Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (37 page)

I drank in the whole scene with my eyes
and then turned back to the trees.
 
It was time to go.

As soon as I reached the path, I picked up
the pace and began jogging. I had about
twenty five
minutes before Alex opened the portal.
 
I could have tried taking a shortcut and leaving the path, but I was
still wary after my spell in the faerie ring earlier on and knew that the path
would be quick enough.
 
Part of me
regretted throwing the majority of my coffee onto the kitchen wall.
 
Some caffeine would have given me a
much needed
boost right now.
 
Instead, I focused on the path and the
satisfaction I would feel when I drove my silver dirk into Iabartu’s black
heart.

Before too long I reached the beach.
 
I slowed, knowing that there would still
be some Brethren guards out keeping a watchful eye on the portal.
 
Fortunately I’d come prepared for just
such an eventuality.
 
I walked
slowly over the top of the dunes, arms outstretched just in case any
trigger happy
shifters decided to attack first and then ask
questions later.

As before, there were two guards, standing
watchful over the frozen gateway.
 
Both heads whipped immediately in my direction but relaxed slightly when
they realised that I wasn’t a threat.
 
They still looked stiff and uncomfortable though, and, for just a brief
moment, I felt slightly sorry for them.
 
It couldn’t be easy being made to stand here all night, in rural
Cornwall, and know that their lives and the lives of their friends were being
risked for a bunch of not very powerful, yokel pack shifters.
 
My sympathy didn’t last long,
fortunately.

The one closest to me, the werefox, kept
his gaze trained warily on my approach.
 
I figured that they didn’t entirely trust me after Corrigan’s
implication that I had deliberately abandoned them to be attacked.
 
The other had switched her focus back
onto the portal itself.

“Hiya!”
 
I forced my voice to be bright and
cheery.

Neither of them replied but I continued up
towards them.
 
“I couldn’t sleep so
I thought I’d come out for a walk and see if either of you needed a break.”

“We are fine,” the fox grunted, as
expected.

“Well, how about a drink, then?
 
You must need something by now to keep
your energy levels up.”
 
I pulled a
couple of cans of Coke from my backpack – from a separate compartment to
the silver weapons, of course – and offered them out to the both of them,
keeping the smile fixed on my face.

The werefox looked like he might tell me
to piss off for a second, but clearly his thirst won over and he grudgingly
accepted both of them, handing one to his colleague.
 
I checked my watch.
 
Still five minutes to go before Alex
would release the portal.
 
I figured
it’d give me a chance to brush up on my small talk skills at least.

“So, I’m really sorry about your
friends.”
 
And I actually was.

Both of them grimaced.
 
“They were all strong brothers,” the
other Brethren said, still not looking away from the portal but at least
swigging the Coke and relaxing ever so slightly.
 
I maneuvered myself slightly so that I
was angled towards the gateway.
 
As
soon my
watch hit
2.15am, I’d make a run for it.

“Let the Way light their paths through the
long night,” I quoted, and each of the Brethren inclined their heads slightly.

Ummm…what now?
 
I cast around, trying to think of an
appropriate topic.
 
The werefox
rescued me, however.
 
“So, I hear
our Lord Alpha has offered you a place,” he said, in a tone of voice that
suggested that he thought it was patently a ridiculous idea.

“Uh, yes, he has.
 
The Brethren’s not really for me, I
think though,” I replied.

“It’s a great honour,” he said stiffly,
somehow offended that even though he believed I wasn’t worthy of such an honour
I should be on my knees thanking them for it.

I kept my tone light.
 
“Well, I prefer a quiet life.”

“And yet you’re such a skilled fighter,”
said a third deep voice, smoothly.

I turned, heart thudding.
 
I knew that voice.
 
The two Brethren guards immediately
bowed, deeply.
 
So they’d take their
eyes off their jobs to genuflect at least.

“My Lord.”
 
Shit shit shit.
 
“What brings you out tonight?”

His green eyes held mine
appraisingly.
 
“You were spotted
leaving the keep.
 
I was concerned,”
he paused slightly before continuing, “for your safety.”

“Well, I appreciate your concern, my Lord.
 
However, my skills at fighting, which
you so gratifyingly highlight, mean that I am more than capable of looking
after myself.”

“You wouldn’t be thinking of doing
anything stupid, now would you, Miss Mackenzie?”

I noticed that he didn’t call me kitten
when others were around.
 
I filed
that tidbit away and smiled at him, returning his gaze without fear.
 
He couldn’t intimidate me, not when I
was about to enter an otherworld demesne to kill a god.
 
Besides which, I was part dragon.
 
That beat a were-panther any day.
 
“I have absolutely no idea what you
could mean, My Lord.”

He stepped closer.
 
I stepped back.
 
I didn’t want him to be within grabbing
reach when the portal opened.

“From what little I have managed to glean
of your nature, Miss Mackenzie, you have about as much sense of
self-preservation as a kitten would.”
 
His eyes gleamed in the darkness at slipping in the kitten
reference.
 
Bastard.
 
“I wouldn’t put it past you to try to
run into the portal stupidly thinking that you could save the world
single-handedly.”

I took another small shuffle backwards,
hoping he wouldn’t notice.
 
“But as
you know, my Lord, the portal is closed.
 
Even if I wished to make such a foolish move, I would be unable to do
so.”

He didn’t say anything in return, just
folded his arms and gazed at me implacably.

“I couldn’t sleep, alright?
 
I thought I’d just come out for a walk
and maybe bring your servants, sorry –
guards ,
something to drink to keep their spirits up.”

The werefox appeared vaguely alarmed.
 
“I apologise, my Lord.
 
We didn’t think there would be any harm
in accepting her offer of a drink.”

I felt vaguely sickened at the Brethren
member’s bowing and scraping.
 
So
apparently did Corrigan because he bared his teeth slightly and snapped, “You
are permitted to fucking drink if you need to.”

Both of the sentinels cowered
slightly.
 
I wondered at the sort of
regime Corrigan was running, that his own shifters were immured in fearful
obeisance.
 
Before I could comment
on it, and really piss Corrigan off though, my watch beeped.
 
Almost immediately, the portal shimmered
purple and began to hum.
 
I twisted
round in one swift motion and ran.
 
I
felt rather than saw Corrigan lunge at me, grabbing a hank of hair, but I
managed to pull free, leaving what felt like half my scalp behind in his large
hands.
 
Sand kicked up as I sprinted
at the portal, just a few metres away.
 
I had to make it before he stopped me.
 
I heard him roar in uncontained rage but
the distance was too short for
him
to pull me back in
time.
 
The magic of the portal
rippled painfully against my skin, tightening around my entire body as I
battled through.

And then I landed in an ungraceful heap in
broad daylight on the other side.
 
I
was through.

Chapter
Twenty Six

I picked myself up, blinking in the
unexpected sunshine.
 
Corrigan’s
roar of rage was still echoing in my ears.
 
I turned back to the
portal,
half expecting an
enraged were-panther to come leaping through, but the purple shimmers were
frozen.
 
Clearly Alex had managed to
immediately reseal the barrier as soon as I had entered.
 
I felt grimly satisfied.
 
At least the failure or success of my
mission would be down solely to me and I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone
else coming through and getting in my way.
 
Corrigan would realize Alex’s complicity straight away but I knew that
the mage would be aware of that and would make
himself
suitably scarce.
 
Let’s face
it,
no-one would want to hang around to see the full wrath
of the Brethren’s Lord Alpha.
 
I
dismissed my thoughts of him.

Surveying my surroundings, I was very much
aware of both the vast differences and surprising similarities between this
plane and my own.
 
The sky here was
so very blue, in fact such a deep rich shade that I’d never before seen anything
like it in my life.
 
The air felt
cleaner and purer than even Cornwall’s fresh salted scents, and the grass too
was greener, with an earthy base.
 
And yet something felt completely wrong about it all.
 
It took me a moment to work out that it
was because there was a total absence of sound.
 
No insects, no birds, no gentle whistle
of wind.
 
The whole place was
completely devoid of life.

I was stood on top of a small grassy
knoll.
 
There were undulating hills
off in the distance, and what looked to be a deep valley cutting into the
landscape some miles away on my right.
 
But there were no trees, no plants, nothing apart from the grass, the
ground and the sky. It was just as well that Alex had cast the locator spell on
the black bolt of fabric or I had the feeling that I’d end up trudging through
this blue green desert forever.

Pulling it out of its side pocket in my
backpack, I held it out in front of me, trying to ignore the smell.
 
Almost immediately a thin blue smoky
tendril rose into the still air and then snaked its way towards the valley I’d
spotted before.
 
To the right it was
then.
 
I slung the cloth over my
shoulder and began to walk.

The uncomfortably unfamiliar sensation of
fear had disappeared from the pit of my stomach.
 
I was glad that it had gone.
 
It could sharpen my focus and keep me
alert, but feeling frightened meant that I was also more than likely to fumble
and fail once I finally found Iabartu.
 
It also proved to myself that what I was doing was the right
decision.
 
It might be lonely out
here in this barren land but I felt confident that I was doing what was best
for everyone.
 
I began to whistle as
I walked.
 
The slightly off tune
sound seemed to carry away from me leeching through the quiet atmosphere much
in the same way as the blue trail.
 
Let Iabartu hear it, I thought grimly.
 
With the total absence of cover anywhere
there was no doubt that I had no chance of the element of surprise.
 
The least I could do was make her feel
nervous at my apparent nonchalance.

As I continued to walk, part of me felt
irritated that the best my part Draco Wyr blood could do was make me feel hot
and fiery inside.
 
It would
definitely be handy right about now to be able to sprout wings and fly.
 
Especially when I was going up against a
demi-goddess of the sky.
 
I wondered
about what Tom had said, about how on earth a dragon mated with a human in the
first place.
 
Perhaps they could
shift into human form?
 
And had it
been my great-grandfather or great-grandmother who was a lizard?
 
I considered the fact that John had
known all along what I was, dismissing me when he’d heard about my bloodfire,
trying to turn me into a real pack shifter when I was eighteen, training me to
fight.
 
I fervently wished that he’d
told me what I was.
 
Then I could
have asked him more about my mother.
 
He’d known her; she hadn’t just been some strange human who’d turned up
out of the blue one day.
 
Somehow
they’d had a history and she thought she could trust him with my life.
 
Instead, my presence had taken his.