The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Fifty-Eight

A booming voice was wittering on about lots, how to bid, how to pay and complimentary refreshments. I wasn’t listening. I hugged myself, almost paralysed with panic. And pain. So much pain. Part of me knew the pain radiating through my body wasn’t physical, but that didn’t matter, I still hurt. Still felt as though my heart had been ripped out. As if it had been chopped in half with a blunt axe, the two halves pierced with silver nails and then shoved burning and broken back in my chest.

Freya. Or Katie.

No way could I choose.

Katie. Or Freya.

No way did I want to choose.

Freya.

I slowly opened my hand. Stared at the gold coin in my palm.

Katie.

Blood smeared the coin where I’d clutched it so hard my nails had split my flesh.

Freya was blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh. An eight-year-old child.

The booming voice was saying something about barterers getting the chance to tender their coins for their corresponding ‘lot’ before open bidding could commence.

Katie wasn’t my blood, wasn’t my flesh, and was a young adult of seventeen. She’d never agree to my saving her over a child, if she was asked. But that didn’t mean I was going to leave her to the wolves.

Rage and determination pushed back the horrified panic and indecision swirling through me.

I was damned if I was going to choose between Katie and Freya. Or anyone else.

I lifted my head, scrubbed my face and took a few deep breaths to clear my mind. I fixed the Emperor, the Empress, the gnome and the anonymous gathering on the stage with a calculating look. No, the only choice I was going to make was who I was going to kill first. And to do that I needed my, so far elusive, plan.

As the gnome sold some smaller, less sought-after lots, the various items held up for viewing by the centurion vamps, while more centurions wandered among the shadowy bidders with platters and jugs, I counted the chain circles behind me. Including the one I was in, there were thirteen, same as the cages. But only twelve of the circles had shadowy figures in them: someone hadn’t turned up. I fisted my hand around the gold coin; I couldn’t imagine any of Freya’s or Katie’s relatives not turning up, so whoever’s coin I held, there should be someone here for the other girl.

Like Paula, Katie’s mum and my friend. Or Ana, Freya’s pregnant mother and my niece; we might not get on, but that meant nothing as it was down to Ana’s fear for herself and her child. And, same as with Katie and Freya, no way could I live with myself if anything happened to their mothers.

Not to mention there was still the price to be paid for bartering the coins, and the Forum’s future deterrent.

No. If anyone was going to be bartering, it had to be me . . . I eyed my boots, then glanced down at the gold coin in my hand, a plan finally forming in my mind. If I could make it work.

‘Hey, Gold Cat, help me save the kits?’

Save kits, she growled low. Yes.

She might be my ùmaidh, and house a supposedly powerful primal spirit, but her conversational skills were definitely on the basic side.

‘Okay, here’s what I want you to do,’ I said, and pictured a series of images in my mind. When I finished, I stripped my bra off from under my T-shirt, refastened it and held it in front of me. Gold Cat leaped out of my body with a tickling brush of fur, sticking her head through the circle of the bra so it hung round her neck like a wacky-looking collar. I took a moment to check her out. She was virtually transparent, fading fast enough that I doubted she’d last the night. An odd sadness settled in me. I shook it off and released my hold on the bra. Now I wasn’t touching it, the Unseen veil I’d taken from my T-shirt and tagged to the bra activated, and Gold Cat totally vanished.

‘Good luck,’ I whispered, then slumped in relief as a barely audible chuff told me she’d crossed the circle. I’d been right; the circle didn’t stop things like my boots, the gold coin and the centurion’s arm, so it had been cast to hold me specifically. Just as when Gold Cat had crossed the circle in the cat-shifters’ cave, she registered as ‘not me’; she didn’t have enough of my soul in her to keep her trapped.

Now I just had to pray she managed to do what I needed. In time.

Another loud gong reverberated through the Forum, signalling the end of what seemed to be a break. I raised my head from the dried grass I’d been plaiting – to take my mind off worrying about how Gold Cat was doing – and saw the gnome adjusting his mike behind the lectern. The Emperor and Empress had also returned. The Empress was carefully tracing glyphs over a black wooden box on her knees, while two of the centurions were washing the Emperor’s hands in a wide gold bowl, like the vamp was some sort of decadent despot. Which I guessed he was. In his world. Never in mine.

He waved the two centurions away. The one carrying the bowl knelt at the edge of the stage, deliberately caught my eye, then tipped the bowl on to the grass below. The water was bloody. Nice. Then the faint scent of dark spice, copper and liquorice hit me. Malik’s blood. Malik was here. Some part of me had known he was, but his blood confirmed it. And he was hurt. My chest constricted – I glared at the Emperor, but he was listening to another centurion. The Empress, however, was looking at me, her expression tense.

A bright spotlight blinded me.

Looked like my cue.

I rubbed the glare out of my eyes, calming my desperate pulse, and cleared my mind. Malik was a centuries-old immortal vamp, and could heal anything. I had to believe that and not agonise about him. I had to put my plan into action, but Gold Cat hadn’t returned. I had to stall—

‘Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova,’ the gnome intoned, the mustard-coloured lichen on his head puffing up with importance. ‘The time has come for you to barter the Emperor’s coin given to you in exchange for that which has been taken by the Forum. For this barter an additional payment is demanded. Your payment will require you to perform a task, here and now, at the Emperor’s direction. Should you refuse to barter, or refuse the task, that which the Forum has taken becomes the Forum’s property to do with as it will.’

Nothing new there. Good. ‘What’s the task?’

He looked down at me smugly. ‘If you agree you will be told.’

I’ve got to go in blind? Could it get any better? C’mon, Gold Cat, hurry up. I shaded my eyes, squinting up at the gnome. ‘What happens if I fail the task?’

‘Failure carries the same outcome as refusal.’

Figured. ‘What if I am not capable of the task, let’s say if I am asked to stir and cast a simple spell, which is impossible for me to do’ – and wouldn’t my life be so much easier if that wasn’t true – ‘would that be classed as failure?’

‘The task is one you are known to be capable of.’

Which sort of narrowed it down to absorbing, cracking, or seeing when it came to magic. Or ripping the gnome’s heart out and stomping on it. Only I didn’t think I was going to get that lucky. ‘What happens to me, and that which the Forum has taken, if I succeed?’

The gnome opened his mouth, then closed it and glanced over at the Emperor. Obviously I wasn’t expected to worry about succeeding. I doubted many did. But I’d got Viviane’s heads up about the Forum’s nasty punchlines.

The Emperor lifted one finger then leaned forwards, raking me with his alien look. I suppressed a shudder. ‘If you succeed, Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova,’ he said softly, ‘the lot corresponding to my coin tendered will be returned to you.’

Way too unspecific. ‘Will the lot be returned in the same physical, psychic, emotional, mental and magical health as when the lot was taken?’

His left eyelid twitched; almost a flicker of impatience. ‘I cannot give you an absolute answer to your question.’

Fuck. What had they already done to Katie and Freya? Don’t think about that now. Keep stalling. ‘Will the lot be returned in the same physical, psychic, emotional, mental and magical health as the lot is now, with a guarantee of no harmful ramifications arising in the future to the lot, the lot’s nearest and dearest, or to me?’

He stared at me unblinking for a long minute then mild interest sparked in his flat green eyes. It turned my gut liquid with terror and made me want to run away and hide. The only time I’d seen something scarier was the demon last Hallowe’en. I forced myself to keep meeting his gaze.

‘I would be a fool to guarantee a lot’s emotional health,’ he said in his soft voice. ‘But I will guarantee that the Forum, which includes all who are a permanent part of it, but not those who are peripheral, will not intentionally change the physical, psychic, mental and magical health of the lot, from the point of your surrendering my coin until that time when your task is completed. If you succeed, I will further guarantee that no harmful ramifications will arise in the future to the lot, the lot’s nearest and dearest, or to you from the Forum.’

As he finished speaking, I made a pretence of studying the dead grass in my circle. His guarantee was about as good as I was going to get. Better than usual really, since it appeared to nix the Forum’s future deterrent. Though the fact he was prepared to give it was scary in itself. He really wanted me to do his ‘task’. It also meant I couldn’t stall any longer. Except—

‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘I want you to 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.’

The Empress stiffened. The Emperor made a choking sound. It took me a moment to realise he was laughing. ‘If you believe I have the answer you require, Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova, you have been misinformed.’

I froze. He didn’t know? But he had to. He was the Emperor. The tarot cards— I hadn’t been misinformed. I’d been played for a fool. As had Tavish. Viviane had somehow lied, despite the cards being sidhe-made. Fuck. If she thought I’d burn her cards and set her free now—

Unseen fur brushed against my cheek telling me Gold Cat was finally back, reminding me Viviane’s fate could wait. After all, I’d got her cards in my back pocket; she wasn’t going anywhere.

An Unseen head nudged my shoulder; Gold Cat had been successful. Relief washed over me, making me dizzy. I swallowed back the fear closing my throat and stood, hands cupped behind my back, feeling her whiskers tickle my palms as she carefully spat out what she carried.

I composed my words, sent another prayer to the gods and held out my fisted left hand to the Emperor.

‘I return to you your coin. I agree to perform your task. And when I succeed, you will return that which the coin is payment for under the guarantee you have offered.’

The Emperor treated me to his alien stare, then nodded. ‘Agreed.’

A small chime sounded, startling me. I hadn’t intended making a sidhe bargain, but looked like the magic was taking an interest in proceedings. Well, I’d just have to suffer whatever the consequences turned out to be; then, as a perplexed line appeared above the Emperor’s hawk-like nose, I felt a grim satisfaction. Whatever happened, he’d suffer some sort of consequence from our bargain too, and, if there was any justice, by my hand.

‘A sidhe bargain. It will suffice.’ The Emperor lifted his finger again. ‘Come, Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova. Give me my coin. Then we shall begin.’

The etched silver and copper chain was swallowed by the earth, and the circle broke with an audible pop.

I strode forward, lifted my hand up and slapped it on the shoulder-height stage, quickly spreading the gold coins (slimy from the Gold Cat’s mouth and my sweat) into a ragged line.

Ten gold coins.

Dismay filled me. She’d missed two, or their owners hadn’t wanted to give them up.

I took a breath. With the empty chain circle, three lots weren’t included in my deal. Fuck.

‘You said coin.’ It was the Empress who spoke.

I looked up. She was frowning, and the gnome was watching avidly. I hadn’t a clue what the shadowy bidders could see, but the blankness of the Emperor’s face told me he understood what I’d done. But hey, his problem if he didn’t bother to clarify the semantics of the deal.

‘Yep, coin,’ I agreed, pushing the ten gold coins back into a heap. ‘What’s the task?’