Scotland
Every day it was harder to rise. The cold got deeper into Victor’s bones, and his face looked back at him sallow and wan from his shaving mirror.
Victor wondered whether it was this curse or just the agony of feeling burning his vitality away twice as fast. The woman who shared his compartment kept offering him sweet pastries from her tin and looking worried when he refused them.
When they arrived, Ayan McClean was waiting for him at the train stop.
Victor hadn’t been given a description, but he knew it was him. He was about Victor’s height, with a wild red beard and red hair dashed through with white. His eyes were hard steel as the train pulled into the station, locked on Victor’s face as the train went by.
Victor grabbed his things and stumbled down the steps onto the platform. Ayan parted the crowd as he marched to him, people leaping out of his way, even though he could hardly be described as imposing in size.
When he was close enough to spit on, Victor understood why. Ayan radiated heat like a furnace and smelled strongly of smoke.
“Mr. McClean?” Victor started.
But the man didn’t reply. He just grabbed Victor by the ear, turned, and started marching down the platform. Victor cried out in pain and stumbled behind him.
Ayan kept his thick fingers locked on Victor’s ear for blocks, until they reached his home. Victor eventually stopped whimpering and just allowed it to happen. Turning his head until the angle was comfortable and walking that way even though the townspeople laughed at him as they passed.
Ayan’s house smelled just like he did, and Victor could tell that they were near before they arrived.
Ayan unlocked his door and threw Victor inside. Victor crashed to the ground and rolled over.
“Ayan!” a woman’s voice cried.
“Get the strap, Moira,” Ayan growled.
Victor scrambled to his feet. He was not about to be beaten by someone who was not his father.
“Wait!” he cried.
Ayan advanced with a furious shout, snatching a length of leather from the wall.
“Stop, Ayan! Can’t you see he’s ill!” Moira cried.
“And he’s about to be worse.” Ayan McClean crouched, blocking the front door, daring Victor to run. Victor took a moment to think, then turned on his heel and rushed deeper into the house.
He passed Moira, who looked the right age to be Ayan’s wife, and flew into the back of the home in search of a window or door.
There was a girl of about eight sitting at the table and peeling apples. She startled as Victor burst into the kitchen, dropping the knife she was holding.
He stared at her for a half second, then remembering himself, ran out the back door and into the yard. He could hear Ayan hollering behind him, his large boots stomping the floor.
Victor sprinted across the yard, getting closer and closer to the back fence. He reached out for the latch. But before his hand met steel, he was jerked backward hard.
Ayan lifted him high, higher than Bradley had and shook him.
“You foul, doaty bampot! You godless, merciless waste!” Ayan shouted.
“Da, no!”
Ayan lassoed Victor’s neck with the strap from the wall in one terrifyingly competent snap of his wrist, pinning him to the fence.
“Stay where y’are, Isla,” Ayan warned. “Let him take his.”
Victor trembled. “What are you doing?”
“These are for Elias. He needs me to give ’em to you and I shan’t disappoint,” Ayan growled.
Victor’s blood went cold.
He heard an ominous swish and then a line of fire spread across his backside. Victor gasped and the talisman Bradley had given him fell out of his mouth. Immediately, his body settled into a strange calm that overshadowed his panic and pain.
Somewhere Elias was at this moment feeling very relaxed and calm. A strange pleasure settled over Victor, like a bath after a long day or the sea after a full day of sun.
Victor went slack. He could feel Ayan behind him doing his absolute worst, but somehow in this calm it didn’t matter. His shouts were second to this, and for the first time ever Victor was thankful he and Elias were sharing emotions.
In a daze, he wondered if it went both ways. He couldn’t bear it if Elias was feeling Ayan’s rage instead of him, if he ruined whatever was making Elias feel so good. That thought cleared his head at once.
He could feel the whippings slowing behind him. He reached down and plucked the piece of gold from the ground, slipping it in between his lips.
Immediately, his own pain came roaring through, and his reality slammed back into focus. He groaned.
“Let that be a lesson to ya,” Ayan said. “Now go.”
Victor stumbled as Ayan released the leather around his neck. “You saw Elias?”
Ayan huffed. “He’s looking for ye boyo, and after the tale he told, I hope he finds ye. Now get out of my home. Ye can’t stay here.”
Moira rushed from the house. “Can’t you give him a moment to get his bearings?”
“I won’t have another murderer in the house with Isla, and that’s the last of it!” Ayan roared. He whirled on Victor. “Get! Out!”
Victor didn’t need to be told again. He scrambled the rest of the way over Ayan’s fence and ran.
He took a carriage out of town. He didn’t want to lodge too closely to Ayan and risk running into him again. His boat tickets for Ireland weren’t good for a few days anyway.
Besides that, he needed to rest. His chest was starting to make some alarming wheezing sounds when he breathed, and if he walked for too long, he felt faint.
No amount of beef and soup made him feel strong for more than the hour after he consumed them, and he was able to count his ribs.
Victor curled up on these Scottish linens and willed his back to stop hurting. Hoped again that Elias couldn’t feel the pain on his end.