The Shifting Price of Prey [4]

by Suzanne McLeod

  The woman, Shpresa, looked up from swaddling the baby, her expression the resigned one of mothers everywhere when children goad each other. She called out sharply, gesturing at Bastien to give the doll back. Bastien nodded, holding the doll by its head and feet as he offered it to the crying Dilek. As she went to take it, he shot a ‘watch this’ look in my direction and shoved the doll into Dilek’s small chest. She stumbled back and he jerked his arms gleefully apart, ripping the doll’s head from its body and tossing the decapitated parts into the corner fountain.

  Dilek burst into anguished tears. Her mother gathered her up into a hug, and spoke to Bastien in a disappointed tone that indicated this wasn’t the first such incident. He shrugged his bony shoulders, a mock air of contriteness not quite hiding his satisfaction. Shpresa spoke again, pointing at the baby, and he sidled past her, surreptitiously yanking Dilek’s hair as he did so. As Dilek bawled louder, Bastien snatched the baby up, gripping her under her arms and dangling her at arm’s length. She wriggled, little arms and legs waving as he gave me a calculating glance and the dream/memory halted again.

  ‘Babies are such fragile things,’ he said, throwing the squealing baby into the air and catching her just before she hit the paving slabs. ‘Much like a child’s doll. Don’t you agree, my lovely sidhe?’

  My heart thudded with impending dread. ‘Put her down.’

  He smiled. ‘Come and join me fully in the Dreamscape.’

  ‘No.’ The word was out my mouth before I could think.

  ‘A pity. She is not as sweet as sidhe blood, I warrant, but sweet enough for me to indulge myself.’ Bastien licked his lips and buried his face in the baby’s tummy. She squirmed with a pain-filled gurgle, then he turned her to face me. Fang marks pierced her small round stomach, bright blood dripping from the tiny, neat holes. ‘Shall I feast on this plump chicken, tear its tiny limbs, suck on its marrow, crack its head like an almond and gorge myself on its infant mind? Shall I do all that while you watch and listen to its screams? Or will you join me, my princess?’

  No fucking way. But despite knowing the baby was only part of whatever twisted nightmare/illusion Bastien was making, my fear of what he might make me watch unglued my feet. I took a step towards him and said, ‘Yes.’

  The baby, the woman, the child-Fur Jacket Girl and the courtyard disappeared.

  The white sloping walls of my attic bedroom snapped into focus around me.

  It was night. The room dimly lit by the moonlight shining through the window. I was dressed in my usual sleep vest and shorts. But even as my mind tried to reject the change, a hand gripped my throat, fingers digging in, almost but not quite choking, and jerked me up on to my feet so Bastien could stare down at me. The gangly boy was gone; in his place was the grinning, teenage six-foot-plus Autarch. He flashed sharp fangs, a triumphant expression on his teenage face.

  ‘Well, well, my lovely sidhe princess. I am delighted you have agreed to join me fully in the Dreamscape.’ He raked his gaze down my body then his mouth twisted. He ripped my vest top down the front and prodded disdainfully at the rose-coloured bruises marking my breasts and belly.

  ‘Although I must remark you were prettier at fourteen; now you appear to be damaged goods.’

  I punched him in the gut. He doubled over, the metallic stink of recently ingested blood belching from his surprised mouth, his fingers loosening on my throat. I followed with an uppercut to his chin, snapping his head backwards. Then I reached up, grabbed his ears, yanked his head down and headbutted him on the bridge of his nose, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone. I shoved him, wondering why he wasn’t fighting back. Was it surprise or luck? And how long before I ran out of both? He staggered slightly, and as he swiped at the blood streaming from his broken nose, fell on to his butt, laughing.

  I clenched my right fist.

  A ball of angry dragonfire erupted from the emerald ring on my hand.

  And Ascalon sprung into my grip.

  I didn’t know if you could die in the Dreamscape, but if you could, then I was going to kill Bastien.

  Adjusting my grip around the knobbed hilt, I slashed it through the air, aiming for where Bastien’s neck would be when he automatically ducked.

  He didn’t duck.

  The sword hit his shoulder, the sharp blade slicing through his torso as if he wasn’t there. It exited the other side of his body and I moved back, automatically falling into a ready stance as I held my breath, eager for the top half of him to tumble off and blood to spurt like we were in some sort of CGI film.

  It didn’t.

  Instead he laughed again and, as time seemed to slow, his doe-brown eyes filled with viscous red blood, blotting out his pupil, iris and sclera. Mesmerised, I stared, expecting the blood to spill like tears down his cheeks. Instead, bone cracked as his nose reset itself, the blood on his face disappearing back into his skin as he healed. His lips curved in a cruel smile and he jumped up, stuck his arm out and closed his fingers around my neck again. His nails dug into my throat, piercing the flesh with needle-sharp pain, and I felt hot wetness trickle down my chest.

  My pulse thundered in my ears. Ascalon had cut through him. The sword was blessed and bespelled to kill all unless they were an innocent. Bastien was no innocent. But Ascalon had done nothing. Did that mean you couldn’t die in the Dreamscape? Yet I’d hurt him. He was hurting me now. And I was bleeding. So why the fuck hadn’t it cleaved his torso in two? Why wasn’t he dead? Had I imagined I’d hit him? Maybe he’d moved vamp-fast and I hadn’t registered it.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried again, a two-handed thrust up through his gut, aiming for his heart. Again the sword met no resistance, only this time his body seemed to shimmer translucently for a millisecond. Then he chopped at my wrists and elbows in quick succession. I cried out, agonising pain shooting through both arms as bones broke, and the sword clattered to the floorboards from my useless hands.

  ‘Stop moving, my pretty sidhe, else I will rip out your throat.’ He leaned closer and opened his blood-soaked eyes wide. ‘Losing the muscle, sinew, tendons, blood vessels, cartilage, windpipe and voicebox hurts. Even one as difficult to kill as you will find it hard to heal that.’

  He was right. I knew he was right. I knew I might not heal it at all. I had to do as he said. It was the only way . . .

  I frowned at the thoughts in my head. They sounded wrong . . .

  He touched his tongue to his fangs. ‘Or don’t. I would enjoy fucking you while you suffocate and drown in your own blood.’

  Panic froze me as memories of my wedding night and him killing my friend, Sally, slammed into me. I had to do as he said. I stopped struggling. His pressure on my throat increased, almost cutting off my air. I forced myself to stay still, to stare back stoically as my lungs heaved for breath, to concentrate on calming my pulse, even as my vision greyed around the edges. He watched me intently for what felt like hours, then his hand at my throat relaxed slightly. I gasped for oxygen before I could stop myself.

  ‘I see you understand, my pretty sidhe.’ He sighed. ‘Although I find it disappointing.’ He hooked his fingers into my briefs and tore them off. Fear clenched my stomach and I forced myself to stay still. He contemplated me like I was a bug pinned under a microscope, and started poking at Malik’s rose-petal bruises again. I tensed, skin crawling at his touch, the small pains insignificant to the fiery ones in my wrists. As his prodding moved lower, I desperately searched my mind for what little I knew about the Dreamscape. The only time I’d been here before was via Malik’s ring: I’d put the ring on to enter and he’d taken it off to make me leave. Or rather, to wake me up. While I was here, I was asleep in real life. That meant all I had to do to escape was wake up. But without Malik’s ring to remove, I didn’t know how. It hit me I was trapped in the Dreamscape with Bastien. Despair filtered into my mind. My recurring nightmare made real.

  He gave my throat a quick squeeze. ‘Now, I am going to ask you a question. I know a sidhe cannot lie, but know I want you t
o answer only yes or no. No prevarication, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I gasped, my lungs struggling for breath.

  ‘You reek of Malik and sex,’ he said, voice soft. ‘Has my commander filled you with his seed, my bride?’

  Shock sparked like lightning. ‘What?!’

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘No,’ I croaked. Where the hell was this going?

  He frowned then slid his hand down my belly and between my legs. I shuddered in fear and disgust as his finger penetrated for an instant. He brought it up to his nose, sniffed and then licked it.

  ‘You are correct,’ he said.

  Indignant anger rose. He hadn’t believed me. ‘Sidhe,’ I spat, ‘can’t fucking lie.’

  His mouth thinned. ‘He has wanted you for a long time. He has even marked you.’ He poked a bruise on my left breast and I forced myself not to squirm. ‘But he has still not made you his, even though the spell should have done away with his resistance by now. It is a puzzle.’

  It wasn’t the only one. For some weird reason, it sounded like he wanted Malik and me to have sex. Had encouraged it, even. The utter improbability of the Autarch ‘matchmaking’, allied to my earlier indignation, shattered something in my head. ‘What spell?’

  He touched his forehead. ‘The one lodged within the delta brand.’

  The sadistic Jellyfish spell I’d removed. Bastien’s gaze narrowed as he saw recognition on my face. ‘Well, well, my princess, it seems I underestimated you . . .’ He licked his lips, his gaze skating hungrily down my body.

  Think! There had to be a way out of this.

  ‘You are not afraid of me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Why not?’

  I stared at him. He really was insane as well as psychotic if he didn’t think I was scared.

  He tapped my forehead. ‘You are afraid here, but not here.’ He tapped over my heart. ‘You were before, but now you are not. Why not?’

  I blinked. He was right. In the last few seconds I’d lost my mind-numbing terror of him. Not that I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but he wasn’t the big, bad, bogey-vamp of my fourteen-year-old nightmares any more. He was just another sucker, after all— And suckers could get into your mind. Make you think and feel and see anything they wanted with a combination of mesma, vamp mind-mojo and illusion. And I was the stupid idiot who’d forgotten it.

  Bastien squeezed my throat. ‘There are not many who do not fear me, my sidhe princess. I find it interesting.’

  May you live in interesting times.

  The ambiguous Chinese saying flashed in my head, and I decided it was time this got interesting for him.

  ‘You’re not real,’ I whispered. ‘You have no substance. You are nothing but your thoughts in the Dreamscape.’ That was why the sword, Ascalon, hadn’t cut him. I’d have realised it earlier if not for my stupid childish panic. His other injuries had just been him playing with me. Using them to convince me that if I could hurt him, then he could hurt me. I stepped back.

  His fingers didn’t unclench, but they didn’t rip my throat out either.

  ‘You’re not here,’ I said with more emphasis, lifting my arms as the pain and illusion they were broken vanished. ‘You. Are. Not. Real.’

  ‘I am real, sidhe.’ He waved his hand and the beautiful woman, the girl, the baby and the young Bastien, with Malik standing next to them, reappeared behind him. The five were in the sun-bright courtyard with its gleaming mosaic walls the same as when I’d first seen them in Malik’s memory, but the picture overlaid my bedroom like a holograph or a vamp-conjured illusion. ‘Just as they were real once. My loyal commander couldn’t save them— Save us,’ he amended, with an oddly conflicted expression, ‘when the Emperor came before.’

  ‘You. Are. Not. Here,’ I said, and taking a deep breath, I walked straight through him and out of my bedroom door.

  ‘Now the Emperor comes again, my sidhe princess.’

  I woke up in the back of the police car.

  ‘And only you can save . . .’ His voice faded like morning mist banished by the sun.

  The car was parked in a layby in front of a row of local community shops; a launderette, a newsagent, an off-licence, a boarded-up video rental place, a Subway and a butcher’s. And I was alone. A scrawled note on my lap, addressed to Sleeping Beauty, said Mary and Dessa were checking out a possible hit on their scrying and would be back soon. Something I was grateful for, as my reaction to tangling with Bastien suddenly made itself felt.

  I just had time to stick my head out of the open car window (having discovered I was locked in) before my stomach revolted. Vomiting into the gutter, I tried not to think about exactly how and where Bastien had touched me. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t shown up physically, that our meeting had been in the Dreamscape; it still felt like he’d violated me. I heaved again, catching sight of the feet of passers-by in my peripheral vision. No one stopped; the one advantage to puking your guts out from the inside of a marked police car. Even if the police were nowhere in sight.

  My heaves finally subsided and I grabbed a bottle of water from my bag, rinsed away the sour taste of regurgitated orange juice (thankful I’d had nothing more than that and vodka for hours), then used the rest to sluice my mess down the nearby drain, wishing I could flush psycho Bastien away as easily. I shoved the empty bottle back in my bag. Next time I ran into the sadistic bastard in real life, I was going to kill him.

  Though I might ask him a few questions first. Like why he was so hot for me and Malik to get together? Whatever the reason, there was no way it was for my, or Malik’s, benefit. Bastien was the spoilt, spiteful, dog-in-the-manger type; the type that would break their unwanted toys rather than sharing . . . as he’d done to child-Fur Jacket Girl’s doll in Malik’s dream/memory.

  Part of me didn’t want to think too closely about that dream/memory. Didn’t want to speculate who the woman was. Or what part she and her three children, especially Bastien, had played in Malik’s past life. But another part couldn’t not think about it. I dug my phone out along with a fresh bottle of water (a replacement, thanks to the same spell that was on our fridge), and drank it, my heart fluttering like an anxious bird’s, as I did some Googling.

  Malik’s memory had taken me to a harem. Though the place had seemed so much less decadent than I’d always imagined harems to be – not that I’d thought about them much – the silent, ebony-skinned eunuchs standing guard over unseen chattering women, along with what Malik had told me about being friends with Suleiman, an Ottoman sultan, meant the place couldn’t be anything else but a harem.

  Various sites told me that Muslim households had a harem – secluded, protected living quarters for the wives, concubines, children, female relatives and (in the past) slaves – whether it be one room or many, like those in the famous Topkapi Palace, Istanbul. Malik’s memory had showed him right at home in the harem, but the only males allowed were eunuchs or relations. Malik was so not the former, which meant he had to be the latter.

  Brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, son . . . husband.

  The woman, Shpresa, had been in her mid-twenties. As had Malik. Bastien had called her his father’s Ikbal— favourite concubine. Said that his commander – Malik – had tried to save the woman and her kids . . . save us . . . from the Emperor.

  Did that mean the woman was Malik’s wife? That they were Malik’s kids? Only if it did, then Bastien, my psychotic, murdering betrothed, was Malik’s—

  Son?

  Denial and horror hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. My stomach heaved again, and I only just managed to keep the water down. I slumped down in the back seat, wishing I could crawl home, take a blisteringly hot shower and huddle in bed with a bottle of vodka or ten for a week.

  Only that wasn’t an option.

  Ten minutes later, Mary returned, jumped into the car and slammed her door with a frustrated bang, which made my head ring and told me clearer than words that the scrying hadn’t panned out. I swiped a furtive hand over my damp fac
e – not from tears, well, not just from tears, but from retching half-a-dozen times more; my Hot. D postponed hangover had decided to make its appearance (figured, I wouldn’t get the whole twelve hours out of the damn spell), complete with a headache that felt like imps were munching on my brain.

  Mary twisted to face me. ‘We’re going to head— Cripes, Genny, what happened to you? You look like warmed-up death.’

  ‘Took a Hot. D this morning.’ I cut a squinty look at the sunshine. ‘Got an early rebound.’

  ‘Those things are barely legal.’ She gave me her cop face then wrinkled her nose. ‘You’ve been sick?’

  I nodded, then wished I hadn’t as a wave of dizziness swept over me and my stomach rebelled.

  Her mouth pinched with worry. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

  Unsaid was: we were in the middle of a scrying. Stopping now would mean losing the trail. But before I could say I’d survive, Dessa dived into the driver’s seat clutching a bag of fast food.

  My stomach heaved again at the greasy smell and I clapped a hand over my mouth, missing what Mary said next.

  ‘Here, Genny, have this.’ A hand shoved a small lavender-coloured envelope under my nose with a picture of a serene-looking woman on the front. The spiel underneath said ~ Revive the Perfect You! A Reviver, or a Cinderella as they’re known in the trade. Cinderella spells were expensive.

  ‘It’s legit,’ Dessa added as I hesitated. ‘Not like the Power Nap patch. Present from my mum. I’ve been keeping it in case I ever land myself a hot date.’ Her face scrunched up in a wry look. ‘I’ve got a toddler, a job and no time. I need to be prepared and I need all the help I can get. Only downside is a headache the next day.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the envelope; another postponed headache had to be better than hours of vomiting. ‘I’ll get you another.’ I pulled out the pale lavender patch – it smelled of lavender too – peeled off the backing and stuck it, as per instructions, on the back of my neck. For a second nothing happened, then it felt as if I’d been cocooned in cool silk for about five minutes. As the feeling dissipated, I felt like I’d just had a week’s relaxing spa holiday; my worries and fears were surmountable, and no matter what life, or a sadistic vamp, threw at me next, I could handle it.