Part of me didn’t care. It was over anyway. I’d been running and hiding since I was fourteen, trying to stay alive, trying to stay free, but I had always known that one day my prince would find me and someone would come to take me back. Getting rid of the spell was the honey that sweetened the pill.
‘If that is what you wish.’ Malik turned, and beckoned Toni to him.
She walked up to stand at his side and a sunny smile broke over her face.
‘You may see for yourself.’ He took her hand and held it out to me like a gift. ‘The spell is gone.’
I frowned, suspicion making me wary. I grasped her hand and cupped her face. Her smile didn’t change. I pushed into her mind and found ...
nothing.
There was no tangled net of thoughts, no mind-lock, just nothing. Her mind was gone. She wouldn’t be telling anyone anything ever again. Shock made my heart beat again. Malik hadn’t just wiped her mind clean, he’d obliterated it. Nausea roiled in my gut that he could do that, that it was even possible. He touched her shoulder and she walked away into the dome.
Toni had been condemning me and every other fae the vamps might capture to an eternity of slavery.
The spell was gone.
Then the nausea dissipated and all I felt was glorious relief.
The spell was gone.
Malik would have to force me to go back, and no way was I going to make it easy.
I smiled at him, flashed my fangs. ‘Looks like you’re out of bargaining chips.’
‘What about Rosa?’
Damn.
There was always
something
, wasn’t there? He wanted to destroy Rosa’s body to save her soul from a demon - only it wasn’t a demon, it was me. Would he still want to do that, now he knew it was me sharing her body?
I shrugged. ‘What about Rosa?’
He waved towards the Earl’s corpse. ‘That was ... unexpected. ’ He moved to stand in front of me and held out his hand. The pearl handle of my knife gleamed like an accusation. ‘As was this, Genevieve.’
I didn’t move. ‘Puts you in a bit of a predicament doesn’t it?’ I gave him a mock sympathetic look. ‘I mean, you can’t kill this body, not without killing me too. It’s one of those golden-egg-and-goose-type things.’
He released the blade and pressed the sharp point to my breast. The silver burned against my skin. ‘Why is it,’ he asked, his eyes half-lidded and his lips lifting in wry amusement, ‘that I cannot take both your lives?’
‘C’mon, Malik, cut the crap.’ I raised my chin. ‘I was a child. Children are young, not stupid. I may never have seen your face, but I recognised your touch.’
Almost from the first
, I added silently, only I hadn’t wanted to admit it, not to myself, not even when my dream-mind showed me the truth. ‘I’m just surprised it took
him
so long to send you after me.’
‘You are right, of course.’ Malik slid the blade down to rest just under my ribs.
‘Nice to know the homicidal maniac hasn’t forgotten me,’ I said, my pulse speeding faster in my throat.
‘He tasked me with bringing you back to him ten years ago.’ He sighed, and the sound slipped like sorrow into my heart. ‘Only I did not do as he wished.’ The knife dented my flesh.
My mouth dropped open. ‘What?’
‘The Autarch is no longer my Master, Genevieve. He has not been so for nearly twenty years.’ Cool fingers circled my left wrist. He lifted the knife and traced an ice-hot slash down my inner arm. Blood trickled in an eager rivulet to splash onto the blue floor.
I flashed back to him doing the same thing to my four-year-old self. The knife had been set with a dragon’s tear, an oval of amber the same colour as my sidhe eyes. He’d taken my blood with my father’s good wishes, tasted me in proxy for my prince.
As then, I stood frozen, unable to move.
Malik bent his head to my arm, licking a long firm line along the slash. He gazed at me, his pupils flaring red. ‘How could I call him Master when I coveted what he owned’ - he kissed his lips to mine and I tasted my own honeyed blood as his voice whispered through my mind - ‘
for myself
.’
Need and desire and a fledgling hope took flight inside me.
He broke the kiss.
And I asked the question. ‘Why did you kill Melissa?’
His expression didn’t change. ‘She had uncovered the witch. Once her vampire lover had realised, they would have fled again, taking the spell with them.’
So that was the information Melissa had been selling: Toni’s identity. Only Malik had always known where Toni was. The trees had been gossiping about him watching Spellcrackers - watching Toni - not me. ‘Why didn’t you just kill the witch?’
‘Genevieve.’ His voice held slight impatience, ‘The witch was under the protection of the Witches’ Council. To do so would have violated our rules and started something I did not wish.’
‘What about the spell?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t you want it for yourself ?’
‘I have no need of it.’
Of course he didn’t. He already had me - ever since I was four years old. ‘So what happens now?’ I breathed.
He reversed the knife, placed its handle in my palm and clasped his hands round mine to hold it straight and true. ‘What happens now is your choice.’ He spread his arms wide. The scar I’d given him bloomed rose-red against his pale skin.
I looked down at the blade, then up at his beautiful face.
And did nothing.
Malik smiled and my heart thudded in my chest. ‘Genevieve.’
He whirled round, an edge of darkness swinging from his coat, and strode away, vanishing into nothingness.
Epilogue
T
he spell dome dissipated, leaving me standing in the much smaller car park of the Leech & Lettuce. To one side Katie, still clutching the vodka bottle, watched over Finn. On the other side sat Hugh, his head bowed, his police back-up - Constables Taegrin and Curly-hair - beside him. Behind me lay the bodies of Rio and the Earl, surrounded by a squad of Beater goblins. The tiers of seats still ringed the car park, but they were empty. The vampire audience had gone.
Hannah picked her way in her Jimmy Choos over the stony ground. ‘The police will be here soon, Genevieve. I suspect that you might want to stay until your friends are safe, so I have a gift for you.’ She offered me a cloak. ‘It might be wise if you were to disappear before they arrive.’
I gave her a quizzical look. ‘Disappear as in “not seen”, or actually go away?’ I asked.
‘As I told you’ - she smiled - ‘I enjoy helping people.’
I took the cloak from her, wrapped it around me and vanished from sight.
The police arrived in force. Detective Inspector Crane in the lead, along with a whole slew of paramedics from HOPE. And as the night waned and dawn approached, all that was left were the bodies. The goblins doused them in petrol and set them alight, the acrid fumes smoking and polluting the air. When there was nothing left but ashes, they swept those into a box and marched down to the river. I followed and watched silently as the fast-flowing Thames rushed the scattered ashes down to the sea.
Now I sit in the Rosy Lee Café and stare out of the window. The heat-wave has finally broken and rain is pelting down on London’s dusty streets and sluicing through the gutters.
Katie brings me an orange juice and my usual BLT sandwich with lashings of mayonnaise. She smiles and bustles away to serve the rest of the lunchtime crowd. She is still having nightmares, but it has only been a week, and the bad dreams might dim in time.
Declan kept his side of the bargain and offered the Gift to Melissa. Sadly, it didn’t succeed. Two nights ago, she was cremated at a private family ceremony. Bobby, aka Mr October, was there to support Melissa’s mother, all charges against him having been dropped. Alan Hinkley wasn’t able to attend: he is still in a coma and Bobby is spending his nights beside his father’s hospital bed, waiting for him to recover.
Constable Curly-hair is under suspension pending disciplinary action. She refused to pass on the details of Katie’s abduction to Hugh, or anyone else, because of me. By the time Hugh and his back-up team arrived at the Leech & Lettuce, the sun had gone down and the Earl was waiting. Hugh is currently convalescing in the Cairngorms with his tribe.
Thanks to my boss, Stella, and her campaigning, and Finn’s overwhelming evidence about Toni’s activities, the Witches’ Council has reinstated my contract with
Spellcrackers.com
. I get to keep my job, and my home - the compromise being that the witches will no longer offer me their protection, as Detective Inspector Helen Crane was entirely too happy to inform me.
Finn was taken to HOPE and then transferred to sanctuary, where he underwent the treatment to purge the
salaich sìol
from his blood. Three of his brothers turned up to take him back to recuperate with his herd. As his
salaich sìol
infection is so recent, the purge should be successful, but it will be another month before anyone will know for sure. We spoke briefly before he went. He plans to come back to London and take over the franchise at
Spellcrackers.com
, once he’s well enough.
He held my hand and told me he would keep my secrets.
I don’t know what that means, or how I feel about that for now, so I’ve tucked him away in that box in my mind, along with all the other things I’m not yet ready to think about.
Like Rosa.
And Malik.
I’ve heard he is still in London, but I haven’t seen him.
I sip my orange juice and look at the headline in today’s newspaper.
WITCH TO BE BURNT AT THE STAKE.
Toni has been quickly convicted of Melissa’s murder - the motive being blackmail over the witch’s secret relationship with a vampire - and as Toni can’t object and Rio is dead, it’s a nice neat ending for all concerned.
I push my sandwich away, no longer hungry, and watch the rain.
Fancy a sneak peak at Genny’s next exciting adventure? Genny Taylor, the sidhe fae who puts the M into Magic and Mayhem and Murder, is back in another
Spellcrackers.com
novel:
THE COLD KISS OF DEATH
Coming from Gollancz in Summer 2009
Chapter One
T
he child stood barefoot and ignored in the cold, sheeting rain; her long dark hair was tossed by the fractious wind and her ragged clothes hung off her undernourished body. She was no more than eight or nine years old. She waited, staring at me from dark angry eyes. My heart beat faster at the sight of her, fingers of fear scraping down my spine and setting my teeth on edge. All around her people hurried across the wide expanse of cobbles towards the warm lights of Covent Garden, heading for the shelter of the glass-covered market with its shops, cafés, street entertainers and busy market stalls. The late October storm raging through London meant the witches were doing a roaring trade with their Body-Brolly spells, Dri-Feet Patches and Wind-Remedy Hair-Pins: twenty-first century commerce at its most expedient. And none of the late-afternoon punters stopped to help the child. No one even noticed her, other than me.
But then the girl was a ghost.
Not many humans have the ability to see ghosts.
I’m sidhe fae. Seeing ghosts isn’t a problem for me - at least not the seeing bit - but having a ghost decide to haunt me? Well, that had definitely become a dilemma ever since Cosette had appeared a couple of weeks ago. I told myself again it was stupid to be afraid of ghosts - not when they couldn’t physically hurt the living - and forced myself to ignore the irrational need to turn and run. Taking a deep breath, I continued jogging steadily towards her. As I neared, she held her hands out in supplication and opened her mouth wide, and the storm-winds shrieked and wailed as a surrogate for her silent scream.
I stopped in front of her and suppressed a shudder. ‘Cosette, we really need to find a way to communicate,’ I said, frustration almost edging out my fear. ‘I want to help, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s wrong.’
She grasped her shift and ripped it open. The three interlacing crescents carved, red-raw and bleeding, into her thin chest didn’t look any better than the last dozen times I’d seen them. The wounds weren’t lethal - they weren’t even recent; Cosette had been dead for at least a hundred and fifty years, judging by her clothes - but my gut twisted with anger that someone would do that to a child. The triple crescents were something to do with the moon goddess, but what they meant to Cosette, her death, or why she was haunting me, I was having trouble finding out. I’d asked around, done the in-depth internet trawl, spent a fruitless day in the witches’ section at the British Library, hired a medium - and hadn’t that been a waste of time and money - and got nowhere, so even Cosette’s name was one I’d given her and not her true one. Next stop in my ghost-appeasing hunt might have to be a necromancer. And finding one of those wasn’t going to be easy. Necros aren’t the sort to advertise their services, not when commanding the dead - as opposed to just talking to them - is illegal . . . but both Cosette and I needed the break.
‘I see it.’ I stared at the bloody symbol and shivered as my wet hair dripped cold down the back of my neck. ‘But I still don’t know what you want me to do about it.’
Dropping her hands to her sides, she stamped a foot in silent annoyance. Then, as usual, she moved to peer around me as if she’d seen someone, flickered, and disappeared like a light popping out.
Nerves twitched as I thought that this time there would be someone - or some
thing
- creeping up behind me. I turned to check. The façade of St Paul’s Church loomed blankly over me, a candle-like glow shining through its tall arched windows, the tall brass plaque on its false entranceway a dark rectangle against the sandstone. Goosebumps pricked my skin, the chill from my rain-soaked running shorts and vest adding fuel to my anxiety. Three Soulers - Protectors of the Soul - huddled together under the church’s high overhanging roof, the reproduction lantern above them throwing the red Crusader crosses on their long grey tabards into sharp relief. Briefly I wondered why the rain hadn’t driven them to decamp into the Underground, their usual MO when faced with bad weather; no point trying to Protect Souls from the vamps, witches and anything magical - which included me and the rest of London’s fae - when those souls weren’t around to be preached at.