Phoebe Beech Ch. 01: Glasgow

"We'll take a piece, every three days," explained McNeish, "that's a day for every wrong your fuckin' family have ever done against mine. Three days to let you fret and prepare yourself for next time. In a month you won't have any fingers left. So we'll start on your toes. A month after that we'll ... well, we'll have to think of somethin' else then, won't we?"

Every wrong? What was he talking about? Phoebe looked up, and through gritted teeth asked the question that had been bothering her, "Yer raidin' party knew my name. H-how ... how did ye know aboot me?"

McNeish stepped over to the campfire and hauled the one-eyed man to his feet by the collar, "This is Dougal. You've not met. But he knows your mother very well. Dougal here used to be a jailer up in Kirkwall."

"What's that got to do wi' me?" Phoebe snarled. They were going to kill her anyway. What was the point of showing respect for these savages?

"Dougal here recognised your old dear an' ratted on you when you were up there last. The townsfolk rebelled and Dougal here only just managed to escape. You know how?"

They'd been on Orkney. The local governor Zmelya and his troops had known exactly where they'd been hiding. But they'd been so careful not to be spotted. Not to draw attention ...

"N-no," Phoebe noticed Eilwen pick up her amputated finger and study it.

"He stowed away onboard a fishing boat," McNeish continued, "a fishing boat that had originally been mine as it 'appens. Moored at Heysham."

The Kerrera II. The fishing boat Tamsin and the others had stolen. When they'd split up after Kirkwall, Phoebe and her mother had taken it to Fort George. While Tamsin and the others had continued to Perth onboard the Girl Flora.

McNeish leaned in so close, Phoebe could smell his rancid breath, "Dougal shut himself in a storage locker for days with no food or water or even a pot to piss in. Hiding. But he picked up some great intel. He learned that the great Jessamy Beech had a couple of daughters. When Dougal here swam ashore up near Fort George and we eventually caught the little scrote near Fort Augustus, he was even able to give a good description of one of them," he poked her in the chest, "you."

Phoebe averted her eyes as Eilwen used her amputated finger as lipstick to paint her mouth, "Wh-what happened to his arm?"

"Our hospitality comes at a price," McNeish stroked Dougal's close cropped hair as the man stood trembling with fear beside him, "now we've got you, so I know Dougal was tellin' the truth. And it seems ... he's unfortunately outlived his usefulness ..."

Dougal's eye widened in terror. Knowing what was coming.

McNeish gripped the back of the other man's collar tightly, "Sorry mate, but you know 'ow it is," then swiped his other arm across Dougal's throat. The crampon points tore his neck to shreds.

Phoebe slammed an elbow hard back into Renton's belly, and ran ...

Unarmed, in a ruined cathedral surrounded by hundreds of Reivers, where could she possibly go? What chance did she have of escape? None. But she didn't care. She had to get away from these creatures. If her running meant the blessed release of a bullet or arrow in the back then so be it. She'd die free. Not cut to pieces for the entertainment of some Reiver psycho.

The floor fell away beneath her feet as Phoebe tumbled over the edge of the wide meteorite crater. Why hadn't she paid attention to where she was going? Phoebe half rolled and half slid down into the stinking mess below as above and behind her McNeish yelled, "BRING HER BACK HERE! ALIVE!"

Rubble slid down above her as others plunged into the midden in pursuit.

Hiding would be futile. They'd all seen where she'd gone and would logically just search the entire crater. But Phoebe was no longer thinking logically. Adrenaline had forced every rational thought from her head. Ignoring the stinging pain in her wounded hand, she crawled and scrambled across the greasy rubble. Bones, burnt scraps of wood, blood soaked clothing gone crusty with age.

There. Under the broken edge of an immense black marble slab. A crack just wide enough and deep enough for her to squirm into. Hide. A broken edge of reinforced concrete gashed open the top of her head as she threw herself into the narrow crevice.

And stopped. Was she actually seeing what she thought she was seeing?

Strong hands grabbed her ankles from behind and wrenched her back out into the open. Renton pulled her to her feet, looking more than a little pissed off by the unmentionable filth dripping down his face. He drew back a fist ...

"NO!" shouted Eilwen, seizing his arm, "McNeish wants her alive fuckwit. Take her back to the crypt. No food or water for three days."

Phoebe was silent. If her suspicions were correct, there just might be a way out after all.

. . .

"What d'you think of her?" Dylan McNeish asked his daughter some hours later. Other couples had gathered near the fire for warmth. Some merely talking, some only kissing, but some less patient engaged in more carnal acts up against one of the stone pillars. Their distorted shadows leapt and twisted against the old stone walls.

But all Dylan McNeish's attention was centred on his daughter.

Eilwen had brought one of their hunters back with her. Ten years her junior. No more than eighteen and probably still a virgin. Or at least he might have been up until a moment ago. Realising he wasn't going to be getting a straight answer anytime soon, McNeish leaned back against a pile of furs and simply watched, enjoying the show as Eilwen's firm lips met the youth's.

Spreading her legs, Eilwen straddled his eager young cock, easing it up inside herself. Naked. Working her hips in a slow steady motion, she slid up and down on him, "Did ye say somethin'?"

It took McNeish a second to realise he was being spoken to. Watching his daughter fuck was such a delight he sometimes became totally lost in the moment. The writhing flex of her hips. The way she closed her eyes and teased her own nipples. The way her elaborate, swirling tattoos moved as if they possessed a life of their own. The screaming skulls, the fiery eyes, the wolves, the flames, the map across her smooth spine, "I asked what you thought of the Beech girl."

Moaning softly, Eilwen grabbed the nervous youth beneath her firmly by the throat, "You cum when I say ye can. Not until. Ye understan' me?"

The young man - Cleave, or whatever the hell his name was, nodded dumbly. It was a great honour to be picked by the chieftain's daughter. But also a great responsibility. If any of her lovers did something to displease Eilwen they were likely to feel one of her kukri blades.

"Beech? She's soft," Eilwen called across the fire to her father, "she'll try to fuckin' top herself before she's even lost a hand," she cried out, picking up the pace of her grinding, meeting Cleave's hips with every thrust.

"She's a Beech," McNeish countered, "don't underestimate her."

Unable to help himself, Cleave's strong hands grasped Eilwen's hips, pulling her hard against him with every pump of his cock. Eilwen's dreadlocks hung about her face like a curtain as she glanced down, raising an eyebrow - surprised at the liberty he'd taken, but doing nothing to resist, "If she's still alive the mother'll be old and past it by now. Her daughters willnae ever be half the woman she was. If the stories are even true."

"Oh they're true alright," McNeish realised that watching Eilwen, his own cock had grown painfully hard. He would have to find some entertainment of his own before the night was out. She'd touched him on the odd occasion when they'd both been drunk. They'd kissed. But things had never progressed further than that.

Eilwen reached down to stroke the swollen nub of her clitoris - the delicious stretch of the young hunter's cock filling her almost more pleasure than she could bear. She liked to be watched. But watched so avidly by her own flesh and blood was particularly intoxicating.

Flames reflecting like molten gold in her eyes, Eilwen fiercely held her father's gaze across the open fire as she felt the first stirrings of her orgasm, clutching roughly at her tattooed breasts as her vagina beginning to throb and clench around Cleave.

But then, mumbling an apology, Cleave suddenly clutched at her flanks, jerking up off the bedroll as he pulsed inside her, gushing.

Cheated of her pleasure, furious at missing out, Eilwen twisted to one side, the youth still spurting wetly into the air, "I WARNED YE NOT TO CUM, IDIOT!"

She snatched up one of her kukris and with a practiced swipe, opened Cleave's face from eyebrow to jawline. He squealed like a leanabh, clutching at his cheek even as his cock continued to ooze warm semen out onto his bare belly.

McNeish nodded to himself, happy that he'd fathered such a strong young woman. Strong both in body and in spirit. A pity Eilwen's mother had died in childbirth, he mused - or there could have been more just like her.

But in a hundred years' time, which name would Britain's people remember the most? That of the great Reiver Eilwen McNeish ... or Jessamy Beech?

. . .

Three days. Phoebe had just three days before Eilwen and McNeish would drag her back upstairs to slice off another finger. Minutes after Renton had thrown her back into the crypt, she'd wasted no time in exploring the rubble choked darker corners of her prison more thoroughly.

Part of the wall near where she guessed the edge of the crater would be had been repointed. The stonework loose and bulging outward slightly where the meteorite had hit on the other side. She tapped it experimentally. If she'd miscalculated or else imagined what she'd seen, it would all be for nothing. Phoebe touched the oozing gash on her scalp from the rough edge of concrete. Proof that at least some of what she'd seen was real. She had to be right. Why else would there be reinforced concrete below ground in a sixteenth century cathedral?

Forcing her sensibilities aside, Phoebe snatched up a yellowing femur from one of the burst tombs and began scraping out mortar.

. . .

She worked like a woman possessed, biting back the pain in her hand and stopping only when she imagined a sound from above. For at least three days her only source of water would be licking condensation from the cold stonework. But as for food, there'd be nothing.

Phoebe only hoped she'd have the strength to run when, or indeed if, her plan worked. But what then? Even if she managed to get away from the Reivers, get out of the cathedral, what then? She'd be alone in the middle of Glasgow. Deep in the very heart of Reiver territory and a hundred miles from everyone she knew.

As the first line of mortar fell away in chunks from the wall, the head of the femur splintered. Time for a break Phoebe thought. She wondered who the bone had belonged to. Some knight or famous do gooder who'd been interred centuries before. Well hopefully it was once again being put to good use.

. . .

Phoebe slept.

Leonid Denisovich collapsed to the floor with both his wrists shattered, "PH-PHOEBE! RUN! DON'T LET THEM CATCH Y ..."

Glistening red entrails with bits of white fur sitting in a stainless steel bowl morphed into a dead white mouse sitting in the same bowl, face deformed and intestines bursting through its skin. Then a third mouse - this one sitting upright, washing itself. Regarding her with milky, sightless eyes ...

Only dreams, Phoebe's mind informed her. Disturbing as they were, they couldn't harm her.

From banks of swirling fog stepped a slight man wearing thick glasses and a stained white coat.

Well this is new, pondered Phoebe. She'd had either the Leonid dream or the mice dream practically every night since Drumnadrochit. But never a man in a white coat dream.

"The world is broken," stated the man quietly. Though Phoebe couldn't be sure if his lips had actually moved. Then she woke up.

. . .

Phoebe considered the possible meaning of her dreams as she worked. She'd torn off a strip of one of her t-shirts to bind her hand, cushioning the impact of constantly scraping away with the femur. The Reivers had followed Eilwen's order and brought neither food nor water and Phoebe's stomach cramped with hunger.

The Leonid dream was a traumatic memory, replaying over and over every other time she closed her eyes. The mice in the stainless steel bowls she recognised as failed test subjects from Project Chronos - the weird underground laboratory Tamsin had discovered at the university in Ayr. Phoebe had read the binder full of graphs and diagrams, charts and handwritten notes so many times that if she ever actually found herself in there, she swore she'd know exactly how to operate the equipment.

But as for the guy in the white coat dream, she had no idea. The world is broken. Yeah? No shit. The world had been broken for over forty years and was going to need a hell of a lot of fixing.

She continued working. Scraping and gouging, chiselling and digging. Then worming her fingers into the cracks to grip the stone blocks, hoping there might be enough give to work one free. It was going to take some time ...

. . .

"I tried to lure Jessamy Beech here a few months back," Dylan McNeish explained to Eilwen. Almost a day after he'd watched her fucking, the images still lingered in his head. Crystal clear and vivid. How would it feel to fuck his own daughter? He had to admit over the past few years, it had become harder to resist her obvious charms.

"How?" Eilwen glanced up from oiling her kukris. Something she did every day sat cross legged beside their fire. Wearing nothing but a tight halter top and a leather kilt, the tattoos covering her long smooth legs could be fully appreciated.

Many of the Reivers tattooed one another. Clumsy, amateurish scribbles mostly. Not so with Eilwen. McNeish had fed and given shelter to some master of his art - captured while on a raid in Morecambe. In return for being allowed to live a few months longer, the man had skilfully inked every inch of his daughter's lithe body.

Afterwards, the tattooist couldn't have been allowed to live for obvious reasons and was beaten to a pulp by Renton. Eilwen herself had helped skin the body.

"By leaving breadcrumbs?" McNeish responded, "clues, with her bounty hunter friends. Spivey, one of them was called. And, uh ... Watkins and Kevin. Kevin the Horse."

Eilwen smirked, looked up from her oiling, "Why'd they call him Kevin the Horse?"

McNeish laughed, "They don't anymore," he made a gesture like a pair of scissors snipping something, "he's just Kevin now."

The tip of Eilwen's tongue poked out to moisten her lips, "Shame."

"But she didn't take the bait. I reckon the Beech girl Needles caught was a scout."

Eilwen's brow furrowed, "Scout? From where?"

"That's what I intend to find out. When Fort Augustus was nuked I got the distinct impression it was because someone, somewhere ... was trying to warn us off."

Eilwen's eyes blazed with enthusiasm, "Let me take a raiding party east."

McNeish waved a hand, "When the time comes we'll both go. Phoebe Beech has nine more fingers, ten more toes. By the time she can't walk or wipe her own ass we'll have all the answers we want."

. . .

Phoebe had cried herself to sleep.

Sobbing with frustration at how long it was taking to get through the wall. She'd managed to remove one stone block. Probably weighing as much as her it had required all her strength to slowly, inch by inch, wriggle it free from the wall. Though she was slim, it still wasn't quite enough to squeeze through yet. But on the plus side the wall was backed not by more stone blocks - but by a crumbling wall of concrete.

Leonid Denisovich screamed "PH-PHOEBE! RUN! DON'T LET THEM CATCH Y ..."

A deformed white mouse lying in a steel bowl, morphed into a blind one regarding her with milky, sightless eyes ...

The slight man wearing thick glasses and a stained white coat emerged from his fog bank, "The world is broken," he said again.

Phoebe awoke more stressed than when she'd dozed off. She'd had the same dream twice in a row, of someone she didn't even know. Who was the man? She certainly didn't recognise him. He wasn't even vaguely familiar.

The world is broken, he'd said again. Sure. It was a broken world. And for the past forty or so years, people like her mother Jessamy Beech and cousin Tamsin had been trying their damnedest to fix it. The only way to properly put things right would be to turn back time and prevent any of it happening in the first place.

Phoebe felt a chill as if the temperature in the crypt has suddenly dropped by ten degrees. Her t-shirts and inside of her softshell were soaked in sweat making her feel even colder. What was it her stepfather Hamnavoe had said?

They'd all been sat around the kitchen table back on Kerrera over a year earlier, discussing the Project Chronos ring binder Tamsin had found. Hamnavoe had flicked through the paperwork, peering closely at the graphs and pages of charts, pulling a disgusted face when he reached photos of the failed test subjects.

"Well?" Tamsin had asked.

Hamnavoe had coughed, then scratched his grey stubbled chin thoughtfully, "Temporal displacement. Well I was never really into Star Trek and that kinda shite but as far as I know temporal displacement translates into what plebs like me'd call ... time travel."

"Time travel? Are you fucking serious?" her Uncle Ross had sneered, "you're telling me university students in Ayr had invented a fucking time machine?"

"Judging from the state of some o' these mouse test subjects," Hamnavoe had laughed, "I'd say no, they havnae. It's more like a fuckin' blender."

The binder was gone now. Carelessly thrown away by the Reivers. But the information was still there, stored in Phoebe's memory. It was all nonsense of course.

. . .

The faint light seeping down through the ceiling vents held a faint orange glow, which made Phoebe believe it might be sunset up above. She allowed herself a grin. If all went according to plan she'd be escaping in darkness.

Phoebe had removed a second block from the wall, leaving a space just wide enough for her to wriggle through. Her clothes were filthy with dust and cobwebs, her hair alive with spiders and disturbed silverfish. But she'd done it. Cool air wafted from a black hole through the concrete inside the wall. She needed just a few more hours to make the gap bigger and ...

At the far end of the crypt, the bolt on the heavy oaken entrance door slid back, breaking the suffocating silence.

"Fuck!" Phoebe knew what they'd be coming for. Her three days were up and she was about to lose another finger. If whoever it was spotted her covered in dust they'd guess what she'd been upto. They'd find the hole she'd made and any chance of escape would be ended.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YE BITCH?" boomed Renton's voice from the foot of the stairs.

She had seconds. Giving up any attempt at stealth, Phoebe slammed the heel of her boot hard into the crumbling concrete. Chunks of it gave way and tumbled noisily into the space beyond. She kicked again. And again. Each impact making the gap bigger.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YE DOIN' DOWN HERE?"

The sound of running footsteps. She'd been found out.

Phoebe twisted around and plunged headfirst into the hole. Rough concrete edges scraped and tore at her clothes as she squeezed through. Forced herself through the narrow gap she'd made. She kicked out as she felt fingertips snatch at her feet from behind.

Then she was through. She half slithered, half fell a couple of feet onto a flat concrete floor.

On the far side of the gap, Renton growled his frustration. He was far too big to squeeze through after her. Phoebe saw his dim silhouette move away. Then footsteps echoing as he sprinted back to the stairs.