Camdeboo Nights (30 page)

For the second time that evening her breath rasped through lungs made painful by her flight. Where would this end? Whenever she flagged in her strides, Bijou would tug, forcing her on. From where she drew her reserves she had no idea. She’d like nothing more than to sag to the ground to get oxygen into her starved bloodstream.

Without warning, Bijou twisted to their left and Helen lost her footing, pulling both of them to the lawn in a tangle of limbs. A gap in the hedge showed and Bijou had meant for them to take it, save for Helen’s ill-timed stumble.

Bijou pointed to the low rise in the gloom ahead. “Run! Get into the water, there’s a small nook that’s darker. Get in there. Don’t move. Try imagine pulling your magic in tight into your heart. Try not to breathe unless I say it’s okay.”

With a definite goal in sight, Helen pushed a last burst of fire through her limbs, almost tripping over her feet as she scrambled into a crouching run that took her the last few meters up the slope. The ground gave way beneath her feet and she flopped into thigh-deep water which splashed up into her mouth and tasted of algae and mud. The dark square beckoned–safety of sorts.

A creature howled not far behind them then another answered from up the slope.

They were trapped!

Helen sploshed through the water, grimacing when something large brushed against her leg to flash away with a burst of luminescence. A fish? She didn’t want to think too hard about what that could have been.

Of their own accord her hands sought purchase on smooth tiles, dragging her up onto a narrow slate shelf where she drew in ragged breaths, trembling.

Some distance away something ignited with a magnesium white flare before darkness settled. Where the hell was Bijou, and what was she doing?

Chapter 34

The Wild Hunt

Once Trystan opened his awareness and locked onto Helen’s Essence he couldn’t shut down the connection. Was this what it was like for sensitives, a continual abrasion of raw nerves?

“You’ve been too successful creating mental barriers,” Arwen had said after his first unsuccessful attempt.

Thereafter he’d pushed until he’d felt something shift, break almost. Now there was no going back. The process could only be described like being a radio tuned into more than one frequency and it took all his concentration to still drive the Hudson without taking out streetlights and random pedestrians along the way.

“What’s wrong with you?” Arwen asked when they once again veered to the wrong side of the road.

“Your bloody bright idea.” Trystan bit off the words. “You’ve gone and forged some sort of link between me and Helen.”

Etienne shifted forward so that he leaned on the back of Trystan’s seat. “Well, you had a thing for her already, didn’t you?”

“Well, Arwen has gone and made it worse!”

“That’s right! Blame me for everything.”

“If you hadn’t evoked Helen’s Essence in the graveyard that night, none of this would ever have happened,” Trystan said.

“That boy would still have lost it at school,” Etienne said. “Then Helen might be dead ’cause it was only because she could–”

“We don’t know that for sure, Etienne,” Arwen said.

“There was no way she could have punched him. Remember, there was a half-meter of sharp steel between Tim and Helen and he was about to bring down the killing blow. I saw the force he used bringing down his arm. Tell me, are you going to move quick enough to block your attacker with nothing more than your bare hands, especially when you haven’t had one day of martial arts training in your life? Helen’s an artist, not a frigging kung fu expert!”

Trystan tuned out their conversation as best he could and focused rather on the mesmerizing rhythm of passing streetlights. The dark star of Helen’s biggest or rather strongest pursuer flared, the signature familiar. Mantis. Of course.

If Mantis was loyal to the Black Pope then why had she made a run for it? Had the elders up in Gauteng put her up to playing double agent? Why would a vampire more than twice the age of most elders on the subcontinent prefer to serve as a
jagter
? Too many questions. Perhaps she was like him, too in love with freedom to be tied down. She could keep Helen for her own. Maybe this had been the opportunity for which she had been waiting. On her own Mantis was no match for half a dozen experienced
jagters
half her age but if she created another who had the additional skill of shaping Essence...

Trystan shivered. Give Mantis a few years to drain Helen and she could take on just about anyone. Would that be such a bad thing? She hadn’t killed him when she’d had the chance, though she’d delivered him into the hands of the Black Pope.

She was playing. The bitch had been around since the early 1400s and had had centuries to hone her craft. Trystan could not comprehend so much time. For him two centuries had already passed in a blur.

“Red light!” Arwen’s screech dragged him into the present.

He pushed his foot hard on the brake pedal and the car screamed to a halt.

Bemused, he cast about. A large dam lay on the left of the road. That was where they needed to go. Trystan grinned. “You don’t have to worry about my driving. We’re there.”

“That’s a relief.” Etienne’s fear rolled off him. Damn this state of hyper-alertness. Could he ever close himself off to those around him after this night?

“Maybe you two should stay in the car,” Trystan said.

“So we can be sitting targets?” Arwen had ice in her tone. “And, besides, why should you care?”

Trystan didn’t have an answer for her. Instead he ground his teeth and nosed the car down a leafy avenue into a long-deserted parking lot. The only other car was a silver Polo parked near the far exit. Why should he care?

Arwen’s hand was hot on his wrist, her blood rushing with her emotion. “Is it because you’ve spent enough time with us to stop seeing us as prey items, Trystan? Is this why you’ve been avoiding human contact for so many years?”

Damn! Too close to the bone. He tensed, wanting to slap the girl or find some manner in which he could shut her up. Trystan pulled the key out of the ignition then pressed it into the soft flesh of his left palm as hard as possible.

“If the two of you are going to walk with me, I want you to promise me that you’ll hide yourselves at the first sign of trouble.”

“Like that’s going to help,” Arwen said.

“I’m not staying in the car, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Etienne said. “So, vamp, if we do get into a spot of bother, what do we do?”

“Don’t run, for starters. That only triggers the chase instinct. Fire’s something that some of the more superstitious vampires dislike. Best is the old-fashioned stake through the heart routine but driving a point of wood through bone won’t be easy for either of you, you’re not strong enough to get through the rib cage,” Trystan said.

“We’ll use magic,” Arwen said. “You’re overlooking the obvious.”

He’d not considered Arwen’s skills in the matter but since she did not possess a strong Essence, her claim puzzled him.

“But you cannot generate Essence.” He frowned at her.

Arwen looked at him as if he’d sprouted a tree out of his forehead. “So? I can bend it, make it so that Etienne and I appear less...noticeable. I could summon–”

“Enough bragging! Fine! Do what you must do but don’t get in my way.”

The girl glared at him through eyes narrowed to slits.

The little trollop didn’t scare him.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Etienne asked.

“Five minutes,” Arwen spoke. “Five minutes then we’re following you, so no messing about.”

“I still don’t see what you’re hoping to achieve in this situation where you are both so hopelessly out of your league.”

Arwen fixed him with the kind of glare that would curdle milk. He wanted to laugh at her but held himself in check. When he’d been younger he’d hated it when people had told him he couldn’t do something. He’d thought himself immortal back then, until the one came who plucked him from his humanity. Trystan shoved those thoughts deep. They didn’t bear thinking of, not now, at any rate.

“Very well, mortals. Do what you must but whatever you do, don’t interfere with anything I do.”

“Unless you’re threatening Helen,” Etienne said.

Trystan did not have an answer to that. How would this evening’s turn of events resolve?

A bright pain flashed through his head, robbing him of sight for a moment with its brightness, and he clutched at his eyes and bumped his head against the steering wheel with a dull
thunk
.

“What’s wrong?” Etienne asked.

“Someone’s using magic,” Arwen answered. “I’ve never... Sweet Jesus, it’s the magical equivalent of an EMP.”

Trystan’s limbs lost strength and he slumped to one side, the window’s glass warm against his skin. That’s why vampires didn’t want Essence-strong humans running around and in this place with so much un-assimilated Essence swarming. Who knew what they could accomplish?

His skin felt taut and his extremities tingled as if he’d stuck his finger into an electric socket long enough to fry his synapses.

“You gonna be okay?” Etienne placed a warm hand on Trystan’s shoulder. In that instant it was as if Etienne’s heartbeat sent a jolt through Trystan’s flesh and he shrank away from the boy as if stung, falling out of the car to dry-heave onto the tarmac. He had nothing to bring up but the ancient muscle-memory still existed.

“What the fuck!” Arwen exclaimed. “Trystan! Are you all right?”

“I’ll– Be fine. Just neither of you touch me for the next half-hour or so. Please!”

Static buzzed in Trystan’s ears, his senses on hyper alert, like someone turned up the volume switch. Crickets he knew to be almost a kilometer away sounded as if they were five paces from him. His only consolation was that whatever afflicted him would have had a similar effect on the vampires who were hunting Helen. No doubt Mantis, as sensitive as she was, was still writhing in agony after the psychic assault, which meant that if he could recover quicker, he’d have an advantage. His obvious lack of weapons didn’t help, though.

He’d have to wing it and hope the right kind of opportunity presented itself.

Trystan sat up, massaging his temples. “Okay kids, Uncle Trystan here is going on ahead.”

If it were possible for Arwen’s already pale face to go any whiter, it would have.

Closing his eyes, Trystan
reached
, tentatively at first when his consciousness encountered the steady drone of a heavy undercurrent of natural Essence that hadn’t been there earlier. The power drowned out the signatures of the others then muffled further attempts to push through with a buzz of static that had him withdrawing quickly.

Deep unease settled in the pit of his stomach. If there was so much natural Essence here then why had the Johannesburg vampires not found a way to drain it or harness it? What could be more powerful than some of the oldest vampires on the African continent?

Chapter 35

Disintegrating

Arwen found it difficult to mask her fear. How many witches could boast that they’d found themselves in a similar predicament during the past century? Not even her father could. Or, had he and he had good enough reason to avoid further calamities? Part of Arwen suspected the latter and she shivered.

Still dizzy from the flash of Essence, she sat as still as possible, her fingers curled loosely around the beadwork sun. She had stolen it from Helen’s bedroom, still unsure as to why she had lied to Anabel about wanting to use the bathroom.

She had had to get something of Helen’s.

Etienne sat behind her, fidgeting. Trystan had darted off, yet another shadow in a night filled with sharp teeth and talons. Arwen didn’t want to admit she was at a complete loss as to what they needed to do.

“Are we going to sit here the whole night and wait for one of those vampires to come get us?” Etienne asked.

“Just give me a minute.”

“We’ve been waiting for five minutes already.”

“I know. I’m thinking.”

“I thought you had a plan.”