Caledonia Read online

  He was poison, and she had been intoxicated, unaware.

  Sebastian's voice cut through this memory, harsh and furious.

  How they could send the heartbroken against me, I’ll never know.

  The waters dragged Leah down into the black depths, where no sunlight could reach.

  Adam looked at her with those beautiful eyes.

  And suddenly, stronger than the pain, she remembered.

  The selk stared at Sebastian, surrounding him in the evening light by the statue and the magic was strong; her heart was breaking again and again.

  But Leah knew she had to escape and she saw light. The vampire was there, coaxing Sebastian away, speaking into his ear, and she saw the cracks of light in the storm, and she knew she could break the spell.

  She could fight this where they could not – permanent heartbreak was a selkie curse.

  But humans moved on, had to move on or die.

  Around her, the lab, Milo, Dorian, were all fading into nothingness, caught up in the storm of her mind. But, like any good sailor, she looked for the light and for the sign of calm seas, and tacking the vessel, she turned.

  Leah allowed herself this one last look at him.

  Adam.

  He was beautiful, but he was empty, she realised – like a counterfeit antique vase. She began to see cracks appearing on his skin. She did not want to linger and see what might be waiting underneath.

  “I can’t stay,” she told him.

  His brow clouded. That was not how this memory was meant to go.

  “Why? Don’t you love me?” he asked.

  “I do love you,” Leah said. “More than anything. But I can’t stay here anymore. Dorian needs me.”

  The sunlight refracted through the clouds, and she could see dry land ahead.

  Tears shone in Adam's eyes.

  “But I love you,” he said.

  Leah smiled sadly.

  “I wish that were true,” she said. “I really do, and I wish you had been the man I thought you were...but it’s time to move on.”

  And the pain fell away, like it had been some kind of cocoon, and Leah was herself again, looking out through her own eyes. The pain was still there, but not in the same way it had been.

  Something had changed.

  Leah went to Dorian, who was still lying on the floor. His large brown eyes stared unseeing, and he was not moving.

  “Dorian!” Leah said, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wake up! What happened?”

  Light seemed to fill Dorian's black eyes. He blinked.

  “Leah. I thought you were dead,” said Dorian, then looked at Milo, puzzled. “Indeed, I thought I was dead.”

  “What do you mean? I wasn’t injured. Were you?”

  Dorian just looked at her with his large, mournful eyes.

  Leah turned and looked up into the face of the merman. He hadn't moved from his original position, but had been studying them intently and writing in the notebook on his lap. He jotted down some more notes.

  “Never seen anything like it,” Milo said. “Interesting.”

  Dorian sat up and slumped against the wall.

  “What?” he asked faintly.

  Milo lifted the selkie's wrist and checked his pulse.

  “Seems that whatever new monster Sebastian is, he preys on your memories,” said the merman. “Memories of love, apparently.”

  Leah exchanged a glance with Dorian.

  “Yes,” said Dorian. “He does have that kind of magic. He was able to use our memories against us when the selk attacked him. Leah seems to have the ability to break out of it.”

  “How did he reach us down here?” Leah asked. “He's in a cell.”

  “Maybe it’s related to the tear pendant,” Milo shrugged. “You both touched it.”

  “So did you,” said Leah. “You’re all right, though?”

  “Yes,” said Milo, shining a light into her eyes. “But my only passion is science. Secondly, I’m a merman. We’re not meant to love.”

  He looked at her seriously, and leaned in close. Leah was startled at how terrifying he was, his wide eyes inhuman and cold.

  “We’ll eat your soul,” he said. “But love? Love is for humans and seal-men.”

  He continued to stare at her until Leah nodded. He drew back, and returned to writing in his notebook.

  “Lucky you,” said Leah slowly, turning. “Dorian –”

  He looked at her.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think a selkie might be involved in this?”

  ***

  And the rain fell.

  And the sky was grey.

  Summer, so it was grey forever.

  Night did not come to Scotland, not in July, except for a few breaths of darkness.

  And Leah lay in bed, and stared out, and up, at the grey.

  Her thoughts dreamed with the clouds.

  ...how they could send the heartbroken against me, I'll never know...

  ...they are monsters, just like every other foul thing in their world...

  ...we're monsters, but we're not monsters...

  ...selkies aren't exactly fighters...

  ...he's just disappointed that he hasn't been Taken yet...

  And her heart began to beat, with the tap of the rain against the window.

  And beat faster, as clarity began to build from the clouds in her eyes.

  Sebastian.

  The selkies.

  He wasn't angry, or racist – speciesist?

  He was hurt.

  ...they are not the innocents you believe them to be...

  ...do they seem gentle to you? Beautiful...

  He called them beautiful.

  So did she, of course.

  Well, one, in particular.

  That smile, those eyes.

  Self-assurance. Beauty.

  Real beauty.

  Evil is not monsters, the shadowed alleyway, the bright of a knife.

  Evil is banal. It is beautiful. It is where you least expect to find it.

  It is the smile of a friend with a lie on their lips.

  Lucifer was called most beautiful.

  And she remembered where she had learned that lesson, once before.

  Leah sat up in her bed, slowly. The wind began to rattle the windows, as storms and violence came to Glasgow regardless of the season, and painted the sky and city grey with longing and loneliness.

  Something had broken Sebastian's heart.

  A man who was also Geoffrey and might have loved her.

  A folklorist knows one thing, and that is the way a story is built, and the way magic binds it,

  surrounds it, and gives it strength.

  The Fae believe that they are all bound to the story.

  That they must follow the rules of their legend.

  But a human knows that stories don't always stay within the margins.

  Someone had broken out of their story and was bleeding all over the page.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leah and Dorian returned to Caledonia Interpol late that evening.

  Chief Ben was standing next to the large arched window, staring out at the rain and the orange glow of the street lamps. He turned as they walked in.

  “So, what did you find out?” he asked, folding his arms.

  “I must admit, I am lost,” said Dorian. “Sebastian seems to have been using an enchanted selkie's tear pendant, but for what reason I cannot imagine. He has some kind of magic. He used our memories against us, Chief. I have no idea if he sold his soul or is in league with a wizard. I do not know what to do next.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Leah said.

  They turned to look at her.

  “Which is?” asked Chief Ben.

  “Magnus,” Leah said.

  “Magnus?” asked Dorian. “Why? He’s half-crazed with grief and rage, the way only a selkie can be. He’s useless to us.”

  “If you believe that Sebastian murdered Hazel,” said Leah, “I think we should talk t
o him about that.”

  “Sorry, Leah, but I agree with Dorian,” said Chief Ben. “He’s completely useless right now, and I don’t see how he could help.”

  “I think that Magnus knows more than he is letting on,” Leah said. “You said that Sebastian’s activity only became apparent after Hazel’s death. That makes it sound as if the two things are related. I think we should talk to him. I get the feeling that he’s hiding something.”

  Dorian stared at Leah for a moment, considering this.

  “Lies are forbidden among our people,” he said.

  “But you are capable of lying, right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Ben. “Or they would not have the reputation they have as the Don Juans of the faerie world.”

  Dorian pressed his lips together at this comment, but said nothing.

  “I can’t imagine why Magnus would lie,” he said.

  “Well, let’s ask him,” Leah replied.

  ***

  They found Magnus at the Crystal Palace, drinking down some kind of vinegar wine. The gorgeous building was more attractive than a Wetherspoon's chain pub had a right to be, and for wine that cost £5 a bottle, it really couldn't be beat. Glaswegians will drink at whatever time of day, and anything with the label ‘alcohol’ will do.

  Magnus was in fine form this afternoon. He was seated next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sunlight illuminating his angelic features. Leah surreptitiously looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed the glowing man basking in the late afternoon sun, but no one seemed interested. She thought that the way Magnus was shining like a beacon would be noticeable to others – but perhaps her manual was correct, and humans really didn't notice what they didn't want to see, or didn't believe was there.

  The day was surprisingly sunny, especially considering what Leah was about to do.

  Glasgow's undependable weather was predictable only in the sense that it would probably be

  the opposite of what you were looking for. A tragedy in sunlight, a love story in the wind and rain-soaked damp.

  Magnus looked up, the sunlight casting shadows over his perfect cheekbones and illuminating every facet of his extraordinary eyes, brilliant and hard. Leah glanced at Dorian and noted that his eyes were the same. She wondered if their human lovers had known, immediately, that they were more than human.

  Unfortunately, she had a feeling that what she needed to do now was a part of the job she would never get used to.

  “Hello,” said Magnus, smiling up at them. “What’s going on?”

  “We need to ask you some questions,” Leah told him.

  She was only going on a hunch. She realized that if she was wrong, she would be incurring the wrath of an ancient, incredibly powerful, faerie race whose capacity for vengeance went far beyond the love and beauty they so frequently professed as their reason for being.

  Still. Here goes nothing.

  She took a deep breath.

  “Magnus, did your lover belong to Sebastian?” Leah asked.

  Magnus’s black-brown eyes grew even brighter, if that were possible.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “But that is normal for a selkie. If a woman is unhappy, she cries seven tears into the sea and a selkie man comes for her.”

  “I know the lore,” she told him. “I've been studying it my whole life. My question is – did she, or did she not, actually cry the seven tears into the sea, Magnus?”

  Dorian’s mouth dropped open. He turned to look at his partner.

  “I certainly hope that you are aware of the seriousness of this accusation,” he told her.

  “Yes, Dorian, but the selk become men in human form,” she said. “And a human man can fall in unrequited love. And a human man with supernatural powers could use those powers to bewitch a woman away from her husband.”

  “I will not listen to this!” Dorian shouted, startling the neds and other honourable patrons of the Crystal Palace. “Magnus, tell her you would never do that! That the selk would never do that. It would be a terrible, twisted abuse of our powers –”

  “Dorian,” Magnus said softly. “Be quiet. She's right.”

  Dorian turned from Leah slowly, looking at his brother with disbelief.

  “Magnus…” he said. He could say nothing more.

  Magnus sighed, and looked out the window.

  “Sebastian’s wife, Hazel, was…the most beautiful human I have ever laid eyes on,” he said. “She was graceful, talented, cultured and sophisticated – she reminded me of the women from so long ago that maybe only Dorian and I can remember them now. Sebastian – he wasn’t good enough for her. He had no money, he wanted to curse her with the dull existence of an archaeologist’s wife. What kind of life was that for a woman like Hazel?”

  “She loved him, though – and he loved her, right?” Leah asked.

  Magnus stared at the table.

  “Yes,” he said, even more quietly. “There was nothing I could do. No matter how often we talked…she remained dedicated to Sebastian, and he to her. I just knew that it was wrong, I knew that she shouldn’t be with him. I was desperately, hopelessly in love. I wanted her to go to the sea, to cry the tears. I told her the legends, over and over. She thought me funny, charming, full of old folktales.”

  He swallowed. His eyes darkened.

  “She called me her best friend.”

  Leah rolled her eyes.

  “But you managed to do it, to make her fall in love with you,” she said. “How?”

  Magnus looked at them. Dorian’s eyes were filled with tears. Leah had never seen him look so betrayed. She felt for him, but – this was the job. It needed to be done.

  “I used the selkie charm,” he confessed. “I used our power to bewitch her.”

  “That is dark magic!” Dorian burst out. “No selkie is permitted to do that! Ever!”

  “Dark magic?” Leah asked. “What does that mean? Why have power that no one can use?” Dorian looked at her in agony.

  “The selkie folk, like any other faerie people, are divided into the Seelie and Unseelie Courts,” he explained.

  “The good and evil faeries,” Leah agreed. “But I would assume that the selk were members of the Seelie court?”

  “For the most part, we are,” he said. “But like all kind-hearted faeries, we have a dark side, power we are capable of if pushed too far. You saw the power we have over the weather. That has not always been used for good.”

  “And why haven’t the courts made it impossible to use that power?” Leah asked.

  “Why do some people carry knives?” he asked. “Sometimes a dangerous weapon is necessary. But – to do this, to use it for your own gain – it is unbelievable.”

  Dorian’s disgust towards such an abuse was so strong that he could barely speak. His own brother, a selkie himself, becoming what the selk hated most in the world… there was no human equivalent. The closest equivalent would be finding out that a member of their family was a particularly horrific serial killer.

  Something that, in the case of the Grey brothers, was also true.

  Leah watched Dorian carefully. She reminded herself that the Victorian British conquered nations and built an empire so vast the sun never set.

  “Tell us the story,” she said, pulling up a chair and indicating that Dorian should join her. “We've got all the time in the world.”

  After a moment, his eyes never leaving his brother's, Dorian sat down beside his partner as Magnus began to explain.

  London, England

  1968

  It was the height of the 1960s.

  The UK was swinging, the Beatles were on the charts.

  Magnus was seated in the café area of a glass and aluminium building in King’s Road, Chelsea. It was midsummer, and the shop had only just opened. It offered records, a chemist’s, and an old-fashioned soda fountain. The place would soon become known as the infamous Chelsea Drugstore.

  Magnus had found that his long hair and beautiful features were
'in' again, and he was enjoying himself immensely. The sixties were a selkie's dream, everything and everyone free; sex, drugs, music. For Magnus, it was a candy store of delights.

  He saw her walk in, her black hair framing her face. She wore round white sunglasses and a bright yellow dress with white go-go boots that clacked across the cloverleaf design on the floor. She took off her sunglasses to reveal large, dark eyes framed with long lashes, and she was drinking a dandelion and burdock soda.

  Magnus was captivated.

  She turned then, and saw him. He smiled, that soft and gentle smile that had bedded countless women over the centuries. She saw the leather bound journal on the table, the quill pen in his hand, and the beautiful hair in carefully arranged curls tumbling over one shoulder. He could not have dressed the part of the romantic poet more perfectly. To his surprise, she addressed him first.

  “If I didn't know any better,” she said. “I'd think you were a hippie. Though looking at your clothes and your hair, there aren't many hippies that can afford an entire outfit by Ossie Clark, and there aren't many hippies that know how to care for their curls the way you do.”

  Magnus bowed slightly.

  “Well spotted,” he said. “I'm Magnus Grey.”

  “Hazel Worthington,” she said, removing a white glove to shake his hand. “Beautifully manicured nails, too. What do you do?”

  “I'm a model,” he said.

  “What a coincidence,” she replied. “I'm a designer.”

  “That explains your ability to recognise the cut of my clothes.”

  “Everyone who's anyone knows of Clark. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  Magnus's grin widened.

  “By all means, please do,” he said, and they spent a long afternoon in conversation.

  Magnus walked home that night with her telephone number in his pocket, and his heart filled with the foreign sentiment of love. Was this what being Taken was like? He didn’t think so. She hadn’t called for him. This felt to him like a hunger, an addiction he could not sate no matter how often he saw her or spoke with her.