Athair slowly dropped his hands and looked up. ‘It didn’t work!’ He laughed aloud. ‘It didn’t fucking work! Screw you, King John! Screw you, elves! And screw you?—’
I twisted Gladys and thrust her into his back. She pierced his body, sliding through bone and gristle and muscle and heart.
He choked and then he fell to his knees. ‘Daisy,’ he croaked.
I kept my hands on Gladys’s hilt. It was down to her now, but I was right there with her.
‘The ring…’
I crouched down to his ear. ‘The ring is just that,’ I said. ‘It’s a ring, nothing more, nothing less. Wedidgo to Culcreuch Castle and wedidtake it from William Hausman whohadbeen hunting for King John’s treasure. But that ring is not connected to the sceptre. It’s cheap gold, probably purchased from a market stall. You fell for the oldest trick in the book.’ It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen for an imitation but it would be the last.
He wheezed. ‘You … could … have … had … everything.’
‘I’ve already got everything,’ I told him.
And then I twisted Gladys for a final time and ended it.
My knees had givenway and I was sitting in a puddle of something wet. It might have been water or it might have been blood. I was too drained to check.
‘You went off script,’ Hugo’s chided me mildly.
I looked up. He was standing over me; his stance was casual but the look in his eyes was pure concern. I managed a flicker of a smile to indicate that I was alright. He reached down and pulled me up to my feet. ‘Minor improvisation,’ I told him. ‘At best.’
His arms wrapped tightly around me. ‘Improvisation that worked,’ he whispered. ‘You did it.’
‘Wedid it. That blue goop from Baudi worked a treat.’ The will-o’-the-wisp I’d met several months before couldn’t abandon her marshland home to join the fight, but even so she’d insisted on helping.
‘It did feel like I was in The Beatles performing a rooftop concert,’ Hugo admitted.
‘Which Beatle?’
He grinned. ‘All of them rolled into one.’
There was a click of footsteps as somebody approached. Hugo released me from his hug but from the way his fingers continued to grip mine, he wasn’t planning on ever letting go again. That suited me.
I pushed back my hair with my free hand and glanced at the two women in front of me.
‘This will be quite the clean-up operation,’ DI O’Hagan said. ‘But I can’t deny that I’m impressed. You’ve done a lot for the city tonight. I had no idea there were still so many vampires lurking around.’
‘I suspect Athair brought a lot of them in from other places.’
‘Then it’s not just Edinburgh that owes you a debt of gratitude, it’s the entire country.’
I shifted uncomfortably. The praise felt misplaced; after all, I had mostly been saving myself.
‘I will make sure that you are not billed for the damage this time,’ the other older woman said.
I felt a squint of confusion and I gazed at her more closely. Then I blinked. ‘WPC Hurst?’ I asked. Was this the fresh-faced police officer who’d tried to help me when I’d time-travelled to 1994?
‘It’s Detective Inspector Hurst these days.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve not changed much, Lady Daisy.’
I swallowed. Uh-huh. ‘Apart from the blood and gore, I suppose.’
‘I suppose.’
Hugo nudged me. ‘She’s not the only face from the past who’d like a word.’
I raised an eyebrow then I spotted Tracey Coles, ex-homeless entrepreneur. The last time I’d seen her had also been in 1994, outside Waverley Station. She might be thirty years older since the last time we’d spoken but she certainly looked good. I didn’t need to ask to know that she’d done well for herself in the intervening decades. She’d been on the cover ofTimemagazine, for goodness’ sake. ‘Your vamp spray was extraordinary.’
