Black Fallen

  “So it seems,” Jake confesses. “Many things have changed since the Fallen’s arrival.”

  “Aye, and mayhap we’re not as prepared as we need to be,” Tristan adds.

  “What happened to you?” Eli asks, brushing a thumb over my cheekbone.” His expression is at first frightened, then grows dark. “And who did this to you, Ri?”

  I touch my cheek. It’s bruised. I can feel it. “To be honest, I don’t even remember getting hit.”

  Eli’s angry. Pissed. He looks up and down High Street. “I look over, you grab that kid and pull him into the cathedral. Less than a minute later you come back out.”

  “And you look as if someone knocked the holy Hell out of you,” Jake adds.

  “Did that lad strike you?” Tristan asks. He turns without hearing my answer and heads after Ian and his friends.

  “No, wait!” I stop him. “Tristan, it wasn’t the kid.”

  Tristan turns and waits.

  I look up at Eli. “I’m fine. Whatever clocked me, I didn’t feel it. And I’ve had much worse, and you know it.” I look at Jake. “I don’t think that thing was all demon,” I say, then explain its appearance in the puddle. “It looked a helluva lot like a Jodís. Not all features, but some. And the second I grabbed Ian’s hands—” I pause as a group of three passes by. “As soon as I grab his hands, everything changes. We’re on . . . some alternative plane. Edinburgh, but not. St. Giles’, but derelict. Run-down.” I glance at Tristan and Eli, then back to Jake. “Abandoned. Inside the church, everything was a wreck, destroyed. And there were wings beating everywhere, and whispers.” I take a breath. “They said my name.”

  Jake stares at me, his features stern. That does not make me feel very good. “Did it see you? The creature?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Just before I forced it out of Ian and killed it.”

  “Jesus, Riley,” Eli says.

  Jake blinks. “How?”

  I think about it. “I . . . don’t know. I knew it was inside of Ian. His eyes turned pitch-black, and his voice”—I breathe deeply—“was not his. When I forced him to look at his reflection in the water, it . . . fell out. It was trapped in the water.”

  “Holy water,” Tristan offers. “Had to be nothing else but.”

  “Then what?” Jake says.

  By now the crowds had grown thinner, but people were still walking around us. I lower my voice. “It sort of exploded. Turned the water black, like oil.” I look at Eli. “Then the whispers started, I grabbed Ian, and we hauled ass out. That’s when you saw us.”

  “Two minutes, Ri,” Eli says. “That’s how long you were gone.”

  I laugh. “Well, in there? In alternative-world Edinburgh? I was gone at least thirty minutes, if not more.”

  Another walking tour—this one small, only six people—moves toward us. The woman leading the tour is wearing a big black cape lined in deep purple. She has a mass of blond hair piled high on her head. She pauses as she passes me, and our eyes meet briefly. Not sure why, but I don’t think it’s my inked wings. I bank her features to memory. I’m in unfamiliar territory here. I trust no one. Or anything, now.

  We’re walking now, up toward the castle. We stop at a slight, supernarrow alley as another small walking tour emerges. “I’m Rob the Foul Clenger, and this is the real Mary King’s Close,” the man leading the tour announces in a thick brogue. “My job was to clean up the plague victims. Some say to this day those very souls wander Mary King’s Close, searching for various appendages that may have rotted off whilst sick.”

  Two young girls say “Eww” simultaneously.

  The group moves on, and I glance down the close. Tightly quartered, it’s dark, dank, and reeks of death. Even bygone death. I can smell it. The lamps cast a faint orange hue against the stone.

  “All the inhabitants died of the plague. Typhus. Cholera.” Jake says and shakes his head. “Nasty times.” He looks at Tristan. “Would’na want to go back there.”

  “Nor I,” Tristan agrees.

  We continue walking toward the castle. We pass many small passages, closes, wynds—whatever. No way am I ever going to be able to remember them all. There are too many.

  “I ran inside St. Giles’ and it wasn’t St. Giles’,” I say.

  “That’s because you touched a soul taken over by . . . whatever it was. It manipulated you, forced you into its world. Had you entered the church first, it would have been different. And I suspect the Fallen are behind it all,” Jake adds.

  “Swell,” I answer, and continue to note landmarks on my way, various shops and businesses—mostly tourist stuff—along the Mile. Finally, we make our way to the end, and I glance up at Edinburgh’s mighty castle, all lit up and majestic.

  Yet a heavy blanket of evil veils the area. Everywhere I look, I smell, I sense darkness, lurking in every shadow, close, wynd, and the many ye old shoppes lining the way. If it’s this ominous now and the Fallen are on downtime, I can only imagine what it’s like when they’re full force.

  I have a feeling I’ll find out soon enough.

  We walk the streets a bit longer, and a different sort of people emerge. The tourists, for the most part, pack it in for the night. The tartan shops, cafés, woolen mills, and bakeries close. Nightclubs open. Bars and pubs boom with activity. And along the Royal Mile, the city’s youth appear. Mostly in groups and having a rousing good time. Some with ink and piercings. Some Goth. Some all in a class of their own. Some just as ordinary as any suburbanite. Let them carouse. Because Hell is about to break loose.

  As we head back to the Crescent, another choking sense of dread overcomes me. I wonder what will happen once the Fallen emerge again with their hideous Jodís, and they realize help has arrived to eradicate them. I think it will be on. Us against them. And shit’s gonna hit the fan.

  I don’t wanna be in front of the fan.

  Back on Canongate, Tristan and I duck into Bene’s and order, well, just about everything. While we wait, I look at Tristan. “So. You used to be a fierce thirteenth-century knight. And a ghost.”

  He grins. “Still am. A fierce knight, that is. A ghost no longer.”

  I cock my head. “So how did it all happen? How did you . . . become human again?”

  Tristan nods. “Aye, well you see, it all began when—”

  “Wait, let me see for myself,” I say, and simply touch Tristan’s arm.

  I see his white smile before the air around me turns pitch-black, and then suddenly I’m in an ancient castle. At least I’m not nauseated anymore.

  I’m now Tristan . . .

  Tristan tried to rid his mind of everything, save the idiot before him. Quite a difficult task, knowing his woman, whom he’d never been able to so much as kiss, stood no more than twenty paces away. That would soon change.

  He breathed at a steady, even rate, his stare fixed as he slowly walked a predatory circle around Erik. Damnation, he could barely believe it. “What does it feel like to come back after all these centuries? After lying beneath that oak with twisted yew about your neck? To be a traitor? To take the lives of those you welcomed in to your hall? Gaining the trust of their fathers. Treating us like sons? Being our leader. Tell me, Erik.” He all but growled. “I want to know.”

  Erik, smooth and agile as ever, countercircled. “Feels bloody wonderful, to be truthful. I gave you everything, de Barre. My knowledge, my training skills—everything.” The cynical smile curving his lips made his face appear sinister. He thrust with a vicious strike. “What did you do for me in return?” He charged this time, and Tristan deflected the blade with his own. “You took my only child,” Erik said calmly. He paused, his face blank. “You took my life.”

  “Is that what you truly believe, Erik? That we killed your son?” Tristan said, blade outstretched. “’Twas an accident, and you well know it.”

  The pain on Erik’s face proved he did not. “Fifteen trained knights, and you couldn’t protect one small boy? Nay,” he said, his voice cracking. “’Twas no accide
nt. You allowed it.” He arced his blade. “Even seven centuries of being a damned soul isn’t enough of a repayment for what you took from me.” A smile touched his mouth. “Mayhap your life. Again.”

  The sickness his foster father suffered pained Tristan, but at the same time, he knew there would be no saving Erik. His mind had turned evil from hatred. But Tristan wanted to know everything, questions answered. He owed it to his men. He continued to circle. “Why Andrea?”

  Erik laughed. “Right place, right time. For me anyway.” He jabbed at Tristan. Her unfortunate employer happened to be the one to free me from that cursed yew, which allowed me to escape my tormented prison. One, I might add, my own sweet mother placed me in.”

  Tristan continued to circle, Erik following his lead. “How did you get their swords and helms?”

  Erik’s face hardened as he followed Tristan’s lead. “I gathered them after your men died in the dungeon. I’d already cursed them, you see, but their deaths came more slowly than yours.” He smiled. “I’d bound the armor and planned to bury them so no one would find them, but I hadn’t realized my own mother’s fealty rested elsewhere until . . . later.” He thrust the blade at Tristan, who sidestepped. “She followed me out to the hole I’d dug and all but took my bloody head off. Next thing I knew, I was here.”

  Tristan tapped his blade to Erik’s. “You didn’t know she’d placed a protective curse on the weapons herself, or that she’d taken my sword, penned a rather useful verse on it, and buried it?” He charged Erik. “Or that your mother’s spirit would contact Andi and lead her to it?”

  Erik returned the charge. “It doesn’t matter now. Does it?” He held up the blade in his hand, turning it side to side. Tristan’s blade. “Isn’t it odd, Dreadmoor, that you’re about to die a second death at the tip of your very own sword?” A smile slid to his mouth. “Thanks to Dr. Monroe, I have my life back. And more.”

  “Nay, you don’t.” Tristan moved toward Erik, the arc of his blade swiping the air.

  Erik attacked full force, anger turning his face bloodred. With vehemence, he charged.

  He waited for Erik to advance, coming within a few inches of Tristan’s neck. In a move the Dragonhawk had made famous, he deflected the steel and used his elbow to hammer a stunning blow to Erik’s jaw.

  Erik stumbled back, shook his head as if to gather his wits, then charged Tristan with a bloodcurdling yell. “I will not yield!”

  Tristan remembered the same words in the dungeon more than seven centuries before. Except this time, they were reversed.

  Ducking and missing the sword’s blow, Tristan fell to his knees and plunged the blade into Erik’s stomach. “Aye,” he said. “You will.”

  Their gazes locked, and Tristan watched the pupils in Erik’s eyes grow large until he staggered back and fell to the ground.

  Dead.

  Tristan’s breath came hard and fast, winded from the battle. Slowly, he rose and walked over to retrieve his sword. As he bent over, Erik’s body began to shake violently.

  “Tristan, move back!” Kail shouted.

  They all watched in horror as Erik, being the abomination that he was, convulsed faster and faster, his flesh peeling from his bones, his bones turning to dust. Back to where he belonged.

  The bailey fell silent. Tristan raised his head and stared at his men. His knights.

  “Someone remove that pile of dust from my keep.”

  All fourteen knights let out a battle cry worthy of a thousand men. No doubt the village heard.

  Then his eyes fell on Andrea. Taking powerful strides, he came to stand nose to nose with her, so close a whisper couldn’t pass. Her eyes widened, but before she could catch her breath Tristan swept her up, their lips nearly touching. His body shook, and he briefly wondered if he would fall over with pure joy.

  Andi stared at him, breathless, and for the first time, unable to speak.

  Tristan, on the other hand, had no trouble at all.

  “I love you. I vow you feel powerfully fair in my arms.”

  She tried to make her mouth move, but nothing came forth. Her tear ducts, on the other hand, worked just fine. Tears slid down her face. She lifted a hand and hesitantly touched first his cheek, traced his eyebrows, then ran her fingers through his hair. The sensation nearly made him drop her. She looked back up and still found her tongue lacking the muscle to speak. Tristan found better uses for it.

  He stared down at the woman in his arms. His woman. Her warmth spread across his bare chest, making his muscles quiver. Her trembling rocked him to the bone, even as he held her tight. He had dreamed of this moment for what seemed like eternity, and never did he believe it could possibly ever happen.

  And yet he felt the weighty proof in his arms.

  He searched her face with his eyes, not wanting to miss a single line, a single freckle—wanting to miss nothing. His own hand shook as he took off his glove with his teeth and set it aside. Lifting his hand to her cheek, he grazed it with the back of his knuckles. He tried to speak again, but found a solid lump in his throat, robbing his breath. He swallowed past it. “Damnation, Andrea, you’re powerfully soft.” He drew a deep breath, and his words flowed out on the exhale. “I vow I could hold you here and stare at your beautiful face for the rest of my days.”

  He watched tear after tear slide down her cheek as she stared up at him with those warm hazel eyes. He could wait no more. He bent his head close, his gaze trained on hers as his mouth settled comfortably over quivering lips. So warm and soft, he found himself craving more. He brushed his lips across hers several times, then with strained control, deepened the kiss. When her hand grasped the back of his neck and pulled him closer, it sent him over the edge. He tasted her, deeper and deeper, swallowing her gasp of surprise.

  Tristan lifted his head from Andi’s but didn’t break eye contact. Their lips were a whisper apart, and he could do nothing save stare and thank God and the saints above he had been given such a gift. His breathing panted with the effort of having to maintain control. He wanted her so badly, his insides shook. Suddenly, a loud snort sounded in the bailey. Only when a brave soul tapped him on the shoulder did he remember where he was and who was about.

  Tristan turned and glared at the snorter.

  His entire garrison formed a half circle around him.

  Tristan smiled down at Andi and set her back on the ground. He kept his arm tightly about her shoulder. She teetered a bit, and he gripped her tighter still. She stood, staring, eyes wide. Her lips moved and something came out, but, damn him, he couldn’t understand a word. Saints, but he missed his uncanny hearing ability.

  Lowering his head, he leaned toward her mouth. Her warm breath caressed his ear and neck, and he all but hit the floor from the impact of it. Shaking his head, he focused on her words.

  Her question floated out on a whisper. “How?”

  With a smile, he tapped her nose. “Nay, love. We’ve got time for questions such as that later.” His grin widened. “I have another question for you, and by the saints, I must ask it now before my nerve deserts me.”

  Her gaze remained fixed on his, following him all the way down as he knelt on bended knee. He cleared his throat and grasped Andi’s hand, unsure if the trembling came from hers or his own. More likely than not, ’twas both.

  “Andrea Kinley Monroe.” His voice came out hoarse and scratchy. He hoped she didn’t care. “I beg you, wed me. I vow you’ll not regret it.”

  He watched several more tears streak her reddened cheeks. A smile began in the corners of her mouth and crept into her eyes.

  “Yes.” So soft, he could barely hear her at first, but then she threw her arms about his neck and squeezed. “Yes! I’ll marry you!”

  Whistles and bellowing cheers from his knights erupted across the bailey, drifting on a North Sea breeze. Tristan looked into his love’s eyes and smiled, then stopped whatever words were about to make their escape from her lovely mouth. He, without a doubt in his medieval mind, kissed her good and
sound, leaving no question as to how much he loved her.

  And would do the like. Forever.

  My vision clears and alights on Tristan’s handsome face. I smile. “Oh, wow,” I say. “Now, that’s romantic, for sure. So your now wife read the verse that undid the curse and set you and your knights free. Then once you materialized into human form you killed your murderer, and he turned into a big pile of grossness.” I punch the big knight in his arm. “Quite a story, Dreadmoor.”

  Tristan’s sapphire blue eyes twinkle in the light of Bene’s streetlamp. “Aye, for a certainty.” His stare is intense. “And do not ever forget that, no matter how bleak something may appear, there is always hope.” He smiles. “Even hope in the most abnormal of times.”

  I give him a nod and a smile of understanding. “I will.”

  With four large white plastic bags filled with batter-fried haddock, chips, and several meat pies that all smell heavenly, Tristan and I step out onto Canongate and into a misty Edinburgh night. A couple passes us at the entrance, and the woman, dressed in a pair of dark tights, a brown wool miniskirt, and a wool hat, meets my gaze.

  I’d already banked her features to memory.

  She quickly looks away.

  “What is it?” Tristan asks as we cross the street. I glance over my shoulder. The woman is staring at me through Bene’s open doorway.

  “That woman,” I answer. “She’s the woman who led the walking tour earlier.”

  “Ms. Poe, we passed at least three walking tours,” Tristan says. “What bothers you?”

  We move past Tolbooth Tavern and into the archway of the wynd. I turn and glance back. The woman and man are both gone. “I don’t know,” I answer. “Something about the way she looks at me.”

  “Well you are a striking girl,” Tristan answers. “Might it just be that simple?”

  I give a short laugh as we near the Crescent’s gates. “I seriously doubt that.”

  We walk through the gates, and the moment we clear them they begin to close. Gravel crunches beneath our boots as we cross the courtyard, that ever-present and eerie angel in the fountain spurting water. Inside, the others are waiting for us in what Gabriel calls the common room. It sort of reminds me of Julian Arcos’s great hall, with a large fireplace taking up most of one wall, and several chairs, a sofa, and a large center table. On the walls, shelves of ancient-looking books. In the corner, an enormous desk with several volumes of . . . something opened. Sydney sits there, her head bowed over one of them.