Suzanne McLeod - The Bitter Seed of Magic

Desperately I grabbed the nearest thing: the long scimitar-shaped bull’s horn; it was lighter than I expected. Gripping it with both hands, the point curving upwards, I thrust it towards her on her next swing past, but I missed again and stumbled as her blade nicked a stinging line across the front of my throat. I backed up, feeling my blood trickle over my clavicle. I needed to put some space between us, but the Morrígan’s damned eel body kept growing longer and longer, stretching out in zigzags behind her as she slithered menacingly across the grass towards me.

I reached the edge of the circle, my pulse thundering in my ears and my shoulders buzzing against the static of blood magic. My gut clenched in fear as I wiped my hand over my throat and it came away painted in blood. The honey-copper scent was slightly nauseating. How the hell was I going to get out of this? Plenty of sharp implements at my feet— But grabbing one of them meant breaking the circle, and losing myself in the emptiness outside the circle wasn’t part of the master plan. But then, neither was fighting a goddess. Trouble was, not fighting wasn’t an option, unless I wanted my heart cut out.

I gripped the thick end of the bull’s horn, calculating her approach, then swayed—and realised, almost too late, that all her shifting about was making me dizzy. She smiled, acid-yellow eyes glinting maliciously as she rose up, twenty-odd feet above me until her pale green bald head brushed the inside of the translucent blood-dome. She angled the knife in her hand, and my legs shook as she gave another gut-wrenching shriek and dived at me. I held my breath, waiting until the last possible moment, then I flung myself forward, turned and stabbed the bull’s horn through the eel part of her body and into the ground below—

A heart-hollowing bellow rent the air as I scrambled onto my hands and knees, expecting to feel her knife plunging into my back at any moment. I half-crawled, half-ran until I hit the opposite side of the circle, where I collapsed into a panting heap.

The Morrígan was swaying about, five feet above the grass, and looking down, apparently nonplussed, at the bull’s horn pinning her eel body to the ground.

Shit. All she had to do was pluck it out.

I needed another weapon. I looked towards the bronze pool, thinking of the little silver knife with which I’d cut my hand and wondering if I could get to it before the Morrígan did the obvious—

Tavish was lying next to the pond, his head propped on his bent arm, idly flipping the knife through his fingers. Next to him was the bottle of Jameson’s, now half-empty. Looked like he’d been enjoying the entertainment.

‘Telt you nae tae trust me, doll.’ He grinned, but his eyes were pewter-dark with suppressed anger. ‘Telt you, I’m nae longer my own master, but you didnae listen.’

Tavish was right: he had told me not to trust him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on my side. The Morrígan might be using him to test me, or sic spells on me or whatever, but she was still holding him captive, and Tavish wasn’t the sort to just roll over and play slave. He was also tricky enough to give me a clue—which, hopefully, was what he was doing now.

‘Don’t worry,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t trust you or your fangy friend, or whatever it is the pair of you are plotting.’

He sat up, and rested his chin on his bent knee. Fixing me with a look, he dragged the silver knife along the gold chain clamped round his ankle. The knife made a faint metal-on-metal sound as it disturbed the tiny keys, setting my teeth on edge. He smiled, a quick baring of his own teeth, then pulled a long length of chain from the bronze pool, coiled it round and stabbed the knife through one of its links. He’d pinned himself to the ground, much as I’d done to the Morrígan.

Great clue, Tavish—not!

But his clue, whatever it meant, would have to wait. First, I needed to convince the Morrígan to give me what I came for: two tickets to the Tower of London.

I frowned at her. She was still contemplating the bull’s horn, bending over so she could peer at it from just a couple of inches away. She seemed to find it fascinating. Hopefully she’d stay that way, since fighting her wasn’t going to work; there was no way I could win against a goddess, not in the long run, so I needed to think of something else, and fast. I pushed myself to my feet, blinking as my head swam and the scene in front of me went fuzzy. I looked down to find my T-shirt and jeans were soaked with blood. Crap, I was wearing my last clean pair too. I touched my hand to my throat and stared uncomprehendingly at my blood-drenched fingers. Then I got it: she’d nicked a vein when she’d sliced me, and if it didn’t heal soon, fighting would be the last thing I needed to worry about.

What I really needed was Tavish’s fangy friend right now. Still at least this way, when Malik healed me, I’d end up with a two-for-one deal.

I tore the sleeve off my T-shirt and tied it round my neck in a makeshift bandage, then checked my shoulder, but compared to my throat, that was a scratch. I staggered over to the bronze pool, picked up the carton of milk and the crystal tumbler, but left the silver knife. Taking it would’ve put me within grabbing distance of Tavish and never mind anything else, he was still tied to the Morrígan. I continued my stagger until I was a couple of feet away from the Morrígan—not that the distance made much difference, not when the eel part of her body could keep extending, and extending …

She moved again, this time so her upper body was upright. ‘You have spirit, little sidhe,’ she said haughtily, ‘and more than I expected.’

‘You want something from me, Morrígan,’ I said flatly. ‘And I want two things from you. I’m willing to bargain.’

‘A sidhe bargain?’ She licked her blood-plumped lips, considering my words. ‘It has been sixty years since I was last offered one of those. The taste still rankles.’

Whatever. Cards on the table time. ‘First, I want the ability to pass into Between without using an entrance, for me and one other.’ I paused, then added what I hoped would the clincher. ‘Specifically, I want to get into the Tower of London.’

‘This is not a small thing you ask …’ She trailed off, then reached down and pulled out the bull’s horn, which came away with a loud sucking sound. The eel part of her body spasmed, and the wound gushed blood that hissed as it hit the grass. She held her hand out imperiously. ‘Give me the milk, little sidhe.’

I hesitated, worried I was giving away a bargaining point.

‘Come now; it is not like it can be returned to the cow, is it?’

I unscrewed the cap on the carton and handed it over.

She read the side of the carton and frowned. ‘Organic! Hmm, if humans did not scour the earth and deplete its fecundity with their pesticides and chemicals, there would be no need to label this so.’ She sniffed it, pulled an ‘it will do’ face, then poured it over the wound. It healed instantaneously. I briefly wondered if it would have done the same for my throat, but the chance was gone, for the Morrígan kept pouring, an expression of contentment on her face, until the last drops of milk splattered like white tears over the hissing grass.

Just my luck … Still, the itchy feeling at my throat meant it was healing, even if I did look like a victim at a vamp’s blood-fest. Maybe she hadn’t nicked a vein after all—or maybe the magic was helping me.

She dropped the empty carton and, smiling, held out her hand again. ‘Now the glass.’

This time I didn’t hesitate, just handed her the crystal tumbler.

She sniffed it too. Her hand trembled, her acid-yellow eyes widening as she inhaled again, longer and deeper. ‘An offering from a fertility fae,’ she whispered. ‘You are indeed fortunate.’ She held the glass above the bull’s horn—I had a sudden horrible thought about what she might be asking me next—and she started to tip the glass up.