Cardiff… Aberystwyth…
32. Blood
“So, what’ve you got for me, Richards?” Warwick leaned onto the front counter of the Forensics Department office. “Anything good?”
“Afraid not.” Officer Richards frowned as she pulled the file out from under two others on her cluttered desk. “We can’t I.D. anything from the blood.”
“No matches, you mean?” Warwick considered the thousands upon thousands of known D.N.A. profiles on file throughout the U.K. and abroad. They couldn’t have exhausted all the databases yet.
“No,” Richards shook her head. “I mean we can’t even type the D.N.A. from the blood. It’s thoroughly corrupted.”
Now Warwick frowned. “Corrupted? It can’t have degraded. D.N.A. doesn’t degrade.”
“Not degraded,” Richards corrected. “Corrupted.” She pulled several sheets from the file folder and turned them for Warwick to see. Warwick recognized them as D.N.A. fingerprints: the graph-like profiles obtained through the D.N.A. typing process. The graphs on the sheets were noticeably dissimilar. “Every time we type a sample, we get multiple results at each allele.”
Warwick examined the proffered pages. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Richard grinned, “the sample is corrupted. Mixed. This isn’t one person’s blood. It’s a mixture of blood from more than one person.”
Warwick was at a loss for words. She hadn’t expected this. “Are you sure?”
“Aye,” Richards shrugged. “So D.N.A.‘s not going to help you any. The only thing I can say for sure is that the lad’s blood is probably in there. Every now and again one of the cells will have an XY male chromosome. But most of the time it’s all XXs. The kidnapper likely mixed the boy’s blood with her own or someone else’s.”
“Well, thanks anyway, Richards,” Warwick tried to laugh it off. “I guess I’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way. Thanks for the good work anyway, Richards.”
“Not at all,” Richards replied. “Have a good night, Sergeant.”
Warwick returned the well wish then exited into the corridor. Things were going nowhere fast.
33. More Blood
The first order of business was to get the hell out of Dodge.
Maggie knew the police would discover the burnt remains of the fingerprint sheet quickly enough. She supposed it wouldn’t take them too long to figure out what hotel she was staying at and track her down. So she hightailed it back to the Dragon’s Arms and checked out, impatiently agreeing to pay for that coming night’s lodgings as well, given the late check out. Then she snatched up her bags and walked as quickly as she could to the train station, wondering the whole way whether she was being followed—or worse, pursued.
She took a certain dramatic pleasure in asking the ticketing agent for “a ticket on the next train out of here,” even though that ended up being a rather uninteresting intercity run to Llanwnog. But the key had been to get out of Aberystwyth before Llewellyn hunted her down and dragged her back in for more fingerprints, more questioning, or, God forbid, her arraignment. And Maggie knew the odds of that happening were far greater if she was sitting in the train station waiting lounge in Aberystwyth, rather than Llanwnog.
From Llanwnog, she made her way to London North, where she was offered two choices: a high speed train to Edinburgh, arriving at 1:12 a.m., with the connecting train to Aberdeen not for some three hours; or a slower direct train, complete with private sleeper compartments, and arriving in Aberdeen at 8:04. With a tired smile and a flash of plastic, Maggie purchased both her ticket to Aberdeen and her pass to the sleeper compartment. The train would be boarding soon. She was glad.
***
It had been a long, long day. The train started rolling out of the station shortly after she settled into her compartment. A small, cramped little thing, still it offered sanctuary and rest. She locked the door behind her, pulled the shade, stripped to her underwear, then turned off the light and slipped into the narrow bed jutting out from the wall just as quickly as she could.
She had feared the lurching of the moving train might induce sleep-depriving motion sickness, but to the contrary, the gentle rocking of the compartment began immediately lulling her off to her dreams.
She replayed the day in her head. The police interrogation and subsequent flight from Aberystwyth lingered foremost in her tired mind. But the day had begun with the Book of Souls and the magic spell she had used to read it. She had, over the last months, come to accept that use of the black magic invariably led to unpleasant dreams; and there had certainly been nights when she’d laid awake in bed, her trepidation against the coming visions preventing her from slipping easily into slumber. But after such an exhausting day, the morning’s magickry seemed vastly distant. So, as she rolled over one last time and pulled the blankets up to her chin, ready to succumb at last to sweet, rejuvenating sleep, she forgot entirely to be afraid of the coming nightmares.
She would not forget again.
***
The earth was scorched. Not flat and hard like a stone cliff. Not dried and cracked like an empty riverbed. But scorched. Burnt and melted and ruined. Burnt like human flesh is burnt, with no hope of ever healing. The blackened earth stretched out, jagged and cropped, as far as she could see, to the far off horizon, where it met with the purple-gray sky, a sun-blocking blanket of cold, low clouds. The only feature visible for miles was a circular crevasse filled with fire, protecting a granite castle within. The castle she had to enter.
For inside was an innocent young girl named Maggie Devereaux.
So outside, the guilty young woman named Maggie Devereaux threw back her leather cloak, squeezed the silver clan crest hanging from her throat, and confirmed the presence of her razor-sharp sgian dhu dagger in her belt. Then she took her first deliberate step toward the fire-belted castle.
Damn them all. She would not fail.
The first demon appeared at the edge of the infernal moat. It shot up from the earth in a geyser of fire and stench, blocking her path to the single stone bridge across the flaming cavern. The beast was tall, probably seven feet, and thin—the way an unbreakable steel cable is thin. Powerful, red-skinned legs supported a hair-covered torso and four grotesquely long arms each ending in a spiked claw. Its head was small with jagged, twisting horns and a large, pig-like snout. It opened its fang-filled mouth and let out a roar that shook the very air.
“You shall not pass!” the demon declared.
Maggie squinted against the sound and reek of the bellow, then she adroitly dropped to one knee and unleashed a spell form her outstretched hands.
“
A blinding blue light shot from within the demon and the beast exploded in a ball of flame and fury.
Well done, Maggie thought to herself, and she started across the bridge.
Flames rose past her, shooting upward to further scorch the already blackened stone beneath her feet. She didn’t she the next demon—it waited to appear until she’d been momentarily blinded by a flare from below. When she regained her sight, the demon was there in front of her. Before she could react, a razorlike claw lashed out and slashed her face, catching her just under her left eye and slicing so deeply across her nose that all the cartilage was severed, leaving the cute button tip fully separated from the bridge, blood pouring down her face and shocked, labored breathing bubbling from the wound.
“You shall not pass!” screeched the second demon.
Lashing out instinctively, and squeezing her eyes shut against the pain, Maggie repeated the spell, sending the second demon to disintegrate into oblivion after the first. Then she fell to her knees in shock. She grabbed at her face with her left hand and squeezed her clan pendant with the other.
“
She could feel and hear the severed flesh of her face grow back together and she sighed w
ith relief as the pain vanished. Regaining herself, she wiped the blood from her face, stood up and walked to the end of the bridge.
The fire pit now safely behind her, she stared ahead at the keeps’ entrance, not ten feet away. But she waited. She knew she would not traverse the gate unopposed. She stood ready.
Another geyser of flame shot from the scarred ground and before her stood her next opponent. He looked just like Iain, save the glowing red eyes in place of Iain’s gorgeous baby blues.
“You shall not pass,” it declared softly in Iain’s familiar voice.
Unfortunately, the trick worked; Maggie hesitated, just for a moment, but long enough to allow the beast to pounce, transforming mid-leap into a scarlet-skinned, cable-sinewed monster.
Its gnarled, gray-yellow teeth sunk deeply into Maggie’s shoulder. Knocked onto her back by the impact, she could feel the hot blood begin to spurt from her torn arteries. Pain clouded her thoughts as the demon began to thrash its jaws back and forth, tearing deeper and deeper until it reached bone. She found herself unable to find the ancient Celtic words necessary to free herself. Instead, she grasped desperately for the Highland dagger, clumsily unsheathing it before plunging its silver blade into the beast’s back, pushing upward toward what she hoped were some sort of vital organs. With a cry of pain and horror, the demon released its bite and fell writhing off her, reaching in vain for the blade in its back.
Maggie considered her shoulder, but knew to take care of business first. She rolled on top of the demon and extracted the sgian dhu from the wounded demon. The she drew the knife slowly and deeply across the monster’s throat, all but severing the crimson head, whatever life was left in the beast running out into a pool of fetid black bile atop the scorched earth.
She slid off the demon’s vanquished form and fell onto her back. Raising a hand to her shredded shoulder, she repeated the healing spell. “
The flesh of her shoulder immediately began to mend itself, squeezing out the vile yellow pus left in her bloodstream by the demon’s foul mouth. After a few moments, the shoulder was whole again. She stood up, set her jaw and walked into the castle.
The inner courtyard was deserted. The ground beneath her feet was a coarse black sand that crunched like shattered glass with each step. She paused. Across the courtyard, some fifty feet away, was the heavy wooden door to the dungeon. Where the little girl was. She readied herself, then took the next step.
The demons waited—until she’d gotten exactly halfway across, until she was in the center of the courtyard. Then they rose up around her, three of them, emerging from the black glass-sand like maggots from a corpse. Each was armed with a yard-long, blood-stained scythe. Two stood between her and the way she’d come; the third blocked the door to the dungeon.
“You shall not pass,” they cried in ominous unison.
Maggie immediately destroyed the one before the dungeon door. A quick spell and wave of her hand and the demon dissolved into so much red goo. The door was clear. She ran for it. But she didn’t know if she’d make it.
She didn’t.
The first blow struck her ankle, slicing her Achilles tendon clean through and sending the ridiculously stretched tendon recoiling painfully up into the back of her knee. She fell awkwardly forward, hands outstretched, and skidded into the black glass-sand—shredding her palms and forearms, and slicing up her chin and cheek.
She managed to roll over just before the second blow struck, a slash into the top of her left leg. The scythe jerked her roughly across the glass-sand as the blade caught on the femur. Blood began to spurt from her leg with each beat of her racing heart.
She shrieked in agony, then grabbed at the scythe and lashed out. Earlier the pain had interfered with her ability to remember the Old Gaelic; now her instinct to survive wrenched the words from their hiding spots. The demon disappeared in a ball of blue flame, its scythe melting in Maggie’s blood spattered hand.
Then came the next blow, from the next demon. This one severed her right arm completely; the scythe blade buried itself a half-inch deep into her ribs. Blood poured from the stump.
A red blaze filled Maggie’s vision for a moment, then her head rolled weakly to the side and she looked down. Her arm lay severed on the ground, blood oozing into the black earth.
With great effort, Maggie looked up at the monster above her. She couldn’t make out any features in her rising shock, but she could see the hideous smile on the demon’s wicked face. It yanked the scythe from her ribs and pulled back for a final swing. Her neck tingled in morbid anticipation.
She struggled to focus on the form retreating down her darkening tunnel vision. She only had time for one word.
“
The demon exploded in a titanic ball of fire, filling the courtyard with black flame. Maggie’s hadn’t the energy to cover her face against the blast; she could feel her hair burning off and her nose and ears melting. The pain was unbearable. As the flames dissipated, she lay bleeding and burnt and broken on the broken glass of the courtyard. Now she only had strength for one word: “
She closed her scorched eyelids. “
She reached for her severed ankle. “
She laid a hand on her carved up leg. “
She dragged her severed arm up to its shoulder. “
It took several moments, but the pain began to subside. “
She sat up and took a deep breath. Then she stood up fully. Regaining herself, she brushed off her cloak and walked to the door. It was unlocked.
There were no demonic guards within the fortress walls, only a single stone staircase leading down. Maggie descended the rutted steps deliberately. At the bottom of the stairs, a granite landing opened onto a long, narrow hallway leading to a darkened chamber at its end. There was no door on the room, just a faint red flicker from some out of view light source. She tensed her hands in anticipation, then began the march down the length of the corridor, her boots clacking loudly on the age-old stones.
“I shall pass.”
The room was small. A small fire burned in a small pit in the floor. In the back was a small curtain behind which, Maggie knew, was the small girl she’d come for. And between the fire and the curtain was a small, ancient-looking demon, sitting cross-legged and staring into the fire.
“You shall not pass,” he said simply without looking up, and so quietly Maggie almost didn’t hear it.
She sneered and stepped up to tower over the seemingly inconsequential demon-let. “And why not?” she demanded.
“Because,” the demon looked up at her with an expression almost of boredom; then it sprang from its seat and grabbed onto Maggie’s collar, its clawed hooves digging into her stomach, its breath rank with blood and death, “THERE IS NO HEALING SPELL!!”
Maggie crumpled to the floor. Her face was sliced and burnt. Her shoulder was torn and fetid; her legs carved and useless. Her arm lay severed at her side. A pool of blood poured out from under her, burning into black smoke as it reached the demon’s fire.
She tried to speak, but couldn’t. Shock was overwhelming her.
The small demon calmly removed Maggie’s own sgian dhu from her belt.
“You shall not pass,” he repeated, just as quietly as before.
Then he buried the silver blade into her heart.
Maggie awoke screaming. She sobbed uncontrollably as she reached first for her face, then her legs, then her arms, then her face again. She curled up into a ball, squeezing herself against the dream and rocking back and forth atop the covers as the train sped on through the cold, black night.
34. Home
The train jerked rudely to a stop, sending
Maggie off balance and stumbling into the wall of her sleeping compartment. Regaining herself, and still numb from the nightmare and the sleepless dark that followed, she hitched her backpack up higher and stepped into the corridor to file out onto the platform of the Aberdeen rail station.
***
She walked up to the bus shelter, the light morning rain spitting on her face. The next bus to campus wasn’t until 9:40. She craned her neck to look at the watch she kept looped to the outside of her backpack. 9:06. She turned back toward the rail station, the row of taxis there firmly in her sights.
***
She slammed the taxi door and shoved the driver far too large a bill. Then she lowered her head and trudged to her flat. It took a minute but she found her keys in an outside backpack pocket. She unlocked the door, stepped inside and dropped the pack in the foyer. Then she locked the door behind her and walked straight to her bedroom.
She thanked God she was tired enough to sleep.
And she asked Him to stop the dreams.
***
Apparently He didn’t listen. She found herself again in the black glass courtyard. But as soon as the first demon sprouted from the earth Maggie screamed herself awake.
Hugging her heavy arms against herself, she rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes again.
***
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Maggie forced an eyelid open and rolled her eyes back down from inside her skull. She had finally been getting some almost halfway decent sleep.
Who the hell is that?
She’d stripped to her underwear before climbing into bed, so she grabbed her robe off the hook by the door and slipped it over her arms, tying the belt as she walked over to peer through the peephole.
Great, she frowned. What does he want?
She unlocked the door and opened it just enough to see Iain Grant standing, clearly agitated, on her ‘Ceud Mìle Fàilte’ welcome mat.
“What?” she demanded, her voice thick with sleep.
“What?!” Iain parroted incredulously. “What do you mean, ‘what?’ What are you doing here?”
Blood Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 2) Page 21