Gifted Thief (Highland Magic #1) (27 page)

‘Nothing you’d want to nick.’

I smiled. ‘Come on, Jimmy. We’re practically family.’

He laughed wheezily. ‘Good one. The day I’m practically family with a Sidhe is the day my parents disown me too.’

I frowned. Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t like other Sidhe? Surely he could grant me a little leeway. ‘Tell me what’s in the cage,’ I coaxed.

He was still amused. ‘If you really want to know…’ He raised his head and whistled. There was another rattle, followed by a hiss. I turned to see a creature out of my worst nightmares drop down from the roof of the cage.

‘We call her Debbie,’ Jimmy said.

I stared at the giant spider. Her glittering eyes were fixed on me and she was the size of a horse. One long hairy leg tapped impatiently on the steel floor. I swallowed, taking in the expanse of her rounded belly. I hoped its size meant she’d just eaten because, frankly, I’d never seen anything so terrifying. ‘Why the hell does the Carnegie Clan want a giant spider?’ I whispered, more to myself than to Jimmy.

‘Why do the Clans want anything?’ He shrugged. ‘All I know is we need to get this darling up to the Cruaich without anyone seeing.’ He wagged a finger in my direction. ‘Without any
Sidhe
seeing.’

Was the Carnegie Clan planning some kind of assault on the Cruaich? I shook my head. It didn’t make sense. As far as I knew, the Carnegies were in a good position but they certainly weren’t strong enough to challenge Aifric of the Moncrieffe Clan for Stewardship. He’d been the leader of the Sidhe Clans since before I was born after all.
I couldn’t think of any other reason why this thing was here, though.

As if sensing my thoughts, Debbie gave another rattle and scuttled towards me. I squeaked and jumped backwards.

Jimmy laughed. ‘Relax. She’s a sweetie really.’

My mouth was dry. ‘Really.’

‘You just need to get to know her.’ He stepped past me and up to the bars. I watched horror-struck as he put one hand into the cage. Debbie drew up as if she were preparing to strike – until Jimmy started scratching her under her chin. She let out an unmistakable hiss of delight. Okay then.

‘As I said,’ Jimmy continued, ‘she doesn’t like strangers. But she’s alright, she doesn’t kill mermen.’ He threw me a sidelong look. ‘We’re too salty.’

I took another step back, just to be on the safe side.

Jimmy grinned and pointed at the vicious-looking pincers protruding from either side of her gigantic mouth. ‘Watch out for them. One shot of that poison and you’ll be paralysed for a week. Debbie likes taking her time over her meals. It would be a long week.’

I tried to smile back but I only managed a grimace. ‘Yeah. She’s a
real
sweetie.’

The pager clipped to my belt began to buzz. Jimmy glanced at me. ‘You seem to be vibrating.’ He pulled his arm out of the cage. Debbie stared at him for a moment, waiting to see if this was merely a momentary lapse of concentration. When no further caresses came her way, she sprang up and twisted in the air until she was hanging from the roof of the cage once more.

I took out my phone, ready to snap a quick photo. Jimmy shook his head. ‘Can’t let you do that. If Carnegie finds out someone saw her, he’ll stuff my gills with cotton wool.’

It took some effort to push that image out of my mind. ‘So you won’t tell him I was here?’

‘Nah. But no photographic evidence. I don’t trust technology.’

He didn’t trust a mobile phone but he was happy to thrust his hand out in the direction of a giant flesh-eating spider? Brochan was obviously the only sane one in the family – and that was saying something.

‘Okay,’ I conceded. I still didn’t understand why the Carnegies were so keen to take this hairy monstrosity to the seat of Sidhe power but I certainly wasn’t going to steal her from them. My pager buzzed again. ‘I have to go.’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Okay. Tell that dry-footed freak I said hi.’

I backed away, keeping my eyes on Debbie the entire time. She’d already dismissed me but I wasn’t about to turn my back on her – cage or no cage. ‘Will do.’ As soon as I reached the stairs, I turned and ran out of there like hell itself was on my heels.

*

I made it to the mountain rescue centre with seconds to spare. Travis, the gruff leader of our rescue team, shot me a look as I jogged up.

I checked my watch. Any rescuers on call had to show up within thirty minutes of their pagers sounding otherwise the team would leave without them. ‘Sorry,’ I called. I was within the limit – just – but it was clear the others had been waiting for me.

Travis merely nodded. If I’d been anyone else, he’d probably have chewed them out for taking so long to appear but he was too nervous of me to say anything to my face. Much as he appreciated my skills in picking up the injured and foolish from the surrounding mountains, he still found it hard to accept that he was working alongside a Sidhe. I had the impression that he was expecting me to demand everyone’s fealty at any moment. It didn’t matter that I’d explained a million times that I was Clan-less. In fact, when I said I was Clan-less because my father had been the Chieftain of Clan Adair, things got worse. Considering the world believed that my father had committed genocide against his own people and destroyed Clan Adair in one single afternoon over twenty-five years ago, that wasn’t hugely surprising.

I’d also believed those stories until recently. I still wasn’t sure what had happened to my parents but a vision I’d received in the sacred grove at the Cruaich told me that my father wasn’t the murderer everyone thought he was. And I was betting that Aifric Moncrieffe had something to do with it. After all, the Sidhe Steward had tried to kill me by handing me a bottle of water laced with poison.
That’d make even a damn sheep suspicious.

‘No problem,’ Travis grunted.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.

He waved his hand as if it didn’t matter. It’d be nice if he stopped tiptoeing round me; I wasn’t anything special and I wished he understood that.

Words wouldn’t help me though so I offered him a shiny smile before turning my back and hopping into the helicopter. The others – a brother and sister team of humans called Tim and Tam, and Isla, a Nicnevan witch attached to the Polwarth Clan, gave me a more enthusiastic greeting.

‘Hey, Tegs. Travis giving you a hard time?’

‘If only,’ I said cheerfully, shrugging into my gear as the helicopter took off. Of course, it was all hot pink; I was rather passionate about that colour. As long as I could be identified against the winter snow and ice, the colours I chose to wear were up to me. Unfortunately I’d not had much success in persuading everyone else to don hot pink as well. That was a shame, it would rather suit Travis.

‘So what’s the deal?’ I asked, shouting over the noise of the rotors.

‘Husband and wife team,’ Tam yelled back. ‘Went out this morning to Aladdin’s Mirror and were supposed to check back in after midday.’

I tied back my hair, tucking it safely out of the way, and frowned. It was already four o’clock and at this time of year, it’d be dark within the hour. Four hours might not sound like a long time to go missing but in the Scottish Highlands in the depths of winter, it could be a lifetime. Or two.

‘Everyone goes to the Mirror,’ Isla said, rolling her eyes.

She had a point; this would be my fourth rescue there this year. Considering the Mirror was little more than a wall of ice, I didn’t understand the attraction. I reckoned it was the allure of the name as much as anything else. Names, as every Sidhe knew, had power. Aladdin’s Mirror did indeed sound rather mystical. It wasn’t; it was just a wall of frozen water that claimed far more broken bones and call-outs than should be allowed.

I was the newbie on the team but after four months I had a pretty good handle on how things worked. While I couldn’t ever imagine this job becoming mundane, the longer I spent at it, the more confident I grew. I knew what to expect.

The helicopter couldn’t fly directly to the Mirror so it put us lower down Coire an t’Sneachda. Try saying that ten times in a row; I might be getting better at these rescues but my tongue still fumbled with the different pronunciations of the locations.

Isla threw me an arch look. ‘Where are we going, Integrity?’

I stuck my tongue out at her and she laughed. I tried to concentrate. I could always get the first part right but stumbled at the end when the spelling had virtually no bearing on the way the name was pronounced. ‘Um, Kor In Tray…’

‘Korin Tray Achk.’

I repeated it under my breath. It wouldn’t matter; next time we made it up here, I’d have forgotten again. Gaelic just wasn’t my thing. Whatever ‒ I couldn’t be brilliant at everything.

The sky was already darkening when we jumped out. It was the time of year when you’d miss sunset if you blinked: one minute it was day and the next it was as if someone had flipped a switch and night had descended, even though it still wasn’t teatime. Travis frowned upwards, clearly unhappy at Mother Nature. The wind was picking up, sending tiny particles of ice and snow flying against our bare faces. It wasn’t just in heists that balaclavas were useful. I pulled mine over my head while the others did the same. Before my eyelashes could freeze, I yanked down my goggles. Thank goodness for hardy climbing equipment.

Once we were ready, Travis held up his index finger and circled it in the air. We all nodded. We knew what to do.

Travis led the way. As the greenie, I was directly behind him carrying the first-aid equipment. Tim and Tam followed behind with the stretchers, while Isla took up the rear. It was slow going. Even with our state-of-the-art gear, there was only so fast we could move when we were laden with stuff and walking on an uphill ice-skating rink. For a long time all that could be heard were our combined breaths and the crunch of snow beneath our feet. I was as fit as anyone and I was already sweating under my layers of clothing. I kept my head down. With visibility almost at zero, there was no point in looking at anything other than my feet. That was why I spotted the tracks.

I reached out and tapped Travis on the shoulder, causing him to halt. He turned, followed my finger and glanced down. The falling snow would cover them within minutes but there was no mistaking what was there. I had never seen signs of animal life this far up the mountain; at this time of year any beast smart enough to survive was much further down the slopes. From what I could tell, this brave creature had three legs ‒ something else which didn’t make sense.

Travis frowned, crouched down and lightly touched them. They weren’t large: each paw print was less than an inch in diameter. At least that was something: if a mountain beast was watching us from behind a snow-covered rock, it would be unlikely to attack five people who were a hundred times its size.

‘What are the tracks from?’ I asked.

Tim peered over my shoulder. ‘Bird?’

‘With three legs?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe its tail is broken and it’s dangling down in the snow as it walks.’

We shared a glance. It was a nice theory but it was clearly wrong. This was no bird – but at least I was sure it wasn’t a damned giant spider either.

Travis straightened. ‘Whatever it is, we don’t have time to worry about it.’

There was the sudden, unmistakable sound of a flare being set off further up. It rocketed into the dark sky, a plume of red shooting a path of pain.

‘Well,’ Tim murmured, ‘one of them is still alive.’

We picked up our pace. Travis began jogging and the rest of us fell into line after him. As we rounded the last craggy outcrop, Aladdin’s Mirror loomed in front of us. With the sky as dark as it was, it was difficult to see much of it but we weren’t here for sightseeing ‒ the whimper from the foot of the Mirror confirmed that.

Travis strode forward. He was almost as sure-footed as a fey Sidhe. He reached a shadowy lump just ahead of us and dropped to his knees. ‘My name is Travis,’ he said calmly, in a manner designed to put injured climbers at ease. ‘Are you Maggie?’

‘Y–yes. Maggie Moncrieffe.’

I stiffened. No-one had mentioned that we were here to rescue a Sidhe, let alone one from Aifric and Byron’s Clan. At the thought of Byron Moncrieffe, Aifric’s son, my stomach tightened. I pushed away the image of golden boy’s handsome face which had popped unprompted into my head. It didn’t matter who these people were; they still needed rescuing.

Tim and Tam pushed past me, already assembling the stretcher.

‘You alright?’ Isla asked me.

I shook myself. ‘Fine,’ I muttered.

Travis ran his hands over Maggie’s body. ‘Where does it hurt?’

‘My ankle,’ she gasped. ‘I think it’s broken.’ She yelped as his fingers touched it gently.

‘Okay,’ Travis soothed. ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to get you onto the stretcher and down from here. You’ll be back home in no time.’

That was all very well but she was alone. I hooked my backpack off my shoulder, pulled out a splint and bandages and glanced at Isla. ‘Isn’t there a husband?’

She nodded. I knelt down beside Travis and started binding Maggie’s ankle so that she could make the journey back down without further damage. ‘Maggie,’ I said softly, ‘where’s your husband?’

She moaned in pain. As her pupils were dilated and she was clearly drifting into unconsciousness, I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was suffering from far more than a broken bone. I reached for Travis and gripped his forearm, jerking my chin at her. He gave me a grim look of acknowledgement. We had to get her to a hospital fast.