The Bitter Seed of Magic

Chapter Eight

It’s always handy to know you’ve got a five-hundred-plus-year-old—and therefore very powerful—vamp on speed-dial, even if the realisation is one of those good news/bad news things.

The bad news was I’d been arrested.

Not for the kiss (even though the kiss was so worth being arrested for, and more)—although seeing it was DI Helen Crane who did the arresting, the kiss was definitely a contributing factor. But on the face of it, the charge was for Misappropriation of Police Property, the police property in question being the Stun spell I’d misappropriated from Constable Martin’s baton, the one I’d used to knock out Bandana. Talk about irony. Witch-bitch Helen Crane had all but pounced on me with barely hidden glee as soon as Finn and I turned up at Old Scotland Yard.

More bad news: I was locked up in a state-of-the-art silver-lined police cell. The twelve-foot-square room had no windows, a six-inch steel door, a CCTV camera high in each corner, icky plastic facilities, and the ultimate in sleeping luxury: a barely there foam mattress. The cell was designed for keeping vamps and dangerous witches in line. Maybe I should be flattered she thought so much of me? Nah, she was just going for overkill again.

I shifted uncomfortably on the thin mattress and carefully tugged down the sleeves of the snazzy white paper jumpsuit provided by the Met’s fashion dept, adjusting them so that the silver-plated ‘slave-bracelets’ studded with chips of jade (Stun spells) and citrines (Magic Dampening spells) no longer touched my skin. I did the same with the jumpsuit’s legs—not that it would make much difference; every time I moved the heavy leg manacles slipped down again, so now I had a nice neat line of silver-burn blisters encircling both ankles.

Yet another helping of bad news: my phone call to Malik—or, to be precise, as it was daylight, my call to Sanguine Lifestyles, the vamps’ 24/7 answering/gofer service. The request to make the call had just popped out of my mouth without any conscious decision on my part. That meant Malik had not only used his vamp mojo on me but planted a mind-locked order in my head. No wonder my memories of him were so hazy.

‘Damn arrogant vamp,’ I muttered. I didn’t need to be ordered to call him if I needed help.

After all, I wasn’t stupid. If the Witch-bitch thought she could make a strong enough case out of my stealing the Stun spell to show I was a danger to humans, I could be taking a one-way trip to the guillotine. It was an extreme possibility, but thanks to fae not having ‘human rights’, it was still a possibility, and one she’d taken great pleasure in reminding me of during my arrest. Calling Malik, hell, calling anyone who could get me out of Clink was a no-brainer. Okay, so it might end up with me paying in blood, but considering the alternative, there really wasn’t any contest.

Still, irritation at high-handed vamps aside, at least the woman at Sanguine Lifestyles had been reassuring. ‘No problem, Ms Taylor. If you can give me the details, I will have a solicitor there within half an hour.’

It had sounded too good to be true.

Now, eight hours later, of course, I’d discovered it was.

I growled in frustration and frowned at my left arm.

The final bad news was that as well as wearing the pretty police-issue jewellery, I was now also sporting a nifty spell bracelet. I’d uncovered it when I’d been looking for any magical leftovers from the Sleeping Beauty spell. Like that one, the bracelet had been nothing more than a line of shadow hidden beneath Malik’s mark. With the citrines in the silver manacles dampening my magic, it had taken me all day to force the bracelet back into its original form.

But hey, time was one thing I had plenty of.

I gave the bracelet an assessing look. Tavish really had gone to town when he’d made it. Even pissed off as I was at the tricky, scheming kelpie, I had to admire his spellcraft. The plait of green-black horsehair tied tightly round my wrist was threaded with twelve glass beads, five clear, and the rest deep red. I hadn’t a clue what they did. Interspersed between the beads were seven tiny charms. The first two were detailed replicas of a red telephone box and a red London bus, both made from enamelled gold. The telephone box had been crushed: I guessed to stop me from communicating with anyone outside London. And the bus was missing its wheels: probably to make sure I couldn’t leave—or be taken from—the capital. The third charm was a wooden spindle—no guesses needed as to what that did—but at least it was broken, thanks to Finn’s kiss. The fourth was an inch-long miniature sword—like some sort of scimitar—so perfectly carved from obsidian that it could only be the work of a Northern dwarf. The fifth and sixth were a gold egg, crackled like old china, and a plain gold cross; again, I hadn’t a clue what they did. And the last was a miniature platinum ring set with a black crescent-shaped gem.

Malik’s ring.

I knew it was his, not just because I recognised it, but as I touched it the knowledge of who it belonged to, and what it was for—contacting him—was suddenly there in my mind. Damn vamp and his mind-mojo.

‘Of course, I should’ve known the pair of them were in it together,’ I told the ring. ‘They’re as bad as each other when it comes to being scheming, arrogant and over-protective.’ And it wouldn’t be the first time the pair had joined forces to make my life ‘safer’ in their opinions. ‘Question is, do I try and activate you, or not?’

I tapped my knee thoughtfully. The worst that could happen would be I’d end up knocked out by the Stun spells stored in the fancy silver manacles. The best …

‘Hell, there’s got to be some good news in all of this,’ I muttered.

Focusing, I carefully ran my finger along the edge of the tiny sharp blade, wincing as it sliced cleanly through my flesh.

I stared at the bright bead of blood.

It trembled with magic.

Then before the spells in the silver manacles could kick in, or I changed my mind, I smeared the blood on the ring. It dropped off the bracelet into my palm, growing large enough for me to wear.

‘Here goes nothing,’ I murmured, and pushed it on my finger.