Page 8

Chapter 8

I locked the front door behind me; I wanted Reggie to be safe and sound whilst I was out though he had a key for emergencies. My home didn’t have a great track record for being safe, but Connor had made sure this current house was warded to the hilt.

Gunnar was waiting for me outside with the SUV’s motor running. ‘Sorry I kept you waiting,’ I apologised. ‘I asked Reggie to talk to me.’

‘And did he?’

I smiled. ‘He did.’ As we drove to the store, I gave Gunnar a brief rundown of everything Reggie had told me.

‘Interesting.’ Gunnar pulled up outside the bakery and I ran in to grab my box of doughnuts.

When I jumped back into the vehicle a minute later, it was immediately filled with the wonderful scent of sugary, yeasty goodness. My stomach grumbled; I wasn’t even hungry but they smelled so good that I was sorely tempted to devour the lot. The hag didn’t need a gift that badly, right?

Gunnar sighed and looked longingly at the box. ‘We should have ordered an extra dozen.’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, I was thinking the same.’ I paused a moment. ‘Gunnar, can I pick your brains?’

He looked at me wryly. ‘Sure. It doesn’t feel like there’s much there these days but go ahead and shoot.’

‘What do you know about hags?’

‘Not a whole lot – they’re insular creatures. I knew there was one in Portlock but that’s all. I’ve never met her and I didn’t even know that she lived by the mine.’

I’d hoped for more. ‘They mentioned them at the academy. They’re earth elementals, meaning she can use the power of the earth to do pretty much anything she wants with the ground. They have metal teeth and metal claws, and their appearance can range from looking fairly humanoid to downright monstrous. I think that if the hag really wanted the mine closed, she could probably make it happen by simply collapsing the tunnels.’

Gunnar rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘You have a point. So why would she need to kill the inspector?’

I shrugged. ‘She could have had another reason but I think it eliminates one motive, unless she’s a magical dud or something. He might have pissed her off in her own home, or she could have killed him accidentally.’ I paused. ‘Or he may have died of natural causes.’

‘I hear a “but”,’ Gunnar chuckled.

‘Yeah, well… I can’t help but feel something is off, even if I can’t put my finger on what.’

‘I feel the same. Nothing points to murder and yet… I like how your mind works, Bunny.’ He winked. ‘It works like mine. Keep it up.’

I intended to – if we lived through our conversation with Matilda. I was nervous: this would be my first chat with something that had never ever been close to human. My brief conversations with the beast beyond the barrier had consisted of me screaming and running away, and not much else. The beast had rarely replied. Some people had no manners.

Gunnar pulled into the mine’s car park and my heart gave a solid beat in protest as a sudden wash of nerves engulfed me. Maybe it was because we were meeting an unknown creature but it might have been due to the prospect of going down into the dark depths of the earth again. It turned out I wasn’t a big fan of that. It wasn’t bad enough to call it claustrophobia – I wasn’t terrified – but I was distinctly not keen .

Thomas met us in the office before taking us to the storeroom for our hard hats, then he led us to the lift. ‘You ready for this?’ he asked me, quirking an eyebrow.

I hadn’t put on my poker face so my fear must have been showing. I rectified that immediately. ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ I lied, though he didn’t look convinced. It was like bolting the barn door after the keelut had already escaped.

I focused on the box of doughnuts, inhaling their vanilla scent. They did a good job of distracting me until Thomas hit the button and we lurched downward. ‘Do you know if the hag speaks English?’ I asked as we dropped steadily into the bowels of the earth.

‘I’ve never met her,’ he admitted. ‘But the dwarves have hinted that she’s spoken to them. We conducted a full risk assessment when we found out she lived there but she refused to meet with us. In the end Liv concluded she wasn’t a threat to us.’

‘What about the other dwarves? Are they as terrified of her as Leif is?’

‘Oh, they are,’ Thomas confirmed. ‘But it hasn’t stopped her from talking to them.’

‘What about?’

He shrugged. ‘They aren’t very forthcoming, but I grasped she was warning them to stay out of certain areas. ’

I knew I’d probably regret asking, but I did anyway. ‘She was warning them to keep them safe? Areas of instability, right?’

He chuckled. ‘No, she was warning them to stay away from the parts of the land that she’s claimed.’

Damn it. Why couldn’t she have been a Good Samaritan hag?

As the lift juddered to a stop, the wires screamed in protest. Thomas didn’t bat an eyelid; he merely opened the gate and ushered us out. Like before, the silence and dark were absolute until he switched on the weak lights that were wired permanently into the mine. I shivered, despite their wavering light and reached up to turn off the lamp on my helmet. Better to conserve it for if shit got pear-shaped.

Gunnar noticed me tremble. ‘You cold?’

I shook my head. ‘No, just spooked. Turns out I’m not a huge fan of tunnels.’

He grunted. ‘Me neither.’

Thomas ignored us as he led us to the cave where Helmud had been found; I doubted he was ever afraid. I took a deep breath. ‘I guess this is it. I’ll do the honours. Are you ready?’

Both men indicated they were. I held the doughnuts out in front of me and yelled, as instructed by Leif, ‘Matilda, Matilda, Matilda! We come bearing gifts!’