Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (30 page)

Why
didn’t you shift?
 

Corrigan’s growl in my head startled me so
much that I almost tripped over the log that caught the ispolin earlier.
 
He couldn’t have gotten that close to
use his Voice that quickly, surely?
 
Staines had only called him twenty minutes ago.
 
God, just how powerful was he?
 
As well as being stunned into silence by
the revelation that his Voice could carry hundreds of miles, I didn’t have any
answers for him that made sense so I just kept quiet.

Answer
me.

I sighed inwardly.
 
Everyone wanted answers and there were
just none to be had.
 
Or at least none that could be shared without more violence.
  
Instead of feeling angry, I just
felt tired.
 
I should probably think
of a way to reply to him before he used compulsion though.

Are
you trying to suggest that it was my fault that this happened, my Lord?
 
If I hadn’t been there it would have
been even worse.
 
It wasn’t me who
decided that only two guards were going to be a good idea.

Silence.
 
I didn’t feel proud of myself for trying
to shift the blame onto someone else, but at least I’d managed to deflect him
for the time being.

Eventually he answered.
 
That
was a mistake.
 
It won’t happen
again.
There was unmistakable regret in his Voice that gave me a twinge of
guilt.

So I
guess none of us are completely infallible then,
I
sent back quietly.

I
don’t suppose we are.
He sighed mentally.
I’ll be at the keep in a few hours, so let
me know if you need any help with damage control in the village.

I wondered just how in the hell I was
supposed to manage that when I couldn’t contact him by Voice and he wasn’t
exactly on speed dial.
 
He seemed to
realize that, however, and rattled off a phone number that I could call him
on.
 
Fine.
 
There was one more thing that I did need
to know as well though.

How
is Lucy?

Corrigan might not be at the keep yet, but
I had no doubt that Staines was keeping him updated.
 
Who else would have told him that I was
going to Trevathorn to make sure that everything there was
alright
?

Not
good.

Pain was reflected in his Voice and, for a
moment, he seemed more human than shifter.
 
He was silent for a moment longer and then broke off the contact.
 
I kicked the log, hard, and cried out,
feeling the sharp pain in my foot briefly overtake me.
 
Then it faded and I was more alone on
the beach than I’d ever been before.

*

I eventually entered Trevathorn via a
small cobbled side street that led from the beach.
 
There was a small crowd of people
standing beside the square at the Hanging Bull.
 
This didn’t look good.
 

I strode up with purpose, figuring that if
someone had seen or heard something, they’d be broadcasting it to the entire
village.
 
Secrets didn’t stay quiet
for long in any small village, and Trevathorn was a shining example of how to
put a rumour mill to perfect use.
 
In fact, I’d heard the barman in the Bull quip once that if you were
caught unaware in the woods and had to answer a call of nature, then everyone
would know about it before you even managed to get home.
 
Even though, as the local ‘cult’, the
pack wasn’t exactly a real member of the community, there was still a part of
me that appreciated that feeling of living somewhere where the neighbours cared
enough to gossip about you.
 
The
only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about.
 

As I got closer to the clump of humans, I
realised that they seemed to have formed some kind of semi-circle around
whoever was doing the talking.
 
So
perhaps there was just one witness then.
 
That would make any reports of giant
one eyed
beasts with ugly toenails easier to discount at least.
 
My money was on Mrs Arkbuckle, the local
postmistress.
 
If there
was
a story to be told, then she would be the person most
likely to know it.
 
She was the
human version of Betsy.
 
I’d heard a
scandalous rumour last year that she’d been steaming open any interesting
looking envelopes that came her way, in order to know as much as possible about
what everyone was doing.
 
I think
most people had forgotten that in this day and age of email, most letters were
confined to boring and official business matters.
 
Smoke doesn’t always equal fire.
 
And that was what I’d have to make sure
that everyone thought now.

Unfortunately my heart dropped to the
bottom of my stomach when I saw that it wasn’t Mrs Arbuckle at all.
 
In the centre of the circle was a
cameraman, pointing a black video camera at a trim woman with perfect skin.
 
She was holding a microphone and
flashing a curved row of even white teeth. Shit, shit, shit.
 
I stepped closer to hear what she was
saying.

“Are we ready?”
 
She tapped her earpiece, and cocked her
head quizzically.

The cameraman began counting down from
five, pointing at the woman dramatically as he said each number.
 
I briefly considered rushing them both,
tackling her like a rugby player, and taking her down before she could say
anything to the world at large.
 
I
doubted that would help matters, however.
 
Holding my breath, I pushed closer into the watching crowd, earning
myself a few scowls in return.

“Good afternoon, Martin.”
 
Her voice had modulated itself into an
almost perfect version of
received pronunciation
and
she gazed into the camera lens with a happy concentration. I figured that the
invisible Martin must be the anchor ‘back in the studio’. “I am here in
Trevathorn in Cornwall, reporting on the recent wave of seismic activity that
has sent the local villagers running for cover.
 
There were several small earthquakes
here on Tuesday evening, each measuring around 2 on the Richter scale, and
large enough to send roof tiles crashing into the quiet cobbled streets and
vases tumbling to the floor from atop mantelpieces.”

I immediately relaxed.
 
Oh, the drama of a little quake.
 
It was hardly on a par with the San
Andreas
fault
, but I supposed the tremors caused by
the terrametus had been strong enough to warrant a mention in the remarkably
unturbulent British Isles. And no doubt, the appearance of this minor celebrity
in town, coupled with the vague promise that they might catch themselves on
television, meant that both the locals and the tourists had stayed glued to the
action here, instead of realising that the real drama had been unfolding just
half a mile away.
 
Every cloud had a
silver lining, I supposed, and at least there was one less thing to worry about.

The journalist turned to a woman at her
side.
 
So the ubiquitous Mrs
Arbuckle was there after all, I noted.
 
I turned away rather than listen to her take on what would no doubt be
transformed even further into terrifying earthquakes of biblical
proportions.
 
That was when I
noticed Nick across the street, watching the action with his arms crossed.
 
He glared at me for a moment and then
pointedly ignored my presence.
 
It
probably wasn’t worth my effort to try and appease him, and I was pretty
certain that he would have no further details on the robbery at Perkins.
 
Demi-gods were no doubt rather
accomplished at staying hidden from any human investigations into their
undertakings.
 
And Cornwall’s finest
weren’t exactly CSI.
 
I felt bad
about hurting his feelings but it was better for him in the long run.

There was an old red telephone box by the
other side of the little square.
 
I
was pretty sure I had some change in my pocket - should I call Corrigan and
tell him everything was okay?
 
Then
I thought of Julia.
 
This was her
home and she’d be more concerned about the village than Lord Shifty.
 
I was annoyed with myself for not
thinking of her first.
 
She was my
alpha – sort of - she should always come first.
 
I thrust my hands into my pockets and
stalked over to the phone.
 
Julia
wasn’t the kind of technologically advanced person who possessed a mobile,
although admittedly whilst I had one I was always forgetting to bring it with
me which meant I might as well not own one at all either.
 
I called the keep itself.
 
No-one
picked
up so I left a message.

I put the phone down and gazed unseeingly
at the years old graffiti etched into the paint, trying to decide what to do
next.
 
It was ridiculously
dangerous, but maybe I should try entering the portal.
 
If all Iabartu was going to do was to
send minions through who would wear us down bit by bit, then surely it was high
time to go on the offensive instead.
 
The problem was that I’d have no way of finding her, or my way around
once I entered her demsenes.
 
It
could very well be a vast plane of existence, which I’d spend the next sixty
years or so wandering around in a clueless fog before eventually dying of old
age.
 
I drummed my fingers against
the glass and absently traced a small tag written in black that proclaimed that
‘Blake woz ere’.
 
Inspired
words.
 
Truly.
 

Then I paused and remembered the black
piece of cloth that I’d found in the clearing and which had been shot through
with silver.
 
It was just possible
that it had belonged to Iabartu.
 
It
seemed strange that she’d just have left it hanging there, and there hadn’t
been any evidence of her presence anywhere other than at the seven stones and
tree runes at the beach.
 
But
who
else could it have belonged to?
 
Alex would be able to tell me if it was
hers or not by scrying it.
 
If it
wasn’t hers, then it was at least likely that it belonged to another of her servants
who might be able to lead me to her.
 
And if it was…

 
I was confident that Alex would be able
to put a locator spell on the material to find its true owner.
 
He had already said that one of his jobs
was often to help owners find lost objects.
 
It must be an easy process to reverse
and help lost objects find their owners.
 
I felt instantly invigorated.
 
Let the Brethren and the pack take care of matters here.
 
I’d get Alex to help, grab some of the
silvered weapons, and sort the bitch out.

Awesome.

Chapter Twenty

I ran through the woods towards the keep
with a renewed sense of purpose.
 
Now that I finally had a proper plan, both adrenaline and warmth
trickled through me.
 
I ducked under
a couple of branches and leaped over a bush, avoiding the usual path so that I
could take a shortcut and get back quicker.
 
It was my sense of impending
achievement, however, that made me so blinkered, and so dumb.

Traces of the otherworld are evident
everywhere, if you know where to look.
 
I did know where to look but today I wasn’t seeing them.
 
As I hopped over some roots without
breaking my stride, I blundered straight into an invisible wall and was
immediately thrown backwards.
 
Slightly stunned, I staggered to my feet, daggers already pulled.
 
But there was no physical enemy –
I’d become trapped inside a sodding faerie ring.

“Fuck!”
 
I slammed my shoulder against the edge
of it, even though I knew it was a useless gesture.

Faerie rings are perfect circles of
woodland mushrooms, left in random areas of countryside by the more irritating
members of the Fae.
 
Many older
rings were now defunct; they didn’t tend to hold their power for long.
 
However the ones with enough juice in
them still to work were not only annoying, but also dangerous.
 
Time, for the Fae, moves differently to
what it does for almost everyone else.
 
They survive for millennia in Earth terms; and once in the Fae demesne
itself, you could spend one day and then return to find that decades in the
‘real’ world had passed.
 
They’d set
faerie rings to capture foolish humans, and would then force their hapless
prisoners to dance themselves to death.
 
It was said that just one beat of faerie bells was enough to set your
toes tapping and your hands clapping, and that once you started you’d never be
able to stop.
 
Even worse is that
with time lacking in any importance for the Fae, often years would go by before
they’d check on their faerie traps.
 
It would be impossible to force my way out of here on my own, and of
course my mobile phone was back at the keep.
 
After leaving that message on the answer
machine that all was well,
no-one
, not Julia nor
Corrigan, would be using their Voices to get in touch and see where I was.
 
If I had some iron on me, then perhaps
I’d manage to break through it, but even more stupidly I was pretty sure that
my usual iron knife was currently sitting happily on my bedside cabinet waiting
to be cleaned and sharpened after I’d used it to slit the throat of the
terrametus.