Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

Look around, love, Mad Max whispered. Find the beacon. And remember, keep schtum, you can’t interact with the spell until I give the word. I looked . But other than the usual patches of wild untamed magic there was nothing to see.

‘There’s nothing—’

A high krick krick noise filled the corridor and the eagle – the changeling – swooped in. It opened its beak and vomited a ribbon of green magic, as it had in Trafalgar Square. The ribbon twisted, morphing into a verdant green serpent that hung suspended in the air.

The beacon!

The eagle dived to land a few feet in front of the group. As the bird’s feet touched the ground it shimmered into a pale-skinned woman, her dark hair piled atop her head, dressed in a floor-length Roman tunic. Her pupils were hard black ovals, her irises the same blood-red as molten sulphur, similar in all but colour to any other sidhe changeling’s eyes, or mine.

Shock winged through me – not at her eyes, I’d expected them – but that I recognised her, not even needing the black ink marking her bare arms or the tiny black crescent kissing the corner of her lush mouth to confirm her identity.

The changeling was the Empress from the tarot cards, and Bastien’s mother from Malik’s dream/memory of the harem— Malik’s wife?

Only she couldn’t be. Changelings only lived a mortal lifespan once they left the Fair Lands. The only way a mortal could live longer was through dealing with demons . . . or being blood-bonded to a vamp . Then they lived and died on the vamp’s ticket. The Empress was blood-bonded to the Emperor. Hard on that shock was what the hell would Malik think that his wife was blood-bound to another vamp, and the Emperor at that; the vamp who’d sicced the revenant curse on him. Except Malik knew the Emperor, so he had to know who and what the Empress was, didn’t he? Unless he’d thought her dead all this time? No way could I imagine Malik knowing his wife was alive and not going after her. Whether he loved her or not . . .

Not that it mattered who Malik loved.

What mattered was rescuing the victims she’d kidnapped.

The Empress smiled pleasantly at the group, all of whom stared back as if stunned, then she lifted her arms outwards as if she were entreating the heavens. The black ink marking her skin slithered into hard-edged glyphs that shot like Cupid’s arrows into the walls, throwing a Veil over the corridor. More glyphs shot out and struck the suspended snake. As they hit, the space behind her split open like the wide yawning maw of a swamp-dragon. The portal. Beyond the portal was a shadowed stone tunnel lit by flickering fire torches.

Seven dark shapes loped along the tunnel and leaped through the portal into the zoo corridor— wolves. As they hit the ground the first three wolves morphed into the three black-haired, olive-skinned centurions who’d taken Finn. In the seconds it took for them to shift, the other four wolves had circled the two bodyguards, each snagged the tail of the wolf in front and were now racing round them like they were playing the wolf equivalent of ring-a-ring o’ roses. It had to be how they’d stopped the bodyguards from protecting or even knowing what happened to their charges; but whatever magic it was, I couldn’t see it.

Nets appeared in the hands of the three centurions as they quickly spread out and advanced on Mrs Jangali. She called something that sounded like an order to her son, who crouched down on the windowsill. Then she snarled and crumpled to the ground, her sari disappearing as she shifted into an orange and black tiger indistinguishable from the zoo’s tigers behind the glass. She lunged at the nearest centurion. He dodged out of her way, leaping and rolling in an acrobatic-type move, but not before her claws raked across his chest sending an arc of blood droplets through the air to stain the bodyguard’s green kurta. As the tiger landed and whirled, tail whipping out, the other two centurions flung out their nets and trapped her. Stun magic sparked green, and she dropped like she’d been shot. The two centurions efficiently scooped up the netted tiger as if she were nothing more than a skinned rug, and raced away with her into the portal.

As the third centurion rolled to his feet and sped after the others, the small boy growled and jumped off the windowsill, chasing after them. His action snapped Jonathan, the zoo employee, out of his frozen shock and he grabbed the boy round the waist, only to find he’d seized a wriggling tiger cub. The cub turned on Jonathan and the two fell in a tangled heap of snarls and surprised yells almost at the feet of the Empress.

She shouted a sharp command and the centurion in the portal ran back, threw his net over the struggling pair, then heaved them both up and carried them into the portal. The four wolves circling the bodyguards broke away and loped after him. The Empress gave another pleasant, satisfied smile then gracefully brought her arms down and together in a sweeping motion. The green snake shuddered, ejecting the glyphs as it plunged down to wrap around her throat. She turned and strolled into the portal, the rest of the glyphs springing from the walls and zooming after her as if she were a magical Pied Piper.

Now, Cousin! Mad Max shouted, jerking me into action.

I reached out and called the magic.

The snake and the glyphs flew to me, alighting like insubstantial sparrows on my hands and arms, the birds’ tiny talons piercing my flesh with the sharp, hot pain of a vamp’s fangs—

And I found myself staring down at Mad Max’s head, his platinum ponytail dangling over his shoulder, where he was sucking like a blood-starved vamp on my wrist.

My magically ink-stained wrist. The glyphs were writhing over my skin like a fading memory. For a moment I understood what every single glyph meant, as if the knowledge had rushed up into me like a hot spring from deep within the earth. I knew how they’d been drawn. What they would do. I blinked, amazed and full of wonder.

Reverse the magic, Viviane urged.

Almost in a trance I took Mad Max’s ponytail and pulled him from my wrist then swept my foot behind his legs and watched in glee as he sprawled on his arse. He collapsed on to his back, eyes glazed, giggling like he was sloshed, and absently I wondered just how much of my blood he’d drunk. I plucked the black ribbon from his hair. It morphed into a twisting obsidian snake. I flung it out, lifted my arms and cast the glyphs after it. They speared the suspended snake and, as it had for the Empress, the air beneath it split, the portal yawning open on to the torch-lit stone corridor.

Run, quick, before it closes, Viviane yelled.

I ran. And jumped through the portal.

I landed, not in the torchlit stone corridor as I’d expected but in a large open area of sun-browned grass, floodlit by halogen lights on metal pylons. Inside a glyph-etched silver and copper chain circle, which rose over me in a shimmer of red in my sight . The Portal spell was a trap. But then I’d always known that.

I tightened my hold on my ring. I had a weapon. I had a See-Me-Not, along with Locators – magical and more mundane albeit high-tech electronic ones – and Transportation beacons woven into the long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans Mary had given me to wear. And the plan was for me to sit tight, find out everything I could and, if necessary, stall until the cavalry followed me through the portal. The now non-existent portal. Still Hugh and the witches had monitored the spell, and they had Mad Max and another pint of my blood. With luck they’d be along soon.

I scanned my surroundings. Nearby, the tall minaret of London’s Central Mosque cut into the twilit sky. It told me I was in the middle of Regent’s Park, at the Carnival Fantastique, in the large area left empty for the shows and formal ceremonies. It was the Summer Solstice, the closing night of the Carnival, and a Party in the Park was scheduled with a concert that was a who’s who of British pop, with the ubiquitous celebratory fireworks to end the night. I was about five feet away from the covered stage rising in front of me, prime position if this had been the pop concert. Only, either the party had finished or a lot of folk nearby were unknowingly experiencing an expertly crafted illusion, since no music show bore any resemblance to the stage’s occupants.