The Cold Kiss of Death

by Suzanne McLeod

  ‘Why Grianne, I didn’t know you cared so much,’ I said, then held up a hand at her look of displeasure. ‘It’s okay, I get the message. There is another bean sidhe wandering round London, and she’s somehow managed to bypass the gates without your queen’s knowledge, and now your queen wants me to find her. In exchange she’ll get me off the hook. I take it she also wants the sidhe repatriated, rather than being handed over to the authorities?’

  ‘This is so.’ She held out her hand. A smooth pebble of gleaming haematite lay in her palm. ‘All you need do is find the sidhe and give her this. It will return her to her home in an instant.’

  Magic, gotta love it.

  I took the pebble; it tingled like electricity against my fingers. I dropped it into my pocket. ‘I’m going to need whatever information you’ve got. All of it, no keeping things back this time, Grianne.’

  ‘So you agree to do this?’ She angled her head to look down at me, her eyes gleaming oddly yellow for a moment.

  ‘Isn’t that what I just said?’ I raised my brows, then sighed at her expectant silence. ‘Yes, I agree.’

  She smiled, satisfied.

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now that you’re happy, please start talking.’

  ‘Very well, child. The three London gates have not been opened, but another has been recently conjured by a mortal in this part of the world. As yet, my queen has not succeeded in locating the gate’s anchor, either here or in her own territory. ’

  I frowned. ‘When you say “anchor”, what do you mean?’

  ‘Gates are traditionally opened at specific landmarks, anchored by a combination of earth, air and water magic, which makes them easy to locate and to guard.’ The pointed tips of her ears seemed to flatten. ‘This gate is anchored by blood magic.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘The gate can be opened anywhere, here or in the Fair Lands, by whomsoever controls the blood.’

  ‘So the anchor is the person and not a place?’

  ‘Almost correct, child. The anchor is two persons, the two halves of the gate. It will be a mortal on this side, one who shares a close blood-connection with someone in my queen’s court.’

  ‘What sort of blood-connection?’ I asked.

  ‘A parent on this side whose child is in the Fair Lands.’

  ‘A mortal parent this side,’ I said, putting the pieces together in my mind. ‘So you’re talking about, what, a stolen child on your side?’

  Grianne paled in shock. ‘My queen would never sanction a stolen child at her court! That would be to break the bargain the human monarch Victoria brokered with all the queens of the Fair Lands on the birth of her first child.’

  I wasn’t quite sure how many queens of the Fair Lands there were; I’d asked Grianne once and finally got out of her ‘more than twenty’ along with ‘as many as the magic desires’ when I’d pressed the matter. Both were typical answers when she either didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell me something.

  ‘Queen Victoria died more than a century ago,’ I said, matter-of-fact.

  Her shock turned to puzzlement. ‘There is still a queen on the throne of England, not a king, is there not?’

  ‘Yes, Queen Elizabeth. The Second.’

  ‘Then the bargain will have been renegotiated on the birth of the current queen’s first child.’ She waved dismissively. ‘The tradition goes back to Boadicea.’

  ‘Okay, so if the child isn’t stolen, what is it?’

  ‘A treasured gift given to my queen,’ she said softly, ‘at a time of great sorrow.’

  Ri-ight. I wondered briefly who actually suffered this great sorrow, the queen, or the poor human who was persuaded to give up her child as a gift? Still, there couldn’t be many who’d done so, whatever the reason, which would narrow the search. ‘So who’s the parent?’ I asked.

  She placed a hand on my arm. ‘There is a complication, child.’

  Figured! ‘Go on.’

  ‘The gate has not been used by either the child or the parent, but by someone unrelated to either of them.’

  I frowned. ‘But you said the gate needed their blood to make the connection.’

  She nodded. ‘This is true.’

  ‘So whoever has opened the gate has access to their blood,’ I mused. ‘Which means they have to be close to the parent, so finding the parent should lead me to the gate-conjurer and then to the sidhe.’

  ‘This quest would be of benefit both to my queen and to you yourself.’ Grianne guided us around a large oil-slicked puddle. ‘When you find the anchor, my queen will intercede on your behalf with the human authorities to confirm that you are not responsible for the human’s death.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘There is one more thing you should be aware of.’ She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘The bean sidhe is not in her right mind.’

  ‘I’d kind of got that by the fact she’s murdered someone,’ I said drily.

  ‘She may not realise she has done so.’ The tips of Grianne’s ears twitched. ‘It is important you take care that she is not harmed.’

  ‘Fine. The information, Grianne.’

  ‘It is in your pocket, child.’ She turned, the air wavered about her, she dropped to all four doggy paws and bounded off, nails clicking sharply along the street.

  ‘Make an exit, why don’t you?’ I muttered, pulling out a folded sheet of parchment from my jacket pocket. Opening it, I glanced at the name—

  —and sighed. Helen Crane, a.k.a Detective Inspector Helen Crane, Head of the Metropolitan Magic Murder Squad, the person in charge of hunting me down for a murder I didn’t commit.

  Crap. Could my day get any worse?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Helen Crane’s blood had been used to open a gate between London and the Fair Lands, a gate that led to her child - a child she’d given to the sidhe. A changeling, then. What was I supposed to do, ring her up and say, ‘Hi, Helen, I know we’re not best buddies or anything, but hey, just heard you’ve got a long-lost kid, one that’s off in the Fair Lands, and guess what? Someone’s using your blood connection to let the murderer come through - any ideas who that might be?’

  And I could just imagine the superior look on her beautiful, patrician face as she replied, ‘Well, that’s very interesting, Ms Taylor, but isn’t this the murder we suspect you’re responsible for? The one I’m investigating? And not that it’s relevant, but don’t you think I’d know if someone had used my blood?’

  Damn. Whichever way I looked at this, it didn’t get any better.

  Helen liked me even less than Grianne did, and she had even less incentive to listen to me, thanks to our butting heads over Finn - her ex ... and if anyone would know about DI Helen Crane’s long-lost child, her ex should. Okay, so they’d only had a broom marriage, but even so, seven years and seven days isn’t exactly ships passing. Asking Finn what he knew about it was a way better option that trying to beard a powerful witch in her police den at Old Scotland Yard. Not to mention I’d been planning on seeing him as soon as anyway.

  ‘Genevieve!’

  I jerked my head up at the sound of my name and scanned my surroundings. The street was empty, other than the three costumed actors outside the London Bridge Experience. Beyond them, thirty-odd feet away, was Tavish’s doorway, still propped open for my return, but Tavish hadn’t appeared there, and no one else was near it. I did a quick circle, checking out the steps leading up to the bridge above, and squinting at the bridge parapet—

  ‘Genevieve,’ the voice came again—

  —from the direction of the actors. I frowned at them. The two women were engrossed in their gossiping, but the man was standing off to one side. As I looked, he started shuffling towards me, dragging his feet over the ground. I froze like the proverbial rabbit, pulse jumping in my throat, staring at the sunken eye sockets, the nose eaten away by a sore, the deep cut marring his left cheek ... and as he got closer, I caught the rotten smell of putrefying flesh. The hairs at the nape of my nec
k lifted in shock. He wasn’t staff; he wasn’t an actor playing the part of a plague victim, but the real thing: Scarface, the ghost who’d kept bumping into Finn’s magic circle.

  Adrenalin finally broke through my fear and I started sprinting for Tavish’s doorway on the other side of the bridge.

  Scarface jerked and shuffled faster, changing his course to cut me off.

  The world narrowed to the gap between ghost and wall.

  The women looked up in surprise.

  The gap got smaller.

  An arm stretched out for me—

  A scream lodged in my throat—

  —and then I was past him, my lungs burning, nearly there—

  —and my foot caught the kerb, sending me sprawling. Sharp grit cut into my palms and my jeans-clad knees. Skeletal fingers snapped at my ankles. I cried out and kicked back, my feet sinking into something soft and fleshy, then I struggled to my feet and, staggering, started running again, crouched over, not daring to look behind me, desperate to reach the doorway and safety. I hit the opening at full pelt and felt the magic resisting me like sticky syrup as bony fingers raked down my back. I screamed again, threw myself forward, not caring for anything except getting away, grabbing for something, anything, to stop him dragging me back ...

  I smashed into a hard body and familiar arms wrapped around me, pulling me through, leaving the clawing fingers behind. I huddled against him, hiccoughing and trembling with adrenalin and fear.

  ‘Sssh,’ he murmured, his breath a soothing warmth over the top of my head as his familiar berry scent curled into me and his reassuring hands stroked my back. ‘It’s okay, Gen, I’ve got you,’ and I felt his lips touch my hair.

  I pressed closer to him, instinctively seeking the comfort he was offering, and slipped my arms around his waist, tucking my face into the warm hollow of his neck. He tensed, a brief moment of wariness, then it was gone and I felt his heart beating calm and steady next to my own more frantic thump-thump . His heat seeped into me, calming my trembling. Part of me thought about moving out of his embrace, but I wanted to be there, wanted him to hold me, wanted to be held because I was me, not because I was sidhe, not because of my blood, not because I might break a curse, not because of anything.

  A tear rolled down my cheek and I blinked, then before I could stop it another followed it, and another. I started to pull away, squeezing my eyes tight, my cheeks burning with the hot prickle of shame at giving into my stupid, unreasonable fear, but his arms tightened even more.

  ‘No, Gen,’ Finn said quietly, ‘let me hold you.’

  I stayed, letting him hold me, letting the tears fall and listening to the steady beat of his heart while his hands gentled my back and his scent surrounded me. Gradually the tears stopped, and this time when I pulled away he let me, his hands up sliding to rest on my shoulders.

  I rubbed my eyes and face and gave him a rueful smile as I briefly touched his damp shirt where it lay open at his throat. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to leak all over you.’

  ‘Hey, I’m happy to be leaked on.’ He lifted my hands and turned them over, frowning at the almost healed cuts and grazes on both my palms. ‘Want to tell me what’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said, slowly pulling my hands from his. ‘A ghost spooked me and—Well, you know ... that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t, Gen,’ he said, moss-green eyes dark and serious. ‘Don’t brush off what just happened. Talk to me.’

  Talk to him? Okay, that was what I’d told Grace I’d do, wasn’t it? And while I’d talked to him at Tavish’s, it had been about what had happened to me, and not about whatever our relationship was or wasn’t ... only knowing about the curse sort of changed things on the relationship front ... I looked around to see where I was. Pale wood and chrome furniture, sand-coloured carpet, a view out of the window over the cobbled expanse of Covent Garden between the Apple Market and St Paul’s Church: Finn’s office at Spellcrackers.com.

  ‘I’m not sure what to say,’ I said finally, crossing my arms. ‘Other than I’m tired. I had a hell of a night, on top of all this murder business there’s the droch guidhe, then this ghost jumps me and instead of behaving like a rational person, I do the frightened idiot act and run.’

  ‘Straight to me,’ he said softly.

  Oh—Oh, that didn’t sound good. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed being held, or that I didn’t want him, but surely he couldn’t think that now the curse was out in the open - or rather, hanging around like an eager invisible matchmaker - that one little embrace meant I was going to choose him, could he? Didn’t he realise that right now I was even less sure about where I stood with him than I’d ever been before? That I needed time to sort things out in my head?

  ‘Of course, straight to you.’ I kept my voice even. ‘I was planning to talk to you about visiting the florist’s lad last night when the ghost did his scary jumping-out-at-me thing.’ And what a nicely ironic decision on the magic’s part, to bring me straight here so it could throw me into Finn’s arms. ‘That’s what happens when you use a’ - much too - ‘helpful magic door instead of the Underground.’

  ‘The magic didn’t bring you here just because it was convenient. ’ Finn caught my hands within his. ‘Gods, Gen, can’t you feel the magic, can’t you feel how it’s changed?

  As he said it, I realised I could. The magic was humming quietly in the background, not sparking or urging, as it had between us before, but purring like a self-satisfied cat.

  ‘It’s not pushing us together any more’ - he raised our joined hands up and kissed my knuckles - ‘because it doesn’t need to. It knows there’s something between us. I told you before, it doesn’t happen like this with every fae. Why won’t you believe me?’

  ‘Why won’t I—?’ I took a calming breath; anger wasn’t going to help. ‘Finn, you’ve spent the last month keeping your distance when all you did before was keep asking me out. And you wouldn’t talk to me, and okay, I admit I wasn’t talking to you either, but ... it makes for a lot of confusion,’ and disappointment , I added silently, stepping back out of his hold. ‘Then there’s all this stuff about the curse, and how every male fae in London thinks I’m hot to produce the next generation of ... whatever. And now I’ve found out about the prohibition that ended on my twenty-third birthday. From where I’m standing it looks like Tavish was first in line, and then when that didn’t work out, it was your turn.’ Crap, it sounded so depressingly calculated. ‘So you know, telling me that the magic isn’t like this for everyone doesn’t really make me feel very special, not when you take everything else into consideration.’

  ‘Hell’s thorns, Gen, it’s not like that—’

  ‘Then what is it like, Finn?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Okay, yes’ - he pushed his hand agitatedly through his hair and rubbed his left horn - ‘I’ll admit the droch guidhe was part of the reason the herd put the money up for Spellcrackers and why I was the one to take over the franchise. I’m one of the youngest in the herd, Gen, and I’ve spent more time among humans than the rest, so when Tavish didn’t announce he was courting you after the allotted time, the elders picked me - but Gen, that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do this—’

  ‘So I’m right,’ I said, trying to ignore the spike of hurt. ‘You were second in line.’

  ‘Gen, someone from the herd always was,’ he said, softly. ‘Among the lesser fae, the satyrs are stronger than the dryads or the naiads, always have been. I was just lucky it happened to be me.’ He held his hands out. ‘Then, okay, you didn’t seem quite as keen on the idea, but your magic kept calling to me, so I thought things would work out sooner or later - but then everything else started to happen and things got messed up.’

  ‘Messed up like you discovered I’ve got 3V and my father’s a vampire,’ I stated, hating the accusation in my voice, but still feeling rejected by how he’d withdrawn when I’d told him my secret, despite everything else.

  ‘No, messed up because I discovered you weren’t in contr
ol of the magic,’ he said, his own voice firm, ‘and between the magic encouraging you and the salaich sìol, and you not having dated recently, well, it probably meant you weren’t thinking straight.’

  In other words, because I hadn’t had sex recently, I was supposed to be gagging for it and anyone would do. Fucking sidhe sex myth; it was the stupid reason behind most of my current problems.

  ‘And I didn’t want to take advantage,’ he finished quietly.

  So Grace was sort of right about why he’d backed off; not that his ‘not wanting to take advantage’ made me feel any better, not now.

  ‘I admit the salaich sìol and your parentage came as a surprise, ’ he carried on. ‘The elders didn’t tell me about either, and I haven’t asked them if they even know. But as you said yourself, it’s not really relevant: you’re sidhe, and your child will have whatever genetics you want it to. It’s a choice the sidhe have always made when they breed with Others.’ A muscle twitched along his jaw. ‘All I was supposed to do was get your agreement to the child being satyr - which was okay when I thought you understood what was going on, but then I realised you didn’t, so I backed off.’