He flashed me a sudden smile. ‘Immortality, of course. That’s worth risking everything for. Instead of a dodgy black-market racketeer, history will remember me as the man who saved Scotland from goblin rule.’ My brow furrowed and Marrock grinned wryly. ‘Me and a few others.’ He patted my arm. ‘Wait here. I’ve got supplies I can pass over.’ He glanced at Ange. ‘I have some more appropriate clothes you can change into as well.’ He took her arm and marched her off in the direction of the bowling alley kitchen.
De Florinville didn’t even wait until Marrock was out of sight. ‘Can he be trusted?’
I bit back the answer that I knew Marrock a damn sight better than I knew him and tried to smile. ‘I believe so.’
The Dark Elf drew nearer to me, until our bodies were almost touching. I resisted the urge to step away. ‘What is he to you?’ His voice was a low, dangerous growl.
It was none of his damned business. ‘An old friend,’ I said shortly.
‘Friend?’ De Florinville’s eyes sparked.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say something flippant, challenging and entirely untrue about the wonderful sex I had with Marrock. I could even have said that I was carrying his child – but this wasn’t the time. The idea of being Gabriel de Florinville’s brood mare might turn my stomach but it meant he’d move hell and high water to keep me safe. I could use that.
‘Okay,’ I conceded, deciding to tell the truth. ‘Perhaps friend is stretching the truth. Marrock is self-serving and selfish but he’s not a liar and when he says he’s going to help us, I believe him. He has no more love for the goblins than the rest of us.’
‘He could have left Stirling years ago but he chose to stay.’
I sighed. ‘Lots of people chose to stay, de Florinville. This is our home.’
Something akin to anger flashed across his face. ‘Gabriel.’
I blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
He dipped his head towards mine. ‘My name is Gabriel. I’d like it very much if you’d call me by it.’ His voice lowered. ‘I want to hear it on your lips.’
My mouth suddenly felt very dry. This was beyond weird. Suddenly, though, I wanted to please him and to see the darkness reflected in his gaze replaced by something warmer. My tongue darted out and I wet my lips. His eyes followed the movement. ‘Gabriel,’ I whispered. I shook myself. What the hell was wrong with me?
He smiled, displaying even white teeth. My stomach did an odd flip that made no sense whatsoever. ‘That’s better.’ He scanned my face, drawing even closer. A strange, distant part of me noted that his hair looked very soft. ‘Once we are safely out of Stirling, Saiya, you and I have a great deal to talk about. I’m going to look forward to getting to know you a whole lot better.’ His expression grew tender. He was probably thinking about his future babies. He could piss off.
I drew in a breath and finally managed to move away. Gabriel – or rather de Florinville – looked disappointed. It was probably fortunate that Marrock returned with Ange, who was now dressed in an oversized boiler suit. At least it was a dark colour; it would help her stay hidden if we had to conceal ourselves in a hurry.
‘We shouldn’t waste any more time,’ I said, trying to be brisk and business-like. ‘The school in three hours.’
‘It’s a date,’ Gabriel murmured, with the sort of husky promise that almost made me believe it was.
I didn’t dare look back at him. Instead I took Ange’s hand and, seconds later, we were outside and running for our lives.
Chapter Thirteen
I vaguely knew the lane that Marrock had directed us towards. As far as I remembered, I had only ever used it on a few occasions; when I needed to be subtle, I used the shadows. At other times the tarmacked roads and pavements were far more useful than the swampy mud track which Ange and I found ourselves on. Our feet squelched as we walked and our speed was severely hampered by the fact that, when we weren’t getting our shoes stuck in thick brown gloop, we were sliding all over the place. At this rate, I estimated that it would take us around an hour to reach Sally’s house then another hour or so to get to the school. I prayed that Sally hadn’t chosen to do anything daft like take Becky out for the day. There wasn’t a lot of time to spare if I had to go searching for them.
Initially Ange and I walked in silence. It was important that she conserved her strength and I needed to hear if anyone, especially any goblins, were drawing close. The only sounds for a long time were the squelches of our feet tramping in the mud and the river slowly lapping against the bank to our left. My nose tickled with the smell of smoke that still clung to the air from the Gneiss’ bombardment. Frankly, it was a relief to have the reek of sewage from the dirty river as well – it was an improvement on burning flesh.
We’d gone some distance and not seen or heard a soul when Ange murmured something. I glanced at her sharply, thinking it was a warning of some kind, then realised she’d said something else. ‘It’s very good of you to help us, Saiya,’ she repeated. ‘I know how much you’re risking by doing this. You usually keep yourself far from any trouble.’
I gave a soft laugh. ‘I could say the same about you.’
Ange shrugged helplessly. ‘It would still be true if it weren’t for arsing Bernard. He’s caused even more trouble in death than he did in life.’ She grimaced. ‘And that’s saying something. When I was in that cell, I started to wonder if he’d left me that stupid box deliberately because he knew how much trouble it would cause.’
I gestured. ‘It’s about this size? With a lacquered covering and seemingly impossible to open?’
Ange started. ‘You’ve seen it?’ Panic flared in her eyes.
‘Becky showed it to me. I told her to hide it somewhere safe. I don’t know where it is now.’ I hesitated. ‘Have you opened it?’
‘I don’t know how.’ She shivered. ‘If Becky is the only one who knows where it is…’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t let the goblins get to her. I won’t let anyone get to her.’
Ange bit her bottom lip. I wasn’t sure whether she believed me but I reckoned that she needed to believe in something. ‘I’ve not opened it,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t know how to.’ I felt an odd prickle on the back of my neck. At the corner of my eye, something flickered. ‘Bernard mentioned it once and said that—’
I grabbed her arm. ‘Be quiet.’
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘What is it?’
If I told her, she’d freak out and she’d already undergone enough trauma. Ange was doing a good job of holding things together but everyone had their limits; I had no desire to test Ange’s.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, keeping my voice low. ‘It might be nothing.’ I scanned the path ahead, spotting an old lock-up that had probably been used by fishermen when there were fish in the river. ‘You see that shed up ahead?’
Ange nodded.
‘I want you to get inside it. I just want to check that nothing’s following us. We’re probably in the clear but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.’ The shed was ramshackle and the door was falling off its hinges so it wouldn’t protect her but it would keep her in one place so I could deal with what was behind us.
‘But what about you? Will you be alright?’
I smiled at her. ‘I’ll be fine. Now off you go.’ I gave her a gentle shove. Fortunately she didn’t argue.
I waited until Ange was inside the shed and turned round to wait. I didn’t have long. The wraith, who I assumed was the one who’d been despatched to kill her at the Tolbooth, peeled away from the shadows of a nearby wall and flitted down to the ground to face me. His own shadow reshaped into a three-dimensional form. He wouldn’t be able to talk – but he would be able to listen.
He wavered to and fro for several moments, as if taunting me. When I didn’t react, he raised his shadow arms in a shrug and stopped moving.
‘If you are here for her,’ I said carefully, ‘I will hurt you. Otherwise I have no quarrel with you.’
The wraith held up hi
s hands in a gesture of surrender. I was optimistic – but I wasn’t stupid. I remained where I was, ready to attack him. It was eerie staring into a shadow and seeing nothing but darkness staring back. I’d long since moved past the stage where I stared at my shadow in the mirror and I’d forgotten how creepy it could be.
‘Who hired you? Was it the Filits?’ I knew they hadn’t but I wanted to test him. If he were going to lie to me, I’d offered him the perfect opportunity.
The wraith shook his head. Either he was very canny or there was a chance I could trust him. I pressed ahead. ‘Was it the Gneiss goblins?’
He hesitated and then nodded. Good. ‘And you found a way to contact them after you left the Tolbooth. That was why they attacked. They wanted to make sure she was dead.’
The wraith offered another shrug. He didn’t appear particularly bothered that I’d effectively caught him red-handed in an assassination attempt – but then he was a wraith.
I ignored the fact that we were potentially related and pressed ahead. ‘Did they tell you why they wanted her dead?’
He shook his head but again there was a brief hesitation.
‘Do you know why?’
He half turned, slowly twisting back in the direction we’d come from then he nodded. I assumed from that that he’d traced us to Marrock’s bowling alley and eavesdropped on our revelations about Ange and the Stone. It irked me that I hadn’t spotted him while we were there. I’d had other things on my mind but all the same, I could have been more cautious.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked. He was tailing us for a reason. Perhaps he took pride in his profession and was determined to finish the job he’d been set, regardless of the consequences. Who was I to say?
The wraith cocked his head, apparently considering. This kind of communication was slow and ponderous and it didn’t help that he seemed a particularly slow and ponderous person in the first place. I changed my mind on that a second later, however, when he snapped forward with the speed and violence of a whiplash.
I tried to raise my hands to block him but he was too fast. I was forced into the only defence move I could take and separated my shadow. It left my physical form vulnerable but I needed to be in a strong enough position to counter-attack. With my body standing as an empty shell, I lunged for the wraith. That was when I realised what he was doing: he wasn’t attacking me, he was hugging me.
From a short distance away, I watched his shadow squeeze his arms round my real body and gaped. Well, it was one way to prove he was friendly. Wraiths could touch one another without the need to recoil. It was one way for Mother Nature to ensure the continuation of our species.
When I was sure he meant me no harm, I drifted back into my body and blinked at him. He pulled away before using his index fingers to draw a smiley shape in the air. Okay. Then he pointed at me and sketched a question mark. He wanted to know who I was.
‘I could ask the same of you,’ I muttered. ‘My name is Saiya. Yes, I’m a wraith but I’m not like you.’ I scowled for effect. ‘I don’t kill. Not in cold blood, anyway.’
He danced round me, kicking his legs up like a can-can dancer on cocaine. I had no earthly idea what that was supposed to mean.
‘Look,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m on a clock here. I’d love to stay longer and find out who you really are because I’ve never spoken to another wraith before but I really don’t have the time. And I don’t think you were following us just to say hello and give me a hug. So can you get to the point?’
The wraith hunched his shoulders and stomped towards me in a realistic impression of a goblin, then raised his arms as if throttling me.
‘The goblins want to kill me? No surprise there,’ I said drily. ‘And they don’t even know the half of it.’
The wraith lifted both his hands to ears and pulled on them.
I frowned. ‘The Dark Elf. What about him?’
He began another charade. I squinted, watching his antics until I thought I understood. ‘The goblins want to kill the Dark Elf?’ I ignored the strange lurch in my stomach. ‘That doesn’t make sense. He is here with their agreement. Until a couple of hours ago, he was their honoured guest. They certainly won’t want the hassle they’d get from the Scottish government if he died. Not unless…’ My voice trailed away. Not unless they thought he was getting to the truth behind what they were up to. If they thought he’d spoken to Ange, or someone else who knew about the Stone of Scone, they’d slit Gabriel de Florinville’s throat in a heartbeat.
‘He seems intelligent,’ I said softly. ‘He’ll be able to extricate himself from their plots.’
The wraith shrugged, making it clear that he was simply passing on relevant information; he didn’t really care either way. He raised one hand to start another shadow charade but then he froze. He wasn’t the only one – I heard it too. They weren’t in sight yet but those were definitely goblin yells and, by the sounds of them, yells that indicated the goblins were hunting. No prizes for guessing who. I sent up a silent prayer that Gabriel de Florinville wasn’t already dead and prepared to spring away. The wraith nodded in agreement, giving me a little push and indicating that he would stay put.
My eyes widened in alarm. ‘It’s not necessary,’ I said. ‘You can hide easily enough. Escape. Get out of here. We’ll be fine.’
He shook his head. I opened my mouth to argue but he pushed me away again.
‘Because of the Stone,’ I said.
It wasn’t a question but the wraith nodded anyway. He might be a heartless assassin, prepared to murder someone like Ange without questioning why, but he understood what it meant if the goblins, whether Gneiss or Filit, harnessed the power of the Stone of Scone. He was prepared to put up a fight and sacrifice himself so we could get away. And I didn’t even know his name.
There wasn’t any time left. I had to get Ange away while I still could. I leaned over and pecked the wraith’s shadowed cheek. ‘You should still leave,’ I told him. ‘Get back to your real body and you can raise the alarm about the Stone.’
He shook his head sadly and suddenly I understood. ‘The Gneiss goblins have your body,’ I said. He was in mortal danger whatever he did. They’d want to know why he’d failed with Ange; hell, they’d demand to know. They’d also demand to know what else he had learnt. They’d managed to keep their search for the Stone and the real reasons behind the Stirling siege quiet for three years. If there was the faintest suggestion that the wraith had learnt about it, he would be toast regardless of how well he could manipulate the shadows.
The wraith nodded at me, blew me a kiss and turned away, presenting me with his dark back. I reached out once again, brushing my fingertips against his shoulders. Sadness shivered through me but I still had to go. A second later, I started running.
***
Ange did her best to keep up with me. When it was clear that she had no strength left, I gave her a piggyback. Ignoring the yells behind us, and the screeches that indicated the goblins had found my new wraith buddy, we ploughed through the streets and snickets. My chest was hurting and I was convinced my legs were going to give way by the time Sally’s house came in sight. I’d have felt relieved but our journey was nowhere near over.
Ange slid off my back. Our proximity to her daughter had given her renewed strength and vigour. Without bothering to knock on the door, I entered the house with Ange at my heels. ‘Becky?’ Her voice was high-pitched and filled with alarm. ‘Becky? Are you here?’
There was a clatter from the kitchen and Becky came flying out, covered in flour and wearing an oversized apron. ‘Mum!’ she shrieked. She flung herself into Ange’s arms, sobbing wildly. I could see where she got all the emotion from; Ange’s tears were even louder.
Sally also appeared in the doorway, wincing at the noise the pair of them were making – but there was no denying the twinkle in her eyes. ‘So, Saiya, you’re back and you’ve brought another guest. I didn’t doubt that you’d make it.’
‘We can’t stay
,’ I told her. ‘We have to get out of here. You should come too. The goblins are on our tail and they could trace us back to here. They’re looking for blood, Sally. They’re going door to door and if they discover the faintest trace of Becky or Ange they won’t hesitate to destroy you.’
Sally didn’t move a muscle. ‘I am not leaving my home. Not for goblins, not for you. Not for anything.’
‘Sally—’
‘I mean it, Saiya. I know you mean well but I’m too old and set in my ways. If they come here, I’ll deal with them.’
We both knew how that would end. Sally was tough but she was no match for the Filits. ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I began.
The skinny shape of Martin, the boy she’d taken in, appeared behind her. He raised a large saucepan and hit her over the head with it. Sally went down like a sack of potatoes. Martin looked both pleased and horrified in equal measure. Then he bent down and scooped her up, glancing at me. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
Damn. He had bigger cojones than me; I’d never have dared to knock Sally Slate out, whatever the situation.
She was too big and he staggered under her weight. He wouldn’t be able to carry her more than twenty feet. ‘There’s an old wheelchair next door,’ he grunted. ‘No one’s been in there for months but I’ve seen it in the garden. It’s rusty but it’ll do.’
Becky wriggled out from Ange’s embrace. ‘I’ll get it!’
Martin nodded approvingly. ‘Good work, squirt.’
I continued to stare at him. He glared at me. ‘What?’
I held up my hands. ‘On your own head be it.’
Less than five minutes later, our motley band was racing back through the quiet streets. I spotted one or two pale faces staring out from the few houses that were still occupied, watching our mad dash. Ange was exhausted, the effects of her ordeal still affecting her, despite Gabriel de Florinville’s efforts to heal her. All the same she kept up, spurred on by Becky. I was beginning to feel like we could do this; we could reach the school and get out of here.