The Cold Kiss of Death

Chapter Twenty

The mist cleared and another picture formed in the glass. It was like looking the wrong way down a telescope at first, then it rushed closer until two figures, as large as life, were displayed across the plate-glass window. Candles cast flickering lights over the rounded brick ceiling above them and the mural of a barren landscape with its distant, rocky mountain painted on the wall behind them. The figures stood inside a circle marked out in red on the concrete floor, either side of a stone plinth on which was lying a sheet-shrouded body. The material draped close enough to show the body was female. One figure was the Earl, blond hair flopping over his forehead as usual, his arm raised, but motionless, as if frozen in action. His cold azure eyes were assessing as he looked at the other figure. She leaned on her stick, the hood of her cloak pulled back from her fleshless, yellowed skull; the rich purple velvet falling from her shoulders to the floor couldn’t hide the twisted hunch of her spine. I recognised her too. She was the Ancient One.

Hannah spoke, a harsh guttural language I didn’t understand, and the words raised goosebumps over my flesh and sent a shiver rasping down my spine.

The Earl’s arm flowed into movement and he grasped the shroud and peeled it back from the body. The body was Rosa, naked and statue-still, her long black hair curling over her shoulders, her fists clenched in pain or anger, her eyes staring open, lips drawn back from her fangs.

‘It is truly astonishing,’ the Earl said in his aristocratic voice. ‘The body still shows no ill effects after two years of the sidhe using the spell.’ He stroked his hand down over Rosa’s stomach and dipped his fingers into the bloody wound that marked her left hip. He brought his hand close to his nose, sniffed, and sucked his fingers clean, sighing with obvious enjoyment. ‘And the blood tastes even sweeter than the last time.’ He smiled benevolent approval at the Ancient One. ‘Your magic is exceedingly good, Crone. I really should commend you.’

‘My lordship.’ The Ancient One bobbed her head. ‘But I must warn you, it is not wise to feed as deeply as you have in the past. It could cause an imbalance.’

‘I will feed as I personally see fit. You are well paid to control the magic, you and your apprentice here.’ He waved a dismissive hand in our direction. ‘And indeed, speaking of problems’—he lost his smile—‘the sidhe is now working with the witches; they have offered her their protection.’

‘It is not something I could have foreseen, my lordship.’ The Ancient One’s voice grew querulous.

‘Nonetheless, it is a situation that must be dealt with. The prohibition was to end on her twenty-third birthday, but with the witches involved, now she will continue to be out of my reach, unless—’ He gazed speculatively down at Rosa, then brushed her hair back and traced the blue veins that ran like cords down her throat. A gold chain nestled in the crease of her neck and he hooked his fingers under it and followed it down to where an oval gold locket rested between her breasts. He slid his hand under the locket, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it, then smiled at the Ancient One. ‘You have the sidhe’s necklace, Crone, the one that belonged to her stepmother. You shall give it to me, then once she knows I have it, she will come to me of her own accord and the witches’ protection will no longer overly concern me.’

The Ancient One’s hand tightened on the head of her cane, her knuckles whitening. ‘I can’t do that, my lordship. I took it as security only. I have agreed to return it once the debt is repaid.’

‘While the sidhe uses the spell, she still owes you, is that not correct?’

‘It is, my lordship, but—’

‘Then there is still a debt.’ He released the gold locket, which slapped hollowly on Rosa’s chest, and adjusted his cuffs. ‘The necklace will be secure with me, probably more so, so there is nothing to alarm you.’

‘No, I will not risk it.’ She held a shaking hand up in denial. ‘The sidhe is young and unskilled, but it is not wise to cross one of the noble fae—’

‘It is not wise to cross me, Crone,’ he interrupted, leaning forward, menace in his lowered voice. ‘Do not think your Black Arts will protect you either. I have lived more than eight centuries, and I have dealt with sorcerers before.’ His lips parted on a glimpse of fang. ‘And I still live,’ he hissed, ‘and they do not—since even a demon-powered carcase such as yours is still mortal, and thus still needs blood and a beating heart to sustain it.’ He straightened. ‘Now, give me the sidhe’s necklace.’

Her stick trembled under her grip. ‘As you command, my lordship.’ She turned towards us, and for an instant it looked like the empty sockets of her eyes were crawling with fat grey maggots. ‘Hannah, fetch the black opal collar from the safe and bring it to me,’ she ordered. The large death’s head ring on her finger winked its amber eyes in anger. And Hannah, my lovely, bring me also the powdered dragons’ scale. This piece of blood-sucking shite needs to be taught a lesson.

Next to me, Hannah spoke more words in the hair-raising language.

The picture flickered. Time seemed to jerk from one frame to the next, then the tableau from the past flooded with red and a shower of blood obliterated my view. The blood coated the glass, which cracked and shattered, exploding outwards into hundreds of sharp shards of pain-bright light.

Instinctively I flung my hands up to protect my eyes, imagining that something had hit the plate-glass window and broken it, but I quickly realised it too was an illusion. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and stared blindly down at the crowded dancefloor below, trying to take in the implications of Hannah’s memory.

For three years I’d been using my Alter Vamp spell, thinking I was donning a particularly expensive disguise sold me by the Ancient One. But all those three years I’d been walking round in Rosa’s body, and all that time she’d been at the mercy of the Earl, a manipulative, sadistic, bastard blood-sucker. Bile rose in my throat. Rosa might have been a vamp herself, and judging by her memories and her reputation she was no Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes—not that many vamps were—but no way would I wish that kind of existence on her, or anyone. And no way did I want it to continue. It wasn’t just about not using the spell any more for my own sanity; now I needed to find her body and release her from whatever magical bondage held her.

‘The Earl killed her, you know.’ Hannah’s words brought my attention back to her. She stood there, her hands curling into claws, her face screwing up with hatred. ‘When I returned with the necklace, he laughed and ripped her head off in front of me, like he was twisting the head of a chicken. But he was right, she was a sorcerer, and the first thing any sorcerer does is safeguard their soul.’ She laughed herself, a harsh sound, like the guttural memory spell. ‘There’s no point selling it to a demon if you don’t get the chance to enjoy the rewards is there?’

She walked over to the silver-faced drinks cabinet and opened it. Lifting what looked like a squat-bellied brandy bottle, she saluted me. ‘I loved Gwen.’

I gave her a puzzled look. ‘Who’s Gwen?’

‘My mistress, the Ancient One, of course.’ She pulled at the cork stopper and it came out with a muted pop. ‘Oh, she wasn’t really the stereotypical skeletal crone; that was just a façade. Gwen was vibrant, beautiful, full of life ...’ She trailed off, frowning at the bottle’s label as if surprised to see it there.

‘So what does this memory have to do with you wanting the Fabergé egg?’ I asked flatly.

‘What?’ She looked back at me, then attempted a smile, but her mouth turned down instead of up. ‘The egg’s her back-up soul storage. Standard operating procedure, in case there’s no available body nearby. It’s valuable enough not to be damaged or thrown away, and at the worst she’d end up sitting in a vault or a display case for a while until I could release her—wasted time, of course, but better than turning up in Hell without your demon debt paid.’ She shuddered at the thought, then tipped the bottle up and drank straight from it. ‘Very unrefined, I know, but...’

I narrowed my eyes, still suspicious. ‘If the egg was that important to her, how did the Earl get it?’

‘My fault,’ she admitted. ‘The Earl decided to make me his pet sorcerer—after all, Gwen had taught me most of her spells by then. But I didn’t have the same protection as she did.’ She held up the back of her hand to me and waggled her finger; her death’s head ring winked its amber eyes at me. ‘It wasn’t until he grew tired of using me that I was able to sort things out in my mind and work out what I’d told him—what he’d made me give him.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘After a while I managed to retrieve the ring, and then I was able to resist him to a degree, but the 3V infection meant I still had to do his bidding.’

She took another swig, and pointed the bottle at me. ‘I tried to get the egg back, but the bastard blood-sucker wasn’t stupid; he knew why I wanted it and he wasn’t about to allow me to bring Gwen back, not when he’d killed her once. So when he thought I was getting close, he gave it away—to you.’ She let out a snort of disgust. ‘Ironic really; all he wanted was you and your sidhe blood, and she would have served you up to him on a platter if he’d just been patient, but no, he couldn’t wait, and he killed her in a fit of temper.’

It was a good story—and most of it was probably true—but there was something wrong somewhere, and I couldn’t quite work it out. Why did Hannah want to bring her mistress back? As far as I could see she had everything sorted: enough money, the Earl gone, a way to manage her 3V—Darius—without being controlled, so other than her professed love ... One thing was clear, though: if the Earl killed the Ancient One a year ago, that meant Hannah had been caretaking Rosa and my Disguise spell ever since. Which meant she knew where Rosa’s body was.

‘Okay, Hannah, you’ve shown me your sad little scene, so what’s the deal?’

‘I don’t do deals, Genevieve,’ she remonstrated gently. ‘I only do favours.’

‘Uh-huh. What sort of favours?’

‘Of course,’ she said slyly, ‘I could show you which body is lying on that slab now, but somehow I think you’re smart enough to work that one out.’

Shock sparked through me and I closed my eyes for a moment. My body was there, in that room, wherever Rosa’s normally was—stupid! I’d never considered that my body might be anywhere else other than with me, even after I’d realised the spell didn’t just disguise me. Mentally I snorted. At least that explained why I couldn’t use magic, or why no one other than Hannah had ever recognised me as a sidhe when I was ‘Rosa’, not even Malik.

Hannah came over to me with a reassuring smile. ‘Oh don’t worry, there’s no harm can come to you, not now the Earl is gone.’ Her fingers tightened round the neck of the bottle. ‘He really was disgustingly perverted at times—another reason you should be grateful to me.’

Nausea roiled in my stomach as her words brought images slithering around the edges of my mind. I shoved them away; no way did I want to think about the Earl or what he might have done when my body was lying helpless ...

‘Gratitude isn’t what comes to mind when you’re holding my body hostage,’ I snapped.

‘Ah but I’m not—that would go against my ethos of not doing anything that would benefit me directly. It really isn’t a good idea to use the power for yourself when a demon has a lien on your soul; they’ve got this weird profit and loss sin-sheet thing going, so being in the black is just asking for trouble. So I can assure you that you are quite safe, and your own body will revert to you at dawn when the spell shuts down, just as it usually does.’ She tilted her head back as she drank, the pulse in her throat flashing like a distracting beacon, then carried on, ‘But Elizabetta really does want Rosa to take up her offer, and as I’ve offered to help her, I’ve something that might persuade you.’ She puckered her lips and blew me a kiss. The air filled with a spray of fine liquid that expanded outwards into fat black globules like in a slow-motion movie. They splattered against my face with the force of boiling tar and I screamed as my skin bubbled and blistered from the heat. More boiling fluid ran into my eyes, searing my retinas, and flooded into my mouth, scalding my tongue. The sulphurous taste of rotten eggs burnt the back of my throat and the fires of hell scorched down my gullet and bubbled like molten lava in my belly.

For a moment I was too shocked to think, then my mind lurched in horror as I realised what she’d done.

She’d impregnated me with demon acid.

Within seconds I could feel the embryo imps crawling inside me, biting, scratching, digging their miniscule claws and teeth and barbed tails into my organs, muscles, bones, brain ... tiny jagged pains flashed through me like hundreds of needles. Imps consumed their surrogate—and each other—in their vicious efforts to be birthed, a true ‘survival of the fittest’ competition. At least we weren’t talking Rosemary’s Baby here, no nine months of slowly stretching belly to lug around until the anti-Christ is born; just forty-eight hours until a newly formed imp entered the world if I—or rather, Rosa—was lucky.

I stared at her, still too horrified to speak.

‘Now don’t look at me like that, Genevieve,’ she tutted. ‘I know you’ve probably heard loads of horror stories, but the imps really are under your control, you know.’ She touched her index finger to my forehead and muttered in the guttural language; the imps quieted. ‘So long as you do as instructed they should stay reasonably quiescent, then Rosa’s body shouldn’t sustain too much damage—and remember, it does heal extremely quickly. Then tomorrow, when you’re back to your own self, I’d be happy to do you the favour of removing the imps from Rosa.’ She shrugged. ‘Or not, your choice—you could always leave them to follow their natural inclination, in which case both you and Rosa will be free of the magic that joins you. After all, if there’s no body left, there can be no spell. That is what you want, isn’t it?’ She looked at me quizzically. ‘Although, reassuringly, I’ve always thought you too sentimental to take the callous way out of your problems.’

I licked my dry lips, almost heaving at the taste of sulphur that clung to them. ‘I take it the egg is in exchange for the imps’ removal,’ I said, glad my voice came out steady.

‘No, of course not; I’d be happy to do it as a favour for you.’ She rested her hands on my shoulders. I tried to shrug her off, not wanting her to touch me, then muffled my panic as my body refused to obey. ‘But my only worry is that without the egg,’ she carried on, smiling sadly, ‘and without the possibility of being able to release Gwen’s soul before tomorrow night, I might be too upset to work the necessary magics.’

Tomorrow night. All Hallow’s Eve.

Debt-collecting night for demons.

And that was what was wrong with her story. She didn’t want to release the Ancient’s One’s soul; she wanted to use it as payment.

‘You do realise there’s a flaw in your plan, don’t you?’ I said, slightly amazed I could actually think, even if I couldn’t move. ‘The egg is in a bank vault and there’s no way I can walk into the bank and withdraw it, since there’s that little matter of being wanted for murder.’

‘Oh, silly me! I quite forgot to mention’—she patted my cheek and I gritted my teeth at her touch—‘I’ve arranged for a solicitor to accompany you to the police tomorrow, at noon, shall we say? to have all the charges dropped. He’ll pick you up outside your flat at quarter to twelve.’ She chuckled. ‘We can call it a bonus favour, for your continued investment in my Hallowe’en Easter Egg hunt.’

Did that mean she knew who the killer was? Or was it just some sort of ‘arrangement’ thanks to her demon master?

‘What about the real murderer?’ I asked.

‘Now then, let’s not worry about that now.’ Her fingers moved to toy with the top button on my—Malik’s—suit jacket and I stifled a shudder of dread, wishing she’d keep her hands to herself. ‘Time enough for that tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Now, I have a few things for you to achieve as Rosa. Elizabetta’s requests, not mine, you understand. So long as you actively work towards the requests, the imps shouldn’t cause you too much agony.’ She slipped the button from its hole, smiling encouragingly as I flinched. ‘Elizabetta wants you to wear the costume and kill Malik without giving him your oath—very important, that one—then offer her your fealty. Afterwards, you are to do her bidding until dawn.’ She undid the next two buttons, letting the jacket fall open. ‘There, see? Not too demanding a list of jobs. Oh, and I know Rosa is the love of Malik’s life, so I doubt he’ll give you too much trouble, but just in case, I’ve done you one more favour and evened up the odds.’

My mind short-circuited again. ‘What does that mean?’

She tapped the side of her nose. ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Now, time to get dressed, Genevieve.’ She pushed me towards the blue sofa where the golden outfit glittered malevolently. ‘And then go and kill Malik.’

I picked up the gold-plated steel collar with one hand and wrapped the heavy chain around my other, staring at it numbly, my mind automatically assessing it. It wasn’t exactly a garrotte, but looped round his neck—and there was enough of it to go round the movie-monster’s neck, not just Malik’s—and with enough pressure exerted—easily done with my superior vampire strength—decapitating him shouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds.

Only ...

... only I didn’t want to kill Malik.

No, I wanted to kill the evil bitch sorcerer Hannah.

Even as I thought it, pain ripped like wild fire through my body as needle-like teeth bit into my inner flesh. I doubled over, my hand clutching at the steel collar, unable to stop the bloody tears streaming down my face as the world exploded into white-hot torment.

After what felt like an eternity in the centre of the inferno, I managed to work out how to make my mind shape the words the imps wanted.

I’ll kill him, okay.

The pain dulled in increments to a dull ache. So that was the deal: either I tried to kill Malik, or the imps would eat Rosa’s body while I was still inside it.

Catch 22, anyone?