Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"

Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

She shoved her wet doggy self between me and the Irish wolfhound, and curled her lips in a snarl.

I tapped her on the nose. ‘Don’t you take that attitude with me, pup. You know he’s not supposed to be visiting you, so he’s in the wrong here, never mind he’s your granddad—’

‘Genny!’

I turned my head to see Mary, her hand pressed to her side as if she had a stitch, staring down at Werewolf Guy in dismay. He was twitching as if he were a statue the pixies had tried to animate. I grimaced. It looked like the Power Nap patch, or something, was disagreeing with him.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I pointed at Freya. ‘Get her back home,’ I ordered in a low voice to Mad Max. ‘Make sure she stays there, and later, you and I are going to have a long chat.’

Freya barked an obvious, ‘No!’

‘Yes!’ I told her.

She growled– and Mad Max snatched her up by her scruff, threw her in the fountain again then trotted calmly after her.

A round of applause from the crowd reminded me we had an audience. Damn. Next thing the paps will turn up, and I’ll be on the front pages again.At least the heritage wardens were keeping the rubberneckers out of the way.

I jogged over to Mary as she lifted her radio. ‘I need a HOPE ambulance. Code six three one – unidentified magical casualty. Trafalgar Square. How long?’ It crackled unintelligibly. ‘’K, I’ll hang on.’ She pointed at the twitching werewolf. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘All I did was tag him with Dessa’s spell,’ I said. ‘He was fine a minute ago. Better tell the medics he’s a werewolf.’

‘Unidentified is clearer. That way they won’t make mistakes. Why’s he holding the roses?’

‘Camouflage?’

‘I meant,’ she said pointedly, ‘why is he still clutching them? He’s unconscious. He should’ve dropped them, shouldn’t he?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe it’s something to do with the spell’s side-effects.’ I bent to check him out.

Mary grabbed me. ‘Leave him,’ she ordered. ‘Standard ops with un-ID’d spells. No touching the victim, and he needs to be in a circle. Here’ – she handed me a lump of green spell chalk from her pocket – ‘draw one. About eight feet across. At least he’s on stone, it’ll make it easier.’

I started drawing a circle, crabwalking around the still twitching werewolf.

‘Cripes,’ she muttered, which was Mary’s answer to swearing with a precocious nine-year-old daughter. ‘I should never have let Dessa give you that spell. It’s got aconite in it. If he really is a werewolf, it could kill him.’

Aconite? Oh, yeah, wolfsbane. I scowled. ‘He’s not a good guy, Mary.’

She shot Werewolf Guy a frown. ‘We don’t know that, Genny.’

I snorted. ‘He was throwing spells at my niece! And he helped kidnap three people. Good guys don’t do that.’

‘What spell?’

‘This!’ I stopped drawing and showed her the gold coin. It glinted in the sunlight.

She peered at it. ‘There’s no spell.’

‘Not now. Mad Max sort of ate it.’ I glanced at where he was sitting next to the fountain like he was auditioning for Guard Dog of the Year, and getting not a few admiring looks from the crowd. There was no sign of Freya, so hopefully she was tucked up safe at home, in Between.

‘Max looks fine,’ Mary said. ‘Maybe you were mistak—’

Werewolf Guy howled in pain, his twitches turning to jerks, and blood started leaking from his nostrils, mouth and ears. A horrified buzz came from the crowd, and I caught more of the inevitable camera flashes. Blood always brings out the ghouls. Werewolf Guy let out another howl, his spine arched, veins standing out like black cords in his neck. An answering screech came from above. The hawk, trained to scare the square’s pigeons. Werewolf Guy convulsed as if invisible hands were trying to tear him apart.

‘Finish the circle,’ Mary shouted. ‘Quick before he shifts.’

I dragged the green chalk over the flagstones, only a foot to go . . . Time seemed to slow . . . Werewolf Guy’s eyes snapped open. He flung his arm out. They flew from his hand, scattering in a shower of red petals. The petals landed on the grey slabs, like the pools of blood staining the snow in Malik’s memories. Werewolf Guy smiled at me with victory in his eyes. Above me the sound of wings buffeted the air. Gut clenching, I looked up. The hawk hovered, a dark shadow against the clear summer sky. It opened its beak wide, screeching again as it vomited a stream of green magic. The magic twisted and twirled, morphing into a verdant jade serpent, fang-filled jaws hinging wide, as it arrowed straight for me. I raised my hand, focused, and calledthe magic snake, aiming to snatch it from the air—

Something shoved me aside. The Irish wolfhound, wiry hair brushing my face as he leaped, snapped his jaws on the jade serpent. I stumbled, falling atop Werewolf Guy. For a moment he trapped me in his arms, holding me tight, then a flood of magic washed over me, spreading out over Trafalgar Square like the pressurised shockwave after an explosion. I glimpsed the hawk hovering; Mad Max shaking the serpent like a terrier with a rat—

Mad Max, the hawk and Werewolf Guy all vanished.

I sat on the stone edge of the left fountain, half-listening to the splash of water and the background rumble of traffic, as Mary, Dessa, and a dozen Peelers from the local police station finished taking statements. The Peelers had turned up a few minutes after it all went down, and along with the heritage wardens had managed to corral the majority of the bystanders into a makeshift witness waiting area, using the square’s café as their base. Even without the free tea/coffee/juice on offer, the majority were eager to hang around and recount everything exciting they’d seen.

And what they’d seen, according to Mary, came with the usual add-ons of imagination and conjecture. Some thought the hawk was an eagle, or a vulture, or even a remote control toy; Werewolf Guy’s hair colour was everything from blond, through red, to his actual black; and the ‘dogs’ varied from ‘a brace o’ wee terriers’ to a pack of rabid wolves– that particular witness was currently getting the third degree.

I was waiting to get my own third degree (as per Mary’s instructions) from Hugh. Waiting for Tavish to phone me back about the gold coin; I’d emailed him a set of pictures. And for Freya to shift from her doggy shape to human, which she was refusing to do. But most of all for Ana, Freya’s mum, to turn up.

I reached down to Freya, lying sphinx-like by my feet, ears pricked forwards as she watched the square with an unwavering doggy stare, and ran my fingers through her thick silky fur. It had dried in the sunshine, and I could just make out the darker tint on the ends, all that was left from when she’d magically dyed her hair green a couple of months ago. Attention seeking, Ana had told me with a long-suffering sigh. Freya’s dad had left during the ToLA case, after discovering what his brother, the deranged baby-making wizard behind all the abductions, had been up to. Supposedly, it had all come as a big shock to Freya’s dad.

Yep, and I was a goblin queen.

Freya grumbled low in her throat, flattening both ears in a sulky ‘leave me alone’ gesture. I stopped petting her. Where the hell was her mum? School was nearly finished for the day, Ana wasn’t here waiting for her daughter to arrive home, and all my calls kept getting her voicemail. My paranoid imagination was running riot, involving Ana in various awful scenarios with the Emperor, his werewolves, Bastien, or more likely, giving birth on the Underground.

I pushed my uneasy thoughts aside for another ten minutes until they hit critical, and dug Werewolf Guy’s gold coin in its clear plastic evidence bag out of my pocket (after a ‘discussion’, Mary had agreed I could hang on to it until Hugh said otherwise). I turned it over, examining it for any clues I might have missed the last twenty times I’d looked at it. It was a little larger than a pound coin, had a golden eagle on one side, a man’s head crowned with a laurel wreath on the other and Romulus Augustus writ Roman-style around the coin’s circumference. It didn’t take a genius to add coin and Werewolf Guy together, and come up with the Emperor, even without the face on the coin looking like the picture on the Emperor’s website.

Romulus Augustus was the last western Roman Emperor. His reign started on All Hallows’ Eve in 475 when he was around fifteen, and lasted for all of ten months, until he’d was deposed and shipped off to the Castel dell’Ovo on an island in the Gulf of Naples, from where he later ‘disappeared’ a.k.a. Accepted the Gift and became a vamp. Of course, Wikipedia didn’t mention the becoming a vamp bit. Or that the Emperor was Head Fang of Europe and Bastien’s master.

Or that the Emperor’s werewolves had just dog/spell-napped Mad Max instead of me.

‘Idiot dog,’ I murmured, wondering again why the hell he’d pushed me aside.

Freya nipped my ankle and regarded me out of accusing doggy eyes.

‘Not you, pup. Granddad Max.’

She whimpered then tucked her head on to her front paws.

I frowned down at her where she dozed in the sunshine, her black nose twitching occasionally. I could understand Mad Max sacrificing himself for his grandkid. But even with me donating my blood to Freya, there was no way I could see my self-seeking, use-anybody-and-don’t-give-a-fuck-who-gets-hurts cousin deciding to save me by playing snake-catching hero.

Hugh’s huge figure cut out the sun. ‘Maxim’s actions appear to be out of character,’ he said, echoing my own thoughts.

‘Yep,’ I agreed, looking up at Hugh’s ruddy face, deeply creased with worry. Two major incidents in less than a week were taking their toll. ‘Anything more from the witnesses?’ I asked, though to be honest I didn’t expect there to be. If there had been Hugh would’ve been acting on it, not talking to me.

He shook his head as he sat, large hands cradling a mug of milky coffee. He took a sip, then looked pointedly down at the dozing Freya. I got the message: we needed her to shift to talk, but she wouldn’t, and he had an idea to persuade her. I tilted my head to show I understood, and he started the ball rolling. ‘Run through what happened one more time for me, Genny.’

I did, ending with, ‘. . . the hawk threw the Snake spell, Max intercepted it, and was zapped away instead of me.’

Hugh nodded encouragingly. ‘So you think the hawk was using the Snake spell to remove you from the scene?’

‘Well, me or Werewolf Guy,’ I agreed. ‘We weren’t that far apart.’

‘Only the Snake spell didn’t touch the werewolf male, but he still vanished. So the spell was more likely for you.’

‘Yep, that’s what I thought too.’ I grimaced and held up the plastic evidence bag with its gold coin. ‘But that still doesn’t explain this, or why Werewolf Guy threw it at the dogs.’

Hugh held his hand out and I dropped it in his palm. He opened the bag and sniffed, lifted it up to catch the sunlight, then held it like he was weighing it. ‘It’s solid gold, and going by the smell, it’s as old as it looks.’ He sealed the bag and offered it back. ‘It’s probably an extremely valuable antique.’

I took it back. The plastic was slightly gritty from his skin. ‘So why throw it at a couple of dogs, even if he knew who they were?’

‘It could be payment of some kind.’

‘Payment? To Max for me?’

‘Yes. This looks like a classic set-up to me. Max uses Freya to get you here.’ Freya’s ears pricked up at her name. ‘The werewolf male tries to snatch you, your niece warns you and the plan goes pear-shaped.’

It actually made sense, especially if you knew Mad Max. ‘Why did he snatch the Snake spell, if he was part of the plot?’

‘You were callingthe spell, trying to catch it.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And if you caught it, it wouldn’t have worked, would it?’

‘No.’

‘So we’d have the spell as evidence, and would be able to trace it.’

Which was partly why I’d tried to catch it. That and not wanting to be taggedby an unknown spell, of course.

‘So,’ Hugh carried on, ‘Maxim catching the Snake spell before you could achieves two things.’ He held up two large fingers, and out the corner of my eye I saw Freya raise her head and fix Hugh with anxious eyes. ‘One: it makes sure no evidence is left, and two: Maxim is safely removed from the crime scene and not available to answer questions.’

I heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Sounds just like Maxim to cut and run when his plan goes wrong. Bet he turns up later with some story about how he escaped.’ Freya stood, ears back, hackles raised. I made a show of ignoring her. ‘So there’s not much point looking for him, is there?’

Freya nudged my hand with a wet nose, then barked, loud and insistent. ‘Quiet, pup,’ I said, patting her head, as if she were just the dog she was pretending to be.

Hugh nodded, adopting his blank-stone cop’s face. ‘Yes, we’ve got better things to do than look for Maxim.’

The puppy shook like she was shedding water, magic prickled over my skin, and then Freya took her human shape. Her blonde hair was gelled into spikes, the tips still dyed green like her fluff-ball fur, school tie pulled loose round her neck, and her overlarge white shirt messily tucked into her maroon skirt. A backpack appeared slung over one shoulder; she dropped it to the ground with an irritated thump.

I’d asked her once what happened to her clothes when she was a dog; she’d shrugged, saying whatever she was wearing just went away, and then came back again, and wasn’t that what happened with everyone?

I squashed a pang of envy. So what if she could change into a dog, and back again, complete with magically reappearing clothes, without breaking a sweat, despite the fact she was a faeling, not a full-blood fae, with a mix of sidhe, fae, vamp and human blood. Much like myself, who couldn’t do anything with magic other than crackit, absorbit like some freaky sponge, or use it ready-made, and who didn’t even get to keep the cool vamp powers. I wasn’t jealous of her, exactly, but maybe of her and everyone else’s abilities. And I had to wonder why she, an eight-year-old kid who was sort of my niece, ended up with magic powers and I didn’t.

Freya clenched her hands into fists. ‘Granddad Max didn’t do the things you said! You’ve got to look for him! He’s in trouble!’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

‘What makes you think Granddad Max’s in trouble?’ Hugh asked, his gravelly voice matching his stony expression.

‘Because he was scared!’ So there!She didn’t say it but she didn’t have to. It was in the jut of her chin.

‘Scared of what, Freya?’

‘The werewolves, of course.’

I leaned forwards. ‘Did Granddad Max tell you they were werewolves?’

She pulled a face. ‘No. I heard you all talking. Granddad Max couldn’t tell me what they were.’

‘You mean he didn’t tell you,’ I said.

‘No, Aunty. I mean he couldn’t.’ She huffed. ‘I asked him. That’s what he told me.’

‘Freya,’ I said gently, ‘just because he told you he couldn’t, doesn’t mean he didn’t know.’

‘It does! Granddad Max doesn’t tell lies. Or not much to me anyway. I can tell.’

Nice qualification!

Hugh leaned forward with interest ‘How can you tell?’

She sniffed in an attempt to play it cool, but her blue eyes sparked with excitement now she had our full attention. ‘I can smell when he lies, like I can smell when the girls at school lie too. And when Mum does; lies smell like burned toast.’ She folded her arms, daring us to not believe her. ‘And I can smell when they’re scared.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘That smells like dead fish.’

News to me. I wondered if her senses were better because of her dog shape, her vamp genes, or both. I patted the stone rim of the fountain next to me. Freya gave me a wary look, obviously wondering if sitting would commit her to something she didn’t want, so I raised my brows. She glowered and plonked herself down.

‘Okay,’ I said, bumping her shoulder gently with mine. ‘I get that Granddad Max was scared, but if he didn’t know who was coming, how did he know to be frightened of them?’

‘He had a dream about it. It woke him up.’

Dreams. Right. ‘What sort of dream?’

She shrugged. ‘He didn’t tell me. Just said he knew they were coming for you, and he had to warn you.’

‘Then why the h—eck didn’t he tell me that,’ I asked, feeling another urge to wring Granddad Max’s neck.

‘He didn’t know where you were, did he? That’s why he got me to phone you.’

‘Why didn’t he phone Genny himself?’ Hugh asked.

She gave him a scornful look. ‘Duh. He’s a dog. Dogs can’t use phones, can they?’

Duh indeed. ‘So why couldn’t you have told me that when I first asked you?’ I asked.

‘Granddad Max said I had to stay furry ’cos it’s easier to run away with four legs instead of two.’ She rolled her eyes to show what she thought of that idea. Not a lot. ‘And when I’m furry I don’t smell so much like you. He didn’t want them getting me by mistake.’

I frowned. ‘You smell like me?’

‘I drink your blood every day, don’t I?’

Duh again.

‘Granddad Max said the less we told you, the quicker you’d get here. And that he couldn’t guard you till you were here.’

‘Max wanted to guard me?’ Surprise sparked in me. Then I got it. The last text Malik had sent me. When the irritating vamp had dumped me. He’d said: Maxim is tasked to put your needs above all others, including himself.

I looked at Hugh. ‘She’s right. He was trying to protect me.’

‘I told you he was,’ Freya grumbled.

I gave her a hug. ‘I know you did, thank you.’

‘So you’re gonna look for him, aren’t you?’ she said suspiciously. ‘Now I’ve told you everything?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Even though you said you wouldn’t?’

‘I said we wouldn’t if he was helping the baddies.’ Which it didn’t seem he was.

‘We’ll make sure he’s looked for, don’t you worry.’ Hugh smiled at Freya. ‘So lies smell like burned toast, fear smells like dead fish, is there anything else you’ve picked up that might help us?’

She gave him a look from under her lashes. ‘When people have sex it smells like coconuts.’

Hugh’s mouth opened, then closed again. His ruddy cheeks coloured with embarrassed heat.

‘Behave,’ I muttered. ‘Hugh was asking if you’d smelled anything today that might help us find Granddad Max, like if you caught any of the baddies’ scents?’

She looked out over the square, her nose twitching. ‘The bird that dropped the Snake spell smelled like Uncle Jack.’

‘Uncle Jack?’ Hugh asked, just as a woman’s voice shouted, ‘Freya!’

I jerked my head up. Ana was rushing towards us as fast as her huge baby-bump would let her. Despite her hurried waddle, she looked cool and elegant in a sleeveless dress, her pale blonde hair falling in a sleek waterfall to her hips. Relief filled me at the sight of her, despite her elegance making me feel hot, dusty and in need of a shower. But then she hadn’t spent the morning getting up close and personal with the floor at the zoo, followed by a tussle with a rose-wielding Werewolf Guy and a snake-spitting hawk.

‘Mum,’ Freya shouted loud enough for the whole square to hear, ‘Granddad Max’s been kidnapped.’

Of course, I’d rather do all that over again than have to deal with an obviously frantic, ready-to-pop-any-day-now, desperately angry Ana.

She sank into a crouch in front of Freya, pulling her daughter to her protectively. ‘Are you all right?’ she said, patting the squirming Freya.

‘She’s fine,’ I said soothingly.

Ana shot me a frightened, furious look. ‘Why was Maxim here, Genny? You know he’s not to come anywhere near Freya.’

As I opened my mouth to try and explain, Hugh said gently, ‘Ms Fossel, perhaps we could have a word?’ He rose to his feet. Thanks, Hugh, I thought, grateful. ‘I’m sure you could use a nice cup of tea,’ Hugh rumbled quietly, indicating the café. ‘Shall we?’

She looked as if she were going to object, then rose and clutched Freya’s hand. ‘If you insist, Inspector.’ She jabbed a shaking finger at me. ‘And you, keep Maxim away from my daughter.’

‘Muuum?’ Freya wailed. ‘Granddad Max is in trouble!’

‘Maxim can look after himself.’ She pulled on Freya’s hand and turned.

I watched them walk to the café, understanding why Ana was angry – the vamps had tortured and killed her mother (my half-sister) and she was terrified they’d do the same to her and Freya. Still, it hurt she blamed me instead of Mad Max, her vamp father; he was the one who’d got Freya involved.

Suddenly, Freya pulled free and ran back to me. ‘Mum smells of coconuts,’ she whispered. Then she was gone, disappearing into the café, along with a telling-off from her mum.

Bemused, I propped my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands. Ana smelled of coconuts? Ana had been having sex? That’swhy she hadn’t been here, and why she hadn’t answered her phone. But why would Freya tell me? Did it have something to do with finding her Granddad Max, or was she just trying to embarrass her mother because she was angry with her. And who was Ana having sex with anyway? Was sex even advisable in her hugely pregnant state?

Mary sat next to me. ‘So that’s Andrea, she’s your what? Second cousin or something?’

‘Niece is easier,’ I murmured. ‘And she’s decided she wants to be called Freya now. It’s her middle name.’

‘’K,’ Mary acknowledged. ‘She looks a nice kid. Nine, isn’t she?’

‘Not till September.’

‘Nearly the same age as my Emily. They’re all about pushing boundaries at that age.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, and telling you how their friends’ mothers do everything so much better than you do. It makes life difficult.’

‘Yeah, I s’pect it does.’

She patted my shoulder. ‘Ana’s just scared, Genny, so she’s opted to kill the messenger.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘So at what point can’t you have sex if you’re pregnant?’

Her brown eyes widened. ‘Interesting change of subject.’ She cut a look to the café, then said, ‘Sex is possible right up to birth, if you’re careful, and if you feel like it. Some even have sex as a way to start labour. Me, I ballooned to the size of an elephant as soon as I hit my third trimester, and Emily spent most of her time dancing pointe on my bladder. Sexy, it was not.’ She shrugged. ‘But everyone’s different.’

Freya was telling the truth about her mum, not that I’d doubted her, but she could’ve been mistaken. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Think it’s important?’

‘To do with the werewolves and them taking Mad Max? Doubt it, but you never know.’

‘Well, I know something that is important.’ Excitement laced Mary’s voice and she showed me her phone. The screen had a shot of a gold coin.

I held my own gold coin in its plastic evidence bag to the screen. The coins could’ve been twins. ‘Snap.’

She laughed. ‘So, you want to guess, or shall I tell you?’

I sat straighter, heart pounding. Hugh’s comment about the gold coin being thrown at Mad Max as payment of some kind came back to me. ‘The Bangladeshi ambassador sent it to you,’ I said slowly. ‘It was given to him by the werewolves the other night at the mosque in some sort of exchange for his wife and kid.’

‘Yes. He’s just come through with the info. Knew you’d get it!’ Mary shot a finger at where Dessa was leaning against her cop car, mouthing, ‘You owe me.’ Dessa pulled a face. Mary turned back to me. ‘The ambassador hasn’t opened up about anything else, though, like whether he knew they were werewolves, or what the coin means. But with your gold coin, at least we have corroborating evidence that the two cases are connected, and that his wife and kid, and the zoo employee, were taken by werewolves, presumably the Emperor’s. And here’s the other interesting thing’ – her expression said she was on a roll – ‘guess what else the square here has in common with the crime scene at the zoo?’

‘Easy,’ I said, smiling. ‘It’s been cleaned of magic in exactly the same way.’

‘Spoilsport.’ She gave Dessa a half-hearted thumbs-down making the cornrowed WPC grin happily. Mary huffed and whipped out her notebook. ‘C’mon then, how do you know?’

‘The hawk did it,’ I said. ‘In the square. With the magical green ribbon snake.’

‘Ha ha. Very funny.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, and it’s a Booted Eagle not a hawk. The square’s bird warden ID’d it.’

An eagle? Well, it went with the whole Roman imperial theme.

Mary waved her notebook under my nose. ‘Specifics, please.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Well, Freya said that the bird smelled like her Uncle Jack. Jack is one of the Morrígan’s ravens. He’s also a changeling. Ergo, the eagle is also changeling. Changelings are human babies raised by the sidhe in the Fair Lands and given sidhe magic. So the eagle changeling used sidhe spells in the kidnaps, and that’s why the zoo, and here, look like a sidhe’s cleaned up all the magic.’

Mary fingers whitened where she gripped her pen then she gave me a not so friendly look. ‘You know,’ she said quietly, ‘that’s the one thing all us witches fear about our babies, that we’ll wake up to find them stolen. Taken to be a changeling. And all we’re left with is a stupid ùmaidh.’

Stupid was right, since ùmaidhmeans dolt or dim-witted. But then most ùmaidhswere made from something inanimate like a fresh cut log, or the longer lived ones from animals – I’d heard piglets were a favourite – so anything more than basic sentience wasn’t part of the spell.

I touched Mary’s arm. ‘Won’t happen. For one to make an ùmaidh, the sidhe would have to offer up a chunk of flesh and sever part of their soul. It’s a big sacrifice to make for something that’s only going to live for a couple of weeks at the most.’

Mary’s mouth twisted. ‘Yes, I know, but they’d get the stolen baby in exchange.’

True. Only if a sidhe really wanted to steal a baby they’d be more likely to leave a Glamoured sprite behind than an ùmaidh. Way easier. But I didn’t tell Mary that. And really she didn’t need to worry anyway. I did tell her that.

‘Reason being,’ I carried on, ‘the sidhe have agreed not to steal any kids from London. They can only take them with the mother’s agreement.’ Grianne, my faerie dogmother, had told me that little gem, back when I’d accused my sidhe queen grandmother, Clíona (through Grianne), of stealing Freya’s Uncle Jack when he’dbeen a baby. ‘Well’ – I added the proviso Grianne had also told me – ‘they can’t so long as there’s a queen on the British throne. Which there is now. It’s an old agreement going back to Boadicea.’

Mary’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘Truth?’

‘Yeah.’ I frowned. ‘How do you not know that?’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’ She tapped her pen thoughtfully. ‘Weird. I’ll have to ask Mum, see if she has. It would certainly put a lot of our worries to rest.’ If it’s true.

She left it unsaid. Not stupid enough to say it might be a lie to my face. Though to be honest, I was wondering if Grianne had somehow told me it wrong too . . . or if I’d let some cat out of a bag I wasn’t supposed to . . . but that mystery was for another time.

‘So,’ I said briskly, ‘we know the eagle is a changeling, and he/she used the jade ribbon snake to wipe the crime scenes clean magically, but it wasn’t just the magic that disappeared, but the eagle, Werewolf Guy and Mad Max too.’

‘Which means the snake also held some sort of Translocation spell, or it opened a portal.’ Mary flipped back a couple of pages in her notebook. ‘One of the witnesses said he saw a large black shadow fall from the eagle, so that might indicate the portal option.’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, but a portal to where?’

‘I don’t think it can be far; those types of spells take a lot of power,’ Mary mused. ‘It might even have gone to a nearby van. We had a shoplifting perp who was doing that with goods before we nicked him . . .’ Her face lit up. ‘We nicked him when he lifted something we’d planted and we were able to scry for it. So it doesn’t matter where the portal went, because we can find it. Or find Mad Max, anyway, using that gold coin he had in his mouth.’

I handed her the coin in its plastic bag. ‘I picked it up, remember, after Mad Max dropped it, is that going to be a problem?’

‘Not if we keep you with us, and the coin’s got lots of scratches on it, so his saliva should be all over it. The main scrying kit is still back at the zoo, but Dessa’s got a portable kit in the car.’ She jumped up, but I stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘I know why the Emperor wants me – sort of, anyway,’ I said. ‘But why would his werewolves kidnap the ambassador’s wife, her kid, and the zoo employee?’

‘I don’t know, Genny. But right now, why doesn’t matter. Let’s see if we can find them first, then we can worry about that.’ She hurried over to Dessa, and I fished my phone out to check my messages. Nothing from Tavish, which was odd considering he’d said he’d got into the Emperor’s website, and I’d sent him the pictures of the gold coin. I left an update then checked the rest.

Most could be left till later, but Katie wanted me to call, urgently.

I phoned the Spellcrackers’ office private line. ‘Hey, hon,’ I said, ‘how’s things?’

‘Where are you, Gen?’ Finn said sharply. ‘We need to talk.’