I gritted my teeth; I’d just have to work faster. Isla’s hands curled round my ankles and I stretched out. At least the crevasse provided some shelter from the wind that was whipping around us. I pushed my body out as far as I could. My gloves made my fingers clumsy but I managed to snake the end of the rope round the body, tying a knot to hold it in place.
‘Integrity!’ I heard Isla scream. ‘I can’t hold on for much longer.’
‘I’ve just about got him,’ I shouted back. I checked the knot. It would hold. Hopefully. ‘Okay, pull me up.’
Isla wasted no time. She heaved and pulled until, slowly, I returned to safer ground. She must have been exhausted but she still took the other end of the rope and, with both of us using all our strength, we jerked it backwards. My feet slipped on the ice but I managed not to fall. Inch by inch, we strained to bring him up. When he was almost at the lip, Isla tapped my shoulder and I nodded, darting forward to pull him up the rest of the way.
‘You’d better be alive, buster,’ I told him, as I rolled his body to safety and checked for vital signs. I leaned towards his face, peeling up my balaclava until I could feel warm breath on my cheek. He was still with us ? for now at least.
‘We’re out of time, Integrity,’ Isla said urgently. ‘We have to go.’
‘Then let’s get out of here,’ I told her with a dark grin.
Chapter Two
Taylor, Lexie, Speck and Brochan, my mentor and old thief buddies who’d followed me here from Aberdeen, were far more interested in what I had to tell them about Debbie than my prowess and death-defying rescue at Aladdin’s Mirror.
‘A giant spider?’ Lexie breathed, her eyes wide as she handed me a mug of hot tea.
‘Just like inLord of the Rings,’ I said, taking a sip and scalding my mouth. ‘But scarier.’
Brochan threw me an exasperated look. ‘You’re even more of a geek than Speck is.’
I punched him in the arm. ‘By the way, Jimmy says hello.’
The merman’s face took on a distant expression. ‘I can’t believe he’s working for the Carnegies,’ he muttered.
Speck shrugged. ‘What of it? We’re working for the Adairs.’
My jaw tightened. ‘You’re not working for me.’
‘I did make you a cup of tea,’ Lexie pointed out.
‘Out of the goodness of your heart, I’m sure.’
‘If you paid me more, I wouldn’t make it so hot.’
‘I don’t pay you anything,’ I growled.
She winked at me. ‘Exactly.’
‘Enough,’ Taylor broke in. ‘Tell us more about this spider. Would we be able to hold it here? What does it eat?’
‘You mean besides tasty human flesh?’ I sighed. ‘Taylor, the cage wouldn’t fit through the door. In fact, the spider probably wouldn’t fit through the door. She’s massive.’
He rubbed his chin. ‘So ransom is out.’
‘You think?’
He shrugged. ‘It was just an idea. Pickings have been slim since we moved up here.’
I felt a ripple of guilt. My team of ex-thieves had come with me to Oban because of my Sidhe heritage. Like it or not, their lives were tied up with mine and they were vulnerable to the other Clans because of their association with me. It didn’t matter that they were all Clan-less and therefore were barely worth a raised eyebrow under normal circumstances. I might have managed to live under the Sidhe Clans’ radar for well over a decade since I ran away from them as a kid, but those times were long gone. And my friends were guilty by association.
Brochan was more sensitive than he let on. He tapped my arm, his fingers brushing my skin so lightly that I almost thought I’d imagined his touch. ‘It’s not your fault, Tegs.’
‘I know,’ I said with a slight lift of my shoulders. ‘But it doesn’t make me feel any better.’
Speck, fiddling with a circuit board at the back of the room, looked up. ‘Did the spider have an aura?’ he asked curiously.
