The Sweet Scent of Blood

by Suzanne McLeod

  Melissa was faeling? Why hadn’t Hugh mentioned that? Still— ‘Even if she was,’ I said, ‘I think she’s past helping, seeing as she’s dead.’

  ‘Is she now?’ he said, the smile still on his handsome face.

  ‘The police and the pathologist seem to think so,’ I said. ‘Are you saying she might not be?’

  His smile disappeared, replaced by a puzzled frown. ‘Did you not see her body?’

  ‘No, her mother’s got the Soulers involved.’

  His frown deepened. ‘Now why would she do that?’ he said, more to himself than me.

  ‘Who knows?’ Fiona joined in the conversation as she slid a heavily laden tray onto the table. ‘Maybe she got one of their silly mailshots.’ She twisted the cap off the bottle of vodka and poured a generous amount into a heavy-based crystal glass which she placed in front of me. ‘The woman is a flake at best. She probably believes all that rubbish they spout.’

  Beyond Fiona I could see the Asian witch-waitress, standing at the top of the stairs. She wove her fingers in a complicated dance and the ward shimmered back into being. The noise from the bar fell silent again. For a moment, I felt a pang of envy at her effortless spell-casting.

  Fiona splashed whiskey into another glass and offered it to Declan. He swirled the toffee-coloured liquid, nostrils flaring as he sniffed. ‘Jameson’s in Waterford crystal: two of Ireland’s finest.’ He saluted me. ‘Slàinte, Genevieve,’ then with a sly expression he added, ‘that’ll be me, wishing you your continued good health in the Gaelic.’

  I picked up my own drink and acknowledged the implied threat. ‘Likewise.’ Draining the glass, I savoured the cold burn. Pleasantries over, I asked, ‘So is Melissa alive, or not?’

  ‘The wee girl was ready to accept the Gift. There’s always a possibility I could still perform the ritual ...’ He paused, then continued after a moment, ‘If the boy and his father have the right of it, and there’s some sort of spell involved, without knowing what the magic is, the ritual would be too risky.’

  ‘The police say there’s no magic involved,’ I said.

  ‘Me darlin’ Genevieve, as to whether there is magic or not, it’s your word I’ll be trusting over that of the police.’

  I put down my glass. ‘What about Roberto? Our bargain doesn’t extend to him.’

  ‘Well, if you find the wee bure died from magic, then he’ll be innocent, and it’ll be a joyful time for everyone,’ Declan pointed out. ‘But the sooner the ritual’s done the better for the wee girl.’ He stared into his drink. ‘We’ve maybe a night, two at the most.’

  So, no pressure then. A question popped into my head. ‘What was Melissa doing working at the Blue Heart anyway?’

  Fiona smoothed her dress with one crimson-tipped hand. ‘Melissa was working temporarily at the Blue Heart whilst Roberto was making appearances there.’ Her nail polish matched the large princess-cut ruby ring she wore. She’d taken off her long evening gloves. I frowned, uneasy. ‘Melissa was to have returned here after accepting the Gift. Declan was to be her sponsor, weren’t you?’ Her tone was so neutral that it almost disappeared into the background.

  ‘So I was, me love.’ His voice matched hers and upped the stakes.

  I looked at them with interest. Was I sensing an undercurrent here?

  ‘So once you get to see the poor wee bure’s body, you’ll come back and tell me all about it, won’t you, me darlin’? And in the meantime—’He leaned forward, a sly expression on his face, ‘Maybe you’ll be telling me how you do it?’

  ‘How I do what?’

  ‘Why, how you’ve been rescuing all these poor fae and there’s never been even so much a whisper about you. I was hoping you’d be regaling me with your secret.’ He waved his glass towards Fiona and the bottles. ‘And we could be toasting your continued success.’

  I gave him a happy smile. ‘I’d be delighted to toast my future success, but sadly, I can’t divulge my secret.’

  ‘And why’s that, me darlin’?’

  I leaned forward, and said in a low voice, ‘Because then it wouldn’t be a secret any more, would it now?’

  His eyes lost their warmth for a moment, then he threw his head back and laughed. ‘Fiona, me love, another drink for the sidhe, if you please.’

  She hesitated, then held out her hand for my glass. Whatever she was feeling was buried deep beneath a smile of pure courtesy. ‘Ms Taylor?’

  As I gave her the glass, our fingers touched.

  She shuddered, eyes going wide and unfocused, hand spasming, dropping the expensive crystal—

  In one quick move Declan caught the glass and placed both it and his own back on the table with a soft thud.

  My throat tightened. I’d felt nothing other than the heat of her skin.

  ‘Me love?’ There was a thread of something like command riding beneath his quiet concern.

  Fiona sank onto the seat next to him, her face pale as rice-paper. Another shudder racked her body and she gasped, drawing in a deep breath.

  He took her hand in his. ‘Show me.’

  She hesitated, shooting me a fearful look from under her lashes, then she leaned in towards him and kissed him full on the mouth.

  I got the feeling it was way more than just your standard kiss.

  I stared at my glass, sitting unbroken and empty on the table, and finally remembered what it was about rubies. Witches use gems to store their spells, but some humans use them to enhance and control other talents. Rubies were for intuition, empathy, clairvoyance: with a touch Fiona might see the past, or pluck a memory from a mind, or - more rarely - perceive the future. And right now I was betting Fiona was one of the rare ones. And Declan would be able to taste her ability in her blood. Add that to Declan’s handy knack for stealing memories and the old adage You are what you eat had to be working overtime between the two of them. The look she’d given me had held fear and horror, but underneath there had been a gloating satisfaction.

  Fuck. What had she seen?

  ‘Blood—’ Fiona’s voice was a harsh whisper. ‘So much of it...’ She trailed off with a quiet whimper.

  Declan stroked Fiona’s face with a gentle hand. ‘Forget, me love. Sleep and forget,’ he said quietly, insistently.

  She relaxed against him, her head dropping to rest in his lap, her eyes fluttering closed with a soft sigh.

  This was not good. Picking up the vodka, I poured myself another drink and knocked it back.

  ‘Well, this was nice.’ Shame I’d have to drink at least another full bottle before the alcohol had any effect on me. Damn sidhe metabolism. I slid the glass onto the table. ‘Sorry to break up our little tête-à-tête, Declan, but it’s time I was going.’

  He looked up at me, the blue of his eyes as chilled as the vodka. ‘A warning for you, Genevieve.’ He trailed a finger down Fiona’s neck, hooked it under the ruby choker she wore. ‘Your bargain is with me.’ He twisted the necklace. The stones dug into Fiona’s pale flesh. ‘So you’ll be staying away from the Earl and Malik al-Khan.’

  My heart thudded in my chest. I got his message loud and clear - Fiona might be important to him, but after all, he considered her his property and he’d hurt, or even kill her if he felt the need - and he’d try and do the same to me.

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Declan.’ I clenched my fists. ‘We may have a deal going on here, but that’s all we have. It doesn’t give you any rights. I belong to no one but myself. Is that crystal-clear enough for you?’

  He smiled and gave another sharp twist to the ruby choker.

  Fiona whimpered in her sleep, one arm half-lifting in supplication.

  I stood up. ‘Thanks for the drink, Declan.’

  ‘Slàinte, Genevieve. You’ll be sure and let me know as soon as you discover anything.’

  The band played ‘Danny Boy’ as I left.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Five flights of stairs, the after-effects of too much G-Zav and a visit with Declan at the Bloody Shamrock, never m
ind the dread weighing me down after Fiona’s little fortune-telling show are not the best way to end an evening. I set myself at the last flight of stairs and clutching my keys, grabbed the wooden handrail and climbed. As I stood at the top, head down and heartbeat pounding like a bass drum in my ears; I tried to get my breathing back under control. This was one of those times when I wished I lived on the ground floor instead of in a converted two-room attic - never mind that the night wasn’t over and I still had miles to go—

  ‘You look like you could use a few more visits to the gym.’

  I yelped and dropped my keys.

  Finn was leaning next to my door, shoulder propped against the wall, arms folded. ‘Sorry, Gen.’ The faint moonlight through the landing window cast a tall shadow of his horns and gave him a slightly menacing air. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you, I thought you’d realise I was here.’

  I would have - should’ve sensed him - if it wasn’t for the G-Zav. Damn stuff always screws me up. I looked at him, but the usual stupid thrill of seeing him was muted by other things: Hugh’s little lecture, the mess I was in, and the fact it was getting harder and harder to say no to him.

  ‘Now’s not a good time,’ I sighed. ‘I’m too tired, Finn.’

  He frowned. ‘You do look sort of hot and bothered.’

  Yeah, well, so would he if he was halfway to another venom-induced blood-flush.

  ‘Anyway,’ he pushed himself upright, face concerned, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘If it’s about dinner or—’

  ‘It’s important, Gen.’ He bent and picked up my keys. ‘I’ve found out what the trees have been talking about.’

  Oh right. In all the excitement I’d forgotten about them. ‘You’d better come in then,’ I said, resigned.

  He unlocked the door and stood back to usher me through. ‘After you, my Lady.’

  I flicked the light on and as I walked across the room, I reached up out of habit and set the light’s long strings of glass beads tinkling, then headed for the run of white cabinets along the one wall that makes up my kitchen. I pulled open the fridge, snagged the vodka from the ice-box and grabbed a glass. Then I remembered my guest. ‘Want a drink, Finn?’ I asked, turning round.

  Finn was looking round, taking in the surroundings with interest. I gave the room, my living area, a quick once-over. It all looked as I’d left it - the mound of cushions and throws heaped against the wall, one of Katie’s glossy mags lying on the rug, the bundle of bills and junk mail piled next to my computer on the floor - not that I’d expected it to look any different, of course. I didn’t have the benefit of a resident brownie, like Agatha ...

  ... the memory of gift horses bearing crystals and way too much brownie magic surfaced and I frowned at Finn, doubts crowding my mind.

  ‘Great place, Gen.’ He grinned and waved up at the vaulted ceiling with its black wooden struts. ‘It reminds me of being in the woods on a clear winter’s day.’ He set the light tinkling again and the long drops of amber and gold and copper beads flashed kaleidoscopic colours over the white-painted walls. ‘You know, when the sun shines and sparkles through the naked trees.’

  ‘You didn’t come round to look at my décor, Finn,’ I said slowly as the doubts tripped into suspicion. ‘Just tell me about the trees.’

  ‘Hey,’ he grinned, ‘I like the place, it’s cool—’

  ‘Fine!’ Suspicion fell into anger. ‘Let yourself out when you’ve finished admiring it.’ I splashed vodka in the glass and knocked it back, feeling the icy chill deep inside me. ‘I need to get some sleep.’

  ‘C’mon, Gen—’

  I slammed the glass down. ‘No, you c’mon. You set me up today, Finn, and I don’t like it.’ I closed the distance between us. ‘If you wanted to know how much magic I could absorb, you only had to ask. But no, you decided to give me a little test instead.’ I thumped my hand against his chest. ‘The half-dozen spells in the restaurant I could understand: they were just a ruse on the brownie’s part to get me there. But I couldn’t work out why she’d blitzed the kitchen like that, why she would risk hurting her family’s business - only it wasn’t her, was it? It was you.’ I gave his chest another thump. ‘You set all those spells, didn’t you?’

  ‘Okay, okay, I admit it.’ He held his palms out, face full of remorse. ‘And I’m sorry, I was wrong. But it was only brownie magic, Gen, nothing drastic. A lot of people find it useful—’

  I threw my arm out, indicating the room. ‘Does it look like I clean and tidy and bake, Finn? No! I don’t have any furniture; I don’t even have an oven. I eat all my meals at the Rosy Lee. And you know what else your nothing drastic brownie magic is doing? It’s leaking out at inconvenient moments, and it’s pulling my Glamour with it.’ I clenched my fists. ‘I nearly Glamoured a human - a man - just because I felt sorry for him. No way do I call that nothing drastic.’

  ‘Hell’s thorns, Gen.’ His eyes widened in shock. ‘Why’s it doing that?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’ I shouted. ‘I’ve never absorbed brownie magic before, and I can’t just let the stuff out, can I? I mean, the spells weren’t exactly user-friendly to begin with, and I’m sure my neighbours would be so impressed if I turned their kitchens into mini-war zones.’

  Alarm flashed across his face. ‘Can’t you just re-shape the spells, tell the magic to tidy or polish or—?’

  ‘Finn!’ I threw up my hands in disgust. ‘How the hell am I supposed to do that? Stella must’ve told you I can’t cast spells, let alone re-shape them.’

  ‘Well, yes, she did, but this is brownie magic, Gen. I didn’t think—’

  ‘Well, do think!’ I snarled. ‘They’re still spells, Finn.’ I shoved him again and he stumbled back, looking at me in dismay. ‘Get it now, do you?’

  ‘Gods, Gen, I didn’t realise—’ He took a deep breath. ‘My apologies, my Lady. Please forgive me.’ The words were stiff and formal, and totally unlike Finn. ‘I would never aim to harm you.’

  I stared at him in disbelief. I’d half-expected him to try and charm me, but not this strange apology. What the hell was he playing at? I raked my fingers through my hair in frustration; I’d had enough of games for one night. And it wasn’t really all Finn’s fault, was it? I knew absorbing spells came with a price and I’d neglected to mention the possibility of side-effects to him.

  ‘Fine! Apology accepted,’ I snapped and turned away to pour another drink, the oncoming blood-flush making my hand shake. Damn brownie magic. I’d have to get one of the witches to put up a circle tomorrow so I could defuse the spells - and that was going to be a fun way to spend the day, wasn’t it? Still, that’s what I got for being stupid.

  Finn touched my shoulder, and I jumped, the drink sloshing. Grabbing a cloth, I gave him a cold stare. ‘I think you should leave.’

  ‘Gen, I really am sorry.’ A frown creased his forehead. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help?’

  The tiredness rolled back over me, washing away my anger and leaving behind jagged grains of hurt. ‘Dammit, Finn, why would you do that? Why couldn’t you just ask?’

  His face closed up and his eyes went blank and unreadable. ‘It was a mistake, Gen. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Oh fine.’ I threw the cloth down. ‘If you don’t want to explain yourself, then you can just get out.’ I marched over the door and yanked it open.

  He came and stood in front of me and I refused to meet his eyes. ‘I’m not leaving,’ he said, his stance determined. ‘Not yet, not until I’ve told you about the trees.’

  ‘Get on with it then,’ I snapped.

  ‘It’s not good, Gen.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There’s a vampire watching you.’

  Not really a surprise, considering. ‘What’s the vamp look like?’ I asked, my voice flat.

  ‘They said he’s dark-haired, and a bit eastern-looking.’ He looked worried. ‘He’s been hanging around the market, between here and the office.’

  The description fit the Armani-suited va
mp outside the police station - Malik al-Khan. I glanced at the bruises on my wrist, fear fluttering inside me. Why had he been watching me? Was it just the Mr October business, or was something else going on?

  Finn gripped the edge of the door, his hand almost touching mine, and out of the corner of my eye I saw gold light spark between us. ‘Gen, I know you’re under witch protection,’ he said carefully, almost hesitantly, ‘but maybe you should be a bit more cautious than usual.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads-up, Finn.’ I took my hand off the door and crossed my arms. ‘But it’s probably nothing more than some vamp getting a bit curious.’ I shrugged dismissively. ‘It happens sometimes.’

  ‘I care for you, Gen—’ He paused as I snorted. ‘I know that’s hard for you to believe, after ...’ Anxiety threaded his voice. ‘But I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.’ The scent of blackberries sharpened with his fear curled through the air and I felt the brownie’s magic soothing the hurt that he’d tricked me. I sighed and looked up at him as the urge to ease away his fear rose within me. Suddenly, too tired to resist, I lifted my hand and cupped his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, okay? I’ll be fine.’

  He gazed solemnly down at me, moss-green of his eyes darkening as his own magic responded to mine and he gently clasped my shoulders. I gave into need and traced the arch of his brows and stroked my fingertips along the sharp angle of his cheeks. Brighter gold light shot through with green danced from beneath my skin and I held his face in my palms.

  And wanted him.

  I blew out a breath, and closed my eyes, dragging the magic back. He was fae - my Glamour couldn’t hurt him like a human - but the 3V tainting my blood could harm us both.

  ‘You need to go, Finn,’ I whispered as I slid my hands from him.

  He caught my arms, gentle fingers circling my wrists, and his thumbs smoothed over the sensitive pulse points, making my breath hitch. ‘Gen, don’t send me away—’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Gen.’ He sounded insistent.

  Something clutched inside me.