Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

M y first impulse was to draw Gladys from her sheath and attack him; he wouldn’t be expecting it and I’d have as good a chance as any to bring him down for good. But it was obvious that neither Lord nor Lady Pemberville knew what he was; if I launched myself at Athair with the intention of killing him, they would likely get involved – and they would not be on my side. Two-year-old Hugo was upstairs and he was vulnerable, plus I didn’t know who else was in the castle – I could end up battling dozens.

I would never win, but if Athair made a move towards me I would defend myself to the death.

Athair shook hands with Hugo’s dad and then with his mum. As he turned towards the door, he finally spotted me and I held my breath. At first his eyes slid dismissively past me, but before I could relax, a frown marred his features and he looked at me again. I knew he didn’t recognise me because he didn’t yet know who I was, but he was definitely puzzled.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Have we met? You look incredibly familiar.’

The lie slipped out easily. ‘No, I don’t believe so. ’

Something flashed in his eyes: he knew I was lying. Vargas had seemed to possess an affinity for the truth and it appeared that Athair had the same trait.

‘In fact, I’ve got a great memory for faces,’ I said hastily. ‘I’m sure we’ve never met before this day.’ That was the absolute truth – technically. ‘My name is Daisy.’ I gave what I hoped looked like a genuine smile. ‘Daisy Carter.’

Athair stared at me for another few seconds; it felt like an hour, and I prickled and itched the entire time. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Daisy Carter,’ he said finally. He nodded at Lord and Lady Pemberville, then thankfully he left.

Hugo’s parents were smiling at me with polite but confused expressions. I watched Athair’s departing figure as the housekeeper reappeared at the top of the stairs.

‘Lord and Lady Pemberville! You’re finished with the doctor.’ She hurried towards us. ‘This is Gertrude Van Winkle from the Royal Elvish Institute. She thought she had an appointment with you, but I think there’s been a mistake in the diary. Do you have time to speak to her now?’

Hugo’s mother tilted her head in an action wholly reminiscent of her son whenever he felt suspicious. ‘I thought you said your name was Daisy Carter?’

Five minutes inside Hugo’s home and I’d already fucked things up. Well done, Daisy, I thought sarcastically.

‘Gertrude is my real name,’ I said. ‘But, uh, the Royal Elvish Institute doesn’t like it when I reveal who I am to anyone who’s not an elf.’ I nodded towards the door through which Athair had departed. ‘I didn’t know who he was, so I thought it wise to use a nom de plume.’

It felt like the stupidest excuse in the world, but I folded my hands in front of me and smiled as if inventing names for myself was the most natural thing in the world.

Thankfully Lord Pemberville believed me. ‘The Royal Elvish Institute strikes again.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘It is time they stopped treating everyone who is not a high elf as the enemy.’

I agreed wholeheartedly. ‘We should all put in a stern complaint,’ I said. ‘In writing.’

There was a loud snort from behind the suit of armour. ‘Okay, Karen,’ Hester muttered.

The Pembervilles frowned at me. ‘Your name is Karen now?’ Hugo’s mother asked.

I had to bite back the temptation to stuff Hester inside the shiny armour and leave her there. ‘That’s a nickname.’

Hug’s parents stared at me as I tried to look innocent.

‘Alright, then.’ Lady Pemberville’s brow remained creased. ‘Although you should remember that there’s nothing wrong with humans. And that particular human is Dr James Taggart.’

That isn’t his name.

‘We’ve known him for several months.’

You don’t know him at all.

Her expression was earnest. ‘He’s eminently trustworthy.’

No. He really isn’t.

‘He’s very dedicated to his work. Our neighbour, Rose Assigney, is one of his patients. He comes regularly to check on her.’

Oh God.

‘You know what?’ I said, dissembling quickly. ‘I think the diary error was probably mine. Let’s reschedule the appointment for another day.’

‘We’ve got time now,’ Lord Pemberville said. ‘There’s no need for that.’

I was already backing towards the door and waving at Otis and Hester to come out from behind the armour. ‘I have other appointments today. Another time will be fine.’

The housekeeper coughed gently. ‘You don’t have any more spare time until next week,’ she said to the Pembervilles. ‘Not until Tuesday.’

Before there could be any further discussion, I jumped in. ‘Tuesday it is! Two o’clock?’ Without waiting for an answer, I burbled, ‘I’ll see you then. Thank you so much!’ I reached the door and ran outside, leaving it ajar.

Lord Pemberville’s words drifted to my ears. ‘What a very peculiar woman.’ I grimaced.

A sleek black car, which had been parked outside with the other vehicles, was already on its way down the long driveway leading to the main road. I gritted my teeth in annoyance.

‘Daisy,’ Otis hissed. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing?’

‘Yeah,’ Hester said. ‘I thought you wanted to talk to them. Why are we leaving?’

‘You know that was Athair,’ I said. I turned towards the other vehicles, marched to the nearest one and tried the door. It was locked. ‘He’s pretending to be Lady Rose’s doctor. He was talking to the Pembervilles about her.’

‘So he’s the one who murdered her,’ Hester said.

‘Or who’s about to murder her,’ Otis added darkly. ‘The Pembervilles are in the clear.’

It wasn’t evidence that would stand up in court, but it was enough to satisfy me. ‘Exactly.’ I tried another car door; it was also locked. ‘We need to follow Athair and find out where he’s going.’

Behind the hulking silver body of a Rolls Royce that I knew Hugo wouldn’t be caught dead in, I spotted a motorbike. Excellent: I had form with motorbikes. While old and battered, this one had clearly been well-cared for. There was an interesting collection of stickers plastered to its body, and I snorted mildly at the one that proclaimed proudly: Elves Do It With Magic.

‘Are you crazy?’ Otis shrieked. ‘Follow a fiend? Follow that fiend? Do you have a death wish? ’

‘We need to find out what he’s up to if we’re going to stop him hurting Lady Rose,’ I said. ‘The hunter needs to become the hunted. Now, help me find the keys for this thing.’

As Otis flapped his wings and glared at me, Hester grinned. ‘Steal the bike! Catch the fiend who we think is your dad! Brilliant. I think I know where the keys are – there’s a small table beside the stairs with several keys on it.’

‘Go get them!’ I urged. ‘We don’t have much time to catch up to him.’

She was already zipping towards the castle. Otis stared at me with a morose expression. ‘It’s alright,’ I tried to reassure him. ‘He won’t kill us.’

‘He’s a fiend, Daisy. Killing is what his kind does best. He obviously doesn’t know that you’re probably his daughter.’

I shook my head. ‘If he’d killed us in 1994, he’d have mentioned it when we met him in the future.’

‘Only if the future is immutable. We still don’t know what effect our time travel will have on future events.’

I met his anxious gaze. ‘We can’t let him go, Otis. We can’t pretend we don’t know what will happen.’

He folded his arms. ‘We don’t know what will happen, Daisy. That’s the point.’

‘We know enough.’

Hester reappeared, flapping towards us and clutching a key that was almost the same size as she was. ‘Here!’ she shouted. ‘I’ve got it!’

I sucked in a breath. Yahtzee. I grinned. ‘Then let’s go.’

I was sure that it was as illegal to ride a motorbike without a helmet in 1994 as it was in 2024, but there wasn’t one on the bike and I possessed neither the time nor the opportunity to find one. I had to throw caution – and my hair – to the wind.

I revved hard and set off in pursuit of Athair’s car. Unfortunately, although I reached the end of the drive in record time, there was no way of telling whether he had turned left or right.

‘Go left,’ Otis urged.

‘No,’ Hester said. ‘Go right.’

Left led to the Assigney mansion and the rural realm of Perthshire; right led to the A9 motorway to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond. I took a gamble based on the assumption that Athair wasn’t heading for Lady Rose at that particular moment and swung right. Please let it be the right choice , I prayed. I needed a lucky break.

I pushed the bike as hard as I could until the wheels were all but swallowing up the Tarmac. We passed signs for several familiar towns – Auchterarder. Blackford. Dunblane – but there was nothing to indicate Athair was ahead of us. When I saw the turn off for Bridge of Allan, my stomach clenched with disappointment. Stirling was just ahead, and if Athair had driven into that large town I’d have lost him for good.

I scowled as the road curved and the distant turrets of Stirling Castle appeared in all their familiar, commanding majesty. I was pulling back on the throttle, preparing to slow down and admit defeat, when I caught a glimpse of Athair’s black car less than fifty metres in front of us. There: he was right there.

I forced myself not to get too excited; I had to maintain a good distance between us because the last thing I could risk was Athair spotting me. I dropped back and let a trundling lorry stay between us; it would be more than enough to block the sight of me in Athair’s rear-view mirror.

He appeared to be bypassing Stirling, and I hoped he was on his way to Edinburgh rather than Glasgow. My years as a delivery driver meant that I knew Edinburgh like the back of my hand, whether the year was 1994 or 2024; Glasgow, however, wasn’t my home – not now and not in the future. I’d have a much better chance of tracking Athair if he was in the Scottish capital. I crossed my fingers tightly.

When his indicator light suddenly flashed on, I blinked in surprise. He wasn’t heading to either city: he was turning deeper into the countryside.

As I followed him off the motorway, I knew I was at risk. There was far less traffic here and certainly no handy heavy-goods vehicles to hide behind. The one thing in my favour was that the road was narrow with far more bends, which made it easier to keep out of Athair’s sight. But I didn’t know this part of the country at all, so I’d have to keep my wits about me if I didn’t want to lose him.

‘There are too many insects!’ Hester yelled in my ear, raising her voice above the whipping wind. ‘They keep splatting me in the face!’

‘Then get into my pocket and stay out of their way!’ I shouted back at her.

Hester shouted something else but I didn’t catch it; my focus was on Athair’s car.

He turned onto a single-lane road to the left. I slowed down until I could pull into a small gap on the side of the road and watch his progress. His car continued for some distance before finally disappearing around a corner hidden by a line of carefully planted fir trees. I stood up and tried to see what lay beyond, but it was no good. We needed to get closer.

‘You’re not planning to fight him, are you Daisy?’ Otis’s voice was quivering.

I smiled gently. ‘You don’t think I can beat him?’

He hugged himself. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t think you can.’

Neither did I. I pointed down the road. ‘If Athair has created a lair for himself down there, I want to know about it. But I won’t try and fight him.’ Not yet. ‘If we find out where he’s living, perhaps we can use that information later.’

Hester nodded enthusiastically. ‘We can set his house on fire while he’s sleeping.’

‘Fire doesn’t affect fiends,’ Otis reminded her.

She shrugged. ‘We could send in a swarm of angry bees to sting him to death.’

He snorted. ‘Because that’ll be easy.’

‘Daisy can raise an army of zombies and?—’

This was getting out of hand. ‘Let’s just find out where he’s staying and what he’s up to. Reconnaissance, nothing more.’ Then, before my fear of Athair got the better of me and I turned tail and ran away, I lowered myself onto the bike seat, revved the engine and headed after him.

The lane wasn’t well maintained and I had to swerve several times to avoid nasty potholes. I kept my eyes peeled, worried that Athair’s black car would reappear or that someone else would show up, but the lane remained empty.

When we reached the tree line, I stopped the bike and took a moment to conceal it behind a bush. Given how quiet the lane was, I couldn’t risk going any further on it; for all I knew, Athair was lurking around the corner.

The brownies buzzed anxiously as I walked towards the last of the trees – even Hester was showing signs of fear. I told myself that it was good to be frightened of Athair; a flicker of complacency where my alleged father was concerned could spell our doom. It was clear that he was by far the strongest of all the fiends in the country; the first time we’d crossed paths, he could have killed me, Hugo, the brownies and Aine the Welsh dragon without breaking sweat.

At the final tree, I paused for a moment to listen. I heard the twittering of birds and the rustle of leaves as a soft breeze gusted through them, but nothing else. I drew in a breath and peered around. As soon as I saw what the small wood was concealing, a whisper of triumph escaped my lips. ‘Yes!’

The landscape in front of us was beautiful. There was a small lake glittering in the dappled midday sunlight with several ducks swimming lazily around its centre and a pair of swans in the far corner. The lake was surrounded by a large expanse of grass so verdantly green that it appeared unreal. Behind that, there was a building – and in front of it a black car. Either the doctor was making more house calls, or this was the place that Athair called home.

When Gladys started to hum at my side, I hushed her. The plan was to remain hidden, at least for now, but I was as delighted as she was that we’d located his lair.

Otis gave a low whistle. ‘Quite a place,’ he said, gazing at the imposing limestone building with its many windows, rectangular tower and parapet. ‘It’s exactly where I’d expect a nasty fiend to stay. I bet it’s got a dungeon,’ he added darkly.

‘You know,’ Hester said thoughtfully, ‘if you kill Athair and he really is your dad, you’ll be the owner of this place. You can have your own castle, Daisy.’

Property inheritance was the last thing on my mind, and I rolled my eyes at her. ‘We should try and get closer,’ I said. ‘We need to establish that Athair is holed up here.’

Hester started to nod but Otis had frozen in place. ‘Uh, Daisy? There’s somebody else here.’

I followed his gaze. Cumbubbling bollocks, he was right: the stooped figure of a man was skirting the western edge of the castle-cum-mansion. He was keeping close to the walls, and when he reached the first set of windows, he ducked further so he could crawl beneath the windowsill. He clearly didn’t want to be seen .

‘We’re not the only ones spying on Athair,’ I muttered. I squinted harder, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s face.

‘But is that a friend or a foe?’ Hester asked.

I shielded my eyes from the sun. The man, whoever he was, had a hood pulled up over his head so I couldn’t see his features. He hesitated for a moment and then, still bending low, jogged away from the building towards the trees where we were hiding.

‘He’s coming this way!’ Otis flapped his wings in panic. ‘Run! We have to run!’

The man jerked his head up as if he’d heard and I gasped aloud. Tears pricked at the back of my eyeballs. ‘It can’t be,’ I whispered. ‘It can’t be him.’

Gladys hummed again in her sheath, though it wasn’t her usual desperate plea for blood. She knew who was coming.

Hester stared. ‘Is that … is that … is that … grown-up Hugo?’

A tremulous smile lit up my face. ‘Yes, it is.’