The Shifting Price of Prey [4]

by Suzanne McLeod

  ‘It is not Malik who will need saving from the Emperor, it is I, my lovely bride. I have already tried to tell you this.’

  I clenched my ring. ‘Well, listen up, buddy, I’m happy to kill you now, and save the Emperor the trouble.’

  ‘But you will not.’

  I released Ascalon and bared my teeth in a smile. ‘Bet you can’t give me a good reason not to.’

  ‘If you kill me, princess,’ Bastien said, ‘you will have lost that which the Emperor wants from you in return for information about releasing the fae’s trapped fertility.’

  It was a fucking good reason. It was also a fucking cryptic reason. And it threw up a whole slew of questions. I went for the most pertinent. ‘How do you know what I want from the Emperor?’

  ‘You told my loyal shadow, did you not?’

  A question for an answer. Which meant Malik almost certainly hadn’t told him. ‘How do I know you’re not spinning me a line?’

  Glee wreathed his face. ‘I believe you will have to trust me, my lovely sidhe. To that end you will find that I have sent an extremely useful gift to the àrd-cheann. A cybernetic Trojan Horse, if you will, to help you both in your quest.’

  What the hell did that mean, other than— ‘You know there’s a saying about not trusting Greeks bearing gifts, don’t you?’

  ‘Ah. Luckily I am not Greek, but Ottoman.’

  Right. And that was supposed to make me trust him? Still, he was right, I couldn’t risk killing him. Not yet. I clenched my hand round Ascalon, and as if it felt my frustration, the sword slowly shrank back until it was a chunky emerald ring on my finger again.

  Bastien smiled smugly.

  Goaded, I snapped, ‘You know Malik wants you dead.’

  Bastien shrugged dismissively. ‘He will not act on it.’

  I snorted. Malik had already acted on it; he’d made a deal with Tavish for help to do the deed. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that.’

  ‘My life is worth more to him than any other, even his own, my princess. It always has been.’

  He said it with such confidence that I had to ask, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I have long been that part of him that he cares for above all else.’

  Again with the cryptic. Irritated, I jumped in with the question I’d avoided before. ‘You mean because you’re his son?’ My voice rose slightly as my doubt, or hope, that he’d deny it crept into my words.

  ‘A question you can ask him when you next see him,’ he replied, not even blinking. ‘When you do, I want you to give him a message.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘Why can’t you give it to him?’

  ‘Malik is not currently taking my calls.’ Impatience crossed his face. ‘And I can no longer reach his mind. There is . . . something preventing me. It may be Malik himself. I do not know. Tell him that too.’

  Unease pricked me. Why wasn’t Malik talking to him? Bastien had said Malik was safe from the Emperor, hadn’t he? No, he’d only said that he, Bastien, would need saving . . . ‘What makes you think I’ll see him?’

  ‘Why, my faithful hound will lead you to his side, my bride. How else will you save me?’

  Mad Max would take me to Malik? To save Bastien? Surprise and suspicion washed through me.

  ‘When he does,’ Bastien continued, ‘tell my shadow these words exactly: I have honoured the agreement between us. I will not harm the bean sidhe, but due to your incessant vacillating, I have made the choice for you.’

  Ice trickled down my spine. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘You have heard the message you have inspired, sidhe. It informs all of my decision, now make sure you deliver.’ He reached down to yank the dagger from the figure’s stomach at our feet and lifted it in a salute. ‘Until anon, princess,’ he said, and vanished.

  Crap. He’d disappeared too quickly for it just to be vamp speed, so it had to be an illusion. Which meant he was still here. And I had one more question.

  ‘Come back here, Bastien,’ I shouted. ‘Now. I haven’t finished with you!’

  He reappeared, his expression a mix of curiosity and calculation. ‘My, you have changed from that timid little mouse, princess.’ He raised a brow, and again I saw a resemblance to Malik in his face. I shoved the disturbing image away and 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 pendant and restore it back to them as it was before it was taken.’

  ‘Well, well, would that I could, my princess, it would be a wonderful moment, would it not, if I had something you wanted?’ He threw his head back and laughed, and my heart sank. My growing suspicion was wrong. Fuck. I’d been sure he was in league with the tarot cards, sure he was somehow the ‘Emperor’, and knew the answer.

  His laughter cut out and he pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘That mad bitch who is your mother is the one you should be asking, not I.’

  Yeah, well, if my fruitcake of a mother ever put in an appearance, I would. Until then, I was being led around the nose by a set of crotchety tarot cards—

  Bastien vanished again.

  Fuck. I had to catch him. He might not know the answer, but he knew more than he’d told me. I rushed for the exit—

  A hand grabbed my ankle.

  And I faceplanted into straw-like grass, suddenly realising as I did that the cambion’s illusions were gone. The tent was back. Empty of anything other than a large black cauldron, a small table and the huge four-poster bed. I jerked round to look at the figure lying on the floor, my leg captured in its iron grip, hoping it was no longer a skinned, dried-up body.

  A male – small, naked, with a purple tinge to his wrinkled black skin and a pair of short, scaly red horns sticking out of his forehead – was clutching his stomach with his other hand, blackish-red blood bubbling through his fingers every time he sucked in air.

  ‘It’s not supposed to go like this,’ he whispered.

  Crap. Had to be the cambion. And he was injured.

  ‘Let me go,’ I muttered, tugging my foot. ‘I’ll get someone.’

  He did, but not before gasping out, ‘Dog. Under the bed. Hurt too.’

  Mad Max!

  I went for help.

  Outside I found Hugh and five other trolls gearing up for my rescue with saline magic extinguishers (similar to a standard fire extinguisher but painted blue with a silver band). There was no sign of Mary, Dessa, or strangely any other witches, or any of the other tents’ occupants. There were, however, a couple of medic teams from HOPE with their usual mix of mundane and magical fixes. I shouted out the Wishing Web was down, that the cambion and Mad Max were injured, and that the Autarch was hidden inside. Hugh and his constables disappeared into the tent, quickly followed by the medics.

  The cambion was carted off to HOPE. He wasn’t injured as such, but was instead hosting a Sagan spider – a sort of symbiotic pet that lives off the host’s blood and flesh in return for a magical boost – which was why the Wishing Web had been so powerful. The creature was half-absorbed into the cambion’s chest, and was the source of the bubbling blood. Either the Autarch had killed it when he’d plunged the dagger into the cambion’s illusion of the sun-tortured Malik, or the spider had died when its Web overloaded with too many fantasies coming too fast. Hugh said they couldn’t be sure until all the evidence had been checked out by the Magic and Murder Squad’s witches, and the cambion was in a position to talk further. He was suffering magical blowback from the spider’s death, and was being stabilised so they could surgically remove the spider’s remains.

  ‘Ick,’ I said, grateful I’d never got too close to the wrinkled, horny little male. And glad I’d dropped Mary with the Stun spell, even if she, Taegrin and Dessa were also at HOPE getting checked out. I’d told Hugh I’d Glamoured Dessa, but as she hadn’t shown any symptoms once she was out of the tent, he agreed to leave that tiny incriminating detail out of my statement. For now. If it was going to come back and bite me (and no way was that thought Fre
udian), we’d deal with it when it did. As for my actual bite wound, which had the medics pouncing on me thanks to the blood staining my shirt, I said I’d caught myself on something blunt (Dessa’s teeth!), and that it was already healing (itching like a vamp venom bite as it did!), so was nothing to worry about.

  Neither was Mad Max. Injury wise anyway.

  A call-out over the Carnival’s loudspeakers had turned up a vet (from Brighton on a day trip with his wife and three kids), who pronounced Max the dog was suffering from concussion, judging by the blood-encrusted egg-shaped bump on his head, and had been given some sort of sedative but was otherwise a ‘fine specimen of the breed, and if his owner was ever interested in putting Max to stud, he knew of a suitable bitch, and would be happy to put Max’s owner in contact’.

  Hugh grinned, pink granite teeth shining, as he handed me the vet’s business card and repeated his offer. ‘Thought you might like to pass that on to your cousin, Genny.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘Even if it were possible, I think he’s got enough offspring already.’

  Hugh laughed and settled himself carefully into an overlarge, canvas director’s chair with Mini the Minotaur stencilled across the back. ‘So did you get any useful information from Max?’

  I grimaced. ‘Not much, the sedative’s obviously screwing with him.’ Dealing with the crazy sonofabitch was bad enough when he was lucid, but trying to get anything out of him when he was drugged made me want to bleach my brain: I was never going to look at a poodle the same way again. ‘But he did say that the Autarch can astral-project which explains how he popped in and out so easily.’

  ‘Astral projection is rare,’ Hugh said, taking out his notebook and a large troll pencil. ‘And I understand it is dangerous without the proper preparations to return the spirit to the body.’ He made a note. ‘Does Max know where the Autarch’s body is?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said, shifting uncomfortably on my makeshift seat, one of the leprechaun’s huge balls of string. I wasn’t sure if a spiritwalking Autarch was better or worse than a daywalking one. ‘But apparently I don’t have to worry about the werewolves coming after me since Max has done some sort of deal to deliver me to the Emperor in return for the werewolves letting him escape.’

  Hugh leaned forwards. The director’s chair, while large, still creaked ominously. ‘A trap?’

  ‘Supposedly. Only Fur Jacket Girl appears to be Bastien’s long lost sister and I think they’re in cahoots. So Max delivering me up to the Emperor is probably something to do with the Trojan Horse thing Bastien mentioned he’d sent to Tavish.’ Knowing my luck psycho Bastien’s plan would involve me sweating it out in an actual wooden horse, which would be hell seeing as Regent’s Park was currently trying to put the Sahara to shame. I chugged back the last of my bottled water as I waited for Hugh to add to his notes, then said, ‘Hopefully we’ll find out more when Tavish phones back.’ I’d called him, and yet again my call had gone to voicemail. Hugh had sent a unit to check on him. Damn kelpie better have a good reason for being incommunicado.

  Hugh nodded. ‘But Max can’t tell you what the Trojan Horse is?’

  ‘Nope. He seems to be blindly following whatever instructions Bastien drops into his head. I can’t work out if Bastien’s got him under mind-lock or if Max is knowingly doing the sheep thing. But that might be down to the sedative.’ Or the crazy sonofabitch’s fixation with poodles. ‘It’s possible we might get more out of him when he pops out of his doggy form at sunset.’

  ‘And he couldn’t tell you anything about what’s going on between the Emperor and the Autarch?’

  ‘No, but I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of showdown or attempted takeover in the offing. And Bastien seems to think I’m his winning card . . .’ I trailed off as I realised I’d missed something and slapped my forehead. ‘Crap. You know I asked him about the fae’s trapped fertility?’ Hugh nodded. ‘I should’ve quizzed him about the kidnap victims from the zoo too.’

  ‘It’s doubtful you’d have learned anything, Genny.’

  ‘Yeah, but I should’ve asked.’ I picked at the plastic tab on the bottle, angry at myself.

  Hugh flipped back a couple of pages in his notepad. ‘What about Malik al-Khan? Does Max know where he is, or what his involvement is in all this?’

  ‘No.’ Questioning Mad Max about Malik had drawn a complete blank. Looked like the pyscho hadn’t given that set of instructions to his pet dog yet. So I was going to have to wait to find out what Malik’s ‘involvement’ was. Just as I was going to have to wait for answers to the rest of Bastien’s cryptic barbs. ‘Damn vamps and their games,’ I muttered, systematically crushing the empty plastic bottle. ‘All secrets and plots and double dealing.’

  Hugh gave my knee a concerned pat. ‘Do you want to talk about it, Genny?’

  I dropped the bottle, my anger dissipating to misery. Stupid tears stang my eyes and I scrubbed my face, took a breath and told Hugh about Bastien’s story that he was just the front vamp, and that Malik was the real power behind the throne, and that while I knew Bastien was a lying, psychotic sack of shit, he was right, Malik was always the one with the plans.

  ‘So, looks like Malik’s been playing me for a fool, that he and Bastien are not only fang buddies, but’ – I hugged myself, my heart cracking as I forced the words out – ‘they’re father and son, or whatever, and I’m just a pawn in whatever long game they’ve got going.’

  ‘Genny.’ Frown fissures bracketed Hugh’s mouth. ‘Good relationships are built on mutual respect and trust. To build that respect and trust you need to get to know each other, learn what matters, and accept each other for who each of you are. It takes time. As does attraction, if it is to develop into love. If that is what you feel you and Malik al-Khan could have together, then my advice would be to speak about this to him.’

  I let that sink in. I knew Hugh didn’t like the idea of me getting together with Malik, or any vamp, and that he’d put his personal feelings aside to give me his encouraging words of wisdom. I put my hand on his familiar gritty one, heart full of love and gratitude for him. ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘and I had planned to talk to him, anyway.’ I gave Hugh a wry smile. ‘Sorry for dumping on you, but thanks for letting me.’

  ‘Any time, Genny, you know that.’ Hugh returned my smile, then his face hardened. ‘But as soon as this involves more than some personal issues between you and Malik al-Khan, then let me know. And we’ll deal with it together.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, Hugh,’ I said, happy and even more grateful to know he had my back, as always. ‘I will.’ I grabbed another water – damn sun was like a furnace, even sitting in the shade – and half-drained it in a couple of gulps.

  ‘You’re drinking a lot, Genny,’ Hugh said, ‘are you sure you’re feeling—’ An owl hoot interrupted him; his phone. He checked the screen, shook his head – not Tavish then – and stood up, walking off as he starting speaking.

  I frowned at the water, thinking I was drinking a lot, as Constable Lamber, his mottled beige head dusty, ambled over.

  ‘Hello, Genny.’ He smiled showing teeth worn down from chomping on too many butter pebbles. ‘I just got back from HOPE. That cambion chappy asked me to give you something, said it was important. I should run it by the guv first, but he’s busy, and ’spect you’ll tell him anyway.’ He held out a card.

  Tarot card number four.

  My heart thudded as I took the tarot card. ‘Thanks. I will. Tell the DI, that is,’ I told Lamber, frantically fishing my small flick-knife from my backpack as he ambled away. I cut my finger and offered it to the card, giving it the usual spiel as its little mouth started sucking up my blood.

  The image appeared. A woman. I stared at her, stunned. She was beautiful with huge, thickly lashed dark eyes, pale skin, perfect features and glossy, brunette waves down to her waist. Shpresa, the woman from Malik’s memory, his favourite Ikbal. Her face was so impressed on my mind I’d have recognised her even without the tiny black crescent inked at th
e corner of her lush mouth.

  Shpresa sat on a red velvet throne, wearing a long white gown dotted with spots of crimson, a spiky crown of twelve stars atop her shining hair, and holding a silver dagger in one hand. Her other hand rested on her hugely pregnant belly. At her feet reclined a grey-brown wolf, and around her throne stretched a field of snowdrops, their delicate white flowers nodding as if in a gentle breeze, scattered with the odd crimson rose.

  A distant part of me registered this card was the Empress. That she was holding the knife Janan, the Bonder of Souls; that the wolf at her feet was a werewolf, judging by its green human eyes, and the white snowdrops with the crimson roses matched her gown and echoed the ‘blood on snow’ motif the tarot cards had punted before in the Moon tarot card. The blood on snow in Malik’s first two dream/memories. And the rose petals on my bed.

  The little mouth stopped sucking. Still I stared, my mind spinning with suspicion.

  ‘C’mon, luvie. We ain’t got all day, y’know.’

  The card’s crotchety voice jerked me into action. ‘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.’

  The Empress gave me a sad smile. ‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price! The beasts are coming! They come for you! He seeks Janan, Beloved of Malak al-Maut! To use!’

  ‘I know all that,’ I said, frowning. ‘What else can you tell me?’

  ‘The Emperor is here.’

  Duh. Like that was news. ‘Where is here?’

  ‘You must save my children.’ A single tear dropped down the Empress’s cheek.

  Her children were Bastien and his sister Dilek, a.k.a. Fur Jacket Girl werewolf. And she wanted me to save them. Well, colour me surprised. Though to be fair, the card could be referring to London’s fae as her children. They were, after all, the whole focus of my question. And despite the Empress looking like Malik’s Ikbal, she was the symbol of fertility, sexuality and motherhood, as shown by her obvious pregnancy. Playing it safe, I asked, ‘Who are your children?’