Wraith(52)

‘Who hired you? Was it the Filits?’ I knew they hadn’t but I wanted to test him. If he were going to lie to me, I’d offered him the perfect opportunity.

The wraith shook his head. Either he was very canny or there was a chance I could trust him. I pressed ahead. ‘Was it the Gneiss goblins?’

He hesitated and then nodded. Good. ‘And you found a way to contact them after you left the Tolbooth. That was why they attacked. They wanted to make sure she was dead.’

The wraith offered another shrug. He didn’t appear particularly bothered that I’d effectively caught him red-handed in an assassination attempt – but then he was a wraith.

I ignored the fact that we were potentially related and pressed ahead. ‘Did they tell you why they wanted her dead?’

He shook his head but again there was a brief hesitation.

‘Do you know why?’

He half turned, slowly twisting back in the direction we’d come from then he nodded. I assumed from that that he’d traced us to Marrock’s bowling alley and eavesdropped on our revelations about Ange and the Stone. It irked me that I hadn’t spotted him while we were there. I’d had other things on my mind but all the same, I could have been more cautious.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked. He was tailing us for a reason. Perhaps he took pride in his profession and was determined to finish the job he’d been set, regardless of the consequences. Who was I to say?

The wraith cocked his head, apparently considering. This kind of communication was slow and ponderous and it didn’t help that he seemed a particularly slow and ponderous person in the first place. I changed my mind on that a second later, however, when he snapped forward with the speed and violence of a whiplash.

I tried to raise my hands to block him but he was too fast. I was forced into the only defence move I could take and separated my shadow. It left my physical form vulnerable but I needed to be in a strong enough position to counter-attack. With my body standing as an empty shell, I lunged for the wraith. That was when I realised what he was doing: he wasn’t attacking me, he was hugging me.

From a short distance away, I watched his shadow squeeze his arms round my real body and gaped. Well, it was one way to prove he was friendly. Wraiths could touch one another without the need to recoil. It was one way for Mother Nature to ensure the continuation of our species.

When I was sure he meant me no harm, I drifted back into my body and blinked at him. He pulled away before using his index fingers to draw a smiley shape in the air. Okay. Then he pointed at me and sketched a question mark. He wanted to know who I was.

‘I could ask the same of you,’ I muttered. ‘My name is Saiya. Yes, I’m a wraith but I’m not like you.’ I scowled for effect. ‘I don’t kill. Not in cold blood, anyway.’

He danced round me, kicking his legs up like a can-can dancer on cocaine. I had no earthly idea what that was supposed to mean.

‘Look,’ I said eventually. ‘I’m on a clock here. I’d love to stay longer and find out who you really are because I’ve never spoken to another wraith before but I really don’t have the time. And I don’t think you were following us just to say hello and give me a hug. So can you get to the point?’

The wraith hunched his shoulders and stomped towards me in a realistic impression of a goblin, then raised his arms as if throttling me.

‘The goblins want to kill me? No surprise there,’ I said drily. ‘And they don’t even know the half of it.’

The wraith lifted both his hands to ears and pulled on them.

I frowned. ‘The Dark Elf. What about him?’

He began another charade. I squinted, watching his antics until I thought I understood. ‘The goblins want to kill the Dark Elf?’ I ignored the strange lurch in my stomach. ‘That doesn’t make sense. He is here with their agreement. Until a couple of hours ago, he was their honoured guest. They certainly won’t want the hassle they’d get from the Scottish government if he died. Not unless…’ My voice trailed away. Not unless they thought he was getting to the truth behind what they were up to. If they thought he’d spoken to Ange, or someone else who knew about the Stone of Scone, they’d slit Gabriel de Florinville’s throat in a heartbeat.

‘He seems intelligent,’ I said softly. ‘He’ll be able to extricate himself from their plots.’

The wraith shrugged, making it clear that he was simply passing on relevant information; he didn’t really care either way. He raised one hand to start another shadow charade but then he froze. He wasn’t the only one – I heard it too. They weren’t in sight yet but those were definitely goblin yells and, by the sounds of them, yells that indicated the goblins were hunting. No prizes for guessing who. I sent up a silent prayer that Gabriel de Florinville wasn’t already dead and prepared to spring away. The wraith nodded in agreement, giving me a little push and indicating that he would stay put.

My eyes widened in alarm. ‘It’s not necessary,’ I said. ‘You can hide easily enough. Escape. Get out of here. We’ll be fine.’

He shook his head. I opened my mouth to argue but he pushed me away again.

‘Because of the Stone,’ I said.

It wasn’t a question but the wraith nodded anyway. He might be a heartless assassin, prepared to murder someone like Ange without questioning why, but he understood what it meant if the goblins, whether Gneiss or Filit, harnessed the power of the Stone of Scone. He was prepared to put up a fight and sacrifice himself so we could get away. And I didn’t even know his name.