Текст книги "The Sweet Scent of Blood"

Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The door to Spellcrackers was locked. I pressed my finger to the intercom, tapping my foot with impatience.

‘Spellcrack—’ came a voice.

‘Toni, it’s me,’ I called, cutting her off.

‘Oh hi, Genny, hold on. I’ll buzz you in.’

There was a click and I shoved open the door and dashed in. Toni stared down at me from the top of the stairs. She was eye-catchingly bright in a slim cerise sundress and purple bolero jacket, her pink and purple hair extensions curling like they belonged on the Medusa. I ran up, taking the treads two at a time.

‘Hold on, Honeybee,’ Toni laughed, ‘what’s all the rush for? You’re not supposed to be at work until tomorrow.’

‘Sorry, Toni,’ I gasped, ‘can’t stop. Have to see Finn.’

She caught my arm, a sly grin on her face. ‘You found out about his tail yet?’

‘Later, okay?’ I shook her hand off, tried to squeeze past her.

‘Hey, no problem.’ She winked and moved to let me through. ‘You’ll find the horny sex god in his office. ‘I’m just going to double-check the entrance, those kids are driving—’

I raced to the end of the corridor and flung the door wide open. Finn was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped on a couple of box files.

‘There’s a spell,’ I gasped, slapping my hands on his desk, ‘a real nasty one, and someone’s tagged you with it!’

‘Hello, Gen.’ He swivelled his chair round to face me.

‘It’s to do with the vampires, lets them steal power from us—’ I could hardly get the words out fast enough.

He ran a hand through his hair and scratched behind his left horn. ‘Why are you here, Gen? I left a message on your phone to stay away.’

‘Dammit, Finn, didn’t you hear what I just said?’

‘Yes, I heard.’ Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Fuck. He so didn’t look so good. I looked. The mist clung to him like a thick second skin. ‘Shit, it’s all over you!’

He pushed himself out of his chair and stood up. ‘I know all about the spell, Gen,’ he said, sounding tired.

I blinked. ‘You do?’

He came up to me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I felt it earlier, when I tried to pull that stunt on Helen: something draining at me, sucking me dry. I didn’t realise what it was then.’

My heart thudded against my ribs. Mick said the spell only killed faelings. Finn was fae. What if Mick was wrong? Swallowing back my fear, I wrapped my hand round Finn’s wrist. His skin was hot and clammy. I slid gold tendrils of magic into him, searching.

‘Finn, I think I can callthe spell, take it from—’

He gave me a sad smile. ‘It’s too late Gen.’ He lifted my chin with his forefinger and touched his mouth gently to mine. ‘Way too late.’

Jagged thorns ripped through my heart, bled grief like acid juice. In the far reaches of his mind, a desolate wind scoured all before it.

Damn.What was he doing—why was he fighting me? Didn’t he know I was trying to help?

I built a hedge of golden hope to keep the wind out.

Sliding my hand round Finn’s neck, I pulled him down. ‘Don’t fight me, Finn.’ I pressed my lips to his, spilling my Glamour into his mouth. ‘I know how to—’

Something stung my upper arm.

Yelping, I jerked away. A pinprick of blood spotted my skin. Eyes wide, I looked at him.

‘What the—?’

‘I’m sorry, Gen.’

‘Sorry?’ I frowned, bemused, glanced at the blood again. Then back at him.

He held up something that looked like a short pen. ‘I wasn’t fighting you.’ His voice was dull.

I couldn’t feel my arm, couldn’t move it. There was no pain, just spreading numbness. And then I knew what it was. He’d injected me with iron filings. They’d slip through my body, numbing me as they went, until they reached my brain ... and I’d be unconscious—or maybe worse ...

I stared at him, speechless, and lost my hold on the magic.

The wind screamed against the golden hedge, turned it brittle with despair. The mist escaped like grey smoke swirling into the sky.

Horror sliced through me. He’d been containing the spell, and now he’d let it go. Finn’s face wavered, then doubled. I gazed at the two of him disappearing into the mist as the greyness filled the room.

He touched my cheek. ‘You really shouldn’t have come looking for me. You should’ve gone to Hugh. You’d have been safe there.’

Safe?My lips tried to form the question. The room tilted as I felt his arms wrap around me, then he lowered me to the floor.

‘I didn’t want to hurt you, my Lady.’ His eyes swam through the grey. Only they weren’t the moss-green I knew; there was something wrong with them. They were like algae-covered pools, waiting to suck me down. Then his tears splashed emerald chips into the greyness.

I tried to catch them with my fingers.

Green stems pushed their way into the fog, seeking for something to hold onto.

‘Oh good, hon, you’ve done it.’ The voice was female, brisk.

The fog closed over the stems, hid them from my Sight.

‘Did you inject her over the heart?’ the voice said.

‘You should’ve let me stun her.’ Finn’s voice was harsh. ‘This is too dangerous.’

‘No. This way is better. If you’d stunned her, she might have crackedit before you’d hit her—much too risky. She’s been iffy with magic lately. Too much salt in her diet.’

I had to banish the fog. I had to find the stems.

Gold light flared, formed trembling tendrils that curled into the greyness. One green shoot crept its way up through the fog.

‘I told you, she’s too strong. Even half out of it, she’s trying to use her Glamour. It has to be the heart. Lift up her top.’

‘No, I won’t.’ But it was more a plea than a determined denial.

‘Finn, there’s no way you can gainsay me, not with the spells I’ve tagged you with, so stop fighting and just get on with it.’

Pink and purple streamers slithered through the grey, twisting over and along the fragile green stem. The stem shivered and struggled and writhed in pain, trying to be free. But the streamers wrapped around and around, until there was nothing but a thrashing nest of brightly coloured snakes.

Feverish fingers traced over my skin.

‘That’s it, do it there. I’ll hold her down.’ Weight pressed against my ribs. ‘Sorry, Honeybee, but this is going to hurt like the Nine Circles of Hell.’

The sting was a tiny, distant pain. She’d been wrong. Somewhere I laughed.

The fog bloomed with golden flowers.

Then cold iron filled my chest.

And the flowers withered.

Chapter Forty

My inner vamp sense told me sunset had long gone and night was here. My eyeballs felt like they’d been rubbed with sandpaper and my lids stuck together with Super Glue. Fear made my pulse jump in my throat. It jagged with pain. I lay frozen and listened.

I could hear a faint noise: shallow, fast breaths.

My heart pounded as my eyes snapped open. I stared, fearful, at the fuzzy greyness. Mouth dry, I blinked and the greyness resolved itself into a carved rock ceiling. Wincing, I slowly turned my head towards the light. There was a door about five feet away, steel, like the ones at the Bloody Shamrock. I sniffed, and caught a whiff of earthy dampness. I was in a cave, somewhere underground.

Why couldn’t I remember what had happened?

I tried to sieve the confusion from my mind.

Venom fizzed through my veins, but its usual lust-hyped high was muted; my body felt like one big bruise. And I could smell blood. Had I been caught feeding? Was that why I felt like I’d been in a slugfest with a horde of Beater goblins? My stomach clenched in hunger and I ran my tongue over my fangs in anticipation—only I didn’t have fangs, just teeth. Confusion slipped back into fear. Had I become so melded with the Alter Vamp spell that I no longer knew which body I wore? The blood snagged at my senses again. It smelled of sour blackberries.

And memory rushed back like a charging troll, smashing my fears into insignificant pieces.

Finn was somewhere nearby.

Toni the bitch witch had tagged Finn with the spell, and tied it with some sort of compulsion magic—no way would he poison me with cold iron. I visualised Toni’s face, compared it with the photo Psycho Louis had shown me. Now I knew what I was looking for I could see the similarities. Toni might have lost a lot of weight, but her eyebrows and nose were still the same.

‘Gen?’ Finn’s voice was quiet, hardly more than a whisper.

I slowly turned towards his voice. The cave room went back almost thirty feet, the ceiling sloping down to meet the floor at the end. In the gloom I could make out a body. Finn.

‘Gen?’ The anxious whisper came again.

I tried to say his name, but all I managed was a croak. I touched my sore throat. There was a swollen lump the size of a golf ball. Shit.Whichever sucker Toni had palled up with, they’d sunk their fangs into me.

I checked out my arms. I had three other bite marks: one on my right wrist and the others at the pulse points inside my elbows. I wrinkled my nose at the map of blue veins wriggling under my skin. The suckers had almost bled me dry.

No wonder I felt so depleted.

At least I still had my clothes on. I’d only been venomfucked, nothing else.

‘Are you okay?’ Finn’s voice was louder.

‘Yeah,’ I whispered. ‘Give me a sec.’

I rolled onto my front, got my hands flat underneath me.

‘Gen, I want you to come here to me.’

The words hit me like a hard promise, raised shivers over my skin. I got up onto my elbows and rested my head on my forearms for a moment, then dragged my legs up until I was on my knees. Panting, I peered down towards Finn. I caught the emerald gleam of his eyes.

‘C’mon, Gen. I’m waiting.’

Lust twisted sharp thorns in my belly, venom fizzed in my veins and both drew a painful gasp from my mouth. I started crawling, my hands and denim-clad knees scraping the stone, muscles protesting with aching soreness.

‘My Lady, I need you.’

‘I hear you,’ I whispered. The soreness in my body dissipated, pushed aside by a more urgent craving. I crawled faster.

‘Genny,’ he crooned.

I stopped, shaking, my skin flushing with heat. The throb between my legs and at my throat was hard, insistent, almost too painful to bear. My head buzzed and the cave swam and swayed into greyness.

‘Gen—’

‘Dammit, Finn,’ I croaked past another wave of lust, ‘keep your Glamour to yourself. My body can’t deal with it. I’ve lost too much blood.’

Silence. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was soothing. ‘I thought it would help.’

The desperate need inside me blunted and the aching my body had ignored returned with a gleeful vengeance. Crap. I gritted my teeth and started crawling again: slow but steady, that was the way.

Hand ... knee ... swallow ... pant.

‘I don’t know when she gave me the spell.’ Finn’s voice washed with anger. ‘You know, the spell you came to tell me about? It sucks the magic out of you.’

Hand ... knee ...

‘Psychic vampirism, the bitch called it. She’s worked it so a sucker can bind a fae’s power and use it as their own.’ Fear flowed beneath the anger. ‘You don’t even have to know about it. No need for negotiations and bargains, just a cocktail of blood and spell and that’s you.’

Swallow ... pant ...

Damn. It all fitted with what Mick had told me—and I’d a good idea that Toni had tagged me with the spell too, but for some reason it hadn’t worked so well on me.

I reached Finn, my lungs gasping for air

‘You need to get out, Gen,’ he said quietly, staring at the ceiling.

Of course, the ‘getting out’ involved steel doors and solid rock, and I doubted I could blast through them with magic, even if I knew how.

‘There’s some sort of fight going on,’ he added. ‘The sucker’s siphoning off my power to win.’

I tried to catch my breath as I peered through the half-darkness at him. They’d stripped him naked and staked him out, stretching his limbs to the four points. The Glamour he’d been wearing to appear more human had gone, dispersed by the gem-studded silver shackles on his wrists and ankles, or maybe he just hadn’t the energy left to holdit. His body was broader, muscles heavier, his skin more darkly tanned than before. Sleek sable hair covered his stomach and his flanks, then smoothed like silk down his legs until it feathered over his hard cloven hooves.

Lifting my head, I crawled closer. His horns were small stubs almost hidden in his matted hair and he was covered in blood—his blood. I briefly closed my eyes as the scent of blackberries made my stomach twist with need. Hanging my head, I willed the hunger away. Deep wounds scored down Finn’s chest and stomach, and bite marks punctured his skin. The familiar-looking injuries told me which sucker Toni had palled up with, which sucker was using him: Rio.

He turned to look at me. His face was pinched, almost feral, the bones sharp under his skin. But it was his eyes I stared at. They were dull, grey, desolate with the spell.

‘You need to get undressed, Gen,’ he said wearily.

‘What?’ My mouth fell open. That was the last thing I’d expected.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to wake up. There’s a chance you can escape using a blood door.’ His gaze held mine, then he looked away again, as if it hurt him for me to see him like this. ‘Only you have to go naked, in supplication. It won’t work otherwise.’

I knew of blood doors. I’d even been through one once, taken by another fae. Once you activated the spell, it took you straight to the person who’d shared the ritual with you.

I frowned, slumping back on my heels. ‘Don’t they have to be pre-arranged?’

‘You need to go to Helen.’ His voice caught as he said her name. ‘Ask her for aid.’

Oh right, Helen, as in Inspector Crane.

‘Helen and I have performed the blood exchange. We did it when we jumped the broom before—’ A spasm of pain cut him off.

They’d jumped the broom? When did that happen? And before what? Before they split up?They couldn’t be still together, could they? An odd feeling slipped from beneath my heart, as though I’d lost something I never had to begin with. I shrugged it off. No wonder the inspector didn’t like me. Still, priorities: escape first, pity-party later.

‘Great plan,’ I said, brightly. ‘I’ll crackthe spells holding you.’ I pulled off my T-shirt. ‘Then once you’re out of the shackles, I’ll absorb the psychic-spell and you can take us through.’ I tugged off a boot.

‘Gen, crackingthe spells isn’t going to work.’ He slowly turned his head back to me and gave me a shadow of his normal smile. ‘I really don’t want to lose any of my appendages.’

I levered off the other boot, paused as a wave of dizziness hit me. ‘Then I’ll absorb those spells too.’

‘You can’t absorb the shackles, and absorbing the spells could knock you out, or worse.’

I unsnapped my jeans. ‘Who cares, Finn?’ I wriggled the denim over my hips. ‘If you can’t carry me, you can always drag me.’

‘Be realistic, Gen,’ he sighed. ‘You have to go to Helen and get help. You have to go alone.’

‘I’m not leaving without you.’

‘The sucker will be back soon, and the closer she is, the more power she can take from me.’ His hands clenched. ‘You need to go as soon as possible.’

I almost screamed in frustration and fear—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Taking a deep breath, I said, ‘Okay, tell me how to do it.’

‘We do the ritual, then you have to stand in a circle of your own blood and callto Helen. Once she feels the call, she’ll open the door.’

‘What’s the ritual, Finn?’

‘Nothing drastic, just blood freely offered and exchanged.’

I stared at him in horror. ‘You mean I drink your blood and then spill mine over the floor, then wait for your ex to answer.’

‘Yes, that’s pretty much it.’ His eyes drifted closed. ‘I think that should work.’

‘What do you mean, “should”? Don’t you know?’

‘I’m working from memory here,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not easy.’

Crap. I couldn’t drink his blood. Just the smell was tempting enough. And what if it didn’t work, or Helen didn’t answer? He’d end up in more danger from me than the vamps we were trying to escape from. Of course, there was still my other option: I could bring out my Alter Vamp and just break his shackles ... only she wasn’t strong enough to get us out of the cave, or to fight off more than a couple of other vamps. And she– I—would be right back to being hungry.

‘You have to do it, Gen,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t kill the sucker, I’ve already tried. I can feel her in me, controlling me, feeding off me, like she’s turned a tap on and I can’t turn it off.’ He turned his head away again.

Something about that didn’t tally; I hadn’t noticed the spell at all, not even after I’d taken it from Holly—nothing other than tiredness, and maybe the bad dreams—

‘She’s not going to let me fade—’ Finn’s words shattered my thoughts. He was talking about fading—letting himself die—shit, it had to be bad. ‘Gen, you have to go and get help—’ He was almost pleading with me.

Heart aching, I finished tugging off my jeans and briefs as another flash of dizziness hit me. ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ I said.

He turned back to face me, hope turning the grey in his eyes back to their usual green for an instant.

‘Looks like it’s my turn to ride to the rescue.’ I gave him a lop-sided smile.

‘What are you talking ’bout, Gen?’

Leaning over, I gave him a butterfly kiss on the mouth. ‘You running off to do the shining knight bit earlier when the witches kicked me out of Spellcrackers.’

He gave a weak laugh. ‘If I’d known it’d impress you, I’d have tried it sooner, instead of the cheesy sex god line.’

‘Don’t worry; the sex god thing is pretty impressive too.’ I opened my eyes wide to keep the tears from falling, grinned at him. ‘Just don’t tell anyone I said so.’

Chapter Forty-One

All I had to do was bleed a large enough puddle that I could stand in. I grimaced at the blue veins mapping my naked body. Getting blood out of one of them wasn’t going to be easy.

‘Why can’t I just draw a circle in blood?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t work that way, Gen.’ Finn gave another weary sigh. ‘It’s a sacrifice, a last resort thing, so no one opens a blood door without thinking seriously about it.’

Yeah, right. Heart labouring in my chest, I clambered to my feet, checked out my left wrist. Maybe I’d be lucky and the vein wouldn’t have healed yet.

I raised my wrist to my mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ Finn was watching me.

‘I haven’t got a knife.’

‘Use one of my horns.’

‘They won’t be sharp enough.’

‘The spells in the restraints aren’t muting my magic, they’re just stopping me from getting free. And the sucker’s not getting all of it; I’m holding back as much power as I can.’ His chin jutted out. ‘Touch one.’

I crouched near his head and gently pressed my finger to one of his horns. It quivered, its ridges scraping against my fingertip as it elongated and stiffened until it was seven inches of smooth curved horn, its tip sharp, like a whittled bone.

‘You need to do it quick, Gen.’ His eyes were closed again, face tight with strain.

I wrapped my hand round his horn and he groaned, low and deep. Pleasure or pain? I wasn’t sure.

‘Hurry.’

Gritting my teeth, I pressed my inner arm against the sharp point, pushed until it pierced the skin. Blood seeped sluggishly out of the wound. I waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. Jerking my arm back, I scored a deep cut from my inner elbow to my wrist.

The blood welled slowly and I stared at it transfixed.

The tattoo on my hip throbbed like a second heart. My nostrils flared as I drew the sweet smell into my lungs. My mouth watered. The urge to rub my blood into the tattoo filled my mind like the cry of a rapacious spirit. I gazed at Finn, at the wounds on his body, and felt nothing but hunger.

And he couldn’t get away.

My mouth stretched in a smile.

‘Have you finished?’ Finn whispered.

Suddenly appalled at my own thoughts, I scrambled back from him.

‘Gen?’ His horn was shrinking back down into his hair. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I looked at the floor, not wanting him to see the hunger in my face. Holding out my arm, I squeezed the wound, watched the blood trickle into a puddle the size of a teacup.

‘Gen, we need to do the ritual first.’

‘I’m doing it,’ I muttered.

‘You can’t. You haven’t taken my blood.’

‘And I’m not going to, Finn. There’s someone else I can callfor a blood door, someone who can help us better than Helen can.’

‘But you’ve got to go to Helen. She’s the police.

‘I know, but she upholds the humans’ laws, Finn. We’re fae. The human laws don’t apply to us, not with things like this.’

‘She’ll still come,’ he said with certainty. ‘She’s not going to leave me here.’

‘Finn, you don’t get it, do you. Helen is police. She has to go by the rule book whether she wants to or not.’ Look what she’s just done to me, I wanted to shout but didn’t. Instead I carried on, trying to be calm. ‘Technically, the vamps have done nothing wrong. She can’t force her way in here, and no way is she going to start a full-scale war with the vamps, especially not on my say-so. And even if she does work out a way, by the time she gets past them and gets to you, there’ll be nothing left to find. I’m sorry, Finn, but I’m not taking that chance.’

He turned his head away.

The pool of blood was the size of a plate.

‘You’re going to the sucker, aren’t you? The one from last night.’

What if the blood door didn’t work?

‘Gen you don’t have to do this, Take my blood, go to Helen, she’ll come, I know she will.’

I looked at Finn, lying shackled to the floor. No way was I going to take his blood—if I fell into bloodlust, how was I going to stop?

‘I thought you were dead,’ Finn whispered. ‘I thought I’d killed you. I didn’t know a sidhe could survive cold iron like that.’

My heart fluttered with palpitations. I answered him without thinking. ‘It’s the human blood in me.’

The quick movement of his head caught my attention. ‘No part of you is human, Gen, not with those eyes.’

‘My mother was sidhe, my father was human.’ Or he was once, I added silently.

‘Then you would be faeling.’

‘I’m not.’

After a moment he spoke again. ‘They brought you in and started feeding on you. She made me watch ...’

I looked at him, horror invading my mind. He wouldn’t have, would he? ‘What did you promise her?’ I breathed, not sure if I actually wanted to know.

‘I couldn’t let them do that to you,’ he murmured, and I heard other words echo as he spoke. I can’t kill the sucker, I’ve already tried. I can feel her in me, controlling me, feeding off me.

‘It’s not just the spell, is it?’ I whispered as shock settled cold and hard inside me. ‘You took the sucker’s Blood-Bond, didn’t you? That’s how she’s draining so much power from you—she’s combined them together.’

‘Gen, you have to get to Helen.’ He looked at me and the fear and despair on his face gave me my answer. ‘She can sort everything out. Fix this.’

Rio dead was the only way to fix this, and no way was Helen Crane going to kill her.

‘I know you think Helen can’t do anything,’ he continued, ‘but you’re wrong about her. Going to that sucker for help isn’t the right thing for you.’

Fucking shining knight complex! Even if I got him out of this mess he’d probably still come after me, still try and rescue me, thinking I was some distressed damsel he needed to save—and he’d get himself killed, or worse. No way could I let that happen. He had to know the truth.

I squeezed the slash on my arm again, forcing more blood out, concentrating on it instead of him. ‘When I said my father was human, Finn, I meant he washuman, before he became a vampire.’ I kept my tone matter-of-fact. ‘So you see, there really is only one place I can go for help, Finn. And that’s to the vamps.’

‘That’s not possible; vamps can’t reproduce like that.’

‘My father found my mother at a fertility rite, got her pregnant, and then after I was born, he let her fade.’ Of course the story wasn’t as simple as that, but it covered the basics. ‘Vamps have their own magic, Finn. And the sidhe can breed with anything magic—and most things not—you know that.’

He didn’t answer, and I stared blindly at my blood as it dripped onto the stony ground.

A chill crept up my spine and my heart stuttered. I closed my eyes, ran my tongue over my teeth and sniffed at the air. A glorious miasma of pain and fear and the liquorice scent of venom had me shifting uncomfortably.

Theshush, shush of his blood rushing through his veins, the fastda-dum, da-dum of his heart.

‘Gen?’

My eyes snapped open.

His pulse was jumping in his throat, his skin glowing with blood heat, and I was too close for safety.

‘Gen, I think it’s large enough now.’

‘What?’ I slurred.

‘The blood. You’ve got enough now.’

I looked down. The puddle was larger than a dinner plate. I brought my arm to my mouth and slowly licked the blood off. The sweetness muted my hunger and I sighed. Then I noticed Finn, an odd, indecipherable expression on his face.

Shit.I’d finally succeeded in frightening him.

As I staggered to my feet, the cave swung round me like a fairground ride.

‘Be careful, Gen.’ Finn’s voice was faint in my ears.

Frowning, I half-waved my hand. There was something else. What was it? Oh yeah. ‘I’ll come back, okay?’

His mouth moved, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear him.

The blood looked wonderful. I wanted to fall back to my knees and lap it up. I dipped my toe. I felt it cool against my skin. I stepped in, then lifted my other foot and set it down.

Dark.

Cave.

Dark.

A figure.

Dark.

The woman stood, head thrown back to expose her slender throat, mouth open wide. The image flickered on and off, like a silent movie.

Thick carpet beneath my feet, smell of sex and blood in my nose, buzzing in my ears.

The vampire stood behind her, his face buried in the curve of her neck, his jaw working.

Hunger hot in my stomach, I snarled, the vamp in me clawing to get out. I pushed my wrist down towards my tattoo.

My arm stilled in midair.

A shudder rippled through the woman and she grasped the vampire’s dark hair and pulled him from her neck. She reached out and took my outstretched hand in hers.

She smiled, the smile of an angel, and that smile promised me whatever I wanted. Moving closer, she pressed her body up to mine. Her skin felt slick, hot with blood. Her heartbeat throbbed, pumping sweet life from the fang marks that pierced the swollen flesh at her neck. She tilted her head to the side and offered me her throat, the smile still playing on her face.

I shoved my fingers into her glossy dark hair and fed.