Blue Words - Part I Page 26

straight to her. Her body was limp. She was unconscious, but breathing. Gudrik ran his luminous hand all over her body. She appeared to be uninjured, but for a bruise on her cheek. No doubt the blow which had left her unconscious. In George’s right hand was a large, kitchen knife which wore telltale red stains. “That’s my girl.” He trickled a small flow of ghostly, blue blood into her mouth, just to be certain she was fine.

  Suddenly panic surged back through him. “Tabitha!?” He stood and began waving his glowing hand around searching the dark corners of the room, all of her favourite hide and seek spots. It was a game Paw had played intentionally with her, to prepare for situations such as this. She was nowhere to be found. “Tabitha! Tabitha!” he called, trying hard to make his harsh voice sweet and calming like Neasa’s.

  “They took her,” came a breathless response. “There were so many of them, from the beach.” Gudrik shook his head wildly, as if not accepting the situation would change it. His eyes clouded and he became more agitated. It was all happening again.

  “Pup, where is Pup?”

  “He tried to protect her, but there were too many of them. I’m not sure where he ended up. I remember he and Paw chased them out to the verandah, but things are fuzzy after that.” George held her cheek, which had since healed thanks to Gudrik’s offering.

  The Warlock rushed outside. There, just as George had described, lay the bodies of three severely mauled greys. Many more also lay open from long clean slashes. Wasting no time he continued to the beach. Another grey lay dead under the Casuarina arch. On the beach Gudrik found a mess of clustered boot and paw prints scattered across the sand. On the water’s edge, being lapped by the gentle incoming waves, lay two more dead greys. Surrounding them, a collection of spent bullet casings, which had been pushed into a neat line by the incoming water. Both bodies had a twisted, bloody mess where their throats once were, definitely the work of Tabitha’s Pup Pup.

  Further along the beach alongside the long drag marks of small boat hulls, Gudrik found another group of corpses. These men were not mauled. They were all peppered with slashes and stab wounds, apart from one. That one was bullet riddled and dressed differently. Beside that corpse lay a blood smeared, silvery long sword with a leather wrapped grip. He rolled the body over. Paw’s tongueless mouth hung open, his empty eyes glared into the starry skies above. Gudrik lifted him from the surf and carried him up the beach, gently laying him in the dry sand. He picked the wet strands of hair from his face. “You gave everything you could. May you be treated like the hero you are wherever you find yourself,” said Gudrik, closing his eyes. Death was something even Warlock blood could not undo.

  It was clear that from there that the trail led into the ocean. There was no trace of Tabitha, no sign of Pup. From there they could have gone anywhere.

  By that time George, Kahn, Dorian and Malaki had joined Gudrik on the beach. “Is that...?”

  “Aye,” replied Gudrik before George could finish. Everyone lowered their head, but not for long enough to do the fallen warrior justice. Unfortunately there were more pressing matters. “The trail ends here,” reported Gudrik.

  “Like hell it does!” yelled George, “Use your blood, track her!”

  “I can’t!” he yelled frustratedly at her. “Don’t you think I would have already done it if I could?”

  “What, so you can conjure a giant frigging wolf from nothing, but you can’t find a little girl?” she screamed, teetering on her tip-toes and trying to get nose to nose with him. He turned away and walked closer to the water.

  “Spirits are all knowing beings,” explained Kahn, “Aware of everything at all times, there is no need for words like find or search in their language.” Dorian’s phone began to ring and he moved away from the group to answer it.

  “Well we can’t just stand around here scratching our arses all night, they have my daughter,” screamed George. Her outburst was ignored.

  “Where would he take her?” It was clear Kyran was up to his old tricks again, George being left alive was proof of that. If they had intended her dead she would be laying on the beach beside Paw. It was clear he wanted Gudrik to follow, or Tabitha would be dead as well. The Warlock was confident nothing would have happened to her yet. Confident may not have been as good as certain, but it was much better than the alternative. He would either take her somewhere Gudrik was aware of, or send some sort of clue to lure him in.

  “Gudrik, that was Ami,” called Dorian, interrupting his thought. “She says something weird is going on over there. Not long after dark Kyran’s private helicopter arrived at Raven’s Skull Creek.”

  “You can’t be serious Dorian!” cried Malaki dramatically, storming over and yelling in his face. “She obviously used that meet today to distract us. Why do you think she kept us waiting so long? Now you want to go running the second she calls us back. Think with your brain instead of your cock for a second!” he continued frustratedly.

  Dorian instantly saw red and swung his right fist hard into Malaki’s jaw, spinning his head sideways. Malaki in turn drove his shoulder into Dorian’s stomach, tackling him hard to the sand. They rolled around landing punch after punch on each other until both were bruised and bloody. Kahn and Gudrik separated them.

  “Enough bickering!” grunted the Warlock. “Aye, it is certainly a trap, but that does not necessarily secure her guilt. Our options are few and it is more than likely where they would go. So it is all we have to work with. I will end this once and for all, alone. No more lives will be threatened by my actions.”

  He drew his wand and began to bleed himself, but he was sharply interrupted by George grabbing his arm. “She is my daughter; you don’t get to make the decision whether or not I am involved.”

  “There is no way I would allow you to come,” he grumbled.

  “Women may have shut their mouths and done what they were told in your day Gudrik, but today pulling that crap just gets you kicked in the balls.” Gudrik wretched his arm free and finished slashing his hand.

  “You clearly know nothing about the women of my homeland. Kiztarcus.” He drew a long, thin copper needle from the glowing wound on his hand. “Have it your way, but this is going to hurt.”

  George followed Gudrik back to the house with a pale, queasy look on her face while the other three hunted for dry driftwood to build a makeshift funeral pyre for Paw. “She is safe. She is well. Don’t rush the trap. Plan it well,” he told himself over and over again.

  The Warlock used his blood to paint a large wheel of runes on the floor. He removed the needle from his pocket, took one of the final two crystal vials of his blood and turned to George. “Take off your shirt.” George looked at him with a perplexed expression. “If you want to help, then you must do this. Otherwise you will be nothing more than a distraction.”

  Reluctantly she complied with his instructions. George folded the shirt and hung it over a chair. “Turn your back to me and kneel.” Once again she followed his directions. Gudrik cut her bra strap; it sprung apart, exposing her back. George wrapped her arms around her breasts, holding the bra in place and concealing them. Gudrik dipped the point of the stretched, cone shaped needle into the vial of blood and placed his index finger over the tiny hole at its top, sucking a small amount of blood up. Carefully he pierced the delicate skin of her back, leaving a single dot which ran a small trail of purple down her spine. George tensed up. She clenched her teeth and grated them as Gudrik repeated the action over and over again, quickening his pace as he worked. After almost two agonising hours, the deed was done. Gudrik wiped the smear of mingled bloods away; exposing a spiralling collection of blue runes perched between her shoulder blades. He walked around and knelt in front of her, looking intensely into George’s eyes.

  “To give you a collection of blue words would have taken too much time, time we do not have. I have given you one inscription. You shall stay clear of the battle until Tabitha is in sight. Then when the opportunity arises you will grab her and utter these
words. Memorise them, but do not,” Gudrik paused for a moment to emphasise his point, his blue eyes shining into hers. “I repeat do not speak them until the moment you require their use. Svanjanus vindiktus.”

  George repeated the words over and over in her mind, locking them firmly into memory. “Svanjanus vindiktus. Svanjanus vindiktus. Svanjanus vindiktus.”

  The group gathered back on the beach around Paw’s pyre. No words were said. Nothing needed to be said. Everyone knew the man lying before them; no mere words could do his life justice. For seven hundred and thirty seven years he had put the welfare of the group before his own. It was a character trait which had shone right up to his last breath. Kahn simply lit the wood while everyone watched on in silent tribute. The flames engulfed Paw’s body, escorting him from the realm. Gudrik whispered a simple Varth-lokkr chant to guide his spirit from the earth. George hid her eyes. “No you must watch,” said Kahn raising her chin, “Paw needs witnesses to his transition.” The smoke curled gracefully toward the stars.

  Once the hero had been farewelled, the group came together at the foot of the still roaring fire.

  “Ami will join us at the meeting point in about four hours to help us gain access,” said Kahn, “But I couldn’t reach