Page 51

Chapter 51

All that Blood Had to Go Somewhere

I’d never understood why Temper had been so determined to drink the blood of his newfound home dry. I’d assumed there must be something addictive about it, or perhaps that wherever he’d come from, kangaroos happened to be the most bloodthirsty creatures imaginable. I suppose I should’ve given more thought to the particularities of the Pandoral spell I’d used to summon him here, seeking out a creature who for some reason wanted to be transformed into something other than what nature had intended. ‘Blood-sucking kangaroo’ had seemed a poor choice to me, but out there on that field, surrounded by far too many enemies, my only friends vastly outnumbered, I finally learned that blood hadn’t been Temper’s desire, but rather what blood could give him on this realm that it couldn’t in his own.

Blood magic, as I may have mentioned, is the only form of wonderism native to the Mortal realm. Everything else draws on the physics of other planes of reality. Galass had been hampered in her training both from a lack of available mentors in the art as well as rather too benign a nature. Temper, as it turned out, did not suffer from the latter. Turns out, there’s a lot you can do once you’ve ingested enough blood from humans, Aurorals and Infernals.

‘By the Void,’ Corrigan swore, fighting to stay conscious long enough to witness this particular. . . well, miracle doesn’t quite feel like the right word.

‘Are those — ?’ Galass stopped herself, realising that if anyone was going to keep Corrigan alive it would have to be her.

‘Magnificent,’ said Alice with far less jealousy than I would’ve expected under the circumstances.

What had first appeared to be Temper exploding had been only the first part of his transformation. A fine mist of blood had sprayed from his every pore, clouding the air in a scarlet haze. Only when we felt the first aftershock, like the gust of a hurricane so powerful it not only banished the blood-mist, but knocked the nearest ranks of attackers off their feet, did we see what he’d become. Temper leaped into the air, far higher than should be possible, even with his formidable hind legs. Then came a second gust as the massive wings that had bloomed from his back beat once more, sending him even higher.

‘The wings,’ Aradeus began, as mystified as we all were, ‘are they made of — ?’

‘Blood,’ Alice finished for him. ‘Not even among the Infernal beasts has such a thing been witnessed in millennia. The artform for manifesting bloodwings was lost long ago, as was that of conjuring bloodfire.’

‘Bloodfire?’ Hamun asked, standing next to his mother and not looking nearly terrified enough for a small boy. ‘What’s that?’

He was answered a moment later when the Auroral forces tried to attack Temper. Their arrogant trumpets were answered by a crimson gout of flaming droplets of blood that disintegrated everything they touched. Angelics and Glorians screamed as they died, some trying with their last breaths to turn and attack the Infernals, who’d had the sense to step back from that fight.

We stayed like that a while, watching Temper obliterate our enemies, sounding his traditional battle cry between each blast of bloodfire. I could already tell it wouldn’t be long before all the blood he’d ingested to create this rather foul and clearly evil form of wonderism would be used up, but he was a smart kangaroo, so I was pretty sure he’d keep enough in reserve that we’d still have a rather nasty rejoinder to make when Tenebris inevitably came over to try to threaten us into submission.

That’s when negotiations would begin in earnest.