Chapter Sixty-Eight
Nicole
TWO DAYS LATER, NICOLE AND KYAN LEFT THEIR HOTEL IN St Andrews.
The small Scottish town was home to the oldest university in the country, and as they wandered through to find a breakfast place – filled with students and views of the sea – it reminded her so much of Estwood that Nicole almost felt like she’d gone back in time.
This place, though, boasted three beaches, royal students, a ruined cathedral, and a Pictish sarcophagus.
The day before, they’d driven Remi back to Edinburgh, so she could get a flight to London and return to the Siren Archives while they headed to St Andrews.
If Remi could figure out the sea and sky locations of the next harp strings, then once they were all together she theorised that it would allow her to sense the harp itself.
Despite helping Nicole prepare last night for her meeting, and holding her throughout the night, Kyan had been reserved since they’d left Skye, and Nicole tried to think of not finding the Gáe Bolg as a good thing.
What havoc could it wreak in the wrong hands?
Maybe he could find a way to locate it, but it could take months, or the help of a very niche creature, and Kyan was sure Scáthach would have warded the weapon.
Research was their last bet at dealing with Alexander.
That, and the Druid.
They’d start tracking her afterwards, then let the family know their next move so they could reconvene.
But as they were shown to their seats in the café, Kyan looked at his phone and stiffened.
‘What?’ she asked.
He held it out to her and she read one panicked text.
‘THEY’VE KICKED ME OUT. I DON’T HAVE CONTROL. TRYING AGAIN NOW.’
Luca.
If they were no longer hidden from CCTV, their risk of the Wake finding them just went up.
She met Kyan’s eyes. They still had six days, but the removal of that layer of security chilled her. He almost touched her and it broke her heart to see him hesitate, as if worried they were being watched right this minute.
She tried to soothe herself as they ordered stacks of fluffy pancakes and hot coffee; as she listened to snippets of students discussing coursework and parties. But an hour later, she still felt uneasy.
Before they left, Kyan touched her leg beneath the table. ‘I’ll find you after your meeting.’
Nicole nodded. She couldn’t take him in with her when she was posing as a prospective student, so while she met the Pictish specialist, Kyan was heading to check out the sarcophagus.
The lecturer’s office was down one of the three main cobbled streets, busy with students and bikes and the steady, somehow comforting chug of cars.
The old stone and grassy quad made her wish they had longer to sit out under the sun and just breathe for a day, listening to the steady rush of the North Sea.
Soon, she found herself being let inside a sunny, well-loved office scenting of old books, coffee and lily of the valley.
Dr Kaner had replied to the email Nicole had sent in Dublin, and the enthusiastic response perfectly matched the woman before her.
She was somewhere in her early thirties and strikingly attractive, her blonde hair styled in a slightly scrappy chignon.
Her style was a mix of put-together and thoughtless ease, evidenced by the bit of blush and pink lipstick, paired with a white blouse and well-fitting tan slacks.
But the slightest honey-rose tan to her pale cheeks gave away her air of academic busyness, as if she’d sat in the sun whilst reading for too long and forgotten the time.
Books were crammed onto a slightly sagging set of bookshelves, their worn spines giving away her speciality: Scottish History.
Gaels. Q-Celtic Languages. Pictish Iconography.
A vase of happy-looking yellow flowers sat in a beam of sunlight, and a window was open to allow in the warmth and chatter from the street outside.
Nicole was surprised to see what looked like a real artefact in a glass box on the desk: a time-aged knife.
‘Hi, Nicole,’ the lecturer said with a smile. Her accent seemed to be a mix of American and Scottish. She leaned across the desk to shake Nicole’s hand, her eyes a sparkling, cornflower blue. ‘I’m Dr Kaner, but call me Chloe.’
Nicole instantly liked her and the familiarity of being back in an academic environment filled her with warm relief. She sank into the opposite chair, its cushion slightly squashed, and set her bag on the floor, Verin’s book inside.
They went through a few fake formalities based on what Nicole had lied about in her email. She’d claimed she was looking into masters programmes at different universities and was interested in Scottish history.
She lied flawlessly through it, wishing she didn’t have to. The yearning for a calm enough life where she was studying for joy momentarily cinching her throat.
Soon enough, they got to the grit of it.
‘So, you wanted to talk about different areas of Scottish history, particularly the Picts?’ Chloe asked, a pen hovering over the pad on her desk.
‘Yes, I thought you’d be the best person to come and talk to about them.’
Chloe smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘Well, I do have a bit of an obsession and you’re in the right place.’
Nicole had done some research on the obscure Scottish people but it consisted of whatever she could cram on a spotty internet connection and no recent access to a library.
‘I’d just really love to hear an overview from you about why you study them. What do you think makes them so unique as a society?’ Nicole asked, not needing to fake the urgency and intrigue in her voice.
Tell me anything that could help me reason with a Pictish Empyreal manipulated by a supernatural organisation.
‘Oh, well. One thing that’s always fascinated me is their name. It wasn’t what they called themselves – it was a name first given to them by the Romans in the third century. In Latin, Picti means “the painted ones”, for their distinctive blue tattoos.’
Intrigue or instinct ran down Nicole’s spine. So much of her life and the secrets of creatures had been hidden in artwork …
‘These tattoos, were they believed to have magical properties at all?’ Nicole asked. ‘I’m just thinking for the, er, socio and religious dynamics in the society, of course.’
‘Well, there’s very little information about them, unfortunately.’
‘Did they have kings? Leaders? What did they think about battle, and oaths, and – honour?’
‘Is your dissertation leaning towards kingship?’
‘Well, I’m just trying to get a rounded view to help decide.’
Chloe nodded approvingly, though it was evident from the light in her eyes that she could talk about this for hours. ‘Well, there were many kings of the Picts, some written about in the Irish Annals.’
Irish … Nicole tucked that away for later. ‘So—’
Her next question was swallowed by the door opening behind them. Nicole twisted, part of her expecting Kyan to have arrived early from the almost silent boot tread.
But someone else blocked out the light of the doorway, dressed in tactical black.
Alexander.
She hated the fear that shot into her throat. Hated that as he came for her and she stood quickly, upending the chair, she wasn’t prepared.
And then his hand was around Nicole’s throat.
‘Hey!’ shouted Chloe. ‘Get off her!’
Nicole’s feet left the floor and the wall met her back as he slammed her against it. Stars danced in her vision as the breath ripped from her lungs.
Nicole swung her legs up to kick him between his. It gratified something in her to see him jolt – evidently he was still a man beneath the mutation, and not just a killing machine.
But he was too strong. Far too strong. And already Nicole could feel darkness creeping in. She wrapped her legs around his waist to try to stop gravity tightening his grip. But his physical power and the blankness in the eyes near hidden by the slash of his mask was so intense—
She reached for his face to try and dig her fingers into his eyes. He slapped her hands away so she scrabbled with his wrist to claw beneath the leather to skin, hoping contact would give her a vision that would save her, wishing she could will herself to transform.
But Empyreals didn’t trigger transformations in other ones.
‘Help!’ Chloe screamed as she swung the chair Nicole had been sitting in against his back.
It only shattered. He didn’t move.
‘Don’t,’ Nicole wheezed. She couldn’t involve more people. He’d been changed, she could see in his eyes, to kill anyone. ‘Run.’
But the historian didn’t. Instead, she reached for the ancient blade on her desk, and with only a moment’s hesitation, brought it down on Alexander’s arm.
Despite its rusted hilt, it somehow tore through the material to the blue tattoos beneath, which momentarily glowed in Nicole’s periphery.
Chloe ripped off his mask from behind, trying to gain some sort of purchase, and then his face filled Nicole’s fading vision.
The face of the man that killed her mother.
The face that had been painted in the Dante piece.
Who Kyan was supposed to have killed over a hundred years ago.
Alexander’s features were hewn and feral, his hair a dark red and shorn short. And his eyes: there was no understanding him, no stopping him.
There was nothing there but the ferocity of a killer.
She’d tried to study her way out of a fucking murderer’s path. She was an idiot.
‘Go to sleep,’ he growled, and amid the blackness that flushed across her vision, was surprise that he could indeed speak. That he could Influence her.
Her last thoughts before it overtook her were, He’s taking me away from them, I can’t let him find them—
And then she heard Chloe say something: some strange language she’d never heard before.
Alexander let go of her, but she barely had a chance to relish the rush of air back into her lungs as the ground rushed up instead.