Bloodmagic (Blood Destiny 2) (12 page)

The street itself was silent and still.  I scanned up and down its length but couldn’t make out anything.  Figuring that I probably only had moments at best before either Martha and the Trekkie either caught up or contacted the Ministry who would send someone a damn sight faster – and stronger – than they already had, I jogged across, already pulling my key out of my pocket.  I caught a moving shadow out of the corner of my right eye and spun around, attack stance already prepared.  I had nothing left to attack with, however.  My remaining weapons were inside and I’d lost the silver needles in the shop.  It was fortunate, therefore, that it was just a cat, frozen in its tracks as it had caught sight of me.  It had sleek black fur and green eyes that gleamed in the glow of the streetlamps. 

“Corrigan,” I half-whispered to myself, watching it decide I was of no interest after all and slink off into the night.

Kitten.

I yelped aloud as the man himself entered my head.

What’s the problem?

Now I was frozen in place, clutching the keys in my suddenly very sweaty palm and barely daring to breathe.  I composed myself and answered him back.

Problem?  I have no idea what you’re talking about, my Lord.  Now fuck off and leave me alone. 
There, that told him.

There was a moment of silence then his Voice reappeared. 
Except that this time you called me. 

Errr…what?  It was impossible to initiate Voice contact unless you were an alpha.  I wasn’t even a shifter so there was just no way…

Stop playing mind games with me, My Lord. 
And with that I slammed him out of my head and walked up to the door, beginning to fumble with the lock.  It must just be a coincidence that he’d decided to start fucking with me at this point in time.  The bastard.  He should just learn to leave well alone.

Once inside, I carefully and quietly closed the front door behind me.  I tried to sense whether there was anything or anyone lurking around inside the entrance waiting for me but everything appeared normal.  I waited for five beats and then took a deep breath and sprinted up the stairs.  Fortunately the carpet was deep enough to mask the sounds of my hurried steps so I swung quickly round the corner and made for my own door. 

As soon as I was inside I quickly reached under the bed and pulled out my box.  I flipped it open to double check that everything was there and then opened up the drawers of the rickety wooden dresser, pulling out clothes and stuffing them into my backpack.  I laid the box on the top, pausing briefly at the sink to grab my toothbrush and toothpaste and zip them into a side compartment, and thrust a couple of replacement silver needles in the loose knot of hair at the back of my head.  Then I left without looking back.

Chapter Twelve

I really didn’t have the faintest idea where I was going to go.  It was just as well that I left when I did, however, as moments after I’d shut the heavy front door after me, a large black SUV screeched up alongside the kerb.  I managed to duck behind the row of cars on the other side of the street, heat coursing through my veins at the nagging worry that if these were mages and they decided to cast a locator spell right now, then it’d take them all of three seconds flat to find me.  Fortunately for me, whoever they were, they concentrated instead on the door of the flat.  What it definitely did mean was that I had to get as far away from Inverness as possible, regardless of the fact that it was after 2.30 in the morning.  I started moving away from the street, keeping low, in case one of them decided to suddenly look up and notice a small figure scurrying away and unleash the powers of the magic otherworld upon me.  Damnit, where was I going to go though?

I thought quickly.  I needed to be somewhere the Ministry’s spells wouldn’t be able to reach me and where the police wouldn’t be able to find me.  That meant another plane, effectively.  The last time I’d been to one it had been through a portal that Iabartu, the demi-goddess, had opened.  I didn’t think I was likely to bump into anyone of that kind of power who’d kindly let me into their otherworldly plane just to be friendly though.   A gust of wind blew sharply against my face and I shivered involuntarily.  It was just my fucking luck that all this was taking place in the frozen north of Scotland in the middle of winter.  It would have been nice to have been on the run in the balmy sunshine of the Bahamas, sipping a cocktail and hiding behind the odd sand dune instead of frost laced cars.

The wind blew again, picking up and causing me to turn up the collar of my inadequate jacket.  I turned the corner away from the long street that my little bedsit lay on and straightened up, starting to jog away so I could put more distance between myself and all those who were behind me.  Trying to keep my wits about me, and my senses alert, I strained to catch any sounds behind me.  From the street parallel there was the distant hum of a car engine and, for an instant, my whole body froze to the spot.  Then everything went silent again and I managed to lift up my feet and keep going.

I considered whether running was the right thing to do.  I’d always been much more of a fight girl rather than a flight one, but the dents to my confidence lately suggested that I might struggle against the wrath of the mages who would be furious that I’d dared to tangle with their own.  And, of course, this was coupled with the fact that I was now responsible for finding a way to get Mrs Alcoon out of this mess along with not getting caught – because getting caught would mean no doubt that Corrigan would hear of it and get involved and find out that I was human (sort of) and then I’d have his inevitable repercussions on the Cornish pack forced on my conscience also.  No, I had no choice but to run, much as it galled me.

With that thought I picked up the pace and began to jog faster.  Which was my undoing.  From the shadows of one of the parked cars, came a sudden streak of blackness across the pavement.  My foot caught on the edge of it and I tipped headfirst down to the hard cold ground.  Instinctively, I shot my hands out to catch myself, scuffing the skin on my palms painfully, knees knocking against the concrete with an unpleasant thud. A screeching yowl came from the shape, which then shot past me, turning to stare at me in hatred as it did so.  It was the sodding cat that had decided not so long ago that I was a pathetic human not worthy of contempt.  I harrumphed.

“Noticed me now, didn’t you, stupid moggy.”

The cat glared at me balefully again with its Corrigan green eyes and then slunk off.   I shifted my weight, twisting my body to the side to get up from the ungainly position I was in on the pavement, suddenly mindful not only of my raw grazed hands, but also the other aches, pains and embedded wooden splinters from the attack at Clava Books.

“Fucking cat!” I swore, more at myself and my predicament than the animal itself.

As I turned to stand up, slowly, I caught sight of the night sky.  Stars glimmered more brightly than I thought I’d ever seen them before.

“Fucking stars,” I hissed at the sky.

The wind began to blow again, whisking past my cheek.

“Fucking wind.  Fucking night.  Fucking Scotland. Fucking freezing,” I continued to curse.  “Fucking longest night in the middle of the longest fucking winter, isn’t it?”  I wasn’t sure who I’d been expecting to answer me, but just then dawning realisation providing me with the answer for myself hit me like the whack of a sledgehammer.  Which was interesting because that’s kind of how my body felt.

“Fucking Winter Solstice.”

I stood up, wincing slightly at the pain, and grinned.  The Clava Cairns.  My trip to pick up the blisterwort for Mrs Alcoon notwithstanding, I didn’t know much about the Cairns themselves.  However what I did know from a few of the old tomes from the bookshop was that during the Winter Solstice, they attracted a number of hippy druid types because when the sun went down, the light hit one particular spot at the back wall of one of the Cairns that gave enough of a hint to humankind that they were built with much more design than first glance might suggest.  I’d had an inkling that first time I’d read about them when I’d entered Mrs Alcoon’s shop for the first time and pulled that first book off the shelf; I just hadn’t allowed myself to really think about it in depth because I’d been trying to avoid having anything at all to do with the Otherworld, even thoughts.  But what I’d always really known without consciously forming the words was that they were a portal, or had been once.  Not a particularly powerful one - my previous visit to the Cairns had proven that - but one that worked most effectively during that one particular moment.  That moment was gone – it was far too dark and far too late now – and the knowledge of how to work the death gate had probably also disappeared into the annals of lost history anyway. But whatever lingering otherworldly traces there were might well just be enough to cover the traces and tracks that I left that would solve the immediate problem of the mages and their tracking spells.  And the hippies were no doubt still there, camping out and stoned, so I could slot myself into one of their groups.  That would cover the problem of the police. 

“Outfuckingstanding,” I said aloud.  I had a plan.  Not a great one, or a long term one, but one that would get me through the next hours at the very least.  It was a start. 

I reached inside myself and pulled up a fat tendril of heat, willing it to pump through my veins.  With the fire heating me up from the inside and providing me with the energy I’d need, I knew I could get to the Cairns inside ninety minutes.  And this time without a smelly bus and a smellier drunk.  I ignored the aches and jabs of pain rippling through my body and began to run.  Faster than before, although with more care to avoid any more feline collisions, I started to pelt my way through the streets of Inverness.

Chapter Thirteen

The last time I’d made the journey to the Cairns, I’d been able to take advantage of the local transport system.  Unfortunately buses don’t tend to run at 3am in rural Scotland, so I was going to have to travel by foot this time.  I knew that this was when I would be at my most vulnerable.  The mages would not doubt be casting their locator spells at right that very moment, so it wouldn’t be long before they’d be able to catch up with me.

I ran fast, wending my way through the different twists and turns that led me out of the small city.  The air was still bitterly cold but the pace I kept up and the adrenaline skipping through my system was keeping me warm.  The curl of heat from the blood fire inside me was also active, allowing me to fire, no pun intended, on all cylinders.  I kept my eyes out for any more potential collisions with crazy midnight moggies who had a death wish, but my luck was finally in and I didn’t see a soul, whether it be animal, human or otherworld.

Before too long I was on the edge of Inverness, making my way onto a small worn path that ran alongside the road that the bus had taken when I’d travelled that way weeks before.  Despite the frigidity of the night air, sweat was beginning to form on my forehead and I could feel my body getting sticky.  Prickles of pain from the wooden shards that had embedded their way into my skin during the fight with Martha and her sci-fi friend were sending unpleasant shivers through my body, but I resolutely ignored them and kept on running.  At one point, I clenched my fists as I stumbled slightly over the uneven ground and the pain level increased dramatically; when I glanced down at my hands a rippling green flame was flickering over them, barely half a centimeter high.  I swallowed and looked away.  I supposed about the only thing I could be thankful for right about now was that Corrigan hadn’t tried to contact me again.  I wondered what he’d meant when he’d said that I had initiated the Voice.  He was obviously just trying to unsettle me, but I wasn’t sure to what end.  His little mind games were becoming irritating.

I made good time and reached the turn off where the bus had previously dropped me off without any further incident.  By now I was breathing hard with the exertion and feeling slightly dizzy.  Not for the first time I wished that I’d paid more attention to my ever decreasing fitness levels.

There was a glow of light from what I assumed was the hippy encampment up ahead, and some kind of distant humming drone that sounded vaguely familiar.  The familiar heady scent of lavender rose up into the air around me and, now that my goal was in sight, I started to slow somewhat to a more manageable jog.  The fact that there had been no sign of any mage-like activity was comforting and I was starting to hope that perhaps I was getting away and that they wouldn’t bother coming after me.

As I got closer to the Cairns themselves, I realised that the humming sound was coming from a particularly annoying didgeridoo.  I winced.  Aborigines aside, it baffled me as to why anyone would choose that as an instrument to play.  I could now make out some individual campfires and clusters of people sat around chatting and drinking, occasionally taking long drawn out gulps from bottles that were being passed around.  The smell of the lavender was giving way to the pungent odour of marijuana, and the low chatter of a couple of dozen voices was becoming more distinct.  Trying to appear less conspicuous (after all, who goes for a jog in the middle of night in wintery Scotland?), I slowed now to a walk, thrusting my hands into pockets just in case they were still glowing with green fire.

I was a bit surprised, and definitely relieved, that there wasn’t a police presence.  It was possible, of course, that they were all off dealing with a sudden terrible fire in the middle of town.  The people sat around chatting barely registered me, although as I swung around towards the stones themselves, one slurred voice did call out lazily.

“Want a smoke, flower?”

Flower?  A spasm of irritation caught me and I flicked my eyes over in the direction of where the voice was coming from.  A lanky long haired man with a yellow anorak on was lying propped up on one elbow, casually holding out a joint.  As if clouding my mind was going to help me now.