Chapter 18
Rothesay, Isle of Bute27 June 2004
Despite scouring the island of Inchmore, we didn't find anything else of interest. We stayed until after full dark, separating as needed to search every millimetre, and I took advantage of any shade I could find to let me do my share. In the end, we found some corroboration of our previous finds rather than anything new. Gus wasn't happy about crossing back to Bute in the dark, but I persuaded him that with my night vision and his seamanship, we'd be fine. We were, more or less, and it was definitely better than huddling under a tarpaulin during the crossing.
Once there, we returned the boat to the shed, and then decided to spend the remainder of the night aboard. The alternatives - using the cottage or the car outside - were both problematic due to the continuing effects of what we can now safely assume was some sort of spell.
First thing this morning, we drove back to the main town on the island - Rothesay. With the sun already high in the sky and a fair sprinkling of people about, there wasn't a lot I could do, so I parked and caught up on some sleep, leaving Gus to start working on getting background information. Soon enough though, the pubs were open, and once I managed to get into one of them, it was easy enough to buy a few drinks and ask some questions. No demons that I could see, but humans can be remarkably useful informants too, especially when they're having drinks bought for them. And what they've got to say is interesting. St. Ninian's point is generally accepted to be haunted. There's even one chap who tells me this whole long story of a ship that ran aground on Inchmore in a terrible storm back in the early eighteen hundreds. His story includes some young man who died in that accident after finding his intended in the arms of another man. He's the one supposed to be doing the haunting, but it sounds a bit too much like a convenient story for the tourists for me. Despite that, there's general agreement among the locals that there's something odd about that place, and similarly, that whatever it is, isn't recent.
When I meet up with Gus, he's got news of Morag's family. On a tip from someone he spoke to early this morning, he went to visit one very elderly local resident who's generally considered to be the fount of all knowledge regarding the islanders. Over cups of tea and home made cakes, she told him the history of Morag's family going back well before her own birth – her mother having been similarly 'interested in her neighbours' as she put it. Apparently, our recently deceased witch/Slayer was originally Morag Stewart. She married, became Morag Kempock at 17, and was divorced by the time she was 20. Why she changed her name to Kirkpatrick seems unknown, but that's what she did some years after her divorce.
She inherited the property at the point from her mother, since her father died young, and she had no siblings. In fact, it looks like Morag's mother also inherited the place from her own mother in remarkably similar circumstances.
With all this information to hand, we take the ferry back to the mainland, and pick up the coast road towards the M8. Our discovery is duly reported to the authorities when we get back to Glasgow. Since it was official Council business that took us to the island, the Council agreed to make the contact, and I'm more than happy to leave them to deal with the police. The various ingredients we found in the cave are to be sent to London for analysis, in an attempt to understand just what sort of mojo Morag was doing there, but not before I've had a go at identifying as many as I can by either sight or smell. Some of them are herbs which, while harmless in themselves, are key to some rather darker magics, and others are beyond my experience. Not that that's too surprising, seeing as how I've generally given magic a wide berth. Still, you pick up a few things if you live long enough.
We spend the day, me sat in front of the computer in Gus' office, and Gus off at various locations around Glasgow, trying to build up a wider picture of Morag's life and family history, and keeping in touch by phone. Between us we manage to confirm something of a pattern. That cottage has been passed from mother to daughter over every generation we've found on record. In fact, none of these women seems ever to have had a son - it's always a single daughter. Oh, some generations there was more than one daughter, but only one ever survived to adulthood. I'm just coming to think that I've got all I'm going to get when Moira comes up and invites herself in for a cup of tea.
Naturally, she wheedles the latest news out of me, and she seems particularly interested in the details. It's only when I start giving some names of Morag's mother and grandmother though, that she looks really worried. It seems that Morag's mother - born Sadie MacEwan - and her grandmother both ring bells.
"I've heard of them," she states quietly. "I didn't make the connection because, well, Morag was a victim, and the name didn't mean anything anyway. But I know of the family. Sadie MacEwan's mother was Alison McCready.
My family was once … connected with that family. Not related, but there was a great deal of collaboration between women who shared significant power. It went back a long time - I've hinted, I think, that the cellar you use to get into the sewer system was once used for magic of a dark nature. By my great-grandmother's day, they had generally moved away from the darker side of things, but they still dabbled when it suited them. It was my mother who finally broke off any connection between the two families. There was an … argument between Sadie and Mother. She never told me the details, but later, I found some hints. My mother kept a diary of sorts - not details of spells, but more her intentions. I read it after she died. It seemed that they were working on some spells which required blood. Mother obtained hers from a local abattoir. However, Sadie wanted to increase the power of the spell and believed that would happen if she used human blood. She tried a few drops of her own and proved that the power was increased, but there were some … side-effects. She wanted to get blood from other sources and was looking at a number of possibilities, the dying, blood banks, down and outs, but there was the probability of real harm coming to the 'donor' of the blood, and my mother refused to be involved. The result was a huge argument. Mother couldn't persuade Sadie to stop her attempts, and as far as I know, they never spoke again. There was never any evidence that Sadie had actually continued her work despite her defiance, and Mother liked to think that she'd thought better of it in the end."
"Looks like Mother didn't know best," I comment, earning a stern look from Moira. "So, what was she trying to do?"
"I don't know what the original purpose was, but after a while, it was general. It was a means of super-charging just about anything you were trying to do."
"What about the side-effects?"
"What Mother found when she used drops of her own blood was that she felt weakened, dizzy. It happened on several occasions with the same result. When Sadie used a drop of Mother's blood, again, it was Mother who felt the weakness."
"Imagine how much super-charging you'd get with Slayer blood at your disposal," I surmise. "And … wait a bit. What if, by using blood, you're siphoning off something from the donor – life force, whatever you call it – maybe that's how you'd go about removing the Slayer powers." I glance over at Moira then, taking in her concerned expression, and then it occurs to me that she might have been able to make the connection before now. "You didn't think about this before?"
"Why would I? The person responsible has been dead for some time, and the effect was a side-effect to other spells, not the point of them."
"Ok," I agree. "I get your point. But there was enough Slayer blood spilt in that cave to account for a lot of life-force transferral if that's what's been going on."
Moira's shoulders slump at that. "But we still have no clue as to how such power is stored or transferred to someone else. Just loosing it? There's no point in that, surely? So, we know, or at least think we know, how it all started. It doesn't get us any closer to stopping it though, does it?"
"No," I agree. The initial excitement at seeing the dots join up dissipates with that knowledge. Still, it's a step in the right direction.
"Have you got a list of what you found there I can borrow?" she asks.
I find the list and put it on the photocopier. She takes the sheet and runs an eye down it. I can see that she's as unhappy at some of the ingredients as I was, but she doesn't say anything.
Moira gets up then, putting the teacup she's been nursing down.
"Off so soon?"
"Well, yes. I want to have a think about this list, and I've got some work to do to finalise the Memorial Service details. Did you know about that?"
"Gus mentioned he was planning on going to London for it."
"And you?"
"Religious services and me? Not what you'd call a happy mix. Anyway, if he's down there, who's going to keep things going up here?"
"You're probably right," she agrees. "It's probably for the best. I'll …"
She pauses, as if temporarily forgetful, which is surprising because she's one woman who doesn't seem to forget anything.
"I'll be returning with some guests," she continues with a smile. "They've never been in Scotland before, so I offered to host them for a few days. You'll probably meet them. One will probably want to talk about the Slayer disappearances."
Watcher types? Only if I don't see them coming first. I've found two half-decent Watchers, and one of them had leave the Council. The chance of any more like that doesn't seem very likely, so I'll just keep out of the way.
