Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

I clenched my teeth, swallowing a frustrated scream.

The silver blanket covering me rustled and Mary looked up from her phone. ‘Oh good, you’re awake.’ She crouched down next to me, hitching her black trousers at the knees as she did, a relieved expression on her face.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I was thinking.’

‘Thinking?’ She grinned. ‘I thought it was called fainting. You did a good job of it too. Like a tree toppling.’ She demonstrated with her forearm. ‘Awesome faceplant. Or it would’ve been if the DI hadn’t caught you. We tried to wake you, but you were way out of it.’

‘I don’t faint,’ I grumbled, as my eyes caught the remains of the sand and salt circle. ‘Any luck with scrying for the kidnappers?’

Mary grimaced. ‘Nada. The blood on the kurta was too old.’

Damn. If the scrying was a bust then I needed to find Hugh and tell him the blood was werewolf. I started to get up—

Mary slapped a heavy hand on my chest and pushed me back down. ‘Stay there until the DI gets here,’ she ordered. ‘He’ll probably want the medic to look at you again. I’ll let him know you’re conscious.’ She thumbed her radio and started giving more orders.

Medic? Again? Hugh was going overboard on looking after the definitely-did-not-faint sidhe. For which I was grateful, but . . . I did a quick mental inventory to make sure all my fingers and toes, and everything in between, felt normal. Everything did so there was no point lying here, waiting for a – no doubt efficient, but human – medic to tell me I was okay as far as they could tell. I mouthed at Mary to cancel the medic, and, brushing away her exasperated hand as she tried to keep me prone, I sat up.

It put my head on a level with the tiger’s. It was sitting on its haunches like a patient dog, less than a foot away from me. The sunlight streaming down highlighted the black stripes marking its orangey coat, and silvered the white fur haloing its lower face and jaw like an old man’s beard. Its long whiskers were almost translucent in the glare. And its stripes weren’t symmetrical as I’d always imagined, but fanned out from a point between its eyes as if someone had haphazardly painted them in. It was the first time I’d even been so close to a wild animal, and it was beautiful and awe-inspiring.

Movement in the undergrowth caught my eye. Another tiger padded up. It lay down with lazy grace a few feet away, its long tail twitching slightly. The first tiger flicked its black-tipped ears and half-closed its yellow eyes, but otherwise ignored its pal. Both stared at me as if I was the most captivating thing they’d seen this year. But unlike the predatory gaze I’d have expected, the tigers looked more as if they were waiting for my next trick.

I frowned. Was that natural? I pinged them, the possibility of werewolves giving me the crazy idea that they might be weretigers. Got nothing but animal back. But then when I’d pinged the werewolves all I’d got back was human, so maybe that’s how they felt to me. I tapped on the glass, mouthing hello. They just kept staring. I pulled a face, stuck my tongue out at them, told them I knew what they were. Still nothing. I caught Mary giving me squinty eyes, so I bit the embarrassment bullet. ‘Do you think they’re weretigers?’

She looked at me in silence for a long moment, then said, ‘Did you hit your head when you fainted?’

I huffed. ‘I didn’t faint.’

‘If you say so.’ She grinned then said, ‘Okay. Weretigers, or ailuranthropes to give them their proper name, became extinct’ – she frowned – ‘on 21st June 1758, in Hunan province in southern China, when the last one went loco and mauled eight teenage girls. The girls died and the locals trapped the weretiger in its animal form and stoned it to death.’

I blinked. ‘That’s . . . very specific.’

‘Mum was looking at something in the witch archives the other night, to do with weres, proper name, therianthropes.’ Mary’s mother was on the Witches’ Council. ‘It stuck in my memory.’

The hair on my nape stood on end. ‘Really? That’s a weird coincidence.’

‘Why weird?’

‘Because I asked,’ I said, mulling over how likely it actually was a coincidence, or was the Witches’ Council somehow aware or even involved in what was going on. ‘And because I was just thinking about werewolves.’

‘Werewolves, proper name, lycanthropes, are the only therianthropes that aren’t extinct,’ Mary said blandly.

‘I know,’ I answered just as blandly. ‘What was the problem your mum had?’

She gave me her cop face. ‘Why do you want to know, Genny?’

I hugged my knees, debating what to tell her, if anything, saved from making a decision when Hugh appeared.

He hunkered down next to me, concern creasing his face and offered me one of the takeaway cups he was carrying. ‘How’re you feeling, Genny?’

‘Good, thanks.’ I wrapped my fingers round the cool cup, inhaled the welcome scent of orange juice. ‘Now I’m awake.’

He patted my shoulder gently. ‘The medic wanted to take you to HOPE’ – the Human and Other Preternatural Ethics clinic where they treated all things magical – ‘but as your vitals were stable, I thought if you stayed here it would be easier for us to talk.’

‘Yeah, we need to,’ I said, then got to the point. ‘It was the blood on the bodyguard’s kurta. Its scent was the trigger and knocked me into a sort of vision.’

‘The scent knocked you into a vision?’ Interest lit his cloud-grey eyes.

I glanced at Mary listening a few feet away. She was a friend, but she was also a witch, and her mother was on the Witches’ Council. And they’d been looking into wereshifters. My paranoia hit: I still had a nasty taste from Witch-bitch Helen interfering in my life. I dug a Privacy crystal out, set it, then filled Hugh in on nearly everything; the tarot cards, the ambassador at the mosque, the werewolves, and Malik’s memory (which I asked Hugh to call a ‘sort of vision’ to respect Malik’s privacy). ‘Only none of that tells us why the werewolves kidnapped the victims from here,’ I finished. ‘Or where they’re holding them. Or what they gave the ambassador. Or what it all has to do with the fae’s trapped fertility.’ I gave him a hopeful smile. ‘Any ideas?’

Hugh’s ruddy-coloured face creased with worry. ‘That’s a lot of information, Genny, and I’m not happy that Tavish has involved you with the fae again, or with the vampires, but what’s done is done. And I can see why you agreed to help.’ He tapped his cup thoughtfully. ‘As for everything else, most of what you’ve told me is uncorroborated and circumstantial.’ He held his hand up as I started to disagree. ‘But I’ll get the blood on the kurta checked for werewolf identifiers, which will give us something concrete. And I’ll put an official request to the Oligarch’s office to speak with Malik al-Khan.’

I scowled. ‘Told you, I’ll be talking to him myself, tonight.’

‘You also told me Malik is being difficult.’

I’d actually told Hugh Malik was being an idiotic, irritating vamp, but hey. And Hugh had a point. Despite my ‘blackmailing’ text, Malik might still go all Lone Ranger on me, but he wouldn’t ignore an official request from the police. And this was about the victims. I nodded. ‘Sure. Whatever works.’

‘Good.’ Hugh said, giving my shoulder a satisfied pat. ‘This is why I wanted you here, Genny. I hoped that with a closer look, your sensitive nose might pick up a recognisable scent. Which it seems it has. Admittedly, it was a bit of a long shot, but with three victims’ lives at risk . . .’ His mouth split in a smile, pink granite teeth gleaming. ‘No stone unturned is always a good motto.’