Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (38 page)

I frowned, trying to push the thoughts
away.
 
I’d get my revenge when I
found Iabartu, one way or another.
 
Even if the effort killed me, the least I
could do
would
be to hurt her as much as I possibly could first.
 
The familiar coil of heat asserted
itself inside me at the thought and I concentrated on keeping it there.
 
It would help when I finally uncovered
whichever hole she was hiding in.
 
My temper would at last do me some good.

I walked for what felt like hours.
 
My senses were completely alert the
entire time but I could feel myself becoming dangerously bored with the green
and blue monotony.
 
I tried to amuse
myself by playing I-spy in my head for a short while, but there were only so
many words I could come up with for grass, sky and valley.
 
Although it wasn’t particularly hot on
this plane, I could feel the trickle of sweat soaking into my t-shirt and
backpack.
 
The straps were starting
to rub against the skin of my shoulders and I realised that the stench of my
humanity was becoming vastly obvious.
 
I supposed it was just as well that I wouldn’t be returning to
Cornwall.
 
The Brethren would never
know the truth and the pack would be safe, not just from Iabartu
but
from me.
 
I
hoped that Tom wouldn’t be too hurt that I’d not told him my plans but I was
sure he’d understand.
 
And with any
luck Julia would pull through too.

Shifting the damp straps on my shoulders
slightly, I continued on.
 
My watch
had stopped at the moment that I’d come through the portal, which wasn’t
particularly a surprise given what I already knew oh how time on other planes
worked.
 
I wondered how many Earth
hours I’d already been here for.
 
Or
maybe it was days, or even just mere seconds.
 
As long as I could find John’s bitch of
a murderess before she sent anything else through to attack my pack then it
didn’t matter.
 

I was so intently wrapped up in my
thoughts about how I’d go about ripping the head off her shoulders, that I
didn’t notice for a while that there was something up ahead.
 
The valley had been getting steadily closer
but what I hadn’t spotted before now due to the curve of the steep slopes was
that there was something stood there in the middle of the grassy floor.
 
From where I was it looked like a dark
hole of black, incongruent against the other colours of the landscape.
 
The blue smoke seemed to disappear into
the middle of it.
 
At last I was
getting somewhere.
 
I began walking
a bit faster, feeling the
lick of flames inside me rise
ever so slightly.

As I got closer, I realised that the patch
of black had very straight edges.
 
This was definitely not a natural occurrence.
 
It had to be either man or monster
made.
 
In fact it looked
suspiciously like a door.
 
When I
was
a scant hundred or so yards
away, I realised that
that was exactly what it was.
 
There
even appeared to be a doorknob, just as black as the rest of it.
 
I checked it for signs of a letterbox
– perhaps I could drop Iabartu a little note, I thought sardonically, but
there was only the door shape and the doorknob itself.
 
I couldn’t work out what material it was
made out of.
 
It didn’t look like it
was anything solid and, as I could actually circle round the whole of
it,
I noticed that it was paper thin along the edges.
 
As the trail leading from the cloth went
straight into it, and didn’t appear on the other side, this had to be the way I
was supposed to go.

I shrugged to myself and used the corner
of my t-shirt as a barrier between my skin and the doorknob to twist it
open.
 
There was a prickle across
the length of my arm as I did so and then the door swung open.
 
There was nothing on the other side,
other than the rest of the valley, but the blue smoke went through it one way
and didn’t reappear on the other side, so it had to lead somewhere.
 
I tugged out the silver dirk and
clutched it in my sweaty palms and took a deep breath then stepped through.

And went nowhere.
 
The smoke might have disappeared through
the doorway but I certainly didn’t.
 
I was in exactly the same valley and in exactly the same place, just on
the other side of the stupid door.
 
That wasn’t meant to happen.
 
I frowned and tried stepping through in the opposite direction.
 
Again, nothing.
 
I hopped back and forth through the
frame, irritated.
 
What kind of
stupid magic door was this?
 
I had
the horrible feeling that somewhere Iabartu was watching me on some otherworld
version of CCTV and absolutely pissing herself laughing.

I wondered if it was just
me
.
 
I knelt down
and pulled on a tuft of grass, crying out in surprised pain as it cut deep into
the edges of my palm.
 
A few drops
of blood welled up, jewel-like.
 
Cursing, I wiped the blood onto my jeans and used the dirk instead,
gingerly holding the tips of the grass blades tight.
 
Even though the dirk’s blade was razor sharp,
I still had to saw through to free them from the ground.
 
That was…different.
 
I definitely wasn’t in Kansas any
more.
 
I stood up, still pinching
the tips of the blades of grass and taking care not to cut myself further then
flung them through the open doorway.
 

Like the blue smoke, they disappeared in
midair.
 
Huh.
 
Rooting around in my bag, I found a
bottle of water and unscrewed the lid, taking a long swig.
 
Then I threw the bottle cap.
 
It vanished as soon as it passed through
the black edges of the frame.
 
So it
wasn’t a case of just being something substantially from another plane that
couldn’t pass through.
 
It was just
me that couldn’t pass through.
 
Perhaps it was to do with carrying silver. I was extraordinarily
reluctant to leave my best weapons behind, but they’d do me no good stuck here
in the middle of nowhere with
no-one
to fight
anyway.
 
I took the backpack off my
shoulders and removed the arrows, placing them carefully on the ground next to
the dirk, then experimented first by waving a hand and a leg through the
doorway.
 
They didn’t seem to go
anywhere.
 
There was only one way to
know for sure.
 
Casting a forlorn
look at the grounded weapons, I tightly closed my eyes and jumped.

I opened one eyelid carefully, peeking
first.
 
Fuck.
 
I still hadn’t gone anywhere.
 
Opening the other eye, I kicked the
doorway in frustration and felt the same prickle as before run up my leg.
 
Yeah, yeah, so it was definitely a
fantastic magic gateway in the middle of a fantastic magical otherworld plane
filled with killer grass.
 
It still
didn’t help me in the slightest.

I kicked the door again, this time
shouting at the top of my lungs.
 
“You wanted me, you bitch!
 
Now I’m here!
 
Come on then!”

The door gently swung shut as if in
answer.
 
I paused for a second,
hopeful, but nothing else happened.
 
It must have just been the vibrations from my kick.
 
Well this was just great.
 
Here I was, striding into Iabartu’s home
turf, ready to take her on and be the conquering hero and I’d end up having to
go back to the portal with my tail between my legs.
 
Except then I realised that the portal
was sealed shut again so I couldn’t even do that.
 
I imagined Corrigan, shaking his head at
me like I was some sort of naughty petulant child.
 
Shaking the image away, I tried to focus
my thoughts.
 
Maybe if I destroyed
the door instead, then she would come along to investigate.

Picking up one of the silver arrows, I
took out my bow and strung it, aiming directly at the centre of the door.
 
I held my breath but the arrow just
thudded uselessly into it,
then
bounced back onto the
grass.
 
I kicked the door again,
pissed off.
 
Then I scooped up the
dirk and stabbed viciously at the black shape with all my strength.
 
It didn’t even make a
mark,
in fact it was the door seemed completely impervious to the weapon.
 
That did not bode well.
 
I tried again.
 
Nope.
 
My fingertips bristled with angry heat
and I dropped and punched the door, scraping my knuckles against the smooth
impenetrable surface.
 
The resulting
pain reminded me that they were already tender from my battle to escape the
faerie ring – and gave me an idea.
 
If my blood was strong enough to break through a Fae’s conjured barrier,
then surely it could manage this.
 
And even if it didn’t work, I knew at least that Iabartu wanted me, or
rather my blood, for whatever nefarious reasons she had cooked up.
 
It could be that she’d sense it once it
was spilled on her land.

I knelt down again and grabbed another
tuft of glass sharp grass, wincing again as the blades cut through my
skin.
 
Instead of wiping the blood
away this time, however, I smeared it onto the
door frame
and shook a couple of drops onto the ground for further effect.
 
Then I stood back, and watched and
waited.

I wasn’t quite sure what I’d been
expecting, but I’d been hoping for something rather dramatic.
 
Wyr blood should surely bubble and hiss
against nasty otherworld materials.
 
Instead, however, there was the faint smell of burning, that reminded me
of the times when Johannes accidentally set his own hair alight when trying to
light the ancient gas stove with a match.
 
Nothing else happened.
 
After
a few tense moments, I reached out for the doorknob again and twisted.
 
This time, the whole thing disintegrated
in my bloody hands until I was left staring at nothing but the empty valley
again.
 
The blue trail still
vanished in mid air, at the spot where the door had been.

Well, great, I thought sarcastically.
 
Now there wasn’t even a door to try to
enter; it was just a blank space of air.
 
Some fucking saviour I’d turned out to be.
 
Mack Attack wasn’t going to be very
successful if there was nothing around to actually attack in the first place.

I was so angry with myself that I didn’t
notice it at first, but once it got stronger and began tugging at my ponytail I
began to realize that something was happening.
 
Where there had only been still air that
lay as flat as that of inside a sealed Egyptian mummy’s tomb, now there was
wind.
 
And wind
that was getting stronger and stronger.
 
It started to whistle around my ears and
ripple the cloth of my t-shirt.
 
The
black material that I’d been carefully carrying on my shoulder whipped off and
danced away, carried on an invisible current.
 
I felt my backpack being lifted up from
behind, pulling at my shoulders as if it was being grabbed by an unseen force,
a ghostly mugger who wanted all of my worldly possessions.
 
I tried desperately to keep my balance and
steady myself, but there was nothing to grab onto and I felt myself falling
backwards, landing on the sharp grass and feeling its points pierce into my
skin through my clothes.

At that point a shadow passed over my
face.
 
I shielded my eyes from the
bright sun and looked up, trying to make it what it was.
 
It was moving at an unbelievable speed,
getting larger by the second, cartwheeling and spinning through the sky.
 
I tried in vain to scramble at my feet,
but the gale around was too strong.
 
It felt as if I was being pinned to the earth.
 
All I could do was watch.
 
There was a roaring thunder in my ears
and, oddly, I thought again of Corrigan’s loud animalistic ire as I’d escaped
into the portal.
 
He didn’t matter
now though, nothing mattered now.
 
My time was up.

Chapter
Twenty Seven

The swooping shape drew nearer and
nearer.
 
Despite the situation, I
vaguely admired the elegance of the flight.
 
She landed a few feet away from me,
causing ripples of tremors to shake beneath me.
 
At least the wind died down though, and
the atmosphere returned to the heavy oppressive stillness from before.