Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘Are you okay, Genny?’ Hugh’s concerned face blurred in front of me.

‘Yeah,’ I mumbled, ‘just banged my head.’ I blinked at him. ‘I feel a bit dizzy.’

He placed a gentle hand at the back of my skull. ‘Put your head between your knees. Take deep breaths.’

I breathed in and out and a shimmer of heat rushed through me. The magic settled. Slowly I sat up and sank back into the chair. As I apologised I noticed the constable had left the room.

‘Accidents happen.’ The thin woman stared down at me, a deep frown making her patrician features look even more severe. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Helen Crane, Ms Taylor.’ She smiled and it was like the moon shining in the night sky. Suddenly she was beautiful.

I’d been wondering why no one else had noticed the constable’s bracelet. Here was the answer: Helen Crane’s jacket lapel sagged under the weight of three gold broaches set with chips of jade. A wide belt glittering with crystals cinched her waist. Long strings of garnets swung from her lobes tangling with her honey-blonde hair, and as she leaned towards me I noticed a sapphire the size of a robin’s egg nestled in the deep vee of her black silk blouse.

DI Crane was decorated like an expensive Christmas tree, only it wasn’t the fortune in jewellery that had my nerves twitching but the strength of the spells stored in the gems—almost enough juice to fill half the magic stalls in Covent Garden Witches’ Market. It made me want to ask her exactly what she was afraid off.

She regarded me with an indecipherable look out of eyes as blue as the sapphire she wore, then lifted a hand, her fingers adorned with enough rings to double as high-priced knuckledusters, and brushed her thumb across the side of my mouth. ‘You have a smear of lipstick on your cheek, Ms Taylor.’

‘Have I?’ I snagged another of Hugh’s paper coasters and rubbed at my face.

She took the crumpled coaster from me, tilted my chin and wiped my mouth as though I were a child. ‘There.’ She gave me a peculiar smile. ‘All gone.’

I gave her a half-smile back, not sure whether to be amused or insulted.

Her expression fell back into severe lines. ‘Sergeant Munro tells me you want to look at the pathologist’s report on Melissa Banks.’ She angled her head and looked at me quizzically. ‘Why exactly is that?’

I wasn’t really all that interested; it had been Hugh’s reason for escaping after I’d deliberately embarrassed him. But as I felt another prick of guilt for the way I’d manipulated him, I said, ‘As I can’t look at the body, I thought it might be a good idea.’

‘You misunderstand me,’ she said. ‘You’re not a police consultant. You have no medical qualifications. You don’t deal with the dead. So why are you even here?’ Her eyes bored into me.

I had misunderstood her. ‘Alan Hinkley asked me to come.’ I accepted the cup of water Hugh was holding out towards me. Red dust shimmered in his black hair.

DI Crane’s mouth turned down. ‘Do you always do what people ask of you?’

‘My job is to find magic, Inspector.’ I took a sip of water, looked at her over the rim of the cup. ‘If that’s what I’m asked to do, then it pays me to do it.’

Spreading the fingers of her right hand, she inspected her rings, then clenched her fist. ‘The Witches’ Council wouldn’t have approved any involvement in this matter from Spellcrackers.com without a police request.’ She looked up, stared me straight in the eyes. ‘There hasn’t been one. Furthermore, there is no need for one. I have personally investigated Mr Hinkley’s claims that his so—’

She stopped mid-word, blue eyes going unfocused.

I glanced at Hugh, but he gave a tiny shake of his head, as mystified as I was.

DI Crane grasped her left earring as the colour faded from her face. A thin red line snaked out of her palm and twisted around her wrist, vanishing into her sleeve.

I jumped up, thinking she’d cut herself on her gems, that it was blood, then I realised it was a spell, one so powerful that I’d seen it without needing to look .

‘Munro.’ The DI’s voice cracked. She clutched the sapphire pendant with her other hand. ‘Sergeant Munro.’ The words were firmer, more decisive. ‘Reception. Now. ’ She turned and made for the door, saying over her shoulder to him, ‘They’re coming.’

Who is coming?

I hurried after them into the Back Hall, where a soft slapping sound caught my attention. Jeremiah the goblin, his mouth stretched wide in a grin, his green sequins bright against the black of his teeth, was smacking his bat against the palm of his hand as he stared fixedly at the entranceway.

Behind the goblin stood Neil Banner and Alan Hinkley, looking similarly confused as they looked from the goblin to us to the door.

Then a crawling sensation washed over me, raising every hair on my body, and I knew what—or rather, who —was coming. This was so not good. Advertising their approach like this was akin to taking an imp to show-and-tell at Sunday School.

Hugh’s hair had flattened, giving him a hard, crushing look. Had he remembered about the goblin’s bling, remembered how young and inexperienced the goblin was? ‘Hugh,’ I muttered, trying to catch his attention.

‘Not now, Genny,’ he said, voice calm. ‘Go back inside. This is no place for you.’

Maybe he was right.

But it was too late.

The door crashed open. A chill wind rushed in, swirled round the hall, set the lights swinging on their chains and rattled the glass in the windows.

Then all was perfect stillness.

And the sound of the goblin slapping his bat on the palm of his hand sounded as loud as a fire-dragon’s jaw snapping closed.

T hree vampires walked into the police station. It sounds like one of those jokes, except I doubted anyone would be laughing by the time we got to the punch-line.

The first one through the door lived up to the romantic stereotype: he swept his velvet knee-length jacket back with a flourish and posed with one hand on his hip. Ivory lace billowed at his wrists and neck, and a black ribbon caught his tawny hair in a loose pony-tail at the nape of his neck. Aquiline nostrils flared as he cast an arrogant look around the room, passing over Alan Hinkley, Neil Banner and the grinning goblin, all clustered on my right. He stopped when he reached me.

A shiver ran down my spine as his eyes met mine.

It looked like it was the night for all the old ones to surface, though as with the Armani-suited vamp, I didn’t recognise this particular vamp either .

A warning rumble issued from deep within Hugh’s chest.

The vampire snapped his head round, sniffed with disdain at Hugh, then settled his attention on DI Crane. His expression turned intense, brooding. With his eyes never leaving hers, he extended his right leg and bowed. ‘You are very beautiful, Madame.’ He spoke slowly, with a thick accent.

Her eyes wide, she pressed her lips together until they disappeared. Her fingers, clenched around the sapphire pendant at her breast, were almost bloodless.

Damn. The new DI was afraid of the vamps—not just a healthy, ‘hey, they could be dangerous’ type of fear, but what looked suspiciously like a full-on phobia. So what the hell was she doing running the magic murder squad?

I shot a look at Hugh, but he was still glowering at the lace-bedecked vampire.

‘Good evening.’ Vampire Number Two appeared, moving with effortless grace to stand just in front of Lacy. He smiled, fangs hidden. The smile was charm itself, not vamp mesma , just centuries of practise—eight centuries, to be precise, if the media had got it right, except he looked to be in his early thirties. An Oxford-blue shirt accentuated his azure eyes and blond hair, while his blazer, grey flannels and loafers gave the impression he was generally to be found idly punting down the Thames. Instead he played the Godfather to London’s Blood Families.