I chewed my lip. The longer I hung around in indecision, the less power the Cairns’ portal would hold. I looked over at the hazy figure of the long-haired man who’d called me flower and made up my mind, pushing myself away from the relative comfort and safety of the stoned passage-way and walking slowly back towards his direction.
Pasting a smile on my face, I called out to him. “Hey, mate, any chance you have a phone I could borrow?”
“What do you need a phone for, flower? Let’s hang back and enjoy the moment and forget the outside world.” His voice trailed off and, as I got closer to him, I realised just how unfocused his eyes were. I fought the urge to slap him around the head a few times.
“I…uh…need to call my sister. She promised she’d be here but I can’t find her. I’ll give you money for the call – it’ll only take a minute.” I gazed at him beseechingly.
He blinked at me slowly. “Well, sure then, flower.”
He reached into the side pocket of his stained yellow windbreaker and fumbled around for a few moments. I had to fight the urge to push his hand out of the way and find it for myself, despite whatever communicable disease I might pick up in the process.
“Hey, did you see that freaky blue light? This Winter Solstice is rocking, man!”
I just stared at him. He shrugged amiably and finally pulled out his phone, holding it out. I snatched it out of his hand before he changed his mind and stared down at it for a moment. Alex would probably know what to do but I wasn’t convinced I could trust him now that all the mages were involved. Not that I could blame him for that; his first loyalty would have to be to the Ministry and I got that. It didn’t help me much though. There was someone else I could call though.
I took a deep breath and dialed, jabbing out the numbers without thinking about it any further, and hoping that the right person answered.
It took some time before someone picked up. Well, it was around five o’clock in the morning although that didn’t stop my impatience from sending pinpricks of tension across my body. I was aware that the phone’s owner was watching me with his head cocked, a lazy grin on his face, so I turned away and took a few steps in the other direction.
Finally a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi.” I coughed slightly, trying to disguise my voice. “I need to speak to Johannes. It’s important.”
“Huh? It’s the middle of the freaking night.” It was a girl’s voice, sounded like Ally but I wasn’t completely sure. At least it wasn’t Anton.
“Yeah, like I said it’s important,” I repeated.
Ally muttered something and put the receiver down. I turned round and looked at the stoned yellow windbreaker guy who was still watching me. I gave him a strained smile and held up two fingers.
It seemed like an age before someone picked up the phone again.
“Yeah?”
Thank fuck. It was Johannes.
“J, I don’t have much time. I need your help.”
“Mack? Far are ye? Whit’s going on?”
The comfort of hearing a familiar voice almost overwhelmed me. “J, I need to find out if I can get an old portal opened. I don’t have much time.”
“Whit happened tae ye? Ye disappeared! Thae Brethren’s efter ye, ye know?”
“I know, I know, J. I’ll explain some other time. Please, the portal?”
“Whit kin’ is it?”
“It’s an old one. Centred around a cairn that’s only really got power during the solstice. That’s…”
“Now,” he interrupted. “Hol’ on.”
I could hear him talking to someone in the background and felt my stomach muscles tighten. I didn’t want to involve more people than I absolutely had to. I could hear the phone being passed to someone else.
“Mackenzie? Where are you? What happened to you?”
A pain rose in my throat as I fought to hold back my tears. “Julia. Are you…are you okay?” The last time I’d seen here she’d been lying unconscious and fighting for her life – and there’d been nothing I could do about it.
“I’m fine. In a wheelchair, admittedly, but I’m fine. Why did you leave?”
I struggled to explain. “Anton, he…I…”
The voice on the other end of the line was grim. “Yes, that’s what we thought. You didn’t have to leave, Mackenzie. We would have helped you.”
“It was for the best, Julia. I had no choice. I…I miss you.” The cloud of tears threatened to spill over and I had to fight hard to maintain my composure. “I don’t have much time though. I need your help.”
She became all business-like. “Yes, a portal? At a cairn site?”
“Yes. I need to know if it can be opened. I don’t have much time before dawn hits and I don’t think it’ll have any power at all left then. I need to…” I took a deep breath. “I need to get through it.”
“Do you know where it leads? You know how dangerous portals are, Mackenzie. It could go anywhere. It could open up in the demesnes of anything.”
“I know, and, no, I don’t know where it leads but I don’t have any choice right now, Julia. Please, help me.”
“Okay, okay. Johannes?” I could hear more muttering before she came back on the line. “Right, this is what you need to do. If the portal is still active, there will be one stone marked with a rune. You need to touch it with both hands and say the incantation.”
“And what’s the incantation?”
“That will depend on whoever built it, dear. Is it a human cairn?”
“I think so. Around four thousand years old. In…” I hesitated for a moment because I didn’t want to give too much information away in case Julia would be compelled at some point in the future to give it up. “In Scotland.”
“In that case, you’ll need to try the Gaelic for open. I don’t know if that will work, but it’s worth a try.”
I kept my voice calm. “Do you know what the Gaelic for open might be?”
“I don’t speak Gaelic, dear.”
“Can you find out? Does Johannes know?”
I could hear Julia asking Johannes in the background, and heard him answer in the negative. Shit.
Julia came back on. “If you hold on, we can find out. I’ll just get the computer up and running. There’ll be a translation website we can find. Mackenzie…” Her voice stopped abruptly as I heard someone else’s voice suddenly appear in the background, demanding to know what was going on. I swallowed hard as I recognised the deep timbre.
“Lord Anton, it’s an old friend,” came Julia’s firm voice.
Lord Anton? John had never demanded that we use the pack honorific to address him. I wondered if Anton was feeling the need to assert his authority because he wasn’t naturally receiving the respect that he thought he deserved in his new position as alpha.
“And who might that be?”
Despite the distance, I could hear Anton’s voice loud and clear. He’d use his Voice on the pair of them and find out who I really was. It wouldn’t go well for them. I decided a pre-emptive strike was my only option.
“Put him on, Julia,” I said calmly.
“Wait…”
“Just do it.” I didn’t like ordering Julia around. After all, she’d been my alpha, even if it had only been for a short period. But I couldn’t let Anton decide to punish her for my actions.
The receiver clunked faintly as it was passed over. “Who is this?” demanded Anton.
“It’s me, Anton. Mackenzie.”
There was a moment of silence before he replied with a dangerously quiet voice. “Mack, I thought I had made my feelings clear.”
“You didn’t tell me I couldn’t call up for a chat, Anton.”
“I would have thought it wasn’t necessary to make that explicit. And it’s Lord Anton to you.”
“Not any more. I’m not part of the pack, remember?” I couldn’t resist taunting him.
“Of course you’re not. That’s why you’re out there on your own without a friend in the world.”
I balled my fists up. The wanker. Irritated heat flashed up through my veins. “Now you know who this is, can you put Julia back on the phone? We have some catching up to do.” I was impressed at how even my voice managed to sound.
“Actually, no, Mack, I don’t think I will do that. It’s 5 o’clock in the morning. My pack need their sleep. Don’t call here again.”
“Anton, wait, I…”
He hung up the phone. I cursed loudly, causing several of the solstice hippies to glance over in my direction. The yellow windbreaker guy was staring at me. I dug into my jeans pocket and pulled out a crumpled note, passing it over to him with his phone.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Any time, flower. Did you find your sister?”
I ignored him, aware that I was being rude but unable to muster up the energy to care, and walked back towards the back of the cairn, then paused suddenly and turned round.
“What’s the Gaelic for open?”
“Huh?” He looked baffled.
“The Gaelic for…” I gave up. “Never mind,” and turned back towards the stones. These so-called druids were just here for show, it would be stupid to think that they’d actually know anything about the real history and culture of the place. Let’s face it, Yellow Anorak had a state of the art mobile phone and probably a job in the city. I doubted he really knew anything even remotely helpful about the reality of the Cairns or the culture behind them.
“Hey!” he shouted from behind me.
I ignored him and kept walking.
“It’s oscail.”
I paused and turned back. He was holding his phone aloft and beaming. Of course, a state of the art mobile phone would be able to access the internet, even here in the middle of nowhere. I felt immediately guilty for dismissing him so readily and for, again, being so quick to judge. The kindness of strangers… I smiled my thanks at him and jogged back, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.