The Bitter Seed of Magic

by Suzanne McLeod

  Hmm. Maybe she didn’t need a camera after all.

  He was also a ghost.

  My phobia hit. I pressed my lips together hard, stifling the shriek in my throat. Fae don’t leave ghosts – not naturally, anyway – but the Old Donn was definitely a ghost, however impossible that was. Which meant he couldn’t harm the living, at least not outside of All Hallows’ Eve. Or at least that’s the way normal ghosts work. And if he wasn’t normal … well, I’d find out soon enough.

  He flicked a long cowlick of paler orange hair out of his eyes and grinned, showing brown stumps of ground-down teeth. ‘I’m the MacCúailnge,’ he pronounced, ‘and I’m afther believin’ me darlin’ mother, the Morrígan, has delivered you here to do my bidding.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, you can forget that idea,’ I said, pleased my words came out dry as dust despite the little phobic-fuelled voices in my head telling me to scream and run and don’t stop until I was far, far away. ‘I’ve got one dictatorial male in my life already. No way do I need another. So how about we try doing this the democratic “help-each-other-out” way?’

  ‘“Help” … ?’ The glow in the MacCúailnge’s orange eyes turned crafty. ‘I might be afther considerin’ it, seeing as I’m wantin’ something in return.’

  Figured. I pursed my lips at him, wondering just how helpful a non-corporeal ghost could actually be, and if I really needed to ask him what he wanted when no doubt the clip-clop of little bull hooves was going to be the answer. I sighed. ‘Go on then, tell me what you want.’

  He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘Why, a body and me freedom, me darlin’. Forty years of bein’ without them both is quite the trial.’

  A body? I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘What sort of body?’

  ‘A new one, of course.’ He waved a huge hairy arm towards the Stepfords. ‘This wee wizard man here’s been promisin’ me one for a rare long while now, but none o’ these wee girlies are strong enough for the MacCúailnge.’ A sly expression crossed his face and he crouched down so he could look me in the eyes. ‘Unless you’ll be willin’, pretty sidhe?’

  The Morrígan’s little fertility mix of spit and Finn’s donation that she wanted me to drink made even more horrible sense. She didn’t want a grandson; she wanted a new body for her son. Her kidnapper rapist murderer son.

  ‘No,’ I said, as rage filled my veins with icy determination, ‘no way. You don’t deserve a new body, not after what you did to Rhiannon, and not after what you’re doing now. You’re the reason your wizard pal’ – I jerked my head at the ‘paused’ Dr Craig standing within the Old Donn’s ghostly presence – ‘has been able to kill these faelings. You should have stopped him.’

  His large orange eyes did a slow blink, then his expression turned to dismay. ‘The wee lassies have been dyin’?’ His shoulders lowered and he shot a bushy browed frown at the Stepfords. ‘The wee wizard man ne’r told me that. And you have the right of it, pretty sidhe, I should have been afther stoppin’ him from doin’ such a foul thing in my ain home.’

  Ri-ight. I gave him a suspicious look, not sure whether he was for real or not. ‘So, are you going to stop him now?’

  ‘I’m thinkin’ there’s not much I can do like this, pretty sidhe.’ His ears flattened. ‘Not while the wizard man here has harnessed what little power I still possessed by wearin’ me ain skin.’

  Nice! Except— ‘That’s it: he’s used your power to Glamour them,’ I muttered. ‘Damn; that’s why I couldn’t catch him with mine.’ I looked him over speculatively, then tugged on the orange furry cape. ‘Okay, everything stopped when I grabbed your skin here, so does that mean I’ve got control of your power now?’

  ‘Maybe if you were wearin’ my hide, you would.’ His wide nostrils flared pensively. ‘But mind, once ye leave go of your hold on me, time will all be afther startin’ again.’

  He’s wylde fae, murmured my cautious voice, and they’re always tricky, not to mention he gave in way too easily on the whole new body thing. Or that it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d appeared right at the opportune time. And where was Jack? I squinted up past the Old Donn to see Jack in his raven form perched on one of the wooden chandeliers. He was the Morrígan’s bird, and the Old Donn was the Morrígan’s bull.

  And I knew what the Morrígan wanted.

  Wearing his hide was a definite no.

  But it wasn’t the only source of juice here.

  This was Between, after all, malleable if you had enough will and power, and if the magic liked you – I glanced at the suits of armour – which it sort of looked like it did … I closed my eyes, sent a quick prayer to The Mother, and focused on what I wanted: enough time, plenty of space, and a perfect aim—

  Something brushed against me, a shy questing touch of an unfamiliar consciousness. It— No, she, offered aid … power freely given. I took half a second to quell my natural cynical response that whispered about unspoken obligations, then, eager and grateful, I opened the part of me that absorbs the magic and accepted. Power flooded into me like a tsunami, filling and stretching and reshaping until the barrier between us dissolved and it settled like a warm weight inside my soul. I took a shaky breath, then another, and with the third a rush of searing heat drenched sweat over my body, my bones vibrated like a magical tuning fork as the stone floor trembled beneath me, and the tart apple taste of cloudberries slipped down my throat and poured steadiness into my limbs.

  ‘Well, pretty sidhe, what say you?’ The Old Donn’s question held a note of eagerness he couldn’t quite hide. He’d been waiting a long time.

  I opened my eyes and gave him a wry smile. ‘Nice offer, but I’ve had a better one.’ I released my hold on him, and he winked out of sight.

  The grandfather clock rattled and squeaked, then resumed chiming.

  Thirteen chimes for the hour, then eleven gongs for the time.

  Twenty-four seconds.

  I held my hand up and caught the Stun spell Nurse Ratched threw at me and zipped it straight at Nicky just before she stuck her hoof in Helen’s skull, wincing as Nicky dropped like a Stunned dryad. Luckily Helen was there to cushion her fall.

  Twenty-one seconds.

  I caught Nurse Ratched’s next Stun spell and tossed it straight back, grinning as she too dropped like a Stunned dryad. Sadly, there was nothing soft for her to land on.

  Nineteen.

  I called a Stun spell from the shackles tied at my waist and, yelling at the nurses there to stay back, flung it gently towards the circle of hospital beds. The spell splashed harmlessly to the floor in a burst of green stars.

  Fifteen.

  I focused on the gold chain around Dr Craig’s neck and cracked the sun-bright magic, rolling awkwardly to the side as he collapsed almost on top of me.

  Thirteen.

  I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the Old Donn’s furry hide and ran for the empty hospital beds stored next to the double doors.

  ‘Just a short distance,’ I muttered, and the distance obligingly shortened, so much so that I hit the metal beds in a bone-jarring skid just as the first deeper chime sounded.

  ‘Okay, a bit too helpful maybe,’ I murmured as I shoved myself in among the cover of the beds.

  Nine.

  I hunkered down and quickly gauged the distance to the circle of Stepfords. They were almost fifty feet away in the far corner now, but still much too close. ‘They need to be so far away that they’re just tiny, tiny figures,’ I murmured.

  Seven.

  The room started stretching, new wooden beams springing up to support the high ceiling like a line of trees popping out of the ground.

  Five.

  The room kept growing, and more wooden chandeliers dropped down on ropes from the high roof, their candles springing into flaming light as they did so.

  Four.

  The figures shrank into the distance.

  Three.

  I focused on the Knock-back Wards on the double doors.

  Two.

  ‘Somewhere safe for eve
ryone,’ I prayed.

  One.

  I cracked the magic—

  —and the world exploded.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Thick, clinging greyness surrounded me. ‘Pretty sidhe,’ crooned a deep, rough voice next to my ear, ‘I will be huffing, and I will be puffing, and I will be blowing your house down, said the vampire to the tasty sidhe.’ The voice changed to a high-pitched squeal. ‘Oh no you won’t, squeaked the tasty sidhe.’ The voice sank back into the deep bass. ‘Oh yes, I will, said the vamp …’ The voice trailed off, leaving a buzzing in my head.

  My eyes were open, but the greyness was too thick to see through. I had a horrifying thought that the ton of power I’d used to crack the doors and Knock-Back Wards had destroyed the Old Donn’s place. Terror clutched my heart in a hard fist and I took a deep, calming, and oddly dusty breath. I pressed a hand to my T-shirt to check the pendant was still hidden safely beneath it, then catalogued what I could feel: I was lying on cold stone – the floor; behind me was a wall, also stone; there was something heavy on my legs, which were numb … I reached out and touched cold metal: I was trapped under one of the hospital beds; and the oddly dusty, gritty taste on my tongue was … actual dust. Okay, so I hadn’t destroyed everything. Just banged the place up a bit.

  ‘I will huff, and I will puff …’

  I felt around until my fingers met with long, wiry hair. An orange glow began to penetrate the fog and the huge furry figure of the Old Donn took shape beside me. He was the one singing.

  I squinted up at him. ‘What—?’ I coughed up a mouthful of dust, gritted my teeth against the stabbing pain in my shoulder – should’ve asked Jack for another of the Witch-bitch’s Pain-Numbing spells to go – then managed to croak out, ‘What’s with the singing?’

  He knocked his hairy knuckles on one long horn. ‘There is a vampire at the door, tasty sidhe, and he says he’s afther entering.’ He leaned closer and whispered, ‘He says he can smell you.’

  Was it Malik?

  ‘Can you let him in?’ I asked, my voice a little less croaky.

  ‘I cannot ask.’ He winked. ‘For he cannot see—’

  A loud rumbling noise cut him off. It sounded like thunder directly overhead … or falling masonry. My pulse sped. Maybe I’d been a bit hasty in assuming I hadn’t destroyed the place. ‘What was that?’ I said, struggling up onto my good elbow.

  ‘You have huffed and puffed and now my house is blowing down,’ the Old Donn said sadly.

  Fuck. The Stepfords!

  ‘But you can keep the place stable, can’t you?’ I asked urgently, almost sure he could, otherwise why sing in my ear? ‘And let the vamp in?’

  His orange eyes glinted slyly. ‘I might be doing that, if you’d be agreeing to get me a new body and my freedom back?’

  Damn aggravating tricky fae, always wanting to bargain when the chips, or rather bricks are down.

  ‘Let the vamp in and keep the place stable until everyone’s out,’ I said decisively, ‘and I’ll do a deal on the freedom.’ I paused, then added, ‘My terms, not yours.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ he bellowed.

  ‘All you’re going to get,’ I said flatly, mentally crossing my fingers. ‘But remember, if the place truly collapses and I fade, then you’ve lost your chance. You might not get another one for … oh, centuries, at least. So take it or leave it.’

  ‘Obstinate pretty sidhe.’ He stood and stamped his foot, and the floor shook. ‘Very well, then. I invite you in, vampire,’ he finished on a loud roar.

  For a second nothing happened, then the bed on my legs went flying and a tawny-haired blur loomed out of the grey fog above me. ‘Genny, are you okay?’ the vamp said, wiping at my face. ‘Your head’s all gashed and I can smell your blood, like, everywhere.’ He sniffed his fingers and wrinkled his nose. ‘Though this isn’t all yours, is it?’

  Darius. My fang-pet.

  ‘How did you get here?’ I asked, bemused.

  ‘This big hole just exploded in the Coffin Club’s wall,’ he said, his excited grin showcasing all four of his fangs. ‘We all crowded round, and as soon as I got near it I caught your scent.’

  Somewhere safe. The magic had an odd sense of humour at times – although, with Malik’s protection … well, a faeling possibly couldn’t get safer than a vamp club in Sucker Town just now. Not to mention there’d be no one faster, stronger, or more able to sniff out the Stepfords in the dust than a load of vamps with super-senses.

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmured, sending my gratitude to the magic.

  I told Darius what I needed. ‘So get them all in here, get them hunting, but tell them no fangs, otherwise they’ll be begging for Malik to rip their heads off before I’ve finished with them.’

  ‘Sure thing, Genny,’ he said cheerfully.

  The hospital beds were made of iron, which thankfully meant the numbness in my legs was temporary, but also meant moving was out of the question, not to mention that my shoulder felt like a dwarf was using it as an anvil, and bouncing hammers off it, so Darius left me propped against the wall amidst the rubble of the entrance I’d made between the Tower and the Coffin Club. The big hole in the wall opened into the inner hallway of the club, and going by the heaps of coffin-shaped and decorated tat lying around the place, my magical explosion had extensively rearranged the gift shop; in particular the shop’s window display of DVDs, which was now a three-foot-high volcano of melted plastic and shattered glass.

  I shrugged – the DVDs had been on sale, so they obviously weren’t hot ticket items – and watched with beady-eyed anxiety as the club’s vamps disappeared into the dust, and sighed with heartfelt relief as the first reappeared carefully pushing a Stepford mum-to-be in her wheeled bed, then lifting it over the rubble like the bed weighed nothing more than a tea tray. I relaxed into a weary, pain-filled stupor as more complaining Stepfords, crying babies and sullen nurses were rescued, and waited for Hugh to arrive with his boys in blue. The Old Donn sat with me, humming happily while he polished his horns with his loincloth.

  After about ten minutes Darius walked out of the grey dust of Between with a white-coated body tucked under one arm and something dangling from his other hand.

  ‘Think he got caught up in the explosion,’ he said with a frown, as he held up Dr Craig’s head by one jug-handled ear. The neck was still dripping. ‘What do you want me to do with him?’

  The Old Donn’s polishing stilled.

  ‘Probably better put him on ice until the police get here,’ I said blandly.

  Darius grinned, saluted me with the head and strode off.

  ‘You seem to be havin’ a wee bit of a problem controlling your magic, pretty sidhe,’ the Old Donn said mildly.

  He was right. I’d only meant to crack the gold chain fastening the Old Donn’s cape across Dr Craig’s shoulders, so as to break the Glamour hold he had over the Stepfords, but the power-boost I’d been given had to go somewhere. Not that I was going to lose any sleep over Dr Craig’s demise, or that the Old Donn needed to know any of that.

  I gave him a wide beam of a smile. ‘Nah, the magic did just what I needed.’ Which wasn’t a lie. I had needed Dr Craig out of action, albeit not quite so bloodily.

  The Old Donn’s broad nostrils flared, then he nodded and went back to his polishing. A couple of rescued Stepfords later, he said in a conversational tone, ‘The vamps were afther comin’ afore, into my home. Two o’ them, along with the kelpie and the watery man.’ His orange eyes glowed with malice. ‘Relatives of hers, if you’re for believin’ that. They were the ones took her and her little girlie away.’

  ‘Took who away?’ I asked, keeping my voice casual. Not that I needed to ask: he meant Angel, or Rhiannon, as he’d known her, and Brigitta her daughter: Ana’s mother.

  ‘She was always one for singing.’ He hummed a few notes in a soft, sad baritone that sounded like ‘Rock-a-Bye-Baby’.

  ‘She still is,’ I said in the same casual tone as my hand clenched in his ora
nge hairy hide.

  ‘She was happy here.’ His massive head dipped in apology. ‘We were never afther forcing her, pretty sidhe, not even with the curse as our reason. She agreed to all we asked.’

  ‘She didn’t know what it was all about,’ I said, only just keeping my fury in check. ‘How could she when she’s not in her right mind?’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said gently. ‘But then, you’re a fine daughter to her.’

  My hand spasmed open and I shoved his furry cape away. He winked out of sight.

  Angel was my mother.

  I dropped my head back against the wall as the thought ripped my heart into tiny bloody, painful pieces. In some shadowed corner of my mind I’d known she was … Not right away, even though seeing her that first time had been like looking into a mirror, but ever since then, the knowing had been dripping into me, as inexorable and unstoppable as Chinese water torture. I’d ignored it. I hadn’t wanted to admit it was real. I’d wanted to cling to my belief that my mother was a sidhe called Nataliya, that she’d died when I was born, and that she hadn’t abandoned me. And I hadn’t wanted to know that my part in the curse wasn’t happenstance, hadn’t wanted to know that I was just another sacrificial child in a family full of them: a child abandoned to the vampires so she could break a mislaid curse.

  No wonder Clíona – my grandmother – had been so determined to kill me when I’d run away from the suckers at fourteen and turned up in London. I was her proverbial bloody, tainted laundry.

  My throat constricted and tears stung my eyes. But at least now I had the pendant with its Fertility spell and the means to put everything to rights, hopefully without ending up with a sacrificial child of my own.

  Jack, in his raven guise, soared out of the grey dust carrying a limp Nicky in his talons, her white frilly nightdress flapping in his slipstream; he didn’t stop, but flew straight through the club’s wall as if it wasn’t there and disappeared. I hoped he was taking her to Finn. Moments later he was followed by a tall, stretched-thin vamp with an equally limp Helen slung over his shoulder. He lowered her to the carpet in the club, and for a second I thought she was dead, she lay so still.