“I think we have a problem.”
“What?” Dylan looked up at Tristan from the styrofoam container of cottage pie that she was just about to tuck into.
“I’m pretty sure it’s a wraith.”
“What?” Her plastic fork dropped into her lunch, spattering gravy onto her school shirt. She didn’t notice.
“The thing that killed the horse.”
“What?” Click, click, click, the pieces slotted into place as she finally caught up with the conversation.
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
Dylan leaned forward and scowled at him as he dropped into the seat opposite her.
“What do you mean, you think it’s a wraith? It happened miles away from the tears Jack and I made. It can’t be a wraith!” Dylan’s voice came out sharp and shrill. Wincing, she looked around the crowded cafeteria, but no one was paying her any attention. “Why do you think it’s… one of them?”
Tristan took a deep breath. “There’s been another attack, at the same place.”
“A person?”
“No, sheep.”
“A sheep?”
Tristan shook his head. “Not one, a whole herd of them. At the next farm over, just last night. It was on the BBC regional news page. The police are warning people about a possible dangerous wild animal.”
“A wild animal? This isn’t Africa – there aren’t lions and tigers wandering about!”
“The news suggested it might have escaped from somewhere, like a zoo or a private collection.”
“There is a safari park somewhere around there,” Dylan agreed. She considered Tristan. “But you don’t think that’s what it is.”
“No.”
“I just…” Dylan shoved her lunch tray away, her appetite gone. She felt sick now. Though she wasn’t convinced, Tristan’s worry was palpable and hard to ignore. “I don’t see how it can be a wraith. There, in the middle of nowhere. You definitely haven’t felt another ferryman coming through?”
Tristan shook his head with strained patience – Dylan had asked him this before.
“Then it makes sense for it to just be something normal. Well, as normal as a panther stalking around Central Scotland! It does, Tristan!” she repeated. “How else would a wraith get here? They can’t just come through, not on their own.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I know, but I feel it… Something’s not right.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t sense a wraith until they were really close?”
“I can’t. Not—”
“Not without Susanna,” Dylan finished, when Tristan wisely didn’t. She heaved out a breath. She knew where this was going. “You want to go out there. Investigate.”
He nodded, shrugging apologetically.
Dylan pursed her lips but gave in. If Tristan was right – and she didn’t see how he could be – then their deal with the Inquisitor demanded they go and deal with it. Kill the wraith, work out where the hell it came from and stop any others from coming through.
If Tristan was right, and they didn’t go and check it out and the Inquisitor stepped in…
“All right,” she said, sighing. “Tomorrow’s Friday so it’s a half day. We can go then. Will that do?”
Tristan made a face, likely chafed by the delay, but jerked his head once in a nod.
“Tomorrow,” he agreed.
“You’ll see,” she said, picking her fork up and forcing herself to scoop up a mouthful, “we won’t find anything.”
She said it with confidence, and hoped that she was right.
* * *
“I still think this is daft,” Dylan griped. She stood shin-deep in mud, her feet freezing in her wellies. She was pretty sure one of her socks was about to slide off as well. In her left hand she gripped an umbrella, big fat raindrops pelting down and creating an uneven drumbeat around her head. She’d pulled her other arm out of the sleeve of her waterproof entirely and had it wrapped around her stomach, numb, frozen fingers tingling against her skin. And every time she exhaled, her breath steamed before her.
March in Scotland was neither the time nor the place to be traipsing round the countryside. To be honest, Dylan really didn’t think there was ever a time to do that. She hadn’t been an ‘outdoorsy’ girl before she’d died, and her experiences in the wasteland – and beyond – had done nothing to change that.
Tristan ignored her. She supposed he’d given up trying to placate her after the first five attempts failed to make an impact. Instead, he was peering into the next field, fingers tense around the top string of a barbed-wire fence. Dylan stood a good few metres back from him because, well… beyond was a grim sight.
Really, really grim.
It was like something out of a slasher movie. Countless bodies had been piled one atop the other, limbs contorted at odd angles, more flesh than skin on display. They’d been burned, and the fire still wasn’t quite out, the heat creating a swirling mist that rose and coiled like a departing ghost.
The fact that the bodies were those of sheep and not people did little to detract from the horror.
“Tristan, honestly, I don’t see—”
“I want to get closer,” Tristan interrupted her.
“What?”
Rather than answering, he swung his leg over the fence and dropped down into the field with the smouldering heap of carcases.
“Tristan!” Dylan hurried forwards, squelching through the mud-mire, but she couldn’t go any further than the barrier between fields – and that wasn’t just because there was no way she’d be able to get over it in her size-too-big wellies. This close, she could see much more detail, her gaze more easily penetrating the smoke, but also, the smell that had been merely uncomfortable in her previous spot was now close to overwhelming. Dylan gagged, wriggling her hand up through the neck of her jacket to cover her face. She breathed through her mouth rather than her nose, but that just meant she could taste it. Soot and burned wool and, underneath, the more familiar flavours of lamb, of mutton.
She liked lamb, normally. After this, she thought she might never eat it again.
In front of her, Tristan seemed unperturbed by the stink, or at least determined enough to ignore it. He was right up at the mound, close enough to touch. As Dylan watched he reached out, as if he was actually going to stick his hand into the huge pile of grossness, but he held back, his hand hovering over what, from Dylan’s viewpoint, looked like a charred hoof.
She didn’t see why they were here. They had closed both holes through to the wasteland; there was no way for wraiths to get through.
And even if one had, what would it be doing here, far from either of the two sites: the tunnel where she’d died and the alleyway where Jack’s life had trickled out through a stab wound in his stomach? And this time it wasn’t even people who had died – it was sheep! A lot of sheep, and she admitted that it was odd… but surely it couldn’t have anything to do with her or Tristan?
“Tristan!” she called. “It’s getting late and it’s going to be dark soon.”
“All right,” Tristan replied, tucking his phone back into his pocket after taking several snaps. “I’m done.” He jogged back to her, typically having no difficulty with the deep, sucking mud.
“What do you think?” Dylan asked. Despite her own scepticism, she knew she was no expert. Tristan was.
He grimaced, glancing back at the burned bodies of an entire flock. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, the bodies are scratched and torn just like I’d expect to see in a wraith attack but…”
“But it’s sheep,” Dylan finished.
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t it more likely that it was just an out-of-control pack of dogs?” That was what the angry farmer had blamed when he was interviewed on the news, his eyes red-rimmed beneath his weathered bunnet. “Or a wild animal, like the police said?”
“It could have been,” Tristan mused.
“I mean,” Dylan went on, “we’re not even near either of the two breaches. Any wraith that came through would have had to have passed dozens of places with tasty humans in them before it got here.”
“Tasty humans?” Tristan quirked an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean!” Dylan rolled her eyes and nudged him with her shoulder.
“You’re right,” Tristan agreed. “It’s probably nothing. I just…” He looked back once more at the pile of carcasses, a long, lingering look this time. “I just have a funny feeling that something’s not right.”
“Can you sense a wraith?” Dylan asked. Despite her misgivings, Tristan’s gut feeling and the low chill now invading her own stomach told her she was beginning to take the possibility of a breach a little more seriously.
“Not really,” Tristan wrinkled his nose. “I mean, I don’t think so. Without Susanna here it’s a bit harder to—”
He bit his words off and Dylan clenched her teeth. Susanna, again. She’d be much more helpful than Dylan was in this situation, and didn’t that just rub her up the wrong way.
“Right,” Dylan said, more sharply than she’d intended.
Trying to pretend the sheep weren’t there, Dylan perused the landscape. They were just a couple of miles outside Kilsyth and the land was all neatly divided into fields. Some, like the one they were in, were grassed over, clearly used for grazing. Others were nothing more than furrowed brown earth, turned to bog after all the recent heavy rain. Up on a hill, about a mile away, Dylan could see a large house surrounded by a cluster of outbuildings and a barn, probably the farm that owned these fields. She hoped whoever lived up there wasn’t in; she didn’t want an angry farmer descending on them, shotgun in hand.
Lower down the same hill, on the narrow country road that led out towards the main route back into town, was a row of neat little cottages that probably at one time belonged to farm laborers. The high hedges were hopefully working to keep Tristan and Dylan hidden from the houses, but still, Dylan felt exposed and vulnerable. Irrationally, she was more concerned about being caught here and shouted at than she was about a wraith springing from the hedgerow and trying to punch a hole through her.
“Priorities, Dylan,” she muttered to herself.
“What?” Tristan asked. He, too, was gazing at the landscape, but Dylan doubted angry locals were on his mind.
“Nothing,” she said. She made herself focus. “Do you know what field the horse was in?”
“No.” Tristan shook his head. “The news report only said it was less than a mile from the sheep attack, and we can see more than a mile in either direction from here, I reckon, so it must have been really close by.”
“OK.” Dylan turned slowly on the spot. There wasn’t much to see. “Apart from the houses, I don’t see many hiding places.”
“If the wraith had found its way into the houses, it would have been a much bigger story,” Tristan said.
Well, it was hard to argue with that. Unexplained dead bodies did tend to cause a splash. A fleeting image of the house in Denny, the one where they’d found the nest of wraiths, flashed in her mind. She still had nightmares about the brief glimpses she’d caught of those blood-soaked walls.
“So, what do we do?” she asked.
“Hunt for the wraith,” Tristan said simply. “Although…” His forehead scrunched up in a frown. “It would be better if we could find where it got through.”
“If one got through,” Dylan amended, not willing to give up on the possibility that there was no wraith quite yet.
“Right,” Tristan said distractedly, his gaze on the landscape.
“How do we do that?” Dylan asked. “We won’t be able to see it, will we?”
“Not unless we’re close enough to fall in it,” Tristan answered wryly. “And I’d prefer that not to happen. If a soul ripped a hole, the other side of the veil should look just like this. It’d be like trying to spot a mirror with no edges, nearly impossible to see. It’s almost a shame you can’t feel it pulling at you, like in the tunnel. It would make our lives a lot easier.”
“Well, I’m not sad about that,” Dylan said. The feeling in her chest in the tunnel when they’d revisited the spot where she’d died had terrified her. It had been like something reached inside her, grabbed her heart… and yanked.
“No, I’m not either.” Tristan reached out and squeezed her hand in silent apology. He took a deep breath. “Look, let’s just concentrate on trying to find out for certain whether there is a wraith or not. If we find one, well, then we’ll worry about where it came from.”
“OK, that sounds like a plan.” Dylan turned slowly in a circle and then stopped. “You’re thinking over there, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Of course.” She sniffed disdainfully. “The dark, creepy wood. Where else?”
It wasn’t really a wood. A copse, maybe. It was halfway up a hill, wedged in on all sides by fields. Really, apart from the houses, which Tristan had already discounted, it was the only place that could hide a wraith during the hours of daylight. If it wasn’t there…
Well, they’d have to hope that Tristan was mistaken, because if the wraith had already moved on, it could be anywhere.
It didn’t take long to reach the trees. The rain, at least, petered out to nothing and Dylan was able to dump her umbrella on top of a low stone wall that ringed the trees before Tristan gave her a boost over it. They took their first steps beneath the dark canopy. Made up almost entirely of spruce trees, the needles grew just as thickly as they would midsummer, and with the overcast day, it was as dark as twilight amongst the tree trunks.
It was a small copse, and before they’d taken more than a dozen steps towards the centre, Dylan could already make out the light filtering in from the other side.
“Careful,” Tristan said, picking up a stout chunk of fallen branch. “A hidey-hole for a single wraith doesn’t have to be very big. A fox or badger hole would work just fine, or even a deep gap between tree roots. In here, where there’s not much chance of direct sunlight getting through, it wouldn’t need to be entirely enclosed.”
“Great,” Dylan muttered. She continued forward, gingerly placing each foot amongst the mulch of damp leaves and fallen needles that carpeted the ground.
Off to her left, Tristan seemed to be walking in some sort of grid pattern, methodically checking every square foot of the copse. Dylan’s approach was more haphazard: she wandered here and there, investigating anything that looked unusual or oddly shaped. She found nothing, and by the time she was bored and cold and about to give up, Tristan had finished his systematic search and was standing with his hands on his hips, looking distinctly discouraged.
“Shit,” he said. “It’s not here.”
“Shouldn’t we be glad of that?” Dylan suggested. “No wraith means no hole in the veil. Which means no possible visit from the Inquisitor.”
“I know,” he said, “But… I was so sure.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Dylan’s mouth quirked into a relieved smile. “I’m just glad we haven’t been eaten by an escaped tiger.”
Tristan barked out a laugh, throwing his head back. And stopped dead.
“What?” Dylan asked, watching him. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he just pointed.
Dylan came over to stand beside him and looked up, following the direction of his finger. There, at least six or seven metres up in the trees, a precarious-looking platform had been strung together. Squinting through the gloom, Dylan could just make out the blue rope that had been used to lash it to the tree trunks and into an irregular triangular shape. It was hard to tell, but she could see some sort of lumpy covering turning it into a little treehouse. From the dilapidated state of it, Dylan reckoned it was a child’s secret den that had long been grown out of.
It was her turn to swear.
“Bugger.” She heaved a sigh. “Please tell me wraiths don’t like heights.”
Tristan grunted and dropped his branch. It hit the ground with a quiet thud, cushioned by the leaves on the ground.
“You stay here,” he said. “I’ll go up and check.”
He walked over to the tree and jumped up, grabbing a knotted section of trunk. Dylan watched his feet scrabble for purchase on the slick surface – and fail. He slipped back to the ground and rubbed at the sticky sap now coating his palms.
“Done much tree climbing, have you?” Dylan asked.
“No,” Tristan admitted. Undaunted, he jumped again, hauling himself up onto the first branch. “But if whoever built this can make it up there, I can too.”
“Yeah,” Dylan mumbled to herself, walking around to the other side of the tree and reaching for the first hand-hold nailed into the widest trunk. “Although I’m guessing they put his handy ladder here for more than just decoration.”
It wasn’t easy – the wood was damp and Dylan’s upper-body strength was limited, probably because she avoided any and all forms of exercise. Still, the little rungs were close together and in less than a minute she was pausing, level with Tristan.
He stared at her and she offered a cheeky grin.
“All right,” he said at last, “climb back down and I’ll go that way.”
Dylan shook her head. “No. We’re both going. We’ll check together.”
Tristan was shaking his head vehemently before she’d even finished speaking. “Dylan—”
Ignoring him, she started climbing again.
“Dylan!” He hissed her name, not wanting to shout in case there really was a wraith up above them, but Dylan ignored him and kept going. After a moment, she heard a quiet curse then the creaking of the tree shifting as he started climbing quickly, trying to catch up.
Dylan let him. Her bravery only extended so far – she had no intention of checking the treehouse alone.
She paused just beneath the platform; Tristan appeared beside her almost instantly. He put his finger up to his lips, before holding his hand out in front of him in a ‘stay back’ gesture. Dylan shook her head. She wasn’t staying here and letting him take all the risks. He made a face but seemed to realise he couldn’t stop her.
Instead he held up three fingers, then two, then one. A beat after the last, both he and Dylan started creeping up. One step, then another. The platform was just a handsbreadth above Dylan’s head when the tree starting swaying alarmingly under her weight. Clutching at the handholds, she pressed herself against the trunk and stupidly looked down.
They were high.
Like, break-both-her-legs-again high. Tristan had been right, she should have stayed on the ground, but she couldn’t stand the thought of sending him into danger alone. Which was dumb – exactly what help did she think she was going to be?
A gust of wind swept through the copse and the tree swayed once more. Dylan gripped tighter and allowed herself one more moment of cowardice before she drew back and reached up to the next rung, ready to climb again.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tristan watching her, concern drawing his features tight. She tried to smile reassuringly at him, but it came out more of a grimace. When he saw she was climbing purposefully again, though, he hurried to overtake her once more.
Dylan’s head peeked up over the top of the platform. Empty. At first glance, anyway. Towards the back, the lumpy covering she’d seen was indeed a roof made of old, frayed tarp, but it had long since collapsed, lying in a tangled heap.
Anything could be lying under there.
Or nothing.
Seeing Tristan clamber awkwardly onto the platform, Dylan did the same. The wooden planks were thick and sturdy, but they’d been out in the elements a long time, and Dylan didn’t trust the ropes and nails to hold. She got her feet beneath her, then hunkered down with her back against the tree trunk. Seeing a short length of wood within arm’s reach, she grabbed it up and held it, ready to smash at anything that might fly loose as Tristan crept slowly, carefully, towards the bundle of tarp.
Dylan watched him crouch down, tentatively reach out and grasp the frayed edges of the thick material. He paused, the tarp in his hand, and looked over to Dylan. She nodded and shifted her weight, getting her feet balanced beneath her. Tightening her grip on her makeshift plank, she took a deep breath.
Tristan was obviously the type who believed in tearing a plaster off in one go. Instead of easing the tarp aside, he hauled it back, exposing whatever was inside to the dim light. Dylan half jumped, her legs already primed to leap into action, but then she stilled.
The platform was empty.
But there, gouged into the wood, were deep scratches, and the surface itself gleamed a stomach-churning shade of dark red. As Dylan watched, Tristan reached his hand out and stroked his fingers along one of the grooves etched into the platform. His fingertips came away wet.
“A wraith,” Dylan whispered. Tristan had been right.
“We’re too late,” he said quietly. He looked out, towards the sweeping countryside that could only be seen in brief glimpses through the trees. “It could be anywhere by now.”
Dylan’s heart pounded in a frantic rhythm in her chest, each thump almost painful.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
Tristan didn’t have an answer.