The Bitter Seed of Magic

by Suzanne McLeod

  And Tavish in his human form was on his hands and knees above me. He stared down at me, his silver-coloured eyes swirling, his bead-tipped dreads hanging like a curtain around our faces, hiding us from view.

  ‘Hello, doll,’ he said quietly. He grinned, his sharp-pointed teeth white against his green-black skin. ‘’Tis guid to see you, though you took your ain sweet time coming for me. The Morrígan’s been riding me ragged.’

  I grinned back, struck by his Charm, and his magic eddied inside me, sending longing swimming through my veins. I reached up and traced the sharp, angular planes of his alluring face, his long, straight nose, his pointed chin, then stroked the delicate black-lace gills at his throat. His eyes closed, a shudder running through his sleek muscular body, as he murmured softly in encouragement. I looked down between us to see him in all his naked glory. ‘Not that ragged,’ I whispered, my stomach contracting in anticipation. Oh boy … Then his words penetrated my mind, and I frowned. This was wrong. I wasn’t here for this, but for—

  A loud screech rent the air, and Tavish disappeared from above me.

  The Morrígan’s anger-etched features replaced him as I stared up at her, stunned into immobility.

  Her eyes bored like lasers into mine as her body writhed inches above my own. ‘You are as addled as the rest of your cursed blood, little sidhe.’ Her husky voice was filled with vitriol. ‘One look and you are prepared to cast all aside for love and beauty.’

  One look? Tavish had hit me with a gut-load of kelpie Charm, and she knew it.

  She reared up and lifted her face up to the heavens and shouted, ‘Clíona, my sister, see what wretched misery you have wrought! My children are dying and your blood lies here, as weak now as it has always been.’ A double-edged dagger appeared in her clawed hand. ‘I will gouge her heart from her body, and destroy your cursed blood, and make an end to this.’

  She raised the knife above her head, started it on its downward curve …

  Fucking goddesses and their tests. And what the hell was she talking about Clíona’s blood for?

  I jack-knifed my knees up to my chest and kicked out and up, catching her in her midriff just above where her human-shaped body joined to the eel’s. She flew backwards with another ear-splitting screech and I scrambled up to find her swinging back towards me, like a snake dancing to the charmer’s whistle, tooth bared, knife in hand. I rolled to the side, feeling the knife slice through the skin of my shoulder like— Well, like a sharp knife through flesh. The pain barely registered.

  Desperately I grabbed the nearest thing: the long scimitar-shaped bull’s horn; it was lighter than I expected. Gripping it with both hands, the point curving upwards, I thrust it towards her on her next swing past, but I missed again and stumbled as her blade nicked a stinging line across the front of my throat. I backed up, feeling my blood trickle over my clavicle. I needed to put some space between us, but the Morrígan’s damned eel body kept growing longer and longer, stretching out in zigzags behind her as she slithered menacingly across the grass towards me.

  I reached the edge of the circle, my pulse thundering in my ears and my shoulders buzzing against the static of blood magic. My gut clenched in fear as I wiped my hand over my throat and it came away painted in blood. The honey-copper scent was slightly nauseating. How the hell was I going to get out of this? Plenty of sharp implements at my feet— But grabbing one of them meant breaking the circle, and losing myself in the emptiness outside the circle wasn’t part of the master plan. But then, neither was fighting a goddess. Trouble was, not fighting wasn’t an option, unless I wanted my heart cut out.

  I gripped the thick end of the bull’s horn, calculating her approach, then swayed – and realised, almost too late, that all her shifting about was making me dizzy. She smiled, acid-yellow eyes glinting maliciously as she rose up, twenty-odd feet above me until her pale green bald head brushed the inside of the translucent blood-dome. She angled the knife in her hand, and my legs shook as she gave another gut-wrenching shriek and dived at me. I held my breath, waiting until the last possible moment, then I flung myself forward, turned and stabbed the bull’s horn through the eel part of her body and into the ground below—

  A heart-hollowing bellow rent the air as I scrambled onto my hands and knees, expecting to feel her knife plunging into my back at any moment. I half-crawled, half-ran until I hit the opposite side of the circle, where I collapsed into a panting heap.

  The Morrígan was swaying about, five feet above the grass, and looking down, apparently nonplussed, at the bull’s horn pinning her eel body to the ground.

  Shit. All she had to do was pluck it out.

  I needed another weapon. I looked towards the bronze pool, thinking of the little silver knife with which I’d cut my hand and wondering if I could get to it before the Morrígan did the obvious—

  Tavish was lying next to the pond, his head propped on his bent arm, idly flipping the knife through his fingers. Next to him was the bottle of Jameson’s, now half-empty. Looked like he’d been enjoying the entertainment.

  ‘Telt you nae tae trust me, doll.’ He grinned, but his eyes were pewter-dark with suppressed anger. ‘Telt you, I’m nae longer my own master, but you didnae listen.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Tavish was right: he had told me not to trust him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on my side. The Morrígan might be using him to test me, or sic spells on me or whatever, but she was still holding him captive, and Tavish wasn’t the sort to just roll over and play slave. He was also tricky enough to give me a clue – which, hopefully, was what he was doing now.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t trust you or your fangy friend, or whatever it is the pair of you are plotting.’

  He sat up, and rested his chin on his bent knee. Fixing me with a look, he dragged the silver knife along the gold chain clamped round his ankle. The knife made a faint metal-on-metal sound as it disturbed the tiny keys, setting my teeth on edge. He smiled, a quick baring of his own teeth, then pulled a long length of chain from the bronze pool, coiled it round and stabbed the knife through one of its links. He’d pinned himself to the ground, much as I’d done to the Morrígan.

  Great clue, Tavish – not!

  But his clue, whatever it meant, would have to wait. First, I needed to convince the Morrígan to give me what I came for: two tickets to the Tower of London.

  I frowned at her. She was still contemplating the bull’s horn, bending over so she could peer at it from just a couple of inches away. She seemed to find it fascinating. Hopefully she’d stay that way, since fighting her wasn’t going to work; there was no way I could win against a goddess, not in the long run, so I needed to think of something else, and fast. I pushed myself to my feet, blinking as my head swam and the scene in front of me went fuzzy. I looked down to find my T-shirt and jeans were soaked with blood. Crap, I was wearing my last clean pair too. I touched my hand to my throat and stared uncomprehendingly at my blood-drenched fingers. Then I got it: she’d nicked a vein when she’d sliced me, and if it didn’t heal soon, fighting would be the last thing I needed to worry about.

  What I really needed was Tavish’s fangy friend right now. Still at least this way, when Malik healed me, I’d end up with a two-for-one deal.

  I tore the sleeve off my T-shirt and tied it round my neck in a makeshift bandage, then checked my shoulder, but compared to my throat, that was a scratch. I staggered over to the bronze pool, picked up the carton of milk and the crystal tumbler, but left the silver knife. Taking it would’ve put me within grabbing distance of Tavish and never mind anything else, he was still tied to the Morrígan. I continued my stagger until I was a couple of feet away from the Morrígan – not that the distance made much difference, not when the eel part of her body could keep extending, and extending …

  She moved again, this time so her upper body was upright. ‘You have spirit, little sidhe,’ she said haughtily, ‘and more than I expected.’

  ‘You want s
omething from me, Morrígan,’ I said flatly. ‘And I want two things from you. I’m willing to bargain.’

  ‘A sidhe bargain?’ She licked her blood-plumped lips, considering my words. ‘It has been sixty years since I was last offered one of those. The taste still rankles.’

  Whatever. Cards on the table time. ‘First, I want the ability to pass into Between without using an entrance, for me and one other.’ I paused, then added what I hoped would the clincher. ‘Specifically, I want to get into the Tower of London.’

  ‘This is not a small thing you ask …’ She trailed off, then reached down and pulled out the bull’s horn, which came away with a loud sucking sound. The eel part of her body spasmed, and the wound gushed blood that hissed as it hit the grass. She held her hand out imperiously. ‘Give me the milk, little sidhe.’

  I hesitated, worried I was giving away a bargaining point.

  ‘Come now; it is not like it can be returned to the cow, is it?’

  I unscrewed the cap on the carton and handed it over.

  She read the side of the carton and frowned. ‘Organic! Hmm, if humans did not scour the earth and deplete its fecundity with their pesticides and chemicals, there would be no need to label this so.’ She sniffed it, pulled an ‘it will do’ face, then poured it over the wound. It healed instantaneously. I briefly wondered if it would have done the same for my throat, but the chance was gone, for the Morrígan kept pouring, an expression of contentment on her face, until the last drops of milk splattered like white tears over the hissing grass.

  Just my luck … Still, the itchy feeling at my throat meant it was healing, even if I did look like a victim at a vamp’s blood-fest. Maybe she hadn’t nicked a vein after all – or maybe the magic was helping me.

  She dropped the empty carton and, smiling, held out her hand again. ‘Now the glass.’

  This time I didn’t hesitate, just handed her the crystal tumbler.

  She sniffed it too. Her hand trembled, her acid-yellow eyes widening as she inhaled again, longer and deeper. ‘An offering from a fertility fae,’ she whispered. ‘You are indeed fortunate.’ She held the glass above the bull’s horn – I had a sudden horrible thought about what she might be asking me next – and she started to tip the glass up.

  ‘No, my lady,’ Tavish called, running over to stand between me and the Morrígan, the gold chain uncoiling behind him.

  Yes, definitely no, even if I had an idea which fertility fae had made the donation.

  ‘No?’ The Morrígan turned her acid-yellow gaze to Tavish, her voice soft with menace.

  ‘Dinna use the horn, my lady,’ Tavish said, just as softly. ‘Just the glass. Please.’

  Okay, what was he playing at now?

  ‘It is but a drinking horn, kelpie,’ she said, in a deliberately casual tone.

  ‘Dinna fool yourself that I havenae recognised it, my lady.’ The beads on his dreads flashed from silver to an accusing red. ‘For ’tis one of the MacCúailnge’s horns.’

  The bull’s horn belonged to the MacCúailnge, her son? No wonder she’d been fascinated by it. Except he was supposed to have been executed. So was his horn just a grisly memento from the execution – and if so, how was that possible? – or had someone, oh, let’s say, like the Lady Meriel been economical with the truth?

  ‘Aye, ’tis one of the MacCúailnge’s horns,’ she repeated, mimicking his rough burr, ‘but tell me, kelpie, how would you be in a position to recognise it?’

  His gills flared, then snapped back against his throat as he spread his arms and bowed. ‘’Twas I who removed it from his head, my lady.’

  Um, probably not such a good idea to go for the whole truth thing here, Tavish.

  Her expression turned predatory. ‘You confess to me that you were the one to kill him, then?’

  ‘Nae, I willnae offer you such.’ His bead-tipped dreads clicked, the sound suddenly nervous. ‘But I will declare I had a part in … taking the Old Donn’s horns.’

  She backhanded him and he grunted in pain as he stumbled. He caught himself, and she hit him again, a casual uppercut to the chin that sent him bouncing off the inside of the magical dome and back down, landing heavily at her feet. I flinched as he groaned, and struggled to his knees. She gave the gold chain clamped to his ankle a vicious yank and upended him. ‘Stay there,’ she ordered. He slumped back, staring defiantly up at her as blood dripped down his pointed chin.

  ‘Now, little sidhe—’

  Her voice startled me and I turned back in time to see her tip the contents of the glass into the hollowed-out end of the horn and then spit in it herself. She held it out to me. ‘Drink this, and I will grant you the boon you wish …’

  Okay, even without the spit, eew! With it? Double eew!

  ‘… and the answer to that which you seek,’ she finished with a crafty smile.

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘The answer to what?’

  ‘You seek the answer to the fertility curse, do you not?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cautious hope flared inside me.

  Her smile widened, her one tooth protruding with triumph. ‘Drink then, little sidhe.’

  I stared at the bull’s horn. All I had to do was drink, and she’d give me the answer. The deal was … persuasive. After all, it wasn’t like I hadn’t before; it wasn’t poison, and no doubt it was as organic as the milk had been. And what was a bit of spit between – two people not friends, one of whom was a goddess of fertility, among other things? And there it was: the problem. It was one of those magic/symbolic things, and drinking it was going to somehow end up with me up the duff. Not only did I not want that, but if Tavish’s objection was a clue, drinking from the bull’s horn instead of the glass meant Finn might be the donor, but it wasn’t his kid I’d end up with, but the Morrígan’s— What? Son? Grandson?

  My hand shook as I reached out and took the bull’s horn from her. It felt heavier, or maybe that was just my imagination.

  ‘Dinna drink it, doll,’ Tavish said, his voice low.

  I shot him an incredulous look. ‘First, I’m not supposed to trust you, and now I am?’

  ‘Remember the vision, the one she’ – he jutted his head at the Morrígan – ‘showed you—’

  ‘How could I forget?’ I snorted. The memory of the horn and hooves that had poked out of my pregnant belly when she’d treated me to her alien baby show was burned into my mind. ‘But it can’t happen, can it, not since you sicced me with a Chastity spell. So why should it matter whether I drink it or not?’

  ‘The Chastity spell was her idea,’ he murmured. ‘I hadnae choice, doll.’

  Okay, so definitely going with ‘not drinking’ here, since his words confirmed one of my suspicions: she’d been the one who’d decided to keep me chaste, probably for just this reason. But I still wanted her boon, and the answer to the curse. Somehow I needed to come up with a way to get both – without drinking – and try and free Tavish at the same time.

  I glared at him. ‘What about adding cinnamon to the spell; was that her idea too?’ I shouted angrily.

  His eyes flashed black in shock.

  ‘You have made her barren!’ The Morrígan’s shout eclipsed mine for anger. She pulled on the gold chain until Tavish was pressed up against the eel part of her body, then coiled herself round him like a boa constrictor and started squeezing. ‘You have attempted to block me at every turn, kelpie, interfering and meddling in matters which are beyond your ken, and I will tolerate it no more!’

  ‘Which is sort of what I was thinking,’ I said loudly to attract her attention over Tavish’s muffled yells of pain. Tavish might be wylde fae, and like all fae he might be hard to kill, but ‘hard to kill’ doesn’t count for much when a goddess decides to end your existence.

  I repeated my shout. And this time her head swung up and she fixed me with a venomous stare.

  ‘Squeezing the life out of him is really too quick an end for him, Morrígan,’ I said, putting disdain into my voice. ‘He did de-horn your son, after all. How do
you feel about a counteroffer?’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  She regarded me with curiosity. ‘What would this counteroffer be?’

  ‘An extension of his pain, both mental and physical,’ I stated, ‘as due recompense for his interference in your business and mine.’

  She swayed down towards me, relaxing her grip on Tavish. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Agree to grant me my boon first, and I’ll do better than tell you, I’ll show you. If my actions give you pleasure, you’ll tell me how to break the fertility curse; if not I’ll drink whatever is contained in this’ – I held up the bull’s horn – ‘either now, or at sunset tomorrow.’ It was win/win for her, and might just buy me – and Tavish – some time.

  Tavish’s shout of denial cut off sharply as a loop of the eel’s body tightened around his neck.

  ‘Done, little sidhe.’ She opened her mouth and gave a loud croaking caw. The dome filled with the sound of wings flapping and a huge raven appeared. He landed on her shoulder, his long talons digging into her flesh for purchase.

  Was it Jack? It was difficult to tell— No, this bird’s eyes were black; Jack’s were blue. So if Jack wasn’t working for the Morrígan, why had he been stalking me?

  The Morrígan turned and made a low crooning noise to the raven. He rubbed his head affectionately against her cheek, and two of his glossy black feathers floated to the ground, then he flapped his wings, took off and vanished.

  She indicated the feathers. ‘Your boon, little sidhe.’

  I picked them up. They felt like ordinary feathers; there was nothing magical about them that I could discern. ‘How do they work?’

  ‘You will know when the time comes,’ she said dismissively. ‘But remember, the boon will only work for this one night. Now’ – she squeezed Tavish more in excitement than anything else, eliciting another muffled groan from him – ‘show me.’