Текст книги "The Shifting Price of Prey"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 33 страниц)
Chapter Seventeen
Ah.‘What wouldn’t work?’ I asked.
‘I told them you were still hung up on Finn. That you wouldn’t be interested in me and Ricou. But they wouldn’t have it.’
Finn. The cut-me-off-without-an-explanation-satyr-I-wasn’t-thinking-about.
I rubbed the ache blooming in my chest.
Sylvia’s green eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Just because he stopped writing, Genny,’ she said softly, ‘it might not mean what you think.’
I’dkept writing up until four weeks ago. Not because I was hung up on him but because he was my friend. And I wanted to know if he was okay. Even if he’d never got my letters, he knew there was no way I could contact him other than through his family so he’d have found a way to check why I seemed to be giving him the silent treatment . . . if we’d really been the friends, never mind the anything more, I’d thought we were.
Crap. I’d promised myself not to waste any more time on him.
‘Who are they, Syl?’
She gave me a long troubled look, obviously wondering whether to push me about a certain satyr. But that subject was done. To my mind, anyway– She started to speak and I jerked my hands up. ‘Syl, forget it. Forget him. Please. Just tell me who theyare, and why they want you to seduce me?’
She shook her head, leaves rustling with a mix of frustration and irritation. ‘Goodness, who do you think, Genny? Our mothers!’
Right. The Ladies Meriel and Isabella: Head naiad and dryad respectively a.k.a. Ricou’s and Sylvia’s mothers. ‘Why do they want you to seduce me—’ I stopped as it all fell into place. ‘No, let me guess: Spellcrackers.’
‘Yes.’ Sylvia sighed, her shoulders drooping. ‘They said we might as well make ourselves useful since we both insisted on staying with you.’
Damn. I knew the satyr herd elders wanted Spellcrackers back but this was the first I’d heard the Ladies had their acquisitive eyes on the business. Well, they could all think again. Spellcrackers was mine, and would be until a certain satyr came back from the Fair Lands, which wouldn’t be for at least another two months.
I scowled at Sylvia. ‘You’ve been staying with me for three months. Why are the Ladies plotting now?’
‘Gosh, I don’t know. Mother wouldn’t tell me anything more unless I let her through the Wards. She said she wasn’t going to discuss matters of import while on a public roof for all to listen.’
I gaped. ‘You kept your motherstanding outside?’
‘Of course I did.’ Her expression turned to a mix of despair and mutiny. ‘I’m not that stupid. You don’t know what she’s like.’
Actually, I did. Lady Isabella hadn’t been beyond kidnapping me as a way of making me do what she wanted in the past. That she hadn’t succeeded was not for want of trying.
‘If I’d let her in,’ Sylvia carried on, ‘she’d have had me locked up in my tree in a heartbeat. She’s on about it not being safe here for me and the baby again.’
‘Is she crazy? With all the protective Wards and magic here this place is safer than Buck House. Not to mention you can hardly move for all the dryads and their trees she’s got camped out around here. They’ve had to divert traffic round the huge elm that’s taken root outside the front door.’
‘I told her that, but she’s suddenly got this bee in her bonnet that “staying here is dangerous”. Of course, it’s really about that Ricou. She’s still furious that her grandchild is going to be half naiad, and how we’re never going to find a suitable tree. She only shut up about it when I agreed to have a go at seducing you.’
‘You made an agreementwith your mother?’ Fae don’t make or break bargains lightly; the consequences are too unpredictable and can backfire on both parties even if the bargain is kept. I couldn’t care less about Lady Isabella, but I did care about Sylvia. ‘Why the hell did you do that, Syl?’
Her eyes went wide with shock. ‘Oh my gosh, no, it wasn’t that type of agreement, Genny.’ She held her hand up, fingers crossed. ‘Just the kid’s promise, the sort that doesn’t involve magic, you know?’
Relieved, I nodded. ‘You had me worried for a min.’
She smiled, then added coyly, ‘And, you know, you might have said yes. It would be so much fun.’ She paused, obviously waiting for me to have a change of orientation: Sylvia is nothing if not persistent. I gave her a look. ‘But, oh well, you didn’t, so now I’ve kept my promise, I’m off the hook. So’ – she grabbed the bottle of Cristall vodka – ‘how about I make you that special Bloody Mary?’
‘It’s okay, Syl.’ I took the bottle from her and put it down. ‘I’ll do it myself once I’ve finished. You go to bed. You and Baby Grace need your rest.’
‘I could always stay and watch?’ she said, giving me a hopeful look. ‘It gets a bit lonely with Ricou gone most of the time.’
Did she never give up?‘No, you really couldn’t,’ I said firmly.
She pouted. ‘Spoilsport.’
‘Yep, that’s me.’ I opened the wardrobe door and gestured inside. ‘Goodnight, Sylvia.’
‘You know, Genny, you’re really not like sidhe are supposed to be—’
‘Please,’ I groaned, ‘not the sidhe sex myth again. Syl, I’m really not gagging for it.’ At least I wasn’t now, after Mad Max’s tough-love Poultice spell. And, thankfully, even before that Sylvia obviously hadn’t been hitting my hot buttons. ‘Now. Go. To. Bed.’
She gave me one last imploring look, which I pointedly ignored, then, with a loud guilt-inducing sigh, she ducked under the empty hanging rail and disappeared through the back of the wardrobe.
I grabbed the sheet I kept on the wardrobe shelf, closed the door and carefully draped it over the wardrobe’s front to stop any peeping eyes.
I stripped off. Not that I needed to be naked to do the cleansing ritual to get rid of the Magic Mirror spell I’d absorbed at Harrods; it was just more practical than neutralising my clothes afterwards. Crunching on half-a-dozen liquorice torpedoes, I sat crossed-legged inside the larger circle, opened the part of me that can seethe magic, picked up my knife and pricked my left index finger. A bead of bright red blood welled up and I touched it and my will to the outer circle. The circle rose like a glass cake dome shot through with gold.
I gathered the hyperactive pinballs of magic inside me and taking a deep breath, taggedthe pinballs to the salt block. They fizzled and spat like water on a hotplate as they hit the salt, then, as I hoped it would, the Magic Mirror spell dissolved into the usual thick grey sludge. The fetid smell of rotting vegetables filled the circle – confirmation, if I’d needed it, that the original spell had been altered with deliberate malice and wasn’t some sort of accident, same as the last few times I’d done this.
Only now, after my unusual preoccupation with my looks and Sylvia’s cleavage, I had an idea what might be responsible. That urge for plastic surgery hadn’t popped into my head on its own. A quick email to Hugh and bit of investigation by the Met’s Magic Squad, and Harrods’ mutating Magic Mirror spell problem should be sorted. Satisfied I’d got something to go on, I setthe sludge-filled inner circle. It popped into place like an upside-down sieve made of fine gold mesh.
‘Now for the fun part.’
I focusedon the sludge-covered salt, and crackedit.
The magic and the salt exploded, the sludge predictably erupting like a mini volcano. I threw my arms up in front of my face as the sludge splattered me, leaving me feeling cold, wet, and as if I’d been thoroughly slimed by a swamp-dragon’s parasitic wyrm.
‘And isn’t that an icky thought,’ I grumbled, flicking sludge off my fingers and watching as it dissipated into the ether. At least the sieve-like inner circle kept the actual salt from hitting me; the stuff stung like sand in a desert storm otherwise. The sludge was magical, so now the spell was neutralised the only physical clear-up involved was washing the salt down the drain in the bath, and stowing my blue plastic.
I tidied up, jumped in a hot shower then emailed Hugh about my suspicions.
The Magic Mirror spell problems at Harrods: think I know what’s causing it. The lingerie fitting rooms are filled with promo leaflets for a posh plastic surgery clinic (link to website below). I think they’re probably tagged with some sort of Dissatisfaction or Envy hex to encourage new customers to the clinic. Could be worth checking out?
I pressed send then headed for the kitchen to make my Bloody Mary nightcap.
The glass of ice was still waiting for me; Sylvia had thoughtfully bespelled it to stop it melting. I opened the fridge and wrinkled my nose at the fishy reek of the two dead mackerel; having a naiad as a flatmate has its smelly downsides. At least Sylvia likes her food cooked. Though I couldn’t really talk, I thought, as I snagged the carton of lamb’s blood and poured a pint into a cocktail shaker. I added a healthy measure of vodka then stuck my hand in the empty cut glass bowl next to the sink.
The glyphs etched around the bowl glowed pink as it conjured some blood-fruit: the magical answer to controlling my 3V infection. The blood-fruit meant I didn’t have to rely on G-Zav – the human vamp junkies’ methadone – which doesn’t work too well for fae, or need to Get Fanged by a vamp to get my regular dose of vamp venom. The bowl and its never-ending supply was a reward from Clíona after I’d helped her out. Seeing as my queenly grandmother wasn’t my biggest fan, the paranoid part of me kept expecting her to take it back, or use it to poison me, even though that would effectively break the bargain we’d made. So far, she’d stuck to her word.
Usually I got cherries – the bowl had a thing for Sylvia (with the whole fruity connection they had, she and the bowl gossiped like a pair of silver birches) – or sometimes blackberries, though they’d been noticeably absent since the satyrhad stopped writing. Occasionally the bowl produced something weird, like today’s offering. A fruit, painted silvery gold like all blood-fruit, appeared. It was vaguely pear-shaped, but too knobbly, so I doubted it actually was one.
I poked it and guessed. ‘A pear?’
‘This is not a pear, but a quince, sacred to Aphrodite’ – the bowl’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone – ‘and you know who she is, don’t you?’
‘Yep,’ I said flatly, ‘the Goddess of Love.’
‘And of beauty and sexuality,’ the bowl added smugly. ‘The quince is also the fruit of love, marriage and fertility,’ it finished archly.
Of course it was. ‘What’s it taste like?’
‘What else but paradise?’
Gods save me from magical artefacts and their lame sense of humour.
‘Thanks,’ I muttered, knowing from past experience that saying anything else would get me something disgusting next time, like crab apples. I chopped the quince, popped the pieces into a mincer, cranked the handle (not having electricity sucks) and added the pulp to the blood in the cocktail shaker. I shook, poured the Bloody Mary into the glass and added a good shake of chilli flakes. They’d help disguise the quince if it tasted foul. And, after that paradise quip, I fully expected it to.
I sipped. Under the chilli the blood tasted bitter and astringent. Figured.
I moved to the full-length mirror propped next to my bedroom door (I’d shifted it out of my bedroom to stop Sylvia, and her lack of boundaries, from bursting in every time she wanted to use it) and dropped my towel. Might as well check the Magic Mirror spell was truly kaput.
I stared at my reflection with apprehension. Malik’s rose-coloured bruises still marked the front of my body from my breasts down to the faint Celtic knot tattoo which sat low on my left hip, the remains of the spell that had let me borrow Rosa’s vamp body. It was now as dead as she was. If not for them, I thought I looked pretty good. My curves might be not be as generous as Sylvia’s but I was healthy and in proportion. Big boobs would look odd, I decided. Relief filled me. The nasty influence of the Magic Mirror spell was definitely gone.
I chugged the rest of the blood-fruit Mary down, and stepped back.
Something crunched under my foot.
It was the fortune cookie the old Chinese woman had given me. I’d stowed it in my backpack.
Gingerly, I picked it up. It crumbled in my hand and a blank tarot card zoomed out to hover in front of me.
Pulse speeding with excitement, and a little trepidation, I hurriedly set a Privacy spell (there was too much wood around and no way did I want any of Sylvia’s mother’s spies hearing about this), swapped the glass for a knife and slashed my index finger.
‘I offer my blood solely in exchange for the answer to my questions. No harm to me or mine,’ I said, and touched the tarot card.
The little mouth latched onto my blood with gusto. Still no pain, other than a tiny tickle.
‘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 pendant and restore it back to them as it was before it was taken,’ I asked, repeating my original question.
The mouth stopped sucking. ‘Eh, why’s everyone so blummin’ impatient,’ a crotchety voice grumbled. ‘Blimey, can’t ye let a body have a few moments to drink in peace?’
‘Um, sure,’ I said, not sure if the voice was male or female. ‘Sorry.’
‘So ye should be, girlie. So ye blummin’ should be. Now keep yer mouth shut till I’m done.’ The mouth latched back on and I watched as my blood turned the card red from the bottom up.
An image appeared on the card.
Chapter Eighteen
A blood-red moon hung between two Romo-Greco-style pillars, frowning down at a grey-brown wolf which was baying up at the moon, and a dog with a stick in its mouth. The ground was covered with snow, apart from a black-cinder path leading between the two beasts and into the distance. A nebulous dark shape was clawing its way onto the path from the crimson-coloured river running along the front of the card.
The Moon. Symbolising feelings of uncertainty, of being haunted by the past, and associated with dreams, fantasies and mysteries. Well, it got that right; my past was haunting me in the shape of the Autarch and the Fertility pendant; Malik had the dreams and fantasies nailed, and the Emperor was certainly a mystery. And if I needed any more convincing, the moon was shadowed by a black sickle shape, matching the black gem in Malik’s ring; the dog was a silvery-grey Irish wolfhound, like Mad Max in his doggy persona; and the wolf was a werewolf with distinctive green starburst-patterned human eyes. Which left the dark thing in the river. Wasn’t it supposed to be a crayfish? Though since it was meant to represent ‘fears that come out of the abyss’, the dark shape had it covered.
The card stopped sucking on my finger and I repeated my original question.
The wolf howled at the moon and leaped out of the card on to my arm. I tried not to flinch as its sharp prehensile paws dug into my flesh.
‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price!’
‘Is he the Emperor?’ I asked, double-checking.
‘Yes.’
‘Is the Emperor a vampire?’
‘Yes.’
Good to have what I knew confirmed. ‘Can you tell me where to find him?’
‘No.’
‘Can you tell me what price he wants?’
‘No.’
Figured. Rather than get a straight yes or no again, I risked an open question. ‘What can you tell me?’
‘They are coming.’
Informative. Not. ‘Who are they?’ I asked. ‘And why are they coming?’
‘They are the beasts. They come for you.’
My pulse sped. ‘Why do they come for me?’
The Irish wolfhound barked and dropped the stick he was holding, then jumped out of the card. Snapping at the wolf’s heels, the dog chased it back into the card. As the two hit the snowy scene the moon flashed bright as a halogen light and illuminated the shape that was clawing its way out of the river. It was a monstrous grey and black striped cat, bigger than both wolfhound and wolf.
As a pictorial manifestation of ‘fears that come out of the abyss’, the cat had a crayfish beat hands down. It opened its jaws wide, showcasing huge sabre-tooth fangs, then shook itself, spraying bloody droplets over the snow-covered ground as well as the stick the dog had dropped– no, not a stick but a silver dagger, half-buried. It looked similar to the one the Emperor had been holding in the first tarot card, only now I could see some of the handle. It was carved twisted bone and eerily familiar—
The cat screamed and the card disintegrated into a mini snowstorm. The crimson-tinged flakes drifted down to melt like ice on my skin.
I stood stunned. I was pretty sure the dagger’s handle was carved from a unicorn’s horn. The last time I’d seen a dagger like that was during the demon attack at Hallowe’en. It couldn’t be the same knife; that one had gone to hell with the demon. But this one looked similar enough that I wondered if it had the same power– a Bonder of Souls.
Only, why would the tarot cards show it first with the Emperor, then with Mad Max’s doggy persona? And should I be more worried about the knife, or that the Emperor’s beasts were coming for me? Or maybe they were already here; Katie thought she’d seen a werewolf after all. And I’d been so fixed on the flasher/watcher/shapeshifter being the Autarch that I hadn’t believed her.
Damn it. Katie.
If the werewolf had been at the Primrose Hill park to sniff me out, then there was a good chance it had sniffed Katie out too. Tavish might say there was nothing in the old wives’ tale about werewolves chasing virgins, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t go after her to get at me.
I yanked my robe on and called Tavish.
He answered on the ninth ring and, almost jumping up and down with worry, I demanded, ‘Did you give Katie that werewolf-repelling perfume yet?’
‘Aye, course I did, doll. I sent it her right after we chatted. Sent some to you too, ’twill be in your fridge. Why?’
The anxious knot in my stomach relaxed slightly. Katie was safe; the perfume should keep the werewolves at bay. And the Ward on her necklace would protect her from almost anything else.
I said thanks and filled Tavish in on the Moon tarot card. ‘So,’ I finished, ‘I obviously need to watch out for werewolves, but what about the knife? Could it be another soul-bonding one? And if it is, why does he want it?’
‘Och, Soul Bonders are a rarity. The knife may be another thing entirely. ’Tis difficult to say why, doll, with only two cards revealed. ’Twill be easier to divine once the full reading is complete.’
‘So not helpful, Tavish.’
‘Aye, well, I told you searching out the answers takes time.’
‘What about the fact that the Emperor’s holding the knife in the first card, but the Irish wolfhound has it in this one? That’s got to mean something?’
‘Nae doubt it does, and the cards will tell you in time.’
He sounded preoccupied, but then I could hear his computers beeping and the clack of keys in the background. I tapped my foot, anxious. ‘Tavish, c’mon, they’re your cards. Give me something to work with here.’
‘Aye, but ’tis your reading. So ’tis catered to what’s in your mind and heart, nae mine.’
‘Okay, then how’s this for a theory.’ I closed my eyes, trying to fit the pieces together. ‘The werewolf on the card said the Emperor’s werewolves are coming for me. It felt like a threat, but what if it’s not? What if it’s just a heads up? I mean, when I asked the werewolf why the Emperor wanted me, the Irish wolfhound chased the werewolf off. And when I asked Malik about the Emperor last night, he started prevaricating, and he was under the Autarch’s influence.’
I leaned on the kitchen counter, head in my hand and clutched the phone closer. ‘So if we take it the Irish wolfhound, a.k.a. Mad Max, represents the Autarch, and the werewolf represents the Emperor, then the dog stopping the werewolf from telling me things could mean that the Autarch is trying to stop me from finding the Emperor.’
I blew out a breath, trying to ease the tension in my shoulders. ‘Maybe what the card’s really telling me is that the Emperor’s beasts are coming for me so we can do a deal, but that the Autarch is going to try to stop me meeting them. Which could mean the Autarch’s trying to prevent me from finding out how to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant.’
‘Hmph.’ The sound of Tavish’s fingers hitting keys quietened for a moment. ‘Nae sure the Autarch’s bothered about the fae’s fertility, doll. But stands to reason he won’t want you mixing with any outsider vampires, not when he’s always had a hankering for you himself. And I ken you said Malik does-nae think much of this Emperor, either. So my money’s on the card being a warning for you to take care about the Emperor, and also a warning to keep away from the Autarch and Malik al-Khan till this matter with the Emperor is done.’
Except I’d already agreed to Malik’s ‘date’ . . . if he ever phoned me back to arrange it. And the date wasn’t only to find out about the Emperor and the fae’s fertility. I needed to talk to Malik about us. To work out whatever our relationship was. And I needed to know the beautiful vamp was okay.
Of course, if I didn’t go on the ‘date’ I probably wouldn’t need to confront Bastien the psycho, or my phobia.
But then if Malik were in trouble, I’d be leaving him to the sadistic psycho’s not-so-tender mercies . . . something I wasn’t prepared to do.
I decided not to mention any of that to Tavish.
Instead, I said, ‘If I stay away from Malik, it makes it harder to find the Emperor. And I’d rather find him before his werewolves find me.’
‘Told you, doll.’ Tavish’s irritation came over the phone loud and clear. ‘’Twill nae take me long now I’ve found his website . . . as a matter of fact, I’m sending you another screenshot.’
I checked. The new shot of the Emperor looked the same as the last one except now below the Emperor, scrolling across the screen in Romanesque font, were the words: Forum Mirabilis.
‘Think it’s some sort of vamp chat room?’
‘I dinna ken yet, doll. Mirabilis means “Amazing”, or “Wondrous”,’ Tavish replied, his voice still distracted. ‘And there’s nae much that’s wondrous about a chatroom. Anyways, soon as I find it out, I’ll let you know.’
‘Okay, but there’s a couple of things worrying me. First up, why did the cards show a huge cat thing instead of a crayfish? That has to mean something?’
‘Hm, could be something or . . .’ A silence. ‘Could be you’re more scared of cats than crayfish?’
‘I’m not a troll, Tavish,’ I said drily, ‘and I couldn’t care one way or the other about crayfish.’
‘Well, the cards dinna always show the literal truth, she may be picking up on your subconscious fears and having herself a bit of fun—’
‘Fun!’
‘Aye, she’s a creative type, so maybe ’tis a subconscious thing from last you were scared—’
Which was ten seconds ago. When I thought of the Autarch. Which meant the thing crawling out the abyss should be a vamp.
‘—Or last saw a cat,’ Tavish finished.
‘The gnome’s,’ I said flatly. ‘The place was full of cats.’ And I’d thought of the Autarch there, too.
‘Och, well, there you go, doll. Something scared you there and the spirit’s matched it with the cats. Told you, she’s the creative type. And she can be a bit ornery at times, too’
An ornery creative type? Really? Dismay filled me. I’d rather have a pedantic-tell-it-like-it-is type answering my questions. A feeling that brought up my second, more important worry. ‘Are you sure the spirit in the tarot cards is trustworthy? That she can’t be compromised?’
He gave an exasperated snort. ‘Told you, doll. Those cards are sidhe-made.’
‘Sidhe can fudge the truth as well as anyone, Tavish. Seems weird that an out-of-town vamp, however powerful he is, who we’ve never heard of, knows how to release the fae’s fertility. I mean, what if it’s a big hoax, or some sort of trap? What if the card’s spirit is out there chatting to this Emperor vamp, or to the Autarch, and they’re cooking all this up together?’
‘She’s a spirit. She cannae talk to the living unless it’s through the cards. Only others she can talk to is like-minded spirits.’
I stared blindly at my scowling reflection, unwilling to let my ‘Bastien’ paranoia go just yet. ‘She’s like a ghost then? So a vamp could’ve got a necromancer to talk to her?’
‘Nae, doll, she’s nae so much dead as disembodied and bound to the cards.’ Tavish sigh was mildly exasperated. ‘Told you, without the cards naeone can talk to her. And right now, there’s only you can talk to her anyhows, seeing as it’s your reading she’s doing.’
Hmm. ‘What are like-minded spirits?’
‘Just that. Another spirit bound to an item, same as your blood-fruit bowl. And afore you ask, t’only way they can chat is if they’re by one another and I have the cards here with me.’
‘I thought my bowl was a magical artefact?’
‘Aye, doll, ’tis that. It uses the power of the spirit bound to it to make it magical.’
Right. Made sense now I thought about it. ‘So how do the spirits get bound to an item?’
‘Och, maybe they upset someone, or make a bad bargain. There’s nae any way to ken.’
Nasty. And probably didn’t make for a happy spirit, which my blood-fruit bowl definitely was not; no wonder it was so snarky all the time. Only it wasn’t the bowl my paranoia was panicking about, but the spirit in the tarot cards. ‘So there’s no way she could be plotting with anyone else?’
‘Doll . . .’ Another silence while Tavish obviously gathered his patience. ‘Dinna fash yerself about it. Once the reading’s done then ’twill all become clear. And ’twill nae be long before I’m into the Emperor’s website. That’ll give us more to go on.’
‘Okay, but—’
The phone went dead.
I scowled at it, wondering if it was worth calling him back, then shook my head. He knew where I was, and for all his distraction he was an invested in the outcome of the tarot reading as I was. More so, really. So I should probably let him get on with his hacking.
I double-checked the new screenshot of the Emperor’s website against the previous one. Apart from the ‘Forum Mirabilis’ bit, there was nothing new. But the tarot cards said the Emperor’s werewolves were coming for me, and never mind the ‘heads up’ theory I’d given Tavish, I’d be stupid not to prepare for the worst. No way did I want to end up howling at the moon. Only I didn’t know much more about werewolves than Tavish and Katie had told me.
Time for some research.
I grabbed a blood donation bag, hooked myself up and pushed through the Ward on the front door and out onto the landing (where thankfully, the Wards hadn’t managed to nix the electricity). Checking the Buffer spell on my laptop was clear (with all the extra security around, a thief would have a hard time getting into the building, never mind stealing the laptop. Not to mention, computers were even more susceptible than mobiles when it came to getting fried by magic; Buffer spells only give so much protection), I pulled up the online witch archives. The information on werewolves was in the public section.
I clicked on ‘Therianthropic Metamorphosis’ and started reading.
