Chapter 31

Blade raced past them, head bent low, breathing deeply, not for need of oxygen, but to smell the graveyard dirt.

"Get them, Anthony!" Roseclear's voice was exalted as she stood tall. Tom was still in the room behind her, but Blade didn't give a damn any more. Just take out the dragon, he thought carelessly. No matter what.

As he passed Sarah, he felt a tug at his heart and a burst of hatred like acid coursed through him, hatred of Kierlan. He sped on faster, thoughts erratic and he didn't dare to withdraw the antique dagger that was especially for whomever threatened the blood of those dearest to the clan of Donaigo.

A long time ago, if you had told him that one day he'd be harbouring a hatred for a Wild Power, he'd have laughed viciously and said "isn't that the nature of a Redfern? Well, I am not a Redfern! I am a Donaigo!"

But aren't Donaigo's clan like Redfern? He wondered painfully. They're just a newer clan. But they could become like the Redferns. What if Donaigo's becoming like Hunter? Or worse, what if it's me?

He'd wondered whether Hunter had been this vicious when he'd first been born. That's the difference between me and you, he thought defiantly at Hunter. You were born and I was made.

That made it simple to him: the corridors with their gloomy layer of wax no longer seemed such a prison. He couldn't care that Sarah was here. She'd never guess that…

Finally he reached the door that he hated.

"Through here!" he yelled, and twisted the handle, pushed the door: it swung forward with a high whine.

Susie's mouth opened in protest but Kierlan pushed her through, pulling Sarah after him.

The first sound Sarah heard was a loud crunch: automatically she looked down. She couldn't conjure surprise up at the fragments of skull beneath her trainer. Only that it was shining hard and red, like someone had coated it in orange-red nail polish.

Kierlan whistled softly, involuntarily. Sarah snapped her attention back gratefully to him.

"I've seen that before," he murmured, and she thought he meant the skull.

Then he took a step forward, deeper into the room.

Look around! A voice seemed to shout in her head and she broke her attention free from the skull.

The room was a dark, gothic, Romanesque shrine of a room: blood-velvet long curtains draped down black painted walls. Skulls were along the floor, arranged in a curvy line, like a curvy path across the room. All the skulls had the same hard coating, like different dark colours of nail varnish, on their arched surfaces.

"Human skulls," Susie said harshly.

The skull path led to a polished, black wood cabinet. Eyes stern, Blade twisted the handle and pulled open one of the cabinet doors.

Within the cabinet was infinity.

Black space, marked with white specks.

"What is it?" Sarah asked Susie, expecting a knowledgeable answer.

"A spell?" Susie asked uncertainly. "Or a trick?...No." She reached out slightly, but couldn't touch it.

"It has more depth than air," Susie murmured, eyes bright and puzzled. "But it's…heavy. Like low gravity."

Kierlan stepped forward. "It's a portal," he said in a low voice, his heart racing. "I've…seen it before."

"Seen it?" Blade demanded, amazed. "What sort of portal?"

"You've seen it too," Kierlan told Sarah, who was frowning, looking away from him and the portal. She shook her head, her long hair wavered with her movement.

"I've seen it too," Brooke said, striding forward and staring with fascination into the closet. Kelly was behind him; he rubbed his arms hard, almond-shaped eyes dark and gleaming like a wild creature.

"Where did you come from?" Antonio drawled, pivoting on his foot and stepping in front of Kelly as Blade stepped in Brooke's way, eyes startled.

"Invisibility spell," Brooke said with relish. "We've been following you ever since Roseclear took you all hostage. We were so lucky that I cast a look-away spell just before turning me and Kelly invisible."

Kelly laughed nastily, giving an admiring glance to the room around them. "You didn't think we'd miss this?"

"You're still under our protection," Brooke added to Sarah. "Jack's nearly dead thanks to darling Roseclear."

"It's your fault for letting her into your club," Sarah retorted.

"No, it's Laurence's fault. He thinks he's in love with Roseclear," Kelly said coolly. "He's a besotted fool. And until Jack can end the fascination, maybe find him a new girl, we've had to put up with it. Not that Jack hasn't made use of the fascination, what with Roseclear raising Anthony and a few others."

"And by find a new girl for Laurence, what do you mean?" Sarah asked innocently, recalling the pissed-off girl getting into her land-rover when Sarah, Susie and Blade had arrived at the mansion.

Kelly shrugged. "I checked around for girls who don't mind homicidal nutters. Found plenty of them."

"I sent plenty of lovely witches his way too," Brooke said helpfully.

"They're the reason for him having plenty of bruises," Kelly said sarcastically. "Hated him so much, they slapped him."

"Ran bets on it," Brooke said sweetly. "I won five dollars for each grievous occasion of assault on Laurence."

"Enough!" Blade said sharply and pointed at the cabinet. "What is that?"

"It's something to do with the Soulmate connection," Brooke said comfortably. "I saw a glimpse of it when I hacked into your connection. Can't imagine why it'd be here."

Kierlan cleared his throat. "I can."

"Then illuminate me," Blade said coolly, not looking at him.

"My mother must be here," Kierlan said apologetically. "She was the one obsessed with the Soulmate connection. She seemed to believe that there must be a physical place."

"That the Soulmate place is physical?" Sarah said softly, stunned. "But it's not!"

"Exactly what the vampires thought," Kierlan sighed. "My mother's clan stood by her. It led to a rather fierce, bloody battle. And my mother ended up realising when I was born, that she was threatening my life. So she tried to end the feud. Her obsession completely ended. She became like a normal witch. But it wasn't enough for the vampires. They killed her, made her a vampire. It broke her: she'd been ready to surrender."

"And she tried to kill you," Blade said harshly. "Didn't she? She's a mad vampire, Kierlan. She tried to kill her human son."

"She'd have turned me," Kierlan protested. "Not killed me straight!"

"She's mad! She works for Hunter." Blade's eyes flashed obsidian. "And she's back onto working on this ridiculous project of whatever the Soulmate place is!"

"She wouldn't if I had stayed with her," Kierlan said hotly.

"She'd have killed you instead!" Sarah snapped, appalled.

"Forget it," Blade told Kierlan threateningly, rounding on him. "She's your mother? Forget it. She's a vampire. Vampires don't have souls. They don't have any love for humans!"

"Whoa," Brooke muttered out of the side of her mouth to Kelly. "What drug is Blade on?"

"A man scorned," Kelly said dryly, glancing at Sarah.

"A vampire scorned," Brooke corrected thoughtfully, then stepped forward to peer harder into the black mass: it glittered like the universe: pitch black with silver stars. "It has edges," she remarked, surprised, tracing its edges slowly with a dainty finger adorned with violet nail polish. "It's like it's been cut with those crazy cutters, you know? Those scissors that do zigzags."

She was right: the portal had definite zigzag edges, but it was as though it had been pushed into the cabinet.

"Now that's infinity crammed into a cabinet," Kelly said slyly.

"I'd suggest, if we've got a vampire-witch running around, with ability to catch a portal and cram it into a cabinet," Brooke said, "that we either run to Mexico and pray for deliverance, or we surrender and pretend we're her best friends, or we have a definite plan."

"Sounds good to me," Susie said lightly, hefting a crackling ball of violet witchfire in her hand like a tennis ball.

Poor Kierlan didn't look so certain.