Burns Night

by Amy Hoff

  “Oh, you,” she said, smacking Desdemona lightly on the arm. “You know what I mean! Like, theoretically you should have been there, like you would have enjoyed it, well, if you didn’t die or something! It was amazing anyway!”

  “I appreciate the interest,” Desdemona replied, “but what are we playing for this time?”

  “Are we playing for something?” Nour asked, clapping her hands with joy. “You know I just love spending time with you, Des!”

  “First things first,” growled Desdemona as she leaned over the table, “There’s only one person who is allowed to call me that, and only once per century.”

  Nour’s eyebrows quirked, and her secret smile was clear for one moment on her face.

  “You are such a spoilsport,” frowned Nour. “All right. We are playing for Glasgow.”

  Desdemona sighed.

  “Why does it always come back to that sad excuse for a city?” she grumbled.

  “Now, Desdemona,” trilled Nour, “you know as well as I do the ancient power that lays beneath those cobbled streets.”

  “Once, maybe,” she replied, “but now?”

  “I have heard that the new Guardian has been called,” said Nour.

  “That what you think?” asked Desdemona. “Dylan hasn’t had a chance to prove himself yet.”

  “And with the other Guardians in tatters or with their allegiances fraying and fading?” asked Nour, the sunlight in her speech fading as well. “What then?”

  Desdemona leaned back.

  “This is insane,” she said, shaking her head. “What on earth can anyone possibly want with that city?”

  Nour captured Desdemona’s gaze with her own.

  “This is the tree that never grew,” she intoned, as if reminding Desdemona of something.

  The baobhan sith considered this, and nodded.

  ***

  The music at The Piper’s Rest was booming.

  The Piper’s Rest was an old man pub, the oldest of the old-man pubs in the city; it could even be said that it predated old men entirely. This was the Faerie bar in Glasgow, with two entrances; humans often made the wrong choice and were never heard from again. The bell on the bar was never rung, and God forbid anyone was there after closing time. It was a favourite among the Fae set who lived on the fence between Faerie and the human world. The Guardians of Glasgow were among these creatures, and they frequented the Piper’s Rest more often than most others. It was, in the current vernacular, their local.

  Two men sat in the back at a booth, drinking pints. Or rather, one man was drinking pints enough for the both of them, while the other sat with crossed arms and an air of both challenge and boredom.

  “I thought you were supposed to be training me, Aonghas,” he said. “In the last few weeks, all we’ve done is hang about in the pub.”

  Aonghas, tall and slender, rough around the edges but clearly once quite beautiful, was wearing Celtic colours in a matching tracksuit. He glared at his companion.

  “That’s part o’ the training,” he said.

  The other man, stout and strong, dressed in the dark blue Rangers colours, shook his head. Aonghas instantly took offence.

  “Listen! I’ve got thousands o’ years of experience!” he insisted.

  “That’s a lesson I don’t need,” his companion retorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “All right then. Once upon a time, Glasgow had no protection from outside forces. Then, six Guardians were appointed, chosen from the most loyal of the Fae. And they stand watch over the city to protect us from the darkness that would consume us all.”

  “What are y’on about, ye mad bawbag?” demanded Dylan Stuart, resident ned angel, and one of the aforementioned Fae Guardians who had only come into this job in the last few years. He was a Faerie, but had accidentally wished for seraph’s wings, and now he was stuck with them.

  “Cheeky wee ned!” Aonghas Mór muttered into his pint. Aonghas was one of the original Guardians, a Trooping Faerie that had lived in Glasgow so long he still remembered the reason it was called the dear green place.

  “I’m a ned?!!” exclaimed Dylan. “If I’m a ned, you’re a ned an’ a’! We’re all neds here!”

  “I tell you, they used to show a lot more respect in the old days,” sniffed Aonghas.

  The men sat in silence as the music washed over them. Aonghas lifted his pint again, which was just about the only heavy lifting he’d been doing these days.

  “Sure ye don’t want any?” Aonghas asked Dylan, indicating the drink.

  “Naw, yer awright,” said Dylan, waving him off. “I’m tryin’ to watch my diet.”

  Aonghas burst out laughing.

  “Oh? How’s that then?” he asked.

  “Mate! I’m meant tae fight!” said Dylan, exasperated. “Gotta get pure built for that, cannae be pure mad wi’ it all the time anymair!”

  “Listen! I’ve no changed a thing, an’ I’ve been here for centuries!” said Aonghas.

  “Aye, and a bang-up job you’ve done of protecting the city,” snarked Dylan.

  “Do you want training or no?” Aonghas snapped.

  Dylan sighed.

  “Aye, go on then.”

  “So, six Guardians – “

  “ – Aye! Six Guardians arranged like wheel spokes to protect the city! All monsters! We’ve been over this, Aonghas.”

  “Cheeky bastard!”

  “Wot!”

  Aonghas sat up suddenly, his mild irritation with his charge forgotten. He slowly set down his pint.

  “Somethin’s wrang.”

  Dylan turned around to look and saw only the usual orange people out on a Saturday night.

  “Somethin’s changed.”

  “Oh aye? I cannae feel anythin’,” said Dylan.

  “No, somethin’s wrang,” said Aonghas. “I’m sure o’ it.”

  “Nah, but we’ve been here the whole time,” Dylan insisted. “Naethin’s got past the barriers. We could tell.”

  Aonghas seemed to be looking at something just beyond Dylan’s vision.

  “No,” said Aonghas. “It’s not from outwith the city. This time, it’s from within.”

  Dylan tried again but couldn’t sense anything. He turned back to find Aonghas’s seat unoccupied, and his pint sitting alone on the table.

  “Aonghas?!” he said.

  He stood up and shook out his white wings. If Aonghas wasn’t up to the task, then Dylan would have to take matters into his own hands.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DYLAN STUART

  All in all, the day hadn’t been too bad.

  After a quieter-than-usual afternoon doing his job, and the strange disappearance of Aonghas at the Piper’s Rest, Dylan Stuart, esteemed Guardian of Glasgow, decided to return to his flat for a well-deserved munchy box and an Irn-Bru. He sleepily kicked the built-up pile of Sun newspapers out of his way; he’d sort of lost interest after meeting so many immigrants at Caledonia Interpol that he’d gone right off the paper but hadn’t bothered to cancel the subscription yet. There were more important things to deal with, like guarding his city and working to make it a better place, a job Dylan took far more seriously than the other Guardians. Aonghas’s disappearance earlier in the evening made him certain of that.

  Dylan’s wings had manifested into huge, feathery seraph wings, arching far over his head. The Angel of the East End, some were calling him now. He hadn’t been as circumspect as he should, after all. He always felt a lingering sense of deep guilt regarding the whole angel business; it gave him a sense of stolen honour, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. He had always hoped against hope that he would never encounter a real angel and need to explain himself; despite his dedication to doing good, Dylan felt like he’d never really earned his wings.

  Dylan puttered into his kitchen, scratching his stomach through his dark blue Rangers top. Aonghas wore the Celtic colours, but it was less out of any dedication to the team and more because he was a Trooping Faerie
‘clothed in green raiment’. Since the Fae were cursed to look like whatever humans believed, he supposed that Celtic colours and his shamrock neck tattoo were close enough.

  As Dylan opened the cupboard door, he paused.

  There was someone in the flat.

  Just behind him – he could feel it.

  He whipped around.

  Dylan’s eyes widened as he stared at the man in his kitchen, rooting through the fridge.

  Tattoos.

  Smoking.

  Wings. Wings like mine. But black. Dirty and – he really should take care of those.

  “Fuck’s sake,” grumbled the man, who shot up and stared at Dylan. Into Dylan. Into his soul.

  He looked at Dylan as if he had never seen something so insignificant. Dylan’s pure white wings vibrated with worry.

  “Where’s the whisky?” he demanded.

  Dylan stared at the man who had materialised in front of his refrigerator.

  The man stared back as if Dylan had no right to be standing in his own kitchen.

  The man’s entire body was covered in black tattoos in mysterious languages. His eyes blazed above glass-cut cheekbones, and he looked like a warrior. He wore an old white tank top and slouching black jeans held up by a belt, a strip of skin showing the hint of more tattoos on his stomach. His eyes were dark with kohl, dangerous and beautiful. He was smoking a cigarette and staring a hole through Dylan, who seemed to have lost his voice.

  “You’re Scottish, right?” demanded the man, who stood in the light of the open refrigerator door as if it were pouring down from a stained-glass window.

  Dylan made a squeak of affirmation.

  “So. Where is the whisky?”

  Dylan’s tongue came unstuck and he finally spoke.

  “Uh. Can’t afford the good stuff, bein’ a bit skint n’ all,” he said. “An’ you don’t put whisky in the fridge, it goes in the cupboard...I have some Buckie?”

  “Buckie,” repeated the man, disdain dripping from the word.

  “Aye. Don’t they have Buckie in Ireland?” Dylan asked.

  “I sound Irish to you?”

  Dylan nodded.

  “Interesting,” said the man.

  “Er. What are you?” Dylan asked.

  The man looked down his nose at Dylan, imperious.

  “I am an angel,” he said.

  He proudly stretched his enormous black wings high over his head and gave Dylan a haughty stare. The inky black feathers matched the tattoos and the kohl around his eyes. He had an exotic look Dylan couldn’t place, light-skinned but not from the area; maybe Mediterranean.

  “A real one,” snarked the angel, turning back to the refrigerator and grabbing a beer.

  Dylan was horrified. His worst nightmare was coming true right before his eyes.

  You’re not really an angel, Dylan heard a voice say in his head. Not really.

  The angel looked at Dylan as if he were so insignificant he’d forgotten he was there.

  “Name’s Nuriel,” he said, wandering down the hallway, knocking things over with great black wings he didn’t bother to hide.

  “Can I crash on your sofa?” was the next thing out of his mouth as the angel flopped over onto the couch, dirty wings splayed out across the living room, knocking things over. He pierced the side of the can of beer he’d found and squirted it into his mouth.

  Dylan ran to catch a statuette that had fallen from the shelf.

  “Be careful!” he said, “my mum gave me that, you can’t...”

  But the angel was already asleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MONSTER

  Outside, there was a chill in the January night air, bone-deep and cold. Leah and Robert ran around a corner into an old stone alleyway, the walls slick with lichen and moss.

  And a new sound, a rhythm beating louder than Leah’s breath in the silence.

  Louder because he hadn’t heard it in centuries; it filled his head, and his ears, with a strange tattoo.

  Robert put his hand to his chest in disbelief and stopped in the middle of the alley.

  “My heart,” he whispered, scarcely daring to believe it. “It’s beating again.”

  “What?” asked Leah, rounding on him. “But you’re a vampire!”

  She grabbed his hand and pressed her fingers to his inner wrist to take his pulse. Startled, she looked up at him, seeing her own astounded confusion mirrored in his expression.

  Leah gaped as his face flushed, the deathly pallor replaced by a natural soft colour, and high on his cheekbones, those two points of pink blush she’d always assumed were a mark of his alcoholism but were apparently part and parcel of the man’s natural state. His unearthly amber eyes warmed like firelight through a dram of whisky, sparkling the glass, a lively light she’d never really seen in his eyes.

  Damn, she thought. She’d always found him hot, even in his vampiric state, but never knew why so many women would throw themselves at him.

  This man before her now, vulnerable and pink, soft and strong, soulful and living, warm with the promise of what felt like love even if it wasn’t...

  well, she’d throw herself into Hell for him, shut the door behind herself and lock it, if that’s what it took.

  No wonder he’d been so fascinated when Desdemona said No, and kept saying it, even as women were falling at his feet like bowling pins.

  There’s nothing so attractive as the one that just won’t fall.

  Leah realized she’d been gaping up at Robert for much too long.

  Some sixth sense made her turn, peering out of the alleyway into the night. Dimly, in the distance, Leah saw a woman in a long dress standing under a lamppost.

  The figure stood bathed in its orange glow, standing out in pale relief from the red sandstone. Long white arms tapered down into long talons, rivulets of blood coursing down her pale skin. Her bright ginger hair was slicked down red, as if she had bathed in the blood that encircled her pale white shoulders in a grisly necklace, and Leah could see the green in her eyes glowing even from this distance.

  Desdemona, thought Leah, just as Robert turned to see what she was looking at. Before he could utter a word of protest, her grip on his arm tightened and she dragged him away.

  “Run!”

  “Why?!”

  “Because you’re human now! And I think we’re being hunted!”

  They raced down the alleyway, their footfalls echoing loudly off the walls as they splashed through the puddles that gathered deep in the dilapidated Glasgow side streets. Leah grabbed the handle of the first door she found and shoved as hard as she could. To her relief, the door slammed open, and she and Robert disappeared into the darkness –

  Only to find themselves standing in her bedroom again.

  She was also startled to find she was now wearing her brown leather jacket, even though she’d not been wearing it when they left.

  “How’d we get back here?” Leah asked, her eyes narrowing. She did not appreciate doing this sort of thing with a hangover, and she wasn’t about to let the world live this down. Working with faeries didn’t leave a lot of room for her to be confused or surprised by the things that she saw. Her primary emotion was a sort of exhausted irritation at the world constantly proving there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of, et cetera.

  She turned her tired, hungover irritation toward Robert, whose eyes were wide, his hand still pressed to his chest. He didn’t seem to notice their shift in location.

  Turns out, there were things in heaven and earth that could surprise one of the Fae.

  “Mortal,” he whispered. “I’m mortal again.”

  “Which means we’re both in danger,” grumped Leah Bishop, Hardboiled Detective Not Sure How She Got Involved in This Type of Story. “If Desdemona is hunting us, we’re moving targets. We need to get out of here.”

  She pulled the door open again, silently praying there was a way out on the other side.

  Robert pushed it closed. Leah looked
up at him with an expression that said she would punch him if he wasn’t a national treasure of Scotland and also suddenly, inexplicably hotter as a live human than as a vampire.

  “No,” he said, resolute. “You wouldn’t leave Dorian. I’m not leaving her.”

  Leah sighed, world-weary.

  “Desdemona’s right, you are a sap,” she sniped.

  “Proudly,” Robert replied, utterly without shame.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Leah asked him. “This sort of thing isn’t your gig.”

  “Ben sent me to help you find Dorian,” Robert told her.

  “What?” she frowned. “Why you?”

  “Des,” he said, as if that explained everything, and was the only word that mattered. “He told me she was missing.”

  “God, you’re predictable,” Leah sighed. “Isn’t disappearing kind of her thing?”

  “Not like this,” said Robert.

  “Didn’t you once spend centuries looking for her?” Leah demanded.

  “That was different,” said Robert. “Besides, this isn’t a dream.”

  And then they heard it again, the low rumble under the bed suddenly rising to a roar. Instinctively, Leah tackled Robert to the ground. She knew there wouldn’t be time to make another run for it, especially since it seemed they were caught in some kind of loop. Time to face the music.

  After a moment, when nothing happened, Leah and Robert peered cautiously over the edge of the bed.

  Sitting on the railing of the headboard was one of the ugliest creatures Leah had ever seen. Its long tail whipped back and forth, a little tuft of fur at the bottom. It was mostly mouth, and big wide black eyes, with teeth like that of a great white shark. Its skin was blackish-grey, and it had a stumpy, batlike nose. Its entire round body was covered in fluffy purple-black fur, and its two clawed feet gripped the railing as it champed its teeth and tilted its head from side to side.

  “That’s the monster under your bed?” Robert said incredulously. “It’s very....”

  “...fluffy?” Leah hazarded.