Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

‘Sorry, Genny, but Finn’s coin isn’t going to help,’ Hugh said, then filled me in.

The police had already tried to gain entrance to the Forum auction using the coins. Mary (as the police’s main undercover girl due to her ability to mind-speak with her mother over any distance and so relay info back) had gone along with the Bangladeshi ambassador (who’d refused to let anyone else use his coin). But as soon as the pair had crossed into the Carnival Fantastique (the ambassador had been told the Forum Mirabilis was at its ‘heart’, wherever that was), the ambassador had vanished, as had Mad Max’s coin, leaving Mary and the police backup team with nothing.

‘So we think the coins contain some sort of dormant Translocation spell,’ Hugh finished, ‘but it only activates if the corresponding lot they’d been given in payment for is actually in the Forum. So now you’re back I’d like to put your cousin Maxim’s plan into action. If you think you’re okay to?’

‘Just try and stop me!’

Ten minutes later I reached the park entrance. The gnome’s house opposite was sporting crime-scene tape. I jumped into the police van waiting for me and Constable Taegrin told me that the cambion had confessed to buying (unlicensed) dried garden fairy and various other illegal aphrodisiacs from the horrid little gnome. The cambion was under arrest but, annoyingly, the gnome had slipped the police net, obviously by disappearing into Between .

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if there’s any justice a swampie or one of the other nasties in there will eat him.’

‘A fitting end, Genny,’ Taegrin agreed with a grin, giving me a glimpse of shiny gold teeth, ‘but the boss would rather we had him in custody. He was going nuts with you missing. We were all worried, so glad you’re okay.’

‘So am I,’ I said. ‘So we’re back to the zoo again?’

‘Yes. Back to see the tigers.’

I gave a quiet huff. Gold Cat was gonna love them.

I was right. Gold Cat’s hackles went up the minute I’d entered the covered corridor of the tiger exhibit, and she’d circled restlessly around Viviane until Viv poked Gold Cat with her parasol. Gold Cat then slunk off behind the curtain of willows on the canal bank and I hadn’t seen her since. Not that her disappearing had made the zoo’s tigers happy. Through the corridor’s U-shaped viewing windows I could still see them crouched low to the ground, ears flat, their own hackles raised, eyeing me like I was an interloper in their territory and they weren’t sure whether to attack or run away.

Much like the two males before me.

I narrowed my gaze at Mad Max. His long platinum ponytail was tied at his nape with black ribbon, and his diamond dog-tags glinted in the V of his unbuttoned-to-the-waist black silk shirt, which was tucked into black satin dress trousers. He looked like a naff Legolas crossed with an eighties Medallion Man. ‘Look, Maxim,’ I said, tapping my boot on the blue plastic of my portable circle which I’d laid out in the centre of the corridor. ‘Stop being a wimp and get in the circle.’

Mad Max shot me a fang-filled grin and drawled, ‘Sorry, love, no can do. Not till the old kelpie here says you’re not going to chew my face off.’

‘I’ve told you I won’t,’ I snapped. ‘I gave you my word.’

‘Aye, doll, but you’re nae the one in control,’ Tavish said, the beads on his dreads flashing from black to warning amber and back again, as they had since he’d first clapped eyes on me and seen not only my own golden soul but the red glow of Viviane’s too. Damn kelpie. If he’d keep his eyes on everyone’s shells instead of their souls, this would be so much easier. So far, for whatever reason, he’d missed Gold Cat. And no way was I planning on mentioning her after his kneejerk reaction to Viviane.

I threw my hands in the air and looked appealingly at Hugh. ‘Can’t you do something?’

Hugh shook his head silently. He’d bowed to Tavish’s greater experience about my so-called possession, though he didn’t look too happy about it; his ruddy face was creased with concerned crevices, and anxious red dust sprinkled his straight-up black hair and the broad shoulders of his pressed white shirt. Neither did Mary, standing to attention next to Hugh, her face watchful, her police-issue stun baton extended ready at her side. Backing them up were Dessa, Constable Taegrin, Lamber and the rest of the WPCs and trolls from the Met’s Magic and Murder Squad. If sheer numbers counted in rescuing the kidnap victims, they’d be safe already. As they weren’t, we were putting Mad Max’s ‘trap’ plan into action.

Once Mad Max had popped out of his doggy shape he’d told Hugh the details of the ‘trap’ to get me into the Forum. He was to send me through a replica of the Portal spell the Emperor’s werewolves had used to kidnap the victims from here at the zoo. Hugh was hoping that once the replica portal was open all his girls and boys in blue would follow me through but, in case that part of the plan didn’t pan out, Mary and the witches were aiming to recast the replica Portal spell once they’d seen it. The preparations had been going swimmingly right up till Tavish appeared and declared me possessed by Viviane.

I gritted my teeth, turned back to Tavish. ‘I’m the one in control, not Viviane.’

His lacy gills snapped shut against his throat. ‘Aye, well she’ll be letting you think that, but with Viviane in occupation, you cannae be.’

And whose fault it that? I wanted to yell at him. Yours! You should’ve said I was only supposed to give the tarot cards my blood once instead of taking off in a kelpie hissy fit . Instead, I stuck my hands on my hips. ‘Time’s running out. Max, you need to get in the circle and, Tavish, I want those cards. Now.’

In answer Tavish crouched, called a flick-knife, sliced his finger and flung blood on to the circle marked on my blue plastic. The circle rose, sealing me in, its dome rippling turquoise like the Caribbean Sea in a stiff wind. Tavish straightened, threw his arms wide and started muttering. His eyes swirled the same turquoise colour, and power beaded like water on the green-black skin of his bare chest, trickling down to be soaked up by his black silk harem pants.

The frown on Hugh’s face deepened. ‘What are you doing, àrd-cheann ?’

Trying to exorcise me, Viviane said cheerfully. You should tell him that only works when the spirit is in full possession. Something only a demon can truly achieve for more than a few hours.

‘I’m not interested in telling him anything he already knows,’ I muttered, slicing my index finger on my own knife, then jabbing my bloody finger at the watery dome. It popped, as I expected, like a kid’s balloon, thanks to the safety feature I’d built into it. And even as I glimpsed shock on Tavish’s face, I called the Stun spell from Mary’s baton and flicked it towards him. He jerked at the last minute and it glanced off his shoulder. It was still enough to take him to the floor in a flash of green lightning and a burst of burned mint.

‘Maxim Fyodor Zakharin,’ I shouted. ‘You are tasked to put my needs above all others, including yourself. I need you to get in this circle now.’

Mad Max’s jaw dropped as his legs moved of their own accord and marched him into the circle. As soon as he was in, I bent and touched my blood to the circle. This time the dome rose up with a shimmer of reddish-gold. I gave Tavish a suck-on-that smile.

Mad Max shook as if shedding water. ‘It seems it is truly you, Cousin.’ He sketched a bow. ‘As I am apparently at your command.’

Well, that pretty much confirmed my other suspicion. The text Malik had sent telling me I was dumped, and that I should talk to Mad Max if I needed anything, hadn’t come from Malik. But psycho Bastien. Malik hadn’t dumped me, though he had still cut me out of the loop when he’d ‘sent’ me home from the boating lake island, so we still had stuff to sort out. But hell, if the psycho prick was using Malik’s phone, it meant the beautiful vamp was in trouble.