Twiceborn (33 page)

Outside the music thundered to a crescendo and the night exploded with light in all the colours of the rainbow. Rivers of white light began to pour from the deck of the Harbour Bridge, a foaming waterfall of fire.

Things were heating up in here, too. Valeria hurled her champagne at a marble pillar. The shattering of glass brought the timid werewolf bobbing back into the room, but when he saw his mistress’s face he decided the clean-up could wait till later.

She whirled on Jason. “This is all your fault! They’d both be dead by now, and I’d be heir, if it weren’t for your meddling.”

Jason wiped a drop of her spit from his face. She might be a queen’s daughter, but he was old and not easily cowed. “You’ve been listening to Nada’s poison too long. I’ve been nothing but loyal to you since I left Leandra.”

She laughed, a brittle sound nearly lost in the noise of cheering from outside as the last of the fireworks exploded like gunfire across the sky.

“You’re such a bad liar. You could at least come up with something convincing instead of bleating about loyalty. You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

That was rich. Pot, meet kettle. I glanced around, trying to be discreet about it. How fast could I make it to the door? They were all distracted. Even Nada seemed to have forgotten me. Her face was alight with the excitement of seeing her arch-enemy taken down.

Maybe I could lock them in and compel the young werewolf to help me. I only needed a few moments to find Lachie and make a break for it. We could easily lose ourselves in the crowds outside.

Valeria was right up in his face, spitting her words at him. “What was the plan, Jason? Did you think you could set yourself up as a
king
with this abomination? You’re mad. No one would accept this half-human thing as their queen, especially not with you behind the throne pulling the puppet strings.”

All eyes turned to me. Just as I was about to make a run for it, too.

“Interesting theory,” I said. I guess it made sense, given the facts available to her. Too bad for Jason she didn’t have them all.

“Preposterous theory, more like,” he objected. “Valeria, you are my queen. I serve you alone. Why do you listen to this griffin?” If looks could kill, Nada would have dropped dead right then. “She has her own agenda. She’s been trying to turn you against me since the moment I arrived.”

Nada leapt up too, and they faced each other in a tense triangle. “Don’t blame me for your troubles. You’ve brought them all on yourself.”

Jason lunged, hands stretching and reforming as he reached for her, and they went down across the coffee table in a fighting, spitting heap.

“Stop!” Valeria shouted.

They both ignored her, and she leapt out of the way. Jason had massive claws where his fingers had been, like some nightmarish Wolverine. Changing only part of the body to trueshape was a skill that normally took decades to master. Valeria wasn’t old enough. All she could do was holler impotently for back-up as the combatants crunched through broken glass and shattered ornaments.

Now was my chance. I could grab Lachie while they were all distracted.

I was only halfway to the door when it burst open and Luce and Garth and a crowd of other half-remembered faces poured into the room.

Valeria shrieked in fury and knocked Garth flying into the nearest pillar. If she couldn’t perform Jason’s fancy tricks, at least she had her dragon strength. Something else went flying too as she swung, and I hesitated, senses screaming. The channel stone!

Valeria slipped out the door and I fought to follow her, but Leandra was too strong. She dragged us toward the damn stone. Relief sang through me as I scooped it off the floor, even as another part of me clamoured for Lachie.

When I looked up Valeria was gone, and three of her goblins were holding the door against Luce, guarding their mistress’s escape. What was going on? How could Luce be here? She took one out with a flying kick to the head as I watched. I cast a wild look around; Garth swayed on hands and knees, shaking his head. Looked like his thick skull hadn’t suffered too much damage. Jason was rising from Nada’s body, and that was one griffin who’d never fly again. They might never get the bloodstains out of the white carpet.

His claws were still out. Definitely time to leave. I clenched the stone in my fist, ignoring the urge to swallow the damn thing again. That was just Leandra talking, and I wasn’t giving her any ammunition to use against me.

Where had Valeria gone? I was terrified I knew the answer. I bulled my way past the last goblin, leaving Luce to finish him off, and hesitated in the vestibule. Left or right?

Left. “Lachie! Where are you?”

I hurled doors open all down the corridor. I found a wine cellar, a billiard room, and a kitchen that could have featured in a magazine except for the dead werewolf sprawled on the floor. It was the nervous young one. Guess he’d been right to be scared. Yet more rooms—two bathrooms and a study—but no Lachie.

I turned back and heard the ping of the lift arriving. I rounded the corner in time to see Valeria disappear into it carrying a familiar curly-haired figure, Jason right behind her.

“Lachie!” I pounded down the corridor, but I wasn’t fast enough.

He looked up and saw me.

“Mummy!” he yelled, and then the doors closed on his frightened little face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

We searched outside in vain: even the noses of the full Sydney werewolf pack couldn’t have found Valeria in the heaving crowds. Garth alone had no chance. Luce shoved people out of the way with a force that betrayed her fury that Valeria and Jason had both escaped. One look at her face and no one objected to being shoved.

“It’s taken me all this time to persuade Alicia to move. She might be a dragon but she has the soul of a mouse. If I tell her Valeria’s still on the loose now she’ll lose her nerve completely.”

“Surely not. She must realise she only has to kill Valeria now to win.” I only half listened as my eyes scanned the crowds for a mad blonde and a beloved curly head.

“But you—” Garth began.

I cut him off with a curt shake of the head. Luce didn’t know about the Leandra situation, and with her bound to Alicia now, that was probably for the best. I had my hands full enough with Leandra. I’d thought getting the damned channel stone would have quieted her, but she raged inside me for release. I could barely think.

“Best if we finish the job quickly,” Luce said, “and present her with a fait accompli. Where’s Ben?”

I gritted my teeth. This would be so much easier if Leandra would shut the hell up. “Why did you have to involve him?”

“How else were we going to get inside? Valeria would be chewing on your sorry ass by now if I hadn’t. Besides, he offered.”

“This is hopeless.” On that at least Leandra and I could agree. The crowds surged in full party mode and a sick panicky feeling bubbled in my stomach. The noise was phenomenal. The longer it took to find Lachie, the more time my brute of a sister had to hurt him.
Her
brute of a sister. God, I hardly knew who I was any more. “We’ll never find them like this.”

“What do you suggest?” Luce had to shout to be heard over the thumping music and the cries of raucous drunks.

“Let’s head for the place at Mosman.”

Valeria could have any number of safe houses elsewhere, but Mosman lay just across the harbour. In her shoes I’d be heading for the closest bolt-hole to regroup.

Luce signalled the nearest leshy, and the rest of the group struggled through the crowd to join us. I stayed close to Garth and did my best to ignore Ben, who watched me but didn’t try to say anything. Just as well or I would have snapped his head off. I had no time for him now.

“The bridge is shut,” Luce shouted. “We’ll have to take the tunnel.”

That was the drawback to living in one of the world’s most beautiful harbour cities—there were only a couple of options for getting across all that water, and the main one, the famous “coat hanger” bridge, was closed to traffic on New Year’s Eve. The pyrotechnics people used it to launch the fireworks, and they didn’t want members of the public messing with their big display. Water taxis and ferries were out too. A nautical no-go zone extended all around the fireworks barges.

The harbour tunnel burrowed under all those megalitres of water and popped up again in North Sydney. A triumph of modern engineering that might save Lachie’s life.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

It took a while to get back to the cars, but much, much longer to get across town, past all the road closures and diversions, dodging drunken partygoers all the way. Time was tick-tick-ticking away, and my anxiety levels were through the roof before we struggled onto the tunnel approach, only to find a solid line of traffic also trying to make its way out of the clogged city. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning before we parked in a quiet back street in Mosman and made the final approach on foot.

Completely unselfconscious, Luce stepped neatly out of her black T-shirt and pants and handed them to Garth. She shimmered and blurred, and her beautiful trueshape emerged. Her change was like a dragon transformation, clean and quick, not the wince-inducing trauma of a werewolf metamorphosis.

Of course she was much smaller than a dragon, being only the same mass as in her human form, and Luce was no giant. But you could see the relationship in the delicate tracery of her wings and her two taloned feet. Wyverns, unlike dragons, had no front legs and walked upright. Her tail was smaller in proportion to the rest of her body than a dragon’s, so there was something almost kangaroo-like in her shape, though no kangaroo I’d ever seen had such wicked teeth, or a barbed tail.

Of course she risked death for taking trueshape where any passing human could see, but even if I’d been inclined to argue she wouldn’t have listened. She was Alicia’s now, and her every action was in service to Alicia’s cause. She leapt into the air and the leshies gathered around, some going through transformations of their own. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. If it worked and Alicia became heir as a result she might consider the death of a few supporters an acceptable price. As far as I was concerned, no price was too high to save Lachie.
Hang on, baby, I’m coming.

A cry, quickly choked off, was the only evidence of Luce’s activities on the other side of the wall until the gates swung open and a small naked woman beckoned us through.

“I miss having hands,” she muttered as she reclaimed her clothes from Garth.

The leshies streamed into the courtyard and we followed them in past two guards stretched out on the gravel, their faces swollen and contorted. Wyverns could breathe a poisonous mist toxic enough to take out a dozen humans at close quarters.

Halfway across, a bank of floodlights came on, exposing us all.

“Thought it was too easy,” Garth muttered.

We hit the deck as three goblins opened fire from the corner of the house. Luce returned fire and they ducked back behind the building. A couple of leshies sprinted after them. Goblin magic was a long and complicated process, not much use in a fight. Leshies, on the other hand, could cause some real damage. If goblins were the best she could do, things were looking up.

A sudden stinging blow to my shoulder spun me around. Jason stood framed in the gateway behind us, pistol levelled at me. Okay, she had more than goblins. Damn. I clutched my shoulder and felt blood welling between my fingers. The bastard had shot me. He was obviously no marksman, though, to manage only a flesh wound at that range. I could be thankful for small mercies.

An overwhelming urge to swallow the channel stone again washed over me as I stared at Jason—Leandra, struggling for control.

“Forget it,” I muttered, fighting back hard. “Not happening.”

Physically the stone rode in my back pocket, but it burned like a flaming sun in my consciousness. She’d been pushing me to swallow the damn thing ever since we’d got it back. Maybe I’d heal faster if I did, but I wasn’t stupid. Once that stone was part of me again, she’d win the battle for my body, and that would be the end of Kate O’Connor. And now was
really
not the time. Couldn’t she see I was busy? Dammit, was he going to shoot again or not?

A familiar black shape flashed past and lunged at his gun arm, deciding the issue. Jason got off another shot but it went wide, cracking against the stone fountain in the centre of the courtyard. Then he backhanded Garth, who yelped and tumbled aside, snarling. I leapt into motion, though my arm throbbed and I felt sick with shock. My teacher would have been proud of my snap kick. A satisfying crack sounded as my foot connected with his hand, and the gun went spinning into the shadows by the wall.

I fell back, narrowly avoiding the monstrous talons suddenly sprouting from his uninjured hand. That Wolverine thing was some party trick. I danced around, trying to get in another kick without being skewered. From the corner of my eye I saw Garth climb to his feet and shake his body from nose to tail the way dogs do. He was clearly hurt but still spoiling for a fight. All the hatred he’d had for me, when he thought I’d killed Leandra, was now added to Jason’s account with interest. His yellow eyes gleamed with deadly intent as he prowled closer.

I circled around so Jason’s back was to the werewolf, giving me a brief glimpse of the house and the bodies struggling in the courtyard. Looked like we were winning. Garth gathered himself to spring.

Valeria’s voice rang out above the fighting, loaded with command. “Stop!”

Even I felt the urge to obey. She stood on the huge balcony atop the portico, Lachie still and passive beside her. My heart leapt into my throat, and I forgot the pain in my arm, forgot everything at the sight of him.

Valeria spoke directly to me. “Call off your friends or I’ll kill the boy.”

Luce raised an eyebrow at me, as if there were any doubt about my response. I just hoped she’d follow my lead. My heart pounded with fear as I gazed up at him. He stood so calmly she must have enthralled him. Fury boiled through me. How dare she enthral my son like a common slave?