Suzanne McLeod - The Bitter Seed of Magic

Actually, I could, and I was amazed Ana had not only survived, but had ended up with a husband and a large brood of kids. I’d have bet on her living a short, painful life as some vamp’s blood-slave. Maybe she’d been lucky.

‘Oliver—my son—found Ana in one of those blood-brothels in Sucker Town.’ Her lip curled, although I don’t think she realised it. ‘Blood-houses, I think they call them. She was sixteen. She’d been there more than two years by then. Oliver’s very quixotic in nature. He set out to save this beautiful, sweet, damaged girl; he got her out of Sucker Town, into rehab at the HOPE clinic, and then of course he fell head over heels in love with her. A year later they were married.’ She smiled proudly at the laptop screen. ‘That was taken not long ago to mark their ninth wedding anniversary.’

‘The vamps at the blood-house just let her go?’ I exclaimed in astonishment.

‘Of course,’ she said, closing the laptop with a smug snap. ‘Oliver was working with the law firm responsible for updating the licensing laws for vampire premises. He didn’t give the owners of the blood-house any choice in the matter.’

‘Ri- ight ,’ I said, getting it. Oliver had blackmailed them—and, surprisingly, it had actually worked. Ana had been lucky after all; except something about the story felt off … I clasped the pentacle at my throat and frowned out the tinted window, absently noting we were driving through Trafalgar Square.

‘You were expecting a tragic ending after such an awful beginning.’ Victoria Harrier derailed my thoughts. ‘So far it hasn’t transpired. I intend to see that it never does. For the sake of my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren, I am going to help you to put an end to this terrible curse.’ She held out a box of tissues. ‘You’re crying …’

‘Sorry, didn’t realise,’ I muttered absently as I grabbed a couple and swiped at my face.

She frowned, then decided to ignore me. ‘My aim is to give you any practical help I can.’ She picked up a manila folder and pushed it towards me. ‘Jane Bird’ was printed on the white label stuck on the front. ‘I know you’re convinced that the faeling found dead this morning is something to do with the curse, so this file contains photocopies of the police reports. The faeling hasn’t been identified as yet, but she is thought to be late teens, early twenties. She doesn’t match any missing person on the list—I’ve put a copy of their latest list in for you—but going by “Jane Bird’s” appearance, it’s possible she is related to the ravens at the Tower of London.’

Her mention of the ravens reminded me of the bird at Tower Bridge this morning, and the one bobbing its head at me from the stone archway outside Old Scotland Yard. He/she/they had to be something to do with ‘Jane Bird’, it was too much of a coincidence otherwise. But I realised the raven—easier to think of it as only one bird—couldn’t be from the Tower: the Tower ravens agreed to have their wings clipped when they took the job and couldn’t fly for the duration of their contracts. Although that didn’t mean ‘Jane Bird’ wasn’t a relative. Something definitely to look into, I decided, and flipped open the file. The top sheet had Hugh’s signature on it.

‘That’s everything I’ve been able to obtain so far,’ Victoria Harrier said, her efficient tone suggesting that I should find it impressive. It was, sort of, if I hadn’t known that Hugh would’ve given me the same info soon anyway. ‘I’ve also arranged for you to meet with the Raven Master and the ravens tomorrow lunchtime. I will, of course, be with you, to forestall any future problems with your Conditional Caution and DI Crane’s own investigation.’

A meeting with the Raven Master? Nice! Victoria Harrier’s practical help was, well, practical, except … I tapped the file as I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘You have to know that DI Crane doesn’t like me’—an understatement, but I was being polite—‘and while I noticed you and she don’t get on … well, to be blunt, you’re a witch, and you detest vamps, so how do I know you’re not just stitching me up in some way?’ Okay, so maybe I wasn’t being that polite.

‘A valid question, Ms Taylor.’ She smiled. ‘I hope I can put your mind at rest, if you’ll bear with me. I take it you’ve heard of the Merlin Foundation. But do you know what it does?’

The Merlin Foundation financed the HOPE clinic where I volunteered, and others like it, plus it was into schools and other things. Its bureaucracy was something you had to experience to believe when it came to asking for funds: the doctors at HOPE were forever complaining about it. ‘I’ve heard it described as a sort of Magical Masonic Society devoted to charitable works,’ I said, going for diplomatic.

She laughed. ‘I know it’s sometimes seen as secretive, but then, it’s been around a long time. And you’re quite right that it’s devoted to a tremendous amount of valuable charitable work, but it is the older, more private side of the Foundation that I want to tell you about.’ She smiled, and proceeded to give me a history lesson. ‘The Foundation came into being back in the fourteenth century, when the witch persecutions were at their worst. The Witches’ Council devised a plan: a select number of witches would marry into the higher echelons of our country’s ruling classes and produce sons—more wizards, of course: Great Wizards, who would grow up to occupy positions of influence, able to protect their witch relatives, and who would also marry witches chosen by the Witches’ Council, to ensure our magical legacy would continue. That tradition still carries on today, albeit in a somewhat different form.’

I had a vague memory of my old boss, Stella, mentioning the Witches’ Council had approached her about marrying a wizard when she’d been younger, and offering to pay her a Bride-Price, a kind of huge reverse dowry, but she hadn’t liked the guy—he was a stuffy prig—so she’d said no.

‘Now the Foundation is far-reaching, and with its backing, and that of their own families, many of its members occupy positions of power throughout the government, financial and legal sectors.’

‘In other words, nepotism rules.’

‘Exactly, Ms Taylor,’ she said. ‘My husband is a wizard, as are my sons. With their connections in the Foundation and my own in both the magical and legal communities, I can assure you that Helen Crane will not cause you any more problems, even if she didn’t have her youthful indiscretion to count against her.’

It sounded good, but— ‘ What youthful indiscretion?’

‘Helen’s son, of course,’ Victoria Harrier said, ‘the one Mr Panos was talking about. Like me, Helen Crane is from a powerful witch family; she was chosen to marry a wizard, but instead she— Well, Helen developed an infatuation with some boy, and in the age-old way she found herself pregnant. The boy apparently took fright at the responsibility, and once Helen’s son was born, her family, backed by the Witches’ Council and the Foundation, agreed she should give him up to the sidhe.’

I frowned. ‘But her son was still a wizard?’

‘One with no significant family connections. So you see, she’s not looked upon kindly by the Foundation.’

Part of me was starting to feel some reluctant sympathy for the teenage Helen, if not the current one. Another part of me was still trying to assess just what Victoria Harrier’s true priorities were.

‘I hope that reassures you, Ms Taylor, that I have your best interests at heart when it comes to dealing with any problems you might meet, especially if they pertain to the fertility curse. I have my grandchildren to consider.’