Veiled Threat (7 page)

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You need to go see a good dentist. I can see all your teeth and, sister, they ain’t looking good.’

‘Bob,’ I said faintly, closing my mouth so I no longer looked like a guppy. ‘You’re riding the Foinse.’

He beamed. ‘I know! I think Foinse is a daft name though. I’m going to call it Draoidheachd instead. That’s Gaelic for magic,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘I’ve been practising the spelling. You Scottish people don’t half make life difficult for yourselves. Anyway, let me tell you, having this kind of power between my legs makes me realise why all those women love me so much.’ He flung an arm up into the air. ‘Giddy up!’ The Foinse didn’t move. Bob frowned. ‘Come on. Let’s go that way!’

Rather than flying in off in the direction Bob wanted, the Foinse gently lowered itself down and brushed – or, truth be told, nuzzled – my cheek. It felt oddly warm and pleasant.

‘What is it doing here?’

‘Uh Integrity,’ Bob said patiently. ‘I am a magnificent being with powers you can only dream of. I have told you this many times. However, the source of all Highland magic does not speak, even to a wondrous personage such as myself.’

The magic in my veins buzzed. I scratched my head. ‘Kirsty’s Gift still works,’ I said quietly. ‘In fact, it feels stronger than normal.’

‘So?’

‘The last time I encountered the Foinse...’

‘Draoidheachd,’ Bob prompted.

‘Dree...’ I rolled my eyes. ‘I can’t even begin to pronounce that. The last time I encountered the Foinse, being close to it nullified all Gifts. This is different.’ I gave the orb a suspicious look, as if it were some kind of imposter.

Bob’s expression turned serious. ‘You of all people should understand just how powerful freedom can be. Truth, liberty and justice for all.’ He glanced sidelong at me. ‘I helped write the American pledge of allegiance, you know. I wanted it to be truth, liberty and cake for all but they seemed to think justice was better. Ha! Goes to show what
they
knew.’ He snapped his fingers and produced a cupcake, then buried his face in its icing and made sounds of approval.

‘It’s free,’ I said quietly.

‘I already said that,’ Bob told me through a mouthful of crumbs.

‘It’s happy.’ I reached out a hand, thought better of it and withdrew it. ‘So the magic is stronger.’

‘Freedom,’ Bob agreed. ‘George Michael was right when he sang about it.’

‘Careless,’ I whispered back with a wink.

The Foinse pulled back and started to shake. Bob tossed the remnants of the cake away and hopped off, landing on my shoulder. Still agog at its appearance, I continued to watch it. ‘I wonder if it’s been here all the time since I freed it from the box in the mountains.’

‘None of those Sidhe would have thought to look for it here,’ Bob agreed.

I felt a sudden gnawing worry. ‘Some of them thought I’d stolen it to keep it for myself. Even Chandra thought that.’

‘They didn’t really believe it, though. They just don’t like you. They wanted something they could hang that hatred on to,’ Bob said with surprising insight.

I pointed at the Foinse. ‘It’s here, on my land. If anyone finds out, everyone will think I really did nick it.’ My insides tightened. ‘With Aifric’s assassination attempts failing, he’s going to do the next best thing.’

The genie nodded wisely. ‘Go on a booze cruise in Ibiza.’

‘No, you idiot. He’s going to discredit me.’ The Foinse hummed louder. ‘And if anyone finds out the Foinse is here, he won’t have to try very hard.’

‘You’re being paranoid.’

I shook my head. ‘No. I’m not.’ I bit my bottom lip. ‘There’s a reason it took four Clans to unlock the way to the Foinse in the first place: nobody wants anyone else to have more power than they have. The Foinse is the source of all magic; it provides more power than most people could ever dream of. The Sidhe designed a system to keep it away and keep the Clans honest. If it’s here on these Lands, it will look like I’m trying to grab all that power for myself.’

Bob pondered this. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘there’s probably only one thing you can do.’

‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘Grab all that power for yourself.’ I rolled my eyes and he sighed patiently. ‘Then no one will want to get angry about it because you’ll zap them. It’ll be like you have your own phaser. Instead of setting it to stun though, you’ll use it to kill.’

‘As much fun as it would be to have a phaser if we were on the Starship Enterprise, I can guarantee that right now you and me would be wearing red shirts.’

Bob winced. ‘Red really isn’t your colour.’

As if bored of all this talk, the Foinse shot up into the air, doing a dramatic loop-the-loop and then shooting off back the way it came. It disappeared round the far side of the mansion, its silver shimmer swallowed up by the inky night.

At my feet, Speck stirred. ‘Wha...?’

‘Shh,’ I said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

He murmured something, turned over and his snoring started up again.

‘Out of sight, out of mind?’ Bob asked.

I stared off in the direction the Foinse had flown. More shite to worry about. ‘If only, Bob,’ I sighed. ‘If only. If this sort of thing keeps up, I’m going to be making apocalypse jokes like there’s no tomorrow.’

T
he next morning, as we breakfasted over a delectable mix of stale rolls, salt-and-vinegar crisps and Irn Bru and I tried to think of a way to gently break it to my friends that we were harbouring the root of all Scottish magic, I spotted Speck flexing his fingers and looking confused.

‘What’s up?’

He pressed his lips together. ‘I dunno. I feel ... strange.’

Lexie leaned over and caressed his cheek then her fingers trailed teasingly down his body. He jerked away. ‘You’re right,’ she said with a grin, ‘you
do
feel strange.’

‘Piss off.’ He scowled. ‘It has to be the effect of sleeping out in the open. It’s playing havoc with my sinuses.’

Somehow I bet it was a lot more than that. ‘Speck,’ I said slowly, ‘when was the last time you tried a spell?’

‘Hogmanay,’ Lexie said, answering for him. ‘He tried to do those fireworks, remember?’

‘That wasn’t my fault!’ Speck protested. ‘The average person can only concentrate for a maximum of twenty minutes and the display you wanted involved a lot more than that!’

I grimaced. Oh yeah: instead of pretty explosions of light, we were treated to an out-of-control Catherine wheel that burned off Taylor’s eyebrows. Speck was a warlock but, truthfully, that didn’t mean much. Few warlocks could control their magic and they tended to err on the side of dismal failure. In fact, many of them were so clueless that they often died young as a result of magical experiments that went horribly wrong. When Speck was at his best, he could conjure up enough magic to bust open a padlock; at his worst, he burnt down entire buildings when it all went tits up. The Sidhe might be limited to whatever their own personal Gifts dictated but at least they had absolute control over what they could do.

I decided to throw caution to the wind. ‘Try now,’ I said.

He stared at me. ‘You’re inviting me to do a spell?’

Brochan put down his cup carefully, stood up and backed away. Even Taylor looked alarmed. ‘Tegs, I don’t think...’

‘Shhh.’ I twisted round. ‘You see that window up there? On the right? It’s about the only one that’s not been broken.’

‘I see it,’ Speck said warily.

‘Can you open it? With your magic, I mean?’

He paled slightly and swallowed. ‘Sure.’

I glanced at the others. ‘Maybe we should all move away. Just in case.’

‘You realise he might blow up your ancestral home?’ Lexie whispered loudly. Speck threw her a nasty look.

I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘It’s one way to sort out the mess inside.’

Speck wiped his mouth and stood up. Lexie squeaked and ran behind Brochan. I stayed where I was. Speck closed his eyes and pointed upwards. ‘Aperio!’

I held my breath as we all stared up at the window. Speck opened one eye and squinted. ‘Huh,’ he grunted. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘Thank the Highland heavens!’ Lexie stepped out from her temporary cover just as there was a sudden creak.

I kept my eyes trained upwards. With what appeared to be a mighty effort, the window swooped open. Unfortunately it also swung round and smacked itself against the stone wall, immediately shattering into a thousand tiny shards which tinkled to the ground.

Speck blew air through pursed lips. ‘Almost.’

Hm. I yanked my gaze away and looked at him. ‘How do you feel?’

I received a suspicious glare in return. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Humour me.’

He twitched. ‘Fine.’

‘Any different to normal?’

An awkward expression crossed his face. ‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘I feel more ... tingly than usual.’

‘What’s this all about, Tegs?’ Taylor asked.

I took a bite out of my roll. It really was almost inedible. I chewed vigorously for a moment then swallowed and, without further preamble, told them. ‘The Foinse’s here,’ I said.

Speck flung his head around wildly. ‘Where?’

‘It’s not
here
here,’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s just ... here.’

‘On these Lands?’ Brochan rumbled, understanding my garbled attempt at an explanation.

I nodded. Taylor whistled. ‘That’s amazing! We can sell it off for more money than any of us have ever dreamed of! Forget the Sidhe, I’ve got a few contacts in China. I bet they’d be keen to part with a considerable amount of yuan. Or there was that dodgy American businessman I met at...’

‘Taylor.’

He pasted on an innocent expression. ‘What?’

‘It’s a free agent, not a slave to be bought and sold.’

‘It’s a thing. It’s not a person.’

I looked up at him. ‘Frankly, we don’t really know what it is. Besides, it belongs in Scotland.’

‘Yes, but just think of all that money!’

I tutted.

Brochan was still watching me. ‘You want to know if the Foinse being here is affecting Speck’s magic.’

‘Yep.’

He didn’t move a muscle. ‘Is it affecting yours?’

‘I don’t have much magic left in me to experiment with other than truth-telling and its presence isn’t blocking that.’

‘Speck tried. You should too.’ He pointed at the distant tree. ‘You’ve still got that Carnegie woman’s Gift, right?’

‘A bit of it. I think.’

‘Then,’ Brochan said quietly, ‘make the tree grow.’

‘I think it’s already dead.’ I paused. ‘What’s wrong with the lonely fir tree? It’s pining to be poplar.’

Nobody smiled. ‘Go on, Tegs,’ Lexie said. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

I wagged my finger at her. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.’ I ran my hand through my hair, teasing out the ends. ‘Fine.’ I stood up and walked towards it.

It was further away than it looked and, when I finally reached it, it was in an even sorrier state than I’d realised. I touched the gnarled bark; it felt cold and dead. This was never going to work.

‘Think positive,’ Taylor said from right behind me.

I jumped. ‘How can you do that?’ I complained. ‘How can you always know what I’m thinking?’

His eyes were warm. ‘I know you.’

I muttered something uncomplimentary and stared back at the tree. I reached down inside myself, feeling the tug of Morna Carnegie’s nature-based Gift. Then, not knowing what else to do, I flicked my fingers at the tree. ‘Grow,’ I commanded. Needless to say, nothing happened.

‘I don’t think that’s how you do it,’ Lexie said.

I grimaced at her. ‘Any suggestions then?’

Speck cleared his throat. ‘Look inside the tree itself. If there’s a spark of life left in it, you can focus on that.’

I bit my tongue to avoid snapping that I didn’t have X-ray vision. Instead, I nodded and tried it. I screwed up my face and hunched my shoulders, focusing all my energy on the tree. ‘It’s not working. Nothing’s happening.’ Morna’s Gift swirled through me. ‘Nope,’ I declared. ‘It can’t be done.’

‘Tegs,’ Taylor said. ‘Look.’

I opened my eyes properly. ‘What?’

He pointed to the furthest branch. ‘Right there.’

I sucked in a breath. He was right: at the very tip of the long, skeleton-like branch was a single little bud. ‘Oh.’

‘That’s power over life and death,’ Speck breathed.

I could taste something unpleasant on my tongue. ‘No. It’s not. It’s just...’ I cursed. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

Brochan nodded. ‘She’s right. It’s hardly a scientific experiment. She might have been able to do that without the Foinse.’

‘
She
is standing right here,’ I muttered.

Taylor slapped me on the back. ‘And
she
needs to stop over-thinking and get going. Tree or no tree, you’ve got a Chieftain to sweet talk.’

I watched the bud for a moment. It was a tiny splash of green against the almost black tree. Extraordinary. Goose pimples danced along my arms. ‘Yeah,’ I said finally. ‘It’s time to go.’

***

T
he one good thing was that the MacBain Clan Lands weren’t far away. The MacBains were lucky not to be located as dangerously close to the Veil as the Adair Lands were. I managed to reach them before it was time for a mid-morning snack. I took Bob with me for company but, after his night flying around on the Foinse, he was inside his letter opener and refusing to come out. All the same, I kept him close to me, attached to my belt for quick and easy access if necessary.

I halted at the border, which was signified by a monstrous flagpole displaying the MacBain colours. Unlike the Cruaich, which was open to all Sidhe, the magical border here wouldn’t permit me entrance unless I already had permission. The different Clans were too wary of each other’s machinations to let just anyone wander in.

I stepped up and pressed my palm against the border and received a mild electric shock in return. Hopefully that would be enough to alert any nearby guards. Then I hopped onto the bonnet of the car and waited. It didn’t take long. A figure appeared from a distant guard house, marching down the road towards me. Troll. That figured; the Sidhe always used trolls as guards.