Suzanne McLeod - The Sweet Scent of Blood

‘Then this morning I heard some interesting news. A jogger found two naked bodies by Hammersmith Pier—human males, in their late teens, early twenties—both had their heads and hearts missing.’

I stilled in shock, then my brain kicked in. What the hell were the bodies doing there? Why hadn’t Malik burnt them, or at least stashed them so he could do it later? Old vampires were supposed to be good at that sort of thing—after all, they’d had centuries of practise. I frowned, tapping the glass thoughtfully. If the revenants had been found, it wasn’t because Malik had made a mistake.

Finn carried on in the same quiet, insistent voice, ‘Now there are a few things that would take the head and heart—dragons, gargoyles, demons. But what seems to have everyone stumped is that the penis and testicles had been torn off both bodies.’

I blinked in surprise. Head and heart were easy: they’d been vampires, after all—but why the other? Puzzled, I turned to frown at Finn. ‘Weird,’ I murmured.

He pushed off the wall and started walking towards me. ‘Not when you consider it’s a vengeance particularly favoured by the bean sidhe .’

Then I connected all the dots. I was the only bean sidhe in town. I stared at Finn, incredulous. ‘You think I did it, don’t you?’

‘Yesterday at dawn, I find you covered in blood, but not injured.’ He stared back at me, his mouth thin with anger. ‘Then last night I see you fighting with two lads, and later they turn up dead. That’s a lot to put down to coincidence, Gen.’

‘Why don’t you just shove that idea where it belongs?’ I shouted, fear making my own anger rise. ‘Even if I had done it, no way would I be stupid enough to leave evidence that pointed right to me!’

‘I’m going to ask you, and I don’t want to ask it thrice, so no prevaricating. Just give me a straight answer.’ Emerald flashed in the hard green of his eyes. ‘Did you kill them?’

Shit, I hated the thrice rule. It wasn’t just that it forced a fae to tell the truth, but it made you feel so awful.

‘No,’ I snapped, ‘I didn’t kill them.’

He took a deep breath, his eyes closing briefly, and the anger seemed to flow out of him.

‘Happy now, are you?’ I shoved him in the chest, ‘Now you’ve had your little trial and jury scene?’

He stumbled back. ‘I’m sorry, Gen. I had to know.’ He ran a distracted hand through his blond hair and rubbed his left horn. ‘I had to ask—’

‘Fine. You’ve asked. I didn’t.’ I balled my fists. ‘Now if you’ll just leave, I can get on with what I was doing.’

His brows came together in a frown. ‘I take it the sucker did it?’

Of course, the sucker did it! I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I needed to get to the Shamrock, and for that I needed Finn to leave. Think ... Then something he’d said struck me. ‘Were the parts found with the bodies, the heads, the hearts and the other bits?’

‘Why?’

‘No, of course they weren’t,’ I murmured, half to myself. ‘You said human males. If they’d found the heads, they’d have known they weren’t human.’

‘They weren’t human?’ He gave me a quizzical look.

‘No, not when they died.’ I glanced at the clock to check the time; daylight would disappear too fast for my liking

‘So the question is,’ Finn crossed his arms, ‘why is your sucker friend trying to frame you?’

‘I haven’t a clue, but I’m not going to find out by staying here, am I?’ I moved round him, needing to get my boots. ‘C’mon, Finn, discussion time’s over for now. I told you I’ve got something to do.’

‘Not yet, Gen. We haven’t finished talking.’

My insides felt like they were going to explode, and I almost kicked my bedroom door with frustration. I settled for glaring over my shoulder instead. ‘Yes. We. Have.’

‘Gen, you keep evading me and changing the subject, or rushing off somewhere.’ A muscle clenched in his jaw. ‘But we need to talk about all this stuff with the vamps, that spell-tattoo you’ve got, the murders, whatever it was that happened at the police station. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to sort all this out. Now!’

So not a conversation I wanted to have—my heart just wasn’t in it—even though I’d guessed it was going to be inevitable sooner or later. And with only a few hours of daylight left, later was the option I was going for. I sighed and swiped my hands over my face, then gave him a resigned look. ‘Just give me a couple of minutes to finish dressing, okay?’

‘Go ahead,’ he said, calmly moving to stand under my long beaded light, arms crossed, legs apart, like he was on guard duty or something. ‘I’ll wait right here.’

I shut the door carefully, resisting the urge to slam it, and leaned my head against it. Why did Finn always bring out the worst in me? Never mind my emotions felt like they were on a rollercoaster ride. Why couldn’t I just have my nice quiet life back where all I had to deal with was a pack of persistent pixies? And now Finn looked like he thought I was going to make a run for it or something. Still, he’d got that right: I was. I tugged my boots on, slipped some money in my pocket and took a couple of quiet steps to the open window.

Finn’s talk would have to wait until later.

My visit to Mick couldn’t.

I bent and swung my leg over the low windowsill leading out onto the flat roof. My boot snagged on something not there . Breath catching, I jerked my leg back and felt a strange, sticky resistance, almost like I’d stepped into a large glob of chewing gum. I looked . The spell even looked like chewing gum, stretching out in long elastic strands from the window frame, wrapping around my boot and creeping up my calf. Crap, what the hell was Finn playing at?

‘Finn,’ I yelled, furious, ‘get in here—now!’

The door slammed back and he burst into the room, then he stopped and stared at me in disbelief. Then a smile twitched his lips. ‘Having a bit of trouble, my Lady?’

‘Nice try, Finn,’ I smirked, ‘but I think you forgot something. Watch this!’ I held up my hand and called the spell...

‘Gen, that’s really not such a—’

... the sticky spell splattered into my hand, digging into my skin, then snapped back towards the window. It jerked me off-balance and dumped me in a heap on the floor; the chewing gum contracting in on itself and trapping me even tighter.

‘—good idea,’ he finished, wincing. ‘It’s a snapper-snare. The more you stretch or tease, or try and crack the magic, the worse it gets. We—that is, me and my brothers spent years perfecting it when we were kids.’ He finished with a touch of sheepish pride.

‘I don’t care how long it took to make it,’ I spat, ‘just get it off me. What the hell is it doing there anyway?’

‘I put it there earlier.’ he held his hands up in apology.

‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t to catch you, Gen.’ He gave me a quick grin, then knelt and took a dried-up conker-shell out of his pocket. ‘When I recovered, I came round to check on you.’ He plunged his hands into the sticky spell and started rolling the spiky conker-shell carefully between his palms. ‘I got here just as the sucker was going. I couldn’t stay, and I didn’t want to leave you without any protection, just in case he decided to come back, so I set the snapper-snare.’

I huffed, watching as he coaxed the magic off me—sticky spell-traps on my window was taking this whole shining-knight thing too far. ‘A standard back-off ward would’ve been easier.’

He grimaced. ‘A ward wouldn’t have held the sucker until the sun came up.’