Caledonia

by Amy Hoff

  He lifted the mug to his lips, and took a hesitant swallow…and then swiftly downed the entire thing in one go. Dylan had never tasted anything so wonderful in his entire life. Aonghas shook his head, and raised his eyes toward the ceiling.

  “A ned angel that can make his own beer,” he said. “Glasgow is fortunate.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Going anywhere with Dorian was an exercise in patience. Men and women would turn to look, wanting to talk to him or touch him, as if he were famous. God forbid he ever take it into his head to wear a kilt. He dealt with all this attention surprisingly well. The ages of his admirers did not seem to matter and he managed to dissuade them all with a grace Leah had only read about.

  The same could not be said of Magnus.

  “Thank you very much,” Dorian was saying as yet another woman complimented his choice of jacket. This was strange, given that Victorian outerwear in Glasgow was not so much an appreciated fashion choice as a reason to glass someone in the face. However, people just seemed to like Dorian.

  “How you ever catch any criminals or chase them down, I have no idea,” Leah muttered, as they slowly cleaved through a crowd of admiring women.

  “Chase?” he asked mildly. “Why should I need to chase anyone?”

  And suddenly the reason Chief Ben had hired this quiet, non-violent young man was very clear. Employing the selk would be a perfect way to ensure that no criminal ever escaped again.

  People would want to be caught.

  ***

  Desdemona stepped outside into the mist as it coiled around her like a lover.

  She smoked, her green eyes reflecting the orange-red of the burning cigarette. Tendrils of fog curled around the city, a monster waiting silently to consume and obliterate everything familiar. Dorian saw her at the door to the club, standing in the shadows.

  “Yes, what is it now?” she sighed when she recognised Dorian and Leah.

  Magnus pushed forward. Desdemona nearly dropped her cigarette.

  “Hello,” he said. “Ignore my brother. I think we can talk together.”

  She gave him a once-over, smiled, and walked inside.

  She sat down on one of the red sofas away from the bar, where it was quieter. The shisha smoke rose gently from her pipe, the coals in the hookah sizzling softly. She stared at Magnus, drawing her breath in and slowly breathing out, obscuring her bright green eyes.

  He smiled at her, lazy, confident. She smiled back.

  Desdemona outranked Magnus by a long way, and was far older. Still, it amused her to watch one of the seal-boys try their charms on a baobhan sith. He clearly had become far too accustomed to the surrender of mortal women. It had been such a long time since she’d seen him, perhaps he had forgotten her after all these years.

  “Oh, let's not talk about the case just yet,” he said. “I'd like to know about you. Tell me about yourself. How have you been, Desdemona?”

  Desdemona grinned and stayed silent. She wished she had fangs, but she wasn't that kind of vampire.

  Magnus cleared his throat.

  “So,” he said, “let's talk about the case, then.”

  “I am at your service,” she said.

  Desdemona curled a white hand around a crystal glass, and drank absinthe mixed with blood.

  “What more is there to say?” she asked. “Aonghas told you that Sebastian was behind the killings. Sebastian is behind everything. Everything. It stands to reason. I don't even know how this is considered a case. It doesn't take a lot of thought.”

  “Why would Sebastian do something like this? Serial killing?” Magnus asked. “He's more the corporate crime type, fancies himself some kind of Robin Hood.”

  “If you mean stealing from the rich to give to himself, then maybe,” laughed Desdemona. “Now, I don't know why Sebastian would do something like this. I do know that perhaps you ought to be investigating your brother. Now, that’s criminal.”

  She exhaled a plume of smoke, staring at Dorian where he stood with Leah near a potted plant. He looked bored and somewhat uncomfortable, while Leah seemed enchanted by the place.

  “Dorian?” asked Magnus, looking over his shoulder. “Why is that?”

  Desdemona smiled.

  “You should know,” she said. “If Dorian hasn't told you yet, he really ought to. The world is a big place now and we aren't necessarily the strongest anymore, are we?”

  Magnus stared at her, puzzled into silence.

  “Well, this has been fascinating,” said Desdemona, “but I perform in twenty minutes. See you around, Magnus Grey.”

  She stood up, set her blood absinthe on the table, and left Magnus alone on the couch.

  He returned to where Dorian and Leah were standing, leaping over the back of the sofa and grinning at them, a swizzle stick between his teeth.

  “She says that it is definitely Sebastian,” Magnus said. “He's been here, and she says it's bigger than we think. She also said that I should be investigating you, Dorian. What does she mean?”

  Dorian stared at his brother. The silence stretched between them. Leah had to break in.

  “What does Dorian have to do with Sebastian?” she asked.

  Dorian didn’t answer. He turned and left the club without a word. Magnus seemed to regret his actions and he went after his brother, looking ashamed of himself.

  “Where are you going?” Leah called after the two of them, but a reply never came.

  Leah walked home alone. The rain continued to pour into the night, giving a Monet aspect to the evening. People passed by hurriedly, seeking warmth and shelter. Glasgow on some nights could be warm and beautiful, its cobblestones bathed in orange light, shining in the mist and rain. The shops along Great Western Road were awash in the sunset brilliance of a Glasgow evening, and the patrons of the pubs spilled out into the night, banter interspersed with laughter and the click and flick of lighters in exchange for a story and a quick smoke. The spires of the cathedrals and the red sandstone buildings offered a sense of both history and home. The forests of Kelvingrove Park and the fountains of greenery touching the river as it wound its merry way through the city were all cast in the warmth of a Glasgow twilight, firelit orange, cool in the damp mist of a summer’s evening.

  Leah opened the door to her room, and shook the water from her umbrella. A chill had set in again, and she went to the counter to make tea. The availability of tea on a cool evening, provided by the hotel, warmed her. Although she was alone, it made her feel less lonely.

  ***

  When the sun began to rise the following morning, Aonghas walked across the long green lawn as the previous night's shadows receded. He stepped inside the People’s Palace, where Dylan was waiting for him. Tearlach was beside himself with excitement and joy, like a child at the zoo. Aonghas handed Dylan the soda he'd purchased from the corner shop, and passed an orange juice to Tearlach.

  “Bloody hell,” said Tearlach, impressed. “Oranges. What a miraculous time!”

  Dylan’s wings suddenly appeared with a sound like a feather pillow hitting a wall.

  “Gaaaahhh!” he shouted in frustration, nearly tipping over. “I cannae control them!”

  “It’ll take some time,” said Aonghas, drinking from his own bottle. “Though I’m not sure why you chose to have them so large.”

  “Wull, I didnae ken, did I?” said Dylan. “You said I was a faerie, an’ then I kent I read su’n aince about how faeries were really angels or su’n an’ I thought interesting, angels an’ faeries an’ there you go.”

  “Where on earth would someone like you read about that?” asked Aonghas.

  Dylan's wings quivered in annoyance.

  “Someone like me,” he muttered. “I'll hae you ken I went tae uni. Graduated wi’ honours, too, an’ I'm only 21.”

  “Hmm,” said Aonghas. “You are certainly surprising.”

  “Wull, yir no’ like any ned I ken either, so we’re in guid company,” Dylan said. “So – the wings. Is there any way I can cha
nge ‘em back? Undo it?”

  “Unfortunately not,” said Aonghas. “They’ll look like that until the public perception of angels changes. Angels, unfortunately, are extremely popular so you’ll be stuck like that until people decide angels don't have gigantic wings.”

  “Is tha’ how you got yir wings?” asked Dylan. “Because people believe that’s wit faeries look like?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They used to look different, and before that, I had no wings. Fortunately it hasn't had an effect on our size, only the superficial things: clothes, wings, what kind of food we can retrieve from our satchels, although you seem to have challenged that notion. Anyway, one night I was dreaming, of home – and I woke up with them.”

  “Hame?” asked Dylan. “Wit d’you mean? Isnae Glasgow yir hame?”

  Aonghas smiled thinly.

  “For centuries, yes,” he said. “But my home – and yours – is far away. I mean the land of Faerie. I had dreamed I was there, walking among the soft grasses...that I was beautiful again. And I woke with dragonfly wings.”

  “Wull, thanks for the warnin’,” Dylan retorted. “I’d’a liked a moment tae think about it!”

  Aonghas shrugged.

  “It shows the soul of you,” he said. “Generally the manifestations are apt. You are a Guardian – it makes sense that you’d take the appearance of an angel.”

  “Does that mean I hafta wear robes and grow my hair out an’ a’?” asked Dylan.

  “Not unless you want to,” said Aonghas.

  They walked through the Winter Gardens inside the People’s Palace. Tropical plants from around the world towered above them, as the light from a colder sun made prisms through the glass. Glasgow Green was once the province of kings, and the Winter Gardens were a breathtaking example of that history.

  Tearlach walked the pathways in wonder. He had never seen anything like most of the plants on display. To him, they seemed from another world, intoxicating and magical. Faeries were a part of his everyday reality, commonplace, and sewn into the fabric of his being. Tropical foliage, however, was as magical and otherworldly to him as the Fae were to the modern world.

  “Do you mean to tell me,” he said reverently, “that there are people who do not feel the winter's chill? What do they do? How can they drink tea? Perhaps they drink something cooler...”

  Musing to himself, he wandered off into the labyrinthine display, and Dylan smiled after him.

  “Are you gonna come wi’ me, t’bring Tearlach home?” Dylan asked Aonghas.

  “I might, if I feel like it,” replied Aonghas.

  “The thing is…I dinnae really want Tearlach t’gae hame,” said Dylan, watching his enthusiastic new friend.

  “Tearlach’s existence here is causing strange rifts in time, can’t you feel it? It feels like swimming upstream.”

  Dylan considered this. He did feel something...wrong, around Tearlach, as if he were a pebble causing constant ripples in the air.

  “Am I immortal the noo?” he asked, suddenly.

  “Yes. And forever young,” said Aonghas. “Believe me, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Boredom?” asked Dylan.

  Aonghas nodded.

  “Better than death,” said Dylan decisively.

  Aonghas shrugged. He wouldn’t know.

  “There are six Guardians of Glasgow,” said Aonghas. “They are served by bodyguards, called the Attendants. If we had a leader, it would be the Gatekeeper – the angel statue in the Gorbals, whose Attendants flank the creature on either side along the buildings.”

  “Servants?” asked Dylan, looking disgusted. “Nae thanks.”

  “Dylan, it’s always been this way,” said Aonghas.

  “Tha’s nae reason it needs t’stay tha’ way,” Dylan replied. “I’m not putting anyone, or anything, in danger. Nae. I’ll do it alane.”

  Aonghas sighed. Young people.

  “I don’t know how you got here,” he said. “I don’t know how you ended up a ned, but you are definitely the biggest surprise I’ve had in all my years and years of living.”

  “Or maybe you jist dinnae understand neds,” said Dylan. “Everyone thinks terrible things about us, an’ sometimes – perhaps often – they’re right. But we’re jist people, like any other people. Being born rich disnae mean being born smart.”

  “And here’s the evidence, in the flesh,” said Aonghas. “I wasn’t sure at first, but I think I would be proud to work by your side.”

  “An’ I’ll be holding you accountable,” said Dylan. “Protecting Glasgow is our job.”

  Aonghas grinned.

  “Definitely an angel,” he said.

  “Are angels real, by the way?” asked Dylan, “I widnae want t’gie offense.”

  Aonghas just shrugged, as if he knew the answer and wasn't planning to share.

  ***

  Leah found Dorian standing on the Great Western Bridge overlooking the River Kelvin. He seemed different in this light, as though he truly did not belong in this world. Her gaze almost slid off him. He was definitely made of something not human and in the bright, harsh, and silver Scottish light this was very obvious. His skin looked as if it were made of marble.

  He was looking into the water of the river as though it were a window to the past.

  Leah sat down beside him and waited. She was afraid to say anything. If he wanted to talk, he would.

  “Your young man,” he said softly, so low she could barely hear him. “Do you still love him after what he’s done to you?”

  This surprised her. She was expecting a confession, or some explanation of his behaviour with Magnus. She had also not thought much about this, focused as she had always been on the heartbreak and jealousy. When she thought of Adam, it was with pain. She hadn't considered whether that meant she still loved him.

  “I suppose I do,” Leah said. “But I don’t think I could ever be with him again.”

  Dorian put a white hand on the rail of the bridge. The green foliage surrounded them and creeping plants held the structure in an embrace that could become a chokehold. There were few parts of the city that reminded him of the Fae homeland, but this was one of them. He watched the water coursing beneath him, clear and white, smoothing the rocks below. He sighed, and smiled.

  “It has been over one hundred years,” said Dorian. “I still remember her. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear, how her eyes lit up when she laughed, the scent of her lily of the valley perfume. Women are not what they were.”

  He looked at Leah, who remained silent.

  “Or perhaps they are what they always have been,” said Dorian. “Perhaps new eras do not invent new ways of behaving, just new names for it.”

  He was silent again for a while, as the Kelvin passed beneath them. Leah wondered if he longed for the sea, if leaving human form to return to the ocean was the selkie way of leaving the world in general. It must be strange, and difficult, to belong to not one world, but two. Perhaps the rivers of Glasgow were the closest he could get to the sea, as it cried out to the wild tide in his veins, the endless deep pull of the water calling him home.

  “You said she died of old age,” Leah prompted him. She was, after all, a detective.

  Dorian stirred, and nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “The loss was terrible. A selkie loves just as he did when he was first Taken, hundreds of years later. At least for me, the loss was a natural one, difficult as it was.”

  “But…?” Leah prompted.

  Dorian sighed. He turned to his partner.

  “Several years ago,” he said, “someone began killing the women and men who the selk belonged to. It was efficient, cold, brutal. Someone was systematically taking the one thing that any of us cared about or lived for. Imagine what it would be like to discover that your young man had been slaughtered – mutilated.”

  Leah was taken aback. Dorian's dour expression, the rarity of his smile, all led her to surmise that he must have suffered much – but thi
s was more than she had expected. The kind of secret that cut too deep. She wondered what else he had seen, over his long life.

  She thought about what he had said for a moment, and shuddered. Losing Adam had been difficult. She looked forward to the day when she would wake up and not feel the dagger of loss in her stomach. Still, he lived and he was safe. To have lost him in the way Dorian described...even with the heartbreak, it was too horrible to contemplate.

  “The selk, as a species, feel like you do, but with ten times the intensity,” Dorian said. “No one loves like we do. And in these particular cases, they were relationships in which the selkies were in bliss, for their humans loved them in return. They were perfect loves.”

  “Why would someone murder them?” Leah asked.

  “I don’t know. We never found out. But the selk involved were...broken by the experience, forever. Now, they seem…out of place, misaligned, as if they don’t belong. Old.”

  Leah stared at Dorian.

  “Magnus.”

  “He loved Hazel deeply,” sighed Dorian. “She was the first to be killed. I never told him how she died. When the murders stopped, I thought that was the end of it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you do something about it yourselves? Because the selk are too peaceful?” Leah asked.

  “No,” said Dorian. “Because we are too dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” Leah asked, incredulous, looking at his beautiful tailcoat and shining pocket-watch.

  “I realize how we may seem to you,” said Dorian. “A selkie at rest is peaceful and loving. If you take something from us – especially our lovers…we become deadly, more violent than a terrible storm. Rage as endless and deep as the sea. Together, united as one … we could be the downfall of mankind.”

  Leah shook her head, trying to imagine an army of the selk, dressed in clothes from the Regency to the Victorian era, somehow destroying the world. It was impossible.

  “Okay, so…say I believe you,” she told him. “Who would do something like that?”

  “We believe now that it was Sebastian,” said Dorian coldly. “Magnus doesn’t know that Hazel’s death was only the first in a pattern. We kept it secret from the world at large because… well, some of the selk would not sit by quietly. ”