Suzanne McLeod - The Bitter Seed of Magic

‘People will always surprise us, Genny, even when we think we know them well. Like DI Helen Crane. After your email yesterday, I had the crime scene photos of the circle that she drew around Sally Redman double-checked. You were right; there was something wrong with the yew.’

I suppressed an I knew it! grin along with the urge to pump my arm in the air in vindication. Helen the Witch-bitch was a crooked cop. It wasn’t just my biased imagination. Now I could legitimately hate her as ‘my evil witch nemesis’ without feeling guilty. ‘She laid the spell the wrong way round, didn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Hugh answered, ‘the faeling’s death was suspicious, so the yew was supposed to temporarily hold the victim’s spirit, in the hope that a necromancer would be able to talk to her, but instead the yew was laid to speed the victim’s spirit on its way. Which is what the—’

‘—dwarves do with their ritual ashes,’ I finished. ‘I thought the pattern looked familiar, but it didn’t click with me what it meant until later.’

Of course, the fact I’d been beamed up to Disney Heaven was another big hint, especially after I’d uncovered Tavish’s spell bracelet and found the London bus charm minus its wheels. After that, I realised the only way Angel/The Mother had been able to pull me out of London was in spirit form, a.k.a. dead. Bandana the dryad had been right: I had started to fade —not that I was going to say thank you. He still didn’t deserve it, and The Mother wouldn’t have let me truly die anyway.

And Helen Crane, the Witch-bitch, deserved everything she got too. She had to know who killed the faelings, because reversing the Soul-holding spell like that meant she had to be covering up for the killer. So maybe all that animosity between her and Victoria Harrier had been an act, and they were really in league together? I looked up at Hugh. ‘So does this mean Helen Crane is helping you with your enquires?’ I asked, hiding my glee under mild interest. ‘And spilling lots of juicy clues now she’s been caught out?’ Okay, so not hiding it that well.

Hugh’s expression turned grim. ‘Not as yet.’

In other words, he wasn’t going to tell me, even if she was. Figured.

‘Genny,’ Hugh said, his tone tentative, ‘there’s something else I need to ask of you.’

‘Ah, this is where you tell me why you’re letting me in on all your secret police stuff, isn’t it?’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘Fire away. I’m all ears.’

‘I want to follow up on Victoria Harrier,’ he said, ‘and I think the quickest way to find out what she’s up to, and to locate the missing faelings, is to let her carry out her plans to kidnap you.’

Um … did I really want to be the sacrificial victim in all this? Still, it was to find the faelings, and this was Hugh asking; I trusted him absolutely.

‘It won’t be you making the contact, though, Genny,’ he carried on, to my surprise. ‘It will be an undercover police officer wearing a Doppelgänger spell to look like you. Witch Martin thinks she can replicate the ones the dead faelings used, so that the officer doesn’t raise any alarm bells. Then as soon as our undercover operative is snatched, I’ll have enough evidence for the warrants we need. All the spell needs is a small blood donation.’

I tapped my cup, thinking about his plan; something about it set my skin itching.

‘Of course,’ Hugh added, ‘if you’re worried about the Doppelgänger spell, once the police operation is over, then you can remove the spell from the WPC yourself.’

‘It’s not the spell.’ I frowned. ‘I’m worried about someone else ending up abducted instead of me. What happens if the undercover officer gets taken and you can’t persuade Victoria Harrier to tell you where she is, or she does a disappearing act? The officer could end up in a lot of danger. Or dead.’

‘It’s Constable Martin, Witch Martin’s daughter, who will be taking your place, Genny. She’s got a rather unique ability. She has a link with her mother; they can speak to each other in their minds, no matter where they are. Once Constable Martin is taken, she should be able to relay the information needed for us to mount a rescue operation for her and the faelings.’

It sounded like a practical solution, albeit still a dangerous one for Constable Martin. Thinking of that, another query popped into my head. ‘Do you know how Sally the corvid faeling and Aoife actually died?’

Hugh handed me his cup and pulled out his notebook. ‘Cause of death for Sally Redman initially looks like cardiac arrest, but she was young and her heart was healthy. The toxicology report’s not back yet, so it’s always possible they were given something like digitalis. But if you discount the head wound—which was nasty, but wasn’t a death blow—neither of them had any obvious injuries. For Aiofe’s cause of death, we’ll need to wait until the autopsy has been done.’

‘So, no fang marks, or any way to know what’s killing them?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘There’s something else bugging me,’ I said, remembering The Mother’s photofit of the horned god. ‘The Between in the Tower belonged to the Old Donn, who’s supposed to be dead. But Sylvia mentioned something about his remains. Could you find out if he’s really dead?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Can’t say,’ I gasped as The Mother’s gag clause strangled me.

Hugh took out one of his large troll pens, made a note, then snapped his notebook closed. ‘I’ll check into it and—’

‘Sergeant Munro!’ A shout from the direction of the police vans interrupted him.

He waved an acknowledgement, then said, ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

I dropped the cups into a rubbish bag and stared out at the wind-rippled Thames, that uneasy feeling still pricking at me. Hugh’s doppelgänger plan was good, but before he and his boys in blue—although they’d be mostly witches, of course, so he and his girls in blue—could rush in, apprehend the baddies and hopefully rescue all the faelings, he needed evidence and warrants. With London’s fae as back-up I could put Hugh’s plan into action myself without the hassle and delay of all the judicial red tape.

But as I gave it serious thought, I came up with a fatal flaw: Between is out of this world, a place created by will and magic. And even knowing there was a patch of Between , and knowing where its entrance was, didn’t mean you could just waltz right on in, not unless its creator wanted you to. Hell, even if you had the magical key, and you got it to work, you’d only end up some place else (I know, I tried it at Tavish’s once, which is how I discovered what a swamp-dragon’s cave smells like; never again!). And cracking the entrance from the outside was a non-starter. But cracking the entrance open from the inside would be … well, difficult , but definitely doable in the right circumstances.

So I needed to be on the inside.

But not as a kidnapped victim. Another plan started to form in my mind …

Hugh rejoined me. ‘DI Crane is now officially missing,’ he announced with a troubled expression.

‘She’s disappeared?’ I said, stunned, then asked, ‘Do you mean she’s done a runner, or that you think someone’s made her disappear?’

‘We’re still working on that, Genny,’ he said.

Crap. I might not like the witch—okay, I was pretty sure I hated her—but I didn’t want her disappeared involuntarily. I had a sudden image of Helen Crane being the next one to be pulled out of the Thames, and what that would mean to Finn and their daughter. ‘Has anyone told Finn?’ I started to head towards the vans—