Black Fallen (8 page)

“Och, damn, I’d have remembered her,” the other boy offers, nodding toward my cheek.
“Wicked ink.”

I look at him. “Thanks. Maybe I was there. Been to several. Where is it?”

“Just up the way. Niddry Street,” he answers. “Come on, let’s go,” he says to the
others.

Ian smiles at me. “Wanna come?”

Flattered, I smile. “Maybe next time.”

Ian and I share a look just before he and the others take off. I can’t tell if he
remembers anything at all about what and how a Jodís had taken over him, but I can
definitely tell something happened between us. I’ll talk to Jake and the others first.
Maybe they can tell me something about what just happened.

I watch the guys turn and head down the Mile and turn off onto a side street. Only
then do I glance back at St. Giles’.

It’s enormous. Beautiful. I’m tempted to peek inside, just to see if it would be all
crumbly like I’d seen it . . . before. Whatever that was.

“Riley?”

When I turn, Eli, Tristan, and Jake are standing behind me. I look at Jake first.
“What the Hell, Andorra? Something was inside that kid.”

Jake rubs his chin. “Aye, I know.” The light from the streetlamp is shining behind
him, causing his entire face to be in shadows. “Angels. Fallen angels. Jodís. Demons.
Evil spirits. Witches.” He cocks his head at me. “You do know where you’re at, dunna
ya? Edinburgh’s black past is full of them all, and they come hand in hand. Each have
naturally been integrated in Edinburgh’s dark past.” He shrugs. “We just typically
keep them under control.”

I glance toward the direction the boys went. “Well, they’re not all under control.”

“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 accident. 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.