Bloodstone (5 page)

We were last to leave the fire, or nearly. Opposite us a couple snogged heartily, but we might as well have been alone, and the boy hadn’t returned. Jed, his name was. It
was one of the first things she told me. I suppose I faked an interest, though I was far more fascinated now by his mother.

‘You can’t have no family,’ I said.

‘I haven’t got one
now
. They don’t approve of me, and I don’t approve of them.’

I could relate to that, so I don’t know why it made me sad. ‘What about Jed?’

‘I’m enough for him. He’s more than enough for me.’

‘Really?’ I did the slow grin that worked on Orach.

She slapped my arm. ‘You’re all the same. I mean, Jed’s the only one I want around all the time. The rest of you, you’re too much trouble.’

‘You have no idea.’ I leaned back on my elbows. I liked her sudden smile. ‘What about the big guy?’

‘Who, Mack? He’s all right. He doesn’t own me. That’s not how we are here.’

‘So he’s not – y’know. Your boy’s father?’

She shrugged. ‘No.’ Yawning, she reached back to scratch between her shoulder blades. I took my chance, sat up: scratched the spot for her, quite idly. Her tiny shiver was barely
perceptible.

My thumbnail went on scratching lightly. ‘He looks like he thinks he owns you. Your man Mack.’

‘No. He’s okay. You don’t know him.’

‘I know your type, though,’ he said behind me.

We both looked round. I’d known he was there, and the skinny sidekick in the darkness beyond him, but I tried to look surprised. I raised an eyebrow, wondering what made the big guy stare
at me like that. Besides the obvious, I mean. I was shamelessly hitting on his favourite blonde, but still.

‘Who’s this, Mila?’

‘This is Seth.’ She smiled openly up at him, and I decided she was a little erratic in her judgements. The man owned her whether she knew it or not.

‘Is it, so? I’ve seen your kind before.’

A little trip-trap trip-trap down my spine: an echo from the past. So long ago, I couldn’t remember.

‘You’re Mack, right?’ I wasn’t going to stand up. Not that the height difference would threaten me, but scrambling to my feet would feel undignified. ‘Mack
who?’

‘Mack nothing.’ He was confused that I still sprawled there, vulnerable and kickable, or apparently so. ‘John MacLeod.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

There were a lot of them about – MacLeods – but that was beside the point. I could see the family resemblance now. Physical resemblance, anyway. Centuries must have diluted the
memories to nothing, and he wasn’t about to remember any ancestral promises anyway. But no wonder he could see me.

They say he has the blood himself.
Old Ma Sinclair about the MacLeod I’d known, and both of them long dead. Not his bloodline though. That wasn’t dead.

I wasn’t entirely foolish; I’d been long enough in the otherworld. Besides, beer on an empty stomach had made me feel slightly sick. I got to my feet.

‘I’ll be going,’ I said.

‘I think that’s a good idea,’ he said.

I wanted to punch his smug face, and slap away the skinny pal’s twitching smirk, but I didn’t have to. I’d seen the disappointment in Mila’s eyes.

Live to love another day, I always say.

It was never easy, tugging the Veil aside, keeping a full-mortal’s focus and fascination, but Mila made it as straightforward as it could ever be. She wanted to see me,
after all. Hell, within a day or two she wanted to see me all the time.

It was mutual. I liked her. The boy was a nuisance, but we didn’t see much of him. He didn’t go to school, and I wondered how he got away with that, but he seemed to have plenty to
occupy him. Robbing shops, probably, while we lazed in the sand and watched rig supply ships move eastwards on the horizon.

‘I home-school him,’ said Mila.

‘That so? I’m surprised they haven’t arrested you.’

She giggled. ‘
They
don’t know he exists. I never registered his birth.’

‘How about his grandparents?’

‘Don’t know he exists either. They disowned me. Fine by me; I don’t need their money any more, do I? I’ve got this place. We help each other here.’

I was uneasy in the role of Voice of Reason, so I didn’t comment, but I didn’t think giving all her money into Mack’s keeping was altogether smart. To stop myself lecturing
her, I put my arm over my eyes to shield them from the sun, and pretended to be asleep.

Her lips touched mine, making me smile. She tasted of sea; her skin was still damp and seawater-cool. By contrast I felt sunburnt and sweaty, but I didn’t want to move to go swimming
again. I laced my free hand into her hair and pulled her face back to mine, muffling her giggle. Her foot, gritty with sand, hooked round my leg and rubbed my calf muscle.

‘Gods’ sake, woman,’ I mumbled. ‘I just got dressed.’

‘It’s not like you’re wearing much.’

‘Fair point. And you’ll catch your death. Let’s get you out of that wet shirt.’

‘MIL-AAA.’:

We both jolted up. Her eyes widened with horror.

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘
MILA
!’

‘He’ll kill you.’ She clambered on hands and knees to the edge of the sandhill, peering through the grass.

‘I’d like to see him try.’ But there was a time and a place, and this was neither. I grabbed her hand, and we bolted.

Funny how we’d given up the pretence that he didn’t own her, I thought as we scrambled up the dunes, dodged into the trees, and ran. All the same, we were both laughing, which made
it harder to catch our breath. As we skidded down a rough grassy slope between pines, we paused, hearts thudding. Her eyes on mine were wild and excited more than scared.

‘I can handle him, you know,’ I said. ‘If you want.’

She shook her head. ‘No, no, no. Please. No trouble.’

‘Bit late for that.’ I grinned.

She sucked in a gasping laugh. ‘He’s coming!’

‘Down to the sea. Round the rocks. We’ll lose him.’ We ran again.

It might have been smarter to head deeper into the woods, make our way round the base and come back to the camp by the main road, all innocence and ice cream. But I wasn’t thinking
straight, and there was something else anyway: more sounds of pursuit, and coming from the trees. There was something odd about it; I knew that even at the time. But I didn’t stop to think. I
was having too much fun.

Where the sand ended, we plunged through water and up onto the black rocks, slowing to edge round the crags. Mack was in sight now, running across the hard sand beneath the dunes. It
hadn’t been him in the trees, then. I sprang from one slab to another, skidding on weed but not falling, catching Mila as she leaped to join me. Mack was barely ten yards behind us, flushed
with fury and humiliation. I grabbed a spur of rock, swung up to balance on a narrow ledge, reached down a hand for Mila.

She lost her footing, slipped back. Mack snatched her ankle.

I roared at the same time he did, Mila caught between us, but my hands and feet had had centuries of practice clinging to rock. I released her hand swiftly to seize her armpit, and when I tugged
hard, her foot slipped like a fish from his grip. She gave a yelp as she reached the ledge, half fear and half hysteria, and I caught her in my arms to stop her falling back.

No-one stopped Mack. His feet could find no purchase on the green wet rocks, and he was sliding, slipping, flailing crazily. Hopeless. His backwards tumble into the water below was almost
graceful, but the splash was gigantic as a wave swallowed him.

I held my breath, fearful and guilty just for an instant. Mila’s hands were over her mouth.

Then he was staggering to his feet, soaked, coughing and spitting saltwater, his beard full of sand. The water was only up to his thighs, till another wave hit him, and he was knocked forward
onto all fours again. Once more he hauled himself up and dragged himself back through the rocks and onto the beach, cursing us with every choked gasp.

I didn’t shout back. I was still trying to control my hilarity, though Mila had suddenly stopped laughing and was trembling in my arms. Mack was still shouting something at us, something I
was glad I couldn’t hear; but I wasn’t watching him anyway. I was watching his skinny friend, who was striding nonchalantly across the sand, hands in pockets, hailing Mack. He came from
the direction of the trees.

It
came from the trees.

I wondered why I hadn’t recognised it before. It grinned up at me and winked one yellow eye, then gave me a little wave before turning back to console the incandescent Mack, laying a
calming arm on his huge shoulders.

I squeezed Mila’s waist.

‘He’ll be livid,’ she said, biting her lip.

‘So we’ll stay clear for a bit.’ I started to climb across the rocks, drawing her with me, trying not to look back at Mack and his parasitic pal. When had he attracted
that?

I shuddered. I’d stopped laughing now. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

A city: they belonged in a city, not some rank small town where they couldn’t vanish when they needed to. I remember thinking that as I left Mila and her son, as I shut
the car boot and handed over her pathetically small bag of belongings. She smiled at me.

‘We’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘We’re always fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been kicked out of a place.’

‘Hasn’t been my fault before.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She kissed me, but I didn’t move, just leaned against the car door, watching her eyes. ‘And thanks for finding us this place.’

Arms folded, I looked up at it: dank concrete and unwashed windows, an overgrown yard, the smell of piss, the thud of bass from a ground floor flat vibrating my bones. I should have been able to
do better, but landlords can be fussy about a tenant with no bank account and no utility bills, just a scrawny teenage son with the eyes of a thief. Speaking of whom, he was already casing the
place, peering in a neighbour’s filthy window. I almost felt sorry for him, with his sunken sleepless eyes and his twitching fingers. But there was a limit to my sympathy, and he’d
reached it.

Mila would be fine. I was pretty sure of that. I’d never indented for a lifetime’s support and she’d never expected it. I wasn’t abandoning them, but it wasn’t as
if I could move the pair of them into Leonora’s house at Tornashee.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Maybe wait till Jed’s gone out?’ She tried again, nervously touched my arm. This time I laced my fingers into hers.

‘Yeah,’ I said. I was never sure how much he took in, but I felt easier when he wasn’t around. I let her kiss me. I kissed her back.

I’d intended to go straight home, after that, so the gods knew why I detoured by the base once more. I felt guilty, I suppose, and guilt gave me an unfocused sense of injustice and
resentment. It’s not as if I knew exactly what I was going to do when I confronted Mack, but it wouldn’t have ended well. So it’s just as well I was intercepted before I found
him.

It was waiting in the dirty copse of trees beside the traffic lights, and it moved a little out of the shadows as I turned down the road to the base. I stopped. Glanced at the ground beneath its
feet, and the nonexistent shadow.

‘Long time no see,’ I told it.

‘Where you off to, Murlainn?’ It lit a cigarette.

‘You know fine.’

It took a deep drag, tilted its head back, blew smoke at the sky.

‘Those are bad for your health,’ I said.

It grinned. ‘Women are awful bad for yours.’

‘Thanks a feckin’ bunch,’ I said. ‘You tipped him off, didn’t you?’

‘You shouldn’t have interfered.’

‘Interfered with what?’

It examined the tip of its cigarette, sucked on it again to stop it going out. ‘Stay away from my protégé.’

‘Oh. I see. I must say, you’re getting on fine.’

‘That I am, and I don’t want Griogair’s runt in the way.’

‘In the way?’ I was trying to be civilised, but I couldn’t stop my lip curling. ‘Listen, pal, you’re welcome to him. Feel absolutely free. I wish you joy of him.
Just keep your scrawny hands off Mila.’

It shut one eye, tapped ash off its fag, half-smiled. ‘I’m not interested in the woman.’