Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (39 page)

As soon as I was able, I sprang to my
feet.
 
Belatedly it occurred to me
that I’d dropped the bow after I’d tried to shoot the door, and that no doubt
it had been carried away in the hurricane.
 
Fortunately I’d had enough sense left in me to hook the dirk through one
of the belt holes at the top of my jeans, where it was still secure.
 
I pulled it out and held it in front of
me, prepared to take action.

Iabartu stood relaxed in front of me,
examining her fingernails, as if she needed to make an emergency appointment
with her manicurist.
 
She was the
same height as Alex’s scrying had intimated and she was indeed floating just a
few inches off the ground, as she had been when she had brutally attacked
John.
 
A sudden image of his corpse
flashed through my mind and I felt the returning flash of fire.
 
I shifted my weight and took a step
forward.
 
I was going to everything
I could to destroy her.

“Bitch,” I muttered, without even realising
it.

Her white eyes lifted up to mine.
 
And they actually were white - she had
dark
 
pinpricks
of pupils, but absolutely no irises.
 
The effect was extraordinarily unsettling.
 
Despite the shudder of revulsion her
gaze caused in me, it occurred to me that she looked rather bored of me
already.

“What’s your point?” Her voice was quiet
and yet icily hard.

I swallowed and then steeled myself.
 
She might be ice but I was all
fire.
 
I ignored her question.
 
“I believe that you have been looking
for me.”
 
I impressed myself by
keeping my voice steady.

Iabartu arched a thin eyebrow at me.
 
“Why, yes, little dragon, I have.”

“You may be rather disappointed,” I
countered, “I am more human than Wyr.”

She hissed, unexpectedly.
 
“That is…unfortunate.
 
But not disastrous or
unexpected.
It is your human nature that I knew would mean you would
come looking for me if I pushed hard enough.
 
Why do you think I left the portal
open?
 
Or the
cloth for you to track?
 
Your
kind are
so very sentimental and weak.”

“You murdered my alpha,” I spat.

A glimmer of a smile flickered over her
bow-shaped lips.
 
“Yes, I did,
didn’t I?”
 
She laughed musically,
and the sound grated through every inch of my soul, fanning my flames
further.
 
“Just think how much
anguish he could have spared you if he’d only given you up at the
beginning.
 
Because, like I told
him, the end result is still the same.
 
I will drain you dry of every drop of fiery blood until all that is left
is an empty husk.”
 
She laughed
again, but this time the sound was colder.

“Why?”
 
I bit out.
 
“What makes my blood so special to you?”

“Oh little human Wyr, I could use it in
ways that you can only dream of.
 
You see, like you, I’m just a half-breed.
 
Half a goddess.”
 
Her eyes gleamed.
  
“A fantastically powerful one, but
still there are those who seek to bring me down because I am not as pure as
they would wish.
 
Your blood will
help me destroy them into dust.
 
Just a few carefully placed drops mixed into their mead and they’ll be
mine to control.”
 
She laughed
coldly, but I noticed that her fists were clenched.

“If you’d just asked,” I commented, “I’d
give you a few drops.”

The expression on her face was
scornful.
 
“And let you loose for
someone else to use?
 
I don’t think
so.
 
Besides,” she flipped her hair
self-consciously, “I need a constant supply.
 
Your blood has
certain…addictive
qualities that makes
it so useful.
 
There’s no point in establishing the need, the desire for it, in one of
my foes, and then not being able to control that supply.”
 
Licking her lips in a way that made me
shudder, she added, “I need it all.”

I felt a cold shiver run through me at her
words, despite the churning bloodfire that was champing to be let loose.
 
Part of me had hoped that I’d been
wrong, that it hadn’t been me that she’d been after – and that it hadn’t
been me who John had died protecting.
 
I didn’t really care what she did to her enemies on this plane but I was
damned if I was going to let her use part of me to help her continue her terror
campaign.
 
And I would have my
revenge for John, Julia and all the others.

“Over my dead body,” I growled.

She raised a shoulder, shrugging
lightly.
 
“Suits me.
 
There are plenty of ways to kill your
mind but keep your physical body alive.”
 
And with that she lunged forward, trying to grab hold of me.

I
dodged,
only
just managing to escape her grasping hands, and turned on my heel, facing her
again.
 
I watched her stance
carefully, taking note of the shifts in her muscles, trying to gauge where she
would move next.
 
I wasn’t going to
try to strike her with the dirk until I could be sure of making contact.
 

She looked amused.
 
“Oh, little dragon, this is going to be
more fun than I thought.”
 
She shot
up into the sky and disappeared.

I whirled, squinting up above me, trying
desperately to work out where she had gone.
 
A faint whistling came sneaking into my
left ear and my grip on the dirk tightened.
 
Suddenly, I felt a huge force cuff me on
the side of my head.
 
I went flying
into the sharp grass feeling its blades rip into the skin on my face and arm.

She stood over me again, laughter pealing
out.
 
“Don’t bleed too much,
remember I need all that.”

From the ground I kicked out at her leg,
connecting with her flesh.
 
She
howled in surprise and somersaulted backwards.
 
I sprang up and leapt forward, lashing
out with the blade.
 
I felt the
satisfying moment when the dirk scratched into her clothing.

“So,” she hissed, “
the
little human can use silver.
 
I’m
not one of your shifters, however.
 
I am a god.
 
It won’t hurt
me.”

“Oh, but you’re just a demi-god, Iabartu,
otherwise you wouldn’t need me.
 
And
when I stick this into your heart, it will hurt you.
 
A lot.”

I was more confident now.
 
She wasn’t entirely invulnerable and now
I knew that I could reach her.
 
This
was not going to be impossible.
 
I
ran at her, dirk in front of me, ready to slice her and make her bleed.
 
This time, however, she skirted right
into the air before clawing her taloned fingernails at me.
 
They connected with my cheek and drew
blood.
 
Iabartu paused, hovering in
midair, and examined the little red drops on the tips of her fingers, a
fascinated expression on her face.

“I can feel the fire from here,” she
murmured.

“Then feel this,” I spat and attacked
again, stabbing at her as the flames inside me roared in approval.
 
The silver sank into her arm before she
could pull away, and a dark liquid welled up around it.
 
I managed to keep a firm grip on the
hilt and held onto my now only workable weapon whilst Iabartu pulled back
sharply.
 
My slice didn’t quite have
the devastating effect that I’d been hoping for but at least I got a reaction
as her face twisted briefly in pain.

 
“Enough!”
 
She snapped her fingers and, almost
immediately, I heard a quiet rumble in the distance, getting gradually louder
as whatever it belonged to drew nearer.

“Afraid you can’t beat me on your own,
bitch?
 
I might have figured that
you’d call someone else in to do your dirty work.
 
Clearly, a half breed like you doesn’t
have much power of your own.”
 
I
hoped that I could taunt her into making a mistake but Iabartu had too much ice
running through her veins for that just yet.

“You’re a half-breed too, human.
 
I notice you don’t have anyone rushing
to your aid.”
 
She swung backwards
and out of my reach.
 

“Because I don’t need help to kill you,” I
retorted loudly.
 
Just as I’d tried
to encourage her temper to get the better of her, now she was obviously trying
it with me.
 
Of course, my temper
was often my best weapon – Iabartu didn’t need to know that though.

The sound of whatever she’d summoned was
getting almost unbearably loud.
 
With half an eye on Iabartu, who was now floating at the edge of the
valley, I turned slightly to meet whatever was coming.
 
Whatever it was, it was huge.
 
And it looked disturbingly familiar.

Iabartu let out a silvery giggle that made
shivers run down my spine.
 
“You
have already met, I believe?
 
I
think that my little friend is anxious for a re-match.
 
After all, you attacked him entirely
without provocation the last time.”

The ispolin’s shape drew closer.
 
“He invaded our territory,” I growled.

“For all you know he was popping round to
borrow a cup of sugar before you so mercilessly and viciously pounced on him.”

I felt an irritating twinge of guilt.
 
She did actually have a point –
not about the sugar of course, but about fighting first and asking questions
later.
 
But he’d killed that
Brethren guy and maimed Lucy.
 
And
if he’d reached Trevathorn, god only knows what might have happened.
 
It was the pack’s job to keep Cornwall
safe from the big bad.
 
The ispolin
was certainly both of those.

Iabartu laughed at me again.
 
“That, my dear, is why you’ll never be
as powerful as me.
 
Why that blood
is wasted on you.
 
You’d actually
feel bad for giving him a booboo.”

I scowled, annoyed that I was so
transparent, and struggling to keep my fire in check for at least the time
being.
 
“On the contrary, it’s what
makes me better than you.
 
But if
that thing gets in my way, then I’ll mow him down.
 
It’s you I’m here for.”

I’d barely finished my sentence when the
ispolin howled in rage and began to charge.
 
Iabartu leapt up into the sky.
 
“Lucky me, I get a ringside seat,” she
called down.
  
“Don’t kill her
just yet though, I need her heart pumping when I drain her blood.”

I ignored her pointed order to the beast
and tensed.
 
It was clearly still
bearing the scars and wounds from our encounter on the beach and was looking
for a little payback.
 
I understood
that, but there was no way I was going to let it prevent me from doing all I
could to get my own payback from Iabartu.
 
An image of Lucy’s limping form flashed into my head, along with
Thomson’s broken body.
 
I might not
have liked the guy but he was a shifter which made him part of me and
mine.
 
This wouldn’t be so hard on
my conscience after all.
 
I released
some of the heat I’d been keeping such a tight hold onto and looked straight
into its one great eye.
 
Bring it
on.

The ispolin came close enough to me that I
could see its hairy nostrils flaring.
 
A trickle of dark green snot made its way down its face, making me
wonder if the slime that Nick had found had Perkins had just been the remnants
of a giant monster sneeze.
 
The
heaving nostrils did remind me of a Spanish bull, however, which gave an
idea.
 
I watched it carefully,
waiting for it to make the first move.
 
Its muscles rippled and its whole body shifted almost imperceptibly to
the left.
 
I sprang right, just in
time to miss its barreling shape, and turned to face it again.
 
Without pausing, it rammed its way towards
me again, head down and lethal horns leading.
 
For the second time, I managed to jump
out of the way.
 
I could sense
Iabartu watching impatiently from the air and I took a moment to sketch a bow
in the air, almost imagining myself as a bullfighter on a sandy ring.
 
The ispolin pawed the ground and blinked
furiously then rushed me again.
 
I
skipped out of the way but this time it was expecting it and threw out a fist
to cuff me.
 
It connected –
barely – but the force was enough to send me spinning to the ground.
 
I jumped up quickly, not before I felt a
thousand blades of glass sharp grass cut into my skin all over again, whilst trying
to ignore the sudden sensation of vertigo that the ispolin’s blow had created
in my skull.