I could tell by the tightening around the older woman’s mouth that she disapproved. “And they let you?”

Feeling rather irritated by now, I sounded sharper than I intended to. “Well, they didn’t ask me if I was a dragon first, if that’s what you mean.”

Then I realised what I’d said and cast a quick worried glance down at Aubrey. I’d been trying to keep my Draco Wyr identity secret from him. Just in case he did indeed somehow end up back with the slimy vamps after all. Fortunately, however, he seemed more focused on still trying to push himself to an upright position and didn’t appear to have heard. Although it was difficult to tell considering he still looked like a giant penguin.

“That’s not what I meant at all. You shouldn’t have done it, Mackenzie, you really shouldn’t.”

“Donating my blood might help people, Mrs. Alcoon. Really help them.”

“It’s not people that concern me, dear, it’s you. You shouldn’t be doing that kind of thing.”

“Why not?” I put my hands on my hips. She actually seemed rather angry, for probably the first time since I’d ever known her.

“Feck’s sake, girl,” butted in Slim, “it doesn’t take a genius to work out why.”

“They’re human,” I said tiredly. “They’re not going to be able to tell anything from my blood whatsoever. They’ll give it to some sick kids who just might end up getting a hell of a lot better. What’s wrong with that?”

Mrs. Alcoon didn’t answer. There was a troubled expression in her eyes though. “Will you please not do that again, Mackenzie? At least until…well, just please don’t do it again for a few months.”

I looked at her suspiciously. “Is this some kind of precognition thing you’ve got going on?”

“Mackenzie, dear…”

I threw my hands up in the air. She could be a stubborn biddy when she wanted to be. “Fine! I can’t donate blood again anyway for another four months even if I wanted to.”

“Good.” Satisfied, she turned away. “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Who wants one?”

Nobody answered. Even Aubrey seemed to have stopped his writhing on the floor for the time being. “Excellent,” she said, more to herself than to any of us. “I’ll brew a big pot for us all.”

I rolled my eyes, and glanced over at Slim. He was hovering in the air, little wings flapping at his back, and watching the old lady go with a speculative look on his face.

“Slim?”

“Hmmm?”

“Have you found anything?”

“Eh?”

“Have you found anything out about Endor?”

Aubrey started making strange noises. He appeared to be rolling around on the floor with increased vigour. I ignored him.

“No.”

I stared at him. “What? That’s it? Just ‘no’?”

He shrugged. “There’s nothing. No books. Nothing that fecking gives any clue as to who he really is or where he’s come from.”

“What about necromancy in general?”

“It’s a nasty business and you shouldn’t do it.”

“For fuck’s sake, Slim…”

He scratched unhappily underneath the scarf concealing his nether regions from the delicate sensibilities of Mrs. Alcoon in a gesture that, while really rather off-putting, also hinted at the frustration he felt at uncovering absolutely nothing. “There’s nothing new. I can’t fecking help you.”

“The mages’ library at the academy…?”

“Exactly the same. Whoever your Endor is, he’s managed to stay out of the Otherworld limelight.”

Sodding hell. It was as if he was some kind of ghost. I rubbed my forehead tiredly and wondered when on earth we were going to get a break. Aubrey broke into my thoughts by moaning again from within his penguin suit. Tired of watching him flail around, I reached down and gave him a helping hand back to his feet. Using his two massive wings, he started pointing and jumping up and down. Maybe he had ants in his pants or something.

“Okay then,” I said to Slim, all business-like and trying to find some way of getting hold of even a tiny scrap of useful information. “How about what he’s planning to do? We know from the Batibat that he is going after the four elements. We just don’t know which one he’s going for next or how he’s going to try and harness it. Can you look for anything to do with that?”

Slim nodded grudgingly. He seemed embarrassed that his beloved books had come up short thus far. At least it meant he had a strong impetus to keep attempting to discover something valid.

There was a sudden loud thump as Aubrey succeeded in pulling off the penguin head all by himself but, in doing so, fell clumsily against a nearby bookshelf. His cheeks were bright red and he was breathing with heavy exertion.

“You’re not listening to me!”

The pair of us just looked at him. I gestured for him to speak.

“I said I know someone who knows Endor,” he exclaimed.

My eyes widened. “What? Why the fuck didn’t you say something before?”

He flapped his wings against his body. “I did! You weren’t listening!”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. “Where is this person?”

“I’ve not just been hiding under a rock for the last four days, you know. I’ve been trying to help, Mack,” he said, not answering the question.

“Aubrey,” I started, the warning audible in my tone.

“I tried to see what I could find out about him. You know, talk to some of my old contacts, that kind of thing. At great personal risk to myself, I might add. I wore a wolf’s head and told them I’d lost a bet with a shapeshifter. If they’d tried to make me take it off though…”

“Aubrey!”

“I mean, really, I was being incredibly brave. I found this one guy, a Fae, after days of hunting and managed to learn from him that there are people who know who Endor is and where he can be found. Just because they don’t move in your circles, doesn’t mean they don’t exist, you know.”

“AUBREY!”

He looked at me. “What?”

“Who?”

“Huh?”

I gritted my teeth. “Who is it? Who knows Endor? Tell me now or, so help me God, I will not be responsible for my actions!”

“Oh,” he cocked his head to one side. “A Fae. An UnSeelie Fae by the name of Tarn. Runs a nightclub over in Soho called Circle. Poncey place, if you ask me.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I glanced at Slim. “Tell Mrs. Alcoon I’m sorry about the tea but that I have to go.”

He grunted. Then a thought struck me and I turned back to Aubrey. “That’s amazingly helpful information, you know. We’ve been trying to find something concrete about him since we got back to London. You’re the only person who’s managed to come up with anything. Well done.”

Aubrey blinked several times. Then he started to sniff, and his eyes became visibly glassy. He let out a small hiccup. Before he descended into full blown hysterics, I wisely took my leave. I’d done enough crying of my own recently. I didn’t need to watch anyone else do the same, even if it was for a happy reason.

Chapter Eight

I checked my watch as I barrelled out of Clava Books and sprinted back home, feeling a burst of sudden renewed energy from Aubrey’s intelligence. It was still early evening so that meant that there was plenty of time to prepare myself. Nightclubs weren’t generally my thing, and Unseelie Fae nightclubs even less. If I was going to inveigle my way inside and get hold of this Tarn, then I had to be ready for every eventuality. The promise of what could finally be a real lead on Endor’s whereabouts had set my bloodfire tingling. I smiled to myself as I unlocked my shiny red front door. It was about time things started to go my way.

Once inside, I quickly plonked myself down at the kitchen table with my laptop, lifting the lid and logging on to the Othernet. As promised, as soon I was connected, huge warning signs and plaintives requesting information about Endor popped up. At least the other council members were doing something right. A photo and caption towards the bottom of the page caught my eye and I frowned, clicking on it. As soon as I did so, a vast photo of Corrigan flashed up. My eyes lingered on it. He was wearing dark trousers and a green shirt that highlighted the jade of his eyes. My stomach squirmed. Quashing down those feelings as best as I could, I scrolled down, staring in horror at what was written there.

Our very own Lord Alpha, pictured here at a local fundraising event, seems to have gotten himself into a rather fiery situation. After disappearing for a few days, apparently into the wilds of rural Shropshire, he was spotted with an as yet unnamed redhead. Word is that the draconian Brethren leader was smitten. That is until she unceremoniously – and very publicly - gave him the old heave-ho. A lesser man may have burst into flames of eternal embarrassment at the snub. Not so our dark-haired were-panther, however, as the very day after he was spotted with a brand new squeeze. No doubt the mysterious redhead is spitting fire at his fast recovery.

Fucking hell. Seriously fucking hell. I let out an inarticulate yell into the screen and I could feel little explosions of heat flaring up through my intestines. This wasn’t just some inane piece of gossip from a tawdry Otherworld blogger. It was effectively calling me out. ‘Fiery situation’? ‘Draconian brethren leader’? Oh, this self-styled journalist was going to see exactly just how much fire I really was capable of spitting out if I caught up to them. It now appeared that the whole fucking world was about to know about my Draco Wyr heritage. The only thing that this spelled was trouble. Why the fuck couldn’t this have happened after Endor was taken care of? Not only was there the chance that the necromancer himself might read it and I’d lose any element of surprise I could have had when I finally tracked him down, transformed into a dragon and bit his sorry little head off, but now I’d have all manner of idiots wanting to know more about me. The way that even the Arch-Mage and the Summer Queen had behaved before the events at Haughmond Hill, with their determination to follow me around and encourage my allegiance to them, had been sickening. I didn’t need it from every other Tom, Dick and Otherworld Harry at the same time. And that wasn’t even to mention the mysterious ‘they’ who’d been after my mother, or rather me, in order to theoretically rid the world of the Draco Wyr line once and for all. I thought of Iabartu and what she had tried to do and thumped the table in bitter frustration. I did not fucking need this.