Page 51 of Skullduggery
‘Go left,’ Otis urged.
‘No,’ Hester said. ‘Go right.’
Left led to the Assigney mansion and the rural realm of Perthshire; right led to the A9 motorway to Glasgow, Edinburgh and beyond. I took a gamble based on the assumption that Athair wasn’t heading for Lady Rose at that particular moment and swung right.Please let it be the right choice, I prayed. I needed a lucky break.
I pushed the bike as hard as I could until the wheels were all but swallowing up the Tarmac. We passed signs for several familiar towns – Auchterarder. Blackford. Dunblane – but there was nothing to indicate Athair was ahead of us. When I saw the turn off for Bridge of Allan, my stomach clenched with disappointment. Stirling was just ahead, and if Athair had driven into that large town I’d have lost him for good.
I scowled as the road curved and the distant turrets of Stirling Castle appeared in all their familiar, commanding majesty. I was pulling back on the throttle, preparing to slow down and admit defeat, when I caught a glimpse of Athair’s black car less than fifty metres in front of us. There: he was right there.
I forced myself not to get too excited; I had to maintain a good distance between us because the last thing I could risk was Athair spotting me. I dropped back and let a trundling lorry stay between us; it would be more than enough to block the sight of me in Athair’s rear-view mirror.
He appeared to be bypassing Stirling, and I hoped he was on his way to Edinburgh rather than Glasgow. My years as a delivery driver meant that I knew Edinburgh like the back of myhand, whether the year was 1994 or 2024; Glasgow, however, wasn’t my home – not now and not in the future. I’d have a much better chance of tracking Athair if he was in the Scottish capital. I crossed my fingers tightly.
When his indicator light suddenly flashed on, I blinked in surprise. He wasn’t heading to either city: he was turning deeper into the countryside.
As I followed him off the motorway, I knew I was at risk. There was far less traffic here and certainly no handy heavy-goods vehicles to hide behind. The one thing in my favour was that the road was narrow with far more bends, which made it easier to keep out of Athair’s sight. But I didn’t know this part of the country at all, so I’d have to keep my wits about me if I didn’t want to lose him.
‘There are too many insects!’ Hester yelled in my ear, raising her voice above the whipping wind. ‘They keep splatting me in the face!’
‘Then get into my pocket and stay out of their way!’ I shouted back at her.
Hester shouted something else but I didn’t catch it; my focus was on Athair’s car.
He turned onto a single-lane road to the left. I slowed down until I could pull into a small gap on the side of the road and watch his progress. His car continued for some distance before finally disappearing around a corner hidden by a line of carefully planted fir trees. I stood up and tried to see what lay beyond, but it was no good. We needed to get closer.
‘You’re not planning to fight him, are you Daisy?’ Otis’s voice was quivering.
I smiled gently. ‘You don’t think I can beat him?’
He hugged himself. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t think you can.’
Neither did I. I pointed down the road. ‘If Athair has createda lair for himself down there, I want to know about it. But I won’t try and fight him.’ Not yet. ‘If we find out where he’s living, perhaps we can use that information later.’
Hester nodded enthusiastically. ‘We can set his house on fire while he’s sleeping.’
‘Fire doesn’t affect fiends,’ Otis reminded her.
She shrugged. ‘We could send in a swarm of angry bees to sting him to death.’
He snorted. ‘Because that’ll be easy.’
‘Daisy can raise an army of zombies and?—’
This was getting out of hand. ‘Let’s just find out where he’s staying and what he’s up to. Reconnaissance, nothing more.’ Then, before my fear of Athair got the better of me and I turned tail and ran away, I lowered myself onto the bike seat, revved the engine and headed after him.
The lane wasn’t well maintained and I had to swerve several times to avoid nasty potholes. I kept my eyes peeled, worried that Athair’s black car would reappear or that someone else would show up, but the lane remained empty.
When we reached the tree line, I stopped the bike and took a moment to conceal it behind a bush. Given how quiet the lane was, I couldn’t risk going any further on it; for all I knew, Athair was lurking around the corner.
The brownies buzzed anxiously as I walked towards the last of the trees – even Hester was showing signs of fear. I told myself that it was good to be frightened of Athair; a flicker of complacency where my alleged father was concerned could spell our doom. It was clear that he was by far the strongest of all the fiends in the country; the first time we’d crossed paths, he could have killed me, Hugo, the brownies and Aine the Welsh dragon without breaking sweat.
At the final tree, I paused for a moment to listen. I heard the twittering of birds and the rustle of leaves as a soft breezegusted through them, but nothing else. I drew in a breath and peered around. As soon as I saw what the small wood was concealing, a whisper of triumph escaped my lips. ‘Yes!’
The landscape in front of us was beautiful. There was a small lake glittering in the dappled midday sunlight with several ducks swimming lazily around its centre and a pair of swans in the far corner. The lake was surrounded by a large expanse of grass so verdantly green that it appeared unreal. Behind that, there was a building – and in front of it a black car. Either the doctor was making more house calls, or this was the place that Athair called home.
When Gladys started to hum at my side, I hushed her. The plan was to remain hidden, at least for now, but I was as delighted as she was that we’d located his lair.
Otis gave a low whistle. ‘Quite a place,’ he said, gazing at the imposing limestone building with its many windows, rectangular tower and parapet. ‘It’s exactly where I’d expect a nasty fiend to stay. I bet it’s got a dungeon,’ he added darkly.
