The Bitter Seed of Magic

Chapter Three

Ten minutes later, the authorisation forms were signed, my fee—hardly worth bothering with, if it weren’t for the principle—agreed, and the preparations nearly finished. Once DI Crane had capitulated, she’d gone into whirlwind mode; anyone would think she wanted shot of me!

I watched as she reached inside her briefcase and carefully extracted a large padded velvet bag. Slipping the bag off, she held up an unframed mirror the size of a dinner plate. ‘This is a solid silver casting mirror, Ms Taylor. I have two of them; one for each of the spells.’ She leaned over and gently positioned the mirror on top of its padded pouch inside the circle. ‘They are extremely costly. Please try not to damage them.’

I had no intention of even touching them; silver might well be the best way for witches to isolate magic—especially when you want to pick it apart at leisure—but it’s not the easiest to use when you’re allergic to it. My usual method—tagging unwanted spells to a salt block, then cracking the salt block along with the spell—was messy but effective, but it wasn’t going to leave much to investigate. I could think of other things I’d be more comfortable transferring the spells to, like synthetic spell-crystals, or a lump of wood, even a plastic bucket—after all, magic isn’t fussy; with enough focus, spells can be attached to anything—but the DI was the one running the show, so the silver casting mirrors were it.

She stood up and waved a hand at the circle. The thick white candles standing at the five points—air, earth, fire, water and spirit—flickered into life, the red neon magic in the circle glittered like the Milky Way, and the smudge sticks of smouldering sage flared, their herbal smoke twisting up to gather, cloud-like, against the curved brick roof of the mortuary.

‘All ready for you, Ms Taylor,’ she said with a cheerful edge to her voice.

I stifled a grimace. Never mind the mirrors; I wasn’t happy about the rest of the magic show either, something she was well aware of, judging by her sudden change in attitude.

Trouble was, while magic might not be fussy—or something you can talk to or reason with—it definitely has a will of its own; and it tends to be unpredictable and capricious at times, especially around me. Being sidhe, and made of magic, has its disadvantages. Of course, witches are human—or at least their DNA doesn’t show the paternal sidhe side of their parentage—and they have their own disadvantage; they need all their textbook rituals in order to manipulate the magic. But, for me, all the DI’s extras just meant added complications.

I waved my own hand at the circle. ‘Is all the paraphernalia really necessary?’

‘Ms Taylor,’ she said briskly, ‘we’re in the centre of London, one of the busiest cities in the world, and I am responsible for its magical Health and Safety, among other things. We have to take precautions against every eventuality, no matter how slight. So yes, “all the paraphernalia”, as you so charmingly put it, is necessary.’

Probably true, though I was certain if she could get away with making things more difficult for me, she would. Needing more reassurance, I took stock of my audience. Constable Martin was staring studiously at nothing; she wasn’t going to grass up her boss. Hugh watched from near the mortuary’s entrance, his huge bulk almost blocking out the sunlight; he was on my side, but magic wasn’t his forte. The only other person around was on the opposite side of the circle: Doctor Craig, the doctor on police call.

He was crouched down, scratching his almost unreadable bird-footprint notes on the yellow pad balanced on his tweed-trousered knee. His familiar bald pate, with its halo of grey curls parting over his jug-like ears, gleamed in the candlelight. He looked up, as if suddenly aware I was studying him, gave me a vague smile along with a quick head-to-toe assessment, then returned to his yellow pad. He was famous for his note-taking at HOPE, the Human Other and Preternatural Ethics clinic, where he was doing hands-on research into 3V (vampire venom virus) and where I volunteered, and both his presence and the obsessive, scratchy noise of his pen made me more at ease.

He hit my internal radar as a straight human, though I knew he could see and sense magic, thanks to a touch of magical blood somewhere in his ancestry. And he’d always made it clear he’d be happier without the consultancy work he did for the police—making life better for the living was his thing—so no way was he in the DI’s pocket. And none of her preparations had fazed him.

Thinking about Dr Craig’s ethos reminded me why I was here. I looked at the girl; she was dead, but finding out what killed her—whether it was the curse or something else—and stopping it from happening again could make others’ lives better, maybe even save some too. So worrying about DI Crane having it in for me was wasting time. I dug out half a dozen liquorice torpedoes and crunched them quickly: the sugar boost makes it easier to work the magic. I handed my jacket to Hugh for safekeeping, touched Grace’s gold pentacle for comfort and offered up a brief prayer for success to whatever gods might be listening.

And stepped inside the circle.

DI Crane muttered something vaguely Latin-sounding behind me, magic prickled over my skin and the circle sprung up around me with an audible crack, like the jaws of a swamp dragon snapping shut. The dome of magic loomed over me like a giant inside-out multi-mirrored disco ball, reflecting my distorted face back at me, and I saw myself blinking in shock. What the hell had she drawn her circle with? This wasn’t standard. It should have been a nice clear dome, like a huge soap-bubble blown by a child. I took a deep, calming breath—

—it felt like I was trying to inhale a cactus—

Silver!

She’d put silver dust in the circle.

Fuck! She hadn’t just loaded the circle for demons, but for vampires too. My pulse sped up and I looked past the myriad ethereal mirrors to see her watching me with narrowed eyes. Was the silver dust just a normal precaution … or had she used it deliberately, knowing my father was a vampire?

I shelved the questions. Most of London’s fae knew I had a sucker for a father, so it wasn’t much of a secret, not now, and I didn’t have time to dwell on the Inspector’s possible motives. I wasn’t even sure I had time to deal with the spells before the silver knocked me unconscious.

Concentrating on slowing my pulse and my breathing to minimise the silver’s effect, I knelt on the floor next to the dead girl. I gently took her damp hand in mine, double-checking she didn’t have any more than the two spells on her: flesh-to-flesh contact makes it easier to sense the magic. I frowned. Her skin was wrinkled from being in the water, but it was still soft and pliable; either rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet, or it had been and gone … only the body looked too undamaged to have been in the water long enough for rigor to have passed. Still, time and silver weren’t waiting for me.

I released her hand and plunged both of mine into the mass of magic binding her, flinching as the dirty-white ropes writhed around my lower arms, feeling like cold slippery eels. Gritting my teeth, I ignored the rest of the circle’s distracting magic and focused on the rope spell. I called it and the ropes pulled away from the body with a nauseating sound like flesh being ripped from bone, and a sweet, rank smell assaulted my nostrils. Shuddering, I gathered the bundle into my arms and tried not to think how they were starting to resemble a mass of rotten intestines; or how the more I pulled at the ropes, the more the girl’s body twisted and jerked like a fish struggling to escape a hook.

An urgent gasp almost broke my focus. Annoyed, I frowned up at Dr Craig.

‘She’s bleeding,’ he shouted, pointing towards the girl’s head.

Bleeding? I froze in shock. She couldn’t be bleeding, she was dead!

Wasn’t she?

But there was definitely a small puddle of blood spreading out from beneath her head.

‘Genny, you need to start resuscitating her,’ he ordered. ‘Inspector Crane, you need to open the—’

The rest of his words were lost as I yanked at the last of the ropes and slid them down onto the nearest silver casting mirror, squashing them on with my hands and my will. A distant part of me registered the stinging burn in my palms, the sharp scrape of silver in my throat as I sucked air deep into my lungs, the brief dilation of the girl’s pupils as I leaned over her head, pinching her nose and tipping her chin. I fastened my mouth to hers and forced my own breath into her body. I averted my head, inhaled, then breathed into her mouth again; watching the girl’s chest rise—

Why the hell didn’t DI Crane break the circle?

Another breath; another slight lift of the girl’s chest.

The ropes had to be some sort of Stasis spell, trapping the girl at the point of dying, maybe.

Breathe again.

For fuck’s sake, get a move on, Inspector.

I clasped my hands together in a fist and raised them over my head, bringing them down on the girl’s chest with a hollow-sounding thud.

DI Crane swam into my sight: she was on her knees outside the circle, sweat beading her forehead as she traced glyphs on the outside of the mirrored dome with panicked, jerky movements. Behind her, Constable Martin was gripping the inspector’s shoulders, her eyes closed in concentration; and looming behind both of them was Hugh’s worried red-dusted face, alongside half a dozen others.

Crap, what the hell was wrong?

I sucked in more air. The copper smell of blood mixed with the rank sweetness and masked the sharp scrape of silver.

‘I can’t break the circle,’ DI Crane shouted, her voice coming as if through a thick wall. ‘The silver— blood— sealed …’

I fastened my mouth back on the girl’s as my mind raced to catch up: Silver to hold a vampire— fresh blood in the circle— Shit, maybe my vamp half was screwing with the circle’s containment magic?

I breathed out.

‘You’ll have to crack it,’ she shouted.

I briefly raised my head to take in more air, and focused on the magical dome of mirrors and the anxious group of police behind them. No way could I crack the dome; the mirrors might not be physical, but the salt and sand and bone in the circle were, and they would turn into enough shrapnel to flay the skin off anyone standing too close. I’d have to absorb the magical dome instead. Absorbing magic was never fun; absorbing sharp pieces of mirror, however metaphysical they might be, was going to be a fucking nightmare …

—I lowered my mouth to the girl’s—

She coughed and retched, filling my mouth with bitter-tasting liquid, and I swallowed reflexively, shock, disbelief and hope coursing through me.

‘She’s alive,’ I yelled.

The circle had to open—now!

I hurriedly but carefully rolled her over into the recovery position, then thrust out my arms, palms up, and called the magic. The candles guttered and snuffed out; a wind howled and buffeted my body; the dome of mirrors rattled, glowing red with reflected neon and blood … Time seemed to stand still as the Glamour spell peeled away from the girl and I saw her true face. No longer human-pretty, she had small, black bead-like eyes, a hooked beak of a nose, thin, almost nonexistent lips and a receding chin: a faeling, and one with corvid blood, going by the black feathers growing from her scalp. The feathers were stringy with blood, and the shape of her head was oddly uneven … Time started again, and the mirrors exploded into feather-winged flames and flew towards my heart like iron-tipped darts to a magnet.

I had a moment to think, Oh crap! before they hit—

—but the pain didn’t come—

Instead, something grabbed me, and yanked me out of the circle.