CHAPTER Twenty-four
The wraith dropped Brock’s heart as if it were nothing more than a piece of rubbish and fixed its terrible gaze on the Palladium in my hand.
“Give meeeeeeee it,” it hissed.
I was still staring at Brock’s fallen body, my brain trying to compute what had just happened. I was dimly aware of Corrigan shifting in an explosion of ripping fabric behind me, and his feline snarl as he launched himself into the air. Up ahead, by the steps where Thomas and the other two mages were, came the sounds of shouting as they all began running towards us.
Tryyl lunged towards me, in a motion that was so swift that I barely registered it. Corrigan’s werepanther form was already barrelling into the wraith, however, knocking him off his course as he sprang through the centre of his body so that he narrowly avoided connecting with me. All coherent thought left my mind. The only thing that was left was the bloodfire. The roar of it as it raged with fury and vengeance tore through my body. The flames seared my insides until there was not a scrap of my flesh that wasn’t burning. Without thinking, I threw the Palladium behind me as far as it possibly could go, then turned to face the wraith.
Green fire exploded from my hands with violence and intent. I launched twin jets out towards the shadowy form, both smacking immediately into his chest. The wraith roared in pain and anger, and sprang forward again. Corrigan hit him again from the side, lethal white teeth snapping as he struggled to find purchase in Tryyl’s insubstantial form. Then, from behind, both Thomas and the other two mages joined in the attack, each sending out their own waves of attacking blue flame.
A vicious spasm contorted the wraith’s body, and he let out an inhuman, bloodcurdling scream. Corrigan lunged out, claws flashing, scraping into his body. Tryyl spun round, slamming out a dark hand into the werepanther’s face. He snarled and slumped to the ground. Bloodfire pounded in my ears and throbbed in my heart. I shot out again with my flames, but this time the wraith leapt lithely to the side, avoiding being hit. Then he lashed out again, cuffing me against the side of my head and sending me flying painfully down to the ground. I lifted my head, tensing my muscles to spring back up and saw the wraith twist in the air to fly forward and meet Thomas and the others head on. They continued to send out streams of blue fire, but they were having little effect, virtually bouncing off Tryyl’s body and vanishing into the atmosphere. I leapt up, just as Tryyl roared again and flew towards them, knocking over all three.
I ran towards the small group, as fast as I humanly could, small stones pelting up into the air from around my feet. I continued to blast the wraith’s dark shape with green fire, Tryyl twisting this way and that each time I landed a shot. Thomas lifted his head and, for one brief moment, his gaze connected with mine and he smiled, then he reached up to grab Tryyl’s leg. The wraith screamed down at him in ire and kicked, his booted foot smashing against Thomas’ skull with a sickening crack. The mage fell back down, his neck skewed at an unnatural angle.
Hot tears filled my eyes as I continued to run. Tryyl turned yet again and faced me, an ugly bitter smile curving his shadow filled features.
“It’ssssssss miiiiiine,” he cried out, in a voice terrible enough to wake the dead.
I ignored his calls and bent my head down and jumped, headfirst, butting him in his stomach. His hand clawed out towards me, ripping the flesh at my neck and pulling away my skin. I fell backwards, heat exploding from every sinew in my body, ignoring the physical pain of the attack.
For a moment, the wraith looked puzzled, staring down at his hand. I realised through the wall of fire that he was clutching my necklace in his hand, long dirty fingernails curling round it. Then he dropped it uncaringly and spat, a stream of black blood ejecting from his mouth. It landed on Thomas’ body, a thick dark gloop of blood and spittle. My bloodfire screeched, thrumming through my skin. Heat and flames pulsated, opening up my pores and blazing out. The mages on either side of Thomas moaned. Tryyl reached down, grabbing each of them by their hair, one in each terrible hand, and slammed their heads down onto the gravel.
Fire.
Heat.
Blood.
A strange sensation filled me. My limbs cracked and my flesh twisted. I roared. Not in pain, but in vengeance. I could feel myself growing, enlarging and breaking out of the very skin that I was in. My teeth felt strange in my mouth, longer and sharper, as if they didn’t belong. My bones stretched and snapped and what I felt was no longer just fire and flame, but power too. I roared again, and this time the sound was deafening. There was an unfamiliar weight at my back. I twitched, realising that I had control of it, then whipped it round. My tail caught Tryyl’s midsection, tearing through him and leaving a sucking hole in amongst blackness.
I twisted my neck to the side, now towering over the shadow in front of me. I examined the tiny creature of vile death and pain with detachment. Then I opened up my jaws and snapped, ripping Tryyl’s head from his shoulders and tossing it to the side. Opening my mouth one final time, I let my scream of bloody thunder escape in triumph. And then I collapsed.
*
It was the voices around me in hushed argumentative tones that I first registered when I came to. The metallic sterile tang in the atmosphere advertised the fact that I was no longer outside, but instead back inside, within the academy’s infirmary. Probably on the same bed that Thomas had lain in until Tryyl had snapped his neck.
“She’s not a mage. That’s obvious now. But her powers indicate that the Ministry is the best place for her.”
I kept my eyes shut. Maybe if I never opened them again, then I wouldn’t have to face the reality of what had just happened. Was Thomas maybe still alive?
“For f*ck’s sake! She transformed into a bloody dragon! She shifted. To all intents and purposes, she’s a shifter and she belongs with the pack.” Hello Corrigan. I guess you didn’t die as well then.
“Oh, really? And since when has the pack ever in the last thousand years, had a member who shifts into a dragon? She is not a shapeshifter. She is not a were-dragon, there’s no such thing!” I figured that the Arch-Mage wasn’t feeling quite so cosied up any more with the Lord Alpha. Oh well.
“Don’t you think that the people who are best placed to help her with this emotionally as well as physically are those who also have alternate forms?”
“And don’t you think that someone who has taken an oath to the mages, and who is able to eject fire from her hands is best served by learning and growing with those who can teach her?”
The voices were getting annoying. I wished they’d go away and leave me alone. Or at least give me some f*cking information about Jeremy.
“Gentlemen, clearly Miss Smith here has kept her identity a secret for a reason. She is afraid of what might happen were others to discover her true nature. It would be best for everyone if she was kept safely away from any dangers. We can do this. In fact, she clearly trusts us because we are already doing that for a very dear friend of hers.”
Huh. That voice was new. It had an odd musical tone to it that sent annoyed flutters of irritation through me. Clearly Solus had done what he’d said he was going to do and spoken to the Summer Queen after all.
“But who exactly knows what she is? We should track them down and make damn sure that they do nothing to harm a single hair on her head.”
“She doesn’t have much hair on her head to harm, does she?”
Pain twisted through me. F*ck this, I had to know for sure.
I opened my eyes. “Jeremy?” It came out as a croak. Three pairs of eyes swiveled towards me.
“Initiate Smith! We’re so glad that you’re alright. You destroyed the wraith.” The Arch-Mage shook his head in disbelief. “We never even knew that was possible.”
I tried again. “Thomas?” My throat felt as if I had several sharp knives embedded into it.
“Mackenzie,” the stunningly beautiful woman, with very cold hard eyes and who I took to be Solus’ Queen, cooed, “you’ve really caused quite a sensation, you know.”
“Don’t worry about that though,” stated the Arch-Mage, placing a hand on my arm. “We’ve arranged for an oath to safeguard the memories of everyone who witnessed your, uh, transformation. A lot of students and indeed the mages saw what happened from the windows. But we’ve ensured that they won’t tell anyone. Your identity is safe. It’s just the three of us who are unbound. Some,” he shot an annoyed glance at the Summer Queen as he said this, “coming later to the party than others.”
Oh, f*ck off. Just f*ck off and tell me what I want to know. I raised myself up onto my elbows and glared at the three of them.
“I’m sorry, Mack.” Corrigan’s voice was quiet. I looked into those familiar emerald green eyes, and saw the flash of warm sympathetic gold in them. “He didn’t make it.”
I closed my eyes and bit down hard on my tongue. It didn’t help. Huge wracking sobs flooded me, shaking me down to my core. Corrigan moved closer and reached down, then lifted me half up, hugging me gently to him. The tears ran uncontrollably down my face as he rocked me back and forth, saying nothing else. I cried into him, gasping in pain and sorrow. If I’d just gotten there a heartbeat quicker then I might have saved him.
“There was nothing you could have done,” he said, stroking my head. “Not for him or for the student.”
I thought of Brock and the promise within him that would now never materialise. The simple joy in his eyes at his success with Deborah, success that would now never lead to fruition of any kind. He was so young, and so good. I cried harder. Corrigan said nothing else, just held me whilst it all came flooding out, pain tearing through me in ripples of numbing loss and desolation.
I don’t know how long we stayed in that position for, just that it was for a long time, his arms remaining in place even after I’d managed to bring the sobs under control. Eventually I pulled away, and looked at him.
“You’re wearing mage’s robes,” I commented quietly, in a bizarre effort to focus on the mundane.
He glanced down at himself and his mouth twisted. “It was all they could find at short notice.” Then he reached out, his thumb gently rubbing away the tracks of my tears on my cheeks. “You’ll be all right, Mack. You’ll get through this.”
I lifted my head up and looked him in the eye. “Yes,” I responded dully, “I suppose I will.”
Corrigan’s hand moved to my shoulder. My own robes were still hanging off from where Solus had torn them before. “That wasn’t there before.”
“Huh?” I flicked my eyes down. There were three perfectly formed and perfectly healed scars curving their way across my shoulder, just ever so lightly coming to rest against my collar bone. Solus would be pleased, I figured.
I moved away from him, planting my feet on the bare floor. “Where’s the Arch-Mage?” Clearly at some point both he and the Summer Queen, if that’s who she really was, had decided to leave us to it.
“Mackenzie, you really should rest.”
I shot him a look that brooked no argument.
“Fine,” he sighed. “I think he’s in the Dean’s office.”
I stood upright, wobbling just ever so slightly. Corrigan moved to my side to support me, but I gently pushed him away. “No,” I said calmly. “I can manage.”
The journey from the infirmary to the office seemed interminably long. Real pain, not just emotional pain, was shooting through me, and I felt almost completely overcome with weariness. I was determined to do it on my own, however. We passed several students, milling around in little worried bunches. At one point, I caught sight of Deborah, her tear-stained face mirroring my own. Our eyes met for a second, then I looked away. I couldn’t face her. She turned to Mary, and buried her face in her friend’s shoulders. Mary glanced over at me, with a small half smile of sad encouragement. I grimly pushed forward.
Outside the Dean’s office, both Mage Slocombe and my Illusion teacher were there. They bowed their heads to me in a moment of surprising deference, then moved out of the way. I acknowledged them briefly, wishing fervently and deeply that it hadn’t taken an event of this magnitude to finally be accepted by the mages as one of their own. The sad irony was that I now I had provided absolute proof that I most definitely wasn’t one of them after all.
The door was already open, so I limped in without knocking, Corrigan close behind me. The Dean was back behind his desk, but when I entered, and he looked up, he just seemed old and tired. The Palladium sat alone on the middle of the table. I looked away from it, barely able to even acknowledge its now malignant presence and my focused my attention instead on the Arch-Mage on the sofa, with the Summer Queen beside him.
“Initiate Smith!” he said warmly. “You are up and about! I’m so pleased.” He half rose from his sitting position but I beckoned him back down again.
“Don’t call me that.”
He stopped and stared up at me.
“I’m not an Initiate any more. You know there’s no longer any need for it because I’m not a mage.”
The Dean’s head jerked up sharply at my words, but he didn’t say anything.
I continued. “You will release Mrs. Alcoon from stasis and release me from my oath. I won’t do any harm to your or your mages. I think I’ve proven that by now.”
The Arch-Mage opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He nodded glumly. I flicked a glance over at the Queen.
“You’re the Summer Queen?”
She nodded, rising gracefully and holding out her hand. I ignored it. I wasn’t here to make friends. “Will you help transport my friend back here? To this plane?”
“I can do that,” she answered in soft, yet steely, tones. “But, Mackenzie, you should know that you can come and join us in Tir-Na-Nog. I can assure you that you’ll be safe there.”
“That’s all right,” I answered, looking away from her.
Corrigan stepped forward. “Will you come with me? I won’t force you, Mack, you know that. And I won’t look after you if that’s what you want. You’ll have how ever much freedom you want.”
I smiled at him gently and touched his cheek. There was a part of me that so desperately wanted to say yes. To give in, and no longer be alone. But I had things going on that I needed to sort out on my own. I had to get to the bottom of what I was and I had the feeling that I had to do it myself. The bickering between the three of them whilst they’d thought I was still unconscious proved that.
“No, Corrigan. But thank you. I need to do this on my own, at least for now.”
He nodded, green eyes flicking down to the floor. I looked round at the three of them. I reckoned they were all still pretty stunned by what had happened this day. I also doubted that it was very often that anyone ever came along and told them no. But for once in my life I felt like I had the power and control to do just that.
I smiled again mirthlessly at them all, and then limped back out.