Seelie (The Falcon Grey Files Book 1)

by Sarah Luddington

  I nodded thanks and we climbed aboard the Land Rover. I drove slowly and carefully back onto the road and we continued north, heading for Skye.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We were all quiet during the drive. I glanced in the rear view mirror and Bethan stared out of her window while Marcus stared out of his, both clearly lost in their own thoughts. Bethan had killed twice to defend us and I needed to check how she felt but dreaded the aftermath.

  “You did well, Bethan,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I couldn’t bear listening to the fatuous bastard any longer,” she said dully.

  “He spoke the truth. He’s been my instructor –”

  Bethan scooted forward and placed a hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “Don’t, big man. Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know. He’s nothing now. He’s dead. Gone to dust – right, Falcon?” she asked me.

  “Right,” I said.

  Marcus placed his huge hand over her small one. “Thank you,” he said.

  She nodded and a large tear slid down her cheek. “You’re welcome.” She squeezed once more and moved back to her original position behind me, continuing to stare out of the window. I decided to keep quiet and just let things ride. If either of them wanted to talk they didn’t need me to tell them I was here to listen. The afternoon wore on and we ate while moving, conversation muted.

  The mountains slid past and I knew we were facing a battle. We had an Underling to kill and the Hunters to stop. If I were dragged back to my sister in chains we’d all die, probably slowly. I also considered Marcus; Leo had broken him and he was right – he was a liability.

  The sky cleared of clouds during the drive, the night would be very cold, but now we watched the sinking sun falling into the distance, colouring the sky with magical fires.

  I needed to think about how to find a house which didn’t exist on my police database. I sighed. London felt like a distant dream.

  “You alright?” Marcus asked.

  “Fine, just tired and I don’t actually know where we are going,” I said.

  “You need to rest,” he said. “I can drive.”

  “No, it’s fine. I don’t want to stop, we are moving too slowly as it is,” I said. He reached out and placed his hand on my thigh, the gesture surprising me. It also had the desired effect; I felt better. We’d gone past the turning for Fort Augustus and followed the river down to Glen Moriston, a clutch of houses drowning in the white blanket smothering the world. A pub already had its lights on and I decided this would be the place to ask for the strange address on my piece of paper.

  We pulled in. “You two stay here, keep your eyes open. If you see anything beep the horn.”

  “Let me come with you,” Marcus said.

  “No, you stand out a mile up here and I don’t need us to be remembered,” I said.

  Bethan snorted. “In that case, handsome, I should go.” She didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  “No, you wait here,” I said. I left the Land Rover and crunched over the almost virgin snow. I opened the door and a wave of heat almost knocked me over. The bright glow from dozens of lamps held the growing afternoon gloom at bay and a fierce fire roared in the grate. Two men sat the bar, beer in their hands, and a large woman with a round face stood behind the well polished counter. The place was covered in horse brasses and pictures of the Highlands through the ages. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in a traditional pub.

  “Welcome to the Sunnyside,” said a broad south east accent. I’d not noticed the name outside, I wondered if it were an ironic statement. I hid a smile. Her husband must have retired and decided to buy a pub in the country. I shouldn’t think they considered the weather too much, poor buggers.

  “Hello, thank you. Scotch would be nice, whatever you recommend,” I said. The eyes under some very old woolly hats watched me.

  “Here for the Christmas holidays?” she asked. “Visiting family?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I’m looking for a strange address my satnav can’t find.”

  A derisory snort met my comment. “Bloody stupid,” the man to my right muttered.

  “Yep, it is, which is why I think I need help,” I said. A little southern humility would go a long way. Just as well I’d left Marcus in the car, the man would be hanging from a horse brass by now. I slid the paper over the bar’s polished surface. “Have a drink yourselves,” I added, giving the woman a twenty.

  Both men perked up and ordered doubles. I tried not to smile. The next five minutes consisted of a heated debate between the men about the right way to find the small croft I needed. The landlady just watched, clearly just as mystified as myself by the thick accents and strange words they used to conjure a path through the snow.

  I left the bar, the scotch a warm tingle in my belly, having parted with another two twenties and bought a bottle of something for Marcus. I also had a map, of sorts.

  I climbed into the Land Rover and handed Marcus the scotch.

  “Thanks,” he said surprised. I leaned in and kissed his cheek, surprising him even more.

  “You’re welcome, handsome,” I said, feeling happier than I’d managed in days.

  “Whiskey working?” Bethan said from the back.

  “Map,” I told her, waving it under her nose. “I think it goes this way up.”

  She shook her head, took the map and we began to follow the wiggling lines. For three miles we continued down the road toward the sea, the loch on our left. Then we found a group of spruce trees, one of which had fallen to the right because of the big wind in the autumn, and a track also on our right. It had clearly never been introduced to tarmac or snow ploughs.

  “Do we walk?” asked Bethan sounding a bit worried.

  “I’m afraid so,” I said, peering at the sky and dusk. “I’ll drive the truck into the trees and leave it there. We have packs. We’ll hike from here.”

  “Hike,” she said.

  “I bought you hiking boots and covers for your jeans,” I reminded her.

  “I thought you were taking the piss,” she said in protest. “I don’t hike, Falcon. I walk in flats at work and heels when I’m out and bare feet if I’d too pissed on the way home. I live with tarmac and paving slabs. I don’t hike.”

  Marcus opened his door and slipped out. “Guess you’re going to learn,” he said. “Don’t worry, if you fall in a drift we’ll pull you out.”

  She muttered something unpleasant, this time focusing on our gender.

  It took too long to dress her, pack the bags with more clutter than I’d need, or in fact had, while invading a small country, but we were off eventually. We needed to head north-west and up. We should find the croft behind the lee of the mountain. I needed to look out for the dragon shaped rock and keep it to our right, then it would turn into an old lady and I needed to head down, west-north following her nose for a mile. If I missed the croft, I’d hit a river and have to backtrack once more heading up.

  Easy.

  If it hadn’t been for the snow, the ice under the snow, the lack of a path, the quantity of heather and a woman who had never left London voluntarily, it might have been fun. I remembered the hunts I’d done with Marcus for Seelie who needed finding for one reason or another. I remembered my training with the army and later the SAS, also trips in hostile territory. I never remembered having to deal with an unhappy woman who couldn’t seem to make a move without falling over or moaning about it – and let’s not mention the growing darkness.

  Marcus gave up in the end, silently handed me his pack, dropped his shoulder into Bethan’s midriff and lifted. She squeaked and kicked for a while but we were finally able to move at a sensible pace.

  I broke the path through the snow, Marcus followed carrying a meek Bethan. My eyes made the most of the diminishing light, the nocturnal vision of my other self clearly showing me the landmarks. We both smelt the smoke from a small fire before we saw the tiny needles of light. Our pace hurried, the thought of being free from one of our burdens spur
ring us forward.

  About one hundred feet from the small cottage, Marcus grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to a stop. “We are being watched,” he said, as he flipped Bethan upright and placed her carefully on the ground. She started to straighten her clothes and I could see the shouting match winding up in her expression.

  “Shh,” I placed my hand on her mouth. She scowled.

  Marcus and I moved away from each other slightly, both of us scanning our surroundings and drawing air through our mouths and noses. “Hunters,” Marcus finally said.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What the hell is that?” Bethan said with panic.

  I turned back toward the cottage. A small woman stood in the snow, covered in leather and fleece, with a large pointed felt hat on her head. The rotund person shifted from one foot to another, rocking slightly in the process. Her head, cocked to one side, had more hair than face.

  A loud sniff came from the small figure. “Hunters,” she announced. Her voice sounded like rough bark from a large dog who’d worn his voice out. She moved with shocking speed toward me, standing within my personal space before Marcus could reach me. He stopped when I held my hand up. She stared up at me, her head still to one side, and the rocking began again. Her lips were thin, her nose flat, the skin old and drooping. Her head stopped at my waist and when she poked me in the belly her finger felt strong and bony.

  “You brought Hunters here, Princeling,” she said, emphasising each word with a poke.

  “I am sorry, my Lady, we are in trouble and need help,” I said.

  She snuffled. “Help, is it? Seelie prince wants Gifling’s help. Not sure... Should send Seelie away, they always bring trouble,” she looked down and to one side while she spoke. I guess she lived alone and ‘Gifling’ was her name. Seelie disassociated from reality all too easily.

  I knelt in the snow, now at her height. “My Lady, we really need your help.”

  She reached out and touched my face. Her hand smelt of herbs and smoke. “Pretty Seelie,” she said, wistful and quiet.

  I caught her rough hand in my huge one and her eyes widened with alarm. “Please, my Lady,” I said. “I really need your help.”

  Once more her speed surprised us, making Bethan yelp. The weight of her body landed on my back. “Help, Princeling,” she said, her small hands balled into my jacket. “Home,” she said and she actually kicked me, clicking like I was a horse.

  “Fal...” Marcus warned.

  “It’s alright,” I said. “Let’s get inside and at least we’ll have some walls between us and our enemies.”

  Marcus helped Bethan through the snow toward the small crofter’s cottage. The drooping thatch and crooked chimney didn’t bode well for the security of the place but we didn’t have a lot of choices.

  The small woman on my back dropped off the moment I reached her porch. “Clean boots only, Princeling,” she said. “Better, no boots but Hunters will make boots important.” She trilled strangely and an owl swept out of the darkness over my head, to land on her shoulder. “Falcons don’t trust owls,” she giggled, pushing her door open.

  Bethan and I shared a long silent glance. We’d met some weird people over the years but this Gifling was the oddest yet. The three of us spent a long time cleaning our boots on the various scrapes and mats.

  “This is ridiculous,” Marcus muttered.

  I didn’t say anything, merely bending low enough to walk into the cottage without knocking myself unconscious. A short hall separated two sides of the building, with a back door opposite the front. I followed the sound of Gifling whistling and walked into her living room, shocked for a moment. Warmth wrapped around me with surprising snugness and the blaze of candles romanticised the chaos around us. Everything from bundles of herbs to rabbit skins hung from the beams overhead, soft armchairs in coloured fabrics, all in various states of disrepair, took up the floor space and small tables covered in a variety of objects acted like cones, forcing us through a tight chicane. Bethan’s eyes were wide and her hands remained firmly in her pockets, not wanting to touch the spectacular array of bones, feathers, skins and other objects scattered about. It all sat on a huge, thick rug, which probably didn’t know what a vacuum cleaner looked like.

  “This is social worker’s wet dream,” Bethan whispered.

  Gifling’s head shot up from the kettle over the fire. “You need a potion for wet dreams, pretty girly? The Princeling not enough for you?” she asked, a dry cackle following.

  “Er, no, that’s fine,” Bethan said.

  The woman shifted again with that disconcerting speed even I couldn’t register. She stood on the back of an overstuffed armchair, making her eyes almost on my level. Marcus stood behind me, so close I felt his breath on my cheek. I could finally see the colour of her eyes; they were a light ochre, almost yellow and just a little too large for her face. Her mouth twisted and turned, the narrow lips smacking and the nose twitching. “Hmm, the falcon wants the bear, but the bear is broken. You like fucking men,” she said with some heat directly into my face. Her breath stank of rabbit meat and I wasn’t sure it had been cooked.

  “That’s a problem?” I asked.

  “Only for the Seelie who want you to be king,” she said. “Bit hard to marry the right girl when you fuck boys.” She cackled again. “Stupid Princeling,” she said, climbing off the chair with exaggerated difficulty. “Stupid Princeling likes to fuck broken boys,” the lyric seemed to appeal to her and she repeated it several times.

  “Enough, Gifling,” I said. “You’ve had your joke. I like to fuck men and I’m in love with Marcus. Enough with the homophobic humour.”

  Her head snapped up and she stood completely straight, making her at least twenty centimetres taller. “If you want to be a big poof you can be, I’m not complaining,” she said loudly. “Just making a point.”

  Bethan erupted into giggles. Marcus growled and tried to push past me. “She doesn’t mean any harm,” I said, preventing him from ripping her head off.

  “She’s a freak, even among our kind,” he snarled.

  “Ho, ho, look who’s calling who a freak, furless bear,” she said. Marcus swiped for her but she danced back and out of the way, managing to avoid all the furniture.

  “How does she know?”

  I tried to intervene and managed to knock a table over, upsetting the owl who screeched at me. “Enough,” I yelled.

  “Oh, Princeling cross with Gifling,” the woman said and sat down suddenly, her eyes now very large and sorrowful.

  I took a deep breath. “It’s fine, we are a strange pair in any world,” I said.

  “Doesn’t help he’s a slave,” she muttered, clearly downcast.

  “No, it doesn’t, but that will never prevent me from loving him as my equal,” I said squatting before her, aware I endangered several tables and one small chair.

  She cocked her head to one side and a small smile appeared. “You very pretty.”

  “Thank you. I think it comes with the job,” I said with a straight face.

  She paused a moment and then giggled. “Comes with the job, you silly Seelie prince.”

  I nodded. “Yes, Gifling, I am a silly prince but I really do need your help.”

  She huffed. “With the Hunters?”

  “No, with the thing that’s hunting my friend here. Can you sense it tracking her? I don’t want to give you its name,” I said.

  “Hunters more of a problem,” she said, rising to her feet slowly and approaching Bethan. “Or maybe not...”

  I rose and turned to watch her silent approach; Bethan clearly struggled with her instinct to bolt from the cottage. The little woman made strange movements in the air around Bethan and a glow started.

  “Fuck, I thought this was a joke but she has real power,” Marcus whispered.

  “More strong than your Princeling,” she said absent-mindedly.

  “What is she?” Marcus whispered.

  I shrugged. “No idea. Never seen anything like
her.”

  “Old and gone to dust before Seelie prince was born, that’s the fact of my people. Last of my kind so Gifling live here to stay away from Seelie war and power but knew you’d come. Always known you would come, Princeling,” she said, turning her eyes back to me. I saw a flash of an image. A tall and graceful figure of perfect proportions, warm eyes a shade of old gold never seen in mortals and smiling lips.

  “She’s a meadow elf,” I whispered.

  Marcus glanced at me. “I thought they were destroyed by your grandfather?”

  “Clearly not,” I said. “Gifling, why have you shown me this? My family is the reason your kind are no longer among the Seelie.”

  Gifling waved her hand. “Shh, poofy Prince. Have work to do.”

  “Can we trust her?” Bethan asked, breathless with the weird light now zipping around her body.

  “We have no choice,” I said.

  “This is a powerful cursing,” Gifling muttered. “Seelie Princess is a dark force in the Elfhame home... Terrible dark force...”

  “Can we stop it?” I asked.

  Gifling turned toward me and the lights began to die. “I don’t know,” she said, clearly lucid for the first time. “But we can try.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She frowned, her small flaccid face pinched in concentration. “You need to escape the Hunters and the thing. We can outrun the latter but we will have to distract the former.”

  “You don’t distract Hunters,” Marcus said.

  Gifling began to rock. “No, please, stay with us,” I begged but the small woman’s face melted into an expression of mischief.

  “Gotta make ‘em go,” she said and fished in her clothes somewhere around the breast area. “Call your friends, make big whooshing noise.” She said this while digging around. “Ah!” Her right hand reappeared and my warrant card with it.

  “How the hell did you get that?” I asked, trying to snatch it out of her hand.

  “No,” she protested. “Pretty poofy Seelie prince piccy.” She grinned hugely, several large yellow teeth putting in an appearance for the first time.