Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

How did Mad Max know they were coming if he didn’t know who they were? Were they the same ‘they’ that the tarot cards warned me were coming? The Emperor’s werewolves? But why would they come for Freya? And why would Mad Max go to Freya and get her to phone me? If they were dangerous, he’d led them straight to her. And why wasn’t Freya at school, where she’d be safe? Where was her mother, Ana? Was Ana even okay? And why the hell wasn’t Freya answering her phone? Why was Mad Max there anyway? Why wasn’t he tucked away in his daytime sleep instead of running round London in his dog shape?

Damn it. I didn’t trust him. Vamps weren’t exactly altruistic to start with but Mad Max took the prize for selfish. He might have ‘helped’ me with his Poultice spell, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t sell me out at the drop of a dog biscuit. Never mind that he was the Autarch’s dog and I could be heading into a trap. Not that it would stop me, not when Freya was involved. And truly, for all Mad Max’s faults, this was Freya, his grandkid, and he was all about protecting her. Which still didn’t mean this wasn’t a trap for me. Just not for her. Gods, I hoped not anyway.

Deciding after the sixth voicemail that I should do something more constructive than going insane with worry, I started phoning for help. Trouble was, the only help I could get wasn’t going to arrive at Trafalgar Square any sooner than I was.

Desperate, I leaned forwards, tapped Mary’s shoulder. ‘How many Stun spells have you got?’

She twisted to look at me, a wary expression on her face. ‘Stun spells are police issue only, Genny.’

I gave her a flat look. ‘My niece is in trouble. Probably from werewolves.’

‘There’re the two of us.’ Mary jerked her head at the driver; a five-foot-nothing witch, with dark cornrowed hair and golden, freckled skin a few shades darker than my own. I’d met her at the Harley Street/Magic Mirror crime scene where she’d introduced herself as Dessa – short for Odessa – and who was manoeuvring the cop car through the traffic with an easy confidence that carried an edge of glee. ‘And there’s another WPC and a troll constable heading there from Old Scotland Yard.’ I hadn’t been the only one phoning. ‘Plus I’ve called in the Peelers.’

Peelers. Non-magical human coppers, so called because of Robert Peel (who started the Met) and the fact they had no juice. ‘Peelers are cannon fodder when it comes to magic.’

‘Trained cannon fodder who can deal with the crowds.’

‘Also cannon fodder,’ I said, fingers digging into the plastic seat backs. ‘How many Stun spells, Mary?’

The siren hooted its wha wha warning as Dessa slowed through a junction. We held our breath as she zipped the car through a narrow gap between a delivery lorry and a souped-up four by four, then we were speeding up again.

Mary held her baton up. The jade mounted in the silver tip winked the bright green of a Stun spell in my sight. ‘The usual one in the baton,’ she said, ‘and one here.’ She tapped the jade pin in her shirt collar.

‘Only two,’ I said, dismayed. ‘Dessa?’

The cornrowed witch sniffed. ‘I’m a plod, so baton only.’

‘Stuns are time- and ingredient-heavy spells to cast , Genny,’ Mary said, frustration making her words harsh. ‘It makes them expensive. And please don’t ask for one, it’s against regs for civilians to have them and if we’re caught, I’m suspended and you’re in jail. The DI won’t be able to stop it.’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ I muttered.

‘If something happens to Freya,’ she carried on, ‘you don’t want to be in jail. We haven’t got time to argue, plus we’ve got your back.’

Crap. She was right. And more than ever, this was one of those times I desperately wanted, no needed, to be the all-powerful magic-wielding sidhe I imagined I would have been if not for whatever the hell was wrong with me.

‘Thanks,’ I said, grateful, but wanting more.

‘Here, take this.’ Dessa dug in her uniform shirt pocket as she overtook a beat-up white van, and held up a clear plastic packet with a pink plaster in it. A nicotine patch.

I blinked. ‘I want to knock them out, not stop them smoking.’

‘Sh—ugar! Wrong one!’ She fished again, held up another plastic packet. This one contained a blue patch and the label read: ‘Power Nap Patch ~ Restore your Get Up and Go.’

Was she mad? ‘Um, seriously, Dessa.’ I met her brown eyes in the rearview mirror. ‘If there’re bad guys threatening my niece, I want them out, not hyped up on caffeine.’

‘Trust me. This’ll knock anyone out in three seconds flat.’ She flipped it in the air. I caught it. ‘It’s got chamomile, valerian, and synthetic morphine. The caffeine only kicks in after forty mins; it’s slow release.’

The baggie had the slippery feel of spell plastic – it would vanish as the spell was activated – and a peelable ‘sticky’ to attach it to my palm until I was ready to tag someone. Neat. I almost dropped it as Dessa added, ‘Oh, and it’s got a touch of aconite.’

‘Aconite’s poisonous!’ Mary exclaimed.

‘So’s that patch if you eat it,’ Dessa warned. ‘But slap it on a “collar” and it drops them straight into happy snooze land.’ As she wove through the busy traffic, she explained how she’d confiscated the Power Nap Patches from a hoodoo witch with a stall in the black part of Covent Garden market. The witch had been doing a brisk trade as she’d neglected to stamp the patches with the traditional poison mark: the black skull and crossbones in a circle. Apparently there were no ill effects so long as the patches weren’t eaten or used more than once a week; something else the hoodoo witch hadn’t told her customers. And they were cheap, or at least cheaper than Stuns, to make.

‘You and I are going to have a serious chat, constable,’ Mary said firmly, once Dessa finished.

Dessa’s mouth turned down. ‘Yes, sarge.’

‘Sounds like it might be a useful spell,’ I said neutrally as I peeled the covering off the sticky and stuck the baggie to my palm. ‘Maybe it could be licensed . . .’ I looked up – we were driving through Piccadilly Circus – and met Dessa’s gaze in the rearview. I winked. She half-smiled back. I’d try to make sure Mary didn’t give her too much grief for the spell.

A minute later we turned into Haymarket. Straight on, then left into Pall Mall, and we’re there. I rolled my shoulders, releasing the tension there. C’mon, c’mon, not far now. Only the traffic in front of us slowed. ‘There’s some hold-up ahead.’ Dessa craned her neck as the car slid to a halt behind a black cab. ‘Looks like a breakdown.’ She moved to give the siren a burst.

I touched her arm. ‘No. We’re too close; the wrong people might hear it.’

‘Your call. But we won’t get past all this without it.’

Crap. Dessa, with her flashing lights and siren, had got us this far in what had to be the longest fifteen minutes of my life. But Trafalgar Square was still half a mile away. I ran at least ten times that every morning; when I wasn’t hauled out to a crime scene. ‘I’ll run,’ I said, opening the car door. ‘You two catch up as soon as.’ I jumped out into the middle of the road, slammed the door, and started sprinting up the queue of stalled traffic; so much easier than trying to dodge the pedestrian jungle. Under the background noise of cars, buses and people, I heard Mary shouting something, then another door slammed and her pounding feet echoed mine.

What felt like an aeon later, but was probably no more than two or three minutes, I slammed to a halt at the top of the stairs leading down from the north terrace of Trafalgar Square. I caught my breath, scanning the square. It wasn’t as crowded as I’d expected. But as always there were folk lounging on the rims of the fountains, some dangling their feet in the water. There was a queue for ice creams at the café. A crowd of tourists were taking photos of the pixies playing on the huge bonze lions . . . Automatically, I clocked their numbers: eight pixies, seven up from yesterday, and the lions were sparkling with pixie dust— a problem for another day . . . And another, smaller tourist group watched over by one of the square’s heritage wardens, were snapping pictures of the hawk used to keep the pigeons from the square; the bird was perched on the black and gold railing caging Nelson’s Column, and was eyeing the crowd with an imperious tilt to its head.