“So it makes sense he would have gone west then?”
Eilidh shrugged. “A faerie could theoretically mask his presence. So it’s possible he could have hidden from me.” Munro sighed. “But, remember,” she continued, “Griogair said his son wasn’t strong or well-trained. It would take a great deal of energy to keep up such an enchantment. When I was in exile, I decided to make it as easy for myself as possible. I stayed near the cities, where the kingdom influence is almost non-existent. I hid from humans, which is much easier than hiding from the fae.”
“What about Dundee? It’s a much bigger city than Perth. Is there a gate closer than Ashdawn?”
Eilidh shook her head. “No, we do not build gates too near the eastern sea. The waterfae are no friend to faeries of Caledonia. “
Munro looked at her. “There are faeries in the sea?”
Eilidh nodded. “Strange creatures. Powerful and ancient, but they look as much like fish as they do the fae.”
Munro stared at her a moment, then looked back to the map. “Even narrowing it down to Dundee makes it difficult. It’s a city of a hundred and fifty thousand, with even more in outlying areas.” He tapped his phone screen and it went black. He slipped the device into his pocket and turned to look at Eilidh. “What kind of magic can we do? If we’re relying on me alone, without anything to go on but a vague direction, I’m not sure what our chances are. I want to help Griogair, but if our plan is just to go out and start wandering around until we find the kid, the whole thing sounds like a waste of time.”
Eilidh frowned. “I don’t have to see him. Just be close to him.”
“Eilidh, if I was approaching this situation as a cop would, I’d be talking to his friends, his mother, the Watchers who might have let him pass, checking bank details and phone records. A trail like this, especially one so long cold, isn’t going to be made up of bent twigs and footprints. We need to talk to the people who know him best. We need to get Griogair to change his mind, otherwise…”
“That’s not possible,” Eilidh said. “He has already taken too great a risk, just by allowing you into the Otherworld.”
Suddenly Munro’s head whipped around. “Holy Christ!”
“What?” Eilidh asked.
“Didn’t you see that?”
“See what?”
“Come on,” he said.
“Quinton? Come where?” Eilidh could feel him almost quivering with excitement, but she couldn’t understand the source.
“I don’t know,” he said, and he pointed his finger toward the road. “That way.”
Munro ran like his legs would carry him forever, heading southeast, generally following along the A9. He stayed away from the road, and Eilidh came close behind. It felt so good to run, he thought. He had no idea what had happened to him in the Otherworld, why he suddenly felt not only healed from his injuries, from the draining of his life-force, but better than he’d ever felt. He was stronger and more agile, like some kind of X-Man superhero.
The blue blaze he’d seen in the sky flashed so suddenly and lasted only a fraction of a second, so he couldn’t judge how far away it was. When they reached the River Earn, about six miles away from the city, he stopped. He growled in frustration.
“What?” Eilidh asked, with more than a little impatience. “What are you chasing, Quinton?”
“A flash,” he said. “It was this way, but now I don’t know how far to go.”
“What makes you think it has anything to do with Trath?”
“I don’t know that it does. But it wasn’t natural.” He just had a hunch. He couldn’t explain to Eilidh. She knew about magic, but to her, it was like science, easy to explain. His hunches were just a feeling. He didn’t know if it was Trath at all, but it was something strange, magical, and
wrong
. He didn’t like to admit he thought the whole thing with Trath was going to come to nothing. Trath sounded like a young man who hated his parents and had run away. People who didn’t want to be found often weren’t. Simple as that. And it wasn’t like they could track his mobile GPS.
Suddenly, Munro got an idea. He pulled out his phone again, but grumbled when he got no bars. “We should keep going. I can get some reception in Aberuthven.”
“Quinton, will you please tell me what you’re doing?”
“Where’s the nearest gate this way?” Munro asked and gestured further southeast.
Eilidh paused and considered. “The Moonstone gate is that way,” she said. “But I’d say we’re about half-way between it and Ashdawn.”
“If you were trying to get here without being seen by kingdom faeries, would you take Moonstone?”
A smile crept across Eilidh’s face as she understood what he was getting at. “No.”
“No,” Munro said. “Because there’s nothing but forest. This way, you could come along the highway. Faeries hate the highways. And southeast?”
“Firearch, but it’s near a place I believe you call Carron.”
“So if you wanted to go this far, you’d come through Ashdawn. Anywhere between here and Dunblane.”
Eilidh nodded. “All right. Let’s go then.”
“Pay attention,” he said. “Tell me if you feel anything. He might be close—if we’re right.”
They started to run again, this time with more purpose, covering the next two miles in what felt like an instant, despite the rough terrain they had to negotiate to avoid being seen from the highway. His new strength made him want to laugh out loud with joy. It distracted him, and he had to focus to keep his mind off the exhilaration pumping through his body and on the task at hand.
They stopped close to the village of Aberuthven, and Munro scrolled down on his mobile’s contact list to call his partner, Andrew Getty.
As usual, Getty didn’t bother saying hello when he answered Munro’s call. “Heard you went to Skye.”
“Eilidh’s got some friends up there,” Munro said quickly, then added, “Need a favour.” The pair didn’t chit-chat, and they both liked it that way.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“You know those thefts reported lately down the A9? What’s the latest word on them?” He’d been briefed at the beginning of his shifts about the mad string of breakins. It was unusual for the area, but like everyone else, Munro chalked it up to drug users breaking into cars and sheds. People reported broken windows and missing tellys when they’d gotten home from a night out.
“Aye, funny you should ask. Just a bit ago we got a treble-nine from someone claiming they were being robbed. The call went strange though. We’ve got people on the way now.”
“Strange how?”
“Not sure. Anyway, the control room got cut off, and it might be nothing. But considering the recent problems, they’re sending a unit to check it out.”
“Where?”
“Auchterarder. Fordyce Way. Do you know something?”
“Nope,” Munro said. “I’ll give you a call if there’s anything.” The promise was vague, but the pair knew each other well enough to accept that Munro would tell Getty everything he could make sense of. They’d both come to appreciate that Munro often got hunches he couldn’t explain and had a way of being at the right place at the right time. Or, in Munro’s mind, the right place at the
wrong
time. “Cheers,” he said.
“Yep,” Getty replied, and they both hung up.
Munro looked at Eilidh. “A couple more miles.” They took off again, slowing a few minutes later as they circled the village of Auchterarder. It was a small place, with only a few thousand residents, but with it being the home of the famous Gleneagles hotel and golf course, it had a certain shine to it some villages didn’t.
Eilidh seemed put out, but Munro couldn’t figure out why. “What’s wrong?” he asked, as they picked their way through the last of the dense brush, heading to the main street.
She muttered the enchantment to create her human face and ears, then revealed her jeans and t-shirt, scowling the entire time. “You think all fae are thieves,” she said.
“I think people off the grid do what they have to do.” He shrugged. He didn’t approve, but now wasn’t the time to have this discussion. He understood why Eilidh had to steal to survive when she lived on the streets. He didn’t
like
it, but he understood. “Getty said a call just came in on Fordyce Way. That might be where the flash came from. Let’s check it out.”
His body thrummed with the power of the Otherworld, so much that it jangled his nerves. He had no idea how Eilidh could stand this intense rush without jumping out of her skin, but she gave no sign that the Otherworld had done anything other than relax her. He needed to move.
It was still full dark, but Munro’s eyesight stayed keen. He suddenly understood why the fae preferred the dark. It had a calm quiet about it. And because he could see as well now as he could at high noon, it took on a whole other feeling. Eilidh watched him closely, and her attention pressed into his mind. He knew she must be questioning the changes in him, but she didn’t say a word. They walked toward Fordyce Way, but instead of having to move slowly and silently, they ran, knowing if a human happened to see them, he’d just rub bleary eyes and assume it was his imagination or the glow of the street lamps playing tricks on his eyes.
Munro calculated it wouldn’t take long for the beat cops to turn up this time of night. Auchterarder had its own small police station that was part of the Tayside region. It didn’t give them much time, considering they’d come all the way from Perth. He motioned Eilidh toward the end of the cul-de-sac. “Feel anything?” he whispered. He glanced at her in the darkness as they crept up to a house, hugging the wall of someone’s garage.
Eilidh grumbled with frustration. “It’s strange.”
“What?” He had half-hoped that his newfound strengths would mean he too could sense whatever it was that told her if a faerie was nearby, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. But then his nerves were still hyped up on Otherworld air.
“I feel something, but it is unfamiliar.” Her eyes shone as she peered around the various houses. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but from the frustration he detected in her mind, she didn’t either.
“Fae?”
“Yes, and it’s no magic of the Ways of Earth.”
“Astral?” he asked. He knew the only surviving magic of the Path of Stars was either blood magic or astral. He hoped they weren’t dealing with another blood faerie. Not since the last one he’d met had broken his ribs in several places.
“No.” She frowned. “This is like nothing I have ever touched before. It is completely alien to me.”
They moved from their hiding place closer to the address the 999 call had come from. Munro felt it in his bones. Something had happened here. He understood Eilidh’s uneasiness, though, because his hunch was taking on a different flavour than he’d ever experienced.
Glad that the ground was hard from the cold winter, they stepped to the side gate. With a gloved hand, he silently lifted the latch. Just as he swung the gate open, he heard a car approach. “Shit.” Then to Eilidh, “They’re here.”
It was only then he noticed Eilidh’s eyes were fixed near the back door, which stood open. “This was the source,” she said quietly.
“We have to go,” Munro insisted. Just as he turned, a movement caught his eye. He spun back, and a figure appeared in the garden. It didn’t slip out of the shadows, it
appeared.
“What the…?”
He caught the sharp silhouette of a curved ear as the figure turned toward the sound of his voice and heard a faint mutter. As quickly as it had appeared, it vanished.
A car door shut in front of the house. Munro heard the familiar squawk of a police radio. They couldn’t leave by the front now, and he couldn’t get caught here. Eilidh seemed to sense his urgency. She pulled him into the back garden and left the gate banging in the breeze. With practised steps, she glided over the stone path toward the fence, vaulting over it with ease. Munro copied her movements, although he felt more awkward. He found his magically enhanced speed and strength made up for the lack of grace, and he landed easily on the other side.
They snuck through the other back garden and onto the street toward the town centre, moving quickly, but with Eilidh able to glide more silently than he. Something cold touched his cheek, and Munro looked up. Snowflakes like fat goose feathers floated from above. It was only then Munro realised that despite the wind and the wet, he wasn’t cold at all.
Munro watched Eilidh go through the Ashdawn gate, savouring the rich air coming through it. He hadn’t realised how long he’d stared at it until rustling brush made him realise he wasn’t alone. He turned warily, then stood stock still as one by one, Watchers filed past him, stepping into the Otherworld. As the sun rose, the last in line shut the gate behind him. It locked with a strange clanging echo, then shimmered out of sight.
He hoped Eilidh made it to the gate nearest Skye before it closed, but he knew she could travel quickly in the Otherworld. He hadn’t understood it, but he also wasn’t surprised to hear the normal laws of physics didn’t quite apply.