Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

A banging noise woke me from a deep, dreamless (thankfully), alcohol-assisted sleep.

Hot summer sun streamed in through my bedroom window, reflecting squares of light and shade high up on the sloping walls. The angle told me it was still early morning.

The banging came again.

‘There is a troll knocking on the front door,’ Robur the dryad’s eerie voice boomed out of my bedside table drawer. I jerked upright and the empty vodka bottle thudded to the wooden floorboards, clinking against the other one already there. It takes a lot of alcohol to affect my fast sidhe metabolism.

‘Why does everyone have to make so much noise?’ I muttered, grabbing my head.

‘It is the shiny black troll with the gold specks.’ Robur’s voice was, if anything, even louder. Payback for the lemon polish incident. ‘The one who is stepping out with your landlord, Mr Travers. I discern from the wood beetles who inhabit the dresser in Mr Travers’ kitchen that the troll has his police uniform on and appears to be on official business.’

The pounding hit a new, urgent note.

‘Please hurry before he scratches the wood.’ Robur’s piercing words hammered into my fragile morning-after skull.

I pulled on my robe and hurried, as directed, to the door. I yanked it open as the large troll who was stooped down outside banged again. Luckily for me, his huge black fist bounced off the Ward (invisible to him, as all magic is to trolls) and sent purple ripples up and down the open doorway.

Constable Taegrin of the London Metropolitan Police’s Magic and Murder Squad gave me an apologetic look. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Genny.’ A small black cloud of anxious dust puffed from his headridge and settled on his shiny bald pate and the shoulders of his stab vest. ‘But Detective Inspector Munro was worried; you’ve been ignoring your phone.’

I had a vague memory of stuffing my phone in the fridge when I’d grabbed the second bottle of vodka after waking from another fleeing-from-monsters nightmare. Crap.

‘He wants you back at the kidnap scene at London Zoo,’ Taegrin continued. ‘I was nearest, so he’s sent me to pick you up.’

Covent Garden to London Zoo is fifteen minutes by road. On a traffic-free day. But I’ve never known London to have a traffic-free day, so we were in for a long, slow drive which I wasn’t looking forward to. Especially after it clicked with my hangover-fuddled brain exactly how we were getting there. Parked beneath the leafy canopy of the large elm guarding my building’s main door was a Magic and Murder Squad police van. Built to accommodate trolls (obviously, since Taegrin was driving), they lack a certain human-sized comfort.

Once we were safely buckled up (with me riding shotgun so I didn’t look like a suspect, but thanks to the adult booster seat and my dangling legs, looking like a seven-year-old instead), it took Taegrin all of a minute to tell me what the score was. The Bangladeshi ambassador had agreed (presumably after his midnight meeting with the Prime Minster) to hand over his bodyguard’s bloodstained kurta, so it could be used to scry for leads in the hope it would pinpoint the kidnap victims’ location. Hugh wanted me at the scrying, though as scrying was on the list of things I couldn’t do, when I asked why, Taegrin didn’t know.

After that he was quick enough to realise I wasn’t up to sparkling conversation; the two-part Hot.D (short for Hair of the Dog) potion I’d rushed out and bought from the Witches’ Market was probably a big clue.

I knocked back the first part, my mouth going dry at the chalky taste, and slumped on my booster seat waiting for the spell to take effect. Hot.D spells are meant to postpone any hangover for twelve hours, but as the witch I’d bought it from said, ‘You ain’t human, dearie, so I ain’t guaranteeing nuthin’.’

Taegrin chatted quietly as the van trundled along about his weekend with Mr Travers. The pair had spent Sunday walking the Troll Trail on the Thames – a sort of troll spiritual pilgrimage that involved crossing all the bridges, and included the occasional stop at participating ‘watering holes’ to sluice their blowholes. They’d set out at dawn from the Queen Elizabeth II Suspension Bridge at Dartford (the last bridge before the sea), headed upriver and, even with the required ‘watering hole’ stops, had reached Battersea Bridge by sunset.

‘That’s seventeen out of the hundred and one bridges, Genny,’ Taegrin said proudly. ‘Not bad going for a day’s trekking. Now we’re planning on how we’re going to tackle the rest. We thought . . .’

The initial stupor phase of the Hot.D hit, and I listened with half an ear, watching the sun glint off the gold specks in Taegrin’s polished black skin, happy for them both and, since I’d sort of introduced them last Hallowe’en, basking in a vague mother-hen-like delight that they’d found each other through me.

My pulse sped as the Hot.D kicked in with a caffeine shot.

I checked my phone.

Three missed calls from Hugh when he’d tried to contact me.

And a message from Malik.

My thumb hovered . . .

At some point before the vodka had induced its dreamless sleep, I’d sent him a text:

We need to talk. You know I need to see the Emperor about the fae’s fertility. Ignore Tavish and don’t cut me out of the loop. Whatever’s going on, I can help.

And here was his answer. I swallowed, heart thudding erratically against my ribs. Only the caffeine . Pressed the button:

Genevieve. I fear it is unwise for there to be any more direct communication between us. Should you require any assistance, in any matter, know that Maxim is tasked to put your needs above all others, including himself. Your servant, Malik.

I frowned. Why the hell was he telling me to talk to Mad Max?

I reread the message, disbelief closing my throat.

The words didn’t change.

He’d dumped me. By text. After what happened at the lake. Fury ripped through me. Okay, so I got that he’d ‘lost control’. That he was worried about his curse. And that he’d discovered he could use my magic. I got that it all scared him. And I got he probably thought he was protecting me. But even if Malik did think that fucking ‘direct communication was unwise’, he could at least call me and tell me in person. Not send a fucking text.

And if the bastard vamp thought that was the end of it, well, he really didn’t have a clue. I’d had enough of males doing what they thought was right. Or just doing whatever they wanted. Or not giving me answers. It pissed me off. Not to mention this wasn’t only about him, or me, but about the fae’s trapped fertility. I resent my text, adding:

Stop fucking around, Malik. V important we talk. Meet me at midnight at Tir na n’Og, tonight, or I tell DI Munro to open the letter.

I pressed send. Now he had to have ‘direct communication’ with me, or I’d shop him to the cops and witches.

The van braked to a stop and Taegrin’s bass rumble in my ear took on meaning. ‘. . . so we think we should reach the Thames head by the August New Moon.’ He turned to grin proudly at me.

‘That’s great,’ I said, forcing my mouth into a smile as I mentally shoved Malik and his fury-inducing texts somewhere where the sun shone hot, and knocked back part two of the Hot.D potion, almost gagging on the bitter aftertaste. Calm, clarity and a sense of purpose spread through me, smoothing out my emotions. Good thing too, as I had a job to do.

Taegrin pointed at the glovebox. ‘There’s consultant ID badges in there, Genny. Best if you wear one.’

I snagged a badge, followed him through the zoo, and to the tiger exhibit.

We entered the same shaded corridor as before with its U-shaped windows looking out on to the tiger enclosure. I skirted past a yellow ‘Warning: Wet Floor’ sign, leaving footprints on the recently mopped floor and nearly gagging on the reek of chemical pine-scented cleaner. About halfway along the corridor, Hugh, Mary and a coven’s worth of WPCs were gathered around a salt and sand circle with something green lying in its centre. As I neared I realised it was a folded piece of clothing; the blood-splattered kurta belonging to the kidnapped woman’s bodyguard.