Griogair shook his head. “They have all been questioned. Some had knowledge or at least suspicions of his trips to the human realm, but none admitted accompanying him.”
“I’ll need to speak with them,” Munro said.
Surely he didn’t expect Griogair would allow it, Eilidh thought.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. I cannot risk Cadhla learning of your investigation.”
Munro nodded. “And money? Would he have access to bank accounts? Credit cards? Cash even?”
The prince glanced at Eilidh for explanation. She shook her head at Munro. “He would not have these things.”
“What about jewellery or something he could have sold for money? We might be able to trace him that way.”
Griogair frowned. “Tràth only ever wore one ring, a sign of his rank. He would never sell it.”
“All the same, can you show me what it looked like? It might help us find him, if someone has seen or recognised it.”
At first, Eilidh thought Griogair might refuse, but after a moment, the prince drew a picture of a plain white metal band with symbols etched into the surface. Munro repeated the process with his phone, and Eilidh could see he’d captured an image of the ring. Munro then asked, “How can we get in touch with you if we have more questions?”
Just then a tall female faerie swept up the mossy steps and moved in close to Griogair, whispering into his ear.
The prince’s eyes widened with alarm. “You must go,” Griogair said. “Now. Mira will guide you back to the gate. Quickly.” He stood and without another word, went down the steps and into his tree-house.
“Come,” Mira said. Her face was serious, and Eilidh acted quickly to obey. Munro also got to his feet and followed, and Eilidh was grateful the Otherworld had made him well enough to run.
When they stepped through the gate between the Otherworld and the borderlands, Eilidh and Munro kept running, but their guide stayed behind. The sky was still dark, and it would be several hours until the gates closed at dusk. Eilidh had said very little during the conversation with the prince, wanting to let Munro do his job, but she was shocked at the way he’d behaved. Interestingly, though, his techniques worked, and the prince opened up. It surprised her and gave her new respect for Munro.
Only when they’d reached the edge of the still-sleeping city did they slow down. Munro took Eilidh’s hand, and again she sensed it comforted and calmed his mind, but she was surprised at how cold his hands were. She constantly had to remind herself it was winter. The grey skies and crunching snow seemed mere background to her, but the weather affected Munro in a way it didn’t touch her.
She watched him as they walked. In the Otherworld, speaking to Griogair, Munro’s mind seemed remarkably focused. Now, though, it spun with thoughts. As they walked over the bridge toward town, Munro stopped and looked over the water. The River Tay was remarkably calm, its surface almost glassy. It reflected the pale yellow glow of the human moonlight.
“How can we find out where he went?” Munro said. “How far apart are the gates? We can assume he would go someplace closer to this gate than to another one, at least. If he’d been in Perth itself during the past few months, you would know, right?”
Eilidh hesitated. “I think so.” She’d been on Skye much of the time during the past six months, but journeyed back and forth several times to visit Munro. The astral training had proven difficult, and she often snuck away during the day, when Munro would be awake, but the Skye fae were sleeping. Using the Otherworld gates, if she timed things well, she could come and go easily. Distance in the Otherworld was more fluid than in the human world, and she could travel in a tiny fraction of the time it would take Munro to drive the distance.
“So we can rule out the city. And he’d stay away from the borderlands, right?”
Eilidh suddenly saw what he meant. “Yes. He must have had one or two friends among the Watchers. It would be difficult to pass through the gates without them knowing once, much less several times. But the Watchers move, and he couldn’t always be certain the same ones would be around. If he truly did not want his mother to know he was in the human world, it would be too big a risk.”
Munro nodded and pulled out his phone. “Let’s look at a map.” He laid it flat on the stone side of the bridge. “This is Perth,” he said.
Eilidh peered at the shiny surface of his phone, and saw the green representation of the woodlands, the blue ribbon of the river, and a cluster of lines and boxes that Munro said indicated the city. She took the phone in her hand and stared at it.
He pinched his fingers together on the screen, and the city became smaller, the river longer, and the forests wider. “This is about where Ashdawn is. We can rule out all of Perth, Scone, and what about Crieff?”
She looked at the spot west of Perth that he indicated on the tiny map. “I think that would be closer to the Moonstone gate, which is near this body of water.”
“Loch Earn,” Munro muttered. “Okay, what about south?” Munro asked. “Toward Edinburgh?”
“To the Wastes? No, he would use the Kingsbrine gate if he wanted to go there.”
“I think we must assume he’s in a town or village, but the more isolated it is, the more the kingdom borders would encroach at night. He wouldn’t want to risk that a Watcher would come close enough to detect him. If he was here,” she tapped on the phone’s screen, “here, or here, I think I would surely have felt him at one time or another, especially over recent months when I could move more freely. We can rule out the North between here and the closest gates, because I have run this path between Perth and Skye, and sensed only Watchers in the woods. I believe I would have noticed a faerie’s presence in the human habitations nearby.”
“So it makes sense he would have gone west then?”
Eilidh shrugged. “A faerie could theoretically mask his presence. So it’s possible he could have hidden from me.” Munro sighed. “But, remember,” she continued, “Griogair said his son wasn’t strong or well-trained. It would take a great deal of energy to keep up such an enchantment. When I was in exile, I decided to make it as easy for myself as possible. I stayed near the cities, where the kingdom influence is almost non-existent. I hid from humans, which is much easier than hiding from the fae.”
“What about Dundee? It’s a much bigger city than Perth. Is there a gate closer than Ashdawn?”
Eilidh shook her head. “No, we do not build gates too near the eastern sea. The waterfae are no friend to faeries of Caledonia. ”
Munro looked at her. “There are faeries in the sea?”
Eilidh nodded. “Strange creatures. Powerful and ancient, but they look as much like fish as they do the fae.”
Munro stared at her a moment, then looked back to the map. “Even narrowing it down to Dundee makes it difficult. It’s a city of a hundred and fifty thousand, with even more in outlying areas.” He tapped his phone screen and it went black. He slipped the device into his pocket and turned to look at Eilidh. “What kind of magic can we do? If we’re relying on me alone, without anything to go on but a vague direction, I’m not sure what our chances are. I want to help Griogair, but if our plan is just to go out and start wandering around until we find the kid, the whole thing sounds like a waste of time.”
Eilidh frowned. “I don’t have to see him. Just be close to him.”
“Eilidh, if I was approaching this situation as a cop would, I’d be talking to his friends, his mother, the Watchers who might have let him pass, checking bank details and phone records. A trail like this, especially one so long cold, isn’t going to be made up of bent twigs and footprints. We need to talk to the people who know him best. We need to get Griogair to change his mind, otherwise…”
“That’s not possible,” Eilidh said. “He has already taken too great a risk, just by allowing you into the Otherworld.”
Suddenly Munro’s head whipped around. “Holy Christ!”
“What?” Eilidh asked.
“Didn’t
you see that?”
“See what?”
“Come on,” he said.
“Quinton? Come where?” Eilidh could feel him almost quivering with excitement, but she couldn’t understand the source.
“I don’t know,” he said, and he pointed his finger toward the road. “That way.”
* * *
Munro ran like his legs would carry him forever, heading southeast, generally following along the A9. He stayed away from the road, and Eilidh came close behind. It felt so good to run, he thought. He had no idea what had happened to him in the Otherworld, why he suddenly felt not only healed from his injuries, from the draining of his life-force, but better than he’d ever felt. He was stronger and more agile, like some kind of X-Man superhero.
The blue blaze he’d seen in the sky flashed so suddenly and lasted only a fraction of a second, so he couldn’t judge how far away it was. When they reached the River Earn, about six miles away from the city, he stopped. He growled in frustration.
“What?” Eilidh asked, with more than a little impatience. “What are you chasing, Quinton?”
“A flash,” he said. “It was this way, but now I don’t know how far to go.”
“What makes you think it has anything to do with Tràth?”
“I don’t know that it does. But it wasn’t natural.” He just had a hunch. He couldn’t explain to Eilidh. She knew about magic, but to her, it was like science, easy to explain. His hunches were just a feeling. He didn’t know if it was Tràth at all, but it was something strange, magical, and wrong . He didn’t like to admit he thought the whole thing with Tràth was going to come to nothing. Tràth sounded like a young man who hated his parents and had run away. People who didn’t want to be found often weren’t. Simple as that. And it wasn’t like they could track his mobile GPS.
Suddenly, Munro got an idea. He pulled out his phone again, but grumbled when he got no bars. “We should keep going. I can get some reception in Aberuthven.”
“Quinton, will you please tell me what you’re doing?”
“Where’s the nearest gate this way?” Munro asked and gestured further southeast.
Eilidh paused and considered. “The Moonstone gate is that way,” she said. “But I’d say we’re about half-way between it and Ashdawn.”
“If you were trying to get here without being seen by kingdom faeries, would you take Moonstone?”
A smile crept across Eilidh’s face as she understood what he was getting at. “No.”
“No,” Munro said. “Because there’s nothing but forest. This way, you could come along the highway. Faeries hate the highways. And southeast?”
“Firearch, but it’s near a place I believe you call Carron.”
“So if you wanted to go this far, you’d come through Ashdawn. Anywhere between here and Dunblane.”
Eilidh nodded. “All right. Let’s go then.”
“Pay attention,” he said. “Tell me if you feel anything. He might be close—if we’re right.”
They started to run again, this time with more purpose, covering the next two miles in what felt like an instant, despite the rough terrain they had to negotiate to avoid being seen from the highway. His new strength made him want to laugh out loud with joy. It distracted him, and he had to focus to keep his mind off the exhilaration pumping through his body and on the task at hand.
They stopped close to the village of Aberuthven, and Munro scrolled down on his mobile’s contact list to call his partner, Andrew Getty.
As usual, Getty didn’t bother saying hello when he answered Munro’s call. “Heard you went to Skye.”
“Eilidh’s got some friends up there,” Munro said quickly, then added, “Need a favour.” The pair didn’t chit-chat, and they both liked it that way.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“You know those thefts reported lately down the A9? What’s the latest word on them?” He’d been briefed at the beginning of his shifts about the mad string of break-ins. It was unusual for the area, but like everyone else, Munro chalked it up to drug users breaking into cars and sheds. People reported broken windows and missing tellys when they’d gotten home from a night out.
“Aye, funny you should ask. Just a bit ago we got a treble-nine from someone claiming they were being robbed. The call went strange though. We’ve got people on the way now.”
“Strange how?”
“Not sure. Anyway, the control room got cut off, and it might be nothing. But considering the recent problems, they’re sending a unit to check it out.”
“Where?”
“Auchterarder. Fordyce Way. Do you know something?”
“Nope,” Munro said. “I’ll give you a call if there’s anything.” The promise was vague, but the pair knew each other well enough to accept that Munro would tell Getty everything he could make sense of. They’d both come to appreciate that Munro often got hunches he couldn’t explain and had a way of being at the right place at the right time. Or, in Munro’s mind, the right place at the wrong time. “Cheers,” he said.
“Yep,” Getty replied, and they both hung up.
Munro looked at Eilidh. “A couple more miles.” They took off again, slowing a few minutes later as they circled the village of Auchterarder. It was a small place, with only a few thousand residents, but with it being the home of the famous Gleneagles hotel and golf course, it had a certain shine to it some villages didn’t.
Eilidh seemed put out, but Munro couldn’t figure out why. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as they picked their way through the last of the dense brush, heading to the main street.
She muttered the enchantment to create her human face and ears, then revealed her jeans and t-shirt, scowling the entire time. “You think all fae are thieves,” she said.
“I think people off the grid do what they have to do.” He shrugged. He didn’t approve, but now wasn’t the time to have this discussion. He understood why Eilidh had to steal to survive when she lived on the streets. He didn’t like it, but he understood. “Getty said a call just came in on Fordyce Way. That might be where the flash came from. Let’s check it out.”
His body thrummed with the power of the Otherworld, so much that it jangled his nerves. He had no idea how Eilidh could stand this intense rush without jumping out of her skin, but she gave no sign that the Otherworld had done anything other than relax her. He needed to move.
It was still full dark, but Munro’s eyesight stayed keen. He suddenly understood why the fae preferred the dark. It had a calm quiet about it. And because he could see as well now as he could at high noon, it took on a whole other feeling. Eilidh watched him closely, and her attention pressed into his mind. He knew she must be questioning the changes in him, but she didn’t say a word. They walked toward Fordyce Way, but instead of having to move slowly and silently, they ran, knowing if a human happened to see them, he’d just rub bleary eyes and assume it was his imagination or the glow of the street lamps playing tricks on his eyes.
Munro calculated it wouldn’t take long for the beat cops to turn up this time of night. Auchterarder had its own small police station that was part of the Tayside region. It didn’t give them much time, considering they’d come all the way from Perth. He motioned Eilidh toward the end of the cul-de-sac. “Feel anything?” he whispered. He glanced at her in the darkness as they crept up to a house, hugging the wall of someone’s garage.
Eilidh grumbled with frustration. “It’s strange.”
“What?” He had half-hoped that his newfound strengths would mean he too could sense whatever it was that told her if a faerie was nearby, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. But then his nerves were still hyped up on Otherworld air.
“I feel something, but it is unfamiliar.” Her eyes shone as she peered around the various houses. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but from the frustration he detected in her mind, she didn’t either.
“Fae?”
“Yes, and it’s no magic of the Ways of Earth.”
; “Astral?” he asked. He knew the only surviving magic of the Path of Stars was either blood magic or astral. He hoped they weren’t dealing with another blood faerie. Not since the last one he’d met had broken his ribs in several places.
“No.” She frowned. “This is like nothing I have ever touched before. It is completely alien to me.”
They moved from their hiding place closer to the address the 999 call had come from. Munro felt it in his bones. Something had happened here. He understood Eilidh’s uneasiness, though, because his hunch was taking on a different flavour than he’d ever experienced.
Glad that the ground was hard from the cold winter, they stepped to the side gate. With a gloved hand, he silently lifted the latch. Just as he swung the gate open, he heard a car approach. “Shit.” Then to Eilidh, “They’re here.”
Azuri Fae - Urban Fantasy (Caledonia Fae) Page 9
