The Shifting Price of Prey [4]

by Suzanne McLeod

  Surprise made me choke on his blood. He was choosing now to tell me something personal about his past? Didn’t he know the time for sweet nothings was during the post-coital haze? And not after he’d pissed me off with all his orders. But his words still muted my fury, and raised an instinctive compassion in my heart for the child he’d been.

  ‘You do not need to feel pity for me,’ he said coolly, as if he’d read my mind which, with me attached to his wrist like a limpet was a possibility. ‘I was trained as a janissary, one of the sultan’s elite army, and was proud to swear my loyalty to him and his blood. It was a prestigious and rewarding life, more so than the one I was otherwise destined for as a subsistence farmer in Northern Albania.’

  Bully for you, I muttered at him. But how about we can the personal history and talk about the present? For starters: I’ve had enough blood. In fact, sucking on you is making me feel nauseous. Which wasn’t a lie. I was feeling sick, just not physically. Though, the way my stomach was bloating up like an over-stretched wine bag, physical sickness was going to be an option in the near future.

  ‘Keep drinking,’ he ordered.

  I didn’t need to pity the child he’d been, or the bully he was being now. But while I might not be able to disobey his ‘keep drinking’ order, I could dig my teeth into his arm in protest. Triumph sparked as he flinched, then an odd note of remorse hit. I was causing him pain . . . or he was causing me pain . . . I was getting echoes of what he was feeling, sucking them down with his blood. Damn. If we merged thoughts any more, then between us I was going to get emotional whiplash.

  ‘When I was twenty, Suleiman 1 became sultan. He was my liege and my . . . friend. He had ambitions to expand the Ottoman Empire; ambitions which succeeded, as history has documented. What history does not detail is the strategy he used to win the Battle of Mohács where he defeated Louis II of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire became the pre-eminent power in Eastern Europe.’

  Through my link with his blood, I caught remnants of his feelings for Suleiman: loyalty, respect, an echo of hero worship, and sadness that his liege and friend was long gone; but, above all, a brotherly love. Not that any of that explained why the hell he was telling me all this. Or made me any less furious.

  ‘Suleiman used sanguine lemurs, as they were called then.’ Malik’s voice was stark. ‘Revenants.’

  Revenants are the skeletons in the vamps’ closet, the monster side of the vamp myth, the one that isn’t supposed to exist. Unlike the usual ‘lucky’ recipients of the Gift (3V-infected humans who are carefully nurtured over months, or even years), revenants are made instant vamps through a forbidden ritual. One day human, the next a bloodthirsty, bloodsucking monster with less impulse control than a greedy two-year-old. All they want to do is fuck, feed and kill, and not necessarily in that order. Though ‘want’ isn’t quite right, as after a few days they don’t usually have any higher functions left, and most end up shambling corpses; the true undead.

  The penny started to drop. Malik carried the revenant curse in his blood, though he’d overcome it. Damn. Whatever the reason I was getting this story, I knew it wasn’t going to have a happy ending. The thought almost snapped the tether of his order and stopped my own feeding.

  ‘After the battle, Suleiman gave orders to keep no prisoners,’ Malik carried on in a low voice. ‘It was a good strategy. It sent a message to our enemies, plus we had neither the manpower nor the supplies to support the extra mouths. But his true reason for the order was to destroy the revenants. They had been corralled along with the vanquished enemy, and had continued to feast unchecked until the monsters died with the dawn. There was no way to determine which of the living or dead might be infected; one bite and a drop of blood can be all that is required for the curse to manifest. Suleiman paid the dragons to burn every one until they were nothing more than ashes to be scattered to the four winds.’

  His blood told me he’d been one of those who’d directed the massacre, and I tasted the horror and shame he still felt at that memory. It coated my throat, made it hard to swallow.

  Was that when you were made revenant? During the fighting?

  ‘After the battle, Suleiman dispensed with the vampire’s services, the one who had made the revenants. When the vampire left, he took something of mine. I hunted him down. Offered myself in exchange. That was when I was afflicted with the blood-curse.’

  He stopped. And this time I felt grief, failure and soul-deep revulsion and hatred. For what he’d become, and for the vamp who’d made him both evil and a monster.

  The vamp that did this to you is the evil monster, I said firmly, my own anger rising. Not you.

  Bitter denial trickled through his blood, and then he gently ordered, ‘Stop now, Genevieve.’ My mouth and hands let go of his wrist, and I gasped, slumping as he released his mental hold on my body. ‘You have received back all but a small part of the power I acquired from you when I fed.’

  I rubbed my neck and jaw, easing the stiff muscles there, swinging between anger, the need to comfort him and wondering what the hell he was talking about. ‘Explain.’

  A weary sigh chilled my nape. ‘It was too dangerous for me to carry your magic, Genevieve.’

  I twisted to kneel between his legs, relieved to find his almond-shaped eyes were back to their normal obsidian black. ‘Dangerous?’

  Malik traced a finger over the pulse in my throat. It jumped at his touch. ‘I became close to losing control of the revenant when I took your blood. It is why I took more than I intended.’

  My chest constricted. It was his biggest fear; that he’d go insane with bloodlust, start killing and spread his revenant curse. Personally, I couldn’t see it; after all, he’d kept himself under strict control for centuries, always feeding from other vamps, however difficult they made things for him, and never from humans. Or even me. Until now. But then that’s phobias for you. Still, it was understandable after the trauma of seeing an army destroyed by a pack of animalistic revenants, only to become one soon after. I shuddered. It also sort of made sense of his ordering me about, but—

  ‘But more than that,’ Malik continued, ‘the danger is also due to the Emperor. He is the one who gave the Gift to Bastien.’

  I stared at Malik, horrified. ‘The Emperor is Bastien’s master?’

  ‘He is.’

  Fuck. Bastien might be the Autarch, and have gained his autonomy centuries ago, but if the Emperor was his master, there was a pretty good chance he could waltz back in and start ordering Bastien around like he was a baby vamp. And Bastien owned Malik’s Oath.

  Malik raked a hand through his hair. ‘I cannot risk any other knowing I have the ability to access your magic in this way, Genevieve. It would make you too vulnerable.’

  He had it in one. If I wanted to keep my freedom then there was no way any vamp who had power over Malik – be they Bastien or the Emperor – could be allowed to know what Malik could do with a quick slurp of my blood.

  But greater than the threat to me was the havoc that sort of power could cause between the different supernatural races. The Emperor might be European Head Fang, but unlike in the UK, vamps in Europe weren’t mainstream; there was just too much prejudice and superstition against them from both non-magical humans and the European Witch Councils. It kept the vamps in check and often in hiding, fearing for their nearly immortal lives. Whereas with the Live and Let Live Tenets of the UK witches and vamps, and the vamps recent step up to celebrity status . . .

  I raised my brows. ‘I’m guessing that the vamp set-up in the UK looks pretty attractive to the Emperor?’

  Malik inclined his head in agreement. ‘London, in particular.’

  Damn. No wonder Malik had made me drink all my power back. If the Emperor was already interested in taking over, then a vamp able to use a sidhe’s power would definitely add a high shine. ‘Fuck, Malik, if you’d just explained what I needed to do I’d have done it. You didn’t have to order me.’

  ‘My apologies, Genevieve. T
he revenant is more easily controlled if it is not provoked.’

  I frowned. Okay, so maybe I’d have wanted to know what the big deal was before I’d agreed, but— ‘You mean if you’re not provoked?’

  ‘The revenant is not I,’ he said, with an odd stiffness. ‘I am not the revenant.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He gave me an empty stare. ‘We are not the same.’

  Did he think he was possessed, or did he have some sort of weird alter-ID thing going on? Though with what he’d told me of his past, and the emotions I’d gleaned from his blood, or maybe our blood, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he did. ‘So what, you think of the revenant part of you as separate?’

  ‘If you wish.’

  O-kay. Probably better if we left the philosophising for another time. Like when we didn’t have to worry about the Emperor or what he wanted. ‘So,’ I said, glancing at the opaque dome, ‘if you’re feeling yourself again, we need to work out how I’m going to speak to the Emperor about the fae’s fertility. And find out what he and his werewolves have got to do with the Bangladeshi ambassador and his missing wife and kid.’

  ‘It is something to consider,’ Malik said, ‘but first . . .’ He picked up a pebble from the ground, took my left hand and, pulling us up to our feet, dropped the stone into my palm and closed my fingers over it. ‘Travel safe, Genevieve.’

  I had a split second to think, oh shit, before his eyes flashed gold, my stomach lurched and the island and boating lake vanished.

  I landed hard—

  On the gravel roof outside my flat. A second later my backpack appeared.

  I took a wary scan around. The roof was empty, the majority of windows I could see were dark, and above me the stars twinkled happily despite the haze of sodium light polluting the night sky.

  The exasperating vamp had sicced me with a Translocation spell.

  It could take a full witch coven hours to cast one of those, and even then they didn’t always hit the target.

  And Malik had cast it just by picking up a stone.

  Like it was no harder than blinking an eye.

  Even channelling a sidhe’s power, that was fucking scary.

  But how the hell had he even known how?

  The annoying vamp was going to have to come up with a lot of answers next time I saw him.

  More disturbing though was the fact that it sounded like there was a vamp throwdown in the offing. Something Malik obviously wasn’t interested in discussing with me, judging by my involuntary quick exit. No doubt the idiot vamp was trying to protect me again by keeping me out of the loop. But with the tarot cards pointing the finger at the Emperor for info on releasing the fae’s trapped fertility, and with the kidnap victims to find, no way was I going to twiddle my fingers while Malik did whatever Malik was thinking of doing.

  ‘No doubt some stupid Lone Ranger impression,’ I muttered.

  So, next step was . . . speak to Tavish. He was as invested in finding the answers as I was.

  I scrambled up, dusting myself off with a groan. Malik’s Translocation spell had dropped me on my butt, hard enough to jolt every vertebra in my spine. At least his leather coat had stopped me getting gravel burn, even if it did drag around my feet.

  I grabbed my backpack, gathered up the long coat like I was some Victorian maiden about to flee, and pushed my way into the Warded dome. It clung like extra-sticky glue, evidently recognising me but not entirely happy at letting me through. Had to be my vamp-recycled blood.

  As the Ward snapped into place behind me, I heard an ominous splash. Damn. Bertha the eel had woken up. I turned, hoping to make a dash over the roof garden for my open bedroom window, to find the huge eel was high-tailing it at me like she was going for the world record of ‘fastest slithering thing on the planet’, along with ‘jaws wide enough to swallow a cow and sporting an impressive set of razor-sharp gnashers’. What the hell had Ricou been feeding her? Super-size shrimp dinners? She had to have tripled in size since I’d seen her that morning. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating, but, Bertha’s bite is way worse than her bark. The size she was now, she wouldn’t leave just teeth marks in my calf, she’d have half my leg off.

  I waved my hand at her, shouting, ‘Biscuit!’ and then pretending to throw the non-existent biscuit.

  Bertha ignored my ruse, and kept coming.

  Crap. My only chance was to backtrack through the Ward, climb down the roof ladder and use the front door.

  The Ward wasn’t interested in letting me leave.

  I was caught between it and the freak of an eel. Trapped. Damn Ward really didn’t like my recycled blood.

  ‘Now would be a good time for some help,’ I muttered. Only help wasn’t coming. Not at this time of the night. And while I had Ascalon, and the blessed sword would make short work of the giant eel, no way did I want to hurt Bertha; it wasn’t her fault she didn’t like me. Not to mention she was Ricou and Sylvia’s beloved pet. Only I already knew I wasn’t fast enough to outrun her . . .

  Maybe I could Glamour her?

  I’d have to touch her. And hell, I’d never tried to Glamour a fish, or whatever Bertha was. But I had nothing else—

  I yanked up my magic, ducked under her looming jaws and slapped my hand on her slippery slimy neck.

  Blue light, not gold, sparked from my fingers.

  What the—

  Bertha froze.

  I gaped for a second, then turned and ran, threw my backpack through the open window and dived headfirst after it into the dark room and crash-landed onto the wooden floorboards. Panting, I grabbed the low windowsill and pulled myself up to check on Bertha.

  She was still frozen. An odd nimbus of flickering blue light, like an aura, or the blue flames that flared in Malik’s pupils when he used vamp magic to stop time, surrounded her long fishy body.

  I stared transfixed. There was only one explanation.

  Malik wasn’t the only one who’d gained extra powers from our exchange of blood. I had too.

  And I could use them.

  I was still staring, bubbling with excitement that at last I might be able to wield some sort of magic, when my bedroom door slammed open behind me. I turned. A black shape rushed me, grabbed the back of the leather coat and hauled me up to dangle about six inches above the floor. I choked, the coat’s collar cutting off my air. My gaze fixed on a pair of swirling turquoise eyes. Pulse racing, I kicked out, getting a lucky foot in, and my captor yelped and flung me back. I crash-landed in a heap for the second time in as many minutes.

  There was a crack and a football-sized globe bathed the room in light; one of Sylvia’s Moonshine spells.

  Tavish was hunched over by the bottom of my bed, hands between his legs, eyes now murky grey with pain, the beads on his dreads flickering from bright turquoise to the same muddy colour.

  ‘Genny!’ Sylvia cried from the doorway, her head of blossomy twigs quivering with concern. ‘Oh my goodness, are you all right? Tavish said you were with that vampire at Regent’s Park, and that he wouldn’t let Tavish see you. What happened? Did he hurt you?’ Sylvia moved to look down at me, spring-green eyes sparkling with concern and curiosity. ‘Why aren’t you getting up? Do you need to be healed?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I croaked, rubbing my throat. ‘Or I would be if that stupid kelpie hadn’t tried to strangle me.’

  Tavish snorted. ‘You kicked me!’

  ‘You were choking me!’

  He shifted gingerly. ‘You didnae look like yourself for a second, doll.’ His words were part apology and part question. ‘’Twas as if darkness slicked your soul like oil on water, but ’tis washed away now.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I grumbled, ‘if you started looking at folk’s shells instead of checking out their souls to see if you can take a sneaky mouthful, then maybe you’d recognise them more often.’ Idiot kelpie and his soul-tasting habits. Though his comment made me frown. Was my odd-looking-soul moment down to my recycled blood? Maybe it was like the Ward not quite recognis
ing me? Not that that let Tavish off the hook.

  ‘You did look weird, Genny,’ Sylvia exclaimed. ‘Your eyes had these tiny blue flames. They’re gone now, though,’ Sylvia said, moving to peer down at me. ‘What were they for?’

  ‘It’s a power thing,’ I said, still hardly believing it. ‘I froze

  Bertha.’

  ‘You did?’ Sylvia gasped. ‘Oh my goodness, is she dead?’

  ‘No such luck,’ I muttered, then louder, ‘she’s fine. It’s just a temporary freeze so I could avoid her.’ I looked out the window. Bertha was back in her pool, head stuck up like a vigilant periscope, eyeballing the point where I’d entered the Ward as if she expected me to reappear any moment. ‘She doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t kill her,’ Sylvia said, obviously relieved as she offered me a hand. ‘She’s so sweet, and of course she likes you. Bertha loves to tease, that’s all.’

  I huffed as I untangled my legs from the heavy coat and let her pull me to my feet. ‘By taking chunks out of my arse?’

  ‘It’s a nice arse.’ Sylvia grinned, then stroked her finger down the coat’s lapel. ‘This is nice too, though it’s a bit big for you. Have you been shopping again?’ She tilted her head, pursing her cherry-red lips. ‘No wait, I recognise it. It’s that vamp’s coat, isn’t it?’ Her eyes widened, and before I could stop her, she’d pulled the collar open. ‘Oh, you’ve been Fanged.’ She peered closer, enveloping me in her sweet cherry-blossom scent. ‘More than once, I’d say too. Oh my, Genny, are you all right? He didn’t hurt you, did he?’

  ‘No—’ I shifted away, taking me, my Fanged throat and Malik’s coat out of her curious reach and felt a prick of magic that wouldn’t let me lie – he had hurt me when he half-drowned me – and that made me add, ‘not in the way you mean.’

  ‘Genny!’ Her head twigs shook with determination and she crossed her arms. The movement drew my attention to her ‘Hello Boys’ cleavage, and envy filled me as a familiar pinballs of magic jumped to life inside me; Harrods’ Magic Mirror spell. Damn, I’d thought I’d got rid of that. Before the hex could get its ‘plastic surgery’ tendrils into me again, I quickly averted my eyes to Tavish.