Bloodfire (Blood Destiny) (9 page)

“Hitting the hard stuff, are you
Mack?”
 
he
asked.

“I’m working out with Tom in a bit,” I
answered, taking a swig of Coke and crunching down satisfyingly on a cube of
ice.

He frowned slightly.
 
When we’d been dating, he’d never quite
been able to believe that Tom and I were just friends.
 
I didn’t really care.

“What the hell have you done with your
hair anyway?”

“I fancied a change,” I said airily.
 
He didn’t look very convinced so I moved
swiftly on.
 
“So how are things in
the land of the crime-stoppers?”
 
I
took a sip of the Coke and hoped that was enough of an opener to get him
talking.

“Same old, same old,” Nick said with half
a grin, “although there was a shocking case of burglary this morning.”

“
And….?”

“And nothing.
 
It was probably just kids.
 
Perkins was broken into but nothing much
was taken.”

Perkins was the local hardware store.
 
It sold an array of DIY tools and
kitchen implements.
 
Probably not
anything that a supernatural creature that left no tracks would be involved in.
 
Not unless they had a penchant for
home/cave/backwater portal improvements at least.

I feigned interest to keep him happy.
 
“So what was taken?”

“A bag of coal and an electric screwdriver.”
 
He leaned back on the stool and folded
his almond brown arms.

“Riiight,” I said slowly.

“Like I said, probably just kids.”
 
He smiled.
 
The wariness in his eyes had gone and
been replaced by a slightly over-eager expression that vaguely alarmed me.
 
We’d parted on good terms but I wasn’t
keen to have to quash any lasting hopes he might have that I was the woman of
his dreams.

“Well, whatever keeps you busy, I
suppose.”
 
I gulped down the rest of
my drink.
 
Clearly there wasn’t
anything to be gained from staying any longer.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked, the smile
leaving his eyes.

“Like I said, I need to meet Tom.”
 
I stood up.

“You should be careful out there,
Mack.
 
By the sounds of things there
are a lot wild animals around at the moment.”

I paused briefly, half turning towards him.

“Didn’t you hear the racket last
night?
 
It sounded as if we’d been
invaded by London Zoo.”

That would have been the pack, when John’s
death was discovered.
  
Nothing new for me there then after all.
 
I pulled out a screwed up five pound note
from my back pocket and left it on the bar, motioning to the barman to pay for
Nick’s drink too.
 
“Well, if I see
any polar bears walking around with electric screwdrivers, then you’ll be the
first person I’ll call.”

“Do,” he replied, with a cheesy wink.

I sighed inwardly and headed back out.

Trevathorn was a pretty place with
window-boxes
and cobbled streets but it was not exactly a
teeming metropolis.
 
After ten
minutes of brisk walking from the door of the Hanging Bull, I was leaving the
outskirts behind me and was in sight of the beach.
 
The roar of the waves and salt in the
air beckoned me and I quickened my step.
 
I had briefly considered standing Tom up and going back to the site of
John’s death to see what else I could dig up but I recognised that with the
Brethren around that probably wouldn’t be smart.
 
They had to have people out there
already.
 

I stepped up to a jog, skirting the tough
grass that scattered the path to the dunes.
 
The moon remained high in the sky,
throwing shadows across the landscape, although fortunately it would not be
full again for another fortnight. By the time I rounded the top of the dunes, Tom
was already on the sand, waiting.
 
I
slowed and took my time walking down towards him.
 
Falling down once a day thanks to my
seemingly inborn clumsiness was more than enough, thank you very much, and the
sandy slopes were steep enough to warrant at least some care. The tide was out,
leaving strands of seaweed and ocean detritus behind it.
 
A small crab scuttled out of the way of
my feet as the sand levelled out.
 
Tom stood patiently, watching my approach.
 

I gave him a mock salute and, wordlessly,
he handed me one of two wooden staffs before widening his stance in
preparation.
 
I ran my hands down
its unvarnished length and it occurred to me that I was in need of some
sparring.
 
I had a lot of aggression
still pent up inside.
 
I wiggled an
eyebrow at Tom, ducking just time to miss being hit by his first swipe.
 
I retaliated with a crouching sweep that
knocked him off his feet but he leapt up with more agility than he’d shown in
recent sessions.
 

“Been practising much?” I inquired
lightly.

He didn’t answer and instead began
circling me.
 
His left flank was
open so I jabbed him under his ribs and was rewarded with a faint ooph.
 
He tried to even the score with a swipe
but I pulled back just in time so that his staff found nothing but the
wind.
 
He immediately recovered,
spinning the wooden pole adeptly in his hands and then lunging forward with an
underarm attack that caught my clenched knuckles.
 
I hissed slightly in surprised pain and
retaliated.
 

We continued for some time, with no sounds
to be heard other than our breath, the knocking of wood as the staffs connected
and the rumble of the sea.
 
I was
beginning to feel my muscles tingle with pleasure at the exercise and a faint
sheen of sweat graced both our foreheads, when he suddenly grinned and threw
away his staff, pulling off his t-shirt and sweats.
 
I took a step back and watched, ready.

He bowed his head and tensed, beginning
his shift.
 
It amazed me every time
how an
80 kilogram
man could become such a huge
animal.
 
Where did the extra weight
come from? Shifters didn’t transform into normal looking animals – even
the smaller weres, the rodents and such-like, became larger than their human
forms.
 
And again, most definitely not
for the first time, I wished I had my own shift.
 

Tom’s bones creaked and his skull
elongated outwards.
 
His muscles
rippled and the hair follicles around his chest and legs extended till he was
shaking out his coat on all fours, with fangs bared and yellow eyes
gleaming.
 
Tom was a wolf.
 
Generic, I know, but he had both speed
and strength and wasn’t afraid to hold back.
 

He leapt at me without any further warning
and I rolled to the side on the soft sand just in time, springing back onto my
feet and turning to face him again.
 
His haunches tensed and he tried to feint left but the tension in his
body had given him away.
 
This time
I used the staff to snag him under his belly and twist him onto his back.
 
He whined slightly before staggering
back to his feet.
 
I paused for a
second, just to check, but his tail gave a brief wag.
 
Good, I wasn’t ready to go home just yet;
the fire in my blood was only just starting to flicker.

He manoeuvred around so that I ended up
with my back to the ocean.
 
Clever
boy, now he had the high ground.
 
He
rose up on his hind legs and snapped at my face so I was forced to take a step
back.
 
Then, without warning, he
barrelled into my midsection and knocked me off my feet, landing on top of me
on the sand.
 
I could swear I saw a
glint in his eye.

“Tom, if this is when you decide to shift
back to a naked man, I will not be happy,” I mockingly warned.
 
He was a friend, but most definitely
without those kind of benefits.

He licked my cheek and went for my
throat.
 
His canines scraped the
skin on my neck before I managed to twist and pull out my knife whilst using
the staff to knock him to the sand and pin him down.
 
I smiled.

Tom blinked slowly, a sign of defeat, so I
let him go.
 
He shook himself out
and shifted back to speak.
 
“One
day, I’m going to beat you at this, Mack.”

“I have no doubt,” I murmured turning my
head slightly to give his some privacy to get dressed.
 
“You need to watch your left side before
you shift though.
 
You keep leaving
yourself open and you need to work on your body tension.
 
I know what move you’re going to pull
five minutes before you do it.”

“Are you using mind tricks again?”

“I don’t need to, your body does all the
talking.”

“I’ll practise in the gym when we get
back.”
 
He had an almost deranged
glint in his eye.

“Tom, about the Brethren.”

“Don’t.
 
I know you’re going to try to talk me
out of it, but don’t you see I have to try?
 
John is gone, there’s no reason to
stay.”

“It’s because John is gone that you have
to stay,” I snapped.
 
“We need
shifters who can guard against whatever got him.”

“Mack, if you couldn’t track it and John
couldn’t survive it, I don’t think I’ll do much good.”

“And what good do you think you’ll do you
in London, then? You’re my friend, I need you here,” I said softly.

He jerked.
 
“I asked you not to try to change my
mind.
 
Not everything in this world
can be done to suit you, Mack.
 
I
want to go and if they’ll take me then I’m leaving.”
 
He walked off away up the dunes.

I frowned after him.
 
Well, that could have gone better.
 
I probably shouldn’t have tried to guilt
him with the whole ‘I’m your friend, don’t leave me’ part - that wasn’t
fair.
 
I just didn’t want to lose
him to the big bad because I wasn’t sure that he’d be able to hold his own.
 
Perhaps I was just being patronising and
over-protective, but he probably was my closest friend.
 
If I wasn’t going to look after his best
interests, then who would?

I sighed and picked up the other discarded
staff. As I stood back up I felt a prickle on the back of my neck, as if
someone was watching.
 
Tensing, I
searched the line of trees.
 
Way
Directive 3:
 
All shifter activity
must be kept hidden.
 
The locals
never bothered coming out this far, especially at this time of night, but it
would be just my luck that a stray tourist out for a midnight stroll would
decide to head my way.
 
I tried to
pierce the night gloom, searching for a hint of anything sentient, but came up
with nothing out of the ordinary and eventually shrugged at my own
paranoia.
 
The tension of having the
Brethren here was clearly playing tricks with my mind.
 

I turned to face the sea and gazed out at
its expanse, emptying my mind for a brief moment.
 
The gentle swish of the waves
rhythmically beat against the beach and I closed my eyes for a second,
breathing deeply. Then I turned back towards the heavy dunes and headed for
home.

Chapter Six

It was late by the time I got back and the
keep was quiet.
 
Some floorboards on
the third floor where the Brethren were housed creaked, but everyone else
seemed to be asleep.
 
I slipped into
the dorm and lay down on my bed.
 
I
figured I’d go for a shower in a minute before I remembered that I wasn’t
allowed to. Ick. Soft snores came from several of the other pack girls - I was
pretty certain that with all of the heartache and worry of the last few days I personally
wasn’t going to get any sleep any time soon.
 
Although shifters would stay awake for
the entire full moon period, reveling in the extra power it gave them, they
tended to keep a fairly normal sleep pattern the rest of the time.
 
Usually it suited me perfectly because I
truly loved my narrow
bed,
unfortunately right now it
was just irritating that everyone else was in dreamland.
 
Yup
, tossing
and turning would be the best I could hope for.