Bourn’s Edge Read online

  “You didn’t have to,” continued Cassie. “We could have run out the front door, got to safety, called the police.”

  Tarian wiped her hands on a towel. “There was no time.” Her tone was cool.

  Cassie had thought she was getting to know Tarian, but now she wasn’t so sure. She forced herself to step into the studio. “But to kill them, just like that.” No normal woman could have done it, or been so calm about it afterwards. Who is she? Her heart thumped. What is she?

  “They don’t deserve your pity, Cassie.” Pale blue eyes held her gaze. “They were warned off but they came back. They would have killed the dogs, then me, then you.”

  “But how do you know they weren’t just burglars?”

  Tarian crouched beside one of the men and pulled up the stocking mask. “Recognise him?”

  Cassie shook her head.

  Tarian searched the man’s pockets but came away empty. She rose and moved on to the next corpse. This time, when she pulled up the stocking mask, Cassie let out a gasp. The broken nose and heavy brows were familiar.

  “You know him,” stated Tarian.

  Cassie nodded. White van man would never smile that snaggle-toothed smile again.

  Tarian went through his pockets and pulled out what looked like a photograph, folded in half. She smoothed it and handed it to Cassie.

  There was a roaring in her ears as she found she was looking at herself. The photo had been taken a fortnight ago. She was coming out of Birmingham Crown Court. Someone had scribbled over it in magic marker: “This is the bitch. Get rid of her.” She forced herself to breathe, and the roaring faded.

  “They came to kill you,” repeated Tarian.

  Cassie licked her lips and looked up. “But I—But you—How—?” She didn’t know what to think. Relief that the men were no longer a threat warred with suspicion and disbelief. Something of her confusion must have shown, because Tarian’s expression gentled.

  “Go home, Cassie. Let me take care of this.”

  “But I’ll need to be here when the police come, won’t I?”

  “I’m not going to call the police.”

  Cassie’s fear returned, doubled. “What? But you have to. Someone will report them missing, and the trail will lead here.”

  “I’ll make sure the trail goes cold.”

  “Don’t be stupid. Forensics—”

  “Will find nothing. Trust me.”

  Ah, but that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? “How can I?” asked Cassie, after a long pause. “After what you and your dogs just did?” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. Are you”—an urge to giggle surfaced, and she clamped down on it; now was not the time for hysteria—“are you even human?”

  Some emotion flickered across Tarian’s face—regret, sadness?—but when she spoke there was no hint of it in her voice. “It doesn’t matter. I’m no threat to you. You have my word.”

  Her answer was like a dash of cold water. Deep down, Cassie had been expecting Tarian to ridicule her for asking such a preposterous question. The fact that she hadn’t . . . Certain things came into stark relief: Tarian’s height and exotic good looks, her wolfhounds, the old-fashioned and very lethal weaponry she kept on her wall.

  “Oh my God!” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “You’re not human, are you?”

  Tarian’s gaze was unfathomable. “Go back to Liz Hayward’s.”

  Her tone was that of someone accustomed to having her orders obeyed, and Cassie found herself reacting to it and turning to leave. At the studio door she stopped herself and looked back.

  “Will you be all right?”

  The question seemed to surprise Tarian. She gave a stiff nod.

  For a moment longer Cassie gazed at her, then she stepped over the shotgun and the dead hand still clutching it, grabbed her jacket from its peg, and made her way towards the front door.

  Chapter 7

  Tarian searched the dead mortals, but found little of interest. She retrieved her arrow and spear—it had gouged a deep hole in the studio wall—and dragged the bodies into the centre of the studio. She didn’t bother to remove the stocking masks, but straightened limbs, and laid out the bodies side by side. In the middle she piled the hunting knife, claw hammer, and shotgun.

  The dogs hunkered down, watching her, as she traced a glyph, muttered the accompanying few words, and gestured. The bodies and weapons imploded, disappearing with a faint pop. The power drain caused by the powerful spell came a moment later. She staggered under its impact, and her head throbbed. “Moon and stars!” It took her a moment to get back her breath.

  After wiping the sweat from her forehead, she set about tidying up. A combination of magic and physical effort soon returned the studio to some sort of order. She left the ruined painting alone, however, and as for the broken window, she would call a glazier in the morning—there were more important uses for her limited energy.

  Satisfied no trace of the intruders’ presence remained, she went outside. Footprints led across the lawn to the road. A spell wiped them away. The dirty black car was parked a little way out of the village. Tracking and vanishing it used up the last of Tarian’s reserves.

  The sun was rising when she closed the front door behind her, staggered up the stairs, and flung herself fully clothed onto her bed. She let her eyelids close, and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

  A tongue licked her awake, and the smell of dog breath was strong in her nostrils. She let out an exclamation and pushed Anwar away. A glance at the alarm clock showed she had been asleep barely an hour. Belatedly her senses kicked in. If she hadn’t been so deeply asleep, the strong prickling sensation would have woken her.

  Someone is at the back door. A Fae.

  She hurried downstairs, running a hand through dishevelled hair, and wondered if Einion had returned. It wasn’t her old friend standing on the doorstep, though. Tarian recognised the stern-faced woman in the simple blue gown with a girdle at her waist. Her heart sank. “Garan.”

  The Fae bowed her head in greeting. “I bring a message from Queen Mab.”

  A loud caw drew Tarian’s eyes to the top branch of the hawthorn. The crow was back. She narrowed her eyes at it before returning her attention to Garan. “What Mab says no longer interests me.”

  Garan’s eyebrows rose. “Have the laws of hospitality been suspended? May the Queen’s messenger not come in and be made welcome?”

  Tarian sighed and stepped back, allowing her visitor into the kitchen. Garan didn’t say anything as she took in her surroundings. The slight sniff, the disdainful glance said it all. Drysi and Anwar watched her from the door, their manner wary.

  Garan pulled out a chair and sat down. Tarian joined her and drummed her fingers on the kitchen table.

  “The message,” she prompted.

  Garan’s gaze turned inwards and she recited from memory: “I, Queen Mab, sole ruler of Faerie, do hereby pardon Tarian daughter of Brangwen daughter of Eyslk for her past transgressions. Henceforth, her sentence of banishment is lifted. I command her to return to Faerie and assume the post of Royal Champion once more.”

  Tarian stared at her. “What?”

  Garan’s gaze shifted to her. “Was I unclear?”

  “No.” Tarian kicked back her chair and stood up. “But we made a solemn and binding agreement, Mab and I. As far as I am concerned, it still holds.”

  “And as far as she is concerned, it is void.” Garan cocked her head and waited for Tarian to make her next move.

  “I don’t care.” She began to pace. “Mab knew my reasons for leaving. Those haven’t changed. I haven’t changed.”

  It was Garan’s turn to drum her fingers on the table. “After the bloody events of last night, the Queen takes a different view.”

  Tarian stopped pacing. “Last night?” That crow has been spying on me again.

  “Even though those you killed were mere mortals,” Garan sniffed, “it is evident you still take pleasure in the fight.”

 
Tarian didn’t deny the charge. In the heat of the moment she had enjoyed the violence, the race to strike her opponent first and avoid serious injury herself. It was only afterwards, when Cassie was regarding her with horror, she remembered that for mortals a fatal blow was indeed fatal. Once she would have thought that fact of little relevance or value, but having lived among mortals for two years . . .

  But they would have killed Cassie. “I was defending a mortal.”

  “Your reasons are irrelevant.”

  Tarian slammed her hands down on the kitchen table, and leaned forward. “I will not go back.” Garan blinked at her. “My life is here. And Mab is no longer part of it.”

  “That is your reply?”

  Tarian nodded.

  Garan got to her feet. “Very well. I will convey it to the Queen.” She crossed to the back door, then stopped and looked back. The formal messenger’s mask had gone and now she spoke as one Fae to another. “She won’t like it.”

  Tarian sighed. “I know.”

  “YOU’RE QUIET THIS morning, dear. Everything all right?”

  The landlady was studying her, Cassie realised. She forced a smile. “I’m fine, thanks. Just tired. I didn’t sleep very well.” She didn’t mention why sleep had been elusive, the images of death and carnage that kept surfacing.

  “She fed you all right, then?” Liz began to clear away the breakfast dishes. Cassie had only picked at her bacon and eggs.

  Fed me? Cassie gathered her scattered wits. “Oh. Yes. Boar casserole. It was very nice.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “She showed me round her studio too.” Before it became a crime scene.

  Tarian had said forensics would find no trace, but that wasn’t possible, surely. Not for a human.

  Cassie climbed the stairs to her bedroom in a daze and gazed at her reflection as she brushed her teeth. Her face was pale, her eyes dull and panicked.

  An image of the heavy spear protruding from the man’s chest surfaced, and she shoved it aside. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe nothing happened the way I remember. Maybe . . . Who the hell knows?

  She put the wet toothbrush back in the beaker and wiped her mouth on the towel. The best thing to do was to confront her fear. She should go back to Tarian’s house and see for herself. If something really had happened last night, if it hadn’t all been some weird nightmare brought on by a dose of food poisoning, there’d be evidence. But what would she do if there was?

  She felt the urge to surround herself with the mundane. She would go shopping. But a chime of church bells put paid to that idea—in Bourn’s Edge the shops weren’t open on Sunday.

  She went to her bedroom window and peered out. Several of the villagers dressed in their Sunday bests, among them Cath the postmistress and Dr. Reynolds, were hurrying up the road. On impulse, she shrugged her jacket on and hurried downstairs to join them.

  “Going out?” called Liz, as she passed the open kitchen door.

  “Thought I’d go to church.” Then Cassie was out the front door, through the garden gate, and following the worshippers streaming by ones and twos towards the shabby spire.

  It was years since she had been to church, and it had been a different denomination. But she needn’t have worried about not knowing the ropes. As she ventured into the cool of the interior, Dr. Reynolds in his role as usher handed her a hymnbook and pointed to an empty pew. She nodded her thanks and sank onto it. No sooner had she sat down, though, than everyone else in the congregation stood up.

  Simon Wright took his place in the pulpit. And after a brief prayer, the service got underway. Afterwards, Cassie didn’t remember much about it, except that she hadn’t disgraced herself. It was a matter of doing what everyone else did, standing then sitting, murmuring the required responses, singing the vaguely familiar hymns as best she could. But all the time her mind was engaged elsewhere.

  Oh Lord, don’t let me be mad, she prayed. And please don’t let Tarian be some kind of demon. For some reason this last point was important to her. Her instincts had told her the artist was a friend. And hadn’t Tarian saved her life? But she was so savage about it, so primitive.

  Shut up, she told herself. When the bald man sitting next to her in the pew turned to her in surprise, she realised she must have spoken aloud. “Sorry,” she whispered, embarrassed.

  The ritual of the service did help to calm her, though, and by its end she had plucked up courage to walk to Tarian’s house and ask her for the truth.

  She shook hands with the vicar, who said how pleased he was to see her, and stepped outside, then stopped in surprise. Just outside the porch stood a tall stranger in a russet-coloured tunic and breeches and a cloak of forest green. A scabbarded sword hung at his right hip. Stranger than his quasi-medieval clothing was the fact that no one else seemed aware of him or the horses whose reins he held.

  Cassie turned to ask Reverend Wright who the man was, but he was stroking his beard, deep in conversation with a parishioner.

  “Only you can see or hear me,” came the stranger’s voice, deep and full of amusement. He gestured, his hand tracing some symbol in the air.

  She couldn’t move. “Help!” she cried out, or tried to; no sound emerged.

  “Hush.” He led the two horses to her side. “Be easy.” He brushed her cheek with slender fingers. “Don’t be afraid. You’re the Queen’s prisoner now, and none dare hurt you for fear of retribution.”

  The Queen?

  Gripping Cassie around the waist, and with no apparent sign of effort, he lifted her into one of the saddles. After arranging her limbs, hair, and clothing to his satisfaction, he tied her wrists to the saddle’s pommel and stood back to assess the result. Then he mounted the other horse and reached for her horse’s reins. And all the while, members of the congregation came and went, oblivious to what was happening right under their noses.

  Unable to do anything else, Cassie committed the stranger’s details to memory. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing a pale, clean-shaven face. The blackness of his hair and the slight tilt to his eyes reminded her of Tarian. In fact, now she came to think of it, he could have stepped straight out of one of Tarian’s paintings.

  A click of his tongue urged his horse into motion. Her mount followed his, and they trotted up the High Street, past the garage. Two trainer-clad feet poked out from under Cassie’s car, which now sported a new bumper. Mike must work on Sundays. She tried to shout out to the mechanic, but as before no sound emerged.

  Whatever her abductor had done to paralyse her was selective. She could still breathe and blink her eyelids, for example, and her heart was beating steadily. Which was odd, come to think of it. She should be terrified out of her wits, yet she felt calm.

  He looked back at Cassie, before facing front once more. They rode past Tarian’s house up the hill towards the forest. When the stile came into view, he dug his heels in and headed straight for it. Her mount picked up speed too and she was thankful her hands were bound to the pommel or she would have fallen off. Then she was airborne, and if she could have she would have held her breath. It seemed to take forever before her horse’s hooves had cleared the battered wooden stile, but it was probably mere seconds before the jarring landing. Once more he checked that she was all right before proceeding on at a trot.

  They had gone only a little way along the public footpath when he slowed the horses to a walk and branched off, taking the game trail she had taken previously. Gloom descended as the trees closed in on either side and the sounds of the forest faded. Twigs tried to scratch her face and branches threatened to sweep her from her saddle, but she was unable to hunch down to avoid them. He gestured and muttered something, and after that it was almost as though the branches were bending away from her to allow her free passage.

  A loud caw from the forest canopy above startled her. The man with the ponytail shaded his eyes and looked up then waved a gloved hand at a large crow, as if in greeting.

  One more impossibility, thought Cassie.
r />   At last, they emerged into a sun-dappled clearing. A massive oak tree took pride of place on one side, and eight feet from it stood an imposing ash tree. He guided his horse towards the gap between the trees, and a strange sensation like the buzzing of bees or the prickle of electricity crawled over her, growing stronger the closer they got. As her horse passed between the trees, the sensation vanished. So did Bourn Forest.

  Oh, it was still forest, that much was plain, Cassie thought, as she took in her surroundings as best she could, but it was . . . “Different” was the best word she could come up with. The rough clearing had become a glade full of woodland flowers where bees buzzed. And the trees here, wherever “here” was, were taller, thinner, and in leaf. The air was balmy too, warm as midsummer and with a honeysuckle tang to it. The birds sang louder and more tunefully.

  The game trail had become a bridle track and no longer sloped uphill. As they rode along it, Cassie puzzled over her growing feeling of déjà vu. Then it came to her. Tarian’s paintings.

  She was thinking about that when crashing noises and the waving of branches drew her attention to the undergrowth ten yards ahead. Both horses became skittish, and the man reined in at once. He was just in time, for several animals, two large followed by three small, crossed the trail in front of them. Cassie had time to register the large heads and small hindquarters, the thick, bristly red-brown coats and wicked-looking tusks, then the family of wild boar disappeared into the undergrowth.

  The crashing sounds were already fading into the distance when he urged his horse into motion. A few minutes later, they emerged into the open, into daylight softer and more muted than she was used to. She heard the unmistakeable cry of a hawk and spied it circling high above.

  Her abductor turned in his saddle and grinned. “Behold.” He gestured with one gloved hand. “Mab’s domain.”

  Cassie blinked at the lush parkland and sparkling lakes, and the imposing structure standing in their midst. No squat ugly castle with thick walls and a drawbridge for this Mab person, it seemed. White pennants fluttered from six impossibly tall and delicate turrets, and light glittered off the countless windows that peppered a palace made of white marble and glass.