Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (23 page)

It wriggled in my hands, still trying to
escape and squeaking incessantly.
 
I
squeezed its body.

“Answer me!”

“Won’t speak.
 
Let Craw go!” The wichtlein spat,
shrilly.

Alex appeared at my shoulder, dripping
wet.
 
“Craw will speak or wizard
will act.”
 
He spun his pinky in the
air, generating more blue smoke.

The wichtlein cowered and clawed at my arms.
“Let Craw go!”

Alex jerked his pinky forward and the blue
snake floated steadily towards the little animal.

“No
no no no no no no
no!
 
I speak! I speak!
 
Stop!”

I briefly wondered what it was about
Alex’s magic that had the wichtlein so terrified.
 
Perhaps there was more to my rather
unfit newfound friend than I had previously thought.
 
I couldn’t worry about that now
though.
 
The night air around me was
starting to feel heavy and oppressive and I was fairly certain that it wouldn’t
be long before I passed out in a heap.
 
I concentrated on the flicker in my stomach, encouraging it to rise and
keep me going long enough for me to get the information I wanted.
 
It gave
a feeble
answering warmth in return.
 
That
would do for now.

I shook the wichtlein and repeated
myself.
 
“You placed a doom stone
here two days ago for John Arton.
 
Why?”

“He
die
soon.
 
She kill him,” it squeaked,
still squirming.

“Who she?
 
I mean, who is she?”
 
I tightened my hands on the wichtlein.

“Iabartu!
 
Iabartu!”

“And who is Iabartu?” growled Alex.

“Sky god human woman.”
 
The wichtlein stopped its pointless
clawing and fumbling and
raised
up its head.
 
“She
seek
wyr
blood.”

“What?
 
You mean dragon blood?”
 
I was confused.
 
We had a few little dragons occasionally
rear their heads in Cornwall, but they popped up all over the country, much
like the one I’d bagged for my first kill.
 
This neck of the woods wasn’t special in that regard at all, and I
couldn’t think for the life of me why John’s life would have been forfeit for
one.

“Not little wyr, fire girl.
 
Draco Wyr.”

“What did you call me?”
 
Fire girl?
 
How the hell did it know about my
bloodfire? And what on god’s earth was a Draco Wyr?
 
I shook the little beast, hard.

The wichtlein cackled unpleasantly.
 
“Craw
know
many
lots.
 
Craw know
who Draco Wyr.
 
Man
beast know
who Draco Wyr.
 
Man beast try stop Iabartu take Draco
Wyr.
 
Man beast die.”
 
A single claw scratched my arm with
intent.
 
“You fault man beast die.”

My heart thudded.
 
“My fault?
 
Why my fault?
 
I don’t know this Draco Wyr!
 
What do you mean?”
 
It couldn’t be my fault he’d died, could
it?
 
But why should I believe the
wichtlein?
 
I shook it even harder.
 
“You’re lying.
 
Tell me the truth.”
 
My fingers curled round its whole body
and, despite my condition, my bloodfire rose even further.
 
The wichtlein shrieked in answering pain
and began struggling again.

“It’s telling the truth.”
 
Alex’s voice was quiet.

“You’re wrong!” I snarled, trying
desperately to think of what I could to get the wichtlein to stop prevaricating
and ‘fess up without killing it.

“Mack, I’m not.”
 
He touched my arm.
 
I turned and looked at him and saw it in
his eyes.
 
I stared at him dully for
a second, then back at the little black creature.

The heat was gone.
 
“Why is it my fault?
 
What did I do?”

But there wasn’t any answer.
 
I dimly heard Craw cackling again.
 
Blood was thumping in my head and the
edges of the world were going blurry.
 
I couldn’t keep my head clear this time.
 
I shook myself but the edges blurred
further and I heard a roaring in my ears.
 
My grip on the wichtlein loosened.
 
Then everything went completely dark.

Chapter Fourteen

When I came to, I was lying against a
tree.
 
Alex’s face loomed towards
me, concerned.
 
“Mack Attack?
 
You okay?”

I struggled to sit up.
 
I felt very nauseous and the wound in my
side screeched at me with sharp pain.
 
I pulled up my t-shirt and looked down at the blood that was seeping
through the bandages.

“Shit, Mack!
 
Where the hell did that come from?
 
Have you been bleeding this entire
time?”

I tried to focus.
 
“Craw?”

“He’s gone.
 
You dropped him when you passed
out.
 
To be honest, it was either
catch you or catch him.
 
I went for
you.”

I cursed and tried to sit up again.
 
My head swam.
 
“You need to get Julia.”
 
It was a strain just to get the words
out.

“I don’t even know who Julia is,
Mack!”
 
Alex’s voice was
high-pitched and strained.

“Keep.”
 
I gasped.
 
“Older woman.
 
Grey hair.
 
She’ll be the new alpha when the
Brethren go.”

“Okay, okay.”
 
Alex nodded and started to move away
then abruptly came back.
 
“How the
hell do I get back to the keep?
 
And
how can I leave you here alone?
 
Shit, shit, shit.”

“Go west.”
 
My vision turned dark for a second
before returning.
 
“I’ll be
fine.”
 
My daggers at least were
re-strapped to my arms in case anything nasty came close.

“Okay.”
 
He nodded again but remained where he
was, looking at me.

“Alex? No Brethren.
 
No matter what.”
 
My life wasn’t worth the consequences of
them finding just how very humanly weak I really was.

“Okay.”

“Go!”

“Okay.”

He turned and ran out into the dark
trees.
 
I leaned my head back and
closed my eyes.
 
I tried to think
about what Craw had meant about it being my fault.
 
Had I met a Draco Wyr before?
 
Perhaps I’d killed one?
 
I was drifting in and out of
consciousness and couldn’t work any of it out.
 
There must be a reason as to why the
bitch woman – Iabartu? –
needed
him.
 
Goddammit, my brain just wasn’t
cooperating.
 
I gave up and opened
my eyes to the stars instead, marveling at how they seemed to be moving around
the sky as if they were dancing.
 
Milky Way, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia…so pretty and shiny…
.I
blinked slowly.
 
I was starting to
feel very cold and shivery.
 
I tried
to pull my knees up to my body to curl into myself and generate some warmth but
a shooting pain ran through me instead and my vision started to cloud over.
 
Closing my eyes, I felt my whole body
fall into shut down mode.
 
A stray
thought crossed my mind that if Alex didn’t get back here with Julia quickly,
then
I might soon be talking to John himself.
 
A quiet smile curved my lips and
everything went quiet again.

“Mackenzie!”
 
Mackenzie!

Someone was shaking me.

“Mackenzie! Look at me!”
Now.

It was Julia, not John.
 
Go figure.
 
I forced my heavy eyelids open and
looked away from the sky and at her.
 
“Hey, Jules.”

“Hello, dear.
 
I need you to hold on to Mr Florides’
hand for me, please.
 
This is going
to hurt.”

Alex’s face swam up.
 
“Hi, Alex.
 
Where’s your blue smoke?”

“Hush, dear.
 
Hold his hand and grip it tight.”

“
’kay
.”

He placed his hand in mine and I held it.
 
I looked at him and told him how pretty
the stars were.
 
He just looked back
at me solemnly.
 
I was aware of
Julia pulling off my blood-soaked bandages and taking a jar of something from a
bag beside her.
 
It smelled awful
and had a very green tinge to it.
 
She scooped a dollop out.

“I’m sorry, Mackenzie.”
 
Julia’s hand smeared the green gloop
onto my wound and I screamed.
 
I
heard Alex next to me moaning as I squeezed his hand.
 
Julia started rubbing in the ointment
and I screamed again.
 
Nothing had ever
hurt this much before.
 
Nothing had
existed before this pain.
 
I fainted
yet again.

*

This time, when I woke up, there was a
wolf looking at me with pale yellow eyes.
 
Tom.
 
Julia was still there
too.

“What the hell did you do to me?”
 
The pain had gone but the memory of it
still remained.

 
She put her hand on my forehead.
 
“It’s an old remedy called trieswater.
 
Particularly dangerous to humans, I
might add, Mackenzie.
 
You’re lucky
that Mr Floride found me when he did.
 
Much longer and I don’t think it would have worked.”
 
She removed her hand and looked
satisfied.
 
“There’s no fever at
least.
 
You’ll live.
 
You’re a damn fool for staying out after
a fight like that considering your injuries though.”

“John…”

“Is still dead and nothing you do will change
that.
 
Can
you stand?
 
We need to get you back
to the keep.
 
Dawn will be breaking
soon.”

With Alex’s help, and Tom nudging me
gently, I managed to get to my feet.

“Tom will carry you back to the keep.
 
You should get some sleep.
 
Mr Floride here has filled me already on
most of your night activities.
 
For
your information, the Lord Alpha confirmed my status as the new Cornish alpha
after he returned last night and will be returning to the capital. He is
however leaving behind a delegation to investigate further, thanks to the
encounter with the terrametus.”

“What?
 
He can’t do that!”
 
I burst out.

“He can do whatever he wants,” chided
Julia, gently.
 
“They have pressing
business back in London to attend to but have decided that the situation here
needs to be taken care of too.
 
They’re
going to ask Mr Floride here to do some more work before they decide what to do
next.”

I swore violently.
 
How many of Julia’s lotions and potions
was I going to need to depend on to get through more time hiding from the Brethren?
 
Speaking of which… “Why haven’t I heard
of this trieswater before?
 
I feel a
hell of a lot better.”

“It accelerates healing in humans,
although it often sends weaker ones into a coma before it can really start to
work.
 
You’ve avoided that part of
it, fortunately.
 
It does have some
rather unpleasant side effects, however.”

“Yeah, I felt those,” I commented.

“I didn’t mean the pain, dear.
 
Shifters don’t use it to heal, they use
it as a hallucinogenic drug.”

“Uh…what?”

“You’ll feel a lot better very quickly but
if you start to see things that don’t make logical sense then you’re pretty
much going to be hallucinating.
 
It’s why I haven’t ever given it to you before.”