Azuri Fae - Urban Fantasy (Caledonia Fae) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Fae Name Pronunciation Guide

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  More by India Drummond

  Azuri Fae

  by

  India Drummond

  Copyright

  Azuri Fae

  Copyright (c) 2011, India Drummond

  Editing by LJ Sellers

  Book design by Trindlemoss Publishing

  First Trindlemoss Publishing electronic publication: December 1, 2011

  http://www.trindlemoss.com

  eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organisations is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United Kingdom by Trindlemoss Publishing, 2011

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-908436-06-1

  paperback ISBN: 978-1-908436-07-8

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, thank you to Bear: my son, my friend, and always my first choice of brainstorming and storytelling companions. He kept me on track and sparked my imagination, all the while not letting me stray and demanding that I be true to my inner voice.

  Thanks also to my beta readers: Marsha, Patti, and Colin. You help me catch those little errors that elude me when I’m wrapped up in my faerie world.

  Once again, I owe a huge debt to Inspector Dorian Marshall of the Tayside Police. His red pen kept me true, and I so appreciate the time he devoted to correcting any factual mistakes, not to mention my unintentional abuse of the Queen’s English. Any errors in police policy or procedure are completely my own.

  Fae Name Pronunciation Guide

  In order of appearance:

  Eilidh: AY-lee

  Saor: SAY-or

  Imire: em-IRE

  Teasair: TES-air

  Cadhla: KY-lah

  Eithne: AE-nyuh

  Griogair: Gree-GAIR

  Tràth: TRATH

  Riddich: RID-ick

  Qwe: KWAY

  Flùranach: FLOO-ran-ak

  Reine: RAH-nay

  Sennera: seh-NAYR-ah

  Mira: MEE-rah

  Zdanye: ZDAH-nie

  Dalyna: dah-LEE-nuh

  Juliesse: ZHU-lee-ESS

  Conwrey: KON-ray

  Cane: KAYN

  Frene: FREN

  Vinye: VEN-yay

  Setir: SEHT-eer

  Chapter 1

  Sarah McBride dug her elbow into her husband’s side. “There’s someone outside, Hamish.”

  “It’s just a cat. Go back to sleep.” He started snoring again almost immediately.

  “That wasn’t a cat I heard. Go see who it is.” She lay still in bed, hands shaking, afraid to breathe. Someone prowling around outside, and that great oaf of a husband was sleeping through it. Probably a pack of teenagers come to steal their telly for drug money. They might even come in and tie them both up.

  Sarah swallowed and squeezed her eyes tight together. Hamish might not care, but she wasn’t about to lie there and let a roving band of hooded teens catch her unawares. They’d probably try to do unspeakable things to her. It had been twenty years since she’d been attacked in a pub in Dundee, and she had been young and stupid then, out drinking…alone. She wasn’t some vulnerable girl now. This time she would fight back.

  “Hamish!” she hissed one last time with a sharp jab to his middle.

  He sat up in the darkness, his tone barely civil. “It was just a dream. Now leave me to sleep. I have to get up in the morning.” Hamish rolled over, heaving his bulk onto his side, bouncing the mattress. “You’ll be the death of me, woman,” he mumbled into his pillow.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.” Sarah got up and wrapped her dressing gown around her, tying it at the front. A crash in the side yard halted her progress. She glanced toward the front room, where the house phone sat in its charger. She wanted to call 999, get the police out to look. But if they came, they’d wake Hamish. If it did turn out to be nothing, she’d never hear the end of it. Best to make sure, then call.

  She crept down the hall in the pitch black. Her heart pounded so loudly she almost couldn’t hear the intruders. She cursed her fear. She’d never wanted to feel this way again. Hamish couldn’t understand that. He was a hulking man who’d never felt intimidated by someone else’s size. Pausing in the hallway to collect herself, she caught sight of the gun cabinet in the spare room. It tempted her, but she decided against getting out one of Hamish’s shotguns. Until, that is, she heard the rattle of the side gate, followed by footsteps on the path. Sarah rushed to the drawer where Hamish kept the cabinet keys. So what if his shotgun certificate was expired? If it saved their lives, she didn’t care. Anyway, she only wanted to scare them. After she retrieved the gun, she slipped a couple of shells into her dressing gown pocket. Just in case.

  It took all her courage to tiptoe down the hall, the open shotgun folded over her left arm, ready to receive the shells. How Hamish could sleep through this, she didn’t know, but anger burned inside her.

  By the time she made it to the kitchen window and peeled back the blinds, her fear and anger had combined into a pulsing rush of adrenaline. Nobody would hurt her again.

  A faint blue light came from the back garden, and shadowy figures stole around in the darkness. With trembling hands, Sarah slipped two shells into the back of the double barrel and snapped the gun closed. She knew better than to rush out with a gun that wasn’t ready to go. They’d only take it away and turn it on her.

  She noticed her mobile on the kitchen counter. The phone went into her pocket. Again, just in case. She turned the deadbolt, unlocked the back door, and walked onto the steps. The cold winter air made her shiver. “I…” Sarah cleared her throat and spoke louder. “I know you’re out there. Clear off, you lot.” She heard her voice as though it was someone else’s.

  The motion at the back of the garden stopped. “Come out where I can see you,” she shouted, “Before I start shooting.”

  She held the stock of the gun in her left hand and with her right, reached into her pocket to get her mobile. Three figures slowly emerged. It was hard to make out their faces, but one might have been a girl. They looked young, but Sarah knew teenagers were the worst. She’d heard about an old man that was killed by a gang of them, just because he’d complained about their loud music. They’d kicked him to death on his own doorstep.

  Sarah tapped the nine button on her mobile three times, hands shaking from the cold and adrenaline.

  “Emergency Services. Which service do you require? Police,
Fire, Ambulance?”

  “I’ve got burglars,” Sarah said. “Three of ‘em.”

  She heard a brief pause, then another voice came on the line. The smooth voice of a young woman. “Tayside Police. This is Alison. What’s your address?”

  Sarah had to think. Why could she suddenly not think? “Eighty-two…

  Suddenly, a man rushed her from the side. She hadn’t realised there were more. She spun and pointed the shotgun at him, dropping her mobile. Fumbling to put her finger on the trigger, she looked at her hand for just a moment.

  The man moved fast, like a neon blur in the night. Her vision went funny, and she had difficulty focusing her eyes. How many were there? She couldn’t tell anymore. Four? Even more? Blood rushed through her veins.

  “What in the name of hell is going on out here?” Hamish shouted from the doorway, startling her. “Sarah?” He sounded shocked, then serious. “Sarah, come into the house. Just step back to me, love.”

  A distant and monotonously calm voice came from the phone, which had nestled in the Barberry bush. “What is your location, madam?”

  Sarah didn’t turn to look at her husband. It was cold and wet, and fear kept her frozen to the spot. She kept her eye on the man who stood mere feet from her now. She couldn’t look away. He had the strangest eyes. They shone in the dark.

  She tensed and her hands started to shake. Yet, despite the strange commotion around her, the young man held her attention. She felt peculiar, as though moving in slow motion.

  Sarah stepped back toward Hamish, but her husband didn’t speak nor move. She glanced around wildly, realising everything had stopped dead. Everything but her and this man. Her breaths sounded loud in the stillness. She could see the other faces in the garden clearly now, as well as a bright glow that had suddenly appeared.

  “You,” she said, doing her best to steady the shotgun as she raised it to point at his chest. “You get on out of here and take your friends with you. Hurry now. I don’t want to shoot you.” Her voice raised to a hysterical pitch. “Eighty-two Fordyce Way,” she yelled at the Barberry bush. “See?” she said. “The police are on their way. Just go. I don’t want trouble. You’ve got time to get out.” She couldn’t shake the strange feeling. The other burglars had frozen in place, and Hamish stood unnaturally still in the doorway.

  “Time?” he said with a sad laugh. His accent sounded so strange. Probably some immigrant. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  With a pop, a blue flash blinded her, and the last thing she felt was her finger squeezing the trigger.

  * * *

  One week earlier…

  “Ah, child, you look tired,” Imire said, holding the gate open for his daughter Eilidh.

  She stepped into his garden and sank into an oak chair he’d carved with his own hands. In addition to being a scholar, Imire was a true artisan. The canopy of green overhead revealed the glow of starlight. “Life has become complicated.” She sighed. “I never understood humans before, thinking they were silly little ants, running around, rushing and using words like complicated.” A wry smile curled her lips.

  “I’m so glad you’re back.” Imire had aged greatly over the twenty-five years Eilidh had been exiled. Her crime had been simply to be what had come to be called an azuri fae, named after the Father of the Azure, who granted a few of her people the ability to cast the Path of Stars. The talent had been forbidden in the kingdom for a millennium. Like all other azuri fae, Eilidh had been sentenced to death. Her father risked everything and used his position as a priest to help her escape. A twist of fate allowed her to return to her homeland six months earlier, but her homecoming didn’t yet feel real. She shied away from those who would treat her as a hero, preferring to visit her father privately in the quiet of his home, rather than seek the attention of those who wanted to make a fuss.

  Eilidh inhaled deeply, drinking in the scent of the Otherworld. She spent most of her time in the human realm on the Isle of Skye, studying, practising, learning what she should have mastered a hundred years ago when she was a little girl. But she made the point to see her father when she could. If she let them, the azuri fae on Skye would have her learning incantations day and night. She looked around, watching fireflies appear and then vanish in the darkness. “It feels strange to me now. Everything is so familiar, and yet…”

  “Give it time. Within a year, it will be as though you never left. Maybe if you spent a few months or even a few weeks here with me. Rest. Heal. You’ve gone through so much.”

  Eilidh smiled at her father. He was too wise a faerie to believe she was not changed forever by her experience, but she could feel him willing her to be happy. “I can’t stay,” she said. “Not yet.”

  With a sigh, Imire nodded. “I wish I had known about the azuri colony a hundred years ago. If I had sent you there as a child, so much grief could have been avoided.”

  “Wasn’t it you who used to say there was no good done by dwelling on the past?”

  Imire chuckled. For a moment he looked younger, his face less haggard and drawn. “I did indeed. However, the older I get, the more difficult it is to take my own advice. I have more memories than I once did, you know.” He brushed a speck off his long green robes. “But let us talk and eat and enjoy the hours we have left before sunrise. Then stay the day, sleep under the sun in the tallest bough like you did as a little girl.”

  She opened her mouth to answer when a uniformed faerie strode through the gate. The fae did not observe the same rules of privacy humans did, and Eilidh noticed even the fae of Skye had adopted more human ways. They still kept to the night and slept during the day, but they had box-like houses and doors that locked. So it startled her to see an unannounced visitor invading their private conversation. She was doubly surprised by the uniform that identified him as a royal servant.

  The young and handsome faerie had gleaming golden hair braided down his back. He addressed Imire with a slight incline of his head. “I am Teasair. I have a message for Eilidh, daughter of Imire and Eithne.”

  Imire nodded. “Welcome. May I offer you refreshment?”

  The messenger slipped his hand inside his cornflower-blue doublet and produced a small coin-like token, carved into complex scrollwork around an ancient rune. He held it out to Eilidh, who stared.

  “A summons?” she said in disbelief.

  The messenger inclined his head politely. “Queen Cadhla requests your presence.”

  Eilidh stood and accepted the small disc, which fit into the palm of her hand. The queen’s sigil thrummed with earth magic.

  Imire raised an eyebrow. “In all my years, I’ve never met the queen. I’ve only caught glimpses of her from a distance. This is quite an honour.”

  Eilidh paused in worried silence. The queen was notoriously reclusive, but that seemed to be what people expected. She was a distant, almost symbolic figure in Eilidh’s mind, more of an emblem than a person. “Of course,” she finally managed to say. “I will attend. At what hour?” She glanced at the stars above, gauging the time before sunrise.

  “Now,” Teasair said, gesturing toward the door.

  “I need time to prepare. I am not suitably dressed.” Eilidh’s mind whirled. She had no idea what to wear. She had little fae clothing left after her long exile, only what she’d left behind a quarter century ago. Most of it suitable for a child, not a woman past the century mark of adulthood. At the moment, she wore the human clothing she’d worn during her exile: jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. All the fae on Skye dressed similarly and even cast illusions to disguise any distinctively fae features, such as twisted ears, so they would blend into the human realm. They lived apart from the humans, in a small village populated only by their own kind. Away from the Otherworld, though, they were ever cautious.

  “Queen Cadhla realises the suddenness of the summons, and along with the entire kingdom, celebrates the sacrifices you made on behalf of our people. Her Majesty will no doubt be most forgiving of any slight lapse in protocol that might, on
any other day, cause offense.” He said it with mild disdain, as though Eilidh should be grateful the queen extended such understanding.

  Eilidh glanced at her father, who nodded. She had no choice. One did not refuse a summons from the faerie queen or delay when ordered to appear immediately. “The Halls of Mist?”

  “No,” Teasair said, leading Eilidh through the gate. “Her Majesty is in residence at Eirlioc Falls in the North.” Once out of earshot of Imire, he lowered his voice. “She will be well protected. One whiff of the Path of Stars, and you will be cut down where you stand.” His tone held menacing promise.