Twiceborn

by Marina Finlayson

  “Better now,” he said, as Garth sliced through the ties. He looked exhausted, but his smile warmed my heart.

  I grabbed him.

  “Thank God you’re okay.” His arms around me felt so good, I never wanted to let him go again.

  His kiss left me in no doubt he felt the same. When I finally came up for air, he wore a serious expression. “How did you get here? Who are your friends?”

  Garth snorted, probably at the idea of being mistaken for a friend of mine. I ignored him. “Luce and Garth—friends of Leandra’s.”

  “Oh.” He eyed Luce, his expression guarded. “I thought I recognised you. You’re Leandra’s security chief, aren’t you?”

  “Former security chief.”

  “I’m sorry. I heard she died.”

  “She didn’t die.” Garth clenched his massive fists and stepped closer. “Somebody killed her.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said.

  Ben put a protective arm around my shoulders. “We had nothing to do with it. We’re heralds, not fighters. See, there’s my charm.”

  He crossed to a table by the window. Our charms nestled side by side on its polished surface, his on its leather thong, mine on a silver chain. I slipped mine around my neck again.

  Garth wouldn’t leave it alone. “I thought those things were supposed to protect you. Maybe you’re only pretending to be a herald.”

  He stepped closer, aggression in his hunched shoulders and clenched fists. He made the generous-sized room feel smaller. I eyed the elegant couch and the delicate legs of the side tables. How long would they last if Garth decided to start another fight in here? Ben was taller but Garth had a good twenty kilos of pure muscle on him.

  “‘Those things’ nullify any aggressive magic in the herald’s vicinity, but they don’t stop bullets. If someone waves a gun in my face, there’s not a lot I can do.”

  “Garth,” Luce snapped. “Protecting the herald is only a by-product. They’re really meant to reassure the clients that the herald isn’t bringing any magical surprises with their delivery.”

  She turned to Ben. “So why would Valeria break the queen’s peace and snatch two heralds out of their bed? It certainly looks like you’re involved.”

  “That wasn’t Valeria, it was Nada. Who knows why she does anything? She’s mad as a cut snake.”

  “But Valeria must have known. Have you seen her?”

  “She was here last night.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “Nothing much. I got the impression she wasn’t that interested in me.”

  Garth swore and Luce held up a slim hand to forestall another explosion. “Then why was she holding you? She must have said something.”

  His face was bleak. “I think she wants Kate.”

  “Me?” All three looked at me, Garth’s face suspicious as ever, Luce’s impossible to read. “Don’t tell me she believes that rubbish Nada’s spinning about me and Jason?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. They didn’t say anything in front of me. But there’s something going on there.”

  “Bloody convenient,” Garth muttered.

  Luce silenced him with a look. “Very. But also entirely probable. She hasn’t got this far without being paranoid. Frankly, I’m surprised she let you live, having taken it this far. Perhaps she’s still a little afraid of Elizabeth. Maybe she thinks as long as she wins the proving the queen will overlook the abduction of her heralds.”

  Horrified, I edged closer to Ben, breathed in his familiar Ben smell. I couldn’t bear to lose him now.

  “So what happens now?” he asked. “Are you going to let us go?”

  “I don’t have what I came for yet.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A black stone. Have you seen it?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s not here,” I said. If I concentrated I could feel it, pulsing on the edge of my awareness, but nowhere close by.

  She stared. “How do you know?”

  Damn. When would I learn not to blurt out the first thing that came into my head? Luce’s stare would unnerve anyone. Sharks probably looked like that just before they ripped you in half. I licked my lips.

  “I just do.”

  And wasn’t that the freakiest thing? Why did I feel this bizarre connection to that stupid stone? What was a channel stone even for?

  Ben looked from one to the other of us, confused, but he’d have to wait till I could get him alone. I wouldn’t be telling Luce I’d remembered its name, that was for sure. There were already too many things I couldn’t explain. Maybe Ben had heard of channel stones, even though he hadn’t recognised it when I’d shown him.

  “Garth, search,” she said.

  He turned the room upside down, looking as though he enjoyed the excuse for a little mayhem. I winced as he toppled the delicate tables to check their undersides. He ripped everything out of the carved wardrobe and emptied the drawers on to the floor, scattering T-shirts and underwear all over one of the unconscious men who lay there. He even went through the pockets of the two downed men. It was soon clear the stone wasn’t in the room. I resisted the urge to say I told you so.

  “It seems you’re right,” she said. “Which means it’s probably gone to Alicia’s with the rest of them.” Her gaze rested on Ben. “Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ve delivered there before. She has a house on the ridge overlooking the National Park.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going. You can wave your Hermes charm and get us in to see Alicia.”

  Hermes—of course. Not Robin Hood, but the messenger of the gods. Which meant the dragons thought of themselves as gods, I guess. Arrogant bastards.

  “They’re not going to let you in just because you’re with me. Heralds work alone.”

  “We’ll work something out.”

  “Look, no offence—I appreciate the rescue and all—but it won’t work. You’ll endanger us all for nothing.”

  “But we have to!” I blurted. That damned stone nagged at the back of my mind, impossible to ignore. “They helped me rescue you, now we have to help them.”

  “No, we don’t,” he said gently. “This isn’t some game where each side keeps score. The proving is dangerous stuff. We need to stay right out of it.”

  “But I want to help.” Panic tightened my throat. I had to persuade him. I needed that stone back, though I couldn’t tell him so. The first question would be “why?” and I had no answers. “If we don’t get to the bottom of this business with Leandra, I’ll never be safe.”

  Ben looked less than thrilled at the thought of being dragged in front of another dragon. He glared at Luce. “What’s the point of seeing Alicia anyway? How’s that going to help get your stone back if Valeria’s got it?”

  “It won’t,” she said. “But I have to warn her that Valeria’s about to unleash dragonfire, or Valeria wins and I never see the stone again.”

  “Unleash—? But that’s taboo!”

  She pinned him with a hard stare. “So’s kidnapping heralds. Do you really think that will stop Valeria?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They like to call them villages up here, these suburbs sprawled either side of the Great Western Highway as it snakes its way up the mountains, as if harking back to some romantic cobblestoned English ideal. But they’re as full of concrete, glass and asphalt as any other part of Greater Sydney. McDonald’s hasn’t gained a foothold, which is a source of great pride among the residents, but there’s not much else to show you’re in the mountains, till you round a bend and catch a glimpse of tree-covered slopes falling away to the side of the road.

  “Can you smell smoke?” I asked.

  Garth, at the wheel again, frowned at me in the rear vision mirror. “You can smell that?”

  “Sure.” It seemed pretty strong to me, but Luce and Ben shook their heads.

  “How come your nose is as good as mine?”

  It was a fair question. Suspicion was his
natural state, but for once he had a point. Was I going to turn into a werewolf? Or did I have to wait till the full moon? But surely Garth of all people wouldn’t be asking if that was the reason. He’d know if he’d infected me.

  So why was my sense of smell as good as a werewolf’s?

  “There were fires at Lithgow this morning,” Luce said. “Maybe they’ve spread.”

  Maybe. There was certainly enough fuel. The bulk of the Blue Mountains was national park—hectare after hectare of bushland, all dry as tinder at this time of year. Its beauty made the area a popular place to live, but every summer the residents paid the price with months of living on alert. Some years bushfires raged unchecked in the more inaccessible areas, burning out thousands of hectares. If it was a really bad year, homes were lost, but every year the threat of fire hung over the area like a pall of smoke.

  I stared out the window and sighed. It wasn’t only the heightened sense of smell. There was that conversation in the motel last night. Even though Luce had dragged Garth into the bathroom to whisper to him, I’d still overheard. Much as I’d have liked to blame it on shoddy insulation, taken with the acute sense of smell and my new party trick of seeing auras round shifters, it all pointed to some supernatural explanation.

  And the aura thing had started before Garth attacked me.

  I let my head fall back against the seat and tried to ignore the other three. They’d been arguing since we’d left Leura, and all through the meal we stopped for on the way.

  “Even if they let us in, they’re not going to accept you two,” Ben said for the third or fourth time. “They must know who you are.”

  “There are precedents,” Luce said, “if you go back far enough.”

  “From what I’ve heard of Alicia, she’s even more paranoid than usual for a dragon. She’s never going to trust someone so highly placed in a rival’s camp.”

  “I don’t see why we’re bothering with Alicia anyway,” Garth grumbled. Luce started to speak and he cut her off. “Yes, I know, I know, we don’t want Valeria to win, but why not go straight after her? Forget Alicia! You know what it’s like once an attack starts. It’s all confusion and screaming. And the sun’s going down. There’s bound to be a chance to get to Valeria.”

  He was eager as a child begging for a new toy—and I’d had some experience with that. Life with Lachie seemed further away than ever. The biggest drama on an average day had been standing in checkout lines, saying no to Lego and lollies. When had things become so surreal? In the back seat I snuggled next to Ben, who’d morphed from best friend to … well, something much more than friendly. He worked for Magic Fed Ex and apparently so did I. In the front seat, a werewolf begged his wyvern boss to let him kill a dragon. Partly to avenge a dragon’s death I may or may not have had a hand in—but I’d never know if I couldn’t recover my memories—and partly to get back a magic piece of rock. Mustn’t forget that part.

  On reflection, “surreal” hardly did it justice.

  Glimpses of red and pink sky peeked through the trees ahead, but it was nearly dark. We’d turned off the highway and drove along smaller roads, past houses perched among the trees and up on sandstone bluffs, their lights softly glowing in the dusk.

  Gradually the houses thinned out, becoming grander as the blocks grew bigger. The road climbed higher and higher, till we were running along the ridge line, densely forested valleys falling away to either side. In daylight the view would have been spectacular.

  We rounded a corner and Garth stomped on the brake, jolting us all forward against our seatbelts. A huge gum tree lay across the road.

  As soon as we got out, the sap-and-sawdust smell of freshly cut timber hit my nostrils.

  “Well, that was no accident,” said Luce, surveying the clean cut made by what must have been a super-large chainsaw. “Looks like we walk the rest of the way.”

  “Do they know we’re coming?” Garth glared into the darkness at the side of the road, looking for something to attack. “Is Valeria trying to stop us?”

  Luce snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. Valeria’s not scared of us. This isn’t to keep anyone out. It’s to keep someone in. I bet any other access roads to Alicia’s are blocked too. Valeria doesn’t mean there to be any survivors.”

  That wasn’t the most comforting thought. People persisted in building on these ridge lines because of the glorious views, but they were the most dangerous place to be in a bushfire. Fire could race uphill faster than a person could run. Or a wolf. Luce was probably the only one of us with a fighting chance if it came to that.

  Garth stopped at the fallen giant and lifted his head. He appeared to be sniffing the air.

  “What?” asked Luce. “Is someone there?”

  “No.” He laid a hand on the trunk and scowled as if he thought he could move the tree by sheer bad temper.

  “Come on, then.”

  The trunk came nearly to her chin, but she vaulted lightly over and looked back expectantly. There were no streetlights out here, and with her dark hair she was barely visible in the gloom on the other side. The rest of us stood outlined in the car’s headlights.

  I looked at Ben and he shrugged.

  “I think it’s another couple of kilometres from here.” He boosted me over, his big hands warm on my waist, just as the headlights switched themselves off, plunging us into darkness. Garth still hadn’t moved.

  “Hurry up, Garth,” Luce said.

  But instead of joining us he hauled his T-shirt over his head and started unbuckling his belt.

  “What are you doing? No! Stay human.”

  “This is bullshit,” he said, kicking off his shoes. “Two kilometres? By the time you walk there and stand around arguing with the guards it’ll all be over. And that’s assuming they don’t kill you on sight. I’m going to find Valeria.”

  “Garth!” Luce’s tone was icy. “Stick with the plan.”

  “There is no plan,” he spat, but the last word came out half-strangled as his body hunched forward. Again I heard that awful crunching as his bones shifted and reformed. I reached for Ben’s hand in the dark, the sound bringing the terror of that experience in the kitchen rushing back.

  But he didn’t even look at us. The wolf bounded into the trees at the side of the road and disappeared.

  After a moment of stunned silence Ben cleared his throat. “Is he always so …”

  “So impulsive? So pigheaded?” Luce bit each word off with precision. Then she sighed. “He used to be my most reliable man. He hasn’t been himself since Leandra died.”

  Well, there were a few of us in that boat.

  “I’ve never seen a shift before.” Ben’s voice held a note of wonder.

  “Lucky you,” I said.

  “Look sharp,” Luce said. “Let’s try and get there before he gets himself killed.”

  We followed her down the road, dark now but still radiating the day’s heat up at us. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see well enough to dodge the pot holes, though I could make out nothing in the darkness under the trees on either side. I looked around anxiously as we walked, wondering where the tree-loppers were now. My back crawled with that horrible feeling of being watched, but the only movement was a light wind stirring the scrubby undergrowth and rattling dry leaves. We were all on edge: it showed in Luce’s tense shoulders and the way Ben moved protectively closer to my side.

  The road wasn’t wide, and the gums met over the top, leaning toward each other with a whisper of leaves. We walked through a black leafy tunnel, though the clean scent of eucalyptus was overwhelmed by a smoky taint to the air. The road turned to dirt under our feet, and I wondered if we’d entered the national park by mistake till a high stone wall appeared on our right. It was old, all its sharp edges softened by years of weather, but it meant business: broken glass embedded all along its top glinted in the faint light from the other side. I guess good fences make good neighbours, but it didn’t say much for dragon society that their homes all featured drastic
security measures. Not the friendliest bunch. I tried to remember if there’d been such a wall around Leandra’s place, but came up with the usual blank where those memories should have been.

  After more than a kilometre of wall, we finally found a gate. A whole gatehouse, in fact, brightly lit, with a bored-looking man sitting in it. The set-up was more like something you’d find at a big commercial site than a private home. This Alicia must be serious about security. The guard came to life when we appeared out of the darkness, stepping out with suspicion written all over him.

  “Move along, please,” he said. “This is private property.”

  “We’re here to see Alicia,” said Luce. “Tell her Lucinda Chan is at her gates, requesting an audience.”

  “What is your business with my lady?”

  Luce fixed him with an arctic stare. “I’ll tell her myself when I see her.”

  He stepped back into the gatehouse and spoke into a phone, watching us through the glass the whole time as if afraid we’d storm the fortress if he turned his back. Personally, I wasn’t up for anything more strenuous than a cup of tea and a good lie-down. The excitements of the last couple of days and the lack of sleep were starting to tell, and fortress-storming was no longer an option without Garth, if it ever had been. I wondered where he’d got to—hopefully he was still in one piece.

  The guard put the phone down. “Wait one moment, please.”

  I actually yawned while we waited … for one moment, then another and another. The dragon Armageddon might be about to hit, but I couldn’t stay on high alert any longer—my adrenal glands just weren’t up to the strain. My need for the stone had pushed me this far, but if someone didn’t wave it under my nose soon I’d be out on my feet. I tried to sense its position, as I had at Valeria’s house, but either it was too far away or I was too tired; all I could get was a vague yearning.

  Ben looked even worse than I felt, with dark shadows under his eyes and a scruff of stubble. He couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night either. I leaned against him and he kissed me, soft and sweet. Something inside sat up and took notice. Maybe some things were worth staying awake for.