I was tempted for a second to tell him that I could manage this on my own and that it was my fight and no-one else’s, but I realised that no doubt there were things that he might know or could help me puzzle out. I’d be a fool if I didn’t take him up on his offer of help.

I sat down on top of the dune, but not too close to the ring of stones. Even though I knew that they were just coals, they gave me the creeps. He sat down beside me and stretched out his legs. I started at the beginning, sketching out everything that had happened, including what I’d found out at Perkins and the shadowy CCTV shape that Nick had shown me.

Alex pursed his lips. “I don’t know that I can offer much about who this woman might be. Obviously the fact that she had to break into a local store to get coals means that wherever she’s from, or wherever she came from to here at least, doesn’t have those sorts of materials ready to hand. She must have some magic training though to be able to create a triangulated grid.”

“A what?”

“The runes of seven and the stones here. They form a triangle which would have allowed her to trap your alpha in the middle and hold him. Or summon a terrametus.”

“So we need to destroy the grid so she can’t do it again then!” I stood up and almost jumped towards the ring of stones, picking one up and throwing it towards the sea.

Alex stayed on the sand and shook his head. “The runes and the stones are needed to form the grid but once that is done they aren’t required any longer. The power remains until the creator is killed.”

“So she can still use this at any time to do anything she wants?” Even I could hear the rising panic in my voice.

“Yeah, man, she can. But I can put a warning ward around so if there are any signs of magic or transportations then we’ll know about it.”

I remained deeply unhappy. “But I thought you needed a portal to transport from one plane to another?”

“Portals are more economical with energy, but they’re not great if you want to be a circumspect dude.”

I tried not to roll my eyes at Alex’s ability to use the words ‘circumspect’ and ‘dude’ in the same breath and changed tack. “What do you think the electric screwdriver was for?”

“Now that one I have no clue about it.” He shrugged and stood up, brushing sand from his jeans. I was pretty sure it was a wasted effort. It doesn’t matter what you try to do to keep sand away from you, once it was there in your clothes, it was staying. Even if it had been six months since you’d last visited the beach, somehow, somewhere, sand would still linger. Alex continued, “But there is one thing I can definitely help with.”

I raised my eyebrows hopefully.

“The wichtlein. Give me the stone and I’ll track it for you.”

“But won’t it have disappeared back down whichever hole it came from?”

“Not if the death and destruction it warned of isn’t over yet. And the appearance of the terrametus dude would lead me to believe that it’s not.”

The hope that I’d felt earlier in the police station began to re-surface. “Then what are we waiting for? There’s no time like the present.” The pebble was in a pouch in my backpack so I pulled it out and offered it to him.

“Won’t the Bros want to be involved?” He made no move to take it from me.

“I think I’ve made my feelings about them perfectly clear already.” I hiked my backpack on my shoulders to make it more comfortable and tightened the straps.

“Yeah but they do have mad skills. And if Corrie finds out you’ve been off doing more stuff on your own, he’ll be even more pissed off with you.”

“I’d like to see you try calling him Corrie to his face, Alex. Anyway, he’s not the boss of me and they’re all leaving tomorrow afternoon because they could only commit to three days. And I won’t be alone because you’ll be with me.”

Alex paled slightly.

“Don’t worry,” I said calmly, “I’ll keep you safe. And no fighting, I promise.”

Unfortunately a cloud took that moment to pass over the moon and throw a shadow over us. It didn’t exactly boost Alex’s look of confidence. I didn’t want to wait any longer, however, because if too much time passed then the trail might go cold. I held the stone out to him again and tried my best puppy dog eyes.

He grimaced, and took it from me. “Fine. Just don’t look at me like that again – I don’t need to be any more scared than I already am.”

Chapter Thirteen

Using his index finger, Alex held the wichtlein pebble in the palm of his hand and circled it several times. A smoky blue snake of light escaped from it, just as before with the shape of the woman. This time it wound its way into the wood, heading away from the beach. Without saying anything further, we followed it.

It took us along the path that led to the keep for a few hundred metres before curving to the right – and the eastern perimeter where I’d last seen John. We ended up being forced to pitch into the tangled undergrowth.

“Your trailing spell doesn’t pick easy routes to follow, does it?” I was suddenly starting to feel very tired. It felt like such a long time since I’d had any proper rest, and I was well aware of the continuing ache in my side. As far as my memory went, the fight with Anton could have been last week for all that had happened since, however the pain in my body reminded me that it had just been that morning.

Behind me, Alex gasped in exertion. “It’s not GPS, dude. It doesn’t conveniently pick the nearest motorway to drive along.”

The blue snake took that moment to decide to dive through a patch of nettles. Great. So far, I’d been cut by briars, beaten up by Anton and Theresa, attacked by a giant horned quake beast, chewed out by Nick, almost killed by Corrigan and now I was trying to commit death by stinging plants in the middle of night. Oh yeah, and John was still dead.

Alex muttered further complaints from behind me. “Get with the programme, surfer boy,” I said, trying not to snap. “We’re going to follow this if it kills us.” Under my breath I cursed that it just might.

The wood around us was alive with the sounds of the night fauna. A midge buzzed by my ear and I slapped at it in irritation as I ploughed behind Alex’s blue trail. I wasn’t happy about being eaten alive on top of everything else. Then, without warning, I found myself being forced to steady my body briefly against a tree as a light wave of dizziness caught me unawares.

“Feeling tired, human girl?” There was definitely a note of sulky petulance in Alex’s voice. I gritted my teeth and pushed myself away from the tree, carrying on into the wood and ignoring him. If we could catch the wichtlein then it would all be worth it. I just prayed that we found it soon or I wasn’t sure that I’d manage to stay conscious for long enough to do anything.

After what seemed like an age later, we came to a stream. The trail passed directly over it and I felt my heart sink. Oh for fuck’s sake. I placed one foot into the icy water and gasped as I felt it seep slowly through my trainer. The stones underneath were slimy and slippery and, even though it was only about calf deep and two metres wide, it took everything I had to get across. I tried desperately to find my bloodfire so I could heat it up and fire it through my body but even my insides felt dull and damp. By the time I reached the other side of the stream I was panting with exertion. Sweat clung to my forehead as I struggled to stay upright.

And then I heard something. I clutched Alex’s arm behind me and pointed, holding my breath. There, just up ahead and not far from the clearing of a few days ago, sat what I was suddenly sure was a wichtlein. It was eating something, gnawing at it with sharp teeth that gleamed in the moonlight. I tried not to look too hard on whatever it had decided to snack on for dinner and instead focused on the fact that I finally felt a flicker of heat in the pit of my stomach and the surge of imminent success.

It appeared to be about two feet high and was completely covered in inky dark fur. It had a pointed nose and clawed fingers that were gripping its evening meal whilst behind it lay a short stubby tail. I was fairly certain that with its underground habits it was bound to be almost, if not completely, blind. That meant that its hearing would overcompensate for this shortcoming. Even the slightest rustle would warn it of our approach. So how to get close enough to catch it without scaring it off? I certainly didn’t want to harm it – well, not yet anyway. I needed to find out what it knew and if it had targeted John specifically. As a harbinger, maybe it even knew exactly what was going on and who the blue cloaked bitch was. I was very much aware that I might not get another shot so I had to make this count.

Thoughtfully, I ran through a mental checklist of the tools in my backpack. There was definitely a rope in there somewhere. I wondered if I’d be able to lasso the creature from this distance. My line of sight was clear enough to swing it through and hook round the wichtlein’s body but I didn’t dare take another step towards it in case it heard me, and I wasn’t sure the rope I had would reach it from this distance anyway. Could I even unzip my backpack to find the rope quietly enough? Damnit. But then, I remembered that Alex was here too and that I was still gripping his arm tightly. I could perhaps use him somehow. If I could send him round to the other side of the wichtlein, where he’d be upwind of it, then it might smell him and run in my direction. Then I could nab it.

I released my grip on his arm and half-turned towards him, motioning with my hands that he should move back out of the stream the way we’d come, and skirt round to the other side of wichtlein. He looked confused and I felt a spark of exasperation. Hadn’t he ever watched any war films for goodness’ sake? I tried again, making two little feet motions with two fingers and pointing round the surrounding to the back of the little creature. Unfortunately at this point I’d forgotten that he was still stood in the stream. He shifted his weight slightly to see where I was pointing towards and, at that moment, slipped and landed with an almighty splash on his back.