Burns Night

by Amy Hoff

  “Okay,” Leah sighed, resigned. It had been worth a shot. “Thanks, Milo. C’mon, Fludge.”

  “Fludge?!” Milo all but shouted.

  Fludge champed his teeth and wrapped his tail around her shoulders possessively.

  “You gave up naming rights when you said it was my responsibility,” said Leah, pointing at him. “Let’s go, Robert.”

  Robert finally put down the Complete Works of Burns. He’d truly enjoyed paging through it, because he was awesome, and loved to read the endless confirmation of his talent and sexual conquests. He made a mental note to purchase a few more of the latest books about how amazing he was. For the time being, he turned back to the conversation.

  “Leah,” murmured Robert, “It’s not exactly safe where we’re going. We don’t know what we’ll be up against. Do you really think it’s a good idea to bring that – that thing, with us?”

  “I don’t know! But Robert, look at its teeth! And we’re both human now. It could be useful, like some sort of supernatural guard dog,” Leah said.

  Robert looked doubtful, but Leah held his gaze. Fludge yipped and snuggled up against her head.

  “All right,” he relented. “If you think it’s best. You’re the polis, after all.”

  “Let’s get going,” Leah said. “If the Minotaur can lead us back through the Labyrinth, we’ll save a lot of time.”

  Robert nodded, and they turned to go, opening the door of the laboratory to the darkness of the Labyrinth beyond.

  “You’ll let me know when it’s safe to go outside?” Milo called after them as they disappeared into the Labyrinth once again.

  “You’ll be the first to hear,” Leah called over her shoulder.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NORTHFIELD

  Robert and Leah were no longer in the Labyrinth.

  They found themselves standing in a field, just outside a small town. The town had the kind of old-fashioned storefronts Leah had seen in photos of the Wild West, with covered wooden walkways. She could see people walking across them, she could hear the vague murmur of voices, the clop of boots on wood.

  The summer dusk was lavender in the gathering darkness. Fireflies blinked sleepily, dancing over the long grass, and the cicadas’ shrill sound filled the evening air.

  Leah turned around slowly and inspected her surroundings with suspicion.

  “I don’t recognise this place,” she murmured softly.

  “You wouldn’t,” Robert said, voice soft. She was startled by the sudden change that had come over him.

  He wore an old shirt and breeches, with braces over his shoulders. His hair was longer, soft and shining, and pulled back into a leather thong, a coin set on its thread. His face was starkly pale, just as it had been when he was a vampire, and he had a strange, faraway look in his eyes.

  “It’s not your nightmare.”

  He turned toward the town, where the lights were coming on behind windows, orange candlelight that recalled the streetlamps of Glasgow.

  “It’s mine.”

  He began to walk forward without seeming to take notice of Leah.

  “Robert?” she called after him, but he ignored her, as if under a spell.

  She made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and followed him.

  The bunkhouse was starting to exhale the heat of the day as Robert changed into his other clothes. The bright, soft scent of cedar suffused the place, mixing with the outdoor pine that floated in through the ill-hung windows. Even in the darkness, the green of the place was verdant and wild.

  Barechested, he leaned down and grabbed his shirt off the floor. He was shrugging it over his shoulders when Desdemona suddenly barged in.

  “Desdemona!” he yelped, scandalised, and unsuccessfully tried to cover himself.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” she said mildly. Then she looked at him with a newly-kindled curiosity. “Or maybe there is? There something different about you, Robert Burns?”

  Leah stood in the midst of these proceedings, completely ignored by the players in the scene. She was surprised that she recognised Desdemona in all this, given how different the baobhan sith looked in her most recent iteration.

  Robert, as always, only had eyes for her.

  Desdemona wore the same type of high-necked dress as other pioneer woman. She looked almost, but not quite, human. Tall and pale, with green eyes blazing an eldritch light, Robert had always found it difficult to believe that other people didn’t recognise there was something Fae about her. She wore a tartan shawl to combat the evening chill, and her unblinking stare would have caused the strongest of men to turn away, with a sudden desperate wish for iron, and no earthly reason to explain it.

  Not Robert, of course. He’d throw himself onto that bonfire just to glory in the burn.

  Desdemona’s gimlet eyes regarded him with interest.

  “You mock my love for you,” he said, giving her a great mournful stare right back.

  Against all expectation, Desdemona sighed. She relaxed her usual military bearing.

  A little bit.

  “No, Robert,” she said, exasperated. “I believe you. Here.”

  She shoved a package into his hands. He inspected it closely, a lump tied up in brown paper and white string.

  Robert eagerly ripped the paper open.

  A brand-new gun lay in his hands.

  It was beautiful, oiled and shining; one of the sleekest designs for a weapon he had ever seen. It was clear that this gun was the top of the line, with nickel plate and something more. Something that would make Robert treasure that gun for the rest of his undead life.

  Etched on the receiver’s nickel plating, he read the inscription: To Rob, from Des.

  “Oh, Des, it’s beautiful,” he said, a little breathless. “I already have a gun, but – “

  “Your guns are out of date,” Desdemona cut him off sharply. “This is a Winchester repeater rifle. They started making ‘em a couple years back. It’s safer this way. And don’t call me that.”

  Robert smiled down at the gun, more enamoured of the inscription than the weapon. A thought occurred to him. Puzzled, he looked up at her.

  “I’m a vampire,” said Robert. “Nothing can kill me. What should it matter?”

  The temperature of the bunkhouse fell noticeably cooler. Desdemona’s mouth set in a hard line.

  “Have you forgotten the war?” she asked in a voice like silk.

  The words ripped into him, her eyes bored into him, her eyes, her eyes, tearing him from one vision into another, and taking Leah along for the ride.

  A battlefield in Faerie, a long time ago.

  It seemed like years, although it’d only been weeks, since they’d come to Northfield. The bens and glens of Scotland that huddled round the loch were invisible in the smoke and blood of the terrible war, the magic dripping like ichor through the very air.

  And another scene, lochside; Desdemona’s body lying prone beside the still water.

  Iain, her loyal lieutenant, his head bowed, kneeling by her side, her long-stemmed pipe in his hands.

  Desdemona’s body.

  He stared, too long, because those words did not make sense in his mind. Couldn’t possibly. There could be no reality to them.

  But the rest of him knew, in the very bones of him, and finally threw him forward.

  Robert rushed to her side, crying out her name in mindless terror as he flung himself over her.

  “We lost,” mumbled Iain. He held up the pipe for Robert to see.

  It lay there, white and cold in his hands, as if it had never been warm with tobacco, with fire, with her breath and her laughter and the merriment in those jewelled eyes.

  Iain’s rich brown eyes met Robert’s, wild and empty, heather growing on the brae.

  “In case she wakes up,” he said, and all life seemed to drain from Iain’s body as he spoke, though he still held the pipe aloft.

  Just in case.

  And suddenly, they were back in the rud
e bunkhouse in Northfield, Leah suffering a kind of mental whiplash with all the sudden changes of environment.

  “You can still be ripped apart, and it will feel just as it would have when you were alive, without the release of death to look forward to,” Desdemona was saying, hard and cruel. “Anyway, we might get dragged back in.”

  Despite the painful memories, Robert caressed the gun, his fingers tracing the grooves of their names bound together forever in the nickel plating.

  “Thank you, Desdemona,” he said, his voice filled with something that sounded like tears.

  “Don’t get too excited about it,” grumped Desdemona.

  Robert smiled fondly at her, and then looked down at the gun again. Suddenly, he raised his head in realisation and something akin to awe.

  “It’s 1876,” he realised. “We met one hundred years ago today.”

  He smiled, a small, secret thing.

  “You remembered.”

  Desdemona frowned.

  “Robert–” she began testily.

  “Where’s my present?” squawked a new voice suddenly.

  Startled, Robert raised his gun. Desdemona sighed.

  “It’s not loaded, Robert. Hello, Nour,” she said.

  Robert aimed his gun at the bright and colourful woman standing in front of him. She possessed an unearthly, almost unbelievable beauty, and her hair was wrapped in a scarf; she wore a hijab, and her entire body was wrapped in long swaths of fabric. Various types of jewellery graced her fingers and beaded strings adorned with feathers jingled as she walked.

  “Who’s this?” he demanded, his voice squeaking as he failed to appear threatening in any way.

  “This is Nour,” said Desdemona, pushing the barrel of his gun towards the floor. “She’s –”

  “I’m Desdemona’s best friend,” squawked Nour. “I’m Desdemona’s only friend.”

  She sniffed the air delicately.

  “Only friend until you, human,” she said, indignant. She pushed out her lower lip and pouted. “She never got me a present.”

  “I’m not human,” Robert said proudly. “I am a baobhan sith,”

  He crossed his arms and adopted a pose with the kind of gravitas he felt should accompany that statement.

  The woman in front of him collapsed into giggles.

  “No you’re not!” she burbled. It was Robert’s turn to be indignant.

  “What?” asked both Robert and Desdemona at the same time.

  “Go anywhere in the Highlands and Islands and call yourself a faerie woman and see what kind of response you’ll get,” she tittered.

  After her amusement died down a bit, she turned to Desdemona.

  “You, my friend, are a baobhan sith, of the ancient Highland Fae,” said Nour. “You, Robert Burns, are something else. You’re a vampire.”

  Desdemona was nonplussed.

  “That was the idea,” she said.

  “No, you misunderstand,” said Nour. “He willed it himself. He will walk this earth for love of you forever.”

  Nour beamed.

  In the ensuing silence, Desdemona looked up at Robert in horror.

  Robert, on the other hand, was staring dopily at her with his wide moon eyes.

  Desdemona pursed her lips and turned back to Nour.

  “That’s not possible,” Desdemona managed.

  “Anything is possible,” said Nour brightly. “We have watched civilizations rise and fall. We are old monsters.”

  She shrugged happily.

  “So it’s not my fault? I didn’t grant him immortality?” Desdemona pursued.

  “No. His love for you did, and his belief that you could turn him,” said Nour.

  “Is that why he has fangs instead of talons?” asked Desdemona.

  Nour tilted her head, puzzled.

  “He’s a boy.”

  Desdemona made the mistake of looking at Robert again, whose expression was the sort you often see on men singing love power ballads inside their own heads.

  “Oh, shut up, Robert,” she snapped, but it was clear in her expression that the knowledge had shaken her, and she felt knocked off-balance by him for the first time.

  “Now. Where’s my present?” Nour demanded.

  “Stupid bird,” Desdemona muttered, as she turned away.

  “I want something shiny!” Nour chirped.

  “All right,” Desdemona replied.

  Nour grinned, shuffled away as a bird would, and vanished into the ether.

  Desdemona smiled and shook her head.

  “Where’d she go?” Robert demanded.

  “Oh, she’ll be back,” said Desdemona. “Soon as I’ve gotten her a present.”

  “As long as there’s some warning next time,” Robert said. Desdemona grinned, which was such a rare look on her that he was startled.

  “Unlikely,” she said. “It’s time we got ready for tonight. I’ll see you this evening.”

  And with that, she left the bunkhouse.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE BALL

  Some hours later, the waltz in the local ballroom was in full swing. It had been the talk of the town for months, an event with all the exciting new music of Europe, a chance to drink and dance, to make merry. They’d heard of the scandalous new waltz lighting the dance halls of Europe on fire, a passionate frenzy of a dance where the partners pressed close to each other. They were all too willing to introduce a little scandal into their small town.

  No one had looked forward to this event more than Robert Burns.

  The ballroom had been built to European specifications, but with Minnesotan practicality. The walls were a heavy mahogany, a triumph of design and local handicraft. The floors and stairs of the reception hall were richly carpeted red. Leah, observing from a distance, felt oddly nostalgic for Caledonia Interpol.

  Desdemona stood on the grand staircase, tapping the newel post, impatient.

  She wore a blood-red dress edged with lace, the skirts swirling around her legs. The dress hugged her body and bloomed from the curve of her hips, spreading out almost as wide as the stairs. Ostentation was something vampires did well, and Desdemona was a dancer; she understood the value of pomp. The strains of the music from the upstairs ballroom filtered down to her, and she was eager to join the dance.

  “What’s taking him so long?” she grumbled to herself.

  And then Robert walked through the doorway, illuminated by the lights of the ballroom.

  There were moments, in their long history, where the answer was never quite as certain as others; this was one of them. Robert Burns in full Highland dress was one of the most breathtakingly handsome men Desdemona had ever seen. She was taken aback for a moment, unsure how to define the strong and sudden feeling within her. He was the picture, the very ideal, of what Scotland would be, were it to take the most romantic human form.

  And there it was, the thing that Desdemona truly loved. Scotland.

  The man was handsome, certainly, but he was mere catalyst to her; it was the sudden, painful memory of the Highlands that went like an arrow through the heart she did not have.

  The spark was back in his eyes, the sort of playful expression that had rolled many a young woman into bed. He was in his element once again.

  He approached Desdemona, the barest hint of a blush colouring his cheeks. Something about her had always taken him back to those first awkward days of love.

  Robert beamed up at her, a brilliant smile.

  “You look beautiful,” he said.

  Desdemona grinned back, a slow and sensuous lift of the lips.

  “You look edible,” she said, tongue against teeth, her voice languorous in its insinuation, a slow drumbeat on a sultry tropical night.

  Robert’s smile was punctuated with fangs, this time.

  She offered her elbow, as if she hadn’t taken note of the hunger that sprang up unbidden in his eyes.

  “Ready?”

  Robert nodded, taking her arm, and escorted her up the grand staircase.<
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  ***

  The scene in the ballroom was about as riotous as a Minnesota night after hard work in the lumber mills and at the plows could be. Now that the newfangled, scandalous waltz had finally made its way to these remote parts of the country, the town was making the most of it.

  Dancers whirled around the ballroom in squares and pairs. The group was an evenly-distributed bunch of women and men, including some of the local Anishinaabe who had come to see what the fuss was about. Fortunately for this part of Minnesota, the relationship between the settlers and the Anishinaabe had thus far been a peaceful one.

  Robert and Desdemona stood against the back wall, watching the dance.

  Desdemona glanced at him before returning her attention to the crowd.

  “Shall we feed tonight?” she murmured, barely audible over the music.

  Robert glanced sharply at her, startled out of his reverie.

  “What? Here?” he asked. “We’ll get caught!”

  “Let’s not be too greedy, then,” she said. “I like this town and these people.”

  A slow smile spread across Robert’s features. He turned to her.

  “I have an idea,” he said, and offered his hand.

  Desdemona raised her eyebrow, but she put her hand in his and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor.

  The candlelight bathed the cavernous room in a deep, golden glow. Robert and Desdemona danced with the crowd, and if any of them noticed the faint trickles of blood down their necks or the quick pinpricks of their skin, well, it was the start of September and the mosquitoes and horseflies could be vicious. The alcohol flowed freely, so most didn’t even feel the pinch as the two pale dancers bowed close to their partners, tiny rivulets of blood flowing from their necks and into the lace of the dresses and the starched high collars of the men.

  The unearthly pallor of the newcomers could be explained away, as Robert still retained his accent, and they made a show of how they had come from Scotland. Desdemona’s accent was flat and American. She had been here many times before, even long before there was a settlement. Since she had come of age among the tribes of Picts, her English had been learned elsewhere. Her native tongue had long been forgotten in the world. Her words were spoken in an accent that sounded much like theirs, but she was not one of them. Her heart bled Highland. Her mannerisms alone read foreign to the townsfolk. They accepted her as Scottish like Robert, because what other reason would a woman have for travelling with a man, but that she was his sister or his wife? Desdemona had known Scotland long before Robert Burns was even dreamed of in the world, although her voice seemed to put lie to the fact. She was an eternal part of Scotland, like a mountain or the snows upon it in the winter, gathering white and cold.