Bitter Seed of Magic (9781101553695)

by Mcleod, Suzanne

  ‘People will always surprise us, Genny, even when we think we know them well. Like DI Helen Crane. After your email yesterday, I had the crime scene photos of the circle that she drew around Sally Redman double-checked. You were right; there was something wrong with the yew.’

  I suppressed an I knew it! grin along with the urge to pump my arm in the air in vindication. Helen the Witch-bitch was a crooked cop. It wasn’t just my biased imagination. Now I could legitimately hate her as ‘my evil witch nemesis’ without feeling guilty. ‘She laid the spell the wrong way round, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hugh answered, ‘the faeling’s death was suspicious, so the yew was supposed to temporarily hold the victim’s spirit, in the hope that a necromancer would be able to talk to her, but instead the yew was laid to speed the victim’s spirit on its way. Which is what the—’

  ‘—dwarves do with their ritual ashes,’ I finished. ‘I thought the pattern looked familiar, but it didn’t click with me what it meant until later.’

  Of course, the fact I’d been beamed up to Disney Heaven was another big hint, especially after I’d uncovered Tavish’s spell bracelet and found the London bus charm minus its wheels. After that, I realised the only way Angel/The Mother had been able to pull me out of London was in spirit form, a.k.a. dead. Bandana the dryad had been right: I had started to fade – not that I was going to say thank you. He still didn’t deserve it, and The Mother wouldn’t have let me truly die anyway.

  And Helen Crane, the Witch-bitch, deserved everything she got too. She had to know who killed the faelings, because reversing the Soul-holding spell like that meant she had to be covering up for the killer. So maybe all that animosity between her and Victoria Harrier had been an act, and they were really in league together? I looked up at Hugh. ‘So does this mean Helen Crane is helping you with your enquiries?’ I asked, hiding my glee under mild interest. ‘And spilling lots of juicy clues now she’s been caught out?’ Okay, so not hiding it that well.

  Hugh’s expression turned grim. ‘Not as yet.’

  In other words, he wasn’t going to tell me, even if she was. Figured.

  ‘Genny,’ Hugh said, his tone tentative, ‘there’s something else I need to ask of you.’

  ‘Ah, this is where you tell me why you’re letting me in on all your secret police stuff, isn’t it?’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘Fire away. I’m all ears.’

  ‘I want to follow up on Victoria Harrier,’ he said, ‘and I think the quickest way to find out what she’s up to, and to locate the missing faelings, is to let her carry out her plans to kidnap you.’

  Um . . . did I really want to be the sacrificial victim in all this? Still, it was to find the faelings, and this was Hugh asking; I trusted him absolutely.

  ‘It won’t be you making the contact, though, Genny,’ he carried on, to my surprise. ‘It will be an undercover police officer wearing a Doppelgänger spell to look like you. Witch Martin thinks she can replicate the ones the dead faelings used, so that the officer doesn’t raise any alarm bells. Then as soon as our undercover operative is snatched, I’ll have enough evidence for the warrants we need. All the spell needs is a small blood donation.’

  I tapped my cup, thinking about his plan; something about it set my skin itching.

  ‘Of course,’ Hugh added, ‘if you’re worried about the Doppelgänger spell, once the police operation is over, then you can remove the spell from the WPC yourself.’

  ‘It’s not the spell.’ I frowned. ‘I’m worried about someone else ending up abducted instead of me. What happens if the undercover officer gets taken and you can’t persuade Victoria Harrier to tell you where she is, or she does a disappearing act? The officer could end up in a lot of danger. Or dead.’

  ‘It’s Constable Martin, Witch Martin’s daughter, who will be taking your place, Genny. She’s got a rather unique ability. She has a link with her mother; they can speak to each other in their minds, no matter where they are. Once Constable Martin is taken, she should be able to relay the information needed for us to mount a rescue operation for her and the faelings.’

  It sounded like a practical solution, albeit still a dangerous one for Constable Martin. Thinking of that, another query popped into my head. ‘Do you know how Sally the corvid faeling and Aoife actually died?’

  Hugh handed me his cup and pulled out his notebook. ‘Cause of death for Sally Redman initially looks like cardiac arrest, but she was young and her heart was healthy. The toxicology report’s not back yet, so it’s always possible they were given something like digitalis. But if you discount the head wound – which was nasty, but wasn’t a death blow – neither of them had any obvious injuries. For Aiofe’s cause of death, we’ll need to wait until the autopsy has been done.’

  ‘So, no fang marks, or any way to know what’s killing them?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘There’s something else bugging me,’ I said, remembering The Mother’s photofit of the horned god. ‘The Between in the Tower belonged to the Old Donn, who’s supposed to be dead. But Sylvia mentioned something about his remains. Could you find out if he’s really dead?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Can’t say,’ I gasped as The Mother’s gag clause strangled me.

  Hugh took out one of his large troll pens, made a note, then snapped his notebook closed. ‘I’ll check into it and—’

  ‘Sergeant Munro!’ A shout from the direction of the police vans interrupted him.

  He waved an acknowledgement, then said, ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  I dropped the cups into a rubbish bag and stared out at the wind-rippled Thames, that uneasy feeling still pricking at me. Hugh’s doppelgänger plan was good, but before he and his boys in blue – although they’d be mostly witches, of course, so he and his girls in blue – could rush in, apprehend the baddies and hopefully rescue all the faelings, he needed evidence and warrants. With London’s fae as back-up I could put Hugh’s plan into action myself without the hassle and delay of all the judicial red tape.

  But as I gave it serious thought, I came up with a fatal flaw: Between is out of this world, a place created by will and magic. And even knowing there was a patch of Between, and knowing where its entrance was, didn’t mean you could just waltz right on in, not unless its creator wanted you to. Hell, even if you had the magical key, and you got it to work, you’d only end up some place else (I know, I tried it at Tavish’s once, which is how I discovered what a swamp-dragon’s cave smells like; never again!). And cracking the entrance from the outside was a non-starter. But cracking the entrance open from the inside would be . . . well, difficult, but definitely doable in the right circumstances.

  So I needed to be on the inside.

  But not as a kidnapped victim. Another plan started to form in my mind . . .

  Hugh rejoined me. ‘DI Crane is now officially missing,’ he announced with a troubled expression.

  ‘She’s disappeared?’ I said, stunned, then asked, ‘Do you mean she’s done a runner, or that you think someone’s made her disappear?’

  ‘We’re still working on that, Genny,’ he said.

  Crap. I might not like the witch – okay, I was pretty sure I hated her – but I didn’t want her disappeared involuntarily. I had a sudden image of Helen Crane being the next one to be pulled out of the Thames, and what that would mean to Finn and their daughter. ‘Has anyone told Finn?’ I started to head towards the vans—

  Hugh placed a restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘Constable Martin is with him just now, Genny. She’s taking a statement, to see whether he knows anything that can help. Let her do her job, and then you can speak to him.’ He held out an opened note in a sealed plastic evidence bag. ‘This was found at DI Crane’s home, Genny. It’s addressed to a G. N. Zakharinova, care of Spellcrackers.com. Finn doesn’t know who that is; what about you?’

  The hair rose on the back of my neck. How the hell did Helen know my real name, when only the vamps knew it? Hele
n was a witch; they all avoided vamps like the plague, and the vamps reciprocated in kind. Plus Helen in particular had a phobia about them. Not to mention, why the hell was she sending me notes? She had to be desperate or devious.

  After a few moments I held out my hand. ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I’m G. N. Zakharinova. It’s my birth name.’

  Hugh nodded and handed me the letter. ‘You’d better read it, Genny. Then we’ll talk.’

  I read it through the evidence bag.

  To G. N. Zakharinova,Your uncle Maxim contacted me regarding his Irish wolfhound. He was concerned about the safety of the dog’s offspring. Unfortunately this is no longer something I can guarantee. As I will not be able to speak to him through the usual channels, please ensure you contact him immediately with this information.

  Helen Crane

  Damn. So Helen had been guaranteeing – or rather, covering up for – ‘the dog’s offspring’. And now she couldn’t, because she’d been found out, and had disappeared (willingly or not). But whether the note was a clue for the police, a cry for help or a warning she’d thought I’d take to Mad Max, I didn’t know. One thing I did know—

  We had a suspect for the mastermind behind the faeling’s deaths. Mad Max’s son, whoever he was.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Hugh’s ‘talk’ about the note was in fact another round of statement-taking in one of the police vans, complete with a laptop-wielding WPC. We went over the memories the Morrígan had given me again, especially the one I’d had of the little blond-haired boy sliding down the slide in the playpark.

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s Maxim’s son,’ I said, ‘and the “offspring” Helen Crane is talking about. But I don’t know who the boy is, or even how old he is. I meant to look up when kiddies’ slides were invented to see if that would give me a clue.’

  ‘I think I can help with that.’ The WPC looked up from her laptop. ‘From your description, Genny, my best guess is that the boy is in his mid-twenties to early thirties now.’ She smiled at me. ‘The slide wasn’t a clue – they’ve been around a lot longer – but the description of the lights was. I’m pretty sure they were halogens, which narrows it down.’

  ‘Mid-twenties to . . . ?’ I frowned. ‘I bet Mad Max would want to keep his son near him, if he got him back.’ I flipped through the faces I knew at the Coffin Club and hit on one immediately. ‘Gareth Wilson,’ I exclaimed, ‘the human manager at the club – he’s about the right age, and he’s definitely a natural blond like Maxim.’

  ‘Check the records, Constable,’ Hugh said, ‘but I don’t want any contact with the club until I say so. I know it’s still five hours until sunset, but Maxim appears to be able to move around during the day in his dog shape.’ Hugh contemplated his large troll pen as if it had all the answers, then lifted serious grey eyes to me. ‘Maxim is unlikely to be very cooperative if it’s his son who is killing the faelings, Genny. I think it would be better if we approach the Oligarch privately first, to avoid any possibility of tipping Maxim and his son off and having both of them disappear on us.’ He gave me a quizzical look. ‘I know we haven’t really discussed your association with Malik al-Khan’ – we definitely hadn’t, not when it was an association Hugh worried over like a mother hen – ‘but do you have a way to contact him without me having to go through the normal channels?’

  ‘I’ve got something even better,’ I said, pulling a face as I told him about Malik being trapped in my bedroom. And Hugh was right. The logical way to get Mad Max to talk was to ask Malik as Oligarch to make Mad Max ‘cooperate’. But Malik’s own cooperation wasn’t necessarily a done deal.

  For one, Mad Max didn’t owe Malik his Oath, and two: if there were no external humans involved, the vamps policed themselves. And if Mad Max (a vamp) and Helen (a witch) had something going on between them, it went against the centuries’ old détente between the two species. And then there was the third fact, that Malik had given his protection to London’s fae and faelings. Even if Mad Max’s son was a human, if Mad Max was part of what was going on, that would be a challenge to Malik’s own power-base as Head Fang. So in order to preempt any problems with either the Witches’ Council or the rest of the vamp families, Malik could justifiably rescind Mad Max’s Gift (a.k.a. rip his head off and burn him to ashes) and declare that an end to it.

  Then there was the fact that Malik hadn’t exactly been forthcoming during our post-Coffin Club bedtime chat and had made it quite clear that he didn’t want me involved, so asking him to help wasn’t going to work. But finding some way of forcing him should . . . not only that, the situation gave me an idea of how to sort out my own problems with the beautiful, dictatorial vamp.

  ‘I think I can persuade Malik to cooperate,’ I told Hugh, ‘but I’ll need your help.’ Then I explained to him what I wanted, and about the flaw in his doppelgänger scheme, and how it could be fixed. And after a lot of concerned dust-puffing on Hugh’s part, we came up with a master plan: one that ensured Malik, as Oligarch, would assist the police; and meant that Hugh’s doppelgänger idea would work with or without the judicial red-tape; and as a bonus, also clubbed Malik’s ‘I Vampire, you Blood-Pet’ declaration on his arrogant buzz-cut head.

  Then I let Juliet Martin take a syringe full of my blood as I chatted to Ricou, so she and Ricou could stir the Doppelgänger spell, and in place of the payment she offered, I asked her to write me a couple of letters on behalf of the Witches’ Council. Juliet finished up, and they both made a dash for the disused mortuary just as the rainstorm came.

  I sat in the van mentally going over the plans, looking for any last-minute hitches in them, as huge raindrops ricocheted off the roof like bullets, and the leaden afternoon turned dark as night. Thunder rumbled and rolled ominously above me and the air charged with nature’s power . . . then as lightning struck silver fire across the heavens—

  Finn was suddenly there, standing between the van’s open back doors and backlit by the storm like an avenging god out of Greek legend.

  He’d lost his handsome human Glamour. Now he was taller, shoulders and chest broader and more heavily muscled, the angles of his face hard and feral, his horns curving up almost a foot above his head, their points lethal and sharp. My heart thudded – he was gorgeous, and terrifying, and awe-inspiring . . . and with the rain now sheeting down, it took me a stunned moment to realise that despite his eyes blazing emerald with rage, tears were streaming silently down his face.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  ‘Hugh tells me Helen’s note was addressed to you,’ Finn said, his voice holding an edge of brittleness. ‘That you’re going to see that sucker about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly, my heart thudding for a different reason, as disappointment threaded with sadness rocked through me. I’d expected him to be upset that Helen was missing, but . . . he’d lost his Glamour, too overcome to hold it, and he was standing there with so much pain and grief radiating off him that it was as if someone had ripped his whole world apart.

  ‘Helen hates the suckers,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ Or I thought I had, but obviously we were both wrong. I held my hands out to him, wanting to offer him comfort.

  He looked at them, then turned to stare out at the river. I pressed my palms against my thighs, unsure whether to go to him or not. But the tenseness of his shoulders under the drenched suit – which I noted absently still fitted like it was made for him, even without his Glamour – told me to wait.

  When he turned back his horns were back to their usual height, his eyes were dry, and the rage in them was gone, replaced by disbelief and something that looked like . . . betrayal? He climbed into the van and sunk into the seat opposite, rain dripping off him in rivulets.

  ‘Helen hates the suckers,’ he repeated, as if he was trying to convince himself, ‘so why would she have anything to do with one? Why would she have anything to do with any of this? She’s a police officer; she loves her job – why would she cover up a murder? Why would she—?’ He
stopped, a muscle jerking in his jaw, and dropped his face into his hands.

  The Helen I knew didn’t have any reservations about using her police powers to suit her own purposes if she thought she could get away with it. Somehow I’d always thought Finn had known that, but maybe he hadn’t, not until now. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to see that part of her. But I didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to hear it.

  ‘Nicky’s gone, Gen,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed, not sure I’d heard right.

  ‘Nicky’s gone.’ He almost shouted it at me as he lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes were dark with fear. ‘She’s taken Nicky with her.’

  She’s taken Nicky—A sick dread roiled in my gut. Helen had taken his daughter. His faeling daughter. Fuck. No wonder he was devastated. Tears pricked my own eyes. I didn’t care about Helen, but I did care about Finn. I sank to my knees and wrapped my arms round him. ‘We’ll find her, Finn,’ I murmured, feeling the panicked thud of his heart beneath my cheek. ‘We’ll get Nicky back.’

  ‘A sucker’s got her, Gen,’ he said, in the same low tone, his arms tightening painfully around me. Again I didn’t tell him Mad Max’s son might still be human; it didn’t matter if he was, he was still a killer. ‘He’s had her for four days—’ He stopped, shaking, and I knew he was remembering the time he’d been tortured by an ambitious vamp – and he’d been a captive for less than a day. That vamp was dead; Hugh had crushed her skull like a sledgehammer crushing an egg. My heart broke for Finn, and for Nicky, and I resolved to do whatever it took to save her and the other faelings.

  ‘Four days! Gods, I should’ve made her stay with the herd, I should’ve—’ He stopped, terror, and guilt that he hadn’t protected his child, thickening his voice.