The Shifting Price of Prey [4]

by Suzanne McLeod

  I stared at him. My own dysfunctional family wasn’t any better than Finn’s. But at least they didn’t try to run my love life for me. Oh, wait, they did. They’d stuck me with the Fertility spell and all its problems. Fuck. ‘I don’t have a clue what to say, Finn.’

  He took my hands in his. ‘Gen, I want you to know there’s nothing going on with Helen. I don’t spend any more time alone with her than I can help, and I don’t want to. But she likes to play happy families with Nicky, and she’s using it to . . .’ He trailed off, colour staining his cheeks. Embarrassment? ‘It makes things difficult,’ he finished lamely.

  Why the fuck would he be embarrassed if nothing was going on? Something broke inside me. I’d had enough. I couldn’t listen to him tell me any more about the Witch-bitch. He’d always had a blind spot where she was concerned. The suspicious part of me thought she’d sicced him with some sort of spell, in fact he’d sort of admitted that she had, which just made his continuing acceptance of their relationship worse. And if he couldn’t break away from her, especially now, then I was done.

  I jerked my hands from his. ‘You need to leave, Finn.’ His brows knitted. ‘Leave?’

  ‘Yes.’ I strode from the bedroom through the living room to the front door and yanked it open. ‘Now.’

  He followed me, an earnest frown on his face. ‘You truly want me to go, Gen?’

  Part of me wanted to say no. I didn’t want to lose Finn. He was my friend. And he had a place in my heart. But his Witch-bitch ex was as toxic as nuclear slag. Almost everything bad was down to her, and no way did I want her to get her evil claws back into Finn and Nicky. But I couldn’t stop him from letting her. He had to do that himself. And if she was part of their lives— If he let her stay part of their lives, his life, then I couldn’t stay his friend.

  Whatever had broken inside me turned jagged, my throat ached and tears stung my eyes.

  I looked at him straight. ‘Yes. I want you to go.’

  ‘Is this because of that sucker? Are you seeing him?’

  Fury filled me and I opened my mouth, ready to tell him, hell, no! Then, at a nudge from the magic, my rage muted and I snapped it shut. Was this about Malik? Okay, yeah, I wanted both of them. And I knew there was no way I could have my cake and eat it with the two of them. And truth was, I didn’t want to. Sharing might be Sylvia and Ricou’s thing, but, right now, it wasn’t mine. So I’d known a choice was always going to have to be made. And that choosing one would mean losing the other.

  But Finn playing happy families with Helen meant the end of Finn and me, even if Malik hadn’t been in the picture. So yeah, Finn’s half-arsed confession was making my choice easier, but it wasn’t the reason I was telling him to go.

  ‘This is about you and Helen,’ I said flatly, ‘which you’d realise if you took the time to think about what you’ve just told me.’

  ‘Gen, he’s a sucker. A sucker who can order you around against your will. Or have you forgotten?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten anything. Like I haven’t forgotten how Malik gave his protection to every fae and faeling in London when I asked, and wanted nothing in return. Or how he was the one who put himself in danger helping me during the demon attack last Hallowe’en—’

  ‘I would have come if I could, Gen,’ Finn interrupted, his expression stricken. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ I snapped, my anger mounting again. ‘But you couldn’t, could you? And why was that? Oh yeah, because Helen stopped you.’

  ‘Because I would’ve broken her circle. She was working to keep the demon contained.’

  She was working to let the demon kill me, you mean. Rage rushed through me. I grabbed his arm and shoved him through the Ward on the flat’s door.

  ‘And I haven’t forgotten,’ I shouted, ‘that without Helen, Nicky, your daughter, wouldn’t be pregnant and Grace, my best friend, wouldn’t be fucking dead in my place.’

  He stood on the landing outside, eyes wide with shock, then he shuddered as if casting off a heavy coat. ‘Gen. You’re right. I’m sorry—’

  I slammed the door in his face.

  The rage drained out of me, leaving me empty and hollow. Pain flooded in to take its place. I sank to the floor, hands over my mouth, until the sound of his footsteps faded.

  Then I let my tears fall.

  ‘What’s it this time: nose, boobs or hips?’

  I focused on Mary’s – Detective Sergeant Mary Martin’s – reflection in the full-length mirror in front of us. I’d been so wrapped up in my frustration and anger, and, yes, grief, over Finn, I hadn’t noticed her come up next to me.

  Behind us, the mirror showed a plush office decorated in warm creams and oatmeal, and accented with enough pink to make it patently feminine without turning it into Barbie’s living room. The office was one of many in the upscale plastic surgeon’s expensive home-cum-consulting rooms, and was closer to a modern take on a Georgian drawing room than a doctor’s surgery. But then if victims feel reassured and relaxed in their surroundings, it makes them easier to fleece.

  Currently, the only victims around were the filing cabinets (heavily disguised as a splay-legged oak sideboard). The cabinets were being disembowelled by two WPCs wearing white paper jumpsuits, with matching shower caps and bootees, who were systematically tagging and bagging their contents. The same thing was happening throughout the rest of the exclusive Harley Street address where another ten witches – who along with Mary, made a full coven – were busily gathering evidence.

  And there was a ton of evidence to gather. Virtually every leaflet (of which there were thousands still in unopened storage boxes), every magazine and every reflective surface (from the numerous mirrors, through the framed pictures of satisfied customers, right down to the polished brass doorknobs) was tagged with some sort of Dissatisfaction hex.

  The place must’ve been like the eighth circle of hell to work in.

  My email to Hugh about the source of Harrods’ mutating Magic Mirror spell had set ‘Operation Nip Tuck’ in motion, and the unsuspecting doctor had received a six a.m. raid from Mary and her girls in blue.

  Mary placed a hand on my shoulder, making my own evidence-gathering jumpsuit crackle. ‘So, you going to answer me, Genny, or do I have to drag you into the Skin Stripper?’

  I gave her a half-smile. ‘’S’okay, I haven’t picked up another hex.’ The things were virulent, and throughout the morning we’d all spent time mirror-staring and angsting over our hex-induced bodily imperfections, the cure for which was a stint in the torturous Skin Stripper. ‘Just miles away.’

  Mary gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Ah. Time for a break, then. Come on, I’ll buy you coffee.’

  We headed out into the hall, our paper booties scuffing quietly on the thick carpet as we moved past the leaflet boxes stacked along the wall and into the office set up as a temporary canteen. The Ward on the doorway slipped over me like the tickle of feathers.

  As per procedure, the room had been physically emptied (even the carpet removed), ritually swept and magically cleansed, then Warded off from the rest of the house. The Skin Stripper was set up in the middle of the floorboards; a three-foot copper tray, surrounded by a tall circular frame off which hung a glyph-covered shower curtain (to preserve a witch’s modesty) and a modified shower head which rained salt, not water, on the tray’s occupant. Candles flickered in each corner of the room filling the air with the scent of sage, cloves and lemon balm, and along one wall were trolleys containing the Evidence Holding crystals. Against another wall was a stack of picnic-sized cool boxes with ‘Property of Metropolitan Magic and Murder’ stencilled in blue. We had enough food and drink to keep us going for another couple of days, if needed. Same as any other magical evidence-gathering investigation, the whole building had been Warded shut, and until all the active spells were locked up in the Holding crystals, police procedure said that none of us were getting out.

  Personally, I wasn’t planning on any of us staying longe
r than absolutely necessary.

  But then speed was one reason why Hugh had called me in as a police consultant. While it took a witch a good five minutes to transfer a spell from its original carrier to an Evidence Holding crystal, it was as quick as snapping my fingers for me. And, of course, the second reason was that I could identify any Magic Mirror spells similar to those used at Harrods.

  Mary opened a cool box and handed me an orange juice. ‘Let me guess,’ she said, ‘you’ve got man trouble, or should I say, satyr trouble.’

  I raised my brows. ‘I’m that transparent?’

  She smiled. ‘I’d love to say no, and that it’s my superb powers of deduction at work. But yeah, you are, especially since Sylvia texted me.’

  ‘Damn gossiping dryad.’ I jabbed the straw into the drink carton. ‘It’ll be all over London now.’

  Mary shot me an admonishing look as she fiddled with the coffee flask. ‘Sylvia won’t say anything; she was just worried about you.’

  I snorted. ‘I meant Robur. Sylvia hadn’t got up when I left, so the only way she knows about Finn is if the Wardrobe Freak told her.’

  ‘Ah.’ She added milk and ten lumps of sugar to her cup. It was excessive even for a witch. Still, Mary was using enough power on the job that she wasn’t likely to suffer sugar-abuse bloating any time soon. ‘Anything I can do?’

  I drained the juice box and crumpled it. ‘Lock up DI Helen Crane and throw away the key,’ I said sourly.

  ‘Wish I could.’ She shook her head in regret. ‘The problems she’s left us with are never-ending, both down the Yard and in the Witches’ Council.’

  ‘I’m more pissed off about the problems she’s causing now,’ I said, helping myself to a BLT. I’d been relieved to find the cool boxes contained a good supply of the sandwiches and orange juice at break time, since all I’d been allowed to bring in with me was my phone and some liquorice torpedoes (we were all nude under the jumpsuits; good thing it was summer and the paper was the thick, reinforced type). ‘The Witch-bitch has only gone and hitched herself back up with Finn and Nicky in the Fair Lands.’

  Mary grimaced. ‘Ugh. That’s a bugger, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep. And when he told me, I chucked him out. So he’s probably back there now, trapped in the Witch-bitch’s nasty, sticky web, where I’ve fat chance of doing anything about it.’ I ripped open the sandwich and tossed the packet in the bin in self-disgust. Some friend I was.

  She frowned. ‘You’re not responsible for his decision, Genny.’

  I pursed my lips. ‘I know. But I’m pretty sure the Witch-bitch has him tagged with a Love spell or a Trust Me crossed with a Compulsion.’

  ‘Wouldn’t put it past her,’ Mary agreed. ‘But he’d have to be stupid not to realise it after all this time. Those things need to be topped-up to keep working and from what I’ve heard it’s been a while since those two have been a couple.’

  ‘They’ve got Nicky,’ I said, ‘so they’ll have had enough contact for the Witch-bitch to keep her claws in him.’

  ‘You’re making excuses for him, Genny,’ she said gently.

  I shrugged in defensive acknowledgement. ‘He’s a friend.’

  ‘And you want him to be more?’

  Part of me still did, yes. But it wasn’t that part driving my need to see Finn safe. ‘Not so much now, but that doesn’t mean I want him tied to that bitch.’ Irritably, I picked the lettuce out of my sandwich.

  Mary gave me her pensive-cop face as she sipped her coffee. ‘You know we’ve got bacon rolls, don’t you?’

  ‘BLT’s come with healthy salad stuff,’ I explained deadpan, as I squidged the bread back together.

  ‘That you don’t eat,’ she replied drily.

  ‘Hey, I eat the tomatoes.’ I pulled out a slice to demonstrate and popped it in my mouth.

  ‘Only ’cause they’re smothered in mayonnaise.’ Mary grinned, topped up her coffee, added another three lumps of sugar and stirred. ‘And you know you’re just feeling guilty for throwing Finn out in a fit of temper instead of convincing him of Helen’s evil nature.’

  I was. I cut her a frown. ‘You taken a psych course or something recently?’

  She gave me a mock-stern look. ‘So, you also know you’ll never convince him she’s evil unless he wants you to?’

  Didn’t stop me wanting to try. Or better still, find the Witch-bitch, hitting her over the head with her broomstick and putting us all out of her misery. I sank my teeth into the sandwich, tearing off a large bite.

  Mary poked me on the shoulder. ‘So ring him. If nothing else it’ll get the guilt out of your system.’

  ‘He’s probably back in the Fair Lands by now,’ I mumbled after I’d swallowed.

  ‘Leave a message then,’ she said. ‘Calling him is for your benefit, not his, capiche?’

  I chewed thoughtfully. Mary was right. Finn and the Witch-bitch Helen and their relationship weren’t my problem to sort out, even if I had wanted me and Finn to be more than friends. But leaving him a message to let him know I was still his friend and here for him, if or when he came back, would at least make me feel less like I’d thrown him to the wolves.

  I dug my phone out.

  My phone was dead.

  Pushing away ominous thoughts about what that said about my and Finn’s friendship, I squinted at the small cherry-red crystal stuck to the back. Sure enough there was a black starburst crack at its heart; I’d fried the Buffer spell at some point. I sighed and showed Mary. ‘Third time today. First one went soon as I unplugged the damn phone from the charger then, even wearing gloves, my backup did the same. I dropped them off at the office to get fixed. This one’s a spare.’

  Mary nodded. ‘Electronics and magic, always iffy, especially with a good dose of high emotions.’

  I sniffed. Not to mention I was iffy with magic in the first place.

  ‘Those Buffers Sylvia makes are good if a bit expensive,’ Mary offered with more sympathy than a fried phone warranted. But then she’d heard me moan about my lack of magical ability more than once.

  ‘They were Sylvia’s Buffers.’

  ‘Ahh. You were angry.’

  ‘Yep.’ And upset, I added silently. I’d call Finn later, once we’d finished here. After all, it wasn’t like he was around to answer.

  ‘Want me to let your office know you’re fried?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  She fished her phone out and sent a text. ‘Done.’

  I nodded, then as she scrolled through her messages, asked, ‘So, any news on the zoo kidnap victims yet?’

  ‘No.’ Frustration turned her brown eyes almost black. ‘We’re going through all the textbook motions, calling for informants to come forward, etc., but other than the usual crazies, so far that’s a bust. And there’s been no ransom demand of any sort. Which, since they were snatched yesterday morning, the negotiator says there should’ve been by now.’

  ‘Think it’s an inside job?’

  ‘Difficult to say without speaking to the victims’ families and associates. Which is hard with the Bangladeshi ambassador still claiming diplomatic immunity.’ Her grip on her cup tightened in exasperation. ‘Apparently he’s spending his time praying for his wife and child’s safety at London’s Central Mosque. Which is all well and good, but if he’d let us help, we might have a shot at finding them.’

  ‘So, no luck getting that bloodstained kurta the bodyguard was wearing for a scrying?’

  ‘No. The DI’s put in a written request, but they’ve not even come back with an acknowledgement. Even more worrying is that his security refuse to give us anything to use as a focus, not even some of the kid’s toys.’

  ‘You were going to try a psychic scry?’ I asked, surprised. Psychic scrying was way harder and less successful than standard scrying, which used hair, nail clippings, blood or other bodily fluids.

  ‘We were hoping to do a combined. The kid’s only six, so something’s bound to have ended up in his mouth at some point.
I still find Emily chewing on things.’ Emily, Mary’s daughter, was nine. ‘It was a long shot, but anything’s worth doing in these situations.’ She gave a wry twist of her lips but I could see the worry etching into her soul; abducted children were always the hardest cases for everyone to deal with, even more so for parents. All that horrific imagining of ‘things that could happen’ combined with the natural protective urges really take a toll.

  ‘Right,’ I said, after we shared a quiet moment, ‘did anyone else think the ambassador’s henchies were a bit off? Sort of predatory?’

  ‘I asked around, but seems like you were the only one, Genny.’ She grabbed a pink-iced doughnut topped with a cherry. ‘Could be you just freaked them out.’

  The only people I usually freaked out were those who didn’t have a nearby fae community; usually some place, like the Midlands, where too much heavy industry made it uncomfortable living for most fae.

  ‘The ambassador didn’t seem freaked by me,’ I said.

  She picked the cherry off and popped it in her mouth. ‘True. But unfortunately it doesn’t give us any sort of clue to go on. What we need is for him to come to his senses and give up whatever information he or his security staff are holding back. My instinct says it’s the clue to why the victims were snatched.’

  ‘Think there’s anything I can do? See if I can get him to chat to me off the record?’

  She ate her doughnut, munching thoughtfully. ‘It could work, but only if the DI thinks it’s a good idea. I’ll run it by him. If he says yes, maybe you could go and see the ambassador once we’re finished here. Any idea when you’ll be done?’

  I headed back out into the hallway and contemplated the long, high stack of leaflet boxes. Each box glowed faintly pink in my sight. Mentally I did the calculations. ‘Individually, it’ll probably take another seven or eight hours. Or I can call them in groups, which will be an hour, two tops.’ I gave her a questioning look.

  Mary shook her head. ‘Sorry, Genny, much as I’d love to say go for it, this one needs to be done individually.’