Chapter 32

The sacrificial altar, stained with the blood of twenty virgins of all species, was surprisingly portable, slamming against the door to the room. "Hey, a lock!" Susie said, leaning over the altar to twist the lock. Kelly grinned and didn't admit that he hadn't seen it.

Brooke was playfully tossing a skull between her hands. Blade was quietly wiping the edge of his coat along his knife. Troubled, Sarah watched Kierlan and wished she knew how to really reassure him. I don't even know him, she realised. The thought didn't sadden her: it infuriated her. How shall I learn about him? She thought, appalled.

"How different it is to look into the realm," Kierlan murmured to himself.

"How did your mother even learn about the Soulmate place?" Sarah asked him. He moved his shoulders, not in a shrug, but in the way of an uncomfortable fidget, and suddenly reached a hand out to the portal; his fingers trembled.

"What are you doing?" Sarah demanded quietly, eyes on him and uncomfortably aware that the others might turn and see what Kierlan was doing. She had no doubt that Blade would be especially pissed off. Boys, she thought with a sigh. So easily jealous.

Then she remembered what Susie had been like when it had looked like Blade and Kierlan would fight for Sarah's heart. Girls, Sarah thought stoically too. They're easily jealous too. Damn.

"I don't know," Kierlan said, troubled. "I just...wanted to...touch it." His fingers hovered a quarter of an inch from the beginning of the portal.

"We don't know anything about it," Sarah told him practically.

"Yes he does," a voice exclaimed. The voice held as much ice as Antartica's glaciers: she even knew who it'd be, when she turned around. The woman who had taken Kierlan, the one who was strong enough to keep Susie and Rita locked in their own rooms.

"Hello, mother," Kierlan said quietly. Sarah couldn't be surprised. Susie fought to move. "Let go of us," she said softly, threateningly. "I know who you are now. I know you're Harman and..."

"Redfern," Blade finished sourly.

"Just like you're of Donaigo's clan," the woman said sweetly. "There's bad blood in everything."

"And there's madness in you," Blade retorted. "Let your son go."

Sarah blinked, surprised. Blade was sticking up for Kierlan.

"And let Sarah go, too," Susie said bravely. A lump formed in Sarah's throat at the courage of her friends, even as they were helpless.

Kierlan's mother jerked her hand and the ritual altar slammed across the room, the doors flung open with a metallic screech, like long, twisted fingernails running down a blackboard.

"No," Susie gritted, her eyes flared violet suddenly. "Hecate!" she called, "hear thy words, hear...thy words of a daughter of Hecate..." She was struggling to say the words though.

"Leave her alone!" Sarah shouted, angry. "Leave us all alone!"

Kierlan's mother turned her eyes on Sarah: her lips were a beautiful sneer, her eyes were bright violet and feverishly mad, framed with long, black eyelashes. "Come here."

Her mind swam with thoughts, thoughts as fast as a cloud of violet butterflies: she wanted to grab the thoughts but sensed that they were sharp as knives. Is this Kierlan's mother's mind? she wondered, unable to see how, in the real world, her feet were moving inexorably towards Kierlan's mother, in quiet, small strides, like a sleepwalker.

"No," Kierlan said levelly, raced forward and grabbed Sarah's hand. "She's staying with me, mother."

Kierlan's mother blinked, as though she herself was waking up, just as Sarah was. "Hello, Kierlan," she said in an odd way and for a second her violet eyes were as clear as the ocean on a summer's day, clear of madness.

"Hello, mother," Kierlan said in a resigned way, used to the strange abstract way his mother's mind worked.

"Now remember not to touch the portal," Kierlan's mother said in a strangely brisk, bemused way. "I'm working with it again tonight. Father will be back in an hour. You know he's got a surprise for you."

"Father's dead," Kierlan said with exaggerated patience. "And it's far too late to warn me not to interfere with the portal."

"You haven't been in it," Kierlan's mother said sternly, in such a motherly way. "You know I know best."

"I have been in it," Kierlan said quietly. "Mother, me and Sarah have been in it. Together."

Kierlan's mother frowned: her eyes were becoming cloudy, confused violet again, her sneer faltering to a perplexed frown. "Then you should be mad, love."

"I am," Kierlan promised her, a severe look in his eyes. "Every person who has ever found their Soulmate feels mad. I love Sarah, mother. You never should have gone into the portal: for you have never found your Soulmate. The Soulmate place is not for lonely witches."

That's how she turned mad, Sarah began to wonder.

"Sarah," Kierlan said in a low voice, as Kierlan's mother shook her head. "Step back." He was stepping back himself. Towards the closet, towards the portal within it.

"No, Kierlan!" his mother shouted, eyes flaring wide like a dying woman. She stretched a hand out, but Kierlan shoved Sarah towards the portal. "Keep holding my hand!" he shouted at her.

"Susie!" Sarah yelled, helplessly. "We can't leave her behind!"

"She hasn't got a Soulmate yet," Kierlan snapped. "We'd be putting her in more danger!"

Kelly growled softly: not a human growl: it was a deeper growl. He was straightening up: red light glowed around him: the same red light as Brooke's magic.

"Shapeshifters and witches can't share magic," Susie whispered, astounded.

"That is why we are unusual," Brooke growled. "We learned it."

Kelly strained forward, past Kierlan's mother's magic, but he wasn't getting far.

"How do I give magic?" Susie asked, her voice tense, trying to at least flex her fingers, but the magic was like drowning in syrup.

"I don't know," Brooke replied illogically. "We just do it occasionally. We don't exactly document it. Kelly got thrown out of his clan for this. He's just a magnet for witch magic. We don't know why."

"If he's a magnet," Susie said grimly, "then he can take as much of my magic as he can handle." She clenched her fists, magic glowed green around her form, like fresh, new grass, like tender shoots of bluebell leaves, as green as her eyes, terribly vivid.

Green blended with red in twists and tangles, like roses and thorns around Kelly. He bowed his head, shoulders straightening, then dropped to all fours, began transforming painfully. His fur was tawny gold, eyes as green as Susie's. When he finally reached the end of transformation, he grandly shook his mane and regarded Kierlan's mother sternly, with all the majesty of a lion.