The Shifting Price of Prey [4]

by Suzanne McLeod

  ‘I know,’ I snapped back, thinking you’re next, buddy. I moved sideways, lining myself up with the Emperor’s chest, then stabbed down into his heart; again the blessed steel cut cleanly, resisting only as it bit into the stone beneath. The Emperor’s body stiffened, limbs going rigid, then it sunk in on itself like a pricked balloon until all that was left was withered, wrinkled skin over jutting bone.

  I poked at the Emperor’s remains with the sword. I’d sort of expected something more to happen when ending a millennium-and-a-half-year-old vamp. Not that I’d wanted him to put up a fight, or even thought he could, trapped as he was. Nor was I particularly bothered about killing him while he was defenceless. He was a baddie. And I was pragmatic, not stupid. I’d never have won in a fair fight. If any fight I had with a vamp could ever be called fair.

  Of course, his remains would still have to burn, and his ashes scattered to be sure he really wasn’t going to pop back up at some point in the future. But still, deflating like that was a pretty anti-climactic end.

  Bastien clapped, flashing fang. ‘Felicitations, princess. I ap- plaud your swordsmanship.’

  I bared my own teeth at him in a smile. ‘If you liked that wait till you see what I’ve got for an Encore.’

  ‘Encores are all well and good, my lovely sidhe, but I do believe we have only seen the Prelude.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Behold! Act One!’ He threw something at the Emperor— Gold flashed through the air: one of the Emperor’s coins.

  The Emperor’s body twitched and lit itself on fire, the flames burning the cool blue of an ice-dragon’s breath. I stumbled back in shock as the blaze licked the tent roof, then spread out and rained down the tent sides, trapping me – and trapping Malik in the roaring inferno. A panicked scream twisted inside me. Even if he was immortal, no way did I want to see him crispy-crittered and endure the pain of healing. If I could get to his stone I could protect us both. All it needed was my blood in the circle’s outer groove, and hey presto, one Blood Ward. Only, a curtain of flames burned furiously between us. I’d have to jump and roll to smother—

  Bastien lunged forwards and snatched something from the Emperor’s stone. The fire snuffed out as if it had never been. All that remained on the slab was a body-shaped pile of ashes. I sagged in relief then scowled at Bastien.

  Somehow he’d managed to dress himself in the Emperor’s purple toga. He stood with his arms held out like he was offering benediction. In one hand he held the Emperor’s gold laurel-wreath crown, and dangling from the other by its dark hair was a small shrunken head the size of a crab apple.

  ‘Here we have Act Two, my sweet sidhe.’ He brought the shrunken head to his lips, kissed it, then popped it into his mouth and munched down.

  ‘Nice illusion,’ I said drily, trying not to heave.

  ‘Ah, but is it?’ He held his finger up much like the Emperor had done. I shuddered, the sight weirding me out. ‘Act Three comes, my princess.’

  The hair on my nape rose as a low keening wind rushed through the tent’s entrance and the Emperor’s ashes spiralled up in a small tornado. An unseen hand briefly cupped my cheek with a gentle feeling of gratitude, startling me. Then the wind-gathered ashes exploded outwards and dissipated into the ether, leaving the candles still burning.

  Bastien held the golden laurel wreath out before him. ‘Now for the Grande Finale.’ He placed the gold crown on his head and intoned. ‘The Emperor is dead. Long live the Emperor.’

  I narrowed my eyes at him as the final piece clicked into place.

  Bastien wanted the Emperor dead so he could steal his power. But the real kicker in all of this wasn’t that the psycho had set me up to do his dirty work, but that now his (or Malik’s?) plotting had made Bastien the Emperor, there was no way I could kill the sadistic sack of shit.

  At least, not until he’d told me how to save the fae’s trapped fertility.

  I gripped Ascalon, battened my frustration down and said flatly, ‘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. And the price you want me to pay.’

  ‘Ah! And now we come to the Encore.’ He raised a mocking brow. ‘To have something you want, my sweet sidhe, fills me with such glorious anticipation.’

  I glowered at him. Sadistic prick was obviously going to spin this out, whereas I wanted it done so I could kill him. ‘What’s the deal, Bastien?’

  ‘Patience, my princess.’ Slyness glinted in Bastien’s brown eyes as he moved to squat by Malik. He brushed a hand over Malik’s shorn scalp, smudging the glyphs painted there. ‘Does my loyal commander, my shadow, my kingmaker not deserve some care first?’ He bit into his own arm and held his wrist over Malik’s mouth so drops of dark crimson blood splashed on to Malik’s parted lips. ‘Were it not for his perfect plan none of this would have been possible.’ He smiled gleefully.

  Fuck. Malik had planned it all. He’d used me, put those I’d cared about in danger and all to help Bastien gain power. It felt like his soul turned to ice around my heart and shattered into sharp icicles. Leaving me bleeding. How the hell could I have been so stupid to think that Malik cared for me? That we could have something together? We couldn’t. Not if he was prepared to put innocents like Katie and Freya in danger to get what he wanted. Furious and heart-sore, I wanted to shout at Malik, tell him there’d been no need to involve them. Hadn’t the Machiavellian vamp understood that if he’d told me his plan, I’d have gone along with it willingly? After all, he’d known I needed to see the Emperor, and I’d told him I’d help. And even if I’d ended up hurt or dead as I had in the past with a couple of his plots, it wasn’t as if I’d held it against him—

  Malik wasn’t the type to put innocents in danger for his own ends.

  But Bastien was. Bastien was also the sort to slither like a poisonous snake into my head and sic his mind-mojo on me. Sadistic prick was playing me. And, as an amber glint near Malik’s slab caught my eye – the dragon’s tear in Janan’s handle – I realised Bastien’s gameplaying wasn’t only for his own amusement. He wanted me angry with Malik because he wanted something from me. Malik’s soul.

  ‘You want me to give you his soul back, is that it?’ I snapped.

  ‘Actually, my bride’ – he lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug – ‘I do not. It is liberating to be without its depressing weight.’

  Depressing? I blinked ‘What about its immortality?’

  ‘Ah. It appears that while my loyal shadow and his soul are truly immortal, that immortality is not bestowed on the bearer.’

  I frowned. ‘But then why—’

  ‘Greed, envy and the lust for power are eternal motivators, my princess. In that the Emperor and my beloved mother, the beautiful Shpresa, were very much alike.’ As he spoke a centurion marched into the tent like an automaton. He carried a woman’s lifeless body. He laid her down on the stone circle recently vacated by the original Emperor, then saluted Bastien and left.

  The Empress.

  Bastien looked at her like she was something he’d scraped off his shoe. ‘She was the favoured Ikbal of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, powerful, rich, vaunted, her children destined for greatness. But it was not enough. She lusted after eternal youth and beauty and so absconded with Romulus Augustus willingly. He did not, as some imagined at the time’ – he sneered down at Malik – ‘force, or persuade her in any way.’ He squeezed his arm to reopen his bite wound, so more drops of blood splashed on to Malik’s mouth as if he were performing some sort of vamp Chinese water torture. ‘Shpresa, as the blood-bound consort to a vampire, gained the immortality the sidhe denied her as a changeling. The Emperor lusted after a sidhe to bond to his blood. It was a match made in mutual delusion and betrayal. He discovered too late she was not the solid gold he sought, but only polished brass. She paid for her duplicity with her freedom and the enslavem
ent of her children. But in spite of his Empress’ predilection for perfidy’ – Bastien squeezed the wound on his arm with a slight grimace – ‘the Emperor did not heed the lesson history should have taught him. Once again he let his lust for something he wanted override his good sense, and found the sting in the tail. As we are all wont to do at times, my lovely princess.’

  I rolled my eyes, so not appreciating his spouting off about how clever he thought he was. ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘You and Mommie Dearest pulled a fast one on the Emperor. Bully for you. What I was asking, before you so rudely interrupted, was, if Malik’s soul doesn’t bestow immortality, why the hell did you have it?’

  He gave me a smug smile that told me I wasn’t going to get an answer.

  ‘Fine. Don’t tell me,’ I snapped, irritated, ‘I’ll ask Malik myself when he wakes up. So how about you forget your final curtain speech and let’s cut to the deal.’ Then I can kill you.

  He flashed fang at me. ‘I would not think you were so eager for my loyal shadow to wake, my bride. Not when your . . . situation will dishearten him so.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  He gave me a sideways look. ‘My loyal commander might not be recovered for some time, even with my blood’ – he lifted his chin and sniffed – ‘so it may be that the stink of the satyr will have faded somewhat by then. Your secret is safe with me.’

  Fucking vamp supersenses.

  I cast a concerned look at Malik, wondering if he could hear. It didn’t matter that I thought Malik would understand how it had happened; it would still hurt. If it had been the other way round . . . damn it, I’d be hurt too, devastated, even. In fact, I was devastated about Finn, Gold Cat and the whole mating thing: it was a heartrending muddle of epic proportions. But it wasn’t something I’d planned keeping secret from anyone, let alone Malik. It would turn what happened from a muddle that could be sorted into a nasty festering sore that would come back and bite me and everyone else. But I had hoped to pick my moment, not have Malik hear it from Bastien, especially not with the spiteful spin the sadistic prick was bound to add.

  ‘That.’ I jabbed Ascalon at Bastien. ‘Is none of your business.’

  ‘I quite agree, my lovely sidhe.’ He stood, keeping his gaze on me as he licked the wound on his arm with obvious enjoyment. I frowned at Malik. He looked as pale and lifeless as before; Bastien’s meagre donation didn’t seem to done anything. Still Bastien wasn’t the only one with blood. If Malik didn’t wake up after I gave him his soul back, I’d feed him myself. And if Bastien was finished—

  ‘Look,’ I said, forcing a conciliatory tone. ‘You want something from me. I want my question answered. So let’s get things sorted.’

  ‘I will be delighted to, my bride.’ He lifted a creepy finger. ‘When the time is right.’

  ‘Which is when?’

  ‘When the last tarot card appears, of course. Or have you forgotten that part of the proceedings?’ I hadn’t, but since he and Viv were in league with each other, I doubted the last card was going to tell me anything Bastien didn’t already know. ‘Now I must leave you and greet my new subjects. Until anon.’ He turned on his heel, marching away, toga flapping around his knees. The previous Emperor had been about a foot shorter, and, I noted bitchily, Bastien had the legs of a scrawny chicken.

  ‘You told me you didn’t know,’ I shouted after him. ‘And the Emperor told me the same.’

  He swung back, anger twisting his face. Accusing a vamp as old as he was of lying, even if only by suggestion, was a huge insult. Not that I cared if it got me the answer I needed.

  ‘Knowledge is one side of the equation, bean sidhe, application is the other. Two plus two do not become four until one understands how they should be tallied. A tally, in this instance, that will not be complete until the last tarot card has been read.’

  He turned and left, leaving me scowling after him.

  In other words, Bastien had known part of the answer but not the whole of it until he’d munched on the Emperor, and now he had to confer with his scheming spirit sidekick. Crap. I wanted to run after him, lop his scrawny legs off at the knees, skewer Ascalon through his sadistic heart and turn him into a magical bonfire. Reluctantly, I let Ascalon slide back into the ring, wondering how long the sadistic psycho was going to make me sweat. And what price he wanted.

  ‘As if I can’t guess,’ I muttered, glowering at the dead Empress. After all, I couldn’t count the number of times he’d called me ‘my princess’, ‘my bride’, or ‘my sidhe’. Still, he wouldn’t be the first vamp to get my blood-bond and, like the last one, I’d be happy to make sure the psycho’s ashes ended up feeding the fish in the River Thames.

  Frustrated and angry, I sighed and took stock. I needed to go and ‘claim’ Katie, Freya and the rest of my bartered auction lots and get them to safety. But first, Malik needed his soul back.

  Gingerly, I scooped Janan up, glad my hands had started healing—

  A shimmering, transparent figure padded into the tent carrying something in her mouth.

  Gold Cat.

  Gold Cat padded over and dropped what she was carrying in front of me. It squirmed around then scrambled to its feet. Mr Lampy, the gnome, though how she’d managed to haul him round in her fading state was anyone’s guess.

  ‘Ms Taylor,’ the gnome spluttered, smoothing the ruffled lichen on his head. ‘I really must object to this animal’s treat- ment of me.’

  Gold Cat coughed. My mind translated the cough as Hungry?

  I frowned. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘Ms Taylor,’ the gnome objected. ‘You can’t—’

  Gold Cat batted the gnome off his feet and coughed again. You. Hungry?

  Oh, she’d brought me a present, like a cat bringing a mouse. Which was sort of . . . gross. ‘Um, no thanks.’

  Mine.

  I wrinkled my nose at her, not sure if she was kidding. ‘Are you sure? A juicy steak might be better. He doesn’t look very appetising.’

  ‘Ms Taylor—’

  Gold Cat snarled in his face, baring huge sabre-tooth sharp canines, then when he started squealing like a stuck pig, shut him up with a large paw on his mouth.

  Hurt kits.

  Ah. She wasn’t joking, and she wasn’t hungry for food as much as revenge. ‘Rather you than me,’ I said, nudging the disgusting gnome with my toe. ‘But if you want him, have him.’ I let Ascalon free. ‘Do you need him skewered first?’

  The gnome gave a muffled squeak.

  No.

  Fair enough. Though really even eaten alive was way too good a fate for him, but . . . I grinned at her. Bon appétit.

  Police troll here.

  Hugh was here? Heart in my mouth, I rushed to the tent entrance. Sure enough the place was swarming with trolls and witches wearing the Met’s Magic and Murder Squads’ hi-vis yellow waistcoats. The cavalry had arrived.

  My knees almost buckled with relief.

  And right in the centre of the yellow-waistcoated mass was the solid, ruddy-coloured bulk of a black-haired troll in a pristine white shirt and black trousers, organising the rescue. (Acting) Detective Inspector Hugh Munro. Hugh would take care of everyone. I trusted him with my life. More, I trusted him with the lives of those I loved. I shouted, jumping up and down, waving my arms to catch his attention, then when he saw me I gave him a double thumbs-up to say I was okay, and held my hands up, fingers splayed. ‘Ten mins,’ I mouthed.

  As he nodded, Gold Cat padded past me carrying the protesting gnome.

  I grabbed her by her scruff. ‘Don’t forget our deal. I save both kits, you tell me how to undo the mating with Finn.’

  Her lip curled, copper-coloured whiskers stiffening. Take stronger mate. Break mate-bond with satyr.

  I rocked back on my heels, stunned. I had to mate with someone stronger to stop being mated to Finn? That wasn’t exactly a winning solution for me. Damn it. I’d imagined an invocation to the gods, or some sort of spell or ritual—

  ‘How do I take
a stronger mate?’

  Circle. Share flesh. His seed in you. Gold Cat’s tone suggested I was stupid not to know that. She tugged out of my hold and padded away to disappear into the darkness beneath the stage with the struggling gnome. I stared after her, thoughtful.

  If all I needed was a bit of mutual cannibalism (ugh) and sex with someone more powerful than Finn, well, that probably gave me the option of a good ten per cent of London’s fae as a starter. Not that I had any intention of going down the ‘another mate’ route. But at least the answer wasn’t one of those Herculean tasks. In fact, if I ignored the whole ick factor, it actually seemed way too easy an out.

  Something to investigate later, once everyone was safe. And Malik had his soul back.

  I rolled my shoulders and turned back to where he lay on the stone circle.

  Dropping to my knees, I placed my palm on his chest. Despite his heart not beating, and his skin hard and cold like stone, not living flesh, he didn’t seem like a vamp who’d been drained dry, but more as if he were in his daylight sleep. But the tent was painted in his blood. So never mind what he looked like, or the stingy couple of mouthfuls Bastien had dripped into him, which even with his Autarch’s power would no more quench a vamp’s thirst than two drops of rain in a drought, it was always possible Malik would wake to full bloodlust. Not a particularly reassuring thought, but I wanted him to have his soul back.

  Though really, it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of blood to spare. Thanks to my time in Between, I hadn’t donated for two nights. Nor had I sated my body’s need for vamp venom with blood-fruit. With my sidhe metabolism, that was like a week to a human and the 3V addiction rioting in my cells was near enough at its ideal. My venom levels not so low for the craving to be vital, and my blood levels high enough that losing two or three pints wasn’t going to do anything more than treat both of us to a good time.

  Anticipation speeding my pulse, I positioned Janan’s silver point over his heart—

  Malik’s eyes flew open, power flamed hot in his pupils, and his hand clamped round my wrist. ‘No.’