Red Turban was seven steps away ...
A double thud like the duhm duhm of a heavy heartbeat sounded behind me. I pricked up my ears, hoping for a third, but it didn’t come. Shit. I’d hoped all three of them would jump or run down together, but it looked like the good luck wasn’t all on my side.
Five steps ... Red Turban paused, a puzzled look in his maple-red eyes, no doubt wondering why I was ignoring the two at my back.
I swallowed. He’d find out any second—
Right on cue the screaming started: a high-pitched noise like storm winds shrieking through winter trees.
Two dryads down, three to go.
Red Turban’s eyes flicked to the scene behind me. His momentary distraction was what I’d been waiting for and I jumped down two steps and used the banister to propel me up. As I leapt I kicked out and jammed my feet into his chest, and it made a satisfying crack like branches breaking. One good thing about dryads: hit them with enough force and their bones splinter like brittle wood. Air puffed like dust between Red Turban’s surprised lips and he fell backwards, long fingers grabbing for the banister - but he missed and, arms flailing, knocked into Shorty like a tall, lanky domino, sending the smaller dryad barrelling back down the stairs where he crumpled in a heap on the landing below. I landed back on my own feet with a thump that jarred my whole body and tightened my grip on the banisters.
Three down, two to go.
Red Turban shook his head and started to pull himself up; I kicked out again, swinging my foot into his temple. Another gunshot-loud crack reverberated above the screeching dryads behind me and Red Turban collapsed. This time he stayed down, limp and still. Then the screeching cut out, leaving behind only silence.
Only one dryad left now.
Then my good luck ran out.
A disturbance in the air behind me warned me, but too late as thick muscled arms clamped like a steel trap around my torso and lifted me from my feet. ‘I’m impressed, bean sidhe,’ Bandana said in his rough drawl, his breath hot and moist against my skin. ‘I like a girl with a bit of fight in her. It makes the sex more interesting.’ He shoved his hips forward, pushing his erection against my butt. ‘And you’re a fucking feisty one.’
I’ll give you fucking feisty, I thought, jerking my head forward then ramming it back as hard as I could. It connected with a gratifying crunch as my skull shattered his nose. He let out a gurgled roar and staggered back, falling, still hugging me to him like I was his favourite blow-up doll. He landed on his back and the fall vibrated through me, stealing what little breath I had left. We slithered and bumped our way down the stairs, coming to an abrupt stop as we crashed into Red Turban’s unconscious body.
I struggled, clawing at his arms, kicking my heels into his knees and shins. He scissored his legs over my thighs, locking my body against his. I reached back and grabbed his ears and jerked my head back again and there was another loud crack as his cheekbone splintered. He grunted, increasing the pressure round my chest, squeezing out what little breath I had left. I had to stop him before he broke something or I passed out. I slid my hands round his head, searching for his eyes, and jammed my thumbs hard into the soft sockets, praying that would be enough to make him let me go. He yelled furiously and his arms tightened even more around my chest and I felt something break inside me. A sharp pain pierced my right side as whiplike cords snaked round my wrists and yanked my hands away, up and back above our heads. More thin branches banded my neck, constricting and choking my throat. I bucked against him, panic battering in my mind, as his branches hardened and trapped me immobile against him.
‘Keed stihl, you studid ditch,’ he growled, his words almost unintelligible. ‘Dode wad you stragglin’ yoursel’ jus’ yet.’ He jerked his arm and the vicious hot pain spiked in my side again. I screamed, but the corded branches round my throat snapped tighter, choking me, and the edges of my vision started dimming ...
... then the ceiling blurred back into focus and the pain in my side spiked with each intake of breath. I lay there trembling with the effort of keeping the panic away.
‘You fuckin’ droke my dose,’ he said. Out the corner of my eye I saw him tentatively touch his face. ‘You’ll pay for dat.’
‘Should ... be an ... improvement,’ I gasped. Whatever happened to not damaging me?
‘Ditch,’ he shouted and jerked his arm around my chest again.
I panted through the pain until it dialled back to an agonising throb, telling myself it was stupid to antagonise him while he had the upper hand. He sniffed and snuffled against my cheek and I could feel his magic brushing against my skin; he was trying to speed up his healing. Crap - yet more magic I couldn’t do. As we lay there, other smaller discomforts started to make themselves felt: the roughness of the bark around my wrists and throat, the ache in my shoulders from where my arms were pulled awkwardly above my head, the prickly sisal carpet on the backs of my hands. At least he was underneath me; the stairs had to be way more uncomfortable for him to lie on, and if he wanted to try anything else, he was going to have to release either my legs or the hold his branches had on me. I stared blindly up at the ceiling. Of course, he wasn’t the only one on his back, and he could hold me still with just one arm ...
The panic threatened to boil over again ...
I gritted my teeth, told my mind not to go there.
A rustling whisper echoed through the hallway, and I realised he was talking ... or calling for reinforcements, maybe?
And speaking of back-up, where were the police, and Finn, or even my neighbours? Helen and her crew had had enough time to get here twice over by now. And it wasn’t like the dryads had been the quietest of attackers: right now I’d have happily welcomed the most unfriendly of witches with open arms.
‘So, we’re going to stay here like this until one of my neighbours comes home, or what?’ I said, aiming for unconcern, but the tremor in my voice meant I didn’t quite make it.
‘Dode worry, do one’s gedding in, bean sidhe,’ he said, and patted my cheek. ‘Dot wid de Tank spell we pud on the building.’
I swallowed, trying to ignore the branches digging into my neck. A Tank spell - whatever the hell that was - presumably stamped out the possibility that someone - anyone - had noticed something and might be coming to rescue me.
‘Bud while we’re waiding for more of by frieds’ - his hand fumbled at the waistband of my jeans; my gut twisted with dread - ‘you can keed still and waid with me.’ His arm round my ribs squeezed, shooting sharp, hot pain through my chest. ‘Or I’ll dock you out agaid, okay?’
There was no way I wanted to be unconscious again, not even for a fraction of a second. I forced myself to stay still, to think. He had to be a willow; they were the only ones whose branches grew fast and long like whips. But those branches couldn’t be all real: they had to have some magic in them, didn’t they?
‘We mide as well use de time well.’ His legs clamped harder around my thighs as he struggled to pull the zipper on my tight jeans. ‘Now, rebember, bean sidhe, keep still.’
I looked, and saw the magic flowing around me in multi-coloured currents, swirling and eddying like different strands of paint mixed into a jar of murky water: lacklustre greens and feral yellows merged into dull oranges, deep reds faded into sickly violets and brackish purple, and through it all sparkled tiny motes of gold. Crap, even I was leaking magic. I couldn’t see where his magic started and mine or the witch’s anemone’s ended. What would happen if I tried cracking it? No, that was a really stupid, mind-blowing idea ... Wasn’t it?
‘I always wanded to be a daddy.’ He flattened his hand over my bare stomach, rubbing it. ‘I’m going to plant my seed in here and watch it grow.’ I didn’t bother telling him he needed my willing consent if he wanted me pregnant. I just prayed he’d stay thinking about his future fatherhood and wouldn’t try and do anything about it yet. At least in this position it wouldn’t be possible; he’d have to let me up, which would give me a chance—
&n
bsp; —a whiplike branch scratched across my stomach, pushing and slithering down the front of my jeans.
‘Shame we can’d make new shoots the fun way,’ he murmured against my cheek. ‘But dis way works just as good.’
The thin branch poked into my briefs.
No fucking way!
Anger rose like a golden tide inside me ... and I reached out, focused on the magic, pushed all my will into it, and cracked it—
—and the world exploded.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
An angel smiled down at me out of a cool silver-gilt mist that twinkled with rainbow lights blurring in and out of focus. A silver halo hovered above the long curls of her pale-gold hair, and a bridal confection of silk, satin and lace wrapped her slender form. The air smelled of cinnamon, and oranges and sweetened vanilla. She held a star-tipped wand in one small hand, and offered her other hand to me. I stared at it, oddly bemused. Her fingernails were painted different colours: blue, green, yellow, red and black. They didn’t go with the rest of Angel. Was I dreaming, or hallucinating? Maybe I’d died and heaven really was just like the Christmas cards. I squeezed my eyes shut. But when I opened them she was still there, still smiling, still holding out her hand. I peered through the mist, trying to discern if the filmy image at her back was actually wings or not. Her delicate face creased in a frown as she turned and looked behind her.
‘Am I dead?’ I asked, my voice croaking like a strangled frog’s.
She turned back to me, bewilderment making her look even younger. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. The rainbow lights slowly stopped blinking and faded away. ‘Do you feel dead?’
I thought about it. It felt like my hands had been ripped off. I held them up in front of my face, vaguely concerned. Nope, still attached, though as scratched and bloody as if I’d fought my way out of a thorn thicket. If I squinted, I still had the right number of fingers. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a cactus, and when I touched it, my fingers came away sticky with blood and bits of green flaky stuff, while my head felt like a bad-tempered troll had stomped on it and turned it into squashed mush. But compared to the spiky pain in my ribs, all that was a minor torment. I decided if I was dead, I hurt too much for this to be heaven; so it was more likely the other place.
‘But they don’t have angels in hell, do they?’ I murmured, or rather, croaked again.
Her expression turned mutinous and she wrinkled her nose. ‘Angels bite you if you misbehave.’
I blinked. Not quite the answer I was expecting.
She bent at the waist and ran a strand of my hair through her fingers. ‘Your hair looks like dragon’s breath, all pretty golds and coppers. Can you spin it into smoke?’
Her eyes came into focus, beautiful pale-gold eyes with vertical cat-like pupils, and I realised she wasn’t an angel, but something I’d never seen before - at least, not without a mirror.
She was sidhe.
The mush in my mind started to rearrange itself into something more lucid.
Was this the sidhe? Tomas’ murderer? She had to be; there couldn’t be two of them in London, that would be too much of a coincidence. Only the eyes I stared into were as wide and guileless as a child’s - but she was sidhe fae, and while she might look to be in her late teens, she could be anything from that to - well, centuries old.
But not only were her eyes blank; her mind wasn’t at home behind them either.
‘No, I can’t spin it into smoke,’ I said slowly.
She pursed her lips in disappointment as she straightened. ‘Cecily can, and she can make pictures in the smoke, like the moon and the sun and the stars and even mountains and castles.’ She formed the shapes with her hands as she spoke.
I struggled to my feet, my hand clamped to my right side. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘No names, no shame, us dames are all the same,’ she trilled in a high falsetto, and grasping the long silk skirts of her dress she curtseyed before dancing away through the mist.
‘Fine,’ I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to banish my headache. What had Grianne said? Something about being careful with her when I found her ...
I sighed; I was beginning to see what she meant. I lifted my head and looked around, trying to work out where I’d ended up.
The silver mist was dissipating, leaving only a fine haze in the air, and I realised I hadn’t gone anywhere; I was still on the third floor of my building, only now I was standing in the middle of the landing, my jeans half round my hips and my stomach covered with bloody scratches like my hands. I winced at the pain in my side as I zipped up my jeans. The landing looked the same as before I’d cracked the magic - well, almost, if you ignored the jagged opening that now replaced the doorway leading into Witch Wilcox’s flat. And the wood shavings that blanketed the landing and stairs.
There were a couple of mounds under the sawdust, which I took to be the dryads laid out by the purple anemone Back-off spell. I looked down the stairs: yep, two more mounds, a.k.a. Bandana and Red Turban, and at the bottom of the stairs I could just make out the top of Shorty’s Panama, covered with its own sprinkling of wood shavings.
It was a lot of sawdust: more than one wooden door and frame could account for, so I guessed some of it had come from the dryads themselves. But cracking the magic - which had to be why I looked like I’d been pulled through a thorn-hedge backwards and frontwards - didn’t look like it had killed them, for their bodies hadn’t faded away to nothing. But I didn’t plan on playing Florence Nightingale; Bandana had been calling for reinforcements and I wanted Angel out of here before they or the police arrived. Any injuries the dryads had, they fucking well deserved.
I turned back to Angel, who was giggling with excitement as she lifted handfuls of the shavings and threw them into the air and pointed her wand at them; they didn’t fall to the ground, just spun around her in dizzying circles, like bees round a honey pot.
Time for her to go home. I wiped my scratched hands on my T-shirt, cleaning off the blood, then, careful of my ribs, I unzipped my jacket pocket and pulled out the smooth haematite stone Grianne had given me. It hummed as I held it in my palm, and I felt the faint noise vibrating down my spine. I waved to Angel, trying to catch her attention, and she lifted her voluminous skirts and skipped over to me, kicking up shavings to add to those already flying through the air.
I gave her a coaxing smile, the same one I’d offer a child. ‘Would you like to go and see Cecily?’ I asked, reasonably sure that Cecily must be some sort of carer, or keeper.
‘Yes!’ she cried, clapping her hands together, a big beam of a smile on her face, then, just as I was congratulating myself on an easy success, she dashed past me back into Witch Wilcox’s flat.
I sighed and followed her through the jagged opening into a short, windowless corridor. The metallic scent of old blood hit me, pricking goosebumps over my skin, and I hurried past two closed doors and stumbled into a living room.
Except the ‘living’ part was now a misnomer.
Daylight filtered around the half-drawn curtains. All the furniture was pushed back against the walls and a multitude of dirty-white candles had burnt down to misshapen blobs of wax. The air in the room was thick and heavy, as if something unseen lurked there. A shudder crawled down my spine. In the centre of the room was a large expanse of blue plastic with a circle marked out in red sand. Inside the circle lay a naked body, diminished by old age.
I took a careful step forward and then another until the toes of my trainers were just short of the red sand. The stench of blood mixed with the sour smell of sulphur and death-expelled bodily excretions hit the back of my throat, making me gag. A gaping wound ran from just under the breastbone to the crotch. I wasn’t going to check, but I was betting the heart and other internal organs had been removed.
Witch Wilcox wasn’t going to be campaigning to get me evicted any more.
I clenched my fists; the silver pebble buzzed anxiously against my palm. I might not have lik
ed the old woman or her obsessive paranoia, but all of me wished she was still around to complain. At least then she wouldn’t be dead.
‘Can we go and see Cecily now?’ Angel appeared from a door on the other side of the room and skipped around the outside of the circle. Her dress pulled itself in and away, even though she didn’t seem to notice anything odd - but then, she’d seen it before. She stopped in front of me and smiled happily. ‘I want to show her my new books.’ She held up half-a-dozen children’s comics: Cinderella smiled merrily at me from the cover of her Christmas Spectacular, complete with rainbow twinkling lights, meringue bride’s dress, and silver halo. Now I knew where Angel’s outfit came from.
I opened my mouth to ask something, but stopped as Angel looked over my shoulder, her pale-gold eyes widening, her pupils dilating in fear, her bottom lip quivering.
‘Genevieve.’ The woman’s dulcet voice made me flinch as I recognised it. ‘I had hoped you two wouldn’t meet until much later, but que sera, sera.’
The Cold Kiss of Death Page 31