Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2 (4 page)

Tapping back, paying careful mind tae the fact she's a tourist who isnae accustomed tae our temperatures, I answer:
Wear something warm and practical, I think it might rain. Is there a road going to your auntie's house?

Two moments later it buzzes in my hand with her answer.

Selene says she'll drop me off where the stream meets the road. The one you were fishing in earlier. She says it's easier for a normal car to just drive there rather than maneuver over the rough road to her place. So what time?

That means I'm going tae meet her auntie. I don't know whether tae be nervous or excited. At least it's on the road not too far from the Police Station, I doubt they'll abduct me from there if they are sidhe.

Typing back, nerves settle in my gut, wringing my veins with apprehension and anticipation.

*

Ellindt:

I tried on all of my clothes,
twice
. I'm still not sure Selene's advice of dressing down is my style, or even suits me, but here I am next to her car waiting on the side of the road like the hooker in Pretty Woman. I feel cheap waiting in the dark on the side of a deserted road for my date.

This is definitely the worst idea Selene's ever had. I'm worried the resident serial killer is going to be inspired if he drives past.

Staring down at my black Chuck Taylor's and skinny jeans, I hope it's okay that I'm wearing a girlie long sleeved tee and a fitted leather jacket which shows off my waist. It's got no collar so it highlights my long neck, and the black makes my hair look like platinum drizzling down my body all the way to my hips. I just couldn't bring myself to don a bland and boring hoodie.

I don't blend easily and I can't hide my face anyhow. Maybe next time I should just ask him to go overboard and hold a masked ball in my honor to pacify my paranoid aunt.

The river Doug was fishing in runs literally from the bottom of our garden down to the main artery of Coe and into Loch Leven. The closest road is A82 which joins up to Lorn Drive, weaving into Glencoe itself.

Headlights head toward us and my stomach clenches all the way to my heart, making me ill with tension.

“You've got money and your cell phone?” she checks.

“Yes!” I grumble for the umpteenth time.

“Are you sure you want to go? It's not too late to change your mind.”

“Come on, Selene. I'm sure they'll be lovely people and I'll get to see how kids this side of the Atlantic socialize.”

The car stops on the wrong side of the road, leaving the lights on facing her car. It's all for show. We can manifest whatever we want, and our story is there is a road leading to Selene's house when in truth there is none. We can literally magic anything out of thin air just by thinking it. The car is our latest ruse.

And yet, I don't feel like a liar. This is our glamor, we pretend to be normal when we're far removed from it. We don't need cars or planes or trains, we can go anywhere we wish in the blink of a thought. In my case my uncle outranks me, so he's preventing me from leaving Selene's because he has more power than I do. I can't wait to grow up so no one can control me.

The door opens with a rusted creak and Doug steps out, standing, unfolding himself into well over six feet.

Wow. I'd already half forgotten how attractive and tall he is.

Nerves ratchet my stomach higher to press down in my chest, thumping my heart and forcing me into overheating. I'm so excited by the thrill of freedom for a night with this gorgeous local boy that my eyes start to heat too.

Blinking rapidly I force the sensation to recede, stepping forward and smiling, “Hi Doug. This is my aunt, Selene,” I wave my arm in her direction, just wanting to escape before she changes her mind and makes me stay home.

He does a quick dip, as if trying to match her height when he holds out his hand to shake hers, “It's verra nice tae meet ye. Thank you so much fer lettin' Ellindt come out taenight. I promise tae look out fer her.”

Selene smiles at him and I know she's diving into his head and pillaging his thoughts. He obviously satisfies her curiosity because she gives him a nod, walking around to the driver's door on her pretend car, “Don't stay out too late.”

She looks at me with the steely stare of a parent who takes no nonsense, “I'll be waiting up for you, don't think I won't. I want you home at a decent hour young lady.”

“Yes ma'am,” I mumble sarcastically.

She gives me 'the look' and I regret my run off mouth instantly. She could take me home right now for being insolent.

Instead she looks at Doug, “Drive safely! That's my niece you're driving around and I want her home safe and sound.”

He nods, shuffling his feet in a nervous gesture, “Absolutely. I will be careful.”

“Good.” She waves us off, “Have a good time.”

Yay! I'm three minutes away from complete freedom. I'm anxious to get going, “Thanks, we will,” I say loudly, grabbing Doug's arm and tugging him back to his car.

Straight away he rearranges our arms, putting his hand in the middle of my back and steering me to the passenger side. He opens the door for me and waits for me to get in, closing it and waving to Selene.

Once he's folded himself into the dark blue sedan and crunched his door back into the closed position, we buckle up and he slowly reverses the car, doing a u-turn to go back the way he came. Selene waits, waving once more before continuing the charade and getting into her car.

Doug checks the rearview mirror twice before focusing on the road, giving me a nervous grin, “Wow, so that's yer auntie?”

“Yup.”

“You look just like her.”

“Yup, the women on my dad's side all look the same. We may as well have been cloned.”

“She seems nice,” he nods, wriggling in his seat a bit, tension release uncoiling his frame into a semblance of relaxed.

“She is. She's let me out for a night when I thought she'd say, hell no.”

He gives me a smile so wide it punches my heart up against my spine, “I'm really glad yer comin' out with me.”

I smile back, giddy joy flooding my bloodstream.

“So, what kind of music dae ye like?” he asks, fiddling with the iPod plugged in to the car's stereo.

“I'm not fussy.”

I watch him relax when a guitarist plucks the first grungy strings of a song filtering softly into the car, mildly muting the throaty chug of the engine.

Excited now that we're on our way, I look out the windows, very curious about this new town I'm staying in. The effort he's made isn't lost on me either. His long hair is clean and I catch a waft of shampoo every time he tucks it behind his ear, which seems to be the betrayal of his own nerves.

A crisply fresh cologne permeates the car's interior and I'm pleased to see he's wearing black too. In fact we match rather well because he's also wearing a black tee and a black leather jacket, except his has lots of zips and studs.

Tapping absently to the song on the steering wheel, I watch his long fingers bouncing in moonlight, glancing quickly his way to examine him a bit before we arrive. I hardly know him and now I'm going to throw myself right into a cluster of complete strangers too.

He's got a rustic leather strand tied around his neck with a shell attached to it.

I wonder what that's all about?

“So ye got home okay... earlier? I went after ye but I couldnae find ye.”

“Oh yeah, I got home without worries. I like running and am pretty speedy. I got a bit carried away because it's all open and wild. I could sprint without caring about who might be watching.”

Damn, I should have been more careful.

He gives me a look, staring intently, glancing back at the road, then back at me, finally smiling, “Yeah? I thought it might be somethin' like that.” Looking at the dials and stuff, he changes the subject, “I just have to fill up. It won't take long.”

Civilization is closer than I thought when he slows the vehicle to fill the car up at the Gleaner petrol station in Claymore. We're so close to Loch Leven I can see the water glistening at the end of the narrow road whenever the low cloud opens up.

We've lived all over the world in our short lives and I find it fascinating that a gas station is called a petrol station here.

He shoots a glance at the police building across the street as if making a mental note to maintain sobriety. It's a strange little neighborhood because the fuel station is smack bang between open rural fields, yet just across the road are bland depressing houses sitting literally on the lip of the lane.

Leaving the pit stop behind, we pass a row of recycling bins and the Glencoe Hotel. The scent of primevil water slips sharp tendrils into the car, lashing us with veiled mysteries, painting our skin with Celtic mist steeped in clandestine darkness and bewitching vapor.

It pulls my focus to Doug's face, to study him as he drives with the water on our right side, his long hair licking up the kelpie whips flapping into the car.

He's immune to the arcane secrets whispering on the shaded wind. It's invigorating and exhilarating. The night breath feels alive and focused. It's an entity reaching into the vehicle to clamp fangs into our young blood and contaminate our senses.

It thrills me, making me sit a little straighter to peer out at the low fog trickling long claws across the route he follows. It rises up to cloak us every so often, blasting the headlights like apparitions trying to scare us. Mabon is soon enough and it seems the phantom hearts are restless this night. They dance for us in spectral glory, the chatter of the wind laughing through the manic cheering of leaves.

All of this reaches into the interior where we sit, and it's alive. Elongated shadows slip past us with flicks of dragon tails, slithering across our path and slipping out of sight just as the headlights hit the next dark spell.

My heart is pounding under the onslaught of supernatural power all around us. I can sense it through every pore, it tantalizes my eyelashes and tickles my irises into igniting. It's so stimulating I'm worried it will entice me to betray my true nature.

This mystical sphere is steeped in unfiltered sorcery. The land inhales and exhales magic on every breath and I'm itching to run naked through the forest and dance under the full moon.

It makes no sense but it's titillating. I can't explain how a place, a location, can be so immensely powerful. It's diabolically dynamic. There's an aura here which is almost palpable. I sense it in my periphery constantly.

“Ye okay?” he asks, glancing away from the road to me.

I nod, “Oh yes. Wow, I love it here! It's magnificent.”

His smile is incredible when he aims it at me. “Aye, it gets in yer blood. Once ye fall in love with Caledonia she disnae let ye go, ever. She mates fer life she does.”

“But she has many lovers,” I contest.

“Damn straight. Och, we dinnae mind sharing,” he gives me a naughty grin.

To be honest, I don't know what to make of that.

Oncoming traffic at first appears like friar's lanterns speeding through the brume. Only when their shadows zoom past us is it possible to distinguish the glowing phenomenon as headlights.

The haze is congesting into obscuring white puffs which scud low across the road, but it just quickens my growing excitement instead of giving me any kind of foreboding. It's so thrilling to be mingling with the natives. I half can't believe Selene is letting me go out on my second night here.

As Doug slows the car down to turn into the gap of a long dry stone wall composed of morbid dark gray slabs that look sharper than stacked shark's teeth, he says, “Yer gonnae meet ma mates now, but whatever ye dae dinnae go sayin' nothing tae Roderick if he's in a kilt. He disnae like being called a Jessie.”

“What?” I ask, dragging my fascinated and hungry gaze from the sharp incline smeared with tall trees gobbled up by thick ivy.

What on earth is he talking about?

“Roddie, he's a contender ye know? He's entered the highland games three years in a row, and well, he kinda likes dressing traditional. But he's no' a Jessie.”

“Doug, what in the world is a Jessie?”

“A girl's blouse. A...” he scratches the side of his nose, obviously contemplating how to explain it to me while still keeping his focus on where he's driving.

It's really handsome with the way his face is barely lit with headlights, his eyes sparkling like a loch at full moon. Dark, but glistening and mysterious.

Wow, who knew the boys in Glencoe were this delectable. I'd have been in trouble a lot sooner.

“Em, it's what them others call a pansy. Like he's sweet cos he wears a kilt. Dinnae call it a skirt, whatever ye dae. He'll get so pissed yer won't know where tae put yerself. Don't do it, because he will no' take kindly tae it. Understand?”

I'm struggling to hide my smile at his accent. Glancing at me, he seems pretty darn stressed out that I'm going to do the wrong thing and offend his friends.

“Dude, chillax already. I'll just smile and flash my boobs and then no one will give a damn what I say to offend them.”

He slams the brakes, halting us on the narrow drive, his right hand gripping the steering wheel so tight I can see it looks white even in this dim light.

“Yer gonnae dae whit?”

“I'm kidding,” I burst out laughing. “Jeez, are you always this tense?”

He drives to a bunch of other parked vehicles and slows the car to a grinding stop. Shutting the engine off, the night swallows us into a mouth of eerie silence.

“I'm no' tense, I'm just a natural born worrier. Some of the lads are a bit brusque, ye know? But they mean nae harm.”

“You're worse than Selene,” I tease, opening my door and getting out of the car, stepping right into a cold shroud of cloud.

He pops up on his side of the car, looking flustered, “I was supposed tae dae that fer ye!”

“What are you? Medieval, or just old before your time? It's no biggie for a girl to open her own door.”

Closing his door with a gruesome slam he moves faster than the billowing fog, reaching me before I can close my door, doing it for me and bleeping the alarm.