The Bitter Seed of Magic

by Suzanne McLeod

  ‘That’s about right, luv,’ Ricou said. ‘’Course, if whoever it is dies, then the spell’ll disappear on its own.’

  I ground my teeth. If I found out who was keyed to the Chastity spell, then their dying was going to be a serious option. And if it was Tavish’s idea and not the Morrígan’s … his precious computers were toast.

  Ricou tapped my shoulder. ‘Mind if I have a butcher’s?’ He looked over his dark glasses and winked at me. ‘Professional interest, of course.’

  ‘What?’ I said still furious.

  ‘The spell. I want to look at it.’

  ‘Sure, why not,’ I snapped and yanked my top up. Finn groaned and closed his eyes.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ Ricou said as he bent and peered at my stomach. ‘It’s the after-effects of the spell; a nasty reminder to keep his … hands to himself whenever he looks at you. It’ll wear off in a while.’

  I frowned sceptically at Finn, who was sitting still with his eyes closed. ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘He’s the one who tried getting happy with it.’ Ricou licked his finger and touched it to the handprint, making me flinch. He stuck his finger in his mouth, then nodded. ‘Thought so. Cinnamon’s been added to the spell. I’d have picked up on it this morning if it hadn’t been for Blossom’s maple syrup.’

  ‘Enlighten me,’ I said flatly.

  ‘You add cinnamon oil to Chastity spells to stop any baby buns cooking in your oven.’ He eyed the handprint narrowly. ‘It makes you temporarily barren.’

  ‘Hell’s thorns,’ Finn muttered, his shock matching my own.

  A rustling noise like a high wind through the trees whistled around us and Sylvia’s eyes snapped open. ‘Genny,’ she said urgently, ‘the police are on their way. I think it’s because of you. I’m going to drop the Unseen spell.’

  I jerked round to find three of the large high-top police vans the trolls used driving down the road, sirens off, but their blue lights flashing, drawing the attention of the crowd. The vans stopped, the back doors opened and Detective Sergeant Hugh Munro of the Metropolitan Police’s Magic and Murder squad jumped nimbly out of the first. Behind him were two female police constables, both witches. Eight more uniformed police constables – all trolls – jumped out of the second and third vans and all of them strode towards us.

  The hair at the nape of my neck prickled with prescience – not that I have any precognition skills, but I watch the movies occasionally. This looked too much like where the police corner the bad guys and catch them. I stifled the urge to run. We weren’t the bad guys.

  ‘Genny.’ Hugh towered over me, his ruddy face creased into worried fissures. ‘I’m sorry, but I’d like you to come with us, please.’

  ‘Why?’ I said, suddenly wary. ‘I’m not under arrest again, am I?’

  ‘No, but I need you to come with us.’ He gestured to the van. ‘Now, please.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I sat in the back of the police van, gripping onto the edges of the hard seat, the lap-style seatbelt digging uncomfortably into my bruised and be-spelled stomach. The painkillers were wearing off, as was the shock over the Chastity spell. I’d find a way to get rid of it, but as I really didn’t want any buns in my oven either, I shoved it to the bottom of my to-do list.

  Hugh was sitting stoically across from me, despite the anxious red dust puffing from his head ridge and settling on his black hair and massive shoulders.

  ‘So what’s up, Hugh?’ I asked.

  He didn’t answer, but held up one large finger to silence me: the uniformed witch next to him was casting some sort of spell. I nodded and settled back in the seat. The van smelled of sage, urine and rotten meat, a distinctly unpleasant combination. I wrinkled my nose and gazed out of the window, wishing I could open it.

  After a look at Finn, and a quick, lurid explanation from Ricou, Hugh had split us up. I ended up in the first van with Hugh and the WPC. Finn was in the second van, and somehow a charming Ricou and a blushing Sylvia had ended up in the third. My guess was that Hugh was in a hurry and didn’t want the hassle of leaving them behind. We’d all made quite the spectacle as it was, the event immortalised for avid speculation on the news by the hundreds of mobile phones held up and pointed our way until we’d all disappeared inside the vans and the protection of the one-way glass.

  More tourists cast curious looks our way as we drove past Tower Hill, where they used to carry out public executions – a cheerful thought while riding in the back of a police van. Of course, nowadays executions are carried out in the remote wilds of Dartmoor, with random members of the public invited to attend. As we passed by the War Memorial, a large raven perched on one corner caught my eye. Was it Jack? And if it was, was Jack the same raven Sylvia had seen flying through the Tower entrance; the one she’d thought had flown into Between? Hard to know really, as one raven looks pretty much like another from thirty feet away.

  Then there was the other mystery: if the gate had opened into Between, had Victoria Harrier really been trying to kidnap me? And if she had, then why? And there was Sylvia’s other strange comment, about Ana spitting on the Old Donn’s remains. Why would Sylvia say that when fae don’t have remains? We fade, literally: our bodies disappear when we die. Was Sylvia just being metaphorical, or was the Old Donn not as dead as everyone kept telling me? And what did it all have to do with the curse?

  Magic tingled over my skin as the WPC finished up whatever spell she was casting. I turned round and studied her: black hair in a neat bun, attractive face and full, plump lips that looked like they’d just been kissed, in spite of the determined way she kept them pressed together. After a moment I recognised her: Constable Martin, the WPC who’d been guarding the crime scene yesterday, at Dead Man’s Hole, the disused mortuary under Tower Bridge, where the dead raven faeling had been found.

  She had a small glass globe about the size of a tangerine cradled in both hands. It swirled pink, shot through with fainter threads of red. I looked, checking out the globe’s magic, but the colours didn’t change, so whatever spell was inside, it was keyed for anyone to use, an advantage for trolls with their lack of magical abilities. As we all watched, the colour drained out of the globe, leaving it full of misty grey clouds. ‘Okay, Sarge.’ Constable Martin tucked the globe away. ‘We’re clear.’ She caught my eye and gave me a suggestion of a smile. ‘Anti-Surveillance Ball. It monitors for Remote Listening spells. You just can’t trust the press nowadays.’

  ‘Neat,’ I said, impressed, then looked at Hugh. ‘So, what’s with the dramatic police pick-up then?’

  ‘We had an anonymous tip, that you were in danger,’ Hugh said quietly.

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘What sort of danger was I supposed to be in?’

  ‘They weren’t specific,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The tip was anonymous, Genny.’

  ‘C’mon, Hugh, I’m not stupid! Anonymous tips don’t have you turning out half the force’ – okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but three vans? – ‘otherwise you’d be spending all your time chasing your own tails.’

  ‘Our source was anonymous,’ Hugh rebuked me quietly; ‘we’re not even sure if it’s male or female. But whoever it is, is a trusted informant in another case – the one involving the dead faeling yesterday. But, before we get into that, Genny, I want to know what you were doing at the Tower.’

  ‘Going to visit the Raven Master and the ravens, to see what I could find out about the dead faeling,’ I said, giving him an odd look. ‘Like who she was, for a start.’

  Hugh frowned, deep fissures creasing his forehead. ‘We already know who she was: Sally Redman.’ He fished his notebook out and flipped a couple of pages. ‘She was nineteen last August, her mother is the landlady of the Rose and Punchbowl, a pub in Whitechapel. The father’s name is Grog. He left the Tower back in 1981, took up residence at the pub, but disappeared a few years after Sally was born. The ravens at the Tower haven’t seen or heard from Sally for at least thre
e years, nor do they want to. She’s been working in various clubs in Soho and they disapprove. All that information was in the report your solicitor removed from my desk.’

  ‘It wasn’t in the report I saw,’ I said drily, thinking Hugh was being uncommonly free with his info in front of his WPC sidekick. I gave him my own news. ‘Sylvia thinks my lawyer just tried to kidnap me, and Finn too.’ I paused, considering, ‘Although Finn wasn’t supposed to be in the car with me, so he was possibly just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  Hugh just nodded as if I’d confirmed something, but Constable Martin leaned forward, excitement animating her face. ‘Are you saying Victoria Harrier tried to kidnap you?’

  ‘According to the others, yes.’

  ‘Check into it, will you, Constable?’ Hugh said. ‘See if there is any connection.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’ She dug out her phone and started tapping the screen.

  I was beginning to feel like I was majorly out of the loop. ‘Connection to what?’ I asked.

  Hugh’s mouth flattened into a hard line. ‘Another girl has been found dead, Genny. The circumstances are similar to yesterday. I’d appreciate it if you could take a look and tell me what you can.’

  Damn. ‘Another faeling?’

  ‘We’re there now,’ he said, looking out through the van’s windscreen, ‘so you can see for yourself.’

  The van braked, juddering to a halt and I looked past Hugh’s bulk to see where we were. Back at Dead Man’s Hole.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Dead Man’s Hole, the old disused mortuary under Tower Bridge, was seeing way more use than anyone wanted. The place wasn’t much changed from my last visit. The river slapped against the dock outside, and cast watery reflections over the Victorian glazed-brick interior. Half a dozen uniforms – all witches – stood around the walls of the large cave-like room, and in between them were fat white candles that flickered and cast them into shadow. Spirals of thick smoke rose up to collect under the dome of the curved ceiling. My nostrils flared; underneath the heavy, waxy candle smell and the astringent scent of sage, I caught that same sweet, thick and slightly rotten smell from my previous visit. Then I realised it wasn’t just nudging my memory from before, but was also reminding me of the maple syrup on Sylvia’s breakfast pancakes. Strange, but then I’d never liked the stuff. And with a mounting sense of déjà vu, I followed Hugh to the large white sand and salt circle drawn in the centre of the cave-like room.

  In the centre of the circle was the new victim. Unlike Sally Redman, the dead raven faeling, this girl was lying spreadeagled on her back, and naked. She also looked younger, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. I wanted to cover her up and give her back her dignity, but that wouldn’t help find who’d done this to her. It wouldn’t make them pay. I pressed my lips together and studied her. Inside the circle drawn by the police was another one, marked out in red chalk, and inside that was a red chalk pentagram. She’d been laid out with some precision on top of the pentagram, her head to one of the five points, her limbs spread out towards the other four. Around the inner pentagon formed by the crossing of the lines were more red chalkmarks, half-obscured by her body: a joined chain of five rings. My heart lurched with dismay as I made them out, and instinctively I touched Grace’s pentacle at my throat.

  I looked up at Hugh and murmured, ‘The pentacle drawn underneath her matches mine.’

  He nodded. ‘I recognised the design, Genny. It could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. Someone wants you involved – or implicated.’

  I swiped away a couple of tears. Damn it, I really needed to find out why I kept crying and sort it – soon. ‘Is it possible someone’s using the girls to try and crack the curse? Or that they want you to think that I am?’

  ‘It appears sensible to think there’s some connection, Genny,’ he agreed, ‘but it’s not necessarily anything metaphysical.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The pentagram looks to be ritualistic,’ Hugh rumbled, ‘but Constable Martin assures me it isn’t. The points don’t face in any direction that could call power, and the design has enough confidence in its execution that she doesn’t think it’s sloppy work. We both feel that the pentagram is there to draw our attention to the curse and to you.’

  ‘Well, if someone’s trying to implicate me, then there’s always your boss,’ I muttered, looking around. ‘Speaking of DI Crane, shouldn’t she be here trying to remove me from her crime scene?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Crane is … no longer in charge of this case,’ he rumbled, his voice almost too low for me to hear.

  ‘Really?’ I gave him a surprised look. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She’s taking time off to deal with some personal problems.’

  I wondered if the ‘time off’ was entirely her decision. But why Witch-bitch Helen Crane wasn’t here didn’t matter; not having her breathing down my neck was good news for me. But even without my own evil witch nemesis around, the other witchy occupants of the cave-like mortuary were still watching me closely enough to send wary chills down my spine. Not to mention that while we’d been talking, Constable Martin with her neat bun and just-kissed lips had walked round to stand on the opposite side of the circle. With her was another, older witch. She was giving me the once-over with sharp hazel eyes, and was too flamboyantly dressed in flowing fortune-teller chic (the fringes of small silver coins on her skirt and shawl were full-moon bright with spells) to be police. And since her presence had been shouting ‘power’ at my inner radar from the moment she’d come in, I was betting she was from the Witches’ Council.

  Ignoring her, and the rest of the witchy crew, I turned to Hugh. ‘So, do you want me to check this victim to see if she’s tagged with any spells?’

  ‘Please, Genny.’

  I looked. It was almost an anticlimax to see the same two spells as before: the dirty-white silly-string spell which cocooned the girl’s body, and underneath it, the faint out-of-focus waver of a Glamour spell.

  ‘Looks like the same spells that were on Sally the raven faeling,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what Constable Martin thought, but I wanted your opinion too.’ Hugh laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you think you can you remove the spells intact, Genny?’

  I looked at the salt and sand circle. It was for containment, plain and simple, with no added extras.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘so long as I can do things my way, and I don’t have to worry about anyone mixing silver or anything else in the circle under the pretext of Health and Safety.’

  ‘That won’t be a problem,’ Hugh said reassuringly. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘The main spell seems to be some sort of preservative/stasis effort. The raven faeling’s injuries didn’t appear until after I removed it yesterday; it was only then she started to bleed. So the first thing’s a doctor.’ The poor girl needed someone better than me to resuscitate her if she turned out to be not as dead as she looked.

  Hugh indicated the flamboyant hazel-eyed witch. ‘Witch Juliet Martin here is our official doctor on call. She has both the necessary medical and magical expertise.’

  Witch Martin came around the circle and held out her hand to me. ‘Please, call me Juliet.’

  I hesitated a moment – most folk with magical ability don’t do skin-to-skin contact, for fear of being inadvertently (or otherwise) tagged with a spell – then took her hand. Her shake was firm. ‘Genny Taylor,’ I said redundantly, since she obviously knew who I was. I looked enquiringly across the circle at Constable Martin.

  ‘My daughter, Mary,’ Juliet confirmed with a warm smile.

  Nice to know we were keeping it all in the family.

  I narrowed my eyes at Juliet. Time to test just how accommodating she was going to be. ‘Can you cope if I put the spell in a plastic bucket?’

  She gave me another warm smile. ‘Indeed I can, Ms Taylor.’ She sent one of the WPCs off to fetch one.

  Now for the important part.

  I took a deep b
reath, stepped into the circle and crouched near the girl’s head. Her blue eyes stared sightlessly up, for a moment reminding me of Malik, wrapped in the rug under my bed, and I briefly wondered what I was going to do about him and his orders, then I dismissed him. Time enough to deal with the beautiful vampire when he woke up for the night; right now I needed to concentrate on the beautiful, blue-eyed blonde in front of me, who looked much too young to die. Of course, that could just be her Glamour spell; underneath that she was probably something else entirely. But like Sally, the dead raven faeling, I couldn’t tell. However the Glamour spell had been stirred, it had some way of camouflaging her essence as well as her physical appearance.

  The more I stared at her, the more she looked oddly familiar. I frowned, trying to place where I’d seen her—

  ‘She’s in the reality show filmed at Morgan Le Fay College,’ Juliet said as she joined me in the circle. She put down her doctor’s bag, then carefully tucked her flouncy skirt underneath her and crouched on the other side of the girl’s body. ‘Her name is Miranda Wheater. She’s in the sixth form.’

  I clicked where I’d seen Miranda before: on the front of the glossy magazine Sylvia had shown me before the Librarian had taken back the fae’s curse-cracking books. The girl – or witch – had been in a jacuzzi, complete with a fancy cocktail and half a dozen older men, and the headline had shouted something about a curse, which was obviously why the fae had added the magazine to their collection.

  I looked from Juliet to Hugh. ‘I take it someone’s checked on Miranda’s whereabouts?’

  ‘Miranda is thankfully alive and well and at the college,’ Juliet assured me. ‘This child is someone else. There has been a spate of this type of appearance-altering spell, where the wearer has chosen a figure in the public eye who hasn’t given their consent to any doppelgänger spells. The Witches’ Council has received a number of complaints about them. While it is not as important as finding out who is responsible for this poor girl’s death, finding which witch has been casting the spells might provide us with some valuable information in both cases.’