She looked up, above the rows of wide, dark stairs to the door of a house that was nestled right into the stone wall. Everything was set in stone on this street, in this city. It was charming in the daylight, and was a reason she chose to study at the university here; she loved to stand at the bottom of the Grassmarket plaza—also stone, of course—and let her gaze play across the rows of roof lines marking the east-west run of each street, until they blended seamlessly with the Edinburgh castle walls high above.
But on a dark and moist night like this one, the street lights cast their filtered yellow rays across the edges of the city structures, and left the spaces between the stones unlit; black spaces, voids between the walls and outcroppings where you couldn't quite tell if there was something there or not. A tingle crawled up the lower part of her back as she looked up and down the wall in front of her, and she wondered if she could overcome her hesitation. What demons lurked inside this place? She laughed at herself. But damn, that guy was hot, and she wanted to see him tonight. She had to stop mind fucking herself out here and just get in.
She was an attractive young woman, standing hesitantly on Princess Street there, although she wouldn't have thought as much herself. A first-year student, wearing only a simple white t-shirt and jeans, cutting a trim figure, a small unicorn tattoo visible on her upper left arm just below the cuff, her hands folded across her chest in indecision as she squinted at the miniature fortress in front of her. The house could have been one hundred years old or a thousand years old; it was a permanent fixture on Princess Street, and over that time the stone stairs had blended seamlessly in color and texture into both its entrance arch and the polished street cobbles on which she was standing.
She sighed. Once already this evening she had stood in the same place, failing to gather her courage to climb and enter, to join the party whose noises she could hear pulsing through the thick stone walls, to pursue her target that evening. Instead she had fled to one of the many bars along the busy Royal Mile just a block away, and sampled a Macallan Scotch single malt. She didn't even like whiskey, but it was something to do. On the way there and back she took pleasure in strolling along the high street, peeking into the many steep alleyways—Edinburghers called them "closes"—that ran at irregular intervals. They had mystery, and the deep history of tens of thousands of humans living in such small bounds for generations. But she had returned to her perch at the bottom of the steps, watching the shapes of people, mostly likely other university students, moving in time to music behind dark red curtains.
A large group of Chinese tourists passed behind on the street, bumping her. "Excuse me," she said to them, annoyed, watching their backs as they shuffled on. It was almost ten at night, the street was fully dark, and the usual throng of visitors to the city had lessened to a trickle. Most were inside an establishment just like where she had spent the past hour, enjoying the best that Scotland had to offer for the past thousand years on a dark fall night such as this: whiskey, food, maybe a little entertainment, and companionship.
"Nika! There you are! Why aren't you at the party?" A bright-faced young woman bounced down the stairs towards her from door which now stood wide open, pouring bright light from the foyer onto the street; trailing behind on the stairs stepped an eager and smiling young man in a smart shirt and trousers. She was quite a contrast to—and seemed unaware of—the dark and powerful forces Nika sensed in this place when standing in her solitude, brooding; but in the month Nika had known her, Misty never slowed down much to perceive the things that Nika did. They were just different types of people. And Nika was probably overreacting anyway; her wild imagination had a way of getting away from her.
"Nika, this is Ostin," Misty said, pointing back to the redhead. "I met him here tonight. He's from France, and a student at the Uni, too!" Her blush as she looked to Ostin told Nika quickly that her friend was hoping for some fun that evening. He was a decent looking guy, and Nika was sympathetic to her desires. Misty was an outgoing girl. A flirt, even. It had made for an interesting friendship in their first month of school, Misty's energy and initiative complementing Nika's quieter and more reflective nature. Even though she could sometimes be exhausting, Nika was glad of the role her new friend played in her life and knew it was good to coax her out of her own shell. For instance, it was Misty who had found the "ghost tours" that filled Nika's mind tonight with the wondrous dark tales of Edinburgh's past.
Misty pointed down to Nika's chest. "I don't think that's going to make the impression you want. At least not from what you told me about tonight. . . ." Misty wiggled her eyebrows at her friend suggestively.
Nika looked down at her chest in surprise. She thought the tight shirt was flattering for her trim figure, and didn't see what was wrong. She ran her hands over her chest, then back at her friend, "Misty, what the hell, it's what I was born with. Not everybody has a figure like you."
"Not your boobs, silly. You have nice little titties. Right Ostin?" she shot back to her new friend who looked happily back and forth between the two girls chests and nodded like a puppy dog. "I mean your shirt!" Across Nika's white t-shirt, in bold black letters, was written the phrase, "CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE". Nika didn't think twice that morning when she had selected the outfit, one of her favorites. It was a gift from her sister back in their high school years, given in jest at a time when dumb guys would hit on both of them. She shrugged at Misty and smiled; it was too late to change now, but it didn't pay to get worried about things like that anyway. What was going to happen tonight would happen, if it was meant to be.
They turned to go in, and on the way back up the stairs, taking a last look at the stone facades on all sides of this alcove, Nika reflected on those ghost tour stories of the city and about this house in particular. Edinburgh swirled in legends, and the town's tourist trade never missed a chance to play up its dark history of over-crowded medieval living, deathly plagues, grave-robbing, early human medical research, criminal elements, child labor, ghost sightings, and more. The tour had even passed this very house, the guide telling them that it had been the home for hundreds of years of the royal executioners; their grisly deeds taking place in a public square not far from here up on the Royal Mile, a stone's throw from the Edinburgh castle.
But as they entered the bright entryway, the energy of the party swallowed them up, leaving behind Nika's forebodings from the street outside. The reason Nika was here, besides following along with Misty's unquenchable thirst for adventure, was to find her target for the evening: Zachary Fraser. He was the son of the current owner of this house, the tenured and powerful Professor Fraser at the university. Zachary was a quiet young man, mysterious, serious, the teaching assistant in the freshman philosophy course where Nika and Misty met at the start of the term.
"I'm Una, welcome to the Fraser house," said a woman's voice gushing in a heavy Scottish accent. Nika relished the up and down rolls in her voice as the jowls of her cheeks and chin wiggled. She was middle-aged, portly, and friendly. She looked from Misty to Nika, and down at Nika's t-shirt. 'Ah, this must be the bonnie lass you were waiting for! Well, don'na the pretty face suit the dish cloth!" she exclaimed brightly. Nika raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, thank you Una. This is Nika. I found her outside," Misty replied, and then in a mock confidential aside with a smile, "She was a little scared to come in here."
