The Cold Kiss of Death

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tavish’s magic beachfront door expelled me under London Bridge this time. I walked out of an open doorway near the entrance of the London Bridge Experience, the very one where I’d spent an uncomfortable time surveying ghosts with Finn a few days past—right now it felt like a particularly long lifetime ago. The green and blue lights twinkled in the pavement, and a couple of the exhibition actors—two women in ankle-length woollen robes made up to look like mediaeval plague victims—were organising the visitors waiting to go in. It might be Sunday morning, but scary tourist shows were definitely the in-thing for Hallowe’en.

I headed past the chattering queue, many of them stamping their feet and breathing into their hands against the cold wind that whistled off the nearby Thames. As I reached the bottom of Nancy’s Steps, I stopped and looked up, recalling my escape up them the previous night from the turban-headed dryads. The phouka, in her doggy guise, a faint silver sheen to her silky short-haired coat, gazed sphinx-like from the top. She angled her head to one side, ears pricking forward, then, giving me a tongue-lolling smile, she bounded down to meet me.

‘Hello Grianne,’ I said drily as she shook herself, casually scattering raindrops over me, and just as casually casting an Unseen spell. The magic settled round us like a cocoon, blocking out the noise of the excited tourists and the traffic rumbling across the bridge above.

‘How’s my faerie dogmother this morning?’ I asked. ‘Did you get enough exercise chasing sticks last night?’

‘Please do not refer to me by that ridiculous mortal name, child,’ the dog snapped; any human listening would hear just a low growl. ‘I am a phouka. And the dryads caused me no more problems after you had departed.’

‘Great to hear it.’ I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets and started along the street. After some discussion—during which Malik had disappeared to wherever—Tavish had finally come up with some clothes—the jacket, trainers, jeans and T-shirt all thankfully real—in exchange for me heading straight back after meeting the phouka, something I’d been planning to do anyway.

‘So,’ I said, as the phouka fell in beside me, ‘have you managed to find any info on the sidhe who’s decided to visit London yet?’

‘None in the Fair Lands has opened any of the three gates.’ Her black-tipped claws clicked sharply on the pavement. ‘Clíona, my queen, has forbidden any from doing so.’

‘Because of the droch guidhe.’ I bent down and looked the phouka in her pale grey eyes. ‘Of which there is a detail you forgot to mention to me: like, the lesser fae who can’t have full-blood children?’

Her ears flattened against her head. ‘It was not your concern.’

I straightened and gave the phouka a ‘don’t bullshit me’ look. ‘Of course it’s my concern, Grianne! I’m running round Sucker Town on your rescue missions, picking up any stray faelings that end up trapped there because you keep telling me your queen can’t break the curse and feels guilty about them. Now I find out not only is there an additional problem with the curse, but that she’s been refusing to speak to any of the fae here about it. I take it you do know what their solution is, don’t you?’

‘Enough, child.’ She growled at me for real this time, baring long black fangs. ‘I am aware of the situation. But regardless of what I might have wished, I was, like all others, constrained by the prohibition.’

‘Which is another thing.’ I tilted my head to look at her. ‘Everyone else was “prohibited” from coming near me, but you just got told to keep the secret. What makes you so different?’

‘The curse does not afflict me’—the hairs along her spine rose in a stiff ridge—‘nor am I a vampire who wishes to enslave you.’ She padded a couple of steps forward and the air blurred around her. Grianne stood before me in her more human form, her usual haughty expression on her long, narrow face. A swathe of fine silver fabric was caught in a clasp at one shoulder and fell to pool around her feet, clinging like silk to her tall, slender body. It gave her an oddly ethereal air that belied her strength. Her ash-grey hair was feathered against her scalp, parting around the pointed tips of her ears, and her skin shone the same faint silver-grey as the dog’s. Anyone seeing her would know her at once for a fae—not that anyone would see her with her magic hiding us.

‘Fair enough.’ I stopped, giving her a wary look. ‘But they’re not the only reasons, are they?’

‘Of course not, child.’ She smiled, her teeth as black and sharp as the dog’s. ‘As I have told you before, I abhor what you are; even were you not infected with salaich sìol you have your father’s taint in your blood, and I intended to end your life at first.’ She might have been discussing the weather for all the emotion in her voice. ‘But you proved yourself to be resourceful, courageous and stubborn that night, and I owed you a debt.’

Yeah, it wasn’t me the vamp sunk his fangs in, was it? I said to myself. The stupid sucker had been so excited at catching a phouka that he completely missed the fourteen-year-old sidhe right under his nose. Not that I’d missed him. And Grianne’s feelings for me were nothing new. But it was nice to know I’d impressed her; at least that was something.

‘So I agreed to the prohibition,’ she carried on calmly. ‘I would not attempt to remove you from London, either by death or any other means, so long as you were no hindrance to my queen.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘Although at the time I was not aware that the vampires were part of the same agreement. ’

In other words, someone had tricked her and she really had expected me to end up as vamp chow. And what she was telling me confirmed my suspicions about why the fae—as well as the vamps—had agreed to leave me alone for the last ten years. If they hadn’t, Grianne would have killed me, and deprived all of them of their sidhe prize.

Mentally I thanked Malik and Tavish, whatever their motives. I might have despatched the vamp that attacked Grianne that night, but I’d been hurt, so if she had decided to kill me, I’d have been easy dogmeat. I shuddered; Death by Phouka is so not a pleasant thought.

‘I suppose the question, Grianne,’ I said slowly, ‘is why you decided not to kill me on my twenty-third birthday, once the prohibition came to an end.’

‘You are more valuable alive, child.’ She walked on, her dress trailing behind her. ‘My queen agreed that I should stay my hand.’

‘Thanks,’ I think. I wondered what ‘valuable’ meant, and how much longer ‘valuable’ would last, but I pushed those thoughts away to examine later and got my mind back on the real reason for my meeting with Grianne: information on the sidhe who murdered Tomas.

‘So, “None in the Fair Lands has opened any of the three gates”.’ I half-smiled, as I repeated her words. ‘That’s very specific information; care to tell me what you’re not saying?’

‘First, I have a proposition for you.’ The wind ruffled her sleek hair. ‘My queen is willing to testify to the human authorities on your behalf about this crime.’

‘Why?’

‘You have succeeded far better than I ever did at rescuing those fae entrapped by the vampires, for which my queen is grateful.’ She pointed a black sharp-tipped fingernail at me. ‘You know how to think like the humans, you have contacts within the witches and vampires’ circles, and amongst the Others, the trolls and the goblins. Your knowledge of London is invaluable.’

‘Why Grianne, I didn’t know you cared so much,’ I said, then held up a hand at her look of displeasure. ‘It’s okay, I get the message. There is another bean sidhe wandering round London, and she’s somehow managed to bypass the gates without your queen’s knowledge, and now your queen wants me to find her. In exchange she’ll get me off the hook. I take it she also wants the sidhe repatriated, rather than being handed over to the authorities?’

‘This is so.’ She held out her hand. A smooth pebble of gleaming haematite lay in her palm. ‘All you need do is find the sidhe and give her this. It will return her to her home in an instant.’

Magic, gotta love it.

I took the pebble; it tingled like electricity against my fingers. I dropped it into my pocket. ‘I’m going to need whatever information you’ve got. All of it, no keeping things back this time, Grianne.’

‘So you agree to do this?’ She angled her head to look down at me, her eyes gleaming oddly yellow for a moment.

‘Isn’t that what I just said?’ I raised my brows, then sighed at her expectant silence. ‘Yes, I agree.’

She smiled, satisfied.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now that you’re happy, please start talking.’

‘Very well, child. The three London gates have not been opened, but another has been recently conjured by a mortal in this part of the world. As yet, my queen has not succeeded in locating the gate’s anchor, either here or in her own territory. ’

I frowned. ‘When you say “anchor”, what do you mean?’

‘Gates are traditionally opened at specific landmarks, anchored by a combination of earth, air and water magic, which makes them easy to locate and to guard.’ The pointed tips of her ears seemed to flatten. ‘This gate is anchored by blood magic.’

‘Which means?’

‘The gate can be opened anywhere, here or in the Fair Lands, by whomsoever controls the blood.’

‘So the anchor is the person and not a place?’

‘Almost correct, child. The anchor is two persons, the two halves of the gate. It will be a mortal on this side, one who shares a close blood-connection with someone in my queen’s court.’

‘What sort of blood-connection?’ I asked.

‘A parent on this side whose child is in the Fair Lands.’

‘A mortal parent this side,’ I said, putting the pieces together in my mind. ‘So you’re talking about, what, a stolen child on your side?’

Grianne paled in shock. ‘My queen would never sanction a stolen child at her court! That would be to break the bargain the human monarch Victoria brokered with all the queens of the Fair Lands on the birth of her first child.’

I wasn’t quite sure how many queens of the Fair Lands there were; I’d asked Grianne once and finally got out of her ‘more than twenty’ along with ‘as many as the magic desires’ when I’d pressed the matter. Both were typical answers when she either didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell me something.

‘Queen Victoria died more than a century ago,’ I said, matter-of-fact.

Her shock turned to puzzlement. ‘There is still a queen on the throne of England, not a king, is there not?’

‘Yes, Queen Elizabeth. The Second.’

‘Then the bargain will have been renegotiated on the birth of the current queen’s first child.’ She waved dismissively. ‘The tradition goes back to Boadicea.’

‘Okay, so if the child isn’t stolen, what is it?’

‘A treasured gift given to my queen,’ she said softly, ‘at a time of great sorrow.’

Ri-ight. I wondered briefly who actually suffered this great sorrow, the queen, or the poor human who was persuaded to give up her child as a gift? Still, there couldn’t be many who’d done so, whatever the reason, which would narrow the search. ‘So who’s the parent?’ I asked.

She placed a hand on my arm. ‘There is a complication, child.’

Figured! ‘Go on.’

‘The gate has not been used by either the child or the parent, but by someone unrelated to either of them.’

I frowned. ‘But you said the gate needed their blood to make the connection.’

She nodded. ‘This is true.’

‘So whoever has opened the gate has access to their blood,’ I mused. ‘Which means they have to be close to the parent, so finding the parent should lead me to the gate-conjurer and then to the sidhe.’

‘This quest would be of benefit both to my queen and to you yourself.’ Grianne guided us around a large oil-slicked puddle. ‘When you find the anchor, my queen will intercede on your behalf with the human authorities to confirm that you are not responsible for the human’s death.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘There is one more thing you should be aware of.’ She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘The bean sidhe is not in her right mind.’

‘I’d kind of got that by the fact she’s murdered someone,’ I said drily.

‘She may not realise she has done so.’ The tips of Grianne’s ears twitched. ‘It is important you take care that she is not harmed.’

‘Fine. The information, Grianne.’

‘It is in your pocket, child.’ She turned, the air wavered about her, she dropped to all four doggy paws and bounded off, nails clicking sharply along the street.

‘Make an exit, why don’t you?’ I muttered, pulling out a folded sheet of parchment from my jacket pocket. Opening it, I glanced at the name—

—and sighed. Helen Crane, a.k.a Detective Inspector Helen Crane, Head of the Metropolitan Magic Murder Squad, the person in charge of hunting me down for a murder I didn’t commit.

Crap. Could my day get any worse?