Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘Ha ha, Hugh.’ I rolled my eyes at him. ‘But glad I could help, even if it’s not much. Though my “sensitive nose” disappeared yesterday. I’m not sure why it picked up the blood smell so strongly.’

‘Smells associated with traumatic and/or important events often bring strong memories or flashbacks. Which seems to be the case here, albeit second-hand.’ Anxious red dust puffed from Hugh’s headridge. ‘But there’s something else that worries me in all this. These tarot cards. For a question dealing with the fae, they seem very focused on getting you involved with the vampires. Are you sure the cards haven’t been tampered with?’

I raked a hand through my hair. ‘It’s crossed my mind. But Tavish assures me it’s not possible. And I trust him.’

‘Tavish is the àrd-cheann , and as such he is the one fae, other than yourself, who has regular dealings with the vampires.’

Right. Tavish’s dealings were with Malik. And I trusted Malik too. Only for the last few months he’d been under the sway of the Autarch, thanks to that icky Jellyfish spell. The only way I’d trust Bastien was if he was a pile of ash, even then not so much.

‘I’m not saying there is a problem with the cards,’ Hugh continued, ‘but . . .’

‘Be on my guard,’ I finished for him.

‘Yes,’ Hugh agreed. ‘Now, I’d like you to tell Mary about your vision. The event is obviously magical and distinct enough that she may know something that can help, either you or the kidnap victims.’

‘No stone unturned?’

‘Exactly.’

I laughed, deactivated the Privacy spell and Hugh explained what he wanted to Mary.

Mary looked intrigued. ‘You had a vision? Was that why you fainted?’

‘I don’t faint,’ I grumbled.

She grinned, getting out her notebook. ‘Fell over, then. Or tripped.’ She scratched a note, muttering, ‘Ms Taylor did not faint but tripped, and this enabled her to experience a vision.’ She looked up and gave me a beatific smile.

I stuck my tongue out.

‘Ladies, please.’ Hugh’s long-suffering sigh was belied by the amused glint in his eyes. We laughed, Mary took notes about the dead man in the snow and the young girl in collar and chain inside the circle, while I drew what I could remember of the glyphs.

Mary gave me a quizzical look. ‘You know I said Mum was looking into therianthropes in the witch archives? This was the ritual. I can ask her to compare the glyphs to check’ – she looked at Hugh – ‘if that’s okay with you, sir?’

‘It is,’ Hugh said. And as Mary took photos and emailed them, Hugh handily asked the question I wanted to. ‘Why was your mother looking at this particular ritual?’

‘There was an unauthorised user alarm on the private archives.’

I stiffened. I had a horrible feeling I knew who the ‘unauthorised user’ was— Katie: when she’d done her own werewolf research.

‘Mum was tracking what they’d been looking at,’ Mary carried on, ‘in case it was anything dangerous. There’s some pretty ancient spells in there. This is one of them.’ She cut me a look. ‘It’s part of that weretiger story I told you about.’

‘What weretiger story?’ Hugh asked, and Mary filled him in.

‘Um. When exactly did the unauthorised user access the archives?’ My question got me piercing stares from Hugh and Mary. I tried not to look guilty on Katie’s behalf, and no doubt failed.

‘The night of the “Harry Potter” spell in Leicester Square,’ Mary said, her cop gaze pinning me where I sat.

Damn. It had to be Katie. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘before you start interrogating me, if the ritual I saw of the girl in my “vision” chained up in the ash circle is the same one that was being looked at in the archives, what’s it for?’ I asked the question, though really I knew; I just wanted to be sure.

Mary pursed her lips, debating, then blew out a breath. ‘Okay, but if it’s needed for prosecuting someone, you’ll have to get a warrant to ask the Witches’ Council for permission to view it.’

Hugh gave a slightly insulted rumble. ‘Of course,’ I said, patting him consolingly on the arm; the witches were always a bit close-mouthed about their secrets.

Mary lowered her voice. ‘It’s a ritual for changing a human into a therianthrope.’

I stopped myself from pumping my arm and shouting, ‘Yes!’

‘I take it this isn’t the same ritual that’s in the police manual?’ Hugh’s deep voice rose in question.

‘No,’ Mary agreed. ‘It’s nothing like the Death Bite one. This one has some seriously revolting stuff.’ She shuddered. ‘Well, like your vision, Genny. The human has to be a virgin, and the whole ritual is barbaric. That last weretiger killed in China? There’s a note in the archives saying they think he was the last pure blood-born weretiger, and the reason he mauled all those young girls was because he was trying to replicate the ritual, to make himself a mate.’

Which all tracked with Malik’s memory. Young Fur Jacket Girl had called the dead male her mate. And she’d evidently been a virgin.

A pensive frown lined Hugh’s forehead. ‘Werewolves have no more magical ability than a non-magical human, other than their inherent shapeshifting, so there’s still the strange lack of magic at the kidnapping to be explained.’

‘Which I still maintain looks like when you clean up after the pixies,’ Mary said.

‘But the àrd-cheann is adamant that there is no possibility of there being another sidhe fae in London.’ Hugh looked at me. ‘How confident do you think he is about that, Genny?’

‘I think Tavish is pretty sure—’

My phone rang.

‘Aunty?’ A girl’s high-pitched voice.

My mind did a fast turnabout from werewolves and sidhe to my faeling niece, Freya, and the fact she was calling me in the middle of a school day. Had Ana, her mum, gone into labour?

‘What’s the matter, Freya? Is it your mum? Is the baby coming?’

‘You have to get here quick,’ she shouted. ‘Granddad says they’re coming.’

They’re coming! I clutched the phone, stuffing my instant panic away. Not Ana, then. ‘Where’s here,’ I said, forcing calmness into my voice, ‘and who are they?’

‘Home, and I don’t knoooow!’ It was a scared, frustrated whine. ‘He can’t frogging tell me. He just shook me by the scruff and ordered me to phone you.’

Home for Freya was Trafalgar Square. Or at least, that’s where the entrance to her home was, through the left fountain. Which was also the watery abode of her great-grandpops, the fossegrim, the fountain’s fae guardian. Though why he’d be ordering Freya to phone me was odd; the old water fae wasn’t exactly compos mentis during the daytime, nor much better at night, not to mention we’d hardly spoken more than a couple of times.

A dog growled in the background; a low urgent warning.

My heart stuttered as I realised Freya didn’t mean the fossegrim, but her other granddad. Her vampire granddad. The one who wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her. Mad Max.

Freya yelped. ‘He wants to know how long, Aunty?’

I looked at Hugh. ‘I need to get to Trafalgar Square. Freya’s in trouble, and Ma—’ Conscious of Freya listening, I stopped myself from saying Mad Max, changing it to, ‘my cousin Maxim is with her. He says they’re coming.’

The same alarm thrumming through my veins etched Hugh’s face, then he went into full DI mode. ‘I’ll get you a car and driver, Genny.’ He lifted his radio. ‘At the zoo entrance. Should be twenty minutes tops from here, with a siren.’

We sped along the morning’s route from the zoo back into the centre of London. I sat hunched in the back of the police car, muscles tense, hitting Freya’s number on my phone and getting shunted direct to voicemail every time, questions whizzing around my head like a flight of manic garden fairies.