The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Fifty-Three

I woke with a raging thirst, a hammering in my head that rivalled a dwarves’ workshop, and a nauseous roiling in my belly. I groaned, rolled groggily away from the sunlight sending knives into my eyes, and got a face full of fur. I groaned again, belatedly realising my Hot.D/Reviver double-postponed hangover had sucker-punched me. As had Gold Cat.

Fucking animus had mated me and Finn. Or it and him. Or all of us. Or— Fuck if I knew. But whatever Gold Cat had done, it was going to undo it as soon as I got my hands around its funky furry neck.

I scrambled up, dizzy with the hangover, to find Finn and Gold Cat were gone.

But Viviane was back, sitting with her game of Patience.

Shit. I should’ve known better than to trust her small agreement. I should’ve negotiated a cast-iron bargain with her and damned the consequences.

‘You and Gold Cat planned that, didn’t you?’ I accused, grabbing my clothes and yanking them on.

She calmly moved a card. ‘Not so much planned as, once I knew what the animus wanted, I agreed not to interfere.’

‘Why?’

‘Why isn’t important right now, bean sidhe. Not if you want me to help you save the satyr, as we agreed.’

I snorted then wished I hadn’t as the dwarves in my head hammered another couple of nails in. ‘No thanks, Viv. After your last bit of help, in which you, oh so helpfully fucked Finn and me up, you can stick it. And the agreement’s off; you’ve broken our no-harm-to-me-or-mine deal.’

Her cards jerked up on end, quivering with umbrage. ‘I agreed to help release you from that circle. In order to do that without your dying, the ritual had to be completed. As stated on page thirty-nine of the notes taken from the witch archives.’

My hands stilled on my shirt buttons as the ramifications hit me. If I hadn’t had sex with Finn, I’d be dead . . . except I’m sidhe, and hard to kill. And I trusted Viviane about as far as I could throw her, which seeing as she was incorporeal was not at all. But I didn’t need to trust her, I could check for myself. I lurched over to Carlson’s ripped backpack, only to find the cloth-wrapped bundle containing the details of the ritual was missing.

I rounded on Viviane. ‘Where is it?’

She shrugged. ‘I do not know. But I can tell you that what happened between you and Finn was for the best. If it had not happened, then when the Emperor’s lupus centurions appeared, they would have killed the satyr and one of them would have completed the ritual instead. I do not think you would enjoy being mated to one of the Emperor’s werewolves.’

I stared at her, horrified at the worse-than-having-sex-with-Finn-and-whatever-Gold-Cat-had-done fate Finn and I had averted. ‘The Emperor’s werewolves were here?’

She tossed her black hair back in irritation and her cards flew up into a line in front of my face. Like a slide show they showed seven huge wolves at the cave entrance. Then three black-haired, olive-skinned males, dressed only in short centurion-style leather kilts with thick hair furring their muscled chests, alike enough to be brothers, if not triplets, and all of them resembling the Latin Lover werewolf guy from Trafalgar Square. Next card showed Finn, his head bleeding, eyes closed, half-bundled into a net. The last card showed the swish of Gold Cat’s tail as it chased after them.

A vice squeezed my heart. The Emperor’s werewolves had taken Finn. I had to get him back. Rage and fear ignited in my veins. I would get him back, no matter what it took. The Emperor wanted something from me—

‘I was here,’ I said, my voice flat. ‘Why didn’t they take me?’

‘No doubt they had a reason.’ Viviane flicked her fingers and the cards returned to a tidy stack in front of her. ‘But if you want my help to save the satyr along with all the other victims of the Forum Mirabilis we should get moving.’

‘Told you,’ I snapped. ‘Your help is no longer required.’

She gave me an arch smile. ‘Then I wish you luck finding your way back to the humans’ world.’

Crap. Like I’d ever find it. Between didn’t go in for handy signposts and I’d been unconscious on the way here. Even if I struck lucky and found an entrance, right one or not, opening it would take another miracle. Being magically challenged sucks. Big time.

‘Fine,’ I snapped. ‘Let’s move.’

The way back felt like I was climbing-through Dante’s nine circles of hell. My Hot.D postponed hangover, which even the painkillers in my backpack couldn’t nix, didn’t help. Neither did the cave being so far off any regular paths, so not only did I have fucking garden fairies screaming in my ears and sulphurous-smelling swampies to dodge but all the other magical beasties and half-formed spirits that plague Between decided to come out and party too. Most of them decided retreat was the best option as soon as they got a look at Ascalon, but enough wanted a piece of me that by the time we reached the double oak tree with its bramble- and weed-tangled and impossible-for-me-to-pass exit back to London’s Primrose Hill, I already looked like I’d been pulled through a hundred hedges backwards.

I glowered at the bespelled tangle, cursing my lack of magical ability, the Emperor and anyone else who’d had a meddling hand in my life. Slicing and dicing my way through the half-formed hadn’t done much to take the edge off my rage and fear for Finn; instead the fighting had solidified it into a gutful of determination. But at least the long trek in between the fights had given me time to put more of the ‘Viviane jigsaw’ together.

I turned to where she hovered silently. Once we’d left the cave she’d changed her outfit to a lavender-coloured Victorian dress, complete with beribboned bustle, feathered bonnet and lacy parasol, and had entertained herself by making small-talk about all the famous artists she’d got it together with, or by critiquing my sword-handling skills, demonstrating with her parasol, after each of my tussles. Of course, none of the half-formed had attacked her; she’d been safe behind a personal Ward. She’d shut up, though, after my frustrated rage had exploded and I’d threatened to slice and dice her wretched parasol.

I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

Her mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You can’t do that. I’m a spirit! Incorporeal!’

Except I could. As I’d discovered during my skirmishes with the half-formed. It hadn’t just been Ascalon that had chased them off; my fists and feet had too. The first time had been by accident; two seven-foot cyclops-types with orange exoskeletons and snapping lobster claws got me in a pincer movement (bad pun aside). Ascalon declawed one (a minor injury, if not for the fact it was caused by the blessed, bespelled sword), blasting the cyclops-lobster back into the magic, and my automatic elbow to the gut got the one behind me. Its surprised look as its carapace cracked had mirrored my own, then, as it gathered its leaking magic back to re-form and attack again, I instinctively called it and absorbed it. Horrified about what nasty side-effects might arise from ingesting a half-formed, I spat it straight back out. Or rather I spat out an orange amorphous mass. It floated off, drifting gradually apart until it faded away into the ether.

It took me a few more fights, and absorptions, to put my new ability together with the sorcerer’s soul I’d consumed during the demon attack last Hallowe’en, and realised that I could do more with souls and spirits than just chomp on them and regurgitate the magical remains. Like spells, I could grab them and, once they realised my touch controlled them, let them go (at which point most of them beat a hasty retreat) or I could absorb them and spit them back out whole. Well, I could after my ninth attempt. Of course, those spirits had found the whole experience a tad traumatic, but then they hadn’t exactly wanted to be absorbed.

Unlike Viviane, who’d obviously been popping in and out of me as if I’d installed a revolving door.

I bared my teeth in a smile at her. ‘Your tarot cards neglect to tell you I was a soul-eater?’

She snapped her mouth shut and a sullen look darkened her red eyes to almost black.

‘Thought not,’ I said, letting her go as she tugged on her arm. ‘So when exactly did you jump ship from the tarot cards to me?’

She made a show of shaking the sulphur dust off the hem of her dress. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

Yeah, you keep prevaricating like that, Viv. ‘C’mon, you’re supposed to be bound to the tarot cards. I’m pretty sure Tavish has still got the cards with him, in the humans’ world, yet you’re swanning around in Between. The only way you could’ve got here was by hitchhiking a ride. With me.’ I tipped her chin up. ‘Truth time. I wasn’t the one who made the ùmaidh, you were. And the Emperor’s werewolves didn’t leave me when they took Finn, you prevented them from taking me.’ Both acts seemed to suggest she was protecting me, though, which begged the question why she hadn’t stopped the big-cat-shifters abducting me in the first place. I asked her.

‘We have an agreement, bean sidhe. No harm to you or yours. Until the cat-shifters threatened you with irreparable harm there was no need for me to intervene. And you should recall,’ she finished, like she expected a medal, ‘I did warn you about them.’

Right. ‘Your warning wasn’t exactly clear.’

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘That is how the cards work sometimes.’

How she made them work. Still, it made sense of her ‘intervention’; her warning had been iffy, so if some ‘irreparable harm’ had happened to me as a result, she’d have been responsible. The magic wouldn’t look lightly on it. In fact, she could still be in for a world of trouble. ‘Our agreement was no harm to me or mine.’ I stressed the mine. ‘So you should’ve stopped the werewolves from taking Finn, too. Not to mention stopping Gold Cat from getting its claws in him. He’s mine.’

She tilted her head with a sly look. ‘Is he? Or did you relinquish your claim to the satyr?’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘If you had truly considered the satyr yours, bean sidhe, I would have been able to protect him, and it is possible the animus spirit embodied in the gold cat would not have been able to take him as a mate. The magic listens, you know that.’

I stared at her, aghast. Finn’s fate was my fault? Because I’d rejected him when I’d chosen Malik? Fuck. Whether it was or not, Finn wasn’t going to suffer for something I’d done. And neither was anyone else.

Viviane was a loose cannon. One I needed to get under control. Not to mention she was in league with Bastien . . . Of course, there was always Ascalon. But the sword was an empty threat, and she knew it. If I killed her, I’d never get the last tarot card. Without that card, I’d lose any chance of finding how to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant. But she did want something. And wanted it badly enough to show herself to me.

‘Right, Viv, this is the way we’re going to play it. I’m claiming Finn as mine from here on in—’ We both jumped as a small chime split the air. I shot her a satisfied smile. ‘See, even the magic agrees. And next time someone’s in trouble because of me and your cards, you assume that person is “mine” and allow no harm to come to them either.’ I paused, but this time the magic was quiet; probably the ‘ask’ was too vague. Well, I still had something Viv wanted. I fixed her with a stern look. ‘Plus, if you want me to get your tarot cards then you’re going to have to help me properly; no more iffy warnings, no more cryptic stuff’– I jabbed her in the chest – ‘and no more plotting with Bastien.’

She sighed and gave me a resigned look. ‘As I told you, bean sidhe, I will assist as I can, where my assistance does not negate another bargain I have already made.’

It wasn’t quite a confession, but it would do. ‘Fine. But only if you’re going to play it straight with me?’ She nodded.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘So, is there anything, that you can tell, that’s going to cause us problems in the next short while?’

She frowned at the distant swampies for a long moment, then pursed her lips. ‘Not as far as I can see.’

‘Okay.’ I held out my hand. ‘Now jump on board or whatever it is you do and get us out of here.’

‘At your service, bean sidhe,’ she said, placing her lavender-gloved hand in mine then vanishing, leaving a faint trail of jasmine-scented magic behind which the sulphurous reek of swampies quickly obliterated. This time instead of hiding I felt her lodge under my diaphragm as if I’d eaten a heavy meal. Looked like she planned on giving me indigestion. Perfect.

I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated. After a bit of huffing and puffing on her part, and a minor struggle of wills, we came to a compromise and I got her settled. An image formed in my mind of Viviane sitting on a grassy bank next to a canal. The hot yellow sun in the bright blue sky overhead reflected a golden ball on the canal’s glassy surface, and a few feet from Viviane a willow tree trailed its long curtain of sword-like green leaves into the water.

It is rather naïve, bean sidhe, Viviane grumbled, her voice sounding tinny in my head. And I do not mean that in a good way. You could always soften the edges a touch, adopt a more impressionistic approach and add so much more depth and interest into the colours. It is a tad bright as it is. She sighed. Monet did it so much better. I knew him, you know.

‘Yeah, I do. You’ve just told me for the umpteenth time, and this is the first time I’ve done this,’ I muttered. ‘But if you don’t like it you can always lurk in the dark like you did before.’

She sniffed, opened her parasol and positioned it to block out the sun’s glare.

‘Right,’ I said, pointing at the entrance tangled with weeds and brambles. ‘C’mon, Viv, do your stuff. And remember to get the date and time right; we’re aiming for the afternoon of the Summer Solstice.’

I will try to get us as close as possible, she sniped, then dipped her hand into the canal and pulled out a sparkling glyph; it glistened against her fingers for a second, then my own fingers tingled as the glyph appeared and launched itself at the exit. The brambles parted like the legendary Red Sea, and I walked out of Between and into the humans’ world.

To find Gold Cat waiting for us.