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 f*cking 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.
“F*cking 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.
“F*cking stars,” I hissed at the sky.
The wind began to blow again, whisking past my cheek.
“F*cking wind. F*cking night. F*cking Scotland. F*cking freezing,” I continued to curse. “F*cking longest night in the middle of the longest f*cking 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.
“F*cking 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.
“Outf*ckingstanding,” 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.