Page 81 of Skullduggery
Hugo hissed, ‘Relax, will you? I know where we’re going. It’s not that far. Now stop yelling. If that baby starts crying…’
‘She won’t.’
‘She’s a baby. Crying is what they do.’
We exchanged glances and moved faster down the cobbled street. I had no idea how Athair communicated with the vampires or how powerful his control was over them, but Ihoped his link with them was strong; in fact, I was counting on it.
I didn’t look behind us, I left that to the brownies who were perched on my shoulders. I held my breath and waited, exhaling only when Otis whispered in my ear, ‘She’s following us.’
I kept my voice low. ‘How many?’
‘Just the one.’
That was both good and bad. I nodded, rocked the doll and kept moving quickly.Come on, you cumbubbling bitch, come after us. Don’t stop.
As soon as we got to the bottom of Calton Road, with the grand shape of Holyrood Palace in front of us, I heard heavy breathing. There was more than one vamp behind us now.
I tapped my fingers on the doll.
Hester murmured, ‘Four now.’ She sounded scared. ‘They’re keeping their distance but they’re definitely on our trail.’
Satisfaction flickered in my chest. Good; that was very good. ‘Which way?’ I asked Hugo loudly.
‘Right,’ he said.
‘How much further?’
‘Fifteen minutes. Stop stressing.’ He still sounded annoyed. Damn: he was a far better actor than me.
We continued on our way. It was strange to pass the site of the Scottish Parliament when the proposals for its construction were a few years away. Most of Edinburgh city centre was old and the buildings had been erected long before Hugo and I had ever been thought of. They’d exist long after we were remembered, but it was good to realise that there would be innovation.
Nothing was set in stone, not even the existence of Athair. Whether he beat us or not, one day he would also cease to exist because not even a fiend could last forever. Itwas a minor epiphany, for sure, but it was more than enough to buoy my spirits.
It was just as well, because I needed something to keep me going. The gnawing hunger inside my belly was getting worse, though it wasn’t for food: my body was craving spider’s silk. I was already on half the dose I’d allowed myself a week ago, but I dared not reduce it any further – not without professional help. I didn’t want to give into the temptation to swallow down more pills, either. It would be easy to use our plans as an excuse to take as much spider’s silk as possible but I refused to do that. I could be strong in more ways than one.
My footsteps slowed as we drew closer to our destination. We didn’t know where Athair was; if he was miles away, it could be hours before he got here, assuming he chose to take our bait. But that wasn’t the only reason I was no longer hurrying. I didn’t have a vast, all-encompassing desire to enter the five-hundred-metre tunnel that ran underneath Arthur’s Seat. It wasn’t as bad as venturing into a network of deep, dark caves, but it was far from my ideal hangout.
‘Are you sure that this is a good idea?’ Otis asked, not for the first time.
Hester tapped my cheek with taunting insistence. ‘It’ll be very easy to get trapped.’
‘Can we agree not to use words like trapped?’ I whispered.
‘How about darker than a seemingly bottomless chasm inside Smoo Cave? How about those words?’
Hugo sprang to my defence. ‘Enough, Hester. There are lights inside the tunnel. You know that.’
She stuck out her tongue at him, but at least she stopped baiting me. Now all I had to do was not think about the many tonnes of rock that would soon be above me. Perhaps she was right: perhaps walking blithely into the Innocent Railway Tunnel was a truly terrible idea.
Originally built to haul coal, the tunnel had been underneath Arthur’s Seat for almost two hundred years. Even in 1994 it was decades since the railway was last operational; as in the future, the tunnel was used by walkers and cyclists seeking a quick route past the extinct volcano that overlooked the city.
I’d wandered through it many times but always during the day when daylight had been visible at either end. I’d never walked through it at night time – and I’d certainly never walked through it while being followed by a posse of thirsty vampires desperate to guzzle on my blood.
Hugo sensed my thoughts. ‘If they weren’t under Athair’s control, they’d already have attacked. This will work, Daisy. I’ll be right by your side all the way.’
It wasn’t the vampires that worried me; at that point, it wasn’t even Athair.
Hugo recognised my fear. ‘Arthur’s Seat won’t collapse on top of us,’ he added. ‘Neither will the tunnel. In thirty years’ time it’ll be completely unchanged.’
