I put them out of my mind and scanned the church for anything that might have spooked Cosette. The gates to either side of the building gaped wide, leading into the shadowed garden beyond. I peered at a darker patch nearest to me and stretched out my inner senses—
‘Well, if it isn’t the sidhe sucker-slut,’ a familiar voice sneered behind me. ‘Bet she’s waiting for her vampire pimp.’
I turned slowly, giving the woman a cool stare as I faced her. She stood smirking at me from under a huge black umbrella, her brown curly hair frizzing in the damp, the navy security uniform she was wearing bulging around her more than ample body, making her look like the Michelin Man. Ex-Police Constable Janet Sims. The ‘ex’ bit was her own fault - she’d had a crush on a colleague, a friend of mine, and her jealousy had led her to ignore procedure - and me, when I’d needed help - which was her choice, but of course, I was the one she blamed. Just my bad luck that after she’d been sacked, she’d got herself a job working for Covent Garden Security, and now she just happened to ‘bump into me’ on a daily basis.
‘Nah, she’s waiting for the paparazzi, aren’t you.’ Janet’s blonde-bitch sidekick lifted her hands to camera-frame me with her fingers. ‘Over here, Msssss Taylor,’ she yelled, then pulled a mocking ‘poor you’ face. ‘Only the paps have stopped coming round,
Genevieve
. You’re yesterday’s news now, and no one wants a sidhe sucker-slut round here, so why don’t you take your orange catty eyes and run off to Sucker Town where you belong.’
Mentally I sighed; getting my picture on the front page with London’s big-cheese vamp - now thankfully deceased - was causing me more problems than I could’ve imagined. Still, Janet and her sidekick were a small - if, thanks to that enormous brolly, annoyingly dry - problem, even if they now amused themselves by hunting for my metaphorical blood with almost more zeal than a vampire. So far I’d kept my patience, and practised turning a deaf ear, but ...
‘Well, I can’t stand here chatting all evening.’ I pushed my wet hair back from my face and added sweetly, ‘I’ve got a hot date with a satyr to get ready for.’ Sadly, the satyr was my boss and the hot date was work, but hey, you go with whatever you’ve got when faced with a pair of wannabe harpies. I smiled at them, enjoying the green-monster glow that leapt into their eyes, then turned and walked away, not listening as they muttered snidely behind me.
As I got to the corner, I glanced back and
focused
that part of me that can see the magic. Just as I’d suspected, an Eye-of-the-Storm spell cast a greasy slime over Janet’s huge black umbrella and dripped fat globules down around the two women. For a moment I hesitated. All I had to do was cup my hand and
call
the spell; the wind would strip the huge monster of a brolly from Janet’s grip and leave the pair of them screeching and scrambling like a pair of proverbial drowned rats in the storm. I curled my fingers into a tight fist and told myself not to crawl down to their level. Their jibes weren’t worth it, nothing more than sticks and stones and all that. Of course, the bit about words not hurting was fine until the words came with magic attached to them - but Janet and her sidekick weren’t witches, just witches’ daughters. Their fathers had been human, not sidhe, and the two women might live in a world of magic, they might even catch glimpses of it, but they’d never be able to use it. They’d had to buy the Eye-of-the-Storm spell, and any spell worth its salt wasn’t cheap, as I knew only too well.
I laughed; a short mirthless snort. I might be sidhe, made of magic, but that didn’t mean I could do much with it. Oh, I could
see
the stuff, even
call
or
crack
or even
absorb
a spell, but no matter what I tried, my own spell-casting abilities had proved to be about as good as those of a witch’s daughter. I didn’t know why; just one of the magic’s little ironies. Still, that particular magical difficulty was an old one; I had others much higher up the list, including whatever it was Cosette the ghost wanted.
I jogged towards my flat, wondering where the hell I was going to find a necro - other than, maybe, literally in hell?
Five minutes later and I was home and in the dry, or at least in the communal hallway; I still had five flights of stairs to climb. I placed my palm on the front door and the cobalt-blue of the Protection Ward shimmered up like a neon-fuelled heat-wave in the dimness, then disappeared back into the framework as it activated. Taking my hand away, I breathed in the familiar scent of beeswax polish mixed with the more recent - and much less welcoming - additions of musty damp earth and garlic.
‘Damn witches,’ I muttered, wrinkling my nose at the smell.
I flicked the switch but as usual nothing happened; the bulbs in the light fitting hanging from the high Edwardian ceiling were still missing. The landlord, Mr Travers, was going through his shy phase. It didn’t matter to my witch neighbours; they could all
conjure
bright-spheres. But while I’ve got orange ‘catty eyes’- although personally I prefer to call them amber - my night vision isn’t much better than my spell-casting abilities, so I had to rely on the streetlight filtering in through the stained-glass transom window above the front door. And it did nothing to relieve the deep shadows creeping up the stairs or to illuminate the tall, dark, unmoving shape on the first-floor landing above me.
My pulse hitching, I peered into the darkness, then sighed with jittery relief as I finally made out the thick handle and bound birch twigs of a defensive spell-broom. Damn witches again! Not only were they laying the garlic on a bit thick, but they also insisted on cluttering up the stairs. Still, at least it wasn’t another ghost. I shuddered and grabbed the towel I’d stashed before my run and rubbed it over my damp face and hair. Toeing off my running shoes - Eligius, the goblin cleaner, isn’t the type to appreciate wet footprints on his highly scrubbed black-and-white tiled floor - I pulled a dry sweatshirt over my head and felt the chill start to recede.
‘Genny.’ A deep bass voice made me jump. ‘If I might have a word, please?’
Heart sinking, I pasted a smile on my face and turned to face my landlord. ‘Of course, Mr Travers.’
So long as that word isn’t eviction
, I added silently, looking up at the nearly eight-foot-tall mountain troll.
He was still doing his impression of the incredible hulk, except where the hulk was green, Mr Travers was various shades of brown. A voluminous camel-coloured velvet sack-thing covered him from neck to ankle, leaving his lumpy brown and beige arms bare. The pale beige was his natural colour; the brown, misshapen lumps were baked-on earth that hadn’t yet flaked away. He’d been happily stratifying in the basement - a counter-effort against the erosion from London’s air pollution - when my neighbours had insisted he dig himself out to deal with their concerns. In other words, me.
‘I’m sorry, but Witch Wilcox has complained again.’ His forehead cracked into deep fissures as he frowned.
Witch Wilcox lived on the third floor, and was the most vociferous in her determination to have me evicted. Not only that, she was retired from the Witches’ Council, so not someone that was easily ignored.
‘I’m not sure I’ve done much to complain about,’ I said, aiming for diplomacy.
‘It’s not about anything you’ve done as such, Genny,’ he rumbled grumpily. ‘Her granddaughter’s come to stay with her for a while. Apparently the girl’s just lost her job and her boyfriend both and is feeling a bit fragile. Witch Wilcox says she’s not sure that having a sidhe fae living in the same building is a good idea in her granddaughter’s current condition’ - he leaned over and tapped the mailbox - ‘particularly with all the mail the vampires keep sending you.’
What the—?
Forget diplomacy! ‘What does she think I’m going to do, drag her granddaughter off to a vamp club and force her into Getting Fanged just because the suckers are sending me a few letters?’ I snorted. ‘I mean, even if I did decide to do something so utterly stupid, her granddaughter’s a witch, so no way would any licensed vamp premises let her past the door.’
‘I know that, Genny, and so should she.’ He scratched his arm furiously, causing little clods of dirt to fall onto the marble-tiled floor. ‘I’ve tried reminding her about the old agreements, and that there isn’t a vampire in Britain that would break them, but she doesn’t want to listen.’
The agreements weren’t just old but ancient, dating back to the fourteenth century, when the vamps and witches ended up in a mediaeval Mexican stand-off with a group of Church-sanctioned vigilante witch-hunters. The hunters’ zero tolerance policy towards enchantments and sorcery didn’t discriminate when it came to finding a likely perpetrator. Faced with a mutual enemy, the vamps and witches voted on survival and negotiated a live-and-let-live truce; one that’s still in force today.
Of course, nowadays the witches like to forget who saved them from being tortured and crispy-fried at the stake, but the vamps have longer memories and longer lives - thanks to the Gift some of them had no doubt been there - as well as the whole my-word-is-my-honour thing going on. So witches, or anyone under their protection, which had included me until a couple of months ago, would be the last to end up as the wrong sort of guest at a vampire’s dinner party. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t stop the witches being paranoid.
‘I wanted to keep you informed, Genny.’ Dust puffed from Mr Travers’ head ridge in an anxious beige cloud. ‘I really am sorry, you’re a good tenant.’ His brow ridges lowered in sympathy. ‘But if she takes her complaints higher, well, it won’t be up to me any more.’
‘I know, it’ll be up to the Witches’ Council.’ I patted his arm in a vague attempt to thank him, then wished I hadn’t as I dislodged a large lump of dried mud, revealing a patch of raw, wet-looking skin beneath. The musty smell increased and I struggled not to cough. ‘Let’s hope the Council don’t take her too seriously,’ I added when I could.
‘I’ll be putting in a good word for you anyway, Genny.’ He dug in the pocket of his sack dress and pulled out a paper bag, offering it to me in apology. ‘Butter pebble?’
I took one, not wanting to be rude. ‘Thanks,’ I smiled, adding, ‘I’ll save it for later.’
Much
later, like never, seeing as I wasn’t into breaking my teeth. ‘And thanks for letting me know. I’ll try and sort the mail problem.’
He briefly smiled back, his mouth splitting to show his own worn-down beige teeth. ‘I’ve been thinking ... um, actually, I was wanting to ask you something, Genny.’ He paused and looked down, seeming embarrassed at the small pile of earth by his feet. ‘Umm, that is if you don’t mind?’
‘’Course not,’ I said.
He nudged the earth with his slab-like toes. ‘I was wondering about getting polished,’ he rumbled quietly, his eyes flicking up to meet mine then back to the ground. ‘I’ve heard a lot about it, but I wasn’t sure if I was too old ... but there’s a party for Hallowe’en, and’ - he held out his patchy arms - ‘I can’t go like this.’
‘Er, I don’t think—’
‘I know the younger trolls do it,’ he rushed on, his face cracking with worry, ‘and some of the concrete ones, but I didn’t want to look silly or anything. What do you think, is it a good thing or not? And I’m not sure if it will hurt; some of these new methods aren’t always the best, are they?’
I blinked, not sure if I was qualified to give beauty tips to a troll; and I liked Mr Travers, no way did I want to give him the wrong advice. But the only troll I knew well was my friend, Hugh - Detective Sergeant Hugh Munro - and he was in the Cairngorms with his tribe, recuperating after being injured in the line of duty. Hugh was more of a traditionalist, but thinking of him ... ‘Well,’ I said, frowning, ‘I know a troll who’s got himself polished, he works for the police, Constable Taegrin’s his name.’ And Constable Taegrin might possibly know where I could find a necro, so ... ‘I could ring him and see if he’ll talk to you about it, if you want?’ I added.
‘That would be great, thanks Genny!’ Mr Travers’ face split in a relieved smile. ‘I knew you were the best person to ask.’ He held the bag out again. ‘Another butter pebble?’
I accepted politely and he ambled almost silently away down the hall, mumbling about finding a dustpan and brush. Feeling slightly bemused, I tucked both sticky pebbles into a carrier bag, together with my wet shoes, then turned to contemplate the offending mailbox; my personal pigeon-hole was full as usual. No wonder Witch Wilcox was complaining.
The eerie theme tune from
Halloween
drifted tinnily through the hallway and it took me a second to realise it was my phone ringing. The ring-tone wasn’t my choice, just an irritating consequence of my job working for Spellcrackers. com. I’d cleared out a gremlin crew from Tower Bridge and the critters had retaliated by springing a techno-hex on my phone. I’d been trying to
crack
the hex for over a week, never mind it was nearing All Hallows’ Eve and sort of appropriate - having the phone run through a selection of horror film ring-tones was so not professional; it unsettled too many of the clients. I grabbed the phone from the back of my running shorts and checked the display, then my irritation turned to a grin as I checked the caller ID.
‘Grace,’ I said, then remembered why she was calling; my vamp-mail problem was worrying her, and while I loved her to bits for checking I was okay, neither of us needed the extra stress. I tried for a distraction. ‘Don’t suppose you know any necros, do you?’
‘I’m a doctor, Genny, not an information service,’ she said in her usual no-nonsense voice. ‘Plus, I don’t think a necro’s going to help you if that medium didn’t. I told you, wait until Hallowe’en; you’ll be able to talk to your ghost then.’
Wrapping the towel round my shoulders, I shuddered. ‘There is no way I’m spending
that
night in a churchyard. That’d be like asking you to stay in the same room as a spider.’
‘Hmmp! Well as you keep telling me, spiders can’t hurt anyone, and the same goes for ghosts. Plus it’s a cheaper, quicker option than a necro,’ she pointed out. ‘Then again, HOPE is likely to be busy that night, so you might not have time to visit a churchyard.’