Part of me would have liked nothing better than to stay in the car and let someone else make my problems go away—the memory of that fiercely scowling creature in the drawing turned my knees to jelly. But… “The powrie are enforcers and the hobs are servants, right?”
“Yes. So?”
“So although you’re pretty good in a fight
—” I swallowed “—this powrie is probably better.”
“I am faster than a powrie,” he said.
“But not stronger?”
He shook his head reluctantly. “No. Not stronger.”
“Then let me help you.”
“How?”
“You said it’s not smart. We’ll think of something.” But my voice shook with uncertainty.
We stopped a couple of kilometres from Dad’s farm so I could get Dominic’s chrome-plated wheel wrench out of the boot. The heavy weight of it across my lap was reassuring as we turned off the road and onto the track leading to Dad’s gate. When I pulled over I kept the engine running, looking around to see whether anything was approaching us.
“It’s probably closer to the house,” I said. “That’s where Dad set up the iron all around the fence line. This far out, it would be easy for it to get in.”
He nodded, scanning the moonlit paddocks with narrowed eyes.
When there were no signs of movement around the car, I got out, wrench in hand, and crept over to the gate. The bare skin of my arms and between my shoulder blades prickled with the faint hint of a breeze, leaving me feeling exposed.
I stared in consternation at the twist of iron that bound the gate to a ring in the fencepost.
Crap.
I gave the ring an exploratory poke with the wrench to see how firmly it was fixed into the post. It didn’t budge. Dad had screwed it in with a typical—but in this instance inconvenient—thoroughness.
Leaning the wrench against the fencepost within arm’s reach, I wrapped my hands in the long hem at the back of my skirt, took a deep breath, and began to untwist the wire.
The iron was hot at first, as if I was holding a simmering saucepan with a too-thin oven mitt. The skirt fabric tangled around my fingers made gripping it awkward. By the time the wire fell to the track at my feet, my fingertips burned. I let go of the hem with a whimper and examined my fingers in the glow of the car’s headlights. They were red with inflammation.
“You should have let me do that,” I jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was right behind me.
“Don’t be silly,” I replied. “Iron burns you more than me. You would’ve been more badly hurt than this.”
I bent to pick up the wrench, but he grabbed my wrist first, lifting it towards his mouth. “At least let me heal them for you.”
I was tempted—my fingers were throbbing now—but shook my head. “If there’s going to be a fight, you’re more likely to need your hands than I am.” He scowled, and I relented a little, “You can do it afterwards. Let’s make sure Dad is safe first, okay?”
He nodded reluctantly. I opened the gate and we got back in the car.
“Should I drive all the way up to the farmhouse or should we walk the last little way so we can sneak up on it?”
“Drive,” Jack said. “It has probably already heard the engine by now anyway.”
“Right.” I put the car into gear, holding the steering wheel gingerly. “You know, I’m going to feel like an idiot if they’re both fine.”
“The drawing was a true one.”
“Yeah, but what if it’s about something that’s going to happen tomorrow, not today? I ought to train Ryan to paint every image holding a current newspaper or something.”
He laughed softly.
As it turns out, they were not fine.
As we rounded the final, low hill, the headlights illuminated the silhouette of a figure. It stood in front of the farmyard gate, the black shape of the darkened house a shadow behind it. For a second I thought it was Dad, but my father was neither that tall—the creature was approaching seven feet in height—nor that bulky.
Also, even on his scruffiest days, Dad didn’t wear rags the colour of blood.
The powrie snarled at us, shielding his—I assumed it was male, although I couldn’t be sure—beady, red-hued eyes against the glare of the headlights with one hand.
Behind him, on the other side of the farmyard fence, was my father. He was holding a long piece of iron out in front of him and squinting into the headlights as well.
It gave me an idea.
“Follow my lead,” I murmured, killing the engine but leaving the keys in the ignition. Silence filled the cabin, broken only by the nearby, panicked bleating of my father’s sheep and the powrie’s noisy breathing. I took a breath, flicked the headlights onto high beam and slid out of the car, concealing the wrench behind my back with one hand.
The powrie’s aura was the same, arterial-blood red as his clothes: the colour of violence and rage. I walked around the front of the car, back ramrod straight and head high, as though I owned the place.
The way I imagined an arrogant aosidhe would walk.
As I came to stand between the headlights, Jack falling in beside me, I tried to fill the powrie’s aura with the sickly yellow of fear. I certainly had a ready supply of it available to use. But I’d never tried projecting an emotion onto someone without touching them first; it wasn’t as effective as with physical contact. The emotion ate around the edges of the sea of red, curling and spreading within it like a splash of dye in a bucket of water.
The powrie shook his head like a dog trying to dislodge an insect from its ear.
“Get out of here,” I commanded, stepping towards him. Amazingly, my voice contained no hint of the terror that clawed at my ribs, trying to escape. The breeze carried his stink towards me: rank, unwashed flesh and the iron tang of blood.
His eyes widened and he lowered his hand. There was a jagged scar along his jaw, as though someone had tried to tear out his throat and missed. “I know you.” His voice was gravely and deep. “Melpomene!”
“Yes,” I lied, hoping it wasn’t her who had sent the powrie. If it were, the lie wouldn’t last a second. Behind him, my father raised his head, looking hopeful. My heart ached, but I couldn’t say anything to show him the truth. Not right now. “This place is under my protection. Leave now or face my wrath.”
I was laying it on thick, but the powrie looked over his shoulder at my father and hesitated. “Can I take him?”
“No. The humans of this place are under my protection too.” Gosh, he was thick. Best to be sure. “Everything is.”
“Oh.”
“Swear you will never return here and I will let you leave unharmed.”
He hesitated. I could almost see the thoughts slogging their way through his mind. For a moment I thought my gambit might work. Hope unfurled within me.
I hadn’t banked on the powrie not being alone.
“What are you doing?” a Scottish-accented voice demanded from off to our right. A figure walked into the headlights. It was a hob. He was slightly taller than Jack, with the same golden hair and the smooth skin that indicated he was in the service of an aosidhe. But his eyes had an unnerving violet tinge.
Trailing behind him was a huge black dog. It stood almost four feet tall at the shoulder and its jaws were red with blood. A tuft of fleece clung to its teeth.
The poor sheep.
“Melpomene.” The powrie pointed at me with a shaking finger tipped with a chewed and filthy fingernail.
The hob sniffed the air, and then snorted. “You idiot. That is a human. Grab her.”
The powrie hesitated for a moment longer. When he lumbered towards me, it was like watching an old locomotive lurching into motion. I stepped to the side and wildly swung the wrench, but the huge fae blocked my blow with one meaty arm and grabbed my wrists, shaking them until I dropped my improvised weapon from limp fingers. I struggled to pull free, but my hands were caught in a vice. He transferred both my wrist
s to one huge hand. It encircled them without difficulty.
The ease with which he’d captured me was galling.
Jack lunged at the powrie, but the black dog darted forward and knocked him back against the car. There was a sizzle as the back of his legs struck the painted metal of the bonnet, and he screamed.
“Well, what have we here?” The strange hob stalked forward. “It is the notorious Jack, and looking surprisingly healthy too, given his much-vaunted vow to never serve again. Who is your new master, Jack?”
Jack glared at him, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs. The black dog snarled at him, bloodstained saliva dripping from its jaws.
“And who is the girl?” The strange hob peered into my face, his nose inches from my own. “She looks like Melpomene, but she is not.” He sniffed me again, his nose pressing against my cheek. His hot breath puffed against my skin. Repulsed, I pulled my head back as far as it would go.
But it was too late. He smiled. His canine teeth were filed to points, like those of a movie vampire. “She smells of human and aosidhe. Could it be that the rumours are true? Did Melpomene whelp a bairn to a human male?” He laughed. “How embarrassing for her.”
He turned to my father. “Is this your daughter, David Blackman?”
Dad stood beside the farmyard’s fence now; he peered into the headlights, unable to see properly, but there was a sick look of realisation on his face.
Of course it was me.
The hob read his expression as easily as I did. “How charming this is.” He smiled at me. “I am pleased to meet you, half-breed. What is your name?”
I didn’t answer. The hob snaked his hand behind my head and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulling my head backwards. Pain knifed through my skull. “Answer me, or I will tell my friends here they can play with you for a bit. You will not like that, I assure you.”
“Isla,” I hissed, almost drowned out by Jack’s cry of protest.
“Pretty,” the hob said, stepping back and bowing. “Jack has not introduced me, but perhaps he does not know who I am. I am not as famous as him and only arrived in your country this morning. Let me remedy the situation. I am Moray.”
“Who do you work for?” Jack growled from between clenched teeth.
“You will find out soon enough, Jack.” Moray ran a gentle hand down the side of my face. “And so will you, Isla, child of Melpomene. My master will be interested in meeting a half-breed aosidhe. Especially since you are presumably the one who removed the elf shot. I was quite surprised to find your father on his feet and being troublesome.”
“Let them go,” Dad yelled.
Moray looked over his shoulder at my father, who paced with agitation behind the protection of the fence. “And what will you give me if I do, human?”
“You can take me instead. That’s why you came, isn’t it?”
Moray smirked. “Done.”
“Dad,” I gasped, kicking at the powrie’s shins. He grunted and held me at arm’s length. My feet barely touched the ground and my arms ached, stretched above my head.
“Swear it.” Dad gripped the fencepost, his knuckles white.
“I swear to you that if you hand yourself over to us, we will let these two go.” Moray spoke carefully, and I felt a faint tremble in the air as the oath settled on him, a shimmering mantle.
Shoulders slumped with defeat, Dad dropped the iron bar into the dirt and let himself out of the farmyard gate, latching it behind him.
With quick efficiency, Moray bound my father’s hands behind his back with a short length of rope. Dad winced as the rough braid cut into his wrists.
The hob nodded to his companions. “Let them go.”
I stumbled when the powrie released me but still managed to catch Jack, who fell forward. I couldn’t see his legs, but the pain in his eyes made it clear the steel had burned him badly.
“Okay, now recapture them,” Moray said.
His eyes never leaving the powrie, Jack grabbed my wrist and pulled me down along the side of the fence.
Cursing, Dad glared at the violet-eyed hob. “You promised!”
“Do not blame me for your lack of specifics,” Moray shrugged. He glowered at the other duinesidhe. “What are you waiting for?”
“You only pay us to capture one human. This cost extra,” the powrie grated.
“Fine, fine,” Moray said, waving his hand. “I will double the payment. Kill Jack if you must, but the girl will be valuable to my master. Now do it.”
“No!” My father ran at the hob. Moray kicked his legs out from under him with a satisfied smile. Dad fell, his breath exploding from his lungs in a wheezing gasp. The hob ground his face into the dirt with his heel.
The powrie and the black dog charged towards us.
“Run, Isla!” Jack threw himself between me and the two onrushing creatures. They slammed into him, the dog grabbing his jacket in its teeth and attempting to pull him to the ground. I kicked it in the head; it yelped but didn’t let go. The jacket fabric ripped.
The powrie snatched at me, catching my arm in its fist. It smiled at me with broken teeth; its breath was a sewer.
With a power born of terror, I placed my hands on its dirty skin and shoved my blind panic into its aura, fuelling the curling twist I had placed there earlier until it flared bright, filling the creature’s heart with the panic that clutched at my own.
It released me with a terrified bellow.
And there was another cry, from within the safety of the fence.
“Oh no, you don’t.”
It was Nana, dressed in a floral nightgown and too-large gumboots. She bore down on Moray, who stood over Dad, leering at him.
With a pitch a cricketer would have been proud of, she threw a pebble-sized something at the hob.
The object flew over the fence and struck the Moray in the temple. There was a thud and a hiss as it burned through his scalp as though he was made of butter, not flesh and bone.
Moray dropped to the ground, falling on top of Dad. His aura winked out as though someone had blown out a candle.
Nana lofted another piece of iron; this one was a large nail. “He can’t pay you now.” She smiled grimly at our other two attackers. “Time to go.”
The powrie was the first to flee, bolting into the night with a wordless howl. The dog hesitated a moment, calculating the odds in its head. Then it fled too, its tail between its legs.
Slowly the normal sounds of a summer evening in the bush resumed, broken only by my panting breath.
“Are you okay?” I gasped at Jack. “Did it bite you?”
“No, just my suit.” He ran one hand down the front of his jacket, fingers brushing the tear
“Are you hurt though?”
“I am just burned from the car.” His gaze was fixed on Nana, who stared back with open hostility.
Her aggressive pose hadn’t changed.
“Stop it, Nana. He’s on our side.”
“So you say. But you’re wrong to trust him. You don’t know who he serves.”
Jack took a step forward, hands held open at his sides. “I swear to you, lady, that I only serve your granddaughter.” Again I felt the unnerving shimmer of an oath settling.
Nana’s eyes widened and she lowered her hand. But she didn’t drop the iron.
“A little help here?” Dad asked. He was still lying on the ground, Moray’s body draped across him.
I hurried over, kneeling at his side. Jack limped after me, but Nana raised her hand again. “That’s close enough.”
He stopped.
“Isla?” Dad’s voice was tight with stress from under his grim blanket. Not that I blamed him. After a moment’s hesitation, I took Moray’s limp shoulder in my hands and rolled him into the dirt.
The hob was dead, his eyes glazed, staring dully at the stars. The iron sizzled inside his skull, and I swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea.
Except for the eye colour, it could have been Jack lying there.
Da
d struggled to sit with his hands bound behind him. “Are you okay, pumpkin?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “I’m glad you’re okay.” I shuffled behind him to pick at the knotted rope. “Do you think they’ll come back?”
Jack and my father both shook their heads. “They were probably locals, being paid by the hob on behalf of an aosidhe,” Jack explained. “They have no reason to continue the hob’s work now he cannot pay.” He glanced again at Nana, who watched us with narrowed eyes.
Despite her bravado, she hadn’t come out of the protection of the fenced yard.
“Did you know them? The locals?”
Jack shook his head again. “I meant local as in not recently from the Old World. They were not from the nearest sidhe, where I live.”
“Do you know who he was working for?” Dad asked Jack, indicating Moray with a jerk of his chin.
“No. But it was the same aosidhe who sent the elf shot. They were expecting you to still be under its effects.”
“Lucky for me Isla was there to save me.” My father smiled at me. “Then and again tonight. Thank you, pumpkin.”
“Jack helped,” I pointed out, giving Nana a significant look. She looked abashed, finally dropping the nail into a lacy pocket.
“How did you know I needed saving?”
“I’ll tell you later.” I bit my lip, not wanting to explain about Ryan in front of my grandmother. “Just try not to need saving again any time soon, okay?” He laughed ruefully. “I tried to call you. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”
“They cut the power. I was on my way out to the shed to start the generator when they started attacking the sheep. I think they were trying to draw me out.”
The rope finally began to loosen beneath my worrying fingers. “We don’t know who sent them, but we did learn one thing from all of this,” I murmured, pulling the rope from around Dad’s wrist and throwing it to the dirt. His skin was raw. “It wasn’t her. My mother.”
My father turned, his eyes bright with faith in, and love for, a woman I’d never met. He’d never believed for a minute Melpomene was his attacker.
It filled me with a confusion of wistful sadness, caution … and hope.
THE END
Isla's Inheritance Page 28