“He die soon. She kill him,” it squeaked, still squirming.
“Who she? I mean, who is she?” I tightened my hands on the wichtlein.
“Iabartu! Iabartu!”
“And who is Iabartu?” growled Alex.
“Sky god human woman.” The wichtlein stopped its pointless clawing and fumbling and raised up its head. “She seek wyr blood.”
“What? You mean dragon blood?” I was confused. We had a few little dragons occasionally rear their heads in Cornwall, but they popped up all over the country, much like the one I’d bagged for my first kill. This neck of the woods wasn’t special in that regard at all, and I couldn’t think for the life of me why John’s life would have been forfeit for one.
“Not little wyr, fire girl. Draco Wyr.”
“What did you call me?” Fire girl? How the hell did it know about my bloodfire? And what on god’s earth was a Draco Wyr? I shook the little beast, hard.
The wichtlein cackled unpleasantly. “Craw know many lots. Craw know who Draco Wyr. Man beast know who Draco Wyr. Man beast try stop Iabartu take Draco Wyr. Man beast die.” A single claw scratched my arm with intent. “You fault man beast die.”
My heart thudded. “My fault? Why my fault? I don’t know this Draco Wyr! What do you mean?” It couldn’t be my fault he’d died, could it? But why should I believe the wichtlein? I shook it even harder. “You’re lying. Tell me the truth.” My fingers curled round its whole body and, despite my condition, my bloodfire rose even further. The wichtlein shrieked in answering pain and began struggling again.
“It’s telling the truth.” Alex’s voice was quiet.
“You’re wrong!” I snarled, trying desperately to think of what I could to get the wichtlein to stop prevaricating and ‘fess up without killing it.
“Mack, I’m not.” He touched my arm. I turned and looked at him and saw it in his eyes. I stared at him dully for a second, then back at the little black creature.
The heat was gone. “Why is it my fault? What did I do?”
But there wasn’t any answer. I dimly heard Craw cackling again. Blood was thumping in my head and the edges of the world were going blurry. I couldn’t keep my head clear this time. I shook myself but the edges blurred further and I heard a roaring in my ears. My grip on the wichtlein loosened. Then everything went completely dark.
Chapter Fourteen
When I came to, I was lying against a tree. Alex’s face loomed towards me, concerned. “Mack Attack? You okay?”
I struggled to sit up. I felt very nauseous and the wound in my side screeched at me with sharp pain. I pulled up my t-shirt and looked down at the blood that was seeping through the bandages.
“Shit, Mack! Where the hell did that come from? Have you been bleeding this entire time?”
I tried to focus. “Craw?”
“He’s gone. You dropped him when you passed out. To be honest, it was either catch you or catch him. I went for you.”
I cursed and tried to sit up again. My head swam. “You need to get Julia.” It was a strain just to get the words out.
“I don’t even know who Julia is, Mack!” Alex’s voice was high-pitched and strained.
“Keep.” I gasped. “Older woman. Grey hair. She’ll be the new alpha when the Brethren go.”
“Okay, okay.” Alex nodded and started to move away then abruptly came back. “How the hell do I get back to the keep? And how can I leave you here alone? Shit, shit, shit.”
“Go west.” My vision turned dark for a second before returning. “I’ll be fine.” My daggers at least were re-strapped to my arms in case anything nasty came close.
“Okay.” He nodded again but remained where he was, looking at me.
“Alex? No Brethren. No matter what.” My life wasn’t worth the consequences of them finding just how very humanly weak I really was.
“Okay.”
“Go!”
“Okay.”
He turned and ran out into the dark trees. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I tried to think about what Craw had meant about it being my fault. Had I met a Draco Wyr before? Perhaps I’d killed one? I was drifting in and out of consciousness and couldn’t work any of it out. There must be a reason as to why the bitch woman – Iabartu? – needed him. Goddammit, my brain just wasn’t cooperating. I gave up and opened my eyes to the stars instead, marveling at how they seemed to be moving around the sky as if they were dancing. Milky Way, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia…so pretty and shiny….I blinked slowly. I was starting to feel very cold and shivery. I tried to pull my knees up to my body to curl into myself and generate some warmth but a shooting pain ran through me instead and my vision started to cloud over. Closing my eyes, I felt my whole body fall into shut down mode. A stray thought crossed my mind that if Alex didn’t get back here with Julia quickly, then I might soon be talking to John himself. A quiet smile curved my lips and everything went quiet again.
“Mackenzie!” Mackenzie!
Someone was shaking me.
“Mackenzie! Look at me!” Now.
It was Julia, not John. Go figure. I forced my heavy eyelids open and looked away from the sky and at her. “Hey, Jules.”
“Hello, dear. I need you to hold on to Mr Florides’ hand for me, please. This is going to hurt.”
Alex’s face swam up. “Hi, Alex. Where’s your blue smoke?”
“Hush, dear. Hold his hand and grip it tight.”
“’kay.”
He placed his hand in mine and I held it. I looked at him and told him how pretty the stars were. He just looked back at me solemnly. I was aware of Julia pulling off my blood-soaked bandages and taking a jar of something from a bag beside her. It smelled awful and had a very green tinge to it. She scooped a dollop out.
“I’m sorry, Mackenzie.” Julia’s hand smeared the green gloop onto my wound and I screamed. I heard Alex next to me moaning as I squeezed his hand. Julia started rubbing in the ointment and I screamed again. Nothing had ever hurt this much before. Nothing had existed before this pain. I fainted yet again.
*
This time, when I woke up, there was a wolf looking at me with pale yellow eyes. Tom. Julia was still there too.
“What the hell did you do to me?” The pain had gone but the memory of it still remained.
She put her hand on my forehead. “It’s an old remedy called trieswater. Particularly dangerous to humans, I might add, Mackenzie. You’re lucky that Mr Floride found me when he did. Much longer and I don’t think it would have worked.” She removed her hand and looked satisfied. “There’s no fever at least. You’ll live. You’re a damn fool for staying out after a fight like that considering your injuries though.”
“John…”
“Is still dead and nothing you do will change that. Can you stand? We need to get you back to the keep. Dawn will be breaking soon.”
With Alex’s help, and Tom nudging me gently, I managed to get to my feet.
“Tom will carry you back to the keep. You should get some sleep. Mr Floride here has filled me already on most of your night activities. For your information, the Lord Alpha confirmed my status as the new Cornish alpha after he returned last night and will be returning to the capital. He is however leaving behind a delegation to investigate further, thanks to the encounter with the terrametus.”
“What? He can’t do that!” I burst out.
“He can do whatever he wants,” chided Julia, gently. “They have pressing business back in London to attend to but have decided that the situation here needs to be taken care of too. They’re going to ask Mr Floride here to do some more work before they decide what to do next.”
I swore violently. How many of Julia’s lotions and potions was I going to need to depend on to get through more time hiding from the Brethren? Speaking of which… “Why haven’t I heard of this trieswater before? I feel a hell of a lot better.”
“It accelerates healing in humans, although it often sends weaker ones into a coma before it can really st
art to work. You’ve avoided that part of it, fortunately. It does have some rather unpleasant side effects, however.”
“Yeah, I felt those,” I commented.
“I didn’t mean the pain, dear. Shifters don’t use it to heal, they use it as a hallucinogenic drug.”
“Uh…what?”
“You’ll feel a lot better very quickly but if you start to see things that don’t make logical sense then you’re pretty much going to be hallucinating. It’s why I haven’t ever given it to you before.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“Trippy,” grinned Alex, helping me onto Tom’s furry back.
I curled my fingers into his fur to prepare myself. “Thank you, Alex.” I said quietly, looking at him. “Not just for getting Julia. For…”
He ruffled my hair and shushed me. “You gave me a scare there, dude. Glad you’re okay though.”
I smiled at him weakly and Tom took off.
*
When we arrived back at the keep, the sun was reaching higher into the sky and the sunny daylight made the darkness of the night before fade away into a bad memory. I was in desperate need of a good night – or day’s – sleep, however. I slid off Tom’s back.
“I’m going to owe a lot of people a lot of favours by the time all this is over,” I murmured, half to him and half to myself.
He whined softly in return. In front of the oak doors, a gleaming limousine sat waiting. The scratched car from the other day seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps it offended his sensibilities to be seen in anything less than perfect. Nothing but the best for the Lord of all Alphas, I thought sardonically. From within the keep itself, I could hear his raised voice barking out indistinct orders. I briefly considered trying to enter through a back door and slipping up to the dorm unnoticed when Lucy wandered outside.
She waved enthusiastically. “Hey! Can you believe how freaky that thing was last night?”
For a stupid moment I thought that she was referring to the wichtlein and wondered how on earth she knew about it, before I realised that she meant the earthquake monster instead.
“Yeah,” I nodded fervently in response. “Freaky.”
“You were kind of freaky yourself too,” she added. “I’ve never seen Lord Corrigan so mad at anyone before.”
Next to Lucy, a giant four poster bed, draped with satin covers and plumped up pillows, hovered in the sky. I looked down at Tom.
“I don’t suppose you can see a bed floating in the air next to her, can you?”
Tom looked about as concerned as a wolf can possibly ever look and shook his head. Okay then, I guess the hallucinations were starting to kick in.
“It must be a gift I have,” I said to Lucy, trying to ignore the allure of the bed. I guessed that taking a running leap and diving on top of it would look pretty dumb when what I’d end up doing was a face plant onto the gravel.
She smiled at me. “I’m going to be sticking around and helping you guys out with all this.”
I bit back my retort that we didn’t need her aid and tried to look gracious. “That’s…um…great.”
Anton came round the corner at that point, noted Lucy, and smoothly greeted her with a kiss. Mr Charm himself. He completely ignored me and began chatting to her. Little forked devils danced around on his shoulders, poking him in his ears and blowing kisses at me. I really needed to go and sleep this off. Then I could start working out what on earth a Draco Wyr was and why the wichtlein thought all this was my fault. I swallowed hard and bit my lip.
Leaving Tom in the courtyard, I walked past Lucy and Anton and into the keep. Not far to go now. My legs were starting to feel like leaden weights as I dragged myself up the stone stairs, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground lest any other unexpected visions decided to crop up and surprise me. I was fairly certain that a few of the old portraits on the walls were making faces at me, but I refused to look at them directly just in case. I finally reached the dorm room and was about to turn the doorknob when I heard a voice behind me.
“In the doghouse, Miss Mackenzie?”
I supposed it really had been too much to hope that I’d manage to completely avoid Corrigan. “Whatever do you mean, my lord?” I asked, turning but keeping my eyes downcast. Let him think he’d beaten me into meek submission.
“This, if I’m not mistaken, is the girls’ dorm. Not the room you share with the wolf.”
Oh, yeah. “We’re, uh, re-assessing our relationship in light of recent revelations.”
He stepped closer. I just hoped that the last remnants of the shifter lotion were going to hold. “I just bet you are,” he said smoothly, “especially given that you are clearly only just arriving home. Who was it this time? The human? Or perhaps a new conquest with the mage?”
“I spent all night self-flagellating myself for my behavior towards you, my lord,” I answered sarcastically. Shut up, Mack, just shut up. I raised my eyes to meet his. They were so green, with those little flashes of gold that sparkled. And the way his dark hair hung over his brow in gentle waves - he was actually really very good-looking. I realised that I was surely still hallucinating all this of course when a little winged baby carrying a golden bow and arrow floated past him.
“That mouth of yours does get you into a lot of trouble, doesn’t it?” He looked at my face for what seemed like a very long time. “Just because I’m leaving, doesn’t mean that I won’t forget that you need to be punished for your infantile behavior.”
“Infantile? Why you fu..,” Shut UP, Mackenzie, whispered the voice. “Yes, my lord,” I finished.
Deep amusement sparked in his eyes. Bastard. He was clearly enjoying himself. “I thought you should know,” his deep voice drawled, “that I was impressed with the wolf’s fighting skills last night. And yours. You should consider the possibility that both of you would do well to join our ranks in the Brethren. Assuming that you can learn some manners, of course.”
In your dreams, catboy. “How thoughtful of your lordship to think of us. You would do better to engage your attentions elsewhere however, I fear.”
“Indeed,” he said. He moved even closer to me until the distance between us was bare inches. It was a definite struggle not to step back. “Well, till next time then, kitten. Perhaps then your hair will be back to its normal colour. I am a fan of Celtic red hair.”
I tried not to too obviously tense in annoyance, inclining my head just in time to see a spotted snake with an apple in its mouth slither past me into the dorm. How strange. “My lord.” I made my escape and shut the dorm room door firmly behind me. He was leaving and that was all that mattered. The rest of the Brethren at least didn’t seem so circumspect in their attentions.
I looked at my bed and almost ran to it, sinking down into the mattress and stretching out my toes to curl off the end. Sleep.
Chapter Fifteen
When I woke up, the dorm room was dark. I was aware of the sounds of others sleeping around me and hoped that I’d only lost a day. I had a lot to do. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I glanced at the green glow of the clock on my bedside table. It flashed 3.20am. At least that meant that I’d have some peace as everyone else would be in the land of nod. I was still wearing my clothes from the day before so I lifted up my t-shirt and gingerly prodded my side. It was sore and tender but nothing more. Even better. Pushing myself until I passed out had not been my smartest move ever – at least the green gloop from Julia had put the kibosh on that happening again. And with Lord Shifty himself gone from the keep, I’d have more freedom to arrange my thoughts and continue my investigations properly. The other Brethren members didn’t seem capable of jumping without his say so, meaning that it would be a lot easier for me to stay out of the way of those remaining.
I pulled out the shifter lotion from the drawer in the table and padded into the bathroom. I undressed and surveyed the damage. I was covered in scratches and bruises, a mesh of different rainbow colours from angry purple to fading yellow. Lovely. I’d have killed for
a long soak in the tub but was mindful of Julia’s warning about bathing. Sniffing my skin experimentally, I wrinkled my nose. I was normally a bit of a stickler for good personal hygiene and the stale smell wafting off me was not pleasant. There was nothing I could do about it, however. If the remaining Brethren stayed away from me because of my unwashed reek then it was probably all for the better. I gently rubbed the lotion all over, taking care to cover every inch of my skin. I’d been lucky with it so far, but didn’t want to leave any part of me uncovered. Even with Corrigan gone, there was still the danger that the remaining Brethren would work out what I was, and the longer they stayed, the more real that danger became. I could leave nothing to chance.
With that done, I pulled on a clean pair of black leggings and a snug dark button up shirt. I turned up the sleeves and ran a brush through my hair before tying it back into a high ponytail. It was still strange to see myself in the mirror without my usual shiny red. At least I could let the dye grow out quickly now that the truth about that part of me was out. I tried not to think about Corrigan’s comment that he wanted to see my natural colour.
I cleaned up behind myself then tiptoed out of the dorm. I had several avenues to cover. I now knew who had killed John, but didn’t know who or what Iabartu actually was. And then there was the wichtlein’s assertion that it had been my fault, along with the Draco Wyr details, and a few loose ends such as the black cloth I’d found next to the clearing and the mystery of the electric screwdriver. I also had no idea what had happened over the last twelve hours that I’d been asleep for, although there wasn’t much I could do about that until the rest of the keep awoke.
I weighed up my options and decided that I could worry about motives later – Iabartu and her whereabouts had to take priority. With that resolve, I headed for the library and the communal computer. It was high time I saw what the Othernet could offer.
The silence that hung around the keep was a pleasant welcome after the incessant buzz that the Brethren’s presence had caused over the last few days. I made a quick detour for the kitchen to make myself some strong coffee and then I let myself into the library and stood for a quiet moment, inhaling the musty scent of the books that surrounded the walls. It was possible that I could try researching the old fashioned way, using the library’s offerings to find any mentions of Iabartu in the books, but I was pretty sure that the Othernet would allow me to do the same but quicker.
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