Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

Mary twisted to face me. ‘We’re going to head— Cripes, Genny, what happened to you? You look like warmed-up death.’

‘Took a Hot. D this morning.’ I cut a squinty look at the sunshine. ‘Got an early rebound.’

‘Those things are barely legal.’ She gave me her cop face then wrinkled her nose. ‘You’ve been sick?’

I nodded, then wished I hadn’t as a wave of dizziness swept over me and my stomach rebelled.

Her mouth pinched with worry. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

Unsaid was: we were in the middle of a scrying. Stopping now would mean losing the trail. But before I could say I’d survive, Dessa dived into the driver’s seat clutching a bag of fast food.

My stomach heaved again at the greasy smell and I clapped a hand over my mouth, missing what Mary said next.

‘Here, Genny, have this.’ A hand shoved a small lavender-coloured envelope under my nose with a picture of a serene-looking woman on the front. The spiel underneath said ~ Revive the Perfect You! A Reviver, or a Cinderella as they’re known in the trade. Cinderella spells were expensive.

‘It’s legit,’ Dessa added as I hesitated. ‘Not like the Power Nap patch. Present from my mum. I’ve been keeping it in case I ever land myself a hot date.’ Her face scrunched up in a wry look. ‘I’ve got a toddler, a job and no time. I need to be prepared and I need all the help I can get. Only downside is a headache the next day.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the envelope; another postponed headache had to be better than hours of vomiting. ‘I’ll get you another.’ I pulled out the pale lavender patch – it smelled of lavender too – peeled off the backing and stuck it, as per instructions, on the back of my neck. For a second nothing happened, then it felt as if I’d been cocooned in cool silk for about five minutes. As the feeling dissipated, I felt like I’d just had a week’s relaxing spa holiday; my worries and fears were surmountable, and no matter what life, or a sadistic vamp, threw at me next, I could handle it.

‘Wow!’ Mary said. ‘I didn’t know those things were that good. You look a million quid, Genny.’

‘I feel it too.’ I grinned, eyeing my healthy-looking, perfectly understated made-up face in the rearview mirror and smoothing my hand over my glossy hair. My clothes all looked and felt like stylish, high-end stuff, instead of the chain store basics they actually were.

‘Seriously, girlfriend,’ Dessa said, shaking her cornrowed head in admiration, ‘that Cinderella’s the business. If I wasn’t straight, I’d be panting right now.’

I reached out and squeezed her shoulder, grateful. ‘Thanks, Dessa. I needed this.’ I turned to Mary. ‘Before we get back to scrying I’ve got a question about werewolves.’ Or about Fur Jacket Girl in particular. If she really was the young girl, Dilek, in Malik’s memory – his daughter? – who’d been changed into a werewolf, she had to be nearly as old as Malik. ‘Do you know how long they live?’

Mary frowned. ‘Interesting question. Don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re asking?’

‘I will, but later, okay?’ I said, deliberately not looking at Dessa.

Mary got the message. ‘Okay. Well, the archives say that if therianthropes get the Death Bite, then they live a normal human lifespan. If they’re Born therianthrope or Changed by Ritual, then they can live hundreds of years, though I don’t know why exactly. Something about them being both animal and human, which all shifters are.’ She shrugged. ‘So that doesn’t really make any sense. But I’ve only read the first section. There’re pages more.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. So it was possible for Fur Jacket Girl to be half-a-millenia old. Which meant she was more than likely Bastien’s sister and Malik’s daughter. She was also one of the Emperor’s werewolves. I hadn’t a clue how that all fitted together. Or even how I felt about it.

‘Right, ladies.’ Mary held up her scrying pendant. ‘Time to get back to work. See if we can’t find this missing Irish wolfhound.’

Half an hour later we were still driving around searching for another hit. Then, as we passed the fifteen-foot bronze of Freddie Mercury rocking it outside the Dominion Theatre, my phone rang. Unknown number.

‘You need to come to the Carnival at Regent’s Park.’ The voice was muffled, as if the person was trying to disguise it. ‘Your dog is here.’

Pulse speeding, I pressed speakerphone and tapped Mary’s shoulder. ‘My dog is at the Carnival?’

‘Yes. The Irish wolfhound. He’s here.’

Mary made ‘keep talking’ motions with her hands. I nodded and said, ‘The Carnival’s a big place. Where exactly is he? And who are—’

The phone went dead.

‘Hung up,’ I told Mary, disappointed not to have more info. ‘Still, at least it’s a lead.’

‘It’s a trap,’ she said briskly.

‘Then why not tell me exactly where to go?’

‘So you can’t tell the police, of course. And once you’re in among the crowds, it’s easier to snatch you and make you disappear.’

‘Nice,’ I muttered. ‘But we’re still going to follow it up, aren’t we?’

She gave me her cop face. ‘The police are, yes. You are not. Now let me have your phone so I can see if I can get a trace on that call.’ She held her hand out. I handed the phone over with a scowl, determined Mary wasn’t going to leave me to sit this one out while she and her witches in blue went looking for Mad Max. By the time Dessa pulled into the temporary Carnival car park opposite Regent’s Park Mosque, I’d managed to convince Mary to let me tag along.

‘But only if you remember you’re a civilian, Genny,’ she said firmly. ‘No running off on your own again, especially not after what just happened in Trafalgar Square. You’re their intended target and I’m not losing you. I’m bending the rules as it is letting you join the search, so either you agree to stick with me or I’ll take you into police custody for your own safety and lock you in the car until we’re finished.’

Looking into Mary’s implacable face, I saluted smartly. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

‘Okay,’ Mary said, ‘let’s get organised, shall we?’

I nodded then realised Mary’s question was rhetorical, as she went into full Detective Sergeant mode. She and Dessa scryed again for Mad Max – using a visitor’s map of the Carnival this time – and came up with a possible hit in the north section nearest the zoo. It should have made Mad Max an easy find, if the north wasn’t the section with over a hundred of the smaller shows, all crammed together in what was meant to give visitors ‘a surprise around every corner’. The surprise for us would be finding Mad Max at all, as the search was going to be like looking for a tick on a dog’s back.

Mary snagged some extra manpower from the nearby investigation at the zoo, and within half an hour the section was divided up and five separate search parties, each consisting of three WPCs and a troll – I got to tag along with Mary, Dessa, another WPC and Constable Taegrin: ‘safety in numbers’ as Mary said – headed out.

The Carnival Fantastique has always been a place for Others to make a living, either by exploiting their own, or another’s, rarity. And the north section of the carnival was the area reserved for the less usual acts. So the place wasn’t only crammed with shows but was also chock-full of visitors, the majority human, but with a smattering of fae, faelings and Other folk, all eager to catch sight of something, or someone, different.

Finally Mary’s scrying crystal flashed faster as we turned into a short, dead-end lane with only four stalls, all of which had seen better days, and a corresponding scarcity of visitors: two women at a spell and potions stall looking at a marble pestle and mortar; a burly man buying a phoenix burger (in a fireproof bun) from a fast food bar manned by a chipped concrete troll; no one at the Ring-a-Rat, which wasn’t a surprise considering the weird-looking, two-headed rodents scuttling around the stall’s circular track; and at a herbalist’s barrow near the willow wall making up the end, a young couple who were more interested in each other than any herbs, judging by the way they were lip-locked together.