Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (25 page)

I had still had over an hour until dawn
and the keep began to stir awake, so it was time to start on the Draco Wyr.
 
I was nervous about what I might find
with this one.
 
I didn’t want any
confirmation that it had anything to do with me, that my own human blunderings
by inadvertently killing one of them had caused them to take their revenge and
kill John in return.

Heart in my mouth, I typed in the words
and hit return.
 
Images of different
coloured dragons appeared at the top of the page.
 
They were definitely larger than your average
wyvern.
 
The first website returned
was a gossip column, which I ignored, but the second one was from
Otherpedia.
 
That would do it.
 
I opened it up and read.

  
Draco Wyr
were
intelligent members of the dragon family.
 
They

  
possessed
the ability to shift into human form and were known to

  
regularly
visit the human demesnes.
 
They were
reported to be

  
an
average
size of eleven feet tall, with impenetrable scales

  
covering
their dragon form.
 
The Draco Wyr
also had some magical

  
abilities
,
mainly from the power inherent in their blood.

  
Legend states that anyone who
drinks the blood of a Draco Wyr

  
will
be
able to converse with animals and gain the strength of

  
twenty
men.
 
Most scholars believe that
this is an over

  
exaggeration
,
however, as there is little evidence of this.

  
What is known is that the blood of
a Draco Wyr contained

  
enough
magical properties to be used as both a deadly poison

  
and
a
cure-all medicine for a range of ailments.
 
There have

  
been
no
eye-witness sightings since
 
1666
and the Great Fire

  
of
London,
which is believed was caused when two Draco Wyr

  
lost
their
tempers and attacked each other near the site of

  
Pudding Lane.

I looked back at the artists’
renderings.
 
The pictures indicated
old-fashioned full-on fairy tale dragons, complete with red scales, pointy
tales and sharp, gleaming teeth.
 
They also all appeared to be about the size of a
two
storey
house.
 
Nope, I’d
definitely never come across one of them before.
 
So what on earth had the wichtlein meant
when he’d said that the Draco Wyr had been involved in John’s death but that it
was my fault?
 
I didn’t feel that I
was any closer to finding out anything of any real significance.
 
And it had been three hundred and fifty
years since anyone had even seen one anyway.
 
Despite what Alex had said, Craw must
have been lying.
 
But then there was
also John’s computer password to consider – that had been the Basque word
for dragon.
 
Was that a coincidence?
 
And how about the fact that John had
hidden the increased otherworld activity from the rest of the pack?
 
And, in particular,
me?

I leaned back in the chair and pondered my
next move.
 
With my research on the
dragons creating more problems and questions than answers, I had to focus my
efforts on finding Iabartu.
 
It
would be good to know what the Brethren and the rest of the pack had achieved
the day before.
 
Maybe Alex had
uncovered some evidence of her trail. If not, then my best move would be to do
something to draw her out into the open where I could attack her.
 
I had no idea yet what that might be.

Figuring that Betsy would be a good person
to deliver all the gossip on what had transpired over the last day whilst I’d
been sleeping, I headed back to the dorm room to see if she was awake yet.
 
I was just about to push open the door
to go inside when Anton came out, clutching something white and scrunched up in
his hands.
 
What the hell?

I growled at him and his eyes snapped up
from what he was holding.

“Human,” he hissed.

I answered in like.
 
“Prick.”
 
I looked at down at his hands but he
stuffed them behind his back.
 
“Sneaking around in the girls’ room now, are you?
 
What have you stolen?
 
Let me guess, someone’s dirty underwear
so you can sniff at it at your leisure.”

Instead of the usual smart reply I was
expecting, Anton actually blushed.
 
Okay,
now I had to know what it was he’d taken.
 
I reached behind him, but he sidestepped and snarled.

“Stay away from me.”

Not a chance buster. I eyeballed him with
my best steely gaze. “Then give me what you’ve got there and I’ll leave you
alone.”

His body tensed and I could see dark spots
appearing under the skin on his face.
 
His
were was
trying to get out.
 
I narrowed my eyes further.
 
Something was definitely up.

“C’mon, Anton,” I coaxed, trying to reach
behind him again.

He backed away against the
door frame
.
 
“Fuck off.”

I rocked back slightly before feinting
left and whirling round behind him, pulling the piece of material away from
him.
 
It ripped as I yanked it out
of his hands.
 
I looked down and saw
my bloodied t-shirt from the day before which I’d left stuffed in the dorm’s
laundry basket.
 
Now I was seriously
freaked out.

“You’re stealing my clothes?
 
With my blood on them?”
 
Was he going to take the t-shirt to the
Brethren to prove to them that I wasn’t human?
 
The hackles on my back rose and I felt
hot inside.
 
I’d known he hated me
but I hadn’t thought that he’d really put the whole pack in jeopardy just for a
little revenge.

Tufts of dark hair began to spring out on
his cheekbones.
 
“Keep it.
 
I don’t need it,” he bit off and pushed
past me down the corridor.
 
Fear and
fury rose inside me and I was about to go after him with a vengeance when a
door on the floor above slammed shut and I heard a couple of Brethren coming
out and talking loudly.
 
Resignedly,
I watched him disappear round the corner.
 
This was definitely not good.
 
I considered whether I should go and tell Julia what he’d done.
 
That felt a bit like running off to the
teacher but he must have worked out some way of getting round the geas to tell
the Brethren
who
I was - and that put everyone in
danger. He was getting far too dangerous for his own good.
 
I looked down at the t-shirt.
 
I was going to have to dispose of it
before I did anything else.
 
It
hadn’t occurred to me that leaving it in the dorm was a bad idea but clearly I
was going to have to be a lot more careful from now on.

I went straight into the bathroom and
found some bleach in a little cabinet.
 
I poured it liberally over the shirt and stuck it into sink, watching
the brown red colour slowly disappear.
 
Betsy wandered in, wearing pink frilly pyjamas and yawning loudly.

“Now you’re cleaning, Mack?”

I told her what Anton had done and she
looked alarmed.
 
“I know he doesn’t
like you, babe, but I don’t think he’d tell them you’re human.
 
Besides anything, the geas would stop
him.
 
And with Julia confirmed as
alpha, she can stop him from doing anything at all.”

I stared down at the sink.
 
“Please don’t call me babe, Bets.”

She rolled her eyes.
 
“I mean it,
Mack.
 
We still don’t
know enough about how the Brethren would act if they worked out what you
were.
 
Anton might be a wanker but
he’s loyal to the pack.”

“Then why was he taking my clothes,
Betsy?”

“I don’t know,” she answered softly.
 
“But Lynda likes him and I think he
likes her.
 
I’ll get her to hang on
his
coat-tails
for the next few days and make sure he
doesn’t do anything. Maybe he’ll confide in her.”

My fists clenched.
 
“I do not need him screwing things up at
the moment.
 
There’s enough to do
and enough to worry about as it is.”

“Yeah, especially with that spooky portal
that the mage uncovered.”

I looked at her.
 
“Portal?”

“Oh, yeah, you were asleep all day.
 
He did some kind of uncloaking
spell.
 
It turns out that there’s a
portal on the beach, not far from where John died.”

“A portal?
 
As well as the seven
stones?
 
And you’re only
telling me about this now?”
 
My
voice was rising to a screech.

“Jesus, Mack, give me a chance.
 
No-one
’s gone
into it because we don’t know where it leads to.
 
Even the mage can’t work out where it
goes.
 
The Brethren are staking it
out in case anything else comes out.
 
They reckon that’s where both the terrametus and the woman came from.”

“Iabartu.”

“Huh?”

“The woman is called Iabartu.
 
She’s some kind of demi-god.”

“How did
you….?”
 
She shook her head,
 
“Never mind.
 
Most of what you do is a mystery to me,
Mack.”

I ran water into the sink to rinse off the
bleach.
 
“Does Julia have a plan?”

“I think she’s letting the Brethren make
the decisions for now.”

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.
 
This portal was clearly where the action
was going to be.
 
I wrung out the
t-shirt and dumped it in the bin.
 
At least now I knew where to go next.

“You’ve got a scary look on your face,
Mack.”

“Get Lynda to stick with Anton, as you
said.
 
I’m going to head to the
beach.”

I started to walk out the bathroom.
 
Betsy called after me.
 
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?
 
By all accounts you were half dead
yesterday.
 
The Brethren have got
things under control.”

“I feel fine.
 
And I know things they don’t.
 
If you see Julia, tell her about Anton
and where I’ve gone,” I flung back, then picked up my backpack and made sure I
had everything I might need.
 
Time
to rock and roll.

Chapter Sixteen

By the time I reached the beach, the sun
was high in the sky and glinting off the glittering sea.
 
There were some human shaped figures at
the far end, closer to Trevathorn.
 
I figured that Alex would have already set up some kind of warding spell
to stop any innocent person on a morning stroll from haphazardly stepping into
the portal to another dimension.

There were also a couple of Brethren
shifters a few hundred metres away.
 
I briefly debated whether to try to stay hidden or not but reckoned I
wouldn’t really manage it for long.
 
Julia’s lotion might mask my human stink but it didn’t mean that I was
scentless, and
the eddies
of wind swirling around the
beach would advertise my presence before long.
 

As I got closer, I recognised the shifter
I’d taken for a werefox on the first day and another Brethren male.
 
They were both standing on the sand,
their backs to me.
 
Ahead of them I
could just make out the portal.
 
It
shimmered with light purple waves.
 
Few pack members had ever stepped into one of the gateways to other
planes.
 
Shifters didn’t possess the
ability to conjure portals, and, unless you were very sure that you knew where
one was leading, it was pretty much advisable to leave it well alone.
 
There wasn’t a Way Directive about them but
there probably should be.
 
There
were plenty of nasties that wouldn’t take too kindly at all to a stranger, even
a shifter stranger, stepping into their living room.
 
By the time you’d worked out where you
were and what was going on, you could easily find yourself lying in a puddle of
your own entrails.
 
It had happened
before.