Loch Nessa

by Clare Kauter

  “Apart from you, your highness?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing I can tell you.”

  “Why did the clouding spells break? Do you know?”

  His face was impassive.

  “Did someone break them for you?”

  Again, he didn’t reply. He just sat there in silence.

  “Fine,” I said, standing and storming off. I called back over my shoulder, “If you won’t tell me, then I’m not talking to you.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, scrambling to his feet.

  “Back inside,” I replied, making my way back through the forest.

  “But we haven’t even scried the witch yet!”

  “I don’t care,” I replied. “We can do it in the morning.”

  Finally I stepped out into the clearing where the castle was located – and found nothing. I groaned. The castle was gone. Great. I was going to have to perform a blood sacrifice to get back inside.

  “Nessa,” said Henry, but I’d already whipped a piece of paper out of my pocket. It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t have anything else on me.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked, bemused.

  I scrunched up my face and, before I lost my courage, ran the tip of my finger along the paper’s edge. I saw Henry wince when he realised what I was doing.

  “A paper cut? Really? That was the best thing you could think of?” he said.

  “It was all I had on me. I was being resourceful.”

  “What kind of witch doesn’t carry a dagger?”

  “Shut up,” I said, smearing my blood on the rock just as I’d seen Henry do earlier. The air around us began to shimmer and ripple with magic and the sound of stone grinding stone echoed around. “I’m going back inside before we’re attacked.”

  The grinding stone stopped echoing and there was a moment of silence. Then there was another noise, this time behind us.

  “I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.”

  CHAPTER 12

  IT WAS A WOMAN’S VOICE, and before I even turned I knew she was a vampire. Her energy was dark and she smelled of blood – it didn’t take a genius to figure it out. I glanced at Henry, hoping he had some sort of trick up his sleeve. His eyes were wide and I suspected he was trying to calculate if we could get the door open and get inside the castle before she had the chance to suck our blood. Unlikely. Vampires were notoriously fast, and they grew more powerful with age. This one was ancient. Oh, not to mention she was a fae. We were screwed.

  “Baobhan sith?” I guessed.

  Henry’s eyes widened in recognition when I said the name. Addressing the vampire, he said, “Uh, Madam, I would just like to point out that as a shifter, I have infinitely less tasty blood than my human companion here. If you were to bite one of us, well, I would suggest you go for her.”

  My lower jaw hit the floor. “Are you for real, Henry? Are you actually serious right now?”

  He shrugged. “Sorry, Nessa. Self-preservation and all that.”

  “And you had the nerve to act like you had the moral high ground over me trying to make you think you were crazy.”

  “It’s OK,” said Vampira. “I’m not fussy. I’ll drain you both.”

  “Well, great,” I said. “You may have tried to throw me under the bus, Henry, but I’m afraid you’re going to die alongside me.”

  “But who to drink first?” she pondered.

  Henry and I shouted our responses at the same time, pointing at each other.

  “Him!”

  “Her!”

  Henry gave me a look like he wanted me to shut up. I returned the look. He gave me a less subtle look and I began to wonder if he was trying to tell me something. What could he possibly have to tell me? Sorry for getting you eaten? Then it clicked: he had a plan. Then it clicked again: his plan was to have the vampire bite me and hope that my blood would have the same effect on her as it had on Honey – even though this vampire was ancient and a thousand times more powerful than Honey had been when she attacked me. There was no guarantee my blood would adversely affect her.

  “Really, Nessa,” Henry said. “You should definitely go first.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “After you.”

  “I insist,” he said.

  “I’m growing bored of you,” said the vampire. “I’ll eat the girl first and keep you, shifter, as a snack for later.”

  “Good idea,” said Henry.

  The baobhan sith smiled, showing off her long, white fangs as she took a step towards me, savouring the moment before the kill. The moon came out from behind a cloud and the light was so bright it glinted off the vamp’s teeth. I winced as I noticed how blunt they looked. I groaned. The last time I’d been bitten, the vampire’s teeth hadn’t been that sharp either, and it had taken some real force for her to break the skin. I didn’t particularly want a repeat of that performance.

  “He’s trying to give you vampire malaria!” I blurted.

  There was a rustling from in the forest and then a figure stalked out into the clearing to join the baobhan sith. I hadn’t noticed him approaching – the weird energy of the forest around us must have cloaked his magical void. He glared at me and I glared right back. It was Pierre.

  He’d followed me here? I knew I shouldn’t be surprised – after all, he’d once followed me to the North Pole – but I still hadn’t expected him to show up. I hoped Honey was around somewhere to help me out of this mess.

  “That’s what you did to her? You gave her vampire malaria?” he hissed. In a flash, he’d crossed the clearing, moving so fast I didn’t even see him coming. One moment he was ten metres away and the next he was inches from my face, so close I could see a chunk of green lodged between his teeth. This was particularly concerning since vampires weren’t exactly known for eating their greens. My best guess was that whatever it was had gone into his mouth while it was red and had turned green in its time there. His breath certainly seemed to indicate as much. I really would have thought vampires would be bigger on dental hygiene.

  I jerked back in shock, trying to get away from him, but his hands clamped around my arms.

  “Don’t make me hurt you,” I said. It would have sounded a lot cooler if my voice hadn’t cracked as I spoke.

  The baobhan sith laughed. “Oh child, you’re funny, I’ll give you that.”

  But something flickered across Pierre’s face and he relaxed his grip slightly. I could see as he studied my face that he was wondering if I had been the one to hurt him at the church. He wasn’t so dismissive of me as the other vampire. He didn’t totally release me, though.

  “Bite me, then,” I said. “If you don’t think I can hurt you, what’s the harm?”

  Pierre appeared to be debating what course of action to take.

  “You’d better not bite her,” said the other vampire.

  Pierre shook his head. “I know. It’s not safe.”

  “No,” she replied, “that’s not what I meant. You’d better not bite her because she’s mine.”

  Pierre slowly turned his head to face the other vampire. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Run along.”

  “She is mine to kill.”

  “This isn’t your forest, this isn’t your prey, and if you don’t leave now I’ll kill you as well.”

  Pierre finally released my arms.

  “How dare you?” he said. “I warned you not to bite her. I saved you from a fate worse than death. This – this human changed my wife.”

  “I changed your life?” I said. “That’s really nice of you, Pierre. You’ve changed mine too. Not necessarily in a positive way, but –”

  “He said wife, you idiot,” Henry hissed.

  But Pierre wasn’t paying attention to me. “She is not yours to kill,” he said, now doing the up-close-and-personal thing with the other vamp.

  “Who’s going to stop me?” she asked. “You?”

  “I have followed her to the ends of the e
arth for this.”

  “And you haven’t managed to kill her yet? One pesky human?” She laughed. “Pathetic.”

  While they argued, I realised that Henry and I now had a chance to escape, but only if we acted quickly (although after Henry throwing me to the vamps earlier I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to save him). If we tried to run to the door, the vampires would catch us for sure. I could think of one way to get us out of here, but I didn’t think Henry was going to like it, and I definitely wasn’t sure whether or not I could trust him.

  “Henry,” I hissed, “why didn’t you turn me in?”

  He turned towards me (he had been watching the vampires argue) and paused for a moment before answering.

  “Is this really the right time to talk about this?” he asked, giving me a look of total disbelief.

  “It’s important,” I said. “Why didn’t you turn me in?”

  “I think we have more pressing matters to –”

  “What would it take for you to turn me in to The Department?”

  Henry sighed, apparently realising that I wasn’t going to let this go. “I’m not going to turn you in for what you did to Dick or those grabbers. It was obviously self defence.”

  “That didn’t exactly answer my question.”

  “If you’re asking if I’m going to have you arrested for slaying these vampires, the answer is no.”

  “Henry, I need you to answer the question I asked.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “I wouldn’t turn you in unless I thought you were a danger to the public at large.”

  I grimaced.

  “Why do you look concerned by that?” Henry asked. “That should not concern you. That should be something that any person finds totally reasonable.”

  I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth and said, “I might be about to test your faith in me, Henry.”

  I slid my hand into my pocket and closed my fingers around the Doomstone. Slipping my hand back out of the pocket and turning it palm up, I unfurled my fingers and revealed the glowing stone, which now appeared to be filled with swirling purple smoke as it pulsated with energy.

  Henry’s jaw dropped. “You – you – all this time? You’ve had the stone –”

  “Not all this time,” I said quickly. “I –”

  Suddenly I became aware that the vampires had grown silent. I looked up to see them eyeing the stone.

  Pierre glared at me. “You…”

  The baobhan sith slowly cocked her head to the side, her neck cracking like a ticking clock. She and Pierre began to creep towards me, never taking their eyes off the stone.

  “We can discuss this later, Henry,” I said, grabbing his hand.

  “You –” he began, but his words were drowned out by the blast.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE VAMPIRES WERE HIT by a wall of flame at the same time as Henry and I were thrown back through the air. We were carried so far we hit the door of the castle. Immediately we scrambled to our feet and hurried back inside, leaving behind the sound of the vampires screeching in pain as they caught alight. (Lesser vampires might have been killed by fire, but I suspected those two would come out of it OK – just really pissed off. Gulp.)

  Henry and I leaned against the inside of the wooden door to the castle and slid to the floor as our knees buckled. That had been a close call and I was shaking, not just from the cold. After a moment, Henry broke the silence.

  “This whole time?” he hissed, keeping his voice down, I assumed, so as to not wake anyone else in the castle. “You’ve had the Doomstone this whole time?”

  I shook my head. “Not the whole time,” I said. “Just since Ed figured out he couldn’t make it work for himself.”

  His eyes widened.

  “So you’re helping Ed?” Henry asked, horrified. “Dick was telling us the truth?”

  “The truth that he saw me with a ghost, yes,” I said. “But Dick was the psycho who carved out that goblin’s eyeballs. Ed hasn’t murdered anyone since he killed his housemates to get the Doomstone.” At least, he hadn’t murdered anyone else that I knew of.

  Henry crossed his arms.

  “He went to all the trouble of killing people to get his hands on that rock and then he just gave it to you?”

  I shrugged. “It was Christmas,” I said. “I guess he’d forgotten to buy me something.”

  “You’ve had it since Christmas?” he hissed. “You let Daisy and Hecate lose their jobs over it?”

  “They didn’t actually lose their jobs,” I said. “And as you’ll recall, I helped solve the murder that got you all better jobs than you had in the first place.”

  “Unless you could somehow see the future and you knew that was going to happen, then you still betrayed us. The fact that it happened to work out in the end doesn’t change that.”

  “I didn’t mean to get you guys in trouble,” I said. “And I would hand it in, totally, except…”

  “Except it’s too handy to get rid of.”

  “Without this stone I’d be dead,” I said. “As noble as handing it in would have been, it wouldn’t have been particularly smart. It’s not like The Department was using it or anything. They just had it locked up in a bank.”

  “Until it was stolen by your boyfriend, Ed.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “He calls you my boyfriend.”

  Henry’s jaw dropped. “You’re still in contact with him?”

  “It’s not – it’s –”

  “Tell me the truth: what’s going on with you and Ed?”

  “Why, jealous?”

  “Stop joking around,” he said. “Ed is a murderer and a bank robber who owns a lifetime supply of clouding cones – all things you’ve profited from.”

  “I promise you, Henry, I’ve made zero profits since you walked into my life.”

  “This is serious,” he hissed. “How am I meant to trust you after all this?”

  I scoffed. “Oh, you’re bringing up trust?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You were ready to throw me in jail for killing that goblin and attacking that little girl back in Hell,” I said. “Had you forgotten that?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time you killed someone.”

  I slapped him. He rubbed his face, blinking at me in shock.

  “How dare you? I would never hurt a kid! Not even a really annoying one. I’ve killed grabbers and demons and someone who was trying to sacrifice me! It’s hardly the same thing.”

  “Hate to break up the party,” came a voice from my right. I jumped at the sound of it. It wasn’t a voice I recognised – it sounded like someone on helium. When I turned to see who was speaking, I wasn’t able to make out a figure in the shadowy entrance hall.

  “Well if you hate to break it up then don’t,” I snapped in the general direction of whoever had spoken.

  “Nessa…” said Henry quietly.

  The creature, whatever it was, began to laugh. I tried to feel its energy, but the castle seemed to be running interference again. “I like your guts, lass,” said the voice. “I bet they’ll be delicious.”

  “Can you not see that we’re busy having an argument? You don’t want to eat us anyway. He tastes of dog and my magic blood will kill you.”

  Out from the shadows stepped a little man, no taller than my knee. He wore a red hat and green overalls and his teeth were all sharpened to a point.

  He shrugged. “Guess I’ll just kill you for fun, then.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good luck with that,” I replied. He was tiny. If he came any closer I could just kick him away.

  “I don’t need luck,” said the man, grinning maliciously. “I just need a little help from my friends.”

  And that was when from the shadows stepped forth an army of little men in red hats, all grinning the same pointy-toothed smiles, looking ready to kill.

  “Shall we?” hissed Henry in my ear.

  “Let’s,” I whispered back.

  CHAPTER 14


  SCOOPING ourselves up off the ground, Henry and I ran away from the tiny psychos quick smart. Henry grabbed my hand and dragged me along. Even in human form he could run pretty fast and I was having trouble keeping up with him. He led me down a corridor before stopping and pushing me against a wall, finger to his lips in a ‘shush’ motion. I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but he clamped his hand over my face to keep me quiet.

  The sound of footsteps coming down the corridor alerted us to the fact that someone was approaching. Henry removed his hand from my face and shifted into a snake, which creeped me the hell out but was probably an effective deterrent against attackers. Well, either that or they would be more likely to kill you. One or the other.

  “Redcapssss are afraid of sssnakesss,” Henry explained. “Reportedly.”

  (Ordinarily his voice didn’t change when he shifted, but I guessed that forked tongue was getting in the way of his pronunciation.)

  I nodded and pressed myself up against the wall, wedging myself in a doorway while Henry slithered out into the centre of the corridor. The noise of his scales sliding over the rock as he slithered across the cobblestone floor seemed deafening in the quiet hall. Shadows of the approaching redcaps, rendered a lot taller in silhouette, appeared on the wall as they rounded the corner.

  “Halt!” one called as Henry reared up and hissed loudly.

  I frowned. That voice didn’t sound like –

  “I don’t see anybody down – argh!” screeched Daisy as she caught sight of Henry. “A serpent!”

  Who’d have thought someone as powerful as Daisy would be scared of a little snake?

  “Really, Daisy?” I said, stepping out of the shadows. “A serpent?”

  Henry morphed into gorilla form. “Sorry to startle you,” he said. “We were being pursued by a group of redcaps.”

  “Are you OK?” Daisy asked.

  “Of course they are,” said Hecate. “Look at them. They’re fine. A better question is what they were doing out here in the first place.” She eyed us suspiciously.