Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘If Malik’s the one in charge,’ I ground out, ‘then he doesn’t want me to know, otherwise he would’ve told me. So why are you enlightening me?’

He licked his lips. ‘The pleasure of knowing you know.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Not entirely. I do derive pleasure knowing this causes you emotional pain, princess. Not as much as I wish; I much prefer to cause physical suffering.’ He plucked a dagger from Malik’s— no, the figure’s left thigh, held it up so the sunshine hit it. The blood glistening on the blade bubbled, and smoke spiralled. He plunged the knife down into the figure’s stomach. The figure made a strangled noise as if stifling a scream. I stopped breathing for a moment. Illusion, nothing more. Wasn’t it? Bastien met my eyes. His were flat and hard, all signs of insanity gone. ‘You are here, bean sidhe, because when the time comes for you to choose, I want to ensure that you know what your choices are.’

Now we were getting to it. ‘What do I have to choose?’

‘Not what, but who. You think Malik al-Khan is your dark knight, your protector. I am here to tell you, he has taken on those mantles for our sake, his and mine, not yours.’

‘Seriously, if this is meant to make me save you and Malik from whatever you’ve got going on with the Emperor, trying to turn me against him is going the wrong way about it.’

‘It is not Malik who will need saving from the Emperor, it is I, my lovely bride. I have already tried to tell you this.’

I clenched my ring. ‘Well, listen up, buddy, I’m happy to kill you now, and save the Emperor the trouble.’

‘But you will not.’

I released Ascalon and bared my teeth in a smile. ‘Bet you can’t give me a good reason not to.’

‘If you kill me, princess,’ Bastien said, ‘you will have lost that which the Emperor wants from you in return for information about releasing the fae’s trapped fertility.’

It was a fucking good reason. It was also a fucking cryptic reason. And it threw up a whole slew of questions. I went for the most pertinent. ‘How do you know what I want from the Emperor?’

‘You told my loyal shadow, did you not?’

A question for an answer. Which meant Malik almost certainly hadn’t told him. ‘How do I know you’re not spinning me a line?’

Glee wreathed his face. ‘I believe you will have to trust me, my lovely sidhe. To that end you will find that I have sent an extremely useful gift to the àrd-cheann . A cybernetic Trojan Horse, if you will, to help you both in your quest.’

What the hell did that mean, other than— ‘You know there’s a saying about not trusting Greeks bearing gifts, don’t you?’

‘Ah. Luckily I am not Greek, but Ottoman.’

Right. And that was supposed to make me trust him? Still, he was right, I couldn’t risk killing him. Not yet. I clenched my hand round Ascalon, and as if it felt my frustration, the sword slowly shrank back until it was a chunky emerald ring on my finger again.

Bastien smiled smugly.

Goaded, I snapped, ‘You know Malik wants you dead.’

Bastien shrugged dismissively. ‘He will not act on it.’

I snorted. Malik had already acted on it; he’d made a deal with Tavish for help to do the deed. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that.’

‘My life is worth more to him than any other, even his own, my princess. It always has been.’

He said it with such confidence that I had to ask, ‘Why?’

‘Because I have long been that part of him that he cares for above all else.’

Again with the cryptic. Irritated, I jumped in with the question I’d avoided before. ‘You mean because you’re his son?’ My voice rose slightly as my doubt, or hope, that he’d deny it crept into my words.

‘A question you can ask him when you next see him,’ he replied, not even blinking. ‘When you do, I want you to give him a message.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘Why can’t you give it to him?’

‘Malik is not currently taking my calls.’ Impatience crossed his face. ‘And I can no longer reach his mind. There is . . . something preventing me. It may be Malik himself. I do not know. Tell him that too.’

Unease pricked me. Why wasn’t Malik talking to him? Bastien had said Malik was safe from the Emperor, hadn’t he? No, he’d only said that he, Bastien, would need saving . . . ‘What makes you think I’ll see him?’

‘Why, my faithful hound will lead you to his side, my bride. How else will you save me?’

Mad Max would take me to Malik? To save Bastien? Surprise and suspicion washed through me.

‘When he does,’ Bastien continued, ‘tell my shadow these words exactly: I have honoured the agreement between us. I will not harm the bean sidhe, but due to your incessant vacillating, I have made the choice for you.’

Ice trickled down my spine. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘You have heard the message you have inspired, sidhe. It informs all of my decision, now make sure you deliver.’ He reached down to yank the dagger from the figure’s stomach at our feet and lifted it in a salute. ‘Until anon, princess,’ he said, and vanished.

Crap. He’d disappeared too quickly for it just to be vamp speed, so it had to be an illusion. Which meant he was still here. And I had one more question.

‘Come back here, Bastien,’ I shouted. ‘Now. I haven’t finished with you!’

He reappeared, his expression a mix of curiosity and calculation. ‘My, you have changed from that timid little mouse, princess.’ He raised a brow, and again I saw a resemblance to Malik in his face. I shoved the disturbing image away and said, ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant and restore it back to them as it was before it was taken.’

‘Well, well, would that I could, my princess, it would be a wonderful moment, would it not, if I had something you wanted?’ He threw his head back and laughed, and my heart sank. My growing suspicion was wrong. Fuck. I’d been sure he was in league with the tarot cards, sure he was somehow the ‘Emperor’, and knew the answer.

His laughter cut out and he pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘That mad bitch who is your mother is the one you should be asking, not I.’

Yeah, well, if my fruitcake of a mother ever put in an appearance, I would. Until then, I was being led around the nose by a set of crotchety tarot cards—

Bastien vanished again.

Fuck. I had to catch him. He might not know the answer, but he knew more than he’d told me. I rushed for the exit—

A hand grabbed my ankle.

And I faceplanted into straw-like grass, suddenly realising as I did that the cambion’s illusions were gone. The tent was back. Empty of anything other than a large black cauldron, a small table and the huge four-poster bed. I jerked round to look at the figure lying on the floor, my leg captured in its iron grip, hoping it was no longer a skinned, dried-up body.

A male – small, naked, with a purple tinge to his wrinkled black skin and a pair of short, scaly red horns sticking out of his forehead – was clutching his stomach with his other hand, blackish-red blood bubbling through his fingers every time he sucked in air.

‘It’s not supposed to go like this,’ he whispered.

Crap. Had to be the cambion. And he was injured.

‘Let me go,’ I muttered, tugging my foot. ‘I’ll get someone.’

He did, but not before gasping out, ‘Dog. Under the bed. Hurt too.’

Mad Max!

I went for help.

Outside I found Hugh and five other trolls gearing up for my rescue with saline magic extinguishers (similar to a standard fire extinguisher but painted blue with a silver band). There was no sign of Mary, Dessa, or strangely any other witches, or any of the other tents’ occupants. There were, however, a couple of medic teams from HOPE with their usual mix of mundane and magical fixes. I shouted out the Wishing Web was down, that the cambion and Mad Max were injured, and that the Autarch was hidden inside. Hugh and his constables disappeared into the tent, quickly followed by the medics.