Suzanne McLeod - The Bitter Seed of Magic

Instead I fell back on my childhood training and counted: one elephant, two elephants—

His lips drew back and I stared, transfixed, at his sharp canine fangs. His two needle-like venom incisors were still retracted, which was good, wasn’t it? Donating blood was one thing, getting a venom hit at the same time? Well, if that happened I’d be falling a long, long, lo-ooong way off the wagon. And the last thing I’d want to do was struggle.

Five elephants …

Sweat trickled down my spine.

Seven ele …

I wanted desperately to drag my eyes from his fangs, to stop imagining the bliss as they pierced my flesh, the delicate pull of his mouth at my throat spiralling pure, dazzling ecstasy into my body …

Ten …

A tremor shuddered through him. He leaned closer, his dark spice scent eddying round me, his silky hair brushing my cheek. I angled my head, yielding. His lips pressed against the vulnerable spot under my jaw and my pulse jumped eagerly.

Thirteen …

He sighed and the tension slipped away like fast-melting ice, leaving me somehow desolate and bereft. His thumb brushed over his ring on my finger. ‘Why did you use this, Genevieve?’ The words were a bare whisper against my skin.

Really, really not for the reason you’re thinking. I shrugged, an infinitesimal movement of my shoulders. ‘I was getting bored with the entertainment provided by the police.’

Seventeen …

‘You were concerned that your phone call to Sanguine Lifestyles had not reached me?’ he asked softly, an odd, indecipherable note in his voice.

‘Yeah, that too.’

He pulled back, black eyes opaque as he studied me for a long moment. ‘No other reason?’

Like maybe I wanted to lose myself in your power? Feel your body join with mine? Not then. ‘No.’

He released my hand.

I waited until I was sure my knees were going to hold me, then tucked my hands into my jeans pockets, out of temptation’s way. His or mine, I wasn’t sure. Talking with him was one thing; touching him looked like it blew my self-imposed ‘hands off’ policy into orbit. And what the hell had caused me to react like that to a simple kiss? It certainly hadn’t been anything he’d done—at least, I didn’t think so. I moved to lean against the criss-crossed steel-beam wall of the walkway, putting more space between us.

A deep frown lined his brow and he turned to stare out at the Thames. The sun had disappeared below the horizon and a parade of bright lights had sprung up along the river’s banks, reflecting oranges, reds and blues down into the water. I knew the walkway had its own lights, but here in Malik’s dreamscape it remained dark, shadows obscuring both its ends.

‘You have no need to worry, Genevieve,’ he said finally, speaking calmly, as if nothing had happened. ‘Your solicitor is at this moment speaking to a judge to facilitate your release.’

Back to business. I relaxed and took a breath. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Details of your arrest have not been notified to the press,’ he continued. ‘You are apparently helping the police as an outside consultant with the investigation into the faeling found dead this morning.’

Interesting. ‘If they’re covering up the arrest, then why’s it taking so long to spring me?

‘Detective Inspector Helen Crane is insisting that you know more than you are revealing to her. It has caused complications.’

‘Figured she’d use that against me,’ I muttered.

‘Do you know more, Genevieve?’

‘Yep, and I’d be overjoyed to tell her everything—except I can’t.’

‘Can’t, or won’t?’ he asked. Finn wasn’t the only one who caught on quickly.

‘Can’t,’ I said. ‘The info came with a gag clause—a magical one.’

‘I see.’ He turned to me, his usual impassive expression back in place. ‘Perhaps you should tell me all you are able.’

I started talking, beginning with Hugh’s early morning phone call, the dead faeling wearing a Glamour spell, the argument with Witch-bitch Helen, right up to the silver-in-the-circle débâcle. He stopped me now and again to ask a quiet clarifying question, then resumed pacing—well, not exactly pacing, but his movements were enough to make me think ‘agitated’. But as he kept shooting glances into the shadows gathering around the far-away doorway, I didn’t think it was my story making him edgy.

‘Now this is where it gets tricky,’ I said, shifting in my perch in the V of one of the diamond-shaped windows to a more comfortable position. I started to tell him about my visit to Disney Heaven, expecting the goddess’ strangling hands to cut me off any second. To my surprise the gag clause turned positively garrulous, and the words came streaming out in one long, breath-stealing rush: ‘—and the goddess wants me to answer someone’s prayers and stop whoever is killing the faelings because of the curse and ultimately break the damn thing.’

I stopped suddenly, as if released from whatever magical compulsion had kept me talking, and sank to my knees on the rough carpet, gulping for air. I stayed there, relearning how to breathe, awash with relief that I’d finally managed to tell someone about my heavenly trip.

Malik crouched in front of me, his elegant fingers clasped together. ‘And you have not been able to speak about this to anyone but me?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Which would suggest that those you have not been able to talk to are connected to these deaths in some way?’

He’d reached the same conclusion I had about the Goddess’ horned god photofit.

‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘Finn’s got nothing to do with this.’

‘Genevieve.’ Malik tipped my chin up, his expression gentle. ‘We all have the capacity to justify unimaginable actions when desperation and a belief in a greater good persuades us that they are the lesser evil.’

I ducked my head and contemplated his bare feet; they were long and elegant too. ‘Unimaginable actions’ added up to when he’d attacked and left me for dead when I was fourteen. And then there was the other time— or times? Did the last one count, seeing as I was already dead? —that he’d killed me. He’d had good reasons, and I’d forgiven him. Hell, I’d asked him to kill me that last time, though to judge by the sorrow haunting his words, he hadn’t forgiven himself.

I reached out, touched his clasped hands briefly. ‘This isn’t you we’re talking about,’ I said quietly.

Regret flickered in his eyes. ‘The satyr is no different to any other, Genevieve. And he has shown he has both the will and capability to kill.’

‘Finn hasn’t killed anyone …’ but even as I said it I remembered he had once set a trap to kill Malik, and he’d staked a vamp on his horns (the vamp had later vanished, so I didn’t think Finn had actually killed him). Both incidents had been to defend me. ‘Finn wouldn’t kill an innocent, whatever the end result.’

‘But you admit the satyr could kill if he thought the death deserved,’ Malik said.

There was no hint of accusation in his mild tone, but I didn’t like where he was going. I narrowed my eyes. ‘Why are you so hot to blame Finn?’

‘I am trying to divine the goddess’ intentions, this is all. Do you believe She means that you should bear a child to break the curse?’

‘Fine, side-step the issue then,’ I muttered, not caring if I sounded like a sulky child. Whatever I’d expected him to do after I’d told him about my heavenly trip, this wasn’t it.

‘Genevieve, it is not I who is side-stepping the issue.’

No, it was me. Not that I knew what I’d expected him to do or say differently. I picked at a snag in the blue carpet as I tried to work out what I wanted.