Shot Through The Heart (Supernature Book 1) (13 page)

John laughed. "And the dog was magically summoning the elemental forces of the wind?" he asked, grinning. "Think you're reading too many comics."

Mark frowned at him. "How do you know about my comics?" he asked.

"You were talking about them on Tuesday," said John. "Said that your pal in old Inversneckie did you up like a kipper over them."

"Right, right," said Mark, not actually remembering it.

"That dog isn't too bad," said John. "Seems fairly tame and it's quite well liked around the village. That said, they can quickly become pests."

"Do you get a lot of wild dogs?" asked Mark.

"More than you would believe," said John. "It's usually domestic breeds that have gone wild. You get it a lot in America, would you believe, in the big cities. It's fine in, say, New York as there are big bins that they can raid and what have you, but up here there's not much for them. They can be desperate animals and they'll bite your throat as soon as you look at them. Of course, it's muggins here that has to hunt them down. I tranquillise them and take them down to Inverness. It's a royal pain but it's part of the job. Helps fill out the days, I suppose."

"I love dogs," said Mark, "but my wife doesn't want to get one. We've got two cats. I can't stand cats."

"I can tell who wears the trousers in the Campbell household," said John, grinning.

"Aye, well," said Mark, "she kept her name when we got married."

"Did that annoy you?" asked John.

Mark shrugged. "Not really," he said.

"Speaks volumes, though," said John. He knocked back the rest of his whisky and pointed down at Mark's half-empty second pint. "Another?" he asked.

Mark smiled. "Aye, go on," he said.

Mark went back to thinking about the dog as he watched John head to the bar. It seemed familiar somehow. He shook his head. Nonsense. Stop it. It must be the stress he was under making him think that way.

John returned with the drinks.

"We paid a visit to the devil worshippers the other day," said Mark. "Very friendly."

"Keep away from them, lad," said John. "Bad news. They only like their own kind."

"What's the story?" asked Mark.

John shrugged. "Don't know much, son," he said. "They rent the land off my boss, that's it. Had a bit of a stramash here the other year - one of their lot ended up disappearing, some boy called Paul. Never turned up to my knowledge."

Mark nodded. "I got into a scuffle with one of your students last night," he said.

John shook his head. "You city boys are all the same," he said. "Can't take you anywhere without you getting yourselves into a fight, can you?" He laughed then took a drink of whisky. "What happened?"

"He was telling me that I should be keeping myself away from his mother-in-law," said Mark.

"Sage advice," said John. "Not someone you should be getting involved with."

"She had a thing or two to say about your employer," said Mark.

"I'll bet she did," said John. "William's a dirty sod at times, but he's honest. She isn't."

"What happened between them?" asked Mark.

John shook his head. "Before my time," he said. "Just know that they don't get on, that's all."

Mark nodded. "I'll try and keep away from her," he said. "I usually see her daughters in here with you, though. Surprised that's two nights in a row where you're not with them."

John bellowed with laughter. "A bloke's got to be allowed some time off," he said.

While he laughed, Mark noticed that John was looking at the two male students on the other side of the bar.

Later than night, several pints and some sleep later, Mark awoke to the window rattling, worse than before. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to ignore it, but it got worse - the howling began. "Let me in!" cried the wind.

Mark didn't know what to do - he reckoned that the wind must have been like that for twenty minutes since it first picked up. He gave a deep sigh, before getting up and pulling back the curtains.

The dog was there, staring up at him. It barked, almost in time with "Let me in".

Mark pulled his eyelids shut, trying to avoid the present.

The walls closed in around him.

His breathing increased, unsteady and uneven.

Panic attack
.

He tried to open his eyes, fighting against himself and his fear, but his body stopped responding, no longer trusting him. His breathing was out of control, his mouth taking in air that his lungs had no hope of processing.

He stumbled around the room, looking for anything to help, all the time fighting his body's natural reactions. He felt like he was in a tiny box, a metre square.

He tried to focus on the sessions he'd had with a psychotherapist.

Getting his breathing under control was the main thing. He found a paper bag in the rubbish tip that was his laptop case, still with a sandwich wrapper in it. He tossed the wrapper aside. His head felt light and dizzy. He breathed in, slowly, then out again. Gradually, he could feel it working - the walls shrunk away from him, his body started reacting.

Second, and more important, was to stop it recurring - Mark had suffered from cycles of up to seven panic attacks in a day. The advice the doctor had given had been to either get away from the unwanted stimulus or else to face up to his fear.

He crept forward to the window.
It
was still there. The dog. Staring up at him, green eyes glowing.
 

Why was he so frightened of it? He was a dog man after all, growing up with three in the house, all rescued from the Edinburgh dog home.

It was irrational. He needed to man up - getting into that state over a
dog
. At least that's what he told himself. It was a big animal and it was wild.

Mark took a deep breath, pulled a t-shirt on and put his feet into his unlaced trainers. He went out into the corridor, making sure that he had his key, before racing down the stairs and heading through the dark restaurant, out towards the garden.

The dog stood on the lawn, green eyes focusing on him.

Mark stood like that for a few minutes, transfixed by
it
.

Eventually, he nodded his head, before deciding on a course of action. His arm slowly reached over. The door in the conservatory was locked. He tried another door. It opened. He crept outside slowly, the night sky at its most dark - it would soon start to get light again.

Mark kept his back against the open door, slowly walking forward. The dog growled at him. He teased his way forward over the grass. The growling dissipated slightly. He crept forward, eyes focusing on the dog, ready to run.

The dog yelped and then trotted towards him, tail between its legs. Mark kneeled down and stroked the dog's head, starting slowly but then increasing the frequency as the animal relaxed. He scratched it behind the ears and it tilted its head to the side.

"You're not so bad," said Mark, "are you?"

The dogs eyes were practically rolling back in its head. Mark laughed and kept stroking and scratching it - it wasn't too dirty, cleaner than most family pets he'd ever seen.

He noticed that the wind had abated.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up - there was no way that the dog could control the weather. Could it?

He got up slowly. "I need to go back in, okay?" he said to the dog.

He turned and went back inside the conservatory, turning to close the door behind him. The dog had followed him, trying to come inside. He kneeled down again and stroked its head. "I'm sorry," he told it, "but I just can't let you in."

The dog bared its teeth at him - Mark realised the wisdom of John's advice. He slammed the door shut, his fingers fumbling the keys. Eventually, it locked.

As he watched the creature snarling and snapping at him, he felt the panic attack creeping back.

He raced back up to his room. Inside, the window had resumed its rattling, harder than ever. He spotted the comic on the desk, Esoterica card sitting on top.

He wondered about the dog.

Mark groaned as the daylight hit his face. He reached over, picked up his watch and checked the time.

6.36am.

He collapsed back in his bed. His head was surprisingly clear, but the encounter with the dog snapped back into his mind. That was really stupid. No matter that he'd seen the dog with the students, it was wild. It almost turned on him. It could have had his throat.

He was spooked by how quickly the weather had changed. It could be coincidence, but it felt like the beast was in control of the wind. That couldn't be right, he knew that, but it certainly felt like it.

He turned over and tried to get back to sleep - the window was no longer rattling, but it felt like his thoughts were. Sleep was a long way away now and getting further. He'd managed about seven hours, all in.

Mercifully, his head was only slightly thick, not the full-on hangover that he probably deserved from the pints he'd consumed.

The weight of the word count piled down on him, trapping him. Every hour he didn't write was a hundred or so words away from completion, away from the next book. He wasn't expecting fame from it - nothing like it - he just enjoyed starting new projects. He had never been a completer-finisher, and that's why he needed an editor and a proofreader to get over the finishing line.

He tried to plan out the day's activities. He had no appointments, but he really should start writing up the notes from Kay's missed interviews. The tapes from Elizabeth and William Sellar hadn't been fully transcribed yet, and that left a whole load of consolidation work to complete - he needed thinking space to make sure that his theory was still sound.

He should phone Sarah at some point, but he probably looked terrible and obviously hungover. He tried speaking - his voice had dropped a few tones, another tell-tale sign.

Mark continually worried that the book could get blown out of the water by someone else's pet theory. Even once it was published -
especially
once it was published - it could be dismantled, or subtle little rocks thrown at it, destabilising the solid core that he'd built and setting it falling apart, heading down to the earth.

As he lay there, Mark considered whether the rural setting was unsettling him - he was a city boy and had lived so long in a settlement of more than one hundred thousand that he just didn't have the connection to the land that his Highland ancestors had.

He should go to Inverness. He could get the train down and do some work while he travelled, away from Adam and his tangents. He worked well on the train with his headphones on and the
Best of Paul Simon
or the first Stone Roses album blaring. There was a big library in the city - he could do some digging there, back up some of the information. There was a train from Kinbrace at half past seven - he'd be in the city at eleven or so.
 

He sprung to his feet, heading straight for a quick shower.

Mark started to feel more like himself as he walked down the road, bars, cafes and shops on both sides, people passing him, cars, buses and taxis in the middle of the road.

Civilisation.

He enjoyed the pleasures of the city - spending minutes each in an HMV, a WHSmith and an Oxfam bookshop, picking up a couple of paperbacks on Highland Clearances folk history in the latter, which might prove to be a useful read if he ever got round to it.

In his hurry that morning, he'd skipped breakfast and his stomach rumbled. He found a cafe and ordered something to eat and a strong filter coffee to kick his brain into gear, before finding a seat in the window. Looking across the road, the architecture reminded him of South Bridge or George IV Bridge in Edinburgh, that little glimpse of home.

The waitress brought his croissant over as he let the steam from the coffee waft upwards. He wolfed the pastry down, tempted to get another, maybe a pain au chocolat. He washed it down with the coffee.

He stared into the coffee, trying to focus his feeble mind. He was feeling more than a little tender from the drinking the previous night. It hadn't taken him too long to slip into his old behaviours. Much as he hated himself for it, he was avoiding Sarah - the last thing either of them needed was another conversation about his drinking. That was two nights in a row, something that he'd not really done since he was at university. It was getting out of hand.

He tried to plan out his day - visit the city library and do some work. There were a fair few things that he wanted to look up, but it wouldn't take more than a couple of hours. It would be rude not to call Buffy. He got Buffy's business card from his pocket and phoned him, only then realising how rough his voice sounded.

"I've come down to Inverness for the day," said Mark.

"Fed up with the countryside already?" asked Buffy.

"Something like that," said Mark. "Just wondering if you were busy?"

Buffy laughed. "Bit early for a beer, isn't it?" he asked.

"Not just now," said Mark. "I need to spend some time in the library. What about two?"

Buffy sighed. "I'll see how it goes," he said. "If it's busy, then I'm not sure my Saturday boy could cope. Or if he can be trusted not to steal from me."

"Come on, man," said Mark, "it's not often that I'll be in Inverness, is it?"

"No, you're right," said Buffy, slowly. "Okay, I'll see you at two. Meet me by the shop, there's a good little boozer just over the bridge."

Mark got up and left the cafe. Purpose surged through his veins - the caffeine was already starting to hit. He headed towards the library, intent on researching Lady Ruthven's family history.

Buffy came back with two pints of Hebridean stout.

Mark held his glass up in cheers. "What happened to your lager only policy?" he asked.

Buffy settled onto the stool, grimacing as he almost knocked the table flying. "Well, I got into real ale a few years ago," he said. "It's not all muck. Still can't beat a good pint of lager, especially on a hot day."

"Couldn't live without it," said Mark.