The Sweet Scent of Blood

Chapter Thirty-Two

Daylight woke me as a heat-laden breeze drifted through the window and ruffled the white sheet across my bed. The sky was clear and blue, and I wondered why there were no clouds. There’d been clouds in my dreams: black clouds filled with the echoes of Malik’s words. Clouds that flowed down my throat and froze me into a solid block of ice that slowly melted, leaving me drowning in a sea of blood. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, pressing a hand to my stomach to try and dispel the fear twisting there.

Just dreams, that’s all. Nothing more. Just my subconscious processing what had happened.

My bronze jacket, black skirt and even my torn briefs were neatly folded on the chair. I frowned at the small pile. Beneath the chair, my shoes sat side by side, clean. Malik had folded my clothes and polished my shoes. Something about that didn’t fit. I opened the wardrobe to put them away and caught my reflection in the mirror. For a moment I stared.

The honey colour of my skin glowed with a warm sheen, my eyes sparkled like polished amber, and my flesh had smoothed out over the angles of my bones. I looked so good I could sell vitamins, never mind that I was healed. If that’s what drinking a vampire’s blood could do, no wonder they were subtly billing themselves as the new elixir of life and beauty. The only thing marring my new healthy perfection was my breasts. They felt fuller, perkier—but that wasn’t the problem. The revenants had made a meal of me, and the evidence was still there.

I touched a fingertip to one fang mark, just above my right nipple. Why hadn’t they disappeared along with the rest of my injuries? Then I checked out my left arm. Sweat broke out on my skin. The bruises Malik had marked me with still encircled my wrist, faint but definitely there. A wave of dizziness made me sway. The mound at the base of my thumb was smooth and bite-free. My stomach clenched with nausea and I sprinted for the bathroom and retched into the toilet.

What was the message Malik had given me for Rosa? He’d spoken in a foreign language and I didn’t speak anything other than English. But I didn’t need to get it translated: I’d understood him, and I didn’t even want to think how that could happen.

For my love of Rosa, tell her I will strike the head from her body, rip the heart from her breast and sear her flesh until her bones are nothing more than ashes.

I heaved again, but there was nothing left inside me.

Jerking the shower on, I turned the heat up high and stood under the burning stream. I braced my hands against the tile, letting it scald down my back. Malik wasn’t the only one who wanted to kill me. There was last night’s little ambush to think about. I doubted Alan Hinkley had been in on the plan—he was probably nothing more than a mind-locked patsy—but I still had questions for him, once I got my phone back from the Blue Heart.

I grabbed a towel and briskly rubbed myself dry, then ran a comb through my hair; it would dry quickly enough in the heat. I scowled at the bites on my breasts. The scabs had washed away, leaving little pink holes.

Who had sent the two revenants after me? A vampire, obviously; but they’d have needed a witch to cast the stun-spell and attach it to the garden railings. And Malik had said he’d been hit over the head by a fae. Well, that combination wasn’t such a common one—in fact, the only vamp/witch/fae combo I could think of was at the Bloody Shamrock—but why would Declan want to kill me, a sidhe? There was no reason I could think of, at least none that fitted the larger picture in my mind.

But I was betting a certain cluricaun called Mick would be able to fill in some of the details that my picture was missing. And then there was the update I had for Declan about Melissa’s death—getting Mick to deliver the message was a much safer proposition than delivering it to him myself after dark.

Next stop the Bloody Shamrock.

As I stared thoughtfully at my reflection, blood seeped from the fang mark just above my nipple and ran down in a watery pink drop. Crap. I scoured the towel furiously over my chest, chucked it on the floor and yanked open the bathroom door.

I had a visitor.

Finn was standing next to the window, watching the street below. His horns were sharp above his blond hair and he had a glower on his face that suggested he wanted to disembowel something. And the black shirt and trousers weren’t making him look any friendlier. Damn, I didn’t have time for a repeat of yesterday’s ‘Big Bad Boss’ routine.

I grabbed the towel and wrapped it round me. ‘Just exactly how did you get in, Finn?’

‘You’ve got no wards, Gen.’ He turned, his gaze flicking over me then settling on my face. ‘And the lock wouldn’t keep out most humans—’

‘Forget it,’ Angrily, I waved away his explanation and headed for the bedroom. ‘It’s my day off. I’ve got plans, and I’m sure whatever you want can’t be that urgent. You can just let yourself back out.’ I banged the door shut behind me.

I yanked on a pair of briefs, then delved inside my wardrobe, pulled out a pair of jeans and tugged them on. What the hell did Finn think he was playing at? Twice he’d let himself in now—did he think I lived at Waterloo Station or something?

‘I came round to see you last night, Gen.’ Finn’s voice came faintly through the closed door. ‘Toni said you’d had some problems at Tower Bridge, with the gremlins.’

And damn Toni, with her stupid bet! What was she trying to do, play matchmaker? Why couldn’t she just worry about her own love life, instead of trying to organise mine? I grabbed a green strappy vest and jerked it over my head.

Finn’s voice came again. ‘She told me you’d been hurt.’

My anger started to subside and I briefly touched my cheek, then shivered as I remembered Malik doing the same thing in the taxi. One of the gremlins had thrown a spanner and I hadn’t moved quickly enough; an accident of course, since he’d been aiming for one of his pals. The bruise was gone now; thanks to Malik healing me. I shoved that disturbing thought away and slipped my leather waistcoat off its hanger and pulled it on.

‘But you weren’t in,’ Finn continued. ‘I was worried about you, Gen, especially after yesterday morning. ’

Please don’t be nice, Finn, I really can’t cope with it right now. I sighed and leaned over to fish an ankle boot from under the bed.

‘I texted and phoned, then when there was no answer, I let myself in and looked around.’

I dropped the boot as apprehension filled me. Pulling the door open, I said, ‘What do you mean, you “looked around”?’

He was leaning, shoulder propped against the wall, just outside the door. His mouth turned down like he’d sucked on some salt. ‘You’d left your computer on, so I checked it out.’

And found the Blue Heart website. Damn. I’d been hoping that my evening’s entertainment wouldn’t get out for a couple of days—looked like my luck was out.

‘I came looking for you’—his moss-green eyes darkened—‘and guess where you were? All dressed up and getting into a taxi with a sucker in Leicester Square. Stupidly, I decided to follow you, thinking you might be in trouble.’

The thought of him doing the proverbial knight in shining armour act—however unneeded—made something soften just under my breastbone. Not that it made any difference; any possibilities with Finn had been just wishful thinking, even more so after last night. And now I was beginning to think my job might end up as wishful thinking too.

‘Victoria Embankment Gardens, Gen.’ His voice was soft, accusing, his anger simmering just under the surface. ‘I watched you and the vampire chat, and then I saw you go in alone. I saw those two lads.’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. I knew what came next better than he did. I headed for the fridge, the sick feeling back in my stomach.

‘I go running in, and next thing I know, I’m taking a nap in the bushes, and when I wake up the place is deserted. But even though someone’s tried to wash it away, there’s still blood—if you know where to look.’

That had to be where Malik killed the revenants. I grabbed the vodka and poured some into a glass, trying to stop my hand from shaking. The story was nearly over. All I needed to do was let him tell it, give his ultimatum, and then he’d be gone, and I could get back to what I’d been planning.

‘Then this morning I heard some interesting news. A jogger found two naked bodies by Hammersmith Pier—human males, in their late teens, early twenties—both had their heads and hearts missing.’

I stilled in shock, then my brain kicked in. What the hell were the bodies doing there? Why hadn’t Malik burnt them, or at least stashed them so he could do it later? Old vampires were supposed to be good at that sort of thing—after all, they’d had centuries of practise. I frowned, tapping the glass thoughtfully. If the revenants had been found, it wasn’t because Malik had made a mistake.

Finn carried on in the same quiet, insistent voice, ‘Now there are a few things that would take the head and heart—dragons, gargoyles, demons. But what seems to have everyone stumped is that the penis and testicles had been torn off both bodies.’

I blinked in surprise. Head and heart were easy: they’d been vampires, after all—but why the other? Puzzled, I turned to frown at Finn. ‘Weird,’ I murmured.

He pushed off the wall and started walking towards me. ‘Not when you consider it’s a vengeance particularly favoured by the bean sidhe.’

Then I connected all the dots. I was the only bean sidhe in town. I stared at Finn, incredulous. ‘You think I did it, don’t you?’

‘Yesterday at dawn, I find you covered in blood, but not injured.’ He stared back at me, his mouth thin with anger. ‘Then last night I see you fighting with two lads, and later they turn up dead. That’s a lot to put down to coincidence, Gen.’

‘Why don’t you just shove that idea where it belongs?’ I shouted, fear making my own anger rise. ‘Even if I had done it, no way would I be stupid enough to leave evidence that pointed right to me!’

‘I’m going to ask you, and I don’t want to ask it thrice, so no prevaricating. Just give me a straight answer.’ Emerald flashed in the hard green of his eyes. ‘Did you kill them?’

Shit, I hated the thrice rule. It wasn’t just that it forced a fae to tell the truth, but it made you feel so awful.

‘No,’ I snapped, ‘I didn’t kill them.’

He took a deep breath, his eyes closing briefly, and the anger seemed to flow out of him.

‘Happy now, are you?’ I shoved him in the chest, ‘Now you’ve had your little trial and jury scene?’

He stumbled back. ‘I’m sorry, Gen. I had to know.’ He ran a distracted hand through his blond hair and rubbed his left horn. ‘I had to ask—’

‘Fine. You’ve asked. I didn’t.’ I balled my fists. ‘Now if you’ll just leave, I can get on with what I was doing.’

His brows came together in a frown. ‘I take it the sucker did it?’

Of course, the sucker did it! I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I needed to get to the Shamrock, and for that I needed Finn to leave. Think ... Then something he’d said struck me. ‘Were the parts found with the bodies, the heads, the hearts and the other bits?’

‘Why?’

‘No, of course they weren’t,’ I murmured, half to myself. ‘You said human males. If they’d found the heads, they’d have known they weren’t human.’

‘They weren’t human?’ He gave me a quizzical look.

‘No, not when they died.’ I glanced at the clock to check the time; daylight would disappear too fast for my liking

‘So the question is,’ Finn crossed his arms, ‘why is your sucker friend trying to frame you?’

‘I haven’t a clue, but I’m not going to find out by staying here, am I?’ I moved round him, needing to get my boots. ‘C’mon, Finn, discussion time’s over for now. I told you I’ve got something to do.’

‘Not yet, Gen. We haven’t finished talking.’

My insides felt like they were going to explode, and I almost kicked my bedroom door with frustration. I settled for glaring over my shoulder instead. ‘Yes. We. Have.’

‘Gen, you keep evading me and changing the subject, or rushing off somewhere.’ A muscle clenched in his jaw. ‘But we need to talk about all this stuff with the vamps, that spell-tattoo you’ve got, the murders, whatever it was that happened at the police station. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to sort all this out. Now!’

So not a conversation I wanted to have—my heart just wasn’t in it—even though I’d guessed it was going to be inevitable sooner or later. And with only a few hours of daylight left, later was the option I was going for. I sighed and swiped my hands over my face, then gave him a resigned look. ‘Just give me a couple of minutes to finish dressing, okay?’

‘Go ahead,’ he said, calmly moving to stand under my long beaded light, arms crossed, legs apart, like he was on guard duty or something. ‘I’ll wait right here.’

I shut the door carefully, resisting the urge to slam it, and leaned my head against it. Why did Finn always bring out the worst in me? Never mind my emotions felt like they were on a rollercoaster ride. Why couldn’t I just have my nice quiet life back where all I had to deal with was a pack of persistent pixies? And now Finn looked like he thought I was going to make a run for it or something. Still, he’d got that right: I was. I tugged my boots on, slipped some money in my pocket and took a couple of quiet steps to the open window.

Finn’s talk would have to wait until later.

My visit to Mick couldn’t.

I bent and swung my leg over the low windowsill leading out onto the flat roof. My boot snagged on something not there. Breath catching, I jerked my leg back and felt a strange, sticky resistance, almost like I’d stepped into a large glob of chewing gum. I looked. The spell even looked like chewing gum, stretching out in long elastic strands from the window frame, wrapping around my boot and creeping up my calf. Crap, what the hell was Finn playing at?

‘Finn,’ I yelled, furious, ‘get in here—now!’

The door slammed back and he burst into the room, then he stopped and stared at me in disbelief. Then a smile twitched his lips. ‘Having a bit of trouble, my Lady?’

‘Nice try, Finn,’ I smirked, ‘but I think you forgot something. Watch this!’ I held up my hand and called the spell...

‘Gen, that’s really not such a—’

... the sticky spell splattered into my hand, digging into my skin, then snapped back towards the window. It jerked me off-balance and dumped me in a heap on the floor; the chewing gum contracting in on itself and trapping me even tighter.

‘—good idea,’ he finished, wincing. ‘It’s a snapper-snare. The more you stretch or tease, or try and crack the magic, the worse it gets. We—that is, me and my brothers spent years perfecting it when we were kids.’ He finished with a touch of sheepish pride.

‘I don’t care how long it took to make it,’ I spat, ‘just get it off me. What the hell is it doing there anyway?’

‘I put it there earlier.’ he held his hands up in apology.

‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t to catch you, Gen.’ He gave me a quick grin, then knelt and took a dried-up conker-shell out of his pocket. ‘When I recovered, I came round to check on you.’ He plunged his hands into the sticky spell and started rolling the spiky conker-shell carefully between his palms. ‘I got here just as the sucker was going. I couldn’t stay, and I didn’t want to leave you without any protection, just in case he decided to come back, so I set the snapper-snare.’

I huffed, watching as he coaxed the magic off me—sticky spell-traps on my window was taking this whole shining-knight thing too far. ‘A standard back-off ward would’ve been easier.’

He grimaced. ‘A ward wouldn’t have held the sucker until the sun came up.’

My mouth fell open. ‘The sun would’ve fried him!’

He looked at me and smiled, determination in his eyes. ‘Of course.’ Then he leaned forward and pulled the last strand of magic off my boot.

I stared at him, speechless. Somehow I’d never imagined Finn thinking like that, never mind actually doing it. Or even why he would deliberately set a trap to kill a vampire. It didn’t fit with what I thought I knew about him.

Sitting back on his heels, he said cheerfully, ‘Did you want to try the front door next, or can we have a sensible talk like adults?’

I shoved a hand through my hair in resignation. ‘Fine, I admit it, going out the window was a bit childish.’ I shuffled back and leant against the wall. ‘But there really is somewhere I need to be, Finn, so can we make it quick, okay?’

‘Let’s start with this.’ He waved, taking in both the window and me. ‘When did you start inviting suckers over for a bloodfest? ’

‘Please don’t tell me this is all because you’re jealous.’

‘Jealousy has got nothing to do with it. This is about business. ’

‘I take it this is my new boss I’m supposed to listen to?’

‘Yes.’

I drew my knees up and hugged them. ‘And if I don’t want to,’ I said quietly, ‘does that mean I’m out of a job?’

‘Pretty much.’

Damn.

‘Gen, don’t be naïve. You work for a witch company. These are vampires we’re talking about. Keep going like this and it won’t be long before the Witches’ Council make you persona non grata.’

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to work out what would be the fastest way to end this. ‘Finn, you’ve heard what happened at the police station,’ I said, keeping my voice calm. ‘So no doubt the Council know all about it by now too—the new Detective Inspector there is a witch, so she’s probably told them.’ And with added glee, seeing as she really didn’t like me, but I kept that bit to myself. ‘So you see, it’s not like what’s going on is a secret.’

Finn groaned. ‘You see, that’s where you’re wrong. Up until now it has been: the Council don’t know a thing. Friday night at the police station, Helen had permission to use a spell to keep everything under wraps, and after that fiasco with the goblin, the vampires were more than happy to agree.’

So that explained why the goblin’s death hadn’t made the news, and why Old Scotland Yard had been hack-free. It didn’t explain why Finn was calling Detective Inspector Crane by her first name, as if they were old friends, or how he knew so much. And there was something else wrong with what Finn was saying, something about it all being kept under wraps—

Finn leaned over and took my hand in his and I looked at him, surprised. ‘Gen, forget that for now.’ An odd sadness settled on his face. ‘Look, there’s no other way to say this, but I know you’re suffering from salaich sìol.’

I froze, a tight band constricting my heart. He knew I’d got 3V—salaich sìol, as the older fae name it ... I closed my eyes, pulling my hand away from his and dropping my head to my knees. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want him to see me. He kept on talking; his words washing over me like a gentle river, then fading away as a dark stream of pain and memory rushed into my mind.

‘I shall not allow her to enter sanctuary, troll.’ Soft sibilant sounds echoed in her voice as a rough palm touched my forehead. ‘The salaich sìol in her blood iss deeply embedded; it hass been there too long.’

‘But she’s fae, and just a child.’ Hugh’s words rumbled through me as I lay half-conscious in his arms. ‘The human tried to gut her like a fish; surely you won’t refuse her aid for her injuries. Does your vow not—?’

‘She iss ...’ for a moment doubt resonated in her voice, then she carried on firmly, ‘she may be sidhe, troll. But she doess not belong here in sanctuary, not with the vampiress’ blood-taint in her. There are the lesser fae to be considered; it would be too dangerouss—’

The rest of her words were lost as the pain rolled over me and I slipped back into the darkness.

‘... just because the suckers can’t trick you or mind-lock you,’ Finn’s quiet concern started to penetrate my mind, ‘that doesn’t mean you can pick and choose amongst them. I’ve seen before how venom addiction affects the fae.’

I tried to swallow past the ache in my throat. It didn’t matter what he was saying; all that mattered was that he knew. The rest was pointless. It was over, everything was finished.

‘Gen, it affects your magic too.’ He stroked a gentle hand over my hair. ‘Think about it, you can’t do a simple casting, even though you can absorb spells that would knock out a fae five times your age. And then there’s your Glamour. Some days it’s as though there’s no magic left in you, and others you almost take me under. It’s been hard to resist this last couple of months.’

Briefly the scent of warm berries curled around me and I took a deeper breath, trying to anchor it in my memory, but then it was gone.

‘I know you noticed it yourself,’ his voice was still quiet, but he was speaking faster, sounding anxious, worried. ‘Every time we got close my magic responded to yours. It was confusing, until I realised you weren’t consciously using your Glamour to entice—’

A loud bang on my front door interrupted him.

‘Hell’s thorns, I forgot—’ He jumped up. ‘I phoned the Rosy Lee while you were getting dressed.’

My mind was numb, empty. I stayed where I was, my head resting on my knees, not even trying to work out what to do, not caring. Out in my lounge, voices rose and fell, but the words made no sense. The breeze brought the scents of lavender and lemon balm through the window behind me. They eddied around my shoulders with a consoling touch and a tendril of soft multi-coloured light unfurled inside me. The brownie’s magic bloomed into gentle, comforting warmth that soothed and slowly eased away the darkness in my mind.

I sighed and lifted my head, rubbing away the dampness in my eyes, my conscience pricking at me. Never mind anything else; there was still something I needed to finish. I looked at my alarm clock. And I needed to do it soon.

The bedroom door opened and I looked up as Finn stood there, a serious expression on his face.

Next to him stood Detective Inspector Helen Crane. Hugh loomed behind them.

The police had come to call.