The Midnight Eye Files Collection

by William Meikle

  He nodded, but in truth, he looked as ill as Doug had on that hospital bed. His face was ashen, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he’d been crying continuously. He finally looked all of his years, and more.

  “When do we go?” he asked.

  “Coffee first, and a smoke, then we’ll be off. We can be in the Auld Kelpie in time for breakfast.”

  “I’ll get the coffee,” he said.

  I watched him as he filled the kettle and did all the little domestic things people do while making coffee. This was the beast that had mauled Doug, had almost killed Jock McCall, and had murdered Wee Jim Morton. And here he was, making me a cup of coffee. And the problem was, although I hadn’t moved more than a yard from the gun, I was already relaxing in his presence. And I had no idea how much influence the sedative was having, and how much was the music. As if he’d read my mind, he asked: “Do we have to have that music on?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “And we’ll have it on all the way on the road, so you’d better get used to it.”

  I gave him a cigarette to go with his coffee.

  “Have you ever met an old janitor with a glass eye?” I asked. “Or a slightly younger version, either a fisherman, or dressed like an aging biker?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I thought he had something to do with the case, that’s all. Drink up. It’s time we were going.”

  I took the CD out of the player and watched him very closely as we headed for the car. I had the gun pointed at his back all the way.

  I put him in the passenger seat, and laid the gun across my lap. Before we set off I put the CD in the car player and once more the song filled the car. I knew I was going to be heartily sick of it by the time we got to Skye. But it would be worth it to keep me alive.

  I had enough petrol for the whole journey, and enough cigarettes, and I doubted I would be stopping along the way. My back muscles were already complaining, but that couldn’t be helped. At least the Ford was easier to drive than the Land Rover beast, and at this time in the morning, we’d make good time.

  Mason was quiet as we made our way out of the West End, and apart from asking for a cigarette, he didn’t speak until the city was behind us. I turned the CD volume down...but not as far as I couldn’t hear it.

  “You know,” he started. “I didn’t quite tell the truth. Back on the boat trip out of Portree.”

  “I wondered when you’d notice,” I said. I dropped my speed by ten miles an hour...there was a story coming...one I would be best to pay attention to.

  He started straight ahead as he spoke.

  “It was no accident that I was on Skye,” he said. “I had an email from Irene. She was tracking down her husband’s family tree. And she found me. We sent emails back and forward for months, until it felt like we knew each other. Then, last year, she invited me for a visit.”

  “Did your mother not try to stop you?”

  “I didn’t tell her. Years before she’d spun me a tale about how it would be dangerous for me on Skye, but she wouldn’t tell me why...maybe if she had, things would’ve been different.

  “When I got to the island Irene couldn’t have made me more welcome, and at first, the three brothers were friendly enough, but there was always a sense that they had something else on their minds.

  “Matters came to a head one night when we’d all been drinking heavily. The brothers started in on me...or rather, on my father. The kindest thing that they said about him was that he was a traitorous bastard, and they accused him of causing the death of their own father. And that’s when I heard the story of what my mother and father had done on Skye. They...”

  “If it involves your mother, a travelling band of hippies, and a moonlight flit, you can save some time. I’ve heard it,” I said. “Your mammy isn’t so reticent these days.”

  “She told you?” he said, incredulous. “And she wouldn’t tell me, in all these years?”

  “Seeing you maul my partner loosened her tongue a bit,” I said, and I didn’t manage to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  That quieted him for a while, and we smoked in silence while the darkness slid by outside. The CD came to the end of its first run through, and this time I found the continuous play button and started it off again.

  “It was that bloody tune that started it,” he said softly. “One minute I was in the middle of an argument with the brothers, the next I’m out on the seashore, with no memory of how I got there. You know what happened next...the bit about the seal was the truth. As was my nighttime rampage over the moor. What I haven’t told you is that the brothers let me go. All that clock and dagger stuff was just a trick to get you to take me.”

  “Why would they let you go?” Aren’t you ‘The Chosen’...the one who’ll restore the family destiny that your father almost broke?”

  “That’s what they told me,” he said. “But there’s one thing I overheard that worries me. ‘Let him go’, they told Irene. ‘She’ll be frantic, and our job will be easier’.”

  “What did they mean?”

  “You’re the detective. You tell me.”

  The next time I looked over he was fast asleep, and breathing normally. I drove on into the night, wondering just what would be waiting for me on the island. Something just didn’t fit. I’d heard all the stories, but it was like a Kurosawa film. Everyone saw something different, and I felt that the single new point that would throw light on the matter was missing. All I knew for a fact was that John Mason was a shapechanger, under the right circumstances. And that he could survive a dose of tranquilizer that would fell an elephant. Whether that was supernatural or genetic, I had no way of determining.

  Actually I didn’t think it mattered. I was getting paid to deliver him back to Skye, and although I’d be interested to find out how the beast was tamed, I could quite happily live without the knowledge. That was the night talking; cynicism and defeatism were always lurking in the dark to jump at me. I lit a cigarette and smoked them away.

  The CD finished again, and once more I re-started it. I knew the tune by heart by now...I knew where the singer paused for breath...where the drummer came in just a fraction too early. I found myself singing along, about an octave lower. Mason snapped upright, new sweat on his forehead. My right hand made a grab for the gun, and the car veered onto the wrong side of the road, but as soon as I stopped singing Mason relaxed.

  “Bad dream?” I asked.

  He nodded, but didn’t offer any details.

  “So how do they do it?” I asked. “The brothers, I mean. How do they keep you calm?”

  He shrugged.

  “There’s the music, of course. And a lot of beer. But I don’t think it’s them. I think it’s something about the old pub itself...I just feel calm when I’m there.”

  “I’m much the same about The Vault,” I said. “Sometime I get so calm I have to lie down.”

  He laughed, and I started to laugh with him. Just at that moment we drove through Glencoe village, and Wee Jim’s accusing face came to mind. Mason was still smiling, but I no longer felt like it.

  “The Sons of Loki story,” I asked. “Do you believe it?”

  “No,” he said, without thinking. “But the brothers do. It’s like a religion to them.”

  Aye, I thought. And maybe that’s the key we’re missing.

  We drove across the Skye Bridge just as the sun came up, and we passed Sligachan just as the first walkers of the day were heading for the Cullins. By the time we got to Portree the town was just waking up for the day. The first pensioner had already bought his newspaper, the postman was on his rounds, and the smell of warm bread wafted into the car from the baker in the square.

  “It feels like home,” Mason said.

  “Get used to it,” I replied. “You could be here for a while.”

  As I parked outside the Auld Kelpie Irene came to the door. She had a broad smile on her face.

  “Welcome back,” she said. “I knew it was okay f
or him to go away.”

  Before I got out of the car I stashed the gun under my seat, but I kept the spare darts in my pocket. I opened the car door, tried to stand, and squealed in pain as my back went into spasms, bending me almost double.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “Nothing a large whisky wouldn’t cure,” I replied. I reached over and switched off the car engine, and the music stopped. I was about to start it again when she put her hand on my arm.

  “You don’t need it...not here,” she said, and gave me her arm to lean on as she led me into the bar.

  Mason was already inside, standing in the center of the room, a big smile on his face.

  “See. I told you,” he said to me. “I feel calm already.”

  “It looks like the journey didn’t do you any harm,” Irene said.

  “You obviously haven’t been watching the news,” I said.

  “A tragedy, right enough,” she said. “But a son should do his duty by his father, don’t you think? He had to be there.”

  If I’d been feeling better I might have argued, but it was all I could do to fall into a seat.

  “About that whisky?” I said.

  She brought me a very large whisky, which went over smooth on the tongue and put a fire in my belly. Slowly, I started to feel as if I might walk again.

  Mason was walking around the room, a dreamy smile on his face.

  “What is it about this place?” I asked Irene.

  She smiled back, and her face seemed to waver. I rubbed my eyes...I suddenly felt very tired.

  “Stay awhile,” I heard Irene say, but she sounded like she was shouting it from the bottom of a well.

  She leaned closer, and her smile widened into a gaping maw filled with too many pointed teeth.

  “Stay for lunch,” she said, just as I slipped away. I fell off the seat and hit my head, hard, on the floor, but I was already past caring.

  I came awake with a start. I was sitting up on the same seat I’d fallen off. There was a full pint of beer on the table in front of me, and the three Mason brothers across from me.

  “Christ,” I said, feeling my voice reverberate in my skull. “I hope you’re not the interview panel.”

  The big one in the center smiled. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

  “More in the way of a welcoming committee,” he said. “We owe you a thank you for bringing the boy back.”

  “So you thought you’d drug me first?”

  He smiled again, nearly a laugh.

  “Oh, we had to be sure you’d stay. We can’t have you missing the last act now, can we?”

  “Oh, I’d be happy to leave early, I’ve got the last bus to catch,” I said. I patted my pockets. I was looking for my cigarettes, and I found them...but I also found to my surprise that I still had the tranquilizer darts in my top pocket. I managed a smile back at him as I lit up.

  Irene appeared at my shoulder with a menu.

  “Anything you want, on the house,” she said.

  “A hearty meal for the condemned man?”

  This time the big fellow did laugh.

  “You catch on quick. I knew that, when I found these...”

  He bent down and lifted the gun and the CD onto the desk.

  “The gun is obvious,” he said. “But what made you choose the music?”

  He was still smiling like a shark, so I decided to put some blood in the water.

  “I got it from an auld chap...glass eye, nice line in banter.”

  I hit a nerve...his eyes flickered with what might have been fear, then the smile came back full force.

  “The old bastard is interfering again, is he? Probably trying to change the rules, now that we’re close to our goal.”

  There were questions I could have asked there and then, but I knew the look of a man who wanted to talk. Like a Bond villain, he was about to tell all and reveal how stupid I’d been. Some men are just born gloaters and I was sure I had one opposite me. It was only a matter of time.

  In the meantime I ordered grilled salmon and oysters, Caesar salad and French bread, with plenty of beer on the side. My heads felt like they’d played football with it, and my back hurt like blazes, but the beer was beginning to make inroads into both.

  “Listen, I did what was asked. I brought him back. Isn’t that what you wanted? The ‘Chosen’ back in place to restore your family’s destiny and protect the line of the Sea Wives?”

  The big man laughed, long and hard.

  “Not as quick as all that, then. Here...” he said. “This will complete your education. Read it while you eat, then we’ll get down to business.”

  He took a notebook from his pocket and tossed it across the table. It was old...battered and frayed. But looking at it was preferable to facing the three-fold smirk from across the table. I picked it up, and started to read.

  “My wee boys” it read. “You’re too young to understand. I’m writing this so that someday you’ll know what to do, when the time comes around. Your Uncle Tommy has betrayed me, and sometime tonight she’ll come, and I’ll go to her. I’ll go to her, and try to break the curse that has blighted our family for far too long.

  “But I’m scared, boys. Scared of losing you. Scared that one day, she’ll come for you. For if that bastard of a brother of mine has no lead in his pencil, that’s what’ll happen.

  “I’d better not get ahead of myself. I need to tell you some family history, and hopefully try to explain why I have to walk out the door when the call comes.

  “Our part in this long tale starts back in 1912, with the birth of my father...and his twin brother. They were brought up to face their destiny. They were taught the sea wives story as I’ve told it to you, and as it is written in the back of this book. And when they asked ‘Why?’, they were told, ‘That’s just the way things are’. That wasn’t enough for them. And as they got older, they began to think more and more about the fate that would befall one of them, for they loved each other so much that they couldn’t bear to be parted.

  “And they began to study arcane knowledge. They spent a small fortune having ancient tomes ferried over to the island, Huge leather-bound volumes with titles like De Vermis Mysteris, The Necronomicon, Cultus Sabbaticus. They started inviting strange, intense, people to Portree, and it is said that Crowley, the old beast himself, performed a banishing ritual that killed every seal in a ten-mile radius. But it wasn’t enough. Then 1936 came round.

  “One summer’s evening, as they were out on the boat, the call came. And my Uncle Duncan, may God rest his soul, was the one chosen to answer. He was away over the side of the boat and into the gathering dark before your grandfather could stop him. All night they searched, but there was no sign of Duncan. Not till the next morning, when his near-dead body was washed up on the shores of Loch Grehornish.”

  My food arrived, but I barely noticed it. I held the notebook in one hand and the fork in the other as I shoveled salmon and oysters with no more thought than if they’d been a fast-food burger and fries.

  “They brought him back to the Kelpie,” the notebook continued. “For that is the center, the only place where we can be calm until the change. And now the brother’s work became almost feverish. They both knew that they only had nine months in which to find a solution. While Duncan poured over the old tomes here in the Kelpie, your grandfather traveled, searching for other fisherfolk, for cults and traditions of the sea wives, and how their influence might be fought.

  “He spent time with tuna fishermen in Greece, with minke whale hunters among the Eskimo people, with shell fishermen in Jamaica and Haiti. But it was closer to home that he thought he’d found the answer, in Lapland, where Loki himself might have walked.

  “He was introduced to a guild of fishermen, ‘The Sons of Loki’. Among their rituals and spells for catching fish, they had one, an ancient chant that gave instructions for breaking the curse.

  “Excited beyond measure, your grandfather rushed back to Scotland. But he was too late. Dun
can had gone, disappeared into the sea like many generations of his forefathers.

  “After that, your grandfather was a broken man. He wrote down his findings, which I have reproduced here in this book, and he even got married, and sired your uncle Tommy and myself, but the joy had gone out of his life. He lasted until 1963, when I was fifteen. One night he took himself out alone on the boat, just him and the shotgun. Another victim of the curse.

  “Five years he’s been gone. And he never got to see you, my wee treasures, my three boys. For those years your uncle and I have been studying the ritual, going over and over it until we are word perfect. We were to have performed it together, nine months after one of us was called. But he has betrayed me. Betrayed all the line of our family in all the years past.

  “The call came. And he did not answer. He has followed his dick, and run away. So now I wait. When the call comes I will go. And if I do not return, then read this, my wee boys, and know that I’ll never love anything like I love you.

  Prepare yourself. Study the ritual.

  Your time will come.

  The rest of the notebook was filled with complicated drawings and charts, long passages of what looked like poetry, and page after page of runic script. I put it down, and at the same moment realized I’d eaten all the food, with no memory of having done it.

  I sat back and lit a cigarette.

  “I don’t suppose anybody’s thought about using ear-plugs?” I asked.

  That got me the shark smile again.

  “It’s been tried,” the big man said. “Back in 1436. So has wax in the ears, hot pokers, and a variety of blunt instruments. None worked.”

  “So, this ritual,” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer. “Where do I fit in?”

  “You’ll be my way of a sacrifice,” he said, and grinned widely. “You die, she never comes back.”

  “Sounds like I get the raw end of the deal,” I said. “What about John?”

  “He’s family,” the man said. “He gets to stay with us.”

  “Maybe I haven’t got such a bad deal after all.”

  He lifted the gun and pointed it at my chest.

  “Finish your cigarette,” he said. “And make the most of it.”