Chapter 4: An Unholy Alliance

Chapter 4: An Unholy Alliance

Alistair’s antique shop was a fortress built of secrets and dust, and right now, it felt more like a prison. I sat hunched in a worn leather armchair that smelled of old pipe tobacco, nursing a cup of Alistair’s surprisingly good whisky. The cheap stuff he offered was probably poisoned, but this single malt was smooth, warming the pit of my stomach where a knot of pure terror had taken up residence. My arm throbbed where the Redcap's sickle had sliced it, a fiery reminder that this was no longer a story I was telling, but one that was happening to me.

Across the cluttered room, Morana stood by a grimy window, a silhouette of black against the rain-streaked glass. She hadn't moved in twenty minutes. She didn't seem to breathe. She was less a person and more a monument to impending doom. My so-called rescuer.

Alistair, meanwhile, hummed a jaunty, tuneless melody as he polished a tarnished silver locket, the picture of a man thoroughly enjoying the apocalypse unfolding in his living room. This was our grand coalition, our unholy alliance: a terrified comedian, a cosmic hit-woman, and a shifty old man who was probably charging us rent by the minute. Trust wasn't in short supply; it was entirely out of stock.

"Right," I said, breaking the silence. The whisky had done its job, loosening my tongue and sharpening my sarcasm. "So, what's the plan? We've established I'm a magical doodad and there's a monster who wants to use me to, what, turn Edinburgh into his personal hellscape?"

Alistair set the locket down, his blue eyes twinkling. "A crude but not entirely inaccurate summary, Mr. MacLean."

"And your job," I said, pointing at Morana's unmoving back, "is to maintain the 'balance'. That sounds suspiciously like corporate jargon for 'acceptable losses'. Am I one of those acceptable losses if things get tricky?"

Morana finally turned, her storm-grey eyes pinning me to my chair. "The balance is not a negotiation. It is a fact. The Veil between worlds is a dam. The Soul-Eater wishes to dynamite it. I am here to prevent that. Your continued existence is, for the moment, the most efficient method of doing so."

"For the moment," I repeated, the words chilling me more than her presence. "That's bloody comforting."

"She is what she is, lad," Alistair said, pouring himself a splash of whisky. "A tool for a very specific purpose. Arguing with her about her nature is like shouting at the tide for being wet." He took a sip, savouring it. "The more pressing question is why you are the key."

He leaned forward, the charming trickster replaced by the ancient scholar. "The story goes that centuries ago, one of your ancestors—a MacLean with more ambition than sense—made a pact. He was a 'Cunning Man', a mortal who meddled in Fae affairs. He helped seal a rift, a wound in the Veil, using a shard of primal power. But instead of just using it, he bound it into his own bloodline, hoping to harness its power for himself."

A bitter laugh escaped me. "So I'm in this mess because one of my great-great-great-grand-idiots wanted to be a wizard?"

"Precisely," Alistair beamed. "The shard isn't a physical thing you carry. It's you. It's a resonance in your blood, a latent power that makes you a living key, capable of locking or unlocking the weakest points in the Veil. The Soul-Eater doesn't need to kill you. It just needs to control you, use you like a crowbar to pry the worlds apart."

The air in the shop suddenly grew heavy and still. The cheerful humming from Alistair stopped. The dust motes dancing in the lamplight froze mid-air. The low crackle of the electric heater died. An absolute, profound silence descended, so complete it felt like the world outside had ceased to exist.

A shadow in the corner of the room, one cast by a towering bookshelf, deepened. It didn't just get darker; it became a patch of absolute nothing, a hole in reality. From that hole, a figure coalesced.

It was the Bodach Glas. The same grey, shrouded figure I’d seen on the street. Its ashen skin seemed to absorb the light, and its face remained a blur of ancient, featureless sorrow. It wasn't hostile. It was simply… there. A fact, like Morana.

Alistair froze, his hand hovering over his teacup, the twinkle in his eyes extinguished and replaced with a wary respect. I felt a primal fear grip me, an instinct that screamed this being was not something to be fought or even understood, only endured.

The Grey Man did not look at me or Alistair. Its non-face turned directly to Morana. No words were spoken, but I felt a pressure in my skull, a faint, whispery echo of a voice that sounded like stones grinding together at the bottom of a river. Morana's expression didn't change, but she tilted her head, listening. She was the only one receiving the message. The rest of us were just furniture in the room.

The presence lingered for a long, stretched-out moment, then it simply dissolved, seeping back into the shadow from whence it came. The sounds of the shop rushed back in—the heater's crackle, the rain on the window, the ticking of a dozen unseen clocks.

"What in God's name was that?" I breathed, my knuckles white on the whisky glass.

"A message," Morana said, her voice flat. She looked at Alistair. "The herald brings a prophecy. A location. 'Beneath the sleeping king'."

Alistair’s eyes lit up with the thrill of a puzzle. He stroked his chin, his mind clearly racing through centuries of Edinburgh lore. "The sleeping king… there are tales… King Arthur's knights, sleeping until Scotland needs them most…" His gaze flickered towards the window, looking south-east. "Of course. It's not a person. It's a place. Arthur's Seat."

The volcanic hill that dominated the city's skyline. A popular spot for hikers and tourists. A sleeping king, waiting. "So the Soul-Eater is having a picnic in Holyrood Park?" my cynical brain interjected.

"Not on it," Alistair corrected, a grim edge to his voice. "Beneath it. The hill is riddled with Thin Places, old seams where the Veil is worn and frayed. He's made his lair there."

The path forward was suddenly, terrifyingly clear. We had a target. Our fragile truce now had a purpose. A fragile, desperate hope began to kindle in my chest. Maybe we could end this.

And then, it happened.

It wasn't a sound. It was a violation. A cold, oily voice slithered directly into the middle of my thoughts, slick with triumphant malice.

Clever little key. You’ve found my scent. But I have found something of yours.

An image flooded my mind, sharp and horrifyingly clear. Fiona. She was in a dark, cavernous space, the walls slick with moisture. She was bound to a jagged pillar of rock, her red hair matted with grime, her eyes wide with terror.

She makes such terrible tea, the voice sneered in my head, twisting a fond memory into a weapon. But she will scream so very sweetly. Come for her, key. Come to the heart of the mountain. Or I will unmake her, piece by piece.

The psychic intrusion vanished, leaving behind a profound, chilling silence in my skull.

I shot to my feet, the whisky glass smashing on the floor. The fragile hope was gone, replaced by a white-hot surge of adrenaline and rage. The abstract threat of Fae courts and cosmic balance had just become brutally, agonizingly personal.

They had Fiona.

"He has her," I choked out, my voice raw. I looked from Alistair's suddenly grave face to Morana's impassive one. "He has Fiona."

The game had changed. This wasn't about saving the world anymore. It was about saving my friend.

"We're going in," I said, my voice shaking but laced with a resolve I didn't know I possessed. "Now."