The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Three

‘Nae much, doll,’ Tavish said, the relief flooding his eyes making me glad I’d said yes. ‘Just give me some honest answers.’

It sounded too easy. ‘Sure. When do you want to talk?’

‘Now, of course.’

I looked at the ginger tom sitting on the desk, and at all the other cats in the cluttered room; sleeping, washing, or watching us like we were a play put on for their amusement. ‘What about the gnome?’

‘Och, he’s nae thinking of interrupting you. I’ve seen to that.’

I sent out my own Spidey senses . . . the gnome’s presence, from the direction of the kitchen, pinged against my inner radar. He was fast asleep, no doubt Tavish-induced. Plus, with the Privacy spell in operation, it wasn’t like the gnome would be an issue even if he did wake up. And now Tavish had made the decision to ask for my help, I could see he was impatient to get on with it.

‘Fire away, then,’ I said.

‘’Twill be better with Compulsion?’ He gave me a cautious look. ‘If you agree?’

He’d asked, which made all the difference. I nodded and held my hand out. He traced a finger along my lifeline, the greyness in his eyes bleeding away until they were silver, shimmering with intensity. ‘So, doll, who or what is it you want?’

The Compulsion pricked me and my mouth answered without hesitation. ‘Spellcrackers. I want to keep it.’

Surprise stung me. Spellcrackers was my company now. Sort of. My boss stint was temporary and I was going to have to give it up. Something I’d thought I was okay with. Until now.

‘So, you’re wanting to stay the boss of Spellcrackers’ – he gave me a probing look – ‘where’s that leave Finn?’

Finn.

My friend. My ex-boss. My—

Bone-deep hurt and angry disillusionment threatened to explode out of me. I shoved it back down, slammed it back in its box. I didn’t know what else Finn was.

Three months ago I thought I did. I thought, along with being friends and working together, we were finally going to be more to each other. We’d been heading that way ever since we’d met, more than a year ago, despite everything keeping us apart.

Then I’d found the fae’s stolen fertility.

And we should’ve had our chance.

But Finn’s teenage daughter, Nicky, was one of the victims of the ToLA case, an awful consequence of which was that she was pregnant. Finn had, of course, gone with Nicky to the Fair Lands to be with her until her baby was safely born.

He’d asked me to go with him. I’d reluctantly said no.

Part of me, the part that wanted Finn and damn everything else, had desperately regretted that no. But I knew it had been the right thing to do. He needed to be there for Nicky without me. We needed that breathing space. And after all Finn’s declarations about not wanting me just for my curse-breaking abilities, that my vamp genes didn’t matter despite him hating vamps with a vengeance, I needed to be sure he’d wanted me for me. Without that time apart, a tiny bit of me would always wonder if Finn and I were really meant to be.

Now I knew.

Two letters, then nothing. No messages, no excuses, just nothing— He’d cut me off. Something that had sliced my heart into tiny pieces. And, now I’d stuck it back together, Finn was someone I’d promised myself not to even think about, let alone waste any more tears over . . .

A quiet warning snort from Tavish made me look down.

I loosened my grip on the half-full plastic bottle I’d almost crushed. It popped back into shape with a sharp cracking sound. My mouth twisted down as I tried to give him a wry smile. I took a breath and locked my hurt, anger and all thoughts of a certain fickle satyr away.

‘You know I haven’t heard from him,’ I said, my tone flat.

Tavish’s expression sharpened. ‘So, when he returns, you’ll be giving Spellcrackers back?’

I didn’t want to, but— ‘Of course, it belongs to him and the satyr herd.’

‘I ken the herd elders are already asking for it. You nae think of just giving it up?’

The herd elders weren’t so much asking as demanding I do exactly that.

Their point: it was their money invested in the company and they’d only signed it over to me as a sweetener to get me to make little curse-breaking baby satyrs with Finn. Now their fertility was found, albeit still trapped, I wasn’t needed, and they wanted their investment back. Immediately. Only my gut told me that if I gave Spellcrackers up now Finn would lose out too. So I’d give Spellcrackers back to him, and only him. What he did then was his choice. I might be hurt and angry, and hugely pissed off at his fickleness but that didn’t mean I was ready to stitch him up. Or that I was stupid.

I picked at the broken tab on my water bottle. ‘It’s pretty convenient that Finn stops communicating right at the time the herd starts putting pressure on me.’

‘Aye. That it is.’

Good to know I wasn’t the only one with suspicions. Not that my suspicions meant the cut-me-off-without-an-explanation satyr’s silence was forgivable.

‘But is being the boss at Spellcrackers truly what your heart wants above all else, doll?’

Tavish’s quiet question diverted my thoughts back to the matter at hand. Spellcrackers was just a company, after all; and yeah, financially I needed to work, preferably doing something I loved and was good at, but it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have my old job back when I gave up the reins . . . except I wouldn’t be the one calling the shots any more. That, I realised, was what I truly wanted.

‘No, not Spellcrackers as such,’ I clarified. ‘But what it represents. I want to be the one in control of my life. No other people making decisions for me or thinking they can force me into doing what they want.’ Which really, after everything, wasn’t so much of a surprise. ‘I want to make my own choices, on my own terms.’

Tavish was silent for a long moment, then something shifted in the depths of his eyes like a fish sliding beneath shadowed waters. ‘’Tis a big ask, doll.’

Impossible more like. ‘Yeah.’ I lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘But what does what I want have to do with releasing the fae’s fertility?’

‘Told you, doll,’ Tavish said briskly. ‘You’re the key, but you’re nae wanting to find the spell, so the magic’s nae keen on helping.’

I considered that. ‘So, if I decide I want it, the magic will help me find it?’

He shook his head. ‘’Tis nae quite that simple. The magic’s a tricky mistress. You know that.’

I did. Magic wasn’t something you could talk or reason with, yet it still had a mind of its own. Sometimes, when I’d needed it, it had helped me in the past.

‘She likes you,’ Tavish said softly.

‘She?’

‘The magic.’

‘Why are you calling it “she”?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Isn’t it more like a natural . . . force or something?’

He smiled, turquoise eyes dancing. ‘We all come from The Mother, and she was the first to come from the magic. So what else would the magic be? But now’s nae the time for debating, doll. We want to find the spell, you want to keep Spellcrackers and be your own boss. Help me and I’ll help you, with that anyways.’

‘Tavish,’ I said, more than a little insulted. ‘I don’t need to be bribed.’

‘Och, I ken, but a little incentive never harms a body, now does it?’

‘Fine, I’m not going to say no.’ I shot him a grateful smile. Having him go to bat for me with the satyrs staking their claim was a bonus. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Ask the one who knows.’ He flicked his fingers and a pack of cards, larger than normal playing size, appeared on the desk in front of me.

‘Tarot cards?’ I asked.

‘Aye.’

Curiosity flickered. I hadn’t known he did readings.

‘Pick them up and hold them in your left hand, doll.’ I slid the water bottle on to the table and did as he said. No magic tingled; the cards felt like ordinary card, and oddly both sides were plain white. He took hold of my right hand, lacing our fingers together. ‘Don’t let go, nae for anything?’ he warned. I nodded, and his gills fanned wide either side of his throat, his eyes turning the deep cobalt blue of a midnight sea. Magic, needle-sharp, pierced me, twisting a storm of desire at my core. I gasped, squirmed on the chair before I could stop. Again he didn’t seem to notice. I clutched at the cards, ignoring the feelings. The need would pass. It always did.

‘Shuffle,’ he ordered, Compulsion fuelled his voice.

‘I can’t one-handed—’ But even as I spoke, my fingers did an expert shuffle.

‘Toss them in the air.’

My hand threw the cards. The light in the room dimmed as they fountained up high like a mushroom cloud, before tumbling like glistening snowflakes on a winter’s night. I winced, expecting them to clatter on to the desk, dreading the damage they could do to the fragile fairy body in its sandwich-box coffin, but they dissipated, melting like the snowflakes they’d mimicked, fading away into the ether . . . Soon only five remained. They snapped into a line, hovering in front of me. Still blank.

I looked at Tavish. ‘What now?’

He picked up one of my scalpels, held it out to me, his hand shaking. ‘They need to be fed.’

‘Blood?’

‘Aye, doll. Blood for your question answered. Usual terms.’ Sweat beaded on his forehead.

I frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Feed ’em,’ he urged, shoulders bowing as if with pain.

O-kay. I pressed my left index finger against the scalpel. The edge sliced the tip, dark viscous blood welled, scenting the air with honey and copper, and I readied for the pain but it didn’t come. Odd.

‘Quick,’ he whispered.

I took a steadying breath. ‘I offer my blood solely in exchange for the answer to my questions. No harm to me or mine,’ I said and touched the first card.

A tiny tongue licked at my finger— Startled, I jerked my hand back, or would’ve without Tavish’s Compulsion holding me in place. The tongue licked some more, tickling, then I felt a little mouth press against the cut, lips sealing around it. It started sucking my blood down, hard and fast enough that I could feel the draw on my heart. I shot an anxious look at Tavish. He was hunched in his chair, the cobalt colour leaching from his eyes, leaving them pale and cloudy, his dreads turning dry and brittle, their beads clear as glass. Then a bead shattered, the pieces hitting the floor with a soft ping. Uneasy, I tried yanking my hand from the card. I couldn’t.

‘What the hell’s happening, Tavish?’

‘Channelling.’

‘Channelling what? Something in the cards?’

He grunted.

I took it as a yes. And judging by the way his hand gripped mine, whatever it was, it was powerful. What the hell was in the cards if they could do this to him? And why hadn’t he told me what to expect? Unless this wasn’t it?

‘Harder,’ he muttered. ‘Harder than I thought to stop you.’

‘Stop me? But I’m not doing anything!’

More beads shattered. He crumpled forwards, his head dropping to his knees, his hand a death-grip on mine. ‘The card? Is it changing?’

I dragged my attention back to the card. Thick gold mist topped it like a tiny thundercloud, and on the front the dark bruised red of my blood coloured the card from the bottom up, as if it were litmus paper drawing it up. Which in a way it seemed it was, as there was still a thin white strip at the top.

‘Tell me when.’ Tavish’s words were a hoarse whisper.

The strip turned pink . . .

Brighter red . . .

Then the dark bruised colour of the rest of the card.

Suddenly the mouth released my finger with an audible satisfied sigh.

I cut a troubled glance at Tavish. ‘It’s let go—’

He toppled out of the chair, his hand slipping from mine, and curled into a foetal ball under the desk.

I flung myself to my knees, grabbed his head; his face was lined and shrunken like an old man’s.

Weakly, he pushed at me. ‘Talk to the card, doll,’ he ground out harshly, ‘afore she leaves.’

She? But a stab of Compulsion had my body pulling back into the chair, my eyes fixing on the bloodstained card and my mouth said, ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the trap and restore their fertility back to them as it was before it was taken.’

The tarot card vibrated. The blood swirled away in wisps of reddish smoke until I could make out a picture. A dark-haired, hawk-nosed male in his thirties, dressed in a purple toga, his head wreathed with a crown of golden laurels, lounged on an ornate throne. He held a silver-bladed dagger in one hand, and behind him a large golden eagle perched on a staff-like pillar. The Emperor.

The Emperor on the card laughed; a loud arrogant sound that filled the large room. I started. The ginger tom leaped from the desk, its fur bottle-brush stiff, and at my feet Tavish whimpered. On the card a huge, fanged snake slithered up the staff and hissed at the golden eagle. The bird flapped its wings angrily and launched itself out into the room, soaring up to the ceiling.

I repeated my question.

The Emperor laughed again, pointed his silver dagger out of the card at me and bellowed, ‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price!’

Of course he would. ‘Who’s he?’ my mouth demanded.

‘He is I!’

‘Who are you?’

The Emperor gave another booming laugh. ‘I am the Emperor!’

Great. Was it a tarot card or a pantomime villain? Next he’d be shouting, ‘He’s behind you!’ I gritted my teeth. Specific questions, Gen. ‘What’s the name you were given at your birth?’

‘My father named me—’

An angry screech drowned his words as the golden eagle dived back into the card. The card exploded in a splatter of crimson as if a bullet had hit dead centre. Droplets of blood expanded out in a starburst of brilliant red light, their blinding afterimage searing my retinas.

Crap. Crapcrapcrap.

No way in hell was that supposed to happen . . . I rubbed at my eyes, crouched and desperately stretched out to Tavish under the desk. Who knew what harm the explosion of magic had caused him? I patted around but couldn’t feel him. Finally, as my vision returned I realised the only things under the desk were me, the ginger tom and some disgusting toadstools sprouting from the mouldy rug.

Tavish was gone.

A soft snorting noise made me turn. In the centre of the room, making the place seem small, stood a kelpie horse. The kelpie’s green-black coat was rough over hard, ropy muscles, its tangled mane glinted with dull gold beads, its black-lace gills fanned wide to either side of its arched, serpentine neck, and its eyes flickered with golden light.

Damn. Tavish’s wylde side had come out to play. Perfect.