A Glow of Stars & Dusk by Eve L. Mitchell

“You’re very quiet, Star,”Chaz said to me as we walked over the uneven ground in a hidden nook of land at the edge of the Cairngorms National Park.

“Am I?” I avoided looking at him directly as I answered. I had managed to avoid eye contact with them all, which considering there were six of them, seven if you included Ruairidh, who we left in the van, was actually a great achievement. “Cider doesn’t agree with me.”

“And they say that whisky is the devil’s water.” Chaz’s tone was light, and I loved him in that moment for not throwing my wanton abandonment with Sam in my face.

“Do you know the devil?” I asked suddenly. “Oh my God, is one of you the devil?” I don’t know why my eyes instantly sought out Zel, but his look of contempt made me flush scarlet.

“It depends what you term as a devil,” Pen said from his side of the area of ground we were currently combing through. “Devil to some could mean any being of hell; to others, it could be someone or something with wicked intent; or to others, a red-skinned, black-horned, pointed-tail, forked-tongue monster.” He looked at the others and then me. “But then taking that further, what is a monster? A figment of the imagination? A horror? A bad thing? Language is open to so much interpretation.”

“Um, that’s a lot,” I admitted. “And more than I was actually going for, but now my head’s thinking about it all, and I’m actually fascinated to talk about this more.” Pen looked genuinely pleased at this, and I returned his smile shyly. “But, I actually meant Satan, or Lucifer. Or whatever you call him...” I trailed off as I felt them all give me their attention.

“Are you asking if he is real?” Sam asked me with amusement. “Or are you asking if one of us is him?”

“Both?” I answered hesitantly.

Der started to laugh, and Ros joined in. “You’re so much more fun when you’re sober,” Der said with a twinkle in his eye. “Terribly moody when you’re drunk.”

“Not that Sam was complaining,” Ros said in a low voice meant for all to hear.

I grimaced as I heard their chuckles and saw that even Sam had a small smile as he started to search again. My eyes met Chaz’s, and he gave me a sad smile, and I remembered avoiding eye contact was key to getting through today.

“We are not the devil. Not as you know him,” Pen continued as if the others had not spoken.

“So you could be devils because you are demons, but you are not Satan?” I nodded in understanding.

“Exactly.” Pen beamed at me. “Sam told us you struggled with the spell?” he asked me casually.

“Yes.” I stopped looking around me. We were looking for a Druid’s buried bones. It was ludicrous, we had no idea where or when he died and a general vicinity from my mum and Ruairidh’s recollection of old tales of the eccentric Hamish, who sometimes wandered through Slate when I was younger. I had no memory of him at all, but Ruairidh was more popular with the village, and old men told old tales in the pub on a cold winter’s night.

Ruairidh had accompanied us out to the wilds, as I was calling them, but we had left him in the van. Sam’s hands hadn’t been shy as they caressed my arse on the way out of the van, and despite my glare and shove, he had still dropped his arm around my shoulders as we left Ruairidh behind. When we were out of sight, he had told the others to spread out and start searching for a marker. Apparently, the Druid wouldn’t have “returned to the earth” without some form of marker showing. When I quickly realised they didn’t mean a gravestone, I shuffled through the weeds, the dead thistle bushes and the long grass on the pretence that I knew what I was looking for.

“The words moved,” I said with sudden remembrance. “Just before the Scavengers came.” I looked up at Pen, Der and Ros. “Oh my God, I’m a terrible person!” The three of them looked confused, whereas Zel nodded in agreement. I ignored him. “I didn’t even ask how you got away from them!” I looked the three of them over. “I mean, obviously you are fine, you’re here.” I shoved my jacket sleeve up, baring my arm. “And this is still here, so why aren’t they?”

“This isn’t the time for this conversation,” Sam said as he pulled my jacket back down.

I looked up at him as the others resumed their search. “The highest bidder,” I murmured.

“Hmm, what’s that?” Sam asked me distractedly.

“You said Scavengers worked for the highest bidder.” I pulled his arm to get his attention. “You paid them off?”

Sam looked down at me and then over at the others, who were all steadfastly not paying attention to us. “It’s complicated.”

“Is it?” I asked him quietly. I searched his face for any clues, but his face was impassive and his eyes impenetrable. “Did you help me?”

His deep green eyes met mine, and his mouth hooked up in that sexy smirk he sometimes wore. “You’re helping me, I prefer it to go as smoothly as possible.”

“How did you even—” I stopped when I suddenly considered I may not want to know how he did it. “Is this one of those things that if I don’t know, it won’t hurt me?”

“Something like that.” His voice was rich with humour, and he cast an amused glance my way. “You letting go?” His eyes dropped to his arm where my fingers were still curled into his jacket.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I pulled my hand back and looked up at him in surprise when he easily laced our fingers together. “What are you doing?” I cast a look at the others, who were all searching and either not paying attention to us or pretending they didn’t see us.

“I’m trying something,” he told me with a sly smile, and I was going to ask more questions when he called for Pen. The blond demon came over to us easily, his eyes dropping to our joined hands, and his grin was wide.

“You think it would work?” Pen asked Sam, and Sam shrugged slightly. Pen nodded thoughtfully. “I mean, it could?”

“Could what? What would work? Oi, fill me in.” I poked Sam’s ribs to get his attention.

“Thought Sam did that last night?” Zel mumbled to Der, who snort laughed and dropped his head when he met my baleful glare.

“You know what, Zel? I don’t like you either, so why don’t you take your bad attitude, your bad hair and your bad manners and fuck off somewhere where I don’t need to look at you?”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” Zel demanded as his hand ran through his short dark hair.

“Nothing, brother,” Ros eased him.

Zel opened his mouth to retaliate, but Sam raised his hand, and his mouth snapped shut. “Both of you squabble like children,” he admonished us both.

“He eats children, more like,” I mumbled as I pulled away from Sam and shoved my hands in my pockets.

“I do not eat children,” Zel looked outraged, and if looks could kill, I would already be dead.

“What, no comeback about eating their mothers?” I asked crassly.

“Could you stop?” Sam asked me quietly.

“No.” I looked away from his reproachful stare.

“Witch,” Sam’s low voice held a warning, and I rolled my eyes.

“I’m back to witch?” I demanded furiously.

“You were always witch,” Sam looked at me with confusion.

“Really?” I knew my voice was too loud. I knew it, and I didn’t care that I was causing a scene. “Even after…” I looked at the others, who were all fixated on anything but me, well, except Zel, he was grinning wildly. “Forget it.”

“Did you think you were special?” Zel mocked me.

“Go fuck yourself,” I bit out savagely.

“Enough!” Chaz cut off Zel’s response. “This is not productive, and it is not why we are here.” He looked at all of us. “Can we please hurry this up?”

Sam nodded curtly and moved over to Zel. The two of them soon had their heads bent close together. With a sigh, I looked at Pen. “What were we going to try anyway?”

“Nothing, we can come visit it another time.” He gave me a speculative look before he rejoined the others.

Perfect. I had alienated them all. With a disgruntled huff, I turned away from them and continued to canvas the ground, looking for who knew what. I had asked them as we drove here why Hamish MacDonald’s bones would be so far from where he allegedly lived. Pen had told me that Druids rarely had a fixed abode, they roamed rather than settled. The cottage my mum remembered visiting with my gran was most likely not where the Druid resided while he was alive. Ruairidh had confirmed this when he had been asked. All tales of Hamish were that he was rather nomadic in his lifestyle, but this stretch of country, a few hundred meters away from the A9 road, was a favourite walking route for him, allegedly.

How on earth were we supposed to find a dead man’s bones in this wilderness? I sighed. Glancing over my shoulder, I looked towards the six demons, who now seemed to be huddled together. My eyes narrowed, as they were no doubt conspiring without me. It seemed to be their thing.

Where are you, Hamish?I closed my eyes, hoping for a premonition or at least an itch on my elbow. I felt the familiar tingle and opened my eyes. A striking man stood in front of me. Thick dark brown hair, full beard, he was broad-shouldered and solid looking, although he wasn’t too much taller than me.

“You seek to disturb what shouldn’t be disturbed, girl,” he spoke to me.

“Hamish?”

He nodded, and his gaze flickered past me over my shoulder. “Their aid will not save you.”

“Save me?” I kept my focus on the ghost of the Druid. “They’re not here to save me.”

“No, they are not.” He looked back at me, and I took a step back.

“I need to know if you bound my…powers.” I still hesitated over the word powers, convinced I was nothing more than a mediocre clairvoyant.

“You were born wrong,” he answered instead.

“Um, I don’t even know what to say to that,” I muttered as I folded my arms across my chest as I rocked back on my feet.

“You came out the wrong way,” he continued.

“Yeah, I think you said,” I said sharply.

“Feet first.”

Oh.“Ohh, you mean I was a breach birth!” I exclaimed in relief.

“Yes, that is the word they used.” He nodded as he thought about it. I knew that sometimes spirits who came back or loitered too long, lost familiarity with words, places or time. It was a huge thing to realise you were dead. As shocks to the system went, that was a big one.

“Because I was breach, you think that interfered with my powers?” I asked curiously. It sounded far-fetched to me.

“You took your mother’s energy,” Hamish continued.

“Well, she always said I was difficult,” I mumbled self-consciously.

“From conception to the last moments of gestation,” he said confidently.

“Gestation?” Eeew. “You mean pregnancy? Please tell me you didn’t refer to my mum’s pregnancy as gestation.”

“You took her natural gift, absorbed it like it was your own.” He looked at me with profound disappointment. “You fed off her.”

And now I was going to be sick. “Look, I don’t give a flying monkey’s if you’re long dead and forgetful, but you have to stop being so disgusting. I did not feed off my mother.”

“But you did.” Hamish looked at me in perplexity. “You took the food from her body as all babes do, and you also consumed her gift until there was nothing left for her.”

I shook my head in denial. “No. My mum never had the gift.” I shook my head again. “You’re wrong.”

“We tried to stop it, I made a salve for her to rub into her skin, to slow you down, without harm.” He looked to the sky as if seeing it for the first time. “Old magic, blood magic.”

“Blood magic,” I whispered in shock. “No, that’s…so wrong.”

“She was desperate. Her gift was strong, but it could not stop you.”

I felt the wind on my wet cheeks, and I knew I was crying. “I didn’t mean it,” I whispered futilely.

“You were a babe, too much power.” He shook his head. “We had to contain it.”

“What did you do?” I asked in despair.

“Blood spell.”

My eyes closed against his words. I didn’t know much about witchcraft, believing myself to be a poor psychic, but even I knew a blood spell couldn’t be broken. “You cursed me.”

“Bound you for eternity.”

“My gran would not have agreed to this?”

“Foolish woman, used much of her power on the cottage she lived in. Placing wards, wards against dark magic, but you are not just dark magic.” His look turned from confused spirit to cold malevolence.

“How do I break it?”

He laughed, and as he did so, I felt the cold shiver of fear at his laughter. “You can’t. Your demon scum cannot either. You are bound, and you are useless to them and their prince.”

“You knew they would come looking for me,” I realised. “You didn’t do this for my mum, you did this for your master.” His laugh carried on the wind, and I realised it was now howling around us as rain slashed from the sky. “You evil old bastard,” I muttered as thunder crashed above us. “Go! I send you back.”

“I don’t want to go,” he told me as he advanced. An eerie red glow appeared in his eyes as he got closer. “They can’t save you, girl, and I’ve been sleeping for too long.”

“I don’t need them to save me,” I whispered as I reached for the part inside me that I pulled upon when I was doing a reading. What had always felt like a tranquil pool inside me surged up in a wave to greet me. Grabbing onto it, I thrust it out of me and cast him back to the grave. Wherever his may be.

His scream died the moment that the wind did, and suddenly the rain too stopped. I stood with my head bowed as my mind raced, thinking over what he had revealed. I wasn’t only bound, I was bound with no hope of recovery.

“Are you hurt?” Sam asked quietly beside me.

“No.” I thought about it. “Yes? Maybe.”

“It is to be expected.” Chaz’s voice was gentle and soothing as always. Unthinkingly, I reached out and took his hand. He squeezed mine in comfort, but let me go quickly.

“Did you hear everything?” I asked as I clasped my hands in front of me, trying to shield my hurt.

“He was very clear,” Der said bitterly. “Old Druid had a soul of blackness.” I looked up curiously, but he looked too pissed off to question.

“This changes nothing,” Sam said with confidence beside me. “The binding is already breaking, you can see the spell, and you now know you can use it. We just need to find the old one’s bones.”

I looked up at him in bewilderment. “Why do we need his bones? We got what we needed, didn’t we?”

“He cast a blood spell on you,” Pen told me as he resumed his search. “Stains your soul, blood spells.”

“I just let his soul go,” I reminded him.

“Your body encapsulates your bones and your soul, human,” Zel explained. “Blood spells stain the soul, and strong ones? Well, they stain the bones as well.”

“Find his bones, crush his bones, break your binding,” Ros told me with a conspirator’s wink.

“So…” I looked around at the six demons. “Did you know this already?”

“Suspected,” Sam grunted out as he walked away from me.

“A heads-up would have been appreciated!” I called after him and chose to ignore his amused chuckle. “Bloody demon,” I muttered as I started searching again too. I didn’t walk carefully. I more or less trampled the vegetation underfoot, mumbling about Druids, demons and secrets being bad things for everyone while I carried out my search. My foot went right down the hole in the ground, and I pitched forward onto my hands and knees with a startled cry.

“Fucking useless bloody stupid bastard rabbit holes, nothing but dirty rats with fur coats, diseased good-for-nothing-but-the-pot fluffy dickhead bunnies.”

“The woman’s propensity for bad language is truly remarkable,” Pen murmured. I heard several grunts of agreement.

However, my sharp retort died on my tongue as I stared at the skull two inches from my nose. “Sam?” I called out. “I think I found Hamish.”