‘The police are already looking for this killer, and they will continue to do so, regardless of the curse.’ He studied me, his expression thoughtful. ‘Genevieve, do you not want a child?’
Fuck, no! ‘I’m only just twenty-five, Malik – I’m too young to be tied up with a kid.’
‘Yes, you are young, but the child would be an adult in a few years, and you will still be young. You are sidhe, a near-immortal; you will be young for centuries yet. It is but a small portion of your life to devote to a child, if the end result is one you desire?’
I jumped up, frustration, fury and fear raging through me. ‘Listen!’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘One: if I were ever to have a child, then there’s no way I’d let it fend for itself, just because it was a so-called adult. The child would be my kid for life.’ I jabbed at him again, my voice rising. ‘Two: do you really think I haven’t thought all this out for myself? And three: what the hell do you think you’re doing? This has nothing to do with you – you’re not fae. And if Tavish has put you up to persuade me, then you can tell him from me: it won’t fucking work. I do not want a kid, and unless I get something more significant than some iffy photofit and some cryptic clues, then I’m not going to, not now, and not ever. I will find another way to break the curse, even if it kills me.’
He rose in one graceful, effortless movement, concern and bewilderment on his face. ‘I understood that this situation was not one you wanted, Genevieve, or were comfortable with, but I did not realise that having a child engendered such fear in you.’ He reached out, but I twisted away before he could touch me. ‘Why is that?’
‘You’re asking me?’ I clenched my fists, trying to keep from shouting at him. ‘When you know what happened between my mother and father? What he did to her? Talk about a bad start in life!’ I snorted. ‘And it didn’t get any better, did it? Hell, my own father married me off to a psychotic, sadistic sucker, then I spent the next ten years being a pawn in some shitty Prohibition game cooked up between the lot of you, a game I didn’t even know I was playing. Oh, and let’s not forget, I’ve died three—No, wait, that might even be four times now. Four times, Malik! I might be sidhe and nearly immortal, but that’s pushing it for anyone. Next time my death might stick, my body might actually fade, and there will be nothing for me to come back to. No way am I bringing a kid into a world like this, not with all the bad luck and tainted blood in my heritage, even if there wasn’t the damn fertility curse to deal with.’
He frowned, perplexed. ‘I never met your mother, but from what I heard, your father was besotted with her, and Nataliya with him. I do not know that he ever did anything untoward to her—’
‘C’mon, Malik – that story about my father finding her at a fertility rite and the pair of them falling head-over-heels and then her tragically dying in childbirth? It’s just that: a story. One I stopped believing in a long time ago.’
Like I stopped believing in a whole lot of other things, like my father had my best interests at heart, and vamps were just people with pointy teeth, all thanks to the psychotic vamp my father betrothed me to: a.k.a. the Autarch, Britain’s Top Dog vamp – and Malik’s erstwhile master. I ignored the terrified, sick feeling in my stomach that always accompanied thoughts about my betrothed and glared at Malik.
‘It just doesn’t stack up.’ I smacked one of the steel beams. ‘I mean, how the hell did a vamp gatecrash a sidhe fertility rite in the first place, let alone survive long enough to get one pregnant? And then he actually kidnaps her when he escapes? Oh, and not to mention managing to keep her hidden from her queen and court long enough for a child to be born?’
‘Ah.’ He brushed his hair back where it had fallen forward. ‘I understand now. You think your father forced your mother in some way—’
‘I know he did!’ I yelled. ‘No sidhe would willingly have a child with a vamp – it just doesn’t happen!’
He stilled. Hot flames flared in his pupils, then snuffed out. The temperature on the walkway dropped about twenty degrees and I shivered in the sudden icy air as my horrified mind caught up with the stupid, thoughtless words my mouth had uttered.
‘And you know this how?’ he asked, his voice as chilly as the air.
I grimaced, my anger fleeing in the face of an insulted vamp – a powerful, dangerous, insulted vamp . . . a vamp I cared something for, and truly hadn’t meant to hurt. Way to go, Gen! ‘Look, Malik, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out—’
‘Quiet, Genevieve.’
His order snapped into my mind, and my mouth stopped talking. Shock tripped through me, but before I could protest, he added, ‘Sit down and do not speak to anyone but me until you leave here.’
I half collapsed, half sat on the walkway, disbelief coursing through me that he’d sicced me with his mind-mojo.
‘Falling at your feet, is she? Lucky you, old chap.’
The loud, jovial voice came from behind me, and snapped me out of my shock. I twisted round to see its owner strolling along the walkway, his long platinum hair blowing out behind him like he was the star in a shampoo ad. The blousy red poet’s shirt and tight black trousers he was wearing added a pseudo-romantic flair, as did his dark, hooded eyes. But the manic grin, wide enough that I had no trouble seeing his fangs, spoiled the whole Byronic throwback look.
Tentative relief settled in me as I realised that Malik’s chilly rage might not be all about me.
‘You are not welcome here,’ Malik said, his voice soft with threat. ‘I suggest you leave now.’
Blondie threw his arms as wide as his grin. ‘Give it your best shot, old boy,’ he called, speeding up to a jog. Smoke-like shadows coalesced around us, drawing into spear-like lines of darkness that shot along the walkway to strike the now-sprinting vamp chest-on. He screeched, a high yipping sound, and the shadow spears vanished as he blurred forward and skidded to a halt a few feet away.
‘Dreamscapes are such fun,’ he chuckled, leaping up to hang from the steel rafters like a spider, ‘although I did expect the sidhe to be a tad more graceful.’ He leered down at me. ‘Still, I’m sure the blood makes up for any clumsiness.’
‘The sidhe is not your concern.’ Malik’s tone was back to being icy.
Great, let’s all talk about me like I’m some sort of pet.
I narrowed my gaze to peer at the vamp hanging above me. I recognised him. Blondie was the vamp Finn had once ‘staked’ with his horns, who’d later vanished. He’d kidnapped a human friend of mine to blackmail me into taking his blood-bond. I’d considered him pretty much a low-life opportunist at the time, so I hadn’t been too worried when he’d disappeared. Now I wasn’t sure quite what he was, but Malik’s spike in tension (which, oddly, I was picking up again, like I was some sort of radio receiver) suggested Blondie was definitely dangerous.
Blondie dropped down, smoothed his hair and winked at me. ‘Any chance you’d be up for sharing with an old drinking buddy?’
‘Do not even consider it, Maxim,’ Malik growled, his voice vibrating harshly next to my ear. I jumped, startled at finding him crouched next to me. ‘Give me your hand, Genevieve.’ He held out his own, and I placed mine in his, thinking he meant to help me up.
Maxim gave a barking laugh. ‘Getting territorial over the sidhe, are you? Good God, that’s not going to go down well with His Royal Highness.’
Royal Highness?
Malik’s grip tightened on my fingers. I flinched.
‘My apologies, Genevieve.’ Malik’s voice was calm in my head. ‘I did not intend to hurt you.’
‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here, old man?’ Maxim asked cheerfully.
‘No.’ Malik flicked his hand, and the other vamp shot through the bridge’s suddenly insubstantial wall. For a second I thought he was gone, but he popped right back in and hunkered down next to us.
‘Good one that, old chap – caught me unawares,’ he said, still grinning, ‘but now you’re in the vicinity, as it were, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to y
ou about while our esteemed Lord and Master isn’t around. A little proposition about the sidhe here.’
‘This is not the time, Maxim,’ Malik said, glowering down at where he held my hand. Then he added in my mind, ‘Genevieve, give me my ring, please.’
I frowned, adding ‘Royal Highness’ and ‘Lord and Master’ together and getting Autarch. Terrified panic clutched at me and I grabbed Malik’s arm. ‘What’s this got to do with the Autarch?’ I demanded.
‘Why, the Turk here is His newest Oligarch . . . Or should I say “toy”?’ Maxim rubbed his hands together with glee. ‘How long’s it been now, five months? Tell me, is His Royal Brattiness still at the “eviscerating and stringing of guts” stage, or has he moved on yet?’ Maxim gave me a sly look. ‘The rest of us have been greatly enjoying the holiday.’
I shot Malik a horrified look. ‘What the hell is he talking about?’
‘There is nothing to fear, Genevieve.’ Malik’s voice came with a heavy push of mesma that should have filled me with reassurance. It didn’t. ‘You will be safe. But now you must go.’ He pulled his ring from my finger—
—my eyes snapped open. I stared up at the white ceiling of the silver-lined police cell, my stomach churning with barely suppressed fear, for me, and for Malik.
Blondie – Maxim – had said Malik was the Autarch’s new torture toy, and while Malik had looked okay, it had been a dream, and dreams and looks could both be deceiving.
Damn. I’d known Malik was London’s new Oligarch, and as Oligarch he would have been forced to swear an Oath of Fealty to the Autarch. I hadn’t thought through what that meant until now, no doubt thanks to Malik’s mind-mojo, but I was pretty sure I was the reason Malik had taken on the job. After the events last Hallowe’en I’d asked him to extend his protection to all of London’s fae and faelings until Clíona’s time limit was up, and he’d said yes. But that protection was worthless if all the Autarch had to do was snap his psychotic little fingers and say jump, and Malik would have to say how high.
It seemed to me to be an utterly stupid move on Malik’s part.
But stupid was one thing he wasn’t.
So what the hell was the beautiful, Machiavellian vamp playing at?
I sat up, my white-paper jumpsuit rustling, and checked out my left wrist. The spell bracelet was still there, half-submerged back into my body. After another few hours it would be totally absorbed. But Malik’s ring-charm was gone.
Looked like I’d have to find out the non-magical way, and actually ask him in person. As soon as I got out of gaol.
Chapter Eleven
‘Here you go, Genny,’ Hugh said, his ruddy face lined with concern, as he offered me the envelope containing my belongings. We were alone in the small cupboard-like custody room. It was a part of Old Scotland Yard I’d never seen before, or ever wanted to again.
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the envelope and upending its contents carefully on the counter between us. My phone, Spellcrackers ID, wallet, watch and Grace’s gold pentacle all slid out. I picked the pentacle up – a restless, fretful feeling that I hadn’t been aware of suddenly calmed: I’d missed it – and fastened it round my neck. Oddly enough, I’d been wearing it in Malik’s dreamscape, even though I hadn’t been in the cell. I shrugged, but then dreams were like that. I tucked my ID and wallet into my jacket’s inner pocket, and stuffed my phone into my clean jeans. My bloodstained clothes from yesterday were being kept as evidence.
‘And thanks for getting me the clothes too,’ I smiled up at Hugh as I snagged my watch. What I needed now was a long, lo-oong shower, something I’d been fantasising about sitting in that itching, burning cell. I checked the time: it was gone two in the afternoon—
‘She’s had me locked up for nearly thirty hours!’ I snapped the watch on in frustrated annoyance. ‘And that’s after I admitted guilt, agreed to pay double what the spell’s worth, not to mention the extortionate fine. Dammit, Hugh, if it wasn’t for my solicitor’s connections’ – thank you, Malik, for choosing a top-notch firm (although I hadn’t expected anything less) – ‘she would’ve left me to rot.’
Hugh pushed a receipt form and one of his over-large troll pens towards me. ‘I don’t know why the inspector’s behaving like this, Genny,’ he rumbled worriedly. ‘There are rumours the top brass are making noises, and I’d hate to see her career ruined.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ I huffed, signing for my things. ‘And if the top brass have any sense, they’ll get rid of her and give you a shot at the job.’
‘No, she’s a good DI. And she’s worked hard; she’s had to because she’s a witch. Having her in the job helps all of us non-humans.’ He filed the form somewhere under the counter, then his expression shifted into his ‘what I’m going to say is important’ look. Inwardly, I sighed, guessing what was coming next.
‘I know how you feel about her, Genny’ – conciliatory dust puffed from his head ridge, the pink motes glinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting – ‘and she’s in the wrong, but something needs to be done, and not just for her sake, but for all of us. I’ve tried talking to her, but she won’t listen. Maybe if it came from someone outside the force, someone close to her like Finn, it would hit home more. Will you talk to him, see if there’s something he can do?’
I’d rather clean out a swamp-dragon’s lair, but this was Hugh. I sighed. ‘Okay. But I doubt it’ll help. Finn’s part of the whole problem; we both know that.’
‘Thanks, Genny.’ He rounded the counter, then carefully punched the security code into the exit door and held it open. ‘I’ll be in touch as soon as I can about the faeling’s death,’ he added in a barely heard murmur.
I walked out into the main Back Hall reception, hearing the door click shut behind me with deep relief as I scanned the long, high-ceilinged room with its drab, utilitarian green décor. Finn wasn’t waiting for me, and after that kiss I’d sort of expected he would be. Feeling peeved, and not a little disappointed, I turned my attention to the smart fiftyish woman who was waiting: Victoria Harrier, my solicitor, and apparently one of the top criminal defence lawyers in the UK.
She was pacing, her phone clamped to her ear. Everything about her was understated, from her bobbed grey hair, pale pink blouse and maroon suit down to her black leather court shoes, but it was expensive, classy understatement. I had a horrible suspicion that her normal hourly rate was more than my week’s pay. Paying her bill was probably going to be one of those never-ending debts. Damn. I didn’t regret siccing the Stun spell on Bandana and sending him down the river, but it was proving to be a high-priced option; next time I’d settle for buying a chainsaw.
I thumbed my own phone on and rang Sanguine Lifestyles to ask for a direct number for Malik. The response was efficient, polite and frustrating: they didn’t have one. Mr al-Khan contacted them at sunset. Partially reassured that he did actually speak to them daily, I left a message for him to call me urgently.
‘Ms Taylor.’ Victoria Harrier snapped her own phone shut as she saw me finish my call and came briskly towards me, her low-heeled court shoes almost sparking off the green linoleum floor. She halted in front of me, her eyes glinting with the same ruthless competence she’d shown in getting me out of gaol so much quicker than Witch-bitch Crane had wanted. ‘Now, just to reiterate the situation, Ms Taylor: you’ve already pleaded guilty, and paid both the reparation and the fine’ – Ms Harrier had actually paid them, and had added them to my no doubt already hefty bill – ‘but the judge insisted on both a Conditional Caution and a Restraining Order, and that means you must stay away from Detective Inspector Crane’s investigation. You do understand that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I understand.’ Complying was a different matter entirely.
‘Perfect.’ A smile as bright as polished steel lit her face. ‘Now we still have certain matters to discuss, so I’d like to offer you a lift home, if you have no objection?’ Her smile didn’t change, but it wasn’t a request.
I gave her a considering look. N
o doubt she wanted to outline exactly what would happen if – or rather, when – I screwed up on the terms of the Caution. But while she’d got me out of clink, and quickly, she was a witch, and that had my suspicious antennae twitching like mad. Still, she had one thing in her favour: DI Crane appeared to hate her almost as much as me; a feeling Victoria Harrier reciprocated, if the nearly tangible animosity between the two of them was anything to go by. At one point I’d been expecting broomsticks at dawn, or whatever it was that witches did.
But I had another more curious and perturbing question: why was a witch working for a vampire? Something that just didn’t happen, not with the ancient live-and-let-live-but-ne’er-the-twain-shall-meet covenant the two species shared. I didn’t have an answer. Yet. But I was going to find out.
‘Sure,’ I told her. ‘A lift would be great, thanks.’
Finn was waiting outside, leaning against the black-painted railings, hands stuck in his pockets, the afternoon sunshine making sharp silhouettes of his horns as he contemplated the pavement. Surprise and pleasure that he was waiting flashed through me, then my heart took over, leaping in my chest as the memory of his magic and his kiss stunned me and left me staring at him like some Glamour-struck human. Damn, that was so not a good reaction. If it kept up, I was going to have problems talking to him without drooling. I forced myself to look past him to the black stretch limo waiting next to the kerb. A uniformed chauffeur was holding the door open – Victoria Harrier obviously travelled in style – and, feeling cowardly, I wondered if I could make a run for it.
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