Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…
Chapter Seven – Warring Weres
We sorted ourselves out into the vehicles, with ourselves in the first. My three kidnappers, now hooded and roped together, were in the middle one being guarded by half a dozen female dragons who didn’t like them at all.
“Where to?” Mandrake looked to Moth who grinned.
“Moth knows.”
She flitted to the shoulder of the young dragon who was our driver and spoke in his ear. I was impressed that he didn’t flinch. He just grinned at the impudent fae as he engaged a gear.
“How long a journey?”
Mandrake was in full commander mode, and I didn’t know whether to be impressed or kick his shins. In the end I did neither, although I did share a rueful look with Purslane.
Moth and the driver were engaged in a low-voiced conversation and after a minute or two he spoke up.
“It’s about ten miles to the Lyon country estate. In the normal way of things that’d be about a quarter of an hour – even in this beast. But my friend here smells a blizzard on the way, so we can reckon on an hour at least.”
“Okay. You just set a safe pace.”
The driver laughed. “Will do, uncle.”
Mandrake aimed a laughing cuff at his head.
In the end it was closer to two hours because the storm that came screaming in from the east was of the sort that has to be waited out and the three all-terrain vehicles lined up with their backs to the howling dervish of a wind. Instead of snow, this wind brought ice – long daggers of killing ice that hammered against the armoured vehicles as if determined to get inside. I shivered.
“You’re safe in here,” Mandrake said.
“I am. I’m just thinking about the car I was in not so long ago. I have a feeling that me and the rat would have died out here – even if the bears could survive.”
He frowned, then a shiver of his own crossed his whole body and he pulled me into his arms.
“I could have lost you,” he said thickly.
I put my arms around him. “But you didn’t. You rescued me. You and Moth and our dragon friends.”
The tension went out of his body. “We did. And you are warm and in my arms. Although I did want to kill the scum that had you. Was it them who took you from the college?”
“No. It was not. But I wouldn’t bother hunting for whoever did. I think they are probably dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. As in dead men tell no tales.”
“That figures.” Then he chuckled. “The bigger bear isn’t at all happy with us. He is swearing vengeance with every indrawn breath.”
I shrugged. “He is a dead thing walking. And if he isn’t bright enough to work that out for his own self…”
“Are you going to kill him, loved one?”
“Probably not. Much though I would like to. My money is on Leonard Lyon.”
Purslane chimed in. “Unless there is a senior bear at the place we are headed. They really don’t take too kindly to failure.”
Mandrake pushed out his lower lip in thought, then nodded briefly.
One of the younger dragons put up a tentative hand, almost like a child at school.
“You have a question, Nettle?”
“I do, sir. If the lady will be so kind.”
“Ask away.”
“If you knew that the bears had the wrong woman, why did you not tell them?”
“In a normal situation that would have been the correct move. However, by the time I realised who they thought they had in their hands there was already a trail of dead bodies behind us. It was pretty clear to me that if they found out I wasn’t the woman they were being paid for they’d have slit my throat and left me for the carrion crows. This lot really don’t care for loose ends.”
Nettle swallowed audibly. “So you were in their power, knowing they were taking you to be killed, and aware that it didn’t matter to them who you were?”
“That about sums it up. Except, of course, I had Mandrake and Moth hunting for me and both are formidable hunters.”
“They are indeed.” Nettle nodded.
By which time the ice storm had blown away and we could resume our journey.
The Lyon estate was ringed with razor wire fencing, which is fine against normal modes of transport, but our vehicles just pushed over it as if it wasn’t there. The guards that piled out of a couple of low, stone buildings were armed with rifles and heavy clubs – neither of which is any use at all against an armoured vehicle weighing several tons. They weren’t stupid, and most of them went back inside out of the snow which was falling thickly again. A couple of the younger, fitter lycanthropes trotted along beside us like a sort of an honour guard. I hoped the house wasn’t far, because it had to be fragging cold out there.
It was only around ten minutes at jogging speed and the three all-terrains formed up into a chevron in the courtyard. We waited.
A few guards formed up around us and one knocked politely on the door of the frontmost vehicle.
We ignored him.
A tall figure in the uniform of some sort of ceremonial guard came out of the portico and stood looking at our silent vehicles. When he had looked his fill he smiled thinly. He took something out of his pocket and aimed it. Mandrake pushed a button on the dash and dark screens came up across our windows. The flash of light would have blinded us had we not had the protective screens, but we did have them. The screens dropped as the functionary with the weapon hit the ground. He seemed to have grown something strange on his forehead – closer inspection discovered it to be the vanes of a crossbow bolt right between his eyes.
“Nice shooting, whoever,” I said.
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