Caledonia

by Amy Hoff

  “Maybe he found the necklace with her body,” said Leah. “Magnus probably had no use for it. Or maybe Hazel got ahold of it during the struggle.”

  Dorian removed a white glove. He put his bare hand onto the pendant, and concentrated.

  “Dorian, I don't think that's a good idea –” Leah began, but Dorian waved her words away.

  The magic calls to him.

  Years pile upon years like sheaves in old books, so much forgotten, so much lost.

  Pressed between each page, a dead flower, is a memory.

  The selkie, with his healing magic, brings the sun again, and revives the bloom.

  He sees Sebastian heaving with sobs, retching on the parquet floor of the kitchen. Dorian feels the anger coursing like liquid steel through Sebastian's veins as if it were his own, giving him the strength to capture his own tears. He holds a vial and his eyes blaze as he counts the droplets. He opens the tear pendant and pours them in, mixing with Hazel’s false tears stolen by Magnus.

  The pendant begins to sparkle, blue and green, and a heartbeat of dark blood red spreads through it, colouring it deep and cold. Sebastian watches in utter horror and disbelief, and then puts the necklace on. He steps over Hazel's body, and crouches down beside her.

  “Goodbye, my love,” he whispers. “Dear God, please let her forgive me. I will find your revenge, my wife, my heart. I go to save us all.”

  He kisses the tear pendant, and then makes his escape, going in the opposite direction of Magnus. Dorian feels the pain, the horror, the agony of leaving his wife's body in order to pursue justice. Sebastian does not realise that the magic of the pendant has already begun to work; within him, a magic is born of fire and blood.

  Dorian returned to the present, as the stolen memory faded. Leah was looking across the table at him, puzzled and more than a bit concerned.

  “The tears inside were both hers and his,” Dorian explained. “That would make it more powerful. Intensely so. There are very few creatures that would not be affected.”

  “Like Milo, and Desdemona,” Leah agreed. “It also seems that it’s a general power he has now, if he’s in close enough proximity, given our reactions when the selk attacked him at the statue of St. George. If he became a monster due to Hazel’s murder, then the necklace must contain some very powerful magic. The selk would be the ultimate victims, since heartbreak is such a central aspect of their lives. It makes sense, too, because Hazel was murdered by one of them. Sebastian must have sought out other Fae who had experienced heartbreak and somehow forced them to hold the pendant. If he could get all the selk in one place, he would be able to destroy them all with his magic. Just like Milo said, a smart bomb against a sword.”

  “He worked with us, at Caledonia,” said Dorian. “After all, who wouldn't trust Geoffrey? He seemed so pure, so innocent.”

  Leah bowed her head.

  “I certainly did,” she said.

  “Don't think you were wrong to do so,” said Dorian. “Geoffrey was a good man, and so was Sebastian – once upon a time. I saw what happened. He made a choice, out of violence, from grief and pain. Before that, he was the man that Geoffrey is. You were right to trust him.”

  “Except that man became a killer,” Leah pointed out, “despite his kindness.”

  “Or because of it,” said Dorian, shaking his head sadly. “All those Fae...trapped in their memories.”

  Leah said nothing.

  “Do you remember when I said that you had weapons?” Dorian asked, and she nodded. “You are stronger than you think, Leah Bishop. There is a medical term for your heart giving out because of loss and grief.”

  “Takutsubo cardiomyopathy,” said Leah. “I remember reading about it.”

  “Yes,” he said. “The faeries Sebastian killed, they died of a broken heart. And you didn't.”

  Dorian lifted the pendant in his hand, gazing at the water trapped in the tiny tear-shape.

  Leah watched in surprise as Dorian dropped the pendant on the floor, and crushed the glass beneath the heel of his boot.

  ***

  The following day, as Leah walked with Dorian along the pathways of Kelvingrove Park, surrounded by the green and lush foliage of late summer, she thought perhaps she should be thanking Adam for what he had done. If he hadn’t broken her heart, she’d have never taken this job. She wouldn’t have ever met Dorian.

  Leah truly grasped that it was his loss, now. She thought of the life she would have had, if she had stayed – stagnant, in the same town, until…what? A mortgage, children, retirement, death. And it wouldn’t have been a bad life. But now? Compared to this?

  She wouldn’t go back to it for anything. She had changed.

  “Dorian,” she announced. “I have decided to stay. Here, in Glasgow, at Caledonia Interpol.”

  Dorian regarded her, one elegant, arched eyebrow raised above a beautiful, well-formed eye. Hundreds of centuries behind his ancient gaze, a Victorian anomaly on the mean streets of Glasgow. He adjusted his gloves.

  “Was that ever in question?” he asked.

  She stared at him for a moment, and he smiled. Leah grinned back.

  “What would you say to a whisky?” she asked.

  “That depends. Are you buying?” he replied.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Single malt?”

  “Only the best.”

  “Slàinte,” he replied. “I know this great little pub…”

  ***

  Later, in the hotel, she made herself a cup of tea, and looked out the window at the rain. She found it comforting, now. The rain, and the city.

  “I haven't thought about Adam for a week,” she had told Dorian, at the pub.

  “You're thinking about him now,” he pointed out, grinning.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, but...”

  “The spell is broken.”

  She carried her mug from the window, over to the small sofa beside her bed.

  “What are your weapons, Leah Bishop?”

  She smiled, and pulled out her manual. She smoothed the white, clean page with the flat of her palm, and pressed the pencil down.

  I am human.

  My heart is my own.

  I am not swayed by tradition, nor bound by magic.

  I am Leah Bishop.

  I am free.

  The steam rose merrily from her mug of tea, and she settled in to read the rest of the manual, as the rain of Glasgow fell against her window, droplets streaking against the grey outside. She smiled, at the rain, at the wind that buffeted the glass, at the grey skies and the dirty buildings she knew stood behind the fog.

  She had come home.

  My name is Detective Inspector Leah Bishop.

  And I'm on the monsters’ side.

  The End

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