Last Wish (Highland Magic #4)

Carefully closing the door behind me, I looked at Byron. ‘Do you know where he’s likely to keep the most incriminating documents?’ I asked.

‘One of my earliest memories is when I was a kid,’ he said. ‘I must have escaped from the nursery and come here to find my father.’ His expression soured. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry as when he realised I’d sneaked in.’

My heart went out to him. Since he’d discovered the truth about Aifric, he’d probably spent hours – days even – poring over their relationship and everything that had occurred between them. He’d have wanted to know if he could have accepted the truth earlier, or if there had been any clues that his own flesh and blood was a murdering maniac. I’d spent most of my life believing the same of my father and, although the circumstances were very different, I wasn’t insensitive to how Byron probably felt.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘from what I remember, there were renovations going on. There wasn’t anyone present apart from my father but the place was a mess. There were brushes and tools … it was like he’d been building something. I never thought much of it before but now I’m not so sure. What if he built somewhere to hide the things that no one else should see? Some kind of secret compartment or room?’ He gazed at me in mute appeal; he needed me to agree with him even if Aifric really had just been redecorating.

I considered Byron’s words and stepped back to get the best vantage point. The study was a perfect oblong and there were no signs of anything out of place. I had to trust his instincts, however. He watched me carefully. ‘Do you see anything?’

‘Not at this minute,’ I said truthfully. ‘Despite the age of most of the buildings in the Highlands, you’d be surprised at how few secret rooms there are. Even the ones that do exist are usually easy to find.’

Byron pointed behind himself. ‘I’ve not just been practising the art of lock picking,’ he told me. ‘I’ve also been scouting things here. The library is on the other side of this wall and a store cupboard in the opposite direction. The dimensions of the library are wrong. It’s cleverly concealed because of the shelving but, if there is a secret room here, it’s behind this wall.’

There was an easy way to find out. I edged from one side to the other, thumping the wall at strategic points. Thud. Thud. Thud. Dup. I grinned. Dup. Dup. Thud. ‘It looks like plaster but there’s definitely something behind here. It’s hollow. We need to find a way in.’

Byron’s eyes flashed in grim delight as if he were not sure whether to be pleased or dismayed that his suspicions were proving correct. He nodded decisively. ‘Step back,’ he said.

I did as he asked, thinking that maybe I was blocking his line of vision. As soon as I was out the way, he flicked his wrist and a little fireball coalesced in front of him.

I scratched my head. ‘Er…’

The fireball grew in size, hissing and crackling. Within the confines of the small study, the heat was immense and I was forced to turn my head. With one intense glare, Byron sent the fireball smack into the hollow part of the wall. The plaster crumbled almost immediately; it wasn’t just the fire but the force of the fireball that did considerable damage.

Dark billowing smoke filled the space. Coughing, I darted to the window and yanked it open. ‘If anyone is outside…’ I began.

Byron wiped his streaming eyes. ‘No one’s there. They’re all either upstairs or at the stag party. I made sure of it.’

I sighed. ‘All the same, I’m not sure wanton destruction was the best way to go.’

As the smoke cleared, I saw him shrug nonchalantly. ‘I’ve been planning this for a long time, Integrity. I wasn’t sure anything was here but I covered every eventuality. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.’

I had no choice but to let it go. I mirrored his shrug, grabbed a sheaf of paper and wafted it vigorously to get the rest of the smoke out so we could see what was behind the magical door.

‘Bricks,’ I said. I peered closer. The fireball had certainly done its job; there was a good-sized hole in the wall. But if this really was Aifric’s secret room, where was the door? Maybe one of Aifric’s Gifts was the ability to turn himself incorporeal; that would be seriously cool.

Byron glanced inside. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he muttered. He flicked his hand again and sent out a small flame. In an instant the tiny space was flooded with light. I gasped and pulled back.

‘What—?’ Byron whispered.

I shook myself and checked again but I hadn’t imagined it. There were no boxes filled with dodgy documents, no flashing signs indicating that the evidence we needed to put Aifric away for good was here. There were, however, three fully-dressed corpses.

I retched. No wonder the bloody wall was brick and the study’s dimensions were odd. Whoever these unfortunate people were, they’d been buried alive. They weren’t like the stripped skeleton of Matthew MacBain that I’d come across in the Lowlands; judging by the two quick glimpses I’d had, these bodies were more recent. Not this year, or even this decade, although they appeared more mummified than decomposed. Their clothes were old-fashioned but not ancient.

‘They’re not Sidhe,’ Byron muttered.

I steeled myself for another look. He was right. Nausea roiled across my stomach. ‘They’re not human or Bauchan or troll. Or anything like that. These three are … were…’

‘Fomori,’ Byron finished grimly. He looked like someone who thought they’d reached rock bottom and thought there was no way things could get any worse. The trouble was that I knew they always could.

‘We should go, Byron. There’s nothing else here and you probably woke up everyone when you busted the wall.’

‘We’re not leaving yet. There has to be something else, some evidence of his culpability.’

A thin layer of dust now covered Aifric’s desk. I tugged on the drawers, pulling them open and looking inside before gesturing helplessly. ‘See? Nothing. Much as hate to say it, your father is too smart to leave anything lying around, even here. I found evidence at his rooms in the Cruaich that he’d had something to do with Fomori demons.’ I pointed at the hole in the wall. ‘Now we have more. Those bodies look too recent to be anything other than a result of his work. Maybe that’ll be enough.’