The Sweet Scent of Blood

Chapter Twenty

I pushed open the door to Spellcrackers.com just after midday. The neutral décor—ivory paint, pale wood and chrome coupled with thick sand-coloured carpets—had been designed to make our human customers feel less uncomfortable, more able to cope with the stress that usually accompanied the magical problems they needed us to deal with. Professionalism and calm were Stella’s watchwords and the bland backdrop reinforced that. We even had brown twigs in vases, instead of flowers.

Toni, our office manager, batted new pink and purple eyelashes at me from behind the reception desk. Her outfit matched her eye-catching lashes: a pink blouse under a dark-mauve suit, purple suede court-shoes and pink, mauve and purple streamers that curled through her long blonde hair. The streamers reminded me of fireworks at a trolls’ New Moon party.

Her get-up wasn’t something I’d wear—I don’t need to draw any more attention to myself, my sidhe eyes do that all on their own—but it looked great on her. My own clothes were way more conservative; my usual black linen trousers and my favourite green linen jacket. The jacket was for the added confidence boost—the one I was going to need for my next inevitable meeting with Finn. Not that I had a clue what I was going to say to him.

‘Love the new look, Toni.’ I adjusted the twigs. ‘What’s that, sixth one this year?’

‘Seventh,’ she grinned. ‘I decided the Cool Blonde look was making me fade into the wallpaper.’

Considering the Cool Blonde look had involved a beige silk shirt-dress, she wasn’t far wrong. ‘What did Stella have to say when she saw it?’

‘Oh you know.’ Toni’s grin got wider. ‘She said it’s still an improvement on my Celtic Country look.’

I tried to keep a straight face. ‘Really?’

‘Nah. What she really said was that anything is better than me daubing myself with blue woad.’

‘Ah, thought so.’ I squinted at her hair. The streamers shone like polished glass. ‘You been down to see the goblins again?’

‘That Madam Methania is a wonder.’ She teased out a pink strand. ‘And she’s cheap. You should try her.’

‘Let a goblin near my hair?’ I shuddered. ‘No way, I’m not having that slug slime they use anywhere near me.’

‘I guess they’d have to use extensions on your hair anyway. You really should let it grow, y’know, it’d look fab.’ She looked at me a bit more closely. ‘You look a lot better, Honeybee. You’ve lost that peaky look. And that green jacket looks great with your skin tone.’ She waved away my thanks and changed the subject. ‘I tried to phone you earlier and it kicked me straight through to messages.’

‘Uh-huh, the protection-spell’s on the way out. Thought I’d try and save the crystal.’

‘That was new only three days ago, and the one before only lasted a week.’ She frowned, thoughtful. ‘You really are having an iffy time with the magic, aren’t you?’

She was right, I realised. The magic had been a bit more off-kilter than usual around me—just one of my occasional blips, or something else?

‘Let me have your phone,’ she carried on, ‘and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘No probs.’ I handed her the phone, wishing not for the first time I could’ve sorted it myself. Toni had tried to teach me the spell—and I understood the theory, but, as usual with me and magic, the actual casting part just hadn’t clicked.

Toni popped a square of vanilla fudge in her mouth to give her magic a boost, and peered at the crystal. ‘Yep, it’s cracked all right—and completely black.’

I leaned against her desk. ‘Did Finn say anything to you about the new eBay supplier?’

‘Yes, he’s left one for you. Just as well!’ She rummaged through her desk, took out a wad of small wax paper bags, a pink perfume bottle, her white spell bowl and a black chopstick. She prised the spell-crystal off my phone and dropped it into the jar of salt water she kept under her desk.

I looked down the corridor at the door to Finn’s office. Time to beard the satyr in his den. ‘Is he in?’

Toni shook her head. ‘Nope. Out on a job.’ Relief seeped into me.

She poured a drop of clear liquid from the pink bottle into her bowl. ‘So, any news to report, hon?’ She pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘And don’t tell me you haven’t, because I have it on good authority that a certain horny satyr was clocked exiting a certain sidhe’s place of residence earlier this very morning.’

Oh yeah. The bet! ‘You should be a detective,’ I half-smiled.

‘Hah! I knew it! I knew you’d succumb sooner or later.’ She waved the pink bottle at me eagerly. ‘C’mon, let me in on all the little—or not-so-little—details!’

‘Nothing happened, Toni,’ I sighed.

‘Hmmm.’ She pursed her lips, disappointed. ‘Well, I can’t say you look too happy about it.’ She added a pungent sprinkling of dried sage to the bowl. ‘Want me to mix you up a nice little lurrrve potion? I could always add it to his tea.’

‘C’mon Toni, that stuff doesn’t really work.’ At least not without nasty little additions like a compulsion-spell.

‘You haven’t tried my special patented recipe for lust yet, have you? I could let you have it cheap, Hon.’ A sly look crossed her face. ‘It’d only cost you a tiny little snippet of info—’

‘Toni, I know you want me to ask Finn about his tail, but ... well, let’s just say he’s not too happy with me just now and leave it at that, okay?’

‘Ah’—she looked round conspiratorially—‘I take it he’s found out about your visit to the police and a certain Mr October last night.’

I blinked in surprise. ‘Didn’t take long for that little news item to surface, did it?’

‘Well, you know me and gossip. I’ve got a nose for it.’ She grinned and tapped her nose with a long purple fingernail. ‘Not that it took much working out, not after all those phone calls Stella got yesterday from his dad.’ She shook a crystal into the white bowl and stirred the spell with the chopstick. ‘First things first, is Mr October as hot as his calendar pics?’

I flashed back to the memory of Bobby with his paper suit and his lank hair. ‘He’s a vampire,’ I shrugged, ‘so of course he’s hot. It goes with the job description.’

She gave me an arch look. ‘My nose also told me you had a run-in with the Earl and a couple of his vamps too. Bet that was scary.’

‘You don’t need me to tell you the goss, Toni,’ I said with a faint smile, ‘not when your “nose” is keeping you so well-informed. ’

‘Ah, what I’m really after is a full blow-by-blow eye-witness action account straight from the sidhe’s mouth.’ She waved another wax bag at me. ‘C’mon, Genny, pretty please? I’ll do your phone with my extra-strong patented buffer spell if you do. I always used to get gold stars for them,’ she finished smugly.

Laughing, I said, ‘There’s not all that much—’

I stopped as the main door opened behind me and Toni stood up, offering a wide welcoming smile.

The woman was in her early thirties. Her blue silk dress and jacket were simple, but expensive. Glossy dark hair framed her face in a perfect bob and understated but effective makeup subtly enlarged her coffee-coloured eyes, sculpted her cheeks and outlined her full mouth. Everything about her shouted well-groomed class. She smiled as she walked towards us over the thick carpet, each step in her high-heeled summer sandals as precise as if she still had the finishing school book balanced on her head.

Her look included us both, but she addressed herself to me. ‘Genevieve Taylor?’ Her voice matched her appearance: quiet, elegant, with a hint of plum to the vowels.

I nodded, puzzled. She looked vaguely familiar.

‘Hannah Ashby.’ She looped her handbag over her left arm. ‘I am sorry to call without an appointment, but I was hoping you might be able to spare me a few minutes. I have a private matter I would like to discuss with you.’

It wasn’t unusual for clients to just walk in. It was unusual for humans to ask for me specifically. And Hannah Ashby hit my radar as human.

‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’ I glanced at Toni. ‘I’ve nothing booked?’

Toni shook her head.

I offered Hannah my hand. Hers was warm, and definitely human—no surprises there then. ‘My office is along here. Would you like tea or coffee, or water?’

She gave me an odd, amused smile. ‘No. Thank you.’