I frowned, murmured. ‘Can one be made for a vampire?’
‘Tavish says yes.’
Right. ‘Good to know,’ I muttered. ‘Though would’ve been helpful if he’d bothered to return my calls and tell me.’
‘I think he’s got a lot on his plate just now.’
I shot him a narrow look. ‘Like what?’
‘When I went round, there was another fae there, but I never saw who she was.’
‘She?’ I asked, curious.
‘Yeah.’ Mischief flickered in Finn’s green eyes. ‘They appeared to be having a domestic, as far as I could work out.’
I gaped. ‘Really? Tavish has a girlfriend?’
‘Seems so, yeah.’
‘Wow. When did that happen?’ I pursed my lips. ‘Wonder if Sylvia knows? Nah, she can’t, she’d never have kept that to herself.’
‘Yeah, she and the rest of the dryads do like a bit of juicy gossip,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ve already had most of the herd ask me what my early morning visit to you was about.’
I poked him. ‘Blame your brothers for gossiping about me being an item with Sylvia and Ricou. It caused Sylvia hassle with her mother.’
Faint heat coloured Finn’s cheeks. ‘Look, forget about that now, Gen. There’s something else we need to sort out.’
Oh, yeah. The whole Helen/Malik/Spellcrackers/Finn working or not for me thing. So not something I wanted to get into. ‘Now’s not really the right time, Finn.’
‘Not that, Gen,’ he said quietly, then pointed at the cambion’s tent. ‘Hugh says you’ve been hit with a massive dose of fertility rite magic, about five times more than normal, even without taking into account the rest of the stuff the idiot had in his cauldron. Add that to the Fertility pendant problems Tavish says you’ve been having, and it’s not surprising you were rolling round on the ground.’
‘It was pretty surprising to me,’ I said, then mock-grumbled, ‘as was my impromptu shower.’
‘You’re drying out’ – Finn glanced down – ‘which is a shame—’
‘Hey!’ I stuck my finger under his chin and pushed upwards. ‘Eyes up, okay?’
He gave me a quick grin, then sobered. ‘So the fertility rites were about increasing the fecundity of the land long before the witches co-opted them for making baby witches.’ He waved an arm at the semi-circle of tents. ‘Look at it. The place is halfway to a drought, and the shows have sucked the natural magic dry. The ground is starving. It was reaching out to all the fertility magic inside you. You’re lucky it didn’t absorb you.’
Swallowed by the earth. I shuddered. So not a great way to die. ‘Guess I should say thank you again, and mean it.’ I gave him a rueful look. ‘Thank you, Sir Knight, for saving me. With your trusty fire extinguisher.’
‘You’d have done the same for me.’ He smiled. ‘Even if I didn’t need saving.’
I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘Just give me an opportunity. But truly, I am grateful, Finn. So thank you.’
He brushed a damp strand of hair from my forehead. ‘You’re welcome, Gen.’ He lifted my hand and dropped a kiss on my palm, sending a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the shade. ‘Though there are other ways you could show your gratitude, if you were so inclined, my lady.’
‘Hmm.’ I shot him a repressing look. ‘And what ways might those be?’
‘I’m sure we can think of something fun.’ He winked. ‘After we’ve got this sorted.’ He pressed a butterfly-light finger to the hollow of my throat, making my heart skip a beat. He touched his wet finger to my mouth and I tasted salt. ‘As soon as the saline dries,’ he said, gaze turning serious, ‘the fertility magic will come raging back. Believe me, I know.’
I licked my lips. There was one sure fire way of getting rid of all that magic. Sex. The thought coiled desire low inside me. ‘What do you suggest?’ my mouth said, before my brain had time to censor it.
He waggled his brows. ‘Want to come and visit my glade?’
Shock flashed in me. A satyr’s glade was a sacred place, and they only ever shared them with their loved ones. It was tantamount to a declaration for him to invite me. In fact, after what he knew had happened with Malik, I had to wonder why Finn was even thinking about showing me his glade.
My thoughts must have shown on my face. ‘Hell’s thorns, Gen, you must know I care a lot about you and our friendship, even if I have been an idiot recently’ – he rubbed behind his left horn in exasperation, then sighed – ‘other things may have changed, but that hasn’t. But I know that you said you’ve moved on, too.’ A muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘So I don’t want you to think there’re strings to this or that this is about sex. Unlike here, my glade’s private, safe and overflowing with life and magic. The ground there will accept the fertility inside you gently, without hurting or trying to absorb you.’
It sounded great, if I ignored the disappointed voice, grumbling about no sex, in the back of my mind.
‘And if you don’t do something like that soon,’ Finn warned quietly, ‘the magic could end up forcing you into a sex-a-thon.’
‘I vote for option two,’ I said, then shook my head, my mouth was damn well going to get me into trouble if it didn’t stop. ‘Sorry, not sure where that came from.’
He clasped my face, his palms warm and slightly rough against my cheeks. ‘That’s the fertility magic talking, Gen. And much as I’d love to, I know that isn’t what you want from me.’ Sorrow darkened his green eyes. ‘But I hope our friendship is. And I also know that if I take a jealous hike over something that happened with the vampire’ – his expression hardened – ‘which might not have been your choice, without us talking about it, then I’ll lose any chance of keeping our friendship.’
‘Finn.’ I put my hands over his. ‘Malik didn’t force me.’
‘You’re hyped-up on fertility magic, Gen. It can influence you and get out of hand pretty quickly. Believe me, I know.’ He did, it was how the Witch-bitch Helen had tricked him into getting her pregnant with Nicky; ironically enough using the same Fertility pendant that was giving me problems now. ‘So, what I’m saying,’ Finn carried on earnestly, ‘is that I’m back and I want us to see if we can work things out between us.’
I pulled away from him. ‘Finn—’
‘C’mon, Gen, even if this thing you have with the vamp is serious, he shouldn’t stop you seeing your friends.’
‘Finn, that’s not going to happen, I make my own choices. And I don’t want to lose your friendship, but—’
‘No buts.’ He took my hand and gave me a half-grin. ‘I’m not going to give up on us. And I give you fair warning, I’m hoping to persuade you to choose me. But if it’s not to be, then I can’t promise to be happy about you and the vampire’ – his fingers tightened around mine – ‘but I will try, so long as you are. I don’t want to lose your friendship either, Gen.’
Wow. Only—‘What about Helen?’
‘You were right. I shouldn’t have let Helen talk me into keeping things from Nicky. I went back and had it all out with Nicky. Turns out she remembers more than she was admitting, but was worried I’d be hurt if I found out what her mum had done, so she was keeping quiet.’ His face turned grim and angry. ‘I have a suspicion that Helen might have put a geis on her, but I can’t prove it. But it’s all out in the open now. Nicky and I are back here. Helen isn’t with us and she’s not going to be.’
I blinked, trying to take it in, wondering about his quick attitude turnaround towards Helen from yesterday. ‘That’s a lot of sorting out in just a night?’
He shook his head. ‘A night here but nearly three weeks in the Fair Lands. I didn’t want to rush things, but I also didn’t want to miss any more time here, so I persuaded the Morrígan to take us out of timesync again.’
Three weeks. So his decisions weren’t quite the spur-of-the-moment ones I’d thought.
‘Gen, if we’re not to be, then that’s up to you. But I want us to continue working together, with you as the boss if
things work out with the herd, but most of all, I want us to stay friends.’
Oh boy. Part of me thought he sounded too good to be true, but another part was happy, ecstatic even, that he’d come to his senses about the Witch-bitch, and about everything else he’d said. I hadn’t wanted to lose his friendship. Though whether we could work things out . . . well, it was early days. And there was still all this stuff with the kidnap victims, the Emperor, and the fae’s trapped fertility to deal with first. But Finn was right, before any of that, I needed to get rid of the fertility magic otherwise I’d be no use for anything; paying a visit to his glade sounded like the quickest, easiest way to go.
Hugh agreed when I explained, then said, ‘We need to plan around this “trap” of Max’s, in case we need to use it to gain entry into the forum. How long before you can come to Old Scotland Yard?’
I looked at Finn and he said, ‘A couple of hours should do it.’
Hugh nodded and we all agreed to meet then. Finn grinned as he slung an arm round my shoulder. ‘So, Gen, you ready to come and commune with the magnificence that is’ – he gave me an exaggerated wink – ‘nature in my glade?’
I groaned and elbowed him (gently) in the gut.
‘The entrance is through there?’ I frowned at the impenetrable tangle of greenery. It was about twelve feet high and wide, and crowded round a double-stemmed oak tree. Ground level was a dense mix of sharp-spiked gorse and stinging nettles. Above, dark-leaved rhododendrons were twisted with convolvulus, the weed’s white trumpet flowers dotting the greenery. Finger-thick blackberry stems sporting wicked-looking thorns and hard, unripe fruits arched out of the tangle, swaying in the summer breeze like the feelers of a monster triffid.
We were in one of the rougher, less-used areas of Primrose Hill park. The wide-spread branches of the oak cast a heavy shade, but other than the bushes beneath it, the area around the tree was free of anything but rough grass for a good thirty or so feet. It meant no one would be likely to use the oak as an illicit trysting place, and anyone using the entrance would have a clear view before either popping out of thin air or disappearing, as we were about to do. Something that would either freak humans out or make them too curious; a trait that doesn’t just kill cats.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks, Gen,’ Finn said encouragingly. ‘Though it’s a touch more overgrown than I remember.’
‘Thought you said this was a regular shortcut?’ The shortcut led through a section of unclaimed Between – the space joining the Fair Lands and the humans’ world – to London’s other parks and green spaces, including Wimbledon Common, home to the satyr herd (and wombles, though the satyrs get a bit ansty when anyone mentions that), and Finn’s glade, obviously. Supposedly the shortcut was a five-minute walk which was way quicker than fighting through London’s traffic for more than an hour, with the added advantage that we’d get to Finn’s glade before the fertility rite magic forced me to commune with the earth or rethink the option of a sex-a-thon with Finn. Not that part of me wasn’t doing that anyway.
‘It is a regular shortcut, or it was anyway. I haven’t used this entrance in a couple of years, though.’ He held out his hand. ‘Just imagine it parting like a pair of curtains, put a bit of juice behind the thought, and stick close to me.’
‘Yeah, me doing spontaneous magic,’ I muttered, linking my hand with his, which was warm and firm and filled me with totally inappropriate ideas about how it’d feel on my body. ‘Like that’s really gonna happen.’
‘Hey, have some faith, Gen,’ he said, plunging into the thicket and pulling me behind him.
I yelped, felt the gorse scratch at my ankles, the brambles snag at my clothes, then the magic slipped over me like grass tickling my skin and darkness swirled as we left the humans’ world. Cinders crunched under my feet as I stepped on to the path: the safe way to travel through unclaimed Between. Paths mean you get to where you’re going, and don’t end up lost or falling prey to the cannibalistic half-formed— semi-evolved spirits hungry for magic and flesh. Finn tugged on my hand and I took another step. My bones seemed to lighten as if gravity had lessened and for a second I felt energised. Then fierce sunshine made me squint, loud bellows followed by high-pitched screams assaulted my ears and I gagged on the stench of shit and sulphur.
‘Hell’s thorns!’ Finn yanked me down behind an ochre-coloured boulder the size of a small car. ‘No wonder it’s so overgrown, a herd of swamp-dragons have moved in.’
I peered round the boulder. About twenty huge beasts, the size of double-decker buses, looking like a mutant rhinos with scales, small vestigial wings and long whip-like barbed tails, were lumbering through the steaming yellow smoke of an apocalyptic-style landscape, snatching at the charred remains of trees. Around another fifteen or so swampies were wallowing in the massive bubbling sulphur craters, sending rivers of liquid sulphur cascading over the craters’ edges. The liquid sulphur shone red like streams of super-heated blood and I could just see its fey-like blue flame as it burned.
Swamp-dragon is a misnomer. The name comes from their first appearance back in the mangrove swamps in Java, Indonesia, in the 1690s. It was thought to be their natural habitat before it was discovered the swampies were just on walkabout after emerging from the Kawah Ijen volcano in the east. They’d made enough of an impression last time I’d run into them, I’d done research.
Good thing about swamp-dragons is they have less intelligence than a cow, aren’t the fastest creatures for their size, and, unsurprisingly given the nose-stinging environment, have absolutely no sense of smell.
Bad thing is they’re omnivores and will munch on anything they stumble across. Usually after stomping on it like they’re playing whack-a-mole: their standard method of disabling prey, despite being able to breathe fire. So long as we could run fast, dodge their tractor-wheel-sized feet, and stay on the cinder path, we’d be okay. Probably.
Another high-pitched scream came from above us, followed by a tiny body thudding onto the boulder then bouncing off to land at my feet. A garden fairy, his throat slashed, still twitching in the last throes of ecstasy as he died. I blinked at it, and then, as another screaming, entangled pair zipped past us, it clicked that this had to be where Lecherous Lampy the gnome was getting his out-of-season stock from. The heat from the swamp-dragons had accelerated the fairies’ life cycle, and being small and fast, the swampies weren’t likely to eat them.
They would us.
I looked at Finn. He’d dropped his human Glamour. His horns curved a good foot above his head, his body still athletic but shoulders and chest broader, muscles thicker, more honed. The angles of his face sharper, feral and even more gorgeous than his clean-cut handsome look— Lust coiled tight in my belly. Forget stinking, stomping swamp-dragons, I wanted to hole-up with him somewhere for at least a week. No, make that a month. I closed my eyes, forced the feelings back.
‘So,’ I said, adding an airy note to my voice, ‘want to go back, or run for it?’
‘Run for it?’ He shook his head. ‘Hell’s thorns, Gen, are you crazy? One slip and we’d be swampie pancakes.’
A low chuffing cough sounded behind us.
We turned as one.
A dark grey cat, striped with black and the size of the tigers in the zoo, crouched belly low to the ground about ten feet away. It stared at us out of gleaming green eyes, ears flat to its skull, tail swishing from side to side as if readying to pounce.
‘What the fuck is that?’ I muttered.
‘Haven’t a clue, Gen,’ Finn replied just as quietly, ‘but it doesn’t look friendly.’
The cat gave another low chuffing sound and its lips drew back, seemingly in a grin, exposing more of its long sabretooth fangs.
‘It doesn’t,’ I agreed. ‘And it’s blocking the exit.’ Coincidence or deliberate? I sent my inner radar out. ‘It pings as an animal. No magic, nothing like human or fae in there.’
‘My take too.’
‘I’m guessing it could be some sort of ai
luranthrope?’ I said, though I’d never heard of a weretiger, or even a normal tiger, that strange grey and black colour, not to mention the big cat looked suspiciously like the one that had climbed out of the abyss on the Moon tarot card. The card had said, ‘The beasts are coming.’ Maybe it hadn’t been talking about the Emperor and his werewolves after all.
‘Whatever it is,’ Finn said grimly, ‘there’s only one of it, and nearly forty swampies.’
‘Think we can take it?’ I asked, dropping my backpack and kicking it out of the way.
The cat gave a guttural growl.
Finn made a similar low sound. ‘Is the sky blue?’
I looked up. Blue sky wasn’t always a given in Between. It was now, if you ignored the smoky yellow haze from the sulphur.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How about I try to scare it, and if it doesn’t run, you do your horny bit.’ Then we were high-tailing it to the nearest hotel in the humans’ world. ‘On three, two, one—’ I jumped up, yelling and waving my arms, and ran at the cat.
It sat back on it haunches, a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ look on its face.
I skidded to a stop, Finn’s arms going round my waist as he dragged me back. ‘Guess that answers the question whether it’s an animal or not,’ I said, glaring at the cat.
‘Oh, he is an animal, Ms Taylor,’ a familiar smarmy voice said. ‘But not just an animal.’ A squat figure appeared out of the charred foliage at the base of the twin-stemmed oak tree: Mr Lampy, the wrinkles in his round face deepening as he gave us a wide smile, his ultra-white human dentures blinding. The mustard-coloured lichen mapping his bald pate ruffled in the hot wind. His bare feet crunched on the cinder path as he strained forward, pulling what looked like the bastard child of a wheelbarrow and a chariot behind him. He stopped once he was fully through the entrance, produced a dirty hanky from his tweed jacket and mopped his face.
‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.
‘I’m guessing an ambush of some sort,’ Finn breathed against my ear. ‘You run for it while I hold the cat off. Keep to the left of the cinder path and look for a copse of goat willow by a small stream; the entrance there will bring you out on Wimbledon Common near the windmill. Speak to Dimitris’ – Finn’s closest brother – ‘and he’ll bring help.’
The Shifting Price of Prey [4] Page 36
