Chapter 22 #2
For what seemed like a long while, he watched their movements.
At one stage a vampiric male, a dark cloak over his belted tunic, came out through the main gate of the walled palace on horseback.
He had the characteristic darker hue to his skin and raven black hair of a Kominsky.
The vampire gesticulated and was clearly barking orders.
Carts and bullocks carrying stone rumbled through the gates and then the vampire turned and rode away.
Meanwhile, the grimaalds kept working, building up the hill at alarming speed.
Oliver was contemplating whether he could fly closer, to gain a better view of the palatial structure that lay inside those high walls, when he felt a weakness descending on him. A heaviness in his body, like his energy was draining.
Holy fuck, he’d let curiosity get the better of common sense.
Whatever magick had allowed him to fly into this realm, it was weakening, and since he had no idea what had happened to allow him access, he had no idea if he could make it back.
He turned, claws scrabbling on the branch and, with a deep breath, unfurled his wings and headed in the direction of Motham, his flight becoming clumsier and more labored by the minute
Shit. Was he going to make it back? He was above Tween now, and it looked more substantial, less ghostly than before.
Which no doubt meant his tethering to this other dimension was weakening.
With desperate effort, gritting his teeth and pushing hard against the wind, Oliver forced his wings to carry him on, even as he sank lower and lower to the ground.
Desperately he headed for the rooftops of Motham and the taller buildings of the Hole In The Wall.
He would head there, he decided, rather than try for the gates of the city. It was marginally closer.
With a last-ditch effort, he crash landed in a rather ungainly heap on the pile of rubble where the gap in the wall had originally formed. At least here he could climb over the bricks and dust into the city, but it would still take him a good half hour to walk home.
Standing and shaking himself out, he looked down and saw that, thank fuck, he was back in human form.
His relief was sullied by the fact that his yoga pants and tee were in shreds and covered in dirt.
Cool air flowed around his exposed shoulders.
The back of his tee had been torn asunder when his wings burst through. He must look like a fucking mess.
Clearly it was still early. The usually busy trading area was quiet, the shop keepers only just opening their shutters.
It felt like he’d been gone for hours, but in reality, barely any time had passed here at all.
As he walked, he tried to make sense of what had happened.
This was crazy. Mind bending. He’d been perfectly visible when he left Clare’s apartment, hadn’t he?
And suddenly it struck him.
Clare’s blood.
Drinking Clare’s blood had turned him invisible.
He almost palmed his forehead. Of course it must hold magickal properties.
Look how it had made his wounds disappear in less than a minute.
Human blood was healing, sure, but never that fast. He should have known Clare’s blood was magickal as soon as the first mouthful hit his tongue.
It was better than any other blood he’d tasted, like a fucking elixir of the gods.
He’d just thought it was a century of abstinence that made it taste so good.
He’d felt invincible, ecstatic even—and soon after, he’d turned invisible.
Except, if that was the case, why hadn’t it happened straight away?
He racked his brains. Then it came to him.
It was only after he’d gone into a deep meditative state that the change had happened.
Could that be the key? Was there some kind of trance or magickal state that needed to be evoked, that he had inadvertently stumbled on?
Was it the meditation, or chanting the Hale mantra, combined with Clare’s blood?
Holy gods of the heavens.
What if she shared the same blood group as the missing humans? AOx positive.
His invisibility.
Matteus’s invisibility.
Even that fucking grimaald that had attacked him had been a mere shadow, before it lost whatever weird magick it was harnessing.
It required AOx positive blood, didn’t it?
As he strode toward Clare’s apartment, Oliver’s mind pieced together the pieces in the jigsaw.
In the town of Tween there were a cluster of humans with AOx positive blood.
Whatever was in it, that blood possessed superpowers, powers that the Kominskys wanted, and were using to build a sinister dimension parallel to the valley lands.
Fear tightened his chest. Had Matteus scented Clare? Had he already worked out her blood type? If so, she was in grave danger.
If Clare shared the same blood group as the victims, she could be abducted without him or anyone else having a clue how to get her back.
They had to test her blood, urgently. And that wasn’t going to happen at Tween fucking clinic, was it?
There was just one person in Motham who had that level of expertise.
Waldo the warlock.
There was no time to lose. He would do whatever it took to keep his beloved safe.
Beloved.
Oliver halted in his tracks for a bare second, his breath catching in his throat.
Beloved—the vampiric word for one’s mate.
It was so much more than Clare’s blood that he yearned for, wasn’t it?
He couldn’t begin to face up to the implications of that right now.
Instead, Oliver did the only thing he could in human form. He broke into a run.