The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Forty-One

I nodded then realised Mary’s question was rhetorical, as she went into full Detective Sergeant mode. She and Dessa scryed again for Mad Max – using a visitor’s map of the Carnival this time – and came up with a possible hit in the north section nearest the zoo. It should have made Mad Max an easy find, if the north wasn’t the section with over a hundred of the smaller shows, all crammed together in what was meant to give visitors ‘a surprise around every corner’. The surprise for us would be finding Mad Max at all, as the search was going to be like looking for a tick on a dog’s back.

Mary snagged some extra manpower from the nearby investigation at the zoo, and within half an hour the section was divided up and five separate search parties, each consisting of three WPCs and a troll – I got to tag along with Mary, Dessa, another WPC and Constable Taegrin: ‘safety in numbers’ as Mary said – headed out.

The Carnival Fantastique has always been a place for Others to make a living, either by exploiting their own, or another’s, rarity. And the north section of the carnival was the area reserved for the less usual acts. So the place wasn’t only crammed with shows but was also chock-full of visitors, the majority human, but with a smattering of fae, faelings and Other folk, all eager to catch sight of something, or someone, different.

Finally Mary’s scrying crystal flashed faster as we turned into a short, dead-end lane with only four stalls, all of which had seen better days, and a corresponding scarcity of visitors: two women at a spell and potions stall looking at a marble pestle and mortar; a burly man buying a phoenix burger (in a fireproof bun) from a fast food bar manned by a chipped concrete troll; no one at the Ring-a-Rat, which wasn’t a surprise considering the weird-looking, two-headed rodents scuttling around the stall’s circular track; and at a herbalist’s barrow near the willow wall making up the end, a young couple who were more interested in each other than any herbs, judging by the way they were lip-locked together.

The tourists (apart from the lip-locked couple) looked round as the five of us invaded the lane. The women’s eyes widened with curiosity while the burly man grabbed his burger and high-tailed it away, to a narrow-eyed frown from Constable Taegrin.

Mary checked her crystal against the map. It pointed at the decorative willow wall blocking the end. ‘We’ll have to double round.’

Something about the location snagged my memory and I jogged to the wall. At its centre was a woven willow arch backed with mirrored foil. A label stuck to the foil quoted: Extend your garden vista safely: won’t scratch, chip or crack. And as I squinted at my distorted reflection, it clicked where we were.

‘We won’t need to,’ I called. ‘This is an entrance to one of the Other areas. It’s got a Look-Away on it.’

Out the corner of my eye, I saw the lip-locked couple pull apart. The girl – a pretty, freckled redhead – nudged her boyfriend, who was well worth the tonsil tangling, if tall, dark and handsome flipped your switch; obviously it did hers—

And Katie’s too.

I stared in disbelief.

Tall, dark and handsome was Katie’s new boyfriend.

Marc. Marc’s eyes met mine curiously for a moment then, as he realised who I was, colour stained his cheeks and he turned away, suddenly very interested in showing his redhead girlfriend whatever was on the barrow.

I clenched my fists, wanting to grab him and ask him what the hell he was playing at. This was going to break Katie’s heart when she found out. Crap. I knew the guy was too good to be true.

‘You all right?’ Mary said quietly as she and Dessa joined me.

‘Yeah,’ I muttered, glaring at Marc’s back. ‘Sorry—’ I stopped as, from behind another section of willow screen, two more figures appeared: an older male I recognised as Marc’s uncle from their picture on their plant nursery website, and a small, squat and disgustingly familiar gnome: Mr Lampy. The gnome was followed by one of his cats, its tail held high. Marc bent to stroke it, nearly managing to hide himself under the stall as he did so. Well, looked like he had been telling the truth when I’d caught him spying on me, about speaking to one of the gnome’s cats before doing business with Lecherous Lampy. Not that it made me feel any better. Neither did the fact that as the gnome saw me, he waved, mouth splitting into his awful denture-filled leer.

I half-heartedly lifted a hand in greeting then suppressed a groan as he rushed over.

‘Ms Taylor, how fortunate to see you here.’ His beady eyes leered from behind his round glasses. ‘Doing a bit of shopping are you? I’ve got some juicy worms marinated in sugar syrup with deadnettles if you’re interested? Jarred for portability? I know you fairies like those.’

Dessa made a choked noise behind me as I said, ‘I’m not a fairy, Mr Lampy, I’m a sidhe. And I’m not shopping. I’m here on official business.’ I waved a hand at the four police officers. He had to be blind if he couldn’t see them.

‘Of course.’ The gnome nodded his lichen-covered head agreeably. ‘I won’t hold you up, then, but you haven’t forgotten about my licences, have you?’

Out-of-season desiccated dead garden fairies are hard to forget, much as I wanted to. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, Mr Lampy.’

‘Wonderful, Ms Taylor.’ He turned away, then spun back and leaned in way too close to my chest. I stepped back, bumping into Dessa. ‘There was another small item,’ the gnome said in a conspiratorial voice. ‘The pathway on Primrose Hill seems to have developed a problem. Perhaps you could look at it sometime?’

Pathway? I frowned . . . Oh, right, there was a small patch of Between tagging Primrose Hill to some of London’s other green spaces that acted as a shortcut for a lot of fae. It wasn’t really anything to do with me or Spellcrackers, but . . .

‘What’s the problem?’

He clasped his sausage-like fingers over his pot-belly. ‘I’m not really sure, Ms Taylor. I haven’t seen it for myself, just heard a rumour.’

‘Fine. I’ll look into it.’ Anything to get rid of him.

‘Wonderful.’ The gnome gave me anther denture-blinding smile and hurried back to his stall. The freckled redhead was still there talking to Marc’s uncle. The gnome’s cat had been joined by another, and the pair were under the barrow, ears flat and bottle-brush tails suggesting a spat was in the offing. But Marc had obviously made himself scarce. Damn. I was going to have to break the bad news about him to Katie; so not a conversation I wanted to have.

‘Juicy worms?’ Mary murmured. I shot her a look and she held her hands up. ‘Hey, just asking.’

‘Sorry. Disgusting client.’

‘Yeah, I can see that,’ she agreed, her sympathy only just edging out her mirth, then got back to business and indicated the willow arch with its mirror. ‘How do we get through?’

‘Just walk,’ I said. ‘It’s an Illusion spell designed to stop anyone entering by accident.’ I stepped towards the mirror, only to have Mary’s hand clamped on my arm.

‘Genny,’ she warned, ‘we’re doing this by the book, remember? Which means we need backup.’ She thumbed her radio. It crackled into life.

I sighed impatiently as Mary gave out orders, then pursed my lips at the pretty redhead, wondering if she knew her boyfriend was chatting up seventeen-year-olds on the side. And wondering why she wasn’t slapping the disgusting gnome for so patently leering at her cleavage while bagging up what looked like a sheaf of A4 pages and various concoctions for Marc’s brother. Why on earth would a nurseryman want all those magical ingredients? Curious. I pinged him: human. The girl, though, had a touch of fae, or maybe witch, blood—

‘Okay.’ Mary clicked off her radio, and I put the gnome and Katie’s treacherous boyfriend away to deal with later. ‘Backup’s on its way in ten.’ She motioned to the other WPC. ‘Constable, wait here for them, and while you do take statements from the stallholders.’ She extended her baton with its jade-tipped Stun spell and pointed it at the mirror. ‘Constable Taegrin leads the way, as he’s less likely to be affected by any magical attack. I’ll go next, then Constable Dessa. Genny goes last. That way if there’s anything dodgy on the other side, she’ll be protected.’

Taegrin nodded grimly as Dessa extended her own baton with a ferocious snap. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

‘You know I could snag your Stun spells before either of you could blink, don’t you?’ I said drily.

Mary shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter, Genny, you’re still a civilian. Now, is there anything you can tell me about what to expect?’

I shifted through my mental Carnival files, and as it clicked exactly which Other area this was, an errant moment of mischief made me say, ‘A few shows, nothing special.’

‘Let’s go, then.’

Taegrin ducked under the willow arch, disappearing through the mirror. Mary and Dessa followed, and like the good little civilian I was, I brought up the rear. The mirror’s illusion slipped over me like a chill breeze, and I found myself standing between my three protectors, in a visitor-free clearing, ringed by half-a-dozen exhibition tents. And when I say exhibition, I mean exhibition!

I’d read the shows’ listings on the Carnival’s manifest, but words on paper couldn’t compare. For a moment I stood and stared with the rest.

Tents one to three, respectively, offered: Dwarf Smelting ~ Golden Showers a Speciality, Sing-a-Long Sea Shanties with Susie the Siren and Swan Maiden Dancing. Though if the gaudy painting of a swan-headed girl, scantily clad in white feathers and wrapping her long legs round a pole, was right, it definitely wasn’t the usual ‘suitable for children’ show.

Standing in front of the next tent were two male centaurs, all arrogant expressions, handlebar moustaches and oiled, pumped-up muscles. The sign above them offered Heavenly Rides. Tent five’s door flap was down, its sign turned round with ‘Closed’ scrawled across it in purple ink.

Sitting outside the last, rainbow-decorated tent was a small, green-skinned, pointy-eared leprechaun in a green cloak with his nose in a book titled Silver-Tongued Devil. At his feet sat a hairless cat in a blue-knitted jumper, leg in the air as it studiously washed its junk, and surrounding both were stacked huge foot-high balls of multi-coloured string. Behind them stood a massive bull-headed figure, hand on cocked hip, wearing a Spandex one-piece in shiny pink that did nothing to hide the figure’s melon-like boobs, nor its thick salami-like erection flanked by what looked like a pair of overlarge apples. A rainbow-shaped sign hanging in the tent doorway challenged all-comers to Chase the Minotaur to the Pot of Gold ~ String £50!

‘Fifty quid for a ball of string,’ Dessa muttered, breaking the stunned silence. ‘Even for a pot of gold, that’s a bit rich, isn’t it?’

The bull-headed figure pointed an admonishing pink-lacquered finger at her. ‘I’ll have you know fifty smackers is peanuts, luv,’ he said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. The Spandex was as tight as it looked. Or maybe he was a she. ‘Why, the King of the Dark Elves himself forked out a thousand times that for the honour of chasing me.’

‘He’s not worth it,’ the centaur on the left said, sneering through his moustache. ‘You fancy a ride, witch, then I’m the one to put your money on. Old Mini over there lives up to his name.’

‘Yes, indeed!’ The other centaur looked down his nose at the pink-Spandexed minotaur. ‘I can categorically say that with Mini, what you see is certainly not what you get. That’s nothing but a distasteful plastic extension.’

O-kay!

Mini the Minotaur stuck both hands on his pink-covered hips, thrust them out and shrilled, ‘I’ll have you know Major-Me is a truly fully-functioning part of me.’

The leprechaun gave us a tired look from under bushy green eyebrows. ‘Bespelled,’ he murmured.

‘O’Keefe!’ Mini cuffed him on his pointy ear and squeaked,

‘Shut up!’

‘What’s bespelled?’ Dessa asked.

O’Keefe jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Mini. ‘His strap-on.’

I choked, swallowing back a laugh.

‘A bespelled strap-on?’ Taegrin growled. ‘More like an offensive weapon.’

Mary rounded on me, accusation in her eyes. ‘Nothing interesting!’

I widened my own eyes in mock innocence. ‘How was I to know you had a thing for ginormous strap-ons?’

Her scowl promised retribution. ‘Right,’ she said briskly, turning to address the stallholders and holding up her badge. ‘We’re looking for an Irish wolfhound. His name’s Max.’

The silence was deafening. And no Mad Max rushed up, wagging his doggy tail in greeting.

‘We know he’s here,’ she carried on, showing them the scrying crystal, which was now glowing a deep blue, indicating Mad Max should be near enough to see if not actually touch. ‘So who wants to tell me what they know?’

The two centaurs snorted and suddenly seemed to find their hooves extremely interesting. Mini produced an industrial-sized file from nowhere and proceeded to give his pink-painted nails an unneeded manicure. O’Keefe stared at us for a long moment, bushy green brows drawn down, then he hawked and spat a huge gob of mucus. Its trail left a rainbow-like arc shimmering in the air as it flew an impressive ten feet to his right and splattered in front of tent five. Multi-coloured phlegm illuminated something lying on the grass, which, now it’d been pointed so disgustingly out, was easy enough to see glittering in the hot sunlight.

Before Mary could stop me, I jogged over, checking the something for spells – none – as I did, and scooped it up. I turned, dangling my find from my finger. ‘And here we have an obvious clue.’

‘What is it?’ Taegrin rumbled.

‘Max’s doggy choke-chain collar,’ I said. ‘Complete with his diamond-encrusted dog-tags.’

Dessa frowned at Mary. ‘Think it’s a plant, or did he manage to drop it for us to find, Sarge?’

‘Hmm.’ Mary tapped her radio on. It crackled to life. ‘How close is that backup, Constable?’

‘Search group three is here now, ma’am,’ the constable’s tinny voice replied. ‘The others shouldn’t be long. And DI Munro’s on his way from Trafalgar Square. ETA: thirty minutes.’

As she finished speaking, three more WPCs and Constable Lamber, his mottled beige headridge dusty, appeared in the circle of tents. They all cast quick hairy eyeball at the exhibitions, nodded to Mary, and joined Dessa and Constable Taegrin, waiting for instructions. The centaurs and Mini eyed them with professional disinterest but, as they obviously weren’t customers, dismissed them. O’Keefe, the leprechaun, just hunched deeper over his book.

Mary strode over, looked at the dog-tag I held, then at the tent with its closed sign behind me. ‘It’s probably a trap.’

Whether it was or not didn’t matter; it wasn’t like we were walking into it on our own, not with half the Met’s Magic and Murder Squad about to put in an appearance. I shrugged. ‘We’ll find out for sure when we check it out.’

She looked at me, indecision warring in her brown eyes. ‘What’s supposed to be in the tent?’

I took a couple of steps back to the tent doorway and flipped the closed signed over. It showed a picture of a golden bow and arrow, and a crystal ball. Written along the outer edge of the bow in fancy gold script was: Divine Love with Cupid.

I waggled my brows. ‘So wanna go see a god about a dog?’

Mary rolled her eyes at me, then said, ‘Let’s do it.’