by Elle Jasper
“Aye, Peter,” Jake says. “And keep your mobile with you at all times,” he tells the older man. “Just in case.”
In case of what?
“Will do, Master Jake,” old Peter says.
Now we’re on Canongate, walking two by two on the sidewalk. Eli and I follow Jake and Tristan at a leisurely pace. Just out of Tolbooth Wynd is Tolbooth Tavern. I may hit that on the way back. We pass several storefronts—Carson Clark Gallery, an antique map store with several cool prints framed and displayed. A whiskey shop, a few cafés, a kilt maker, a woolen shop. Part of me seriously wishes I were nothing more than a tourist, browsing stores and cramming delicious food in my mouth. Buying postcards.
Not gonna happen. Not on this trip.
The farther up we ascend the Royal Mile, the denser the sidewalk becomes with people. I get a few curious looks at the ink on my cheek, but for the most part nothing obnoxious. The steel strapped to my side bounces with each step, and I shove a hand in my coat pocket to brace the sword against my thigh. It’s already becoming easier to move with it. Amazing.
I notice everyone around me. I hear them whispering, making idle chatter inside pubs, utensils clacking against plates as they eat. Laughter. Normal stuff. We move through the night, and the streetlights fall over us. Shadows lengthen as we walk.
“Look,” Eli says, and points.
Way up on the craggy hill, as if it carved out of the rock itself, is Edinburgh Castle. It’s lit up, and glows like a beacon over the aged city. “Pretty cool,” I answer, and truly it is. Different from Julian Arcos’s castle in the Carpathians, yet the architecture is just as breathtaking.
Ahead, several police cars and an ambulance are parked outside of a row of flats. A news truck sits outside.
“The combustion,” I say to Eli. “I can smell the charred flesh from here.”
“As can I,” Eli answers. “Sure you want to go?”
I look at my fiancé and smile. “No, not really. But since I’ve hacked off several newlings’ heads, I am forcing myself not to be squeamish. I need to see it. Helps me understand what we’re up against.”
“That’s the spirit, girl,” Tristan says over his shoulder. “A true warrior.”
“I’ll clear a path,” Jake says.
And by that I know he means he’ll use his power of suggestion to make all the police and reporters look the other way as we go inside.
Sure enough, the reporter we saw on TV glances once at us, then turns and heads to his truck. The police all do the same. Jake, Tristan, Eli, and I walk straight through the apartment building and to the victim.
The scene is far from pretty. The apartment door is ajar, and the pungent scent of burnt human flesh permeates the hallway. You don’t have to have special powers to smell that. Not this close. Jake enters first, followed by Tristan, then Eli, then me.
“By Christ’s blood,” Tristan mutters. My eyes follow his to a pile of ash and bone, with two curiously unburned legs, heaped in the seat of a lazyboy chair. The TV is on. Smoke smolders from the pile of ash that used to be a human being.
“Why aren’t the legs scorched as well?” I ask, studying the horrible scene. On a side table, a photograph of a group of young kids. Probably grandchildren. And from the looks of the remaining legs, it was an older woman. Wearing little black grandma loafers.
So incredibly sad.
“I canna tell what or who is responsible for this,” Jake admits. “If it’s the Fallen, they’ve discovered a way around their rejuvenation.”
I take one last look at what used to be someone’s grandma. “Well, that just pisses me the hell off,” I say. I feel dark hatred for the Fallen. Instinct kicks in, somewhere deep inside of me, somewhere within my strigoi powers, and I graze my fingertips across the charred victim’s leg. The skin is cold, lifeless, yet immediately my mind hums with the old woman’s last moments of life. Flashes of her little apartment blink behind my eyelids. She’s sitting in her chair, her feet propped up, watching the television and eating some cookies with her tea. Her face is aged and lined, but kind. A long shadow stretches across the room and across her lap, and when she notices it, she glances around the room. The moment her eyes light on the intruder, shrouded in a black cloak, her heart quickens. The intruder moves closer, and the old woman drops her tea cup to the floor where it spills out. Her eyes are stretched wide in horror. The intruder’s face is hidden in the shadows of his hood, and I can’t see his face. But as the woman begins to cry, then choke and cough, the shadowy intruder lifts a single hand to her mouth and touches her lips with a long index finger. The old woman tries to cry out, but she’s silent. Her heart is erratic now, and pain is etched into her grandmotherly features. Then, she begins to smolder. Smoke streams from her middle. Her gaze lowers to her stomach, pain laces her eyes, and then her heart stops altogether. Smoldering smoke turns to flames. But not before the intruder sinks his hand into her chest and retrieves her heart. I shake my head, and my mind returns to the present. I glance at my companions. I’d seen enough. “Let’s go.”
As soon as I step from the apartment, my attention is caught. Again.
I hear a man shouting. Angry shouting. I sense a heavy testosterone level in the air. Violence. My eyes scan the street and sidewalk in front of me.
“There,” Eli says, inclining left.
Up ahead, the aged spires of St. Giles’ Cathedral jut into the night’s sky. A young guy is shouting and cursing just outside of the cathedral. He holds his head, turns around, kicks over a metal trash bin. Kicks over the table and chairs to an outdoor café. Two young women, walking toward him, cross the street and hurry toward us. Avoiding the out-of-control guy. They’re frightened. So are several other passersby.
Something draws me to him, and I duck behind Eli and cross the street. Three curses sound behind me, and I throw a hasty glance over my shoulder at Tristan, Jake, and Eli. I got this. Something’s not right with this kid. Keep walking. This I say to Eli and Jake. I turn away before I see if they actually listen to me, and head straight for the guy.
“What the feck are ya lookin’ at?” the young guy yells to a small walking tour passing by. They all hurry across the street from him, and he laughs.
I pass through the tour and make my way directly to him. He’s grabbing the sides of his head again, pleading, cursing, and he drops to the ground in a squat. Just as fast, he’s up again, pacing. He’s maybe twenty years old, if not younger. Hard to tell. Short-clipped brown hair, about five feet, ten inches. Solidly built.
He won’t go down without a fight.
When the guy catches sight of me, his eyes widen. “Help me,” he says. It’s barely more than a whisper.
In less than a split second, his blue eyes darken to nearly black. A slow grin stretches and distorts his attractive features into something gruesome. A face not his own. It’s freaky as hell, and I wonder if anyone else can see it but me.
“You think you can save him?” A cracked voice, not his own, emerges.
“I know I can,” I answer, and lunge, grabbing both of his hands. My skin contact against his sends tingles up my arm. My head starts to throb. In front of my eyes, a swarm beats wings of inky blackness. But I can’t tell what the swarm is. I see long, spindly wings, bones, and ripped flesh. Not birds. Not bats. I blink several times and concentrate. Hard. Through fuzzy vision, I stare into the guy’s eyes.
Then, everything spins, and warps. I’m alone, and . . . freezing rain pelts my eyes and cheeks as I run hard, fast, the muscles in my thighs burning almost as much as my lungs. I grip the leather hilt of my sword tightly, throw a quick glance behind me, see nothing, but I don’t slow up. I can hear them everywhere, all around me, a thousand whispers going off at once, and it makes my adrenaline kick into high gear. I run harder. St. Giles’ is the only place I know to go. But is St. Giles’ still St. Giles’ here? Hell if I know, but I get the feeling its not. It’s just a few blocks farther and is the closest sanctuary without taking shortcuts. Shortcuts equal s
hadows. Here, in this place, in the shadows? Somehow I know they reign, and they’re way too powerful and too many of them for me to take on with one blade. I’m too new at this. I’m used to fighting newlings and seasoned bloodsuckers. Not . . . whatever these things are. How did I get here? I glance around, and although I see Edinburgh, I see where I’d just been walking with Eli, Jake, and Tristan, it’s . . . different. Am I on an alternative plane? Is hallowed ground still hallowed here? I suppose I’ll find out real soon.
Brown, icy slush piles stagnate against curbs, on sidewalks, in potholes and cobbles, and I pound through a big puddle of it as I make my way up the street, toward the ancient minster. Slush? When did it snow? And where in Hell is that kid? Lamppost to lamppost I run, my boots growing heavier with each step as I stay beneath the lights. I somehow know it’s always deserted here, and on the cusp of darkness; like negatives from a film camera, it has a sepia tone and there are always shadows. I’m on Fallen terra firma. I arrived the second I touched that crazed kid on the street. I know very little about the Fallen, but I suspect they’re in control of my surroundings. Are these winged things demons? Jodís? Has to be something concocted by the Fallen because I doubt it’s the angels themselves. Jake said they don’t like to get their hands dirty, right?
That guy is in here. Has to be. An innocent soul who relies on me. That’s all that matters. And he’s here somewhere. I’m gonna find him. . . .
St. Giles’ comes into view, which is weird, since I had been standing directly beside it earlier. I run toward it as fast and hard as my legs can carry me. The moment my feet hit the church grounds, the whispers grow in numbers, so much that it begins to sound like a hive of angry bees that someone has just beaten with a stick. They’re coming after me. Fuckers. I fly up the walkway, past a stone Celtic cross with a tattered and faded purple cloth draped over it, skid up to the heavy double doors, and grab the knob. Not locked, but the door is jammed. Whispers turn to voices, mocking, almost as though they’re toying with me. “Goddamn it!” I curse, grunting, as I repeatedly slam my shoulder against the door. “Come on!” I yell, grunting. When that doesn’t work, I kick it—hard, over and over, the flat of my boot striking sharp against the wood. Finally, it gives, and I stumble inside.
The moment my body crosses the holy threshold, the whispers cease. I don’t trust it, though, and I move to the first thing I see that can block the door: a broken, decayed stone statue of an angel.
Kind of unexpected.
I knock it over, the rest of what is a wing crumbles, and I drag it to the doorway. I prop it against the wood. I haul ass up the aisle.
I can’t say that I feel safe in here; the church is empty and, for some reason, derelict. I know it’s old, and although I’ve never been inside I have a feeling there’s more to it than rotted pews and broken statues. Gabriel and Jake had said to come here. Now, I’m not so sure I made the right choice. I glance around. What few pews remain are turned over; tattered hymnals lay scattered on the floor. The intricate stone rafters above are broken and crumbling, as are the large pillars lining the aisle. The altar is little more than a pile of stone rubble. What once were beautiful stained-glass windows are now shattered.
There, near the back wall, I see him. The angry kid. Guy. He’s no kid. Just a few years younger than me. He’s huddled on the floor, staring at me, breathing hard, heart slamming in his chest. All this I hear pounding in my own ears. I hurry over and drop to my knees, and I keep my eyes trained on him. Only then does his breathing ease, his heart slow. “My name is Riley,” I say, and he stares back at me.
“Something’s inside me,” he mumbles. Terror makes his eyes look crazed.
“As soon as I can I’m gonna kick the holy shit out of that thing inside of you.” At first he simply watches me, looking innocent. Then those blue eyes turn black again, and he smiles a creepy smile. “Yeah, I know you’re still in there,” I say, and grab his wrist. “Let’s go.”
The guy opens his mouth and it stretches, exaggerated, into a crooked yawn just before a high-pitched, screeching scream rips from his throat. I’m new at this—didn’t know until now that I could even detect a demon, or a Jodís, or whatever the hell it is, much less beat one’s ass—so I’m winging it. Hope to God it works.
I drag the guy, and he’s literally digging in with his heels. I’m stronger, though, and somehow I know that there’s a big puddle, close to the rubble pile of an altar. A puddle of water. Rainwater? I don’t know, but it’s inside the cathedral, and I don’t see any holes in the roof above. I use my strength to grab the kid by the neck and force his face over the puddle. I push, an inch away from his nose submerging.
He screams again, loud, long, so intense and filled with pain that I fight not to drop the grip I have on him and cover my ears. Then a big splash. The guy goes limp, and I ease him back. I look at the puddle. Trapped inside the murky blackness, it’s there. Screaming. Hairless. Bony. Instead of hands, it has weird, long claws at the tips of a pair of raggedy gray wings. It’s clawing at the puddle from beneath it. Screaming at me in a language I don’t understand. Not sure I want to. So that’s a Jodís.
I take in a deep breath and meet the raging stare of the creature in the water. “Pain, take over.”
The creature’s expression changes and twists into a deformity that I barely recognize. For some weird reason I don’t have it in me to even make a conjured-up creature to suffer. Best to end it now. “Die.”
For a brief, split second, the creature’s eyes change. I see relief in their black depths.
Then a loud pop. The creature turns to black. The water turns black. Then it slowly dissipates.
Gone. Nothing remains except the stone floor.
The air inside the rectory smells like death, decay, and must, and is as cold as it is outside. With each exhalation my breath billows out in front of me in white puffs. Beside me on the floor is an overturned candleholder; I pick it up, turn it over, and stare at the distorted reflection of my face. A bruised jaw, busted lip, dirt smudges across my forehead. I almost laugh. How the hell did I get those? I don’t remember fighting with anyone. Or anything. I look like I’ve had the shit beat out of me. Maybe I have.
I glance at the candleholder once more, then toss it aside.
Just then, the whispers begin again, loudly, all around the cathedral, and this time I can distinguish what they’re saying. Riley. My heartbeat quickens. Well, as much as it will quicken. It’s dead slow as it is, thanks to all the jumbled vampire DNA in my body.
I turn, grab the guy by the hand, and pull him up. He’s confused, blinking, rubbing his eyes and looking around as if he has no clue what’s happening. I’m sure he doesn’t. I barely do.
We head for the front door.
Above us, the whispers grow to such strength that they’re nothing more than a long, hissing hushhh. The wind stirred by a hundred winged creatures swooshes around us, and we’re all-out running now. My sword is heavy. I shove the broken angel statue out of the way and the guy and I stumble out of the chapel.
I blink. We’re back. In real-time Edinburgh. When I scan the street, the tour group I’d pushed through is just stepping up onto the sidewalk. They turn and look at me. They look at the guy with me. I turn and face him.
Large blue eyes stare back at me. I wait for them to turn black. They don’t. “Are you okay?” I ask.
He looks around, stares at his surroundings, and I can tell he’s unsure. Of everything. He looks back at me. “Do I know you?”
I cock my head. “I don’t know. Where were you last?”
“Ian!”
We both turn to see a group of four young guys making their way toward us, coming from just down the Mile. They’re all talking ninety miles an hour, and in a heavy brogue I can barely understand.
“Where’d you disappear to?” one asks. He gives me a long look. “Didna notice this one in the club.”
“What club?” I ask. I want to know where they last were before the kid was taken ove
r.
“Och, an American,” another says. He’s tall, pretty cute, with dark short hair. Maybe nineteen. “How long are those legs, lass?” he asks.
Ian slaps his friend on the back of his head. “Shut up, you horse’s arse.”
I give him a smile. All the guys start whistling.
“Zone Seventy,” the other boy offers. “Were you there?”
“Och, damn, I’d have remembered her,” the other boy offers, nodding toward my cheek. “Wicked ink.”
I look at him. “Thanks. Maybe I was there. Been to several. Where is it?”
“Just up the way. Niddry Street,” he answers. “Come on, let’s go,” he says to the others.
Ian smiles at me. “Wanna come?”
Flattered, I smile. “Maybe next time.”
Ian and I share a look just before he and the others take off. I can’t tell if he remembers anything at all about what and how a Jodís had taken over him, but I can definitely tell something happened between us. I’ll talk to Jake and the others first. Maybe they can tell me something about what just happened.
I watch the guys turn and head down the Mile and turn off onto a side street. Only then do I glance back at St. Giles’.
It’s enormous. Beautiful. I’m tempted to peek inside, just to see if it would be all crumbly like I’d seen it . . . before. Whatever that was.
“Riley?”
When I turn, Eli, Tristan, and Jake are standing behind me. I look at Jake first. “What the Hell, Andorra? Something was inside that kid.”
Jake rubs his chin. “Aye, I know.” The light from the streetlamp is shining behind him, causing his entire face to be in shadows. “Angels. Fallen angels. Jodís. Demons. Evil spirits. Witches.” He cocks his head at me. “You do know where you’re at, dunna ya? Edinburgh’s black past is full of them all, and they come hand in hand. Each have naturally been integrated in Edinburgh’s dark past.” He shrugs. “We just typically keep them under control.”
I glance toward the direction the boys went. “Well, they’re not all under control.”
