Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (22 page)

“A what?”

“The runes of seven and the stones
here.
 
They form a
triangle which
would have allowed her to trap your alpha in
the middle and hold him.
 
Or summon
a terrametus.”

“So we need to destroy the grid so she
can’t do it again then!”
 
I stood up
and almost jumped towards the ring of stones, picking one up and throwing it
towards the sea.

Alex stayed on the sand and shook his
head.
 
“The runes and the stones are
needed to form the grid but once that is done they aren’t required any
longer.
 
The power remains until the
creator is killed.”

“So she can still use this at any time to
do anything she wants?”
 
Even I
could hear the rising panic in my voice.

“Yeah, man, she can.
 
But I can put a warning ward around so
if there are any signs of magic or transportations then we’ll know about it.”

I remained deeply unhappy.
 
“But I thought you needed a portal to
transport from one plane to another?”

“Portals are more economical with energy,
but they’re not great if you want to be a circumspect dude.”

I tried not to roll my eyes at Alex’s
ability to use the words ‘circumspect’ and ‘dude’ in the same breath and
changed tack.
 
“What do you think
the electric screwdriver was for?”

“Now that one I have no clue about
it.”
 
He shrugged and stood up,
brushing sand from his jeans.
 
I was
pretty sure it was a wasted effort.
 
It doesn’t matter what you try to do to keep sand away
from you, once it was there in your clothes
,
it was
staying
.
 
Even if it had been
six months since you’d last visited the beach, somehow, somewhere, sand would
still linger.
 
Alex continued, “But
there is one thing I can definitely help with.”

I raised my eyebrows hopefully.
 

“The wichtlein.
 
Give me the stone and I’ll track it for
you.”

“But won’t it have disappeared back down
whichever hole it came from?”

“Not if the death and
destruction it warned of isn’t over yet.
 
And the appearance of the terrametus dude
would lead me to believe that it’s not.”

The hope that I’d felt earlier in the
police station began to re-surface. “Then what are we waiting for?
 
There’s no time like the present.”
 
The pebble was in a pouch in my backpack
so I pulled it out and offered it to him.

“Won’t the Bros want to be involved?” He
made no move to take it from me.

“I think I’ve made my feelings about them
perfectly clear already.”
 
I hiked
my backpack on my shoulders to make it more comfortable and tightened the
straps.

“Yeah but they do have mad skills.
 
And if Corrie finds out you’ve been off
doing more stuff on your own, he’ll be even more pissed off with you.”

“I’d like to see you try calling him
Corrie to his face, Alex.
  
Anyway, he’s not the boss of me and they’re all leaving tomorrow
afternoon because they could only commit to three days.
 
And I won’t be alone because you’ll be
with me.”

Alex paled slightly.
 

“Don’t worry,” I said calmly, “I’ll keep
you safe.
 
And no fighting, I
promise.”

Unfortunately a cloud took that moment to
pass over the moon and throw a shadow over us.
 
It didn’t exactly boost Alex’s look of
confidence.
 
I didn’t want to wait
any longer, however, because if too much time passed then the trail might go
cold.
 
I held the stone out to him again
and tried my best puppy dog eyes.

He grimaced, and took it from me.
 
“Fine.
 
Just don’t look at me like that again
– I don’t need to be any more scared than I already am.”

Chapter Thirteen

Using his index finger, Alex held the
wichtlein pebble in the palm of his hand and circled it several times.
 
A smoky blue snake of light escaped from
it, just as before with the shape of the woman.
 
This time it wound its way into the
wood, heading away from the beach.
 
Without saying anything further, we followed it.

It took us along the path that led to the
keep for a few hundred metres before curving to the right – and the
eastern perimeter where I’d last seen John.
 
We ended up being forced to pitch into
the tangled undergrowth.

“Your trailing spell doesn’t pick easy
routes to follow, does it?” I was suddenly starting to feel very tired.
 
It felt like such a long time since I’d
had any proper rest, and I was well aware of the continuing ache in my
side.
 
As far as my memory went, the
fight with Anton could have been last week for all that had happened since, however
the pain in my body reminded me that it had just been that morning.

Behind me, Alex gasped in exertion.
 
“It’s not GPS, dude.
 
It doesn’t conveniently pick the nearest
motorway to drive along.”

The blue snake took that moment to decide
to dive through a patch of nettles.
 
Great.
 
So far, I’d been cut
by briars, beaten up by Anton and Theresa, attacked by a giant horned quake
beast, chewed out by Nick, almost killed by Corrigan and now I was trying to
commit death by stinging plants in the middle of night.
 
Oh yeah, and John was still dead.

Alex muttered further complaints from behind
me.
 
“Get with the programme, surfer
boy,” I said, trying not to snap.
 
“We’re going to follow this if it kills us.”
 
Under my breath I cursed that it just
might.

The wood around us was alive with the
sounds of the night fauna.
 
A midge
buzzed by my ear and I slapped at it in irritation as I ploughed behind Alex’s
blue trail.
 
I wasn’t happy about
being eaten alive on top of everything else.
 
Then, without warning, I found myself
being forced to steady my body briefly against a tree as a light wave of
dizziness caught me unawares.

“Feeling tired, human girl?”
 
There was definitely a note of sulky
petulance in Alex’s voice.
 
I
gritted my teeth and pushed myself away from the tree, carrying on into the wood
and ignoring him.
 
If we could catch
the wichtlein then it would all be worth it.
  
I just prayed that we found it
soon or I wasn’t sure that I’d manage to stay conscious for long enough to do
anything.

After what seemed like an age later, we
came to a stream.
 
The trail passed directly
over it and I felt my heart sink.
 
Oh for fuck’s sake.
 
I placed
one foot into the icy water and gasped as I felt it seep slowly through my
trainer.
 
The stones underneath were
slimy and slippery and, even though it was only about calf deep and two metres
wide, it took everything I had to get across.
 
I tried desperately to find my bloodfire
so I could heat it up and fire it through my body but even my insides felt dull
and damp.
 
By the time I reached the
other side of the stream I was panting with exertion.
 
Sweat clung to my forehead as I
struggled to stay upright.

And then I heard something.
 
I clutched Alex’s arm behind me and
pointed, holding my breath.
 
There,
just up ahead and not far from the clearing of a few days ago, sat what I was
suddenly sure was a wichtlein.
 
It
was eating something, gnawing at it with sharp teeth that gleamed in the
moonlight.
 
I tried not to look too
hard on whatever it had decided to snack on for dinner and instead focused on
the fact that I finally felt a flicker of heat in the pit of my stomach and the
surge of imminent success.
 

It appeared to be about two feet high and
was completely covered in inky dark fur.
 
It had a pointed nose and clawed fingers that were gripping its evening
meal whilst behind it lay a short stubby tail.
 
I was fairly certain that with its
underground habits it was bound to be almost, if not completely, blind.
 
That meant that its hearing would
overcompensate for this shortcoming.
 
Even the slightest rustle would warn it of our approach.
 
So how to get close enough to catch it
without scaring it off?
 
I certainly
didn’t want to harm it – well, not yet anyway.
 
I needed to find out what it knew and if
it had targeted John specifically.
 
As a harbinger, maybe it even knew exactly what was going on and who the
blue cloaked
bitch was.
 
I was very much aware that I might not
get another shot so I had to make this count.

Thoughtfully, I ran through a mental
checklist of the tools in my backpack.
 
There was definitely a rope in there somewhere.
 
I wondered if I’d be able to lasso the
creature from this distance.
 
My
line of sight was clear enough to swing it through and hook round the
wichtlein’s body but I didn’t dare take another step towards it in case it
heard me, and I wasn’t sure the rope I had would reach it from this distance
anyway.
 
Could I even unzip my
backpack to find the rope quietly enough?
 
Damnit.
 
But then, I
remembered that Alex was here too and that I was still gripping his arm tightly.
 
I could perhaps use him somehow.
 
If I could send him round to the other
side of the wichtlein, where he’d be upwind of it, then it might smell him and
run in my direction.
 
Then I could
nab it.

I released my grip on his arm and
half-turned towards him, motioning with my hands that he should move back out
of the stream the way we’d come, and skirt round to the other side of
wichtlein.
 
He looked confused and I
felt a spark of exasperation.
 
Hadn’t he ever watched any war films for goodness’ sake?
 
I tried again, making two little feet
motions with two fingers and pointing round the surrounding to the back of the
little creature.
 
Unfortunately at
this point I’d forgotten that he was still stood in the stream.
 
He shifted his weight slightly to see
where I was pointing towards and, at that moment, slipped and landed with an
almighty splash on his back.

The wichtlein immediately looked up in our
direction with a wide-eyed yellow stare and then heaved itself up, discarding
the carcass it had been gnawing on and started running in the opposite
direction. Fuck fuck fuck.
 
Without
pausing further, I sprinted after it, pulling the rope out of my backpack as I
did so.
 
At least it didn’t move
that fast – thanks to the fatigue and pain I was pretty sure that even
with the aid of the bloodfire I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it for
long.
 
I sped up slightly, shaking
my head to clear the fuzziness and focusing my vision on the small ball of
black fur.
 
I began to swing the
rope overhead.
 
Up ahead was a clump
of close-knit trees.
 
I had to reach
it before
then
as I knew I’d never be able to snag it
with the rope with all those other obstacles around.
 
I looped the rope faster in the air and
then let it go.

The noose sailed through the air and, for
a moment, I was sure that I’d missed.
 
Then it arced downwards just in time to catch the wichtlein.
 
As soon as it curved over the small
running body, I yanked hard.
 
The
creature was suddenly pulled backwards and let out a high-pitched shriek.
 
I wrenched harder on the rope and
dragged it towards me for a few more feet, then walked unsteadily towards it,
keeping a tight hold of the end of it.
 
When I reached the wichtlein, I paused at looked down at it squirming
uncomfortably.
 
Its little clawed
paws were scrabbling at the tight lasso, trying in vain to get it off, and it
made little huffing sounds that were becoming more and more panicked.
 
I bent down and scooped it up, then held
it in front of me at arm’s length.

Yep, its eyes were a dull opaque so it was
a given that its vision was virtually non-existent.
 
Nonetheless, I hardened both my eyes and
my voice.

“You set a stone here, two days ago, for a
shifter.
 
Why?”