Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Chapter Three
‘Nae much, doll,’ Tavish said, the relief flooding his eyes making me glad I’d said yes. ‘Just give me some honest answers.’
It sounded too easy. ‘Sure. When do you want to talk?’
‘Now, of course.’
I looked at the ginger tom sitting on the desk, and at all the other cats in the cluttered room; sleeping, washing, or watching us like we were a play put on for their amusement. ‘What about the gnome?’
‘Och, he’s nae thinking of interrupting you. I’ve seen to that.’
I sent out my own Spidey senses . . . the gnome’s presence, from the direction of the kitchen, pinged against my inner radar. He was fast asleep, no doubt Tavish-induced. Plus, with the Privacy spell in operation, it wasn’t like the gnome would be an issue even if he did wake up. And now Tavish had made the decision to ask for my help, I could see he was impatient to get on with it.
‘Fire away, then,’ I said.
‘’Twill be better with Compulsion?’ He gave me a cautious look. ‘If you agree?’
He’d asked, which made all the difference. I nodded and held my hand out. He traced a finger along my lifeline, the greyness in his eyes bleeding away until they were silver, shimmering with intensity. ‘So, doll, who or what is it you want?’
The Compulsion pricked me and my mouth answered without hesitation. ‘Spellcrackers. I want to keep it.’
Surprise stung me. Spellcrackers was my company now. Sort of. My boss stint was temporary and I was going to have to give it up. Something I’d thought I was okay with. Until now.
‘So, you’re wanting to stay the boss of Spellcrackers’ – he gave me a probing look – ‘where’s that leave Finn?’
Finn.
My friend. My ex-boss. My—
Bone-deep hurt and angry disillusionment threatened to explode out of me. I shoved it back down, slammed it back in its box. I didn’t know what else Finn was.
Three months ago I thought I did. I thought, along with being friends and working together, we were finally going to be more to each other. We’d been heading that way ever since we’d met, more than a year ago, despite everything keeping us apart.
Then I’d found the fae’s stolen fertility.
And we should’ve had our chance.
But Finn’s teenage daughter, Nicky, was one of the victims of the ToLA case, an awful consequence of which was that she was pregnant. Finn had, of course, gone with Nicky to the Fair Lands to be with her until her baby was safely born.
He’d asked me to go with him. I’d reluctantly said no.
Part of me, the part that wanted Finn and damn everything else, haddesperately regretted that no. But I knew it had been the right thing to do. He needed to be there for Nicky without me. We needed that breathing space. And after all Finn’s declarations about not wanting me just for my curse-breaking abilities, that my vamp genes didn’t matter despite him hating vamps with a vengeance, I needed to be sure he’d wanted me for me. Without that time apart, a tiny bit of me would always wonder if Finn and I were really meant to be.
Now I knew.
Two letters, then nothing. No messages, no excuses, just nothing– He’d cut me off. Something that had sliced my heart into tiny pieces. And, now I’d stuck it back together, Finn was someone I’d promised myself not to even think about, let alone waste any more tears over . . .
A quiet warning snort from Tavish made me look down.
I loosened my grip on the half-full plastic bottle I’d almost crushed. It popped back into shape with a sharp cracking sound. My mouth twisted down as I tried to give him a wry smile. I took a breath and locked my hurt, anger and all thoughts of a certain fickle satyr away.
‘You know I haven’t heard from him,’ I said, my tone flat.
Tavish’s expression sharpened. ‘So, when he returns, you’ll be giving Spellcrackers back?’
I didn’t want to, but– ‘Of course, it belongs to him and the satyr herd.’
‘I ken the herd elders are already asking for it. You nae think of just giving it up?’
The herd elders weren’t so much asking as demanding I do exactly that.
Their point: it was their money invested in the company and they’d only signed it over to me as a sweetener to get me to make little curse-breaking baby satyrs with Finn. Now their fertility was found, albeit still trapped, I wasn’t needed, and they wanted their investment back. Immediately. Only my gut told me that if I gave Spellcrackers up now Finn would lose out too. So I’d give Spellcrackers back to him, and only him. What he did then was his choice. I might be hurt and angry, and hugely pissed off at his fickleness but that didn’t mean I was ready to stitch him up. Or that I was stupid.
I picked at the broken tab on my water bottle. ‘It’s pretty convenient that Finn stops communicating right at the time the herd starts putting pressure on me.’
‘Aye. That it is.’
Good to know I wasn’t the only one with suspicions. Not that my suspicions meant the cut-me-off-without-an-explanation satyr’s silence was forgivable.
‘But is being the boss at Spellcrackers truly what your heart wants above all else, doll?’
Tavish’s quiet question diverted my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Spellcrackers was just a company, after all; and yeah, financially I needed to work, preferably doing something I loved and was good at, but it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have my old job back when I gave up the reins . . . except I wouldn’t be the one calling the shots any more. That, I realised, was what I truly wanted.
‘No, not Spellcrackers as such,’ I clarified. ‘But what it represents. I want to be the one in control of my life. No other people making decisions for me or thinking they can force me into doing what they want.’ Which really, after everything, wasn’t so much of a surprise. ‘I want to make my own choices, on my own terms.’
Tavish was silent for a long moment, then something shifted in the depths of his eyes like a fish sliding beneath shadowed waters. ‘’Tis a big ask, doll.’
Impossible more like. ‘Yeah.’ I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘But what does what I want have to do with releasing the fae’s fertility?’
‘Told you, doll,’ Tavish said briskly. ‘You’re the key, but you’re nae wanting to find the spell, so the magic’s nae keen on helping.’
I considered that. ‘So, if I decide I want it, the magic will help me find it?’
He shook his head. ‘’Tis nae quite that simple. The magic’s a tricky mistress. You know that.’
I did. Magic wasn’t something you could talk or reason with, yet it still had a mind of its own. Sometimes, when I’d needed it, it had helped me in the past.
‘She likes you,’ Tavish said softly.
‘She?’
‘The magic.’
‘Why are you calling it “she”?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Isn’t it more like a natural . . . force or something?’
He smiled, turquoise eyes dancing. ‘We all come from The Mother, and she was the first to come from the magic. So what else would the magic be? But now’s nae the time for debating, doll. We want to find the spell, you want to keep Spellcrackers and be your own boss. Help me and I’ll help you, with that anyways.’
‘Tavish,’ I said, more than a little insulted. ‘I don’t need to be bribed.’
‘Och, I ken, but a little incentive never harms a body, now does it?’
‘Fine, I’m not going to say no.’ I shot him a grateful smile. Having him go to bat for me with the satyrs staking their claim was a bonus. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Ask the one who knows.’ He flicked his fingers and a pack of cards, larger than normal playing size, appeared on the desk in front of me.
‘Tarot cards?’ I asked.
‘Aye.’
Curiosity flickered. I hadn’t known he did readings.
‘Pick them up and hold them in your left hand, doll.’ I slid the water bottle on to the table and did as he said. No magic tingled; the cards felt like ordinary card, and oddly both sides were plain white. He took hold of my right hand, lacing our fingers together. ‘Don’t let go, nae for anything?’ he warned. I nodded, and his gills fanned wide either side of his throat, his eyes turning the deep cobalt blue of a midnight sea. Magic, needle-sharp, pierced me, twisting a storm of desire at my core. I gasped, squirmed on the chair before I could stop. Again he didn’t seem to notice. I clutched at the cards, ignoring the feelings. The need would pass. It always did.
‘Shuffle,’ he ordered, Compulsion fuelled his voice.
‘I can’t one-handed—’ But even as I spoke, my fingers did an expert shuffle.
‘Toss them in the air.’
My hand threw the cards. The light in the room dimmed as they fountained up high like a mushroom cloud, before tumbling like glistening snowflakes on a winter’s night. I winced, expecting them to clatter on to the desk, dreading the damage they could do to the fragile fairy body in its sandwich-box coffin, but they dissipated, melting like the snowflakes they’d mimicked, fading away into the ether . . . Soon only five remained. They snapped into a line, hovering in front of me. Still blank.
I looked at Tavish. ‘What now?’
He picked up one of my scalpels, held it out to me, his hand shaking. ‘They need to be fed.’
‘Blood?’
‘Aye, doll. Blood for your question answered. Usual terms.’ Sweat beaded on his forehead.
I frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Feed ’em,’ he urged, shoulders bowing as if with pain.
O– kay. I pressed my left index finger against the scalpel. The edge sliced the tip, dark viscous blood welled, scenting the air with honey and copper, and I readied for the pain but it didn’t come. Odd.
‘Quick,’ he whispered.
I took a steadying breath. ‘I offer my blood solely in exchange for the answer to my questions. No harm to me or mine,’ I said and touched the first card.
A tiny tongue licked at my finger– Startled, I jerked my hand back, or would’ve without Tavish’s Compulsion holding me in place. The tongue licked some more, tickling, then I felt a little mouth press against the cut, lips sealing around it. It started sucking my blood down, hard and fast enough that I could feel the draw on my heart. I shot an anxious look at Tavish. He was hunched in his chair, the cobalt colour leaching from his eyes, leaving them pale and cloudy, his dreads turning dry and brittle, their beads clear as glass. Then a bead shattered, the pieces hitting the floor with a soft ping. Uneasy, I tried yanking my hand from the card. I couldn’t.
‘What the hell’s happening, Tavish?’
‘Channelling.’
‘Channelling what? Something in the cards?’
He grunted.
I took it as a yes. And judging by the way his hand gripped mine, whatever it was, it was powerful. What the hell was in the cards if they could do this to him? And why hadn’t he told me what to expect? Unless this wasn’t it?
‘Harder,’ he muttered. ‘Harder than I thought to stop you.’
‘Stop me? But I’m not doing anything!’
More beads shattered. He crumpled forwards, his head dropping to his knees, his hand a death-grip on mine. ‘The card? Is it changing?’
I dragged my attention back to the card. Thick gold mist topped it like a tiny thundercloud, and on the front the dark bruised red of my blood coloured the card from the bottom up, as if it were litmus paper drawing it up. Which in a way it seemed it was, as there was still a thin white strip at the top.
‘Tell me when.’ Tavish’s words were a hoarse whisper.
The strip turned pink . . .
Brighter red . . .
Then the dark bruised colour of the rest of the card.
Suddenly the mouth released my finger with an audible satisfied sigh.
I cut a troubled glance at Tavish. ‘It’s let go—’
He toppled out of the chair, his hand slipping from mine, and curled into a foetal ball under the desk.
I flung myself to my knees, grabbed his head; his face was lined and shrunken like an old man’s.
Weakly, he pushed at me. ‘Talk to the card, doll,’ he ground out harshly, ‘afore she leaves.’
She?But a stab of Compulsion had my body pulling back into the chair, my eyes fixing on the bloodstained card and my mouth said, ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the trap and restore their fertility back to them as it was before it was taken.’
The tarot card vibrated. The blood swirled away in wisps of reddish smoke until I could make out a picture. A dark-haired, hawk-nosed male in his thirties, dressed in a purple toga, his head wreathed with a crown of golden laurels, lounged on an ornate throne. He held a silver-bladed dagger in one hand, and behind him a large golden eagle perched on a staff-like pillar. The Emperor.
The Emperor on the card laughed; a loud arrogant sound that filled the large room. I started. The ginger tom leaped from the desk, its fur bottle-brush stiff, and at my feet Tavish whimpered. On the card a huge, fanged snake slithered up the staff and hissed at the golden eagle. The bird flapped its wings angrily and launched itself out into the room, soaring up to the ceiling.
I repeated my question.
The Emperor laughed again, pointed his silver dagger out of the card at me and bellowed, ‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price!’
Of course he would.‘Who’s he?’ my mouth demanded.
‘He is I!’
‘Who are you?’
The Emperor gave another booming laugh. ‘I am the Emperor!’
Great. Was it a tarot card or a pantomime villain? Next he’d be shouting, ‘He’s behind you!’ I gritted my teeth. Specific questions, Gen.‘What’s the name you were given at your birth?’
‘My father named me—’
An angry screech drowned his words as the golden eagle dived back into the card. The card exploded in a splatter of crimson as if a bullet had hit dead centre. Droplets of blood expanded out in a starburst of brilliant red light, their blinding afterimage searing my retinas.
Crap. Crapcrap crap.
No way in hell was that supposed to happen . . . I rubbed at my eyes, crouched and desperately stretched out to Tavish under the desk. Who knew what harm the explosion of magic had caused him? I patted around but couldn’t feel him. Finally, as my vision returned I realised the only things under the desk were me, the ginger tom and some disgusting toadstools sprouting from the mouldy rug.
Tavish was gone.
A soft snorting noise made me turn. In the centre of the room, making the place seem small, stood a kelpie horse. The kelpie’s green-black coat was rough over hard, ropy muscles, its tangled mane glinted with dull gold beads, its black-lace gills fanned wide to either side of its arched, serpentine neck, and its eyes flickered with golden light.
Damn. Tavish’s wylde side had come out to play. Perfect.
Chapter Four
I crawled out and stood with my back against the desk, cautious. I trusted Tavish, but he wasn’t the one in control of the kelpie. It was as if taking his waterhorse shape stripped away his couple of millennia’s worth of civilisation and left him as he must have been when he first came into being in the Shining Times: something feral and predatory, birthed from magic. Good news was: we weren’t near the river so the kelpie wasn’t likely to Charm me to ride it into the depths. Bad news: Tavish wasn’t exactly easy to communicate with in this form.
‘Um, you okay?’ I asked.
The kelpie shuddered as if shedding water; its usual signal to changing shape. Its eyes flashed black, then back to the odd gold light. It shook again, pawed the scratched wooden floorboards with one camel-toed hoof and flicked its tail over its flanks as if dislodging irritating flies, then shot me a wild, white-rimmed look.
‘Guess that means no,’ I muttered, glancing round the room in case a helpful solution jumped out at me. The window was still buzzing with Knock-back Wards, the gnome’s cats were milling in a furry tide in front of the interior door, obviously wanting away from the kelpie but trapped by the spells on the threshold—
The kelpie half-reared up, ears flat against its skull, and wheeled towards the door. The cats scattered, scrambling onto shelves or under furniture. The kelpie dipped its head, snatched up the spell crystal from the threshold with a disgusted snort and thudded out and away.
I stared after it for a long moment, expecting Tavish to return in his human form or to hear the gnome’s surprised shout on discovering a kelpie horse rampaging round his house.
After a few minutes’ silence the ginger tom peered from beneath the fungi-covered sofa, its eyes wary, then it clawed its way out, stood with its tail up. It hissed at me as if to ask, ‘Scary horse-thing gone?’
I sent my senses out. The gnome was still fast asleep but there was no ping telling me Tavish/kelpie horse was anywhere near.
‘Yep, looks like the scary horse-thing has gone,’ I muttered, wondering how a waterhorse without opposable thumbs had bypassed the doors and Wards.
Frustration slumped my shoulders. Figured something would go wrong. No matter what I did with magic it always seemed to mess up, even with something as supposedly simple as a tarot reading. Still, maybe the rest of the cards would be more informative . . . I turned back to the desk.
The tarot cards were gone.
Three hours later, I called it quits. While I’d waited for the tarot cards to reappear or Tavish to contact me, I’d got on with the investigation. I’d finished all the tests on the dead fairies – all of them were apparently dead from natural causes – checked out the gnome’s creepy stock, and had a good snoop round the house. And found no clues in the ‘incriminating’ department.
I called Tavish. Same as the last however many times, his phone went straight to voicemail. Presumably, he was working off whatever was bugging him with a swim in the River Thames. I added another message to my earlier ones saying I was packing up, the tarot cards were still gone, and to call me.
I wasn’t sure what to take from the Emperor card. Tarot wasn’t my strong suit (bad pun aside), but as any self-analysis was a non-starter – this was about the fae’s fertility after all – I went with a literal interpretation.
The card had said: ‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price!’ And then, ‘He is the Emperor!’
The Emperor, whoever he was, would do a deal for the info. Simple. Of course, whatever he wanted in exchange wasn’t likely to be simple at all. But I was doing the cart-before-the-horse thing. First I had to find him. Which would be so much easier if I knew who he was. Only, thanks to the eagle (or whatever the cards were channelling) cutting the reading short, I had no name, other than he called or thought of himself as the Emperor. Of course, that could be down to the tarot card’s standard depiction, so could be something or nothing.
But I did have a couple of clues.
The first was that, instead of the usual sceptre, the Emperor held a silver dagger.What that signified was anyone’s guess.
The second clue was more enlightening. The golden eagle had been perched on a snake-entwined staff. I’d recognised it: it was the Rod of Asclepius.
Asclepius was the Greek god of healing. According to myth, the goddess Athena, his aunt, gave him a gift of Gorgon’s blood to help him in his work. Only he didn’t just use it to heal the sick, he started bringing them back after they’d died too, thereby giving them what turned out to be a new bloodsucking immortal life. Hence all new vamps ‘Accept the Gift’ when they leave their human mortality behind. Turned out creating a new species was a fatal life-choice for Asclepius, though, since Zeus, his überdivine granddad, wasn’t too impressed by his grandkid overstepping his healing remit. He struck Asclepius dead with a thunderbolt. Then Apollo, Asclepius’s dad, got equally pissed off and decided to dispose of his son’s creations, whenever they stepped into his light, by burning them to a crisp. Which is why vamps don’t do storms or suntans.
And why the Rod of Asclepius on the tarot card had to mean the Emperor was a vamp.
‘So I’m looking for a vamp with delusions of majesty,’ I muttered, which left the suspect pool wide open. Though since I couldn’t imagine how some unknown vamp would have the answer to releasing and restoring the fae’s trapped fertility, the ‘Emperor’ would more than likely have some connection to London’s fae, and/or to me. Which narrowed the suspects down considerably. In fact, to the one vamp who did the whole royal thing ad nauseum. The psychotic, sadistic, murdering sucker I was supposed to marry when I was fourteen. The Autarch.
Panic rose up to close my throat. I forced it back down and told myself I was jumping to conclusions. I’d never known the Autarch to be called ‘Emperor’; he was always called a prince. And just because I thought I knew all the vamps in London, didn’t mean I did. There was probably some other vamp I’d never heard of who was the Emperor. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, Gen.I stifled the scared voice in my head. I needed more info before I let the possibility that I might finally have to face my own personal blood-sucker nightmare, turn me back into that terrified teenager who’d run away. And the quickest way to get that info was to talk to the vamp in the know.
Malik al-Khan. London’s Oligarch and my ‘owner/protector’ . . . according to the vamps’ icky ‘property’ database, anyway. What our relationship actually was . . . was complicated and confusing, and needed working out. Not just between us, but in my own head. And in my heart—
I halted my thoughts before they strayed any further into that particular emotional minefield. This wasn’t the time or place. Still, I couldn’t quite stop the eager leap of anticipation at having a reason to contact Malik . . . I snagged my phone, and, getting his voicemail, left a brief message for him to call me. That done, I put my phone away. As I took a steadying breath, noticed the ginger tom was crouched on the edge of the desk, hackles raised, gaze fixed on the window.
Peering round the edge of the sash window was a dark-haired figure, tall and broad enough to be male, his face in shadow.
For a moment my panic-induced paranoia screamed, the Autarch, then my sensible, prosaic head took over: the watcher was more likely to be a poacher casing the gnome’s joint for his magical valuables.
The male jerked out of sight, and I rushed to the window.
The house’s small front garden had once been a grassed square with shrubs around the outside, but the plants were now choked and overgrown, the grass knee-high with weeds. But, despite the jungle, there really was nowhere for anyone to hide. And other than one of the gnome’s cats disappearing into the bushes, the garden was empty. As was the road in both directions as far as I could see, and the open grassy space of the Primrose Hill park opposite.
Crap. I’d missed him—
A human couldn’t disappear that fast.
I sent my Spidey senses searching for any Others nearby, but all I picked up was the gnome at the back of the house . . . I closed my eyes and concentrated . . . There, distant enough that they had to be a good few houses away, the ping of a vamp—
Fuck. Maybe my first guess had been right, and the peeping tom/poacher wasthe Autarch.
Except, even with the sunset starting to paint the sky red and orange, it was still too bright and therefore too dangerous for any vamp to be out – Apollo’s crispy critter look is never a healthy choice for a sucker – so the vamp was probably just a local waking up. Although, my paranoia reminded me, while I’d never heard of any vamp having the ability to walk around during the day, that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t possible. And a daywalking Autarch had starred in not a few of my nightmares over the years.
I shuddered at that scarily uncomfortable thought and gave the empty garden a last once over, mentally filing ‘Autarch is stalker is Emperor’ for later discussion with Malik. We were going to have a lot to talk about.
I packed my stuff up and woke the sleeping gnome (eventually, though it took a cast-iron frying pan bouncing off his head; I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that satisfying) with the bad news that he’d have to wait a couple more days for his dead garden fairy licences (despite the lack of evidence, I’d decided to play it safe), and that he might have a poacher problem. Which, since something had punched out the cat flap in his back door – the kelpie? Could he shapeshift that small?– had the gnome shoving me out of his house in frenzied alarm so he could fix it and reinforce his Wards.
Outside, I perched on the gnome’s low garden wall. As I waited for my lift, thoughts of trapped fertility, tarot cards, disappearing kelpies, peeping toms and daywalking Autarchs circled my mind like the gnome’s anxious cats. My shoulders started to itch with the feeling I was being watched. I smoothed my thumb over the emerald ring on my right hand, and the large square-cut gem, guarded by baguette-cut rubies, warmed with a tingle of magic. The ring’s mediaeval gold setting was ugly and heavy, but that was its only downside. I took a quick scan, double-checking the road was still empty (not wanting to panic any bystanders), and clenched my fist.
A ball of green dragonfire erupted from the ring, and a sword sprang into my palm. A Roman gladius. Just over two feet in length, its two-edged blade a mix of steel and silver tapering to a sharp point. The sword was made for cutting, slashing or stabbing. And on the blade was an engraving of a dragon crouching along with the sword’s name: Ascalon. The sword was blessed and bespelled and would cleave through anyone, other than an innocent, killing them instantly.
Ascalon had been a present, of sorts, from an old flame a couple of months ago; he’d taught me to use it as a teenager, and since he’d given it to me, his current girlfriend – a fencing teacher and fitness instructor – had insisted on sparring with me thrice weekly (read beating me into the ground) to bring my sword-skills back up to scratch. Not that I minded; the sword was more than useful, and it came in the super-handy, concealed carry-size.
I lifted the sword in a warning salute to whatever/whoever was causing my ‘being-watched’ itch (be it just my paranoia or something more) then let the sword slip back into the ring, loving the fact I finally had a weapon I could take anywhere, and unlike the flick-knife I once carried, one that wouldn’t get me into trouble with human law. Even better, the ring came with its own See-Me-Not spell and would only work for me.
Maybe I should show the gnome the sword, next time he grabbed my arse.
Yeah, that would make him keep his filthy hands to himself. I grinned and let my paranoia relax slightly, breathing in the scent of a night-blooming jasmine and admiring the view of London’s skyline, its lights sparkling against the darkening sky. A warm summer breeze lifted the sweaty hair at my nape and brought me the faint sounds of bells, whistles and the rhythmic clank of machinery mixed with excited shouts and screams: the 24/7 fairground was in full money-making swing at the nearby Carnival Fantastique in Regent’s Park.
Rumour has it the Carnival, which descends on London every year in the week leading up to the Summer Solstice, was given the Regent’s Park pitch in the early eighteen hundreds after some shenanigans between the Prince Regent and the then Carnival Ringmaster, a triton (said to be immortalised in the fountain in Queen Mary’s Garden). Which may be true. But despite its initial colourful royal patronage, now the Carnival has to apply to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for all the relevant exhibition permits exactly like any other temporary show. Something I knew about in more detail than I ever wanted, since Spellcrackers (thanks to the company’s Witches’ Council associations) had won the contract to provide magical security for the Carnival. Tedious permit details aside, it was a solid high-profile contract and good for business.
The throaty roar of a motorbike drowned out my musings along with the Carnival’s distant noise.
The bike rode up the centre of the quiet road like a modern-day knight on a mechanical charger, and rolled to a showy stop in front of me. The tall, lean rider, dressed in black bike leathers and heavy boots despite the summer heat, silenced the engine, kicked the stand down with casual skill and turned a black-helmeted head my way, face a pale blur behind the dark smoke of the visor.
My lift had arrived.
