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 ti
ghtened 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.’
I tucked the feathers safely in my back jeans pocket. ‘You need to let him go,’ I said, pointing at Tavish.
She obligingly lifted him up above her head height, then threw him down as if she wanted to drive him into the ground. There was a loud cracking noise and he let out an agonised yell. She released him and he collapsed, panting, onto his side, his legs bent at odd angles. Damn. She’d shattered his shins.
I gritted my teeth and told myself he’d heal, and that broken bones were still better than dead. Then, my stomach roiling with nausea, I gave him a hard kick that shoved him onto his back. From the corner of my eye, I saw the Morrígan lick her lips in delight.
I crouched next to him, mentally crossing my fingers that I was right, that the reason Tavish didn’t want me pregnant, whatever it was, was powerful enough to make him go along with me. ‘Okay,’ I said, gripping his face so he could see mine. His eyes were muddy-grey with pain. ‘This is how it’s going to go. If you stop me, or alter in any way what I do, or allow it to be altered by anyone other than myself or the Morrígan before sunset tomorrow, I give my word it will be as if I have already drunk this.’
‘Doll! You mustnae drink—’
‘Up to you, Tavish,’ I interrupted him. Then keeping my eyes fixed on his, I lifted the bull’s horn two-handed and slammed it down into his gut. He roared, the sound filling the blood-dome, his face contorting in agony. I clamped my lips together, desperately swallowing back the bile that rose in my throat. Then using my will and brute force, and ignoring the sickening squelching sounds, I twisted the horn until it was firmly embedded into the ground beneath him, pinning him in place. It wouldn’t hold for ever, but maybe just long enough to stop her dragging him off. Another wave of dizziness blurred my vision, and I forced myself to look up at the Morrígan.
She wasn’t looking quite as happy as I’d hoped. ‘You present me with a conundrum, little sidhe. If I say I am not pleased, you or I will have to remove my son’s horn for you to drink. But I cannot deny the truth of the matter; I do feel some satisfaction at the kelpie’s discomfort, even more so by how you have caused it.’
Behind my back, I crossed my fingers, for real this time.
‘Because of that, we will conclude our bargain tomorrow at sunset. I will leave you to your business now.’ She bent over Tavish. Shoving her arms under his shoulders and thighs, she tried to pick him up.
Shit. I’d expected her to drag him by the chain, which would’ve given me some time.
She smiled at me, a smile that said I should know better than to try and fool a goddess, and she kept on pulling at him, the muscles straining in her slender arms. He struggled against her, screaming, and kept on screaming and struggling as the horn embedded itself further in his body to keep from being torn from the ground. I clenched my fists, trying not to heave. She lowered her mouth to his in a kiss and thankfully, he fell limp and silent. This time when she lifted him, the horn slid easily from the ground.
Fuck. That wasn’t what I wanted to happen.
‘Until sunset tomorrow, little sidhe,’ she said, and slithered quickly towards the bronze pool.
The gold chain trailed after her, then tautened.
I staggered to my feet and shambled frantically as fast as I could after them.
She coiled herself round into the pool.
I shambled faster. I had to reach him before she took him into the water.
Her head and torso began shrinking, the pale green colour darkening to match the eel part of her body.
My vision blurred; there were two Tavishes in her arms now.
The pool erupted into a geyser of water and they disappeared.
The water smoothed out into stillness.
Desperate, I fell to my hands and knees next to the silver knife pinning the gold chain to the ground. Please let me be right. Gripping the chain with my left hand on one side of the knife, I cupped my right as I delved inside myself. The small gold key that I’d found after the Morrígan’s visit popped into my right palm. I had to be right. I carefully scooped up the chain from underneath and closed my fingers round it. I pushed my magic out through my skin . . . please let it work . . . and the link around the knife shivered, then as I held my breath, it split and broke.
‘Yes!’ I shouted.
I looked at the broken ends of the gold chain, one end in each hand. One linked to Tavish . . . the other to the Morrígan.
I pulled the left one, the one nearest my heart.
A strong wind buffeted me whipping my hair into my eyes, a thundering noise filled my ears and darkness descended around me. Sharp talons closed around my arms, piercing my skin and then I was lifted, dangling, into the air. Yelping with shock and fear, I looked up. A huge raven had me by the wrists.
The Morrígan’s boon.
And my trip to the Tower – but I didn’t want to go yet, not without Malik.
It flapped its wings, and as we started to ascend, I looked down at the grassy ground and bronze pool receding into the distance. A long black figure was now lying half-in, half-out of the pool. Was it the eel? Or—?
The figure flung its arms out.
It was Tavish.
Heartfelt relief and guilt filled me. He was free – if you could call being stuck in a blood-circle in the middle of nowhere in Between freedom. Now all I had to do was hope he’d leave the Old Donn’s horn where it was, or I’d be the one with something I didn’t want thrust inside me. My stomach curdled, a combination of that thought and what I’d done to Tavish.
Space wavered as the raven flew us out of the blood-circle.
Nothingness closed round me, leaching into my eyes, drifting up my nose, crawling down my throat. Unseen hands with odd-shaped fingers and claws grabbed at me, pinching, pulling and yanking. Something jerked at my legs, and one of the bird’s talons ripped through the skin of my left wrist, its grip loosening—Then I was hanging by only one arm and I screamed, the sound muffled in my own ears as fleshy, muddy-tasting lips stole the scream out of my mouth. Above me the raven gave a loud croaking caw, half warning, half desperation . . .
Space wavered again.
And we flew into the night sky over London, the heavy feeling in my bones telling me this was the humans’ world. Stars glittered in the sky above, rain splattered my face, and the cold spring wind cut through me, raising goosebumps over my body.
Beneath me the Tower of London came into view.
My throat constricted with trepidation. It was where I wanted to go . . . but the boon had been for two trips, one for me, the other for Malik. Without him, I had no back-up.
The raven sped towards the Tower, its talons digging painfully into my wrist as the noisy downdraught from its wings buffeted me, and sent me twisting in its grip.
Briefly closing my eyes against the vertigo, I shoved my hand in my jeans pocket, clutching for the feathers. There was only one left.
I peered do
wn. We were over the grassy moat.
I rubbed the feather over my bloody neck and dropped it, shouting out with my mind for Malik to find it, to use it.
The thick grey stone of the Tower’s curtain wall flashed beneath us, then we were above the open space of the interior.
I shouted for Malik again.
The raven flew straight at the bluey-grey walls of the White Tower, the oldest part of the castle, and I swallowed, half-wanting to close my eyes, as the solid stone filled my vision—
—and as we passed through the wall as if it didn’t exist, the sudden lightness of my body told me we’d once again left the humans’ world and were now back in Between.
The raven dropped me.
The stone-flagged floor hurtled up to meet me, too fast. I tried to tuck myself into a ball and roll, but instead landed hard on my shoulder. Pain shot down my arm and across my back, the breath whooshed out of my lungs, and a whole Milky Way of stars spun in my vision.
A hand touched my face—
And the memory rushed into me.
Chapter Forty-eight
‘Here’s your little man, dear,’ Witch Harrier smiled. ‘All bathed and ready for his new mummy.’
Behind Witch Harrier came Dr Craig, his bald patch shining pale as a fish’s belly in the overhead lights, and his messy brown curls crowding his jug-handled ears.
She squirmed lower in the bed, the memory of Old Big Ears doing it to her as disgusting as ever – but for once she was tired and desperate enough that she almost didn’t care that he was here, didn’t care that his face held that same suspicious expression it had ever since she’d told him she was expecting after that one time. She’d put up with him if it meant keeping her baby. Nothing was going to stop her keeping her baby.
She took him carefully, nerves and excitement making her tremble. What if she dropped him, or held him too tight? Then as he settled in her arms, her nerves turned to happy eagerness. She gently pushed back the blanket and traced his little scrunched-up face, still flushed from the birth. Her heart stuttered with awe. He was beautiful, perfect, incredible. His nose was hers, and his chin looked like his father’s, and his ears were neat and flat to his head – not like Old Big Ears’ monstrosities – and his eyes were screwed tight shut . . . but she knew they’d be blue.
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