The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Twenty-Five

My phone was dead.

Pushing away ominous thoughts about what that said about my and Finn’s friendship, I squinted at the small cherry-red crystal stuck to the back. Sure enough there was a black starburst crack at its heart; I’d fried the Buffer spell at some point. I sighed and showed Mary. ‘Third time today. First one went soon as I unplugged the damn phone from the charger then, even wearing gloves, my backup did the same. I dropped them off at the office to get fixed. This one’s a spare.’

Mary nodded. ‘Electronics and magic, always iffy, especially with a good dose of high emotions.’

I sniffed. Not to mention I was iffy with magic in the first place.

‘Those Buffers Sylvia makes are good if a bit expensive,’ Mary offered with more sympathy than a fried phone warranted. But then she’d heard me moan about my lack of magical ability more than once.

‘They were Sylvia’s Buffers.’

‘Ahh. You were angry.’

‘Yep.’ And upset, I added silently. I’d call Finn later, once we’d finished here. After all, it wasn’t like he was around to answer.

‘Want me to let your office know you’re fried?’ Mary asked.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

She fished her phone out and sent a text. ‘Done.’

I nodded, then as she scrolled through her messages, asked, ‘So, any news on the zoo kidnap victims yet?’

‘No.’ Frustration turned her brown eyes almost black. ‘We’re going through all the textbook motions, calling for informants to come forward, etc., but other than the usual crazies, so far that’s a bust. And there’s been no ransom demand of any sort. Which, since they were snatched yesterday morning, the negotiator says there should’ve been by now.’

‘Think it’s an inside job?’

‘Difficult to say without speaking to the victims’ families and associates. Which is hard with the Bangladeshi ambassador still claiming diplomatic immunity.’ Her grip on her cup tightened in exasperation. ‘Apparently he’s spending his time praying for his wife and child’s safety at London’s Central Mosque. Which is all well and good, but if he’d let us help, we might have a shot at finding them.’

‘So, no luck getting that bloodstained kurta the bodyguard was wearing for a scrying?’

‘No. The DI’s put in a written request, but they’ve not even come back with an acknowledgement. Even more worrying is that his security refuse to give us anything to use as a focus, not even some of the kid’s toys.’

‘You were going to try a psychic scry?’ I asked, surprised. Psychic scrying was way harder and less successful than standard scrying, which used hair, nail clippings, blood or other bodily fluids.

‘We were hoping to do a combined. The kid’s only six, so something’s bound to have ended up in his mouth at some point. I still find Emily chewing on things.’ Emily, Mary’s daughter, was nine. ‘It was a long shot, but anything’s worth doing in these situations.’ She gave a wry twist of her lips but I could see the worry etching into her soul; abducted children were always the hardest cases for everyone to deal with, even more so for parents. All that horrific imagining of ‘things that could happen’ combined with the natural protective urges really take a toll.

‘Right,’ I said, after we shared a quiet moment, ‘did anyone else think the ambassador’s henchies were a bit off? Sort of predatory?’

‘I asked around, but seems like you were the only one, Genny.’ She grabbed a pink-iced doughnut topped with a cherry. ‘Could be you just freaked them out.’

The only people I usually freaked out were those who didn’t have a nearby fae community; usually some place, like the Midlands, where too much heavy industry made it uncomfortable living for most fae.

‘The ambassador didn’t seem freaked by me,’ I said.

She picked the cherry off and popped it in her mouth. ‘True. But unfortunately it doesn’t give us any sort of clue to go on. What we need is for him to come to his senses and give up whatever information he or his security staff are holding back. My instinct says it’s the clue to why the victims were snatched.’

‘Think there’s anything I can do? See if I can get him to chat to me off the record?’

She ate her doughnut, munching thoughtfully. ‘It could work, but only if the DI thinks it’s a good idea. I’ll run it by him. If he says yes, maybe you could go and see the ambassador once we’re finished here. Any idea when you’ll be done?’

I headed back out into the hallway and contemplated the long, high stack of leaflet boxes. Each box glowed faintly pink in my sight. Mentally I did the calculations. ‘Individually, it’ll probably take another seven or eight hours. Or I can call them in groups, which will be an hour, two tops.’ I gave her a questioning look.

Mary shook her head. ‘Sorry, Genny, much as I’d love to say go for it, this one needs to be done individually.’

‘Okay,’ I said, resolving it would be done in the eight hours or less. I was going to make sure of it. That timescale would see us out of here at around ten. Plenty of opportunity after that for an ‘unofficial’ visit to the ambassador, if Hugh authorised it, to see if there was any way I could help the kidnap victims. And still leave me enough time to rush home and get ready for my ‘date’ with Malik.

‘I’d better get on with it, then.’ I gave Mary a determined smile, grabbed an empty crystal and smacked my hand on the nearest box.

‘Great. I’ll go and check on the rest of the girls,’ she said, then strode off down the hall.

Seven and a half hours later, I sighed in relief as I picked up the tape-cutter knife and opened the last box.

Something white zoomed out to hover in front of my face.

A tarot card.

I snatched up the tape-cutter and ran my finger along its serrated edge. Blood welled, scenting the air with copper and honey, and I pressed the bloodied tip to the blank card. The little mouth latched on, sucking up like a starved vamp. Like before, it tickled, but didn’t hurt. Unlike before, I stayed silent until the mouth stopped feeding.

The image appeared on the card. A tall, thin minaret tower, with a covered lookout encircling its top, watching over a building with a shining gold-domed roof. At the building’s base, tiny figures were running around in panic as they tried to keep from being barbecued by the flames and lightning shooting down from the night sky.

The sixteenth card: the Tower. Symbolising change, crisis, and chaos. Unsurprisingly, as the building depicted was the minaret at London’s Central Mosque, the one near Regent’s Park, where the Bangladeshi ambassador was praying for the safe return of his wife and child. Not that I needed the card to tell me the ambassador was in trouble. But the card did tell me that he and the kidnap victims’ all had something to do with finding the fae’s lost fertility.

Now that was surprising, shocking even. But before I had chance to process the idea, the little mouth stopped feeding.

Heart thudding with anticipation, I repeated my original question. ‘Tell me how to find that which is lost, and how to join that which is sundered, to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant and restore it back to them as it was before it was taken.’

One of the tiny figures jumped out of the card to land on the stack of leaflet boxes. It was the ambassador in his crumpled business suit and orange and black striped tie.

‘He knows! He will tell you! For a price! The beasts are coming! They come for you!’

Right. Nothing new there. Maybe time for another open question. ‘What does the Emperor want with me?’

‘He seeks Janan!’

Hmm, a nice specific answer, just not an overly informative one. Still, a name was good. ‘Who is Janan? Where do I find Janan?’

‘Janan is Beloved of Malak al-Maut! Janan will come to you!’

Janan will come to me? ‘Who is Malak al-Maut? When will Janan come to me? Why does the Emperor seek Janan?’

‘Malak al-Maut is to be revered. Janan will come when the time is nigh! The Emperor seeks to use Janan!’

Revered? Time is nigh? Sounded way too End Of The World for my liking, especially with all the fire and lighting shooting through the sky. ‘How does the Emperor intend to use Janan?’

A jagged fork of lightning struck the minaret, setting the mosque on fire and illuminating a huge (compared to the rest of the card’s tiny figures) wolf standing in the shadows. The wolf stalked to the edge of the card, the whites of its human eyes stark in its grey-brown furred face, and growled, the sound raising the hair on my nape. The ambassador turned and fled back into the card, rushing straight into the heart of the small inferno. The wolf – werewolf – chased him.

And the card flared into bright flames then exploded into ashes that dissipated into the ether.

Fifty minutes later, my taxi rumbled to a halt at the entrance to London’s Central Mosque.

I peered out of the window and was relieved to see that the mosque wasn’t on fire and that the golden dome was shining serenely against a backdrop of twilit grey sky, unmarred by shooting flames or jagged forks of lightning. Not that I’d really expected any of that, but it had crossed my mind that the ambassador and the mosque might be under a physical attack rather than a metaphorical one.

Of course, that could all change now I was here.

The word from Hugh, via Mary, when I’d asked if I could talk to the ambassador, had been that the diplomatic situation was too delicate without it being fully authorised by someone much higher up the food chain, and then they’d want to know why. Which meant filling them in on the tarot cards and the fae’s trapped fertility. Something I was pretty sure the fae would object to. I got the unspoken message. If I wanted to find out what the ambassador and his missing wife and child had to do with the fae’s problems, I was ostensibly on my own. Plausible deniability meant that if my visit ended with the shit hitting the fan, the only one it would stick to was me.

So I’d skipped out of the Harley Street crime scene and grabbed the taxi here, giving Mary the excuse (that she could repeat, if need be) I had to rush for a date.

It wasn’t a lie. I did have a date – at midnight, with Malik.

And I did have to rush. I checked the time – ten forty: I had an hour and twenty minutes. It should be enough time to have an ambassadorial chat, head home, get ready and then walk to the Blue Heart vamp club in Leicester Square. Only knowing my luck and London’s traffic, it probably wasn’t.

I offered the driver an extra tenner on top to let me use his phone. After a brief haggle, he agreed one handsfree call for twenty quid; not that he wasn’t trusting, or was trying to rip me off, of course. Oh no, he was just worried my magic touch would nix his phone.

Yeah, and trolls keep cats as pets.

I gave him the number and we both listened for the pickup.

‘Malik al-Khan.’

My heart gave its usual leap at the sound of his remote, not-quite-English accent.

‘Hi,’ I said brightly, conscious of the driver’s avid curiosity (which I suspected was another reason he’d refused to hand over his phone). ‘It’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’ve had an urgent appointment come up, so may end up running a bit late for our meeting at midnight.’

There was a pause and I suddenly wondered if I should’ve given him a heads up that ‘me’ meant me, or if I was going to end up embarrassed when Malik asked who was calling. Relief flashed through me as he said, ‘Genevieve,’ then continued in a slightly perplexed tone, ‘Why are you calling from another’s phone?’

‘Mine’s fried,’ I said, ‘so the taxi driver’s letting me use his. For a fee. Handsfree,’ I finished flatly, partly as a tacit warning, but also as the bitch in me wanted to see the disappointment in the driver’s eyes.

‘That is . . . generous of him.’ The thread of amusement in Malik’s cool voice almost surprised a snort from me. ‘Where is this urgent appointment?’

‘London’s Central Mosque. It’s in connection with the situation we discussed the other night.’

‘Then thank you for letting me know, Genevieve. I will see you later.’

The phone went dead.

I blinked. I’d been sort of thinking about asking for his help, like maybe he could send out a search party if I was more than an hour late. Evidently that wasn’t to be. Still, at least he knew where I was. And why. Which was some sort of failsafe. And my own disconcertion at the call’s quick end was nothing compared to the driver’s dissatisfaction. No doubt he’d been hoping for some juicy gossip to sell to the papers.

But I’d be stupid to rely only on Malik as a backup, so, after another haggle, I grudgingly gave the driver sixteen pounds and thirty-nine pence (the rest of my cash) and he sent a text to Tavish for me:

T no 3 appeared. Am at LC Mosque, Regent’s Park on spec. All connected somehow. Will ring b4 midnight. If not, come find me.

Backup message sent, I hitched my backpack over my shoulder, hopped out and waited until the money-grubbing taxi driver had driven away. Then I pulled out a grey pashmina I’d liberated from a cloak cupboard at the plastic surgeon’s (no doubt abandoned from last winter) and covered my head. Not only was it respectful, but people tend to ignore what they expect to see. With luck, it would get me far enough into the mosque to find the ambassador, before his henchmen caught my scent and tried to stop me.