“I’m afraid I still don’t quite see your point,” I said aloud, trying to keep my opponent relaxed and chatting so we could plan out our move.
Do you see where both their feet are pointing?
Their toes are focused on…I see it.
It was subtle, but glaringly obvious once you knew it was there. Freaky Mage Man had already given it away in fact with his words. He was using the tree nymphs to leech power from the earth. And in order to keep the nymphs suspended where they were, he was using the earth back at them, forcing them into position through the one point that both their feet were demonstrably aiming towards. It was too much of a coincidence to not be important that there was one single patch of ground that all twenty of their toes were being drawn to, as if by some invisible magnetic force. Add in the fact that there was an oddly shaped patch of black-as-death shadow in that very spot and, hey presto, there was our way out. Break that connection and break the dryads’ prison. If I could fling all of my power at that one spot – blood and fire together – then Corrigan would be free to destroy this prick without fear of the consequences.
“You are thinking narrow-mindedly, Ms Smith.”
Actually, no I wasn’t. There was no way I was going to tell him that though, of course.
“The thing is,” he continued, “if I slant things just right, if everything aligns in the way that I want it to, then what I take from one, I can take from all.”
I had absolutely no idea what he was on about. I didn’t really care either. I didn’t want to let on that we had discovered the chink in his armour, however, so I kept talking. “Why not do that before now then? You already slaughtered one of them. Why not take everything you needed then?”
“As I said, I wanted to be merciful. But,” he motioned towards me, “things change. Besides, power is a funny thing. Overload everything all at once and you risk creating a shortage.”
“And you’re not worried about that now?”
Are we good to go?
“Since my first visit here, I have been building and growing my capacity. I wasn’t in a position to take everything before.” He smiled toothlessly, in a manner that sent an icy cold trickle of hatred through me to join the angry swirl of bloodfire in my veins. “I am confident now, however, that I can manage to draw it all in. You can be content in the knowledge that your actions are responsible for the extinction of the dryad race.”
Uh, what? This guy wasn’t just a power hungry murderer, he was a wannabe genocidal maniac making absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“So whatever you and the kitty cat are planning in those little heads of yours, you can abandon it now. I will grant you one boon, however.”
“Oh yes?” I said, distractedly.
On a count of three. Three…
“My name.”
Two…
“So you can spend the rest of your pathetic life with something tangible to curse.”
One…
“It’s Endor.”
Now!
Several things happened at once. Both dryads let out abrupt piercing shrieks as Endor outstretched both his arms towards them. Corrigan launched himself from behind, claws flashing in the air as he aimed his great rippling panther body at the sorcerer. I threw my one remaining dagger down and leapt towards the dark point on the ground, fire shooting out from my fingertips and intermingling with the drops of blood that were still welling up at the surface of my skin. The fire and blood mix hit the spot with an angry hiss, sending up a plume of dark steam but, just when Corrigan was scant inches from Endor’s body, he took one swift step towards the portal. I could have sworn there was merry amusement twinkling in his eyes as his entire figure vanished. Corrigan and the dryads thumped virtually simultaneously onto the hard ground, and all four of us let out individual exclamations of pain, anger and frustration. The light that had been surrounding the area winked out, and we were plunged into darkness.
Without thinking, I threw myself at the strange blackened shimmers of the gateway in a desperate bid to follow him, but, for some reason, my passage was blocked and instead I also slammed down to the ground. I smashed my fist in thwarted anguish against the earth, and instead crawled over to Mereia’s friend.
She was muttering something to herself. Literally, as I watched, the colour was draining from her shadowed skin. She reached one hand out to me, and I clutched it, panicking.
‘What’s happening?” I shouted. “What can I do?”
She moaned, her fingers tightening around mine. “He’s taking it all,” he gasped.
With an inarticulate snarl and snap, Corrigan shifted back into his naked human form, and crouched over the other dryad.
“She’s fading, Mack, I don’t know what to do.”
I wrenched my hand away and ran the few steps to the portal, trying to smear my blood on it to close it and stop whatever Endor was doing to the dryads. He had to still be linking to them from wherever he was. If I could force the magical doorway shut then I could break his connection. The wound on my finger had nothing left to give, however. I cast around quickly, my eyes landing on the gleam of the silver dagger gleaming in the weak moonlight that still lit the area. Scooping it back up, I pressed it again into my hand, creating yet another wound. The pain didn’t even register. Then I sprang back to the portal of darkness and shoved my bleeding palm towards it. The shimmers reacted, almost as if they were angry, flickering faster and colliding with each other. The gateway, however, remained open. I cursed and tried again.
“Mack,” said the dryad weakly.
I barely heard her, using the dagger to open up my wound even more. I must just need more blood. Again, I thrust out towards the shadowy shimmers. Again, the portal refused to close.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered desperately.
“Mack,” she said again. “You need to do it now.”
“I’m trying!”
“No, you don’t understand. You need to end it now. Kill us.”
Her words slowly sank in as I looked first at her and then at Corrigan. His face was pale under his tan as we both stared at each other. What the fuck?
“He was right,” she gasped, the pain in her voice obvious. “I can feel it.”
“Feel what? I don’t understand.”
The colour in her eyes was already starting to dim and leak out. “Through us he’s linked to everyone.”
I still didn’t get it. The fog of confused desperation was almost overwhelming.
“He…” she paused for a moment as a wave of agony overtook her, before swallowing hard and continuing on. “He’s using us to get to them all. He was right that we’re all inter-connected. By taking our life-force he’s taking it from every single dryad in the country. He’s used the power he already took from Mereia to somehow force us all together as one and tap into the system that binds us. If you don’t end it for us, then they will all die. Kill us now, Mack. You have to. You can’t let him destroy all of us. And you can’t let him take that much power.”
Her companion joined in, chiming weakly. “I can feel them all fading away. Do it now. You must.”
Atlanteia’s invisible roots. An icy hand of frozen anguish gripped its way round my heart, squeezing tightly. “No,” I whispered. “There must be another way.”
“There’s not. Do it, Mack, do it before it’s too late.”
“No! My blood. If you take my blood then it will heal you.”
I began thrusting out my hand towards her. How much would she need? I’d need to make sure there was enough for both of them. The dryad, however, was shaking her head.
“You can’t. I can’t. It will heal us, but it won’t break the link. The others will still die, Mack. All the others. You need to kill us to save them.” Her eyes pleaded with me.
The realisation of what Endor had meant when he’d said that Corrigan and I would have to live with consequences of our actions hit me. All that stupid power inside my blood and not one single iota of it could help. Dully, I stared
down at her, then back towards Corrigan. He watched me grimly, then nodded. Barely able to draw breath, I nodded back. Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision as I knelt down beside her. Her hand grasped up towards me.
“It’s the right thing,” she whispered.
No, it fucking wasn’t. I took her hand in mine, then reached out with my other one and smoothed down her tangled green hair. Corrigan was beside the other dryad, cradling her head in his hands.
I clenched my teeth. “I’m so so sorry.”
She lifted her eyes to mine, stubborn denial at my words lighting their depths. “Do it. We will have our revenge through you in another life.”
Kill a few to save a lot. To save them all. It wasn’t fucking right. I took a deep breath, moving my hands round the sides of her head. Then I twisted it sharply right and broke her neck.
Chapter Twenty Two
“I brought your clothes, my Lord.” Lucy’s voice wafted over to me. I ignored it and pulled my knees closer to my chest. When both dryads had died, so did the portal, winking out of existence as if it had never been there in the first place. Now there was nothing left to do. I buried my face into the soft fabric of my jeans and tried to block her out.
“Thank you.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a very long story. Gather the others together down by the carpark. What happened here is now over.”
Her footsteps crunched on the ground as she apparently ran off. I still didn’t bother looking up. There was a faint rustle as Corrigan apparently dressed himself. I sniffed, not even bothering to try to stem the silent tears that were creating a damp patch on my clothes.
“Mack.” Corrigan laid a hand on my shoulder.
I remained where I was. His grip tightened and he shook me, gently. “Mack, you should get up.”
I lifted my face up to his and stared at him searchingly. “What did we just do?”
He sighed heavily and crouched down beside me, his fingers tracing the tracks of my tears across my cheeks, then tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “What we had to.”
“We fucking killed them, Corrigan! They’d done nothing and we just did away with them as if they were nothing!”
“He hadn’t given us a choice. You know that.” His voice remained quiet and calm. I didn’t have the faintest idea how he managed it.
Another tear rolled down. I didn’t bother brushing it off. I looked away from him and down at the broken body of the dryads. Yet again I’d screwed everything up and there was a pile of corpses left in my wake.
“Don’t you dare do that!” He took hold of both my shoulders and leaned in. ‘This is not your fault, do you hear me?”
“If I’d shifted then maybe I could have stopped him.”
“How? What could you have done differently? He gave us no choice, Mack.”
“There’s always a choice,” I answered dully, finally pulling away from him and standing up. “What do we do now?”
“We go back home and find out everything we can about this bastard so we can put him down once and for all. At least we now know his name.”
“Know his name? Know his fucking name? Big freaking deal! And what if he comes back here again, Corrigan? How do we stop him? What if he goes after other dryads in other places?”
“Which is exactly why we need to get back to London and get a proper plan of action in place in order to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ve called in the Welsh pack. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes and will make sure he doesn’t show up again.”
I scoffed. “As if they could stop him if he did.”
“Mack,” Corrigan sighed, looking me in the eyes, “he’s done here. You know he is. He has what he wanted, which is more of the dryads’ power. He’s gone off to goodness knows where. He’s certainly not on this plane anyway. We need to get back and work out what we are going to do next. Staying here is not going to stop anything. Not anymore.”
I knew he was right. The stubborn streak inside of me just didn’t want to admit it. I still couldn’t believe that we had been so resoundly hammered into submission. Bloodfire welled up inside me yet again, seething its way into an angry boil. I took a deep breath and forced it back down. I had to stay calm. Getting pissed off and letting my emotions rule me yet again was not going to help this situation. I blinked in acknowledgement and Corrigan’s grip loosened.
“Okay,” I said, finally relenting. “Just give me a minute, alright? I’ll meet you back down at the car-park soon.”
Corrigan watched me warily. “I’m not sure…” he began.
I reached over and pressed my finger against his lips. “Please. I won’t be a long.”
A muscle tensed in his cheek, but eventually he nodded, and turned away, striding out of the clearing. I waited until he had gone, then I knelt back down again, beside the first dryad’s body.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, reaching over and gently closing her eyes. “I promise you that I will get your revenge. I won’t let this go unpunished. Not if it’s the last thing I do.”
I moved back over to the other dryad and did the same, repeating my promise to her. Then I stood back up. A branch to my right creaked and every muscle in my body tensed. When I saw who it was, I relaxed again. A tree nymph hung there, sadly watching me. Even in the darkness, I could still see there was an unhealthy pallor to her skin. Anger re-lit inside me.
“We will take care of them,” she said softly.
“Are you alright?”
She nodded. “We will be.” She looked off into the direction that Corrigan had disappeared in. “He is right. There was no choice. We thank you for your efforts.”
“Yeah, they weren’t good enough though, were they?” I said bitterly.
“They will be.” Her eyes turned downwards. “The humans are here now. They will prevent the development from moving further forward.”
“It was only ever just a ruse to hide what he was really planning.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Still, I believe we are now safe. Again, we thank you.”
I didn’t think I had ever felt less deserving of those words. With nothing further to say, however, I raised my hand to her in dejected farewell then gave the two dryads one final glance, before turning and heading after Corrigan.
*
I was halfway to the carpark, when Max caught up to me. “The humans are all good,” he said, “safe and sound in their little encampment. I think they are planning to start building their tripod thingies at first light.”
“Great,” I responded, not massively caring.
“Your weird bloodsucker friend won’t leave though.”
“Huh?”
“He refuses to leave. Says he can’t until you come and find him.”
I cursed inwardly. Part of me was tempted just to leave Aubrey where he was. Did I really care what happened to him now? I felt the responsibility of the compulsion I’d laid on him, however, and nodded briskly to the mage. “I’ll sort him out.”
I changed direction, heading cross country back towards the protestors instead. Even before I got there, the sound of their singing was clear, drifting through the trees. It was vaguely familiar. As I got closer, I realised that it was a remarkably tuneless version of Big Yellow Taxi. The words ‘they took all the trees and put’em in a tree museum’ made me wince. I supposed that at least the protestors’ cloud of ignorance about what had really happened this night would mean that they would indeed happily stay to put a spanner in the works of the ridiculous campaign for holiday homes. I thought of the piece of paper that I’d found tangled up in the branches of the trees; the company behind the development was called Endorium. No prizes for guessing where that name came from then. I supposed that if I’d not shown up then what would have happened would have essentially been the same. Endor would have used the development as an easy cover to cut down the trees and smoke out more dryads so he could leech more power from them. It would probably have just ended up being a
longer and more drawn out process, that was all. I fervently hoped that somewhere he was having a painful power surge that was causing an overload and a shortage, as he’d so casually phrased it. Unfortunately, I doubted that was really true.
Before too long, the tents came into view. There were small clusters of people sitting around, still humming that bloody Joni Mitchell song as I approached. Aubrey was at least easy to spot thanks to his isolation. He was sitting to one side, carefully watching the trees. My battered plastic bag with my few belongings encased within was propped up carefully against his side. When he saw me coming, he sprang to his feet and beamed.
“I told them! I told them you’d come for me!” He peered at my face and his smile faltered. “What happened? You look upset.”
“You don’t want to know,” I said tiredly.
Aubrey looked hurt, but I couldn’t summon the energy to worry about his feelings. He painted on a sullen pout, and handed out his phone to me. I stared at it for a moment, uncomprehendingly.
He waved it in my face. “Your friend has been calling. Over and over again. He really wants to talk to you.”
It took a moment to work out who on earth Aubrey was referring to. Then realisation dawned. Alex. It was a bit late now for whatever information he had to give. I supposed I should at least be glad that he was alive and hadn’t gotten himself into any trouble for asking questions about Endor on my behalf. As confident as I’d been before that it would have been no problem, I was now starting to realise that the last thing I should be placing any faith in was my own confidence. I muttered a thanks at Aubrey and took the phone from him.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
He beamed at me, although there was still an edge of concern to his features. I ignored it and instead turned the phone on, hitting the button to return Alex’s last call, and started walking back through the woods.
“What do you want, Vlad?”
I was somewhat taken aback at the vehemence in Alex’s voice. “Er…Alex?”
Blood Politics (Blood Destiny 4) Page 22
