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“Silly girl,” she said as I crouched over Anyan. He was snarling at me and healing himself, but I refused to back away. Heroism didn’t have to take the form of suicide, and I wouldn’t let him throw his life away at this stage of the game. For while Anyan was used to doing what he was now—taking on a formidable foe and then healing himself of any damage even as it was incurred—he wouldn’t be able to do that with the Red. Her cuts would sink deep, and they’d stay deep, something I don’t think he’d remembered in the heat of the moment.
“Leaving me to my prize, just because you fell for a dog,” said Morrigan, and I realized she was right. I’d saved Anyan, yes, but I’d put her between myself and the White’s remains. Not that it mattered, though.
“They’re hardly unguarded,” I told her, nodding towards where Blondie stood, her fists clenched at her sides.
“Ah yes,” said Morrigan, her throat working as she easily pronounced the series of unintelligible grunts and clicks that was Blondie’s real name. “There you are. But you’re no longer the champion, are you? You’ve given your power to a child. ”
Blondie raised her lips in a humorless smirk, cocking her hip and raising a mage ball ripe with power. “I’ve seen you die at least a dozen times,” Blondie said. “Why don’t we make it one more?”
And with that she unleashed hell, battering at the Red with a flurry of mage balls so powerful Anyan and I were both pushed back by their force. The Red answered with an equally ferocious volley of mage balls and fire, bathing the square around the Minster in a thick coating of smoke.
I coughed, before I felt Magog and Anyan bring in their own power over the element of air, swirling a strong wind to clear the area. When they’d succeeded, I saw that Blondie and Morrigan, still battling, were steadily closing in on each other.
What happened next occurred so quickly, I barely made it out. One minute the Red and the Original were feet from one another, then I saw Morrigan’s arm—gone impossibly long—lash out. Blondie fell with a cry, her magic drawing inward so quickly it felt as if she left a vacuum. Then, within seconds, Morrigan had let her transformation finish. Where she’d stood before was a full-sized dragon, which roared in triumph as she reached forward to grab the coffin with one giant, taloned claw. Then she launched herself up into the air, taking her booty with her.
Yelling her name, I sprang toward Blondie, who was holding her thigh. Her face was white, and she wasn’t standing, but she waved me away.
“Go,” she said, shouting at Magog. “Take her, follow them. I’ll be behind you in a minute. Barghest, I need a tourniquet!”
Anyan, naked in his man form, ran to collect the belt from his jeans even as I felt Magog’s arms under my armpits. I vanished the ax for safekeeping as I felt her launch us both into the air. She soared away after the diminishing figure of the Red, but all I could see was the scene played out beneath me, as Anyan did his best to get Blondie back on her feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Being carried by the armpits hurts, and being carried by said armpits at the height a small plane flies is really, really fucking scary. Squeezing my eyes shut, I held on to Magog’s wrists with a viselike grip.
We were flying impossibly high, so much so that my breath rasped shallowly in my lungs. I could feel Magog’s air magics wrapped around us, pushing us forward and insulating us from the worst of the cold. She was using her power to fly just as I used mine to swim, although I wouldn’t swap our elements for the world.
Especially after I made the mistake of opening my eyes to see the landscape—gone countryside, now, as opposed to the city and suburbs of York—blurring far below us. Vertigo hit hard, and my stomach flip-flopped nauseatingly, causing me to emit a long, low groan.
“Don’t chunder, Jane,” Magog warned, her magic carrying her voice to my ear. “You’ll end up wearing it. ”
I groaned again, then spoke, trying to keep my mind off the vertigo.
“Where’s she going?” I shouted, not knowing if Magog’s voice trick worked for me, as well.
“I don’t know,” Magog answered. “But if she keeps going this direction, we’ll be at the seaside, soon. Scarborough, or Whitby, maybe. In fact, Whitby makes sense…”
“Why would she choose the seaside of all places?” I asked. After all, the Red was vulnerable to water in her dragon shape.
“Whitby means something to them, they’ve been defeated there a few times,” Magog said. Her dark eyes flickered down to my white face, and I think she realized how badly I needed distracting. “The first time was when the abbey was still standing; there was a terrible battle there. Henry the Eighth had helped resurrect the Red and the White, and they’d paid him back by driving him barmy with hatred of the Catholic Church and whispers of his own ascendancy to head his own, new religion. He executed over seventy-two thousand of his own people during his reign. ”
“Wow,” I said, momentarily forgetting the earth whizzing by below. “I didn’t even think there’d be that many people to execute in that time. So were they last defeated in Whitby, as well?”
“Yes,” said Magog. “That’s where Blondie hacked them apart. ”
“So why keep returning? And why return now? It’s where they were defeated and by the sea…” Then I fell silent, as I’d just answered my own question.
“The ground is soaked with the White’s blood,” Magog said, answering me anyway.
“Do you think Blondie’s all right?” I asked, my voice strained. I couldn’t do this alone.
“You’ll have to ask her, she’s coming up behind us. ”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, trying to crane my neck around. Sure enough, there was Blondie, on her huge white wings, following close behind. But she wasn’t alone.
“Tricky puppy,” I murmured, seeing the huge shape of Anyan in his dog form running beside her. He hadn’t grown wings, or anything, but still he ran beside the Original, far above the clouds. He was one of the rare creatures able to utilize more than one element: in his case, earth and air. I hadn’t thought much about what he could do with his air mojo, as I’d only really seen him using his earth powers.
So that’s how he’d chased Conleth, I realized. And why he’s such a good spy. And why he doesn’t make a big deal about his control over air. He wants to keep this ability a bit of a secret.
I didn’t think I’d ever stop being surprised by the barghest, no matter how long I knew him.
Blondie and Anyan were gaining on us, the Original’s huge wings and the barghest’s enormous strides eating up the sky. Magog never slowed, however, and together we were all gaining on the Red. Hampered by having to carry the awkward box in which the relics were kept, she couldn’t grow in size to cover more ground.
By that time Blondie and Anyan had caught up with us, and I cast a grateful glance towards both of them.
“She’s going to Whitby!” Blondie shouted, figuring out what we already had. “Let’s cut her off at the pass!”
With that she banked left, and I saw that her jeans were soaked in blood. I also saw Anyan’s belt wrapped around her left thigh, very high up, so that it was snuggled, basically, in her groin.
That can’t be good, I thought, wondering how badly the Original was hurt but knowing, from dating a vampire, that there were some major arteries in that area.
Her wound didn’t slow her down at all, however, and the rest of us followed her as she sped up, pushing the three of us with her powerful mojo. I also drew from the water-saturated air, glad, again, that we were in Britain and not the Sahara. Using my power stolen from the clouds, I also helped motor us along, till we were gliding along at a pace that made me shut my eyes against the sting of the wind.
Soon I felt us descending, and I opened my eyes to see what must have been Whitby below us. A small town built around the mouth of the River Esk as it ran into the sea, from my aerial view Whitby looked fa
r more like the fishing villages I’d grown up around, in Maine, than it did the other British seaside resort I’d been in, Brighton.
But we weren’t headed for the town. Instead, we banked a hard right, again, to head towards the burned out bones of the abbey on a cliff far above the town.
Blondie and Anyan landed first, and Anyan helped catch me with his earth magics as Magog dropped me low to the ground before landing herself. Anyan changed back into man shape as Blondie threw him his jeans, which she’d had rolled up under her arm. He slid them on quickly as she began barking commands.
We’d somehow managed to fly in under the Red, but her winged form was looming on the horizon. We needed a plan, and we needed it fast.
“Jane, get some water up here. Magog, help her move it. Anyan, start loosening up this cliff. She can’t get to his blood if it’s washed away in the sea. ”
I looked around frantically, sensing water everywhere but not quite seeing it. We were standing just under the shadow of the abbey, with one of its skeletal walls looming behind us and a large expanse of cliff in front of us.