park and grabbed the passenger log, then he stared at me. I stared back until I realized that he wanted a lighter; I’ve never smoked, but I carried all manner of oddities in my pack. One never knew what would be needed during field work. I dug it out and handed it over, then Robert passed forward his bloody flannel button down.

  Robert and I stayed in the car while Chris started the fire, me trying not to think about what he was burning while Robert dug out a fresh shirt from the Hamilton’s bags. After the fire had reduced the passenger log and Robert’s shirt to ash, Chris poured water on the smoldering mess and returned to the car. He passed around his single malt, and once we had each gulped some liquid courage, we were off.

  We reached Crail, a fishing village situated right on the Firth of Forth, about an hour later. We found the rental cottage, then there was the small matter of dealing with the landlord, one Dougal MacKay, and the collecting of keys. If Mr. MacKay had been surprised to greet a party of three, rather than just the two who were expected, he hid it well. Then again, the cottage had been well paid for, and in advance.

  Mr. MacKay gave us a quick tour of the one floor cottage, and we were sure to ohh and ahh over the two bedrooms and spacious common room, complete with a kitchen, television, and a stocked bookcase and video library. After he’d shown us every detail, including the brand new laundry basket nestled under the kitchen counter, he left us with two sets of keys, a map of Fife, and a list of restaurants and other local amenities. As soon as the door had closed behind Mr. MacKay, Chris looked at me for the second time since we’d left the priory.

  “What happened back there?” he asked.

  I didn’t ask for clarification. I cleared my throat, and replied, “It wasn’t an old woman.”

  “I get that.”

  “It was one of Nicnevin’s creatures, sent to either kill Robert, or take him back to the Seelie Court.”

  Chris leaned on the kitchen table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Seelie Court?”

  “The fairy court.”

  Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. “What does that nonsense have to do with anything?”

  I swallowed, and replied, “This is Robert Kirk, Chris. The real Robert Kirk. He escaped from the fairy queen, and she sent that monster to take him back.”

  “Maybe you should have let it have him.” Chris glared from me to Robert, his fists clenched so tight the veins bulged in his forearms. “Maybe you never should have hooked up with this freak in the first place.”

  “He’s not a freak! And we did not hook up,” I added. “Why are you being such an ass?”

  “Why is he going around with a sword? Is that even legal?” Chris countered.

  “It’s his sword,” I shrieked. “Chris, Robert’s been a prisoner in Faerie for hundreds of years!”

  “Magic is gone, Rina,” Chris said. “It was already dying out long before that preacher in Aberfoyle was born, long before Shakespeare, even. No matter how much you want things to be different, magic is gone.”

  “Then how do you explain the creature at the priory?” I demanded. “Dental work gone bad?”

  “Genetic aberration,” Chris replied. “If regular human DNA can make Lobster Boy, it can make a toothy old woman.” Robert opened his mouth, but Chris held up a hand. “No. A world of no. I do not want to hear anything you have to say.” Chris grabbed his jacket and the car keys, and headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” I demanded.

  “Someplace without freaks or monsters,” he grumbled.

  After the door slammed shut behind Chris, I stared at it for a small eternity. For the second time in as many days I found myself alone with this strange man, his strangeness not only due to the fact that we’d just met. After what happened at the priory, I knew that Robert wasn’t a hustler, nor was I his mark. But what did that make him? What did that make me?

  If I ever see a monster like the fuath again, I may actually die of fright.

  Eventually, I took a deep breath and turned around, folding my arms across my chest as I did so. Robert stood perfectly still, his eyes wary as if he was watching a predator stalking him through tall grass. With a start, I recognized the emotion glazing his eyes: fear. I was all that he had in this modern Scotland, and if I stopped believing in him, he truly would be lost.

  I wanted to believe him, so badly I could taste it. He just needed to give me something I could hold on to.

  I unfolded my arms, letting my hands hang loose at my sides. “I thought regular people couldn’t see them. The Good People,” I added, as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Typically, ye canna,” Robert replied. “The fuath at the priory had taken over a mortal’s form, which is why ye could detect it.”

  “A mortal’s form? You mean—” I doubled over as my stomach churned; that really had been a human body. Robert had beheaded a little old tourist wearing a fanny pack. Then Robert’s arms were around me and he was guiding me to the couch, pressing a wet dishcloth to my forehead as he set my glasses on the coffee table.

  “Forgive me, lass, I wish I could say otherwise,” Robert said, “but ‘tis true. The fuath, terrible beasts that they are, will take over a mortal’s body, and twist it around to do their bidding.”

  “You killed a woman,” I whispered.

  “The fuath had already killed her, long afore we set eyes on her,” Robert corrected. “I merely dispatched a monster.”

  “How did you do that with your sword? Not the swinging part,” I clarified. “How did it just appear out of thin air?”

  Robert shrugged. “’Tis but a fath-fidh, a simple charm to keep things close yet hidden.”

  “Yeah. Simple.” I snuffled, and wiped my nose with the dishcloth. There was nothing even remotely simple about this. While I understood that Robert had had to kill the fuath, that didn’t mean I had to like it. Especially not when that poor woman’s headless corpse was permanently imp
rinted on the backs of my eyelids. And those teeth; just thinking about them made me shiver. “Did…it…use a similar charm?”

  “Nay, lass. Ye could see the beast because it was already inhabiting her body.”

  “So, I could see it because it was inside a mortal?”

  “Aye.” Robert took the cloth from my hands, and threw it across the room and into the kitchen sink. “Most mortals have no idea that the Good People walk among them.”

  “But you can see them?” I ventured. “You can see what they really look like. Even before she took you, you could interact with them.” Robert pursed his lips, and nodded. “They say that you were born with the second sight.”

  “Aye, that I was, but second sight allows one a glimpse o’ the future, no’ the Good People.” When I blinked expectantly, he continued, “When I was a wee lad, I made up a wort to see them.”

  “A wort? You mean like fairy ointment?”

  “One and the same,” he replied. “With its application, anyone may see them as they truly are, glamour or no.”

  I searched his face, but I could find no evidence of falsehoods. Fairy ointment! I remembered those tales, which mostly involved midwives who were given the ointment to help laboring fairy women. The ointment allowed regular people to see the truth beyond glamour and spells, and often led to those who’d received it being blinded or imprisoned. Of all the things to be real… “Do you remember how to make it?” I asked.

  “Och, no, lass! That’s what started this whole mess in the first place.” Robert sat beside me on the couch, supporting his head in his hands. “The wort, it does no wear off. Once ye can see them, you’re cursed to see them until your dying day.”

  I leaned toward him, trying to peek through his fingers at his eyes. “But if I can’t see them, how will I be able to protect you?”

  I said protect, but I meant believe. Robert frowned, and said, “It should no’ be ye protecting me, lass. Ye should be the one what’s protected.”

  I reached for him, then thought the better of it and dropped my hands. “I set you free. You’re my charge.”