Leaping back, her foot slid in the mud. She tumbled over, barely keeping a grip on her cane.
The creature’s arm slashed through the night, nails long and sharp.
Effie sucked in a breath, bracing for the impact.
But Jaelyn sprang from the shadows and launched herself into the creature’s exposed flank. The brownie’s dirk bit into flesh and sent the creature flailing back, shrieking. It spun and swiped with both arms in a flurry. They were long and gangly, and Jaelyn stood only half the creature’s height. Its arms crushed down on top of her.
Effie scrambled to her feet. She rushed in and cracked the creature’s hip with a swing of the cane. Her teeth rattled from the impact.
Jaelyn danced away. A trickle of blood ran from a jagged cut along her cheek.
“The girl,” Effie said. She brandished her cane. “Where is she?”
The creature eyed her. A sickly grey tongue licked at its teeth. “Dead,” it said. “Eaten.” Its lips pulled into a foul grin.
Effie’s chest clenched at the pronouncement. Phantom tendrils born of Fey Craft flashed toward her as the thing leapt at Jaelyn. She batted at them, grasping and ripping as if she fought through a dense forest of thorny weeds.
Jaelyn darted. Her dirk flashed in the dim light.
Effie lurched forward once again, but the creature whirled, expecting the attack. A backhanded swipe caught the cane, ripping it from her hands and sending it spinning into the darkness.
The creature cackled as it sprang at her.
Edgar’s pistol popped twice. The sound echoed through the night, carrying over the hills. The creature flinched and staggered.
“No!” Effie shouted as Jaelyn darted in and drove her dirk into the creature’s back. But it was too late. The thing slumped. It struggled with its arms to reach the brownie before falling still.
“Clara,” said Effie. A numbness overtook her. She couldn’t shake the feeling she had failed yet another she had vowed to see safe. It mattered little that she had never met the lass. The creature had been right, she knew. She had not the strength to save them all.
“Most like, the lass was dead for some time afore ye ever heard of her.” Jaelyn eyed Effie and spoke in a blunt tone. “Ye did all ye could.”
Effie had no energy to argue with the brownie, so remained silent. The truth weighed heavily on her shoulders. Gareth found his legs and came to sit next to her. He leaned against her knee for support and burrowed in.
“What is that thing?” Edgar asked. He kept his pistol trained on the creature’s body. His breath came in white puffs that dissipated into the frigid night air.
“A grindylow, I’d wager,” said Jaelyn. Effie started in surprise, but the brownie merely shrugged. “It’s as far as I can tell from the look of it, though none living would ken of the things. Not a sight nor whiff of them have been around the Highlands for centuries.”
A grindylow, Effie considered. Another race of ancient creatures reborn unto the world, one that most considered naught but folktales. Had the Barrow Witch conjured them? And if so, what other dangerous creatures might lurk in the shadows, bound to her will?
Effie’s body stiffened, as if her spine had seized. A foul taste came to the back of her throat. The array of potential answers troubled her. She hadn’t thought it possible, but their position had worsened, going from bleak to desperate.
2
“Trows and wulvers hadn’t been around for centuries either,” said Effie. The impish creatures and lupine fiends had only reemerged since the arrival of the Sidhe Bhreige. She peered closer at the grindylow. “But they do not speak, nor have the Fey Craft to hide their auras. This thing felt…different.”
The brownie shrugged again. She cleaned her dirk on some heather and sheathed it. “I can’t say for certain, only that it fits with the tales told of the creatures. Their ilk is said to lurk in the fens and burns, snatching wee bairns who strayed too far from their mums’ aprons. Abominations, the tales say.”
Effie planted her hands on her hips. She worked through all the creature had said, and all it had done. “I felt the banshee’s touch, just like in the cities. The grindylow used it to ensnare Edgar. It must be connected to the Barrow Witch somehow.”
“Another disciple?” asked Edgar. Gareth whined and thumped his tail.
At the utterance of the word, a memory came to Effie of her confrontation with the cult, Les Revinirs, in the bowels of Edinburgh. “The phantom tendrils it used,” she said. “I recognized them. Tallia, the Sithling woman who betrayed Cecily McCray, sought to bind me in such a manner. It is how I learned to recognize the Fey Craft used by the banshee’s touch in the first place.”
Jaelyn snorted. “Then we be in the same spot we’ve been in the past year. The Sidhe Bhreige does naught but hide and turn loose her minions to savage the land.”
Effie chewed her lip. The statement wasn’t completely true. The Barrow Witch had not always remained hidden. She had come to Effie near Inverness by means of Fey Craft. She had entered Effie’s mind to taunt her. It was just after the arrest of Cyrus Reed, the madman who’d used alchemy to turn a trio of pixies into perversions of their former selves.
Into abominations. The thought clicked, and Effie froze in place. Gwendoline squawked, fluttering down to perch on her shoulder. The wee owl stared at her intently.
“Abominations,” she said. “Tales speak of goblins in the same manner.”
Edgar’s brow scrunched. “You think there is a connection?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “The alchemy Cyrus Reed used to transmute the pixies into goblins changed their very auras.” She had witnessed the change herself, though she found it hard to believe a creature like the grindylow had ever once been peaceful. And yet, hadn’t the Barrow Witch’s brethren, the Laird of Aonghus and Piper of Ceann Rois, used enthrallment to gain a host of trows, wulvers, and giants? Hadn’t the Barrow Witch herself employed the banshee’s touch on the humans of the empire, to the same effect?
“Perhaps Rose or Jane have uncovered more on the matter,” said Edgar.
Effie nodded, though she found little encouragement in the remark. Their friends boarded in a cottage on the outskirts of Dunfermline, expending their efforts trying to reverse the fate of the poor pixies. They had, thus far, achieved not a speck of success.
Their attempts to stave off the banshee’s touch had proved equally as futile. For every person cleansed, ten more sprang up somewhere else. Tensions in the cities and towns had reached a pitch not seen since the days of Cromwell. Any flick of tinder could ignite a blaze that would engulf the entire country.
Effie hugged herself against a blast of frigid wind. Her thoughts circled back to the Barrow Witch, as they always did. All of their problems stemmed from her. Until she was defeated, they might as well use handkerchiefs to hold back an ocean swell.
“It grows dark, and my belly grumbles,” said Jaelyn. “Let us be gone from this place and find food and warmth.”
“Aye,” Edgar agreed. “We can see to this thing’s remains in the morning. To Tam Lorrie as well. I’ll fetch some lads from Braemuir for it, as you’ve asked.”
And for Clara, Effie wanted to say. Her remains might be close by. But she held her tongue, despite how much it pained her. Kindness and civility would not bring them any closer to defeating the Barrow Witch. Wherever her resting place, she hoped the lass had found peace.