The Sweet Scent of Blood s-1

by Suzanne McLeod

  I opened the larger box, then swallowed hard. The Fabergé Egg nestled amongst the blue velvet. It wasn’t my father’s; his didn’t have sapphires on it ... But the egg meant that the Earl knew who my father was—who I was—and he wasn’t planning on selling me back to my prince, so long as I accepted his offer of protection. The note was pure blackmail, however nicely it was couched. Only—If he’d known about me all this time, why had he waited until now before making his move?

  ‘Genny?’ Hugh’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘Isn’t that your necklace? The one I looked after for you when you were younger?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And I want you to look after it again, please Hugh.’ I turned around, yanked open the fridge and took out the plastic container. It wasn’t big enough to hold the blue velvet box, so I wrapped the opals carefully in some kitchen roll and tucked them next to the soap, then snapped the plastic lid closed. ‘Keep it with all my other stuff.’ I held the box out to him. ‘Oh, and you’d better keep that too.’ I indicated the egg. ‘I’ll need to return it.’

  ‘Of course I’ll look after your things,’ he said, a small dust cloud puffing from his head ridge. He held up the Earl’s letter. ‘But—’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go, Hugh. There’s someone I need to visit.’

  ‘Genny.’ His deep rumble made me stop. ‘I don’t know what you ran away from all those years ago, or what you need to do to finish this, but I do know it’s something to do with the vampires. And you’ve come too far to give in to them now.’

  I gave him a rueful look. ‘Don’t worry, Hugh, I’m not going to give in.’ At least I hoped not. ‘I’ll be back before sunset. Tell Detective Inspector Crane I’ll take her up on the offer of a cell, because I think I’m going to need it.’

  Then tomorrow I could sort out what I was going to do with my life.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Bloody Shamrock was closed. In the daylight the door was pitted and scared, as if it had withstood an onslaught of Beater goblins. The neon cloverleaf was unlit, and it looked like no one was home, but when I concentrated, the faint trace of vampire snagged the edge of my radar. I hammered my fist on the door and gave it a kick for good measure. I turned and scanned along the street—Shaftesbury Avenue with its busy crowds was only twenty-odd feet away—but here was deserted. There wasn’t much call for day visitors, not when your main attractions were effectively dead. Or at least I hoped they still were.

  I gave the door another hard thump.

  There was the sound of bolts being drawn and the door opened slowly, revealing a thin slice of darkness. I shoved my shoulder against it and pushed my way into the building.

  Mick stumbled away from me, a sullen look on his face. ‘What’d you do that for, Genny? I was gonna let you in.’

  ‘Yeah? Well maybe I wanted to make sure.’

  His short red hair was mussed, like he’d just got out of bed—which I guessed he had going by the green silk boxers hanging off his narrow hipbones and the fluffy slippers that looked like he was wearing a couple of small furry barrels on his feet.

  ‘You don’t seem very surprised to see me,’ I pointed out. ‘Not going to ask me what I want or why I’m here?’

  ‘Fiona said you’d be coming.’ He hugged himself, hands clutching his arms, the suckers on his fingertips pulsing red. ‘She’s never wrong.’

  ‘Let’s not keep her waiting, then.’

  He edged past me and re-bolted the door top and bottom, then said, ‘She’s upstairs.’

  I followed him through the empty pub. His pale, freckled skin shone like a beacon as he picked his way through the spiky maze of upended chair legs. The place smelled of stale beer and blood. The combination made nausea roil in my stomach—or maybe that was just nerves.

  He glanced back as he reached the stairs and I gave him a toothy smile.

  ‘Bumped into your boyfriend last night,’ I said, conversationally.

  ‘I know,’ Mick mumbled. His slippers made shushing sounds on the wooden treads. ‘He told me he saw you at the Blue Heart.’

  ‘He looked like he was getting all cosy with this blonde. You better watch that.’

  ‘It was business.’ He tried for couldn’t care less, but there was a stricken sound in his voice.

  Shit. Now I felt like the bad-tempered faerie ... oh, wait, I was, but maybe Mick deserved it. Maybe. I’d never quite worked out if he’d set his sister, Siobhan, up as bait four years ago, or if she’d just ended up a victim because of his naïveté.

  We walked past the semi-circular booths to the far wall of the gallery. It looked like a dead end, but Mick waved a hand above his head and there was a soft snick, and a section of the wall slid quietly aside.

  Behind was a narrow hallway, with four heavy steel doors down one side. At the fourth, Mick stopped and waved again, then he turned and glowered at me. ‘I know you think I’m stupid for being with Seamus, especially after what happened with my sister.’ He stuck his bottom lip out. ‘Sometimes he has to do things that I don’t like. But we love each other. If you had ever felt like that about anyone, then you’d understand.’

  He was right: I did think him stupid, and I didn’t understand—but then, I wasn’t the one in love, so I just shrugged and didn’t ask him the question that popped into my mind. Wasn’t love supposed to make him happy?

  The steel door did its snick-and-slide thing.

  The place was done up as an Edwardian lady’s boudoir. Painted plaster roses covered the ceiling, ivory-striped silk lined the walls, and long velvet drapes suggested there might be windows behind them, though I doubted it. A huge marble fireplace dominated one side; double doors opposite presumably led to the bedroom. Someone liked their little luxuries.

  In the middle of all this finery Fiona reclined on a velvet chaise lounge, looking like a beautiful painting. Her white-blonde hair spiked above her large, luminous grey eyes, and a ruby necklace dripped into the deep V of her rose silk negligee.

  ‘You were right, it was her.’ Mick sidled past me and sat in front of her, legs bent to one side. ‘And she’s not happy.’

  She rested a pink cotton-gloved hand on his freckled shoulder, gave it a squeeze, throwing me a resigned but slightly wary look. Her makeup was still perfect, but it didn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes or the map of ugly red veins that pulsed across her chest. She looked delicate and fragile, and nothing like a cold-blooded murderer.

  I strode over the thick rose-coloured carpet towards her and stopped with my boots touching Mick’s legs. ‘Want to explain why you sent those two revenants to kill me last night?’

  Mick shuffled his legs further back.

  ‘Ms Taylor’—Fiona’s fingers spasmed, digging into Mick’s freckled skin—‘sometimes I see things that distress me, and I have to try to alter the course of what might happen.’ Perspiration beaded her forehead.

  ‘Well, I’m pretty distressed about what did happen, never mind the future.’ I leaned over her. ‘Start talking, and give me a reason not to tell the police about it.’

  ‘Tell her what she wants to know.’ Mick patted her glove, glaring at me with a half-petulant, half-anxious expression. ‘Then she’ll leave us alone.’

  Fiona took a shuddering breath. ‘Ask your questions, Ms Taylor.’

  I straightened. ‘Tell me about Melissa and the spell that they all want, the one that’s supposed to have killed her.’

  ‘Melissa was Declan’s little spy. He used her to keep tabs on the other Masters. Once she’d overheard them talking about the spell, then of course he wanted her to find out more.’ Her gloved hand shook. ‘Only she got ambitious and started holding back information, and then she died. When her mother found her, she phoned the police instead of us. It meant we couldn’t get to the body. Declan searched Bobby’s memories and discovered that Melissa had found the spell, but Bobby didn’t know the details.’

  I walked over to her dressing table, pick
ed up a gold-backed hairbrush. ‘Alan Hinkley’s story about Melissa being killed by magic: I take it that was just so I’d check out her body for the spell?’

  ‘We thought the spell had been given to her.’ She watched the brush. ‘Only we weren’t sure how.’

  Sliding the brush back onto the table, I asked, ‘What does the spell do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘C’mon, Fiona,’ I gave her a sceptical look, ‘Declan must have told you.’

  ‘Maybe he did, but I don’t remember.’ Her voice trembled like an old woman’s. ‘Memory for me is ... difficult. Sometimes it is mine, more often it belongs to a stranger. Sometimes all my mind sees is the future. It is both my gift and my curse.’ Her pale brows creased. ‘If I know what the spell does, that knowledge is not mine at the moment.’

  Mick patted her glove again.

  I walked behind her chaise, lifted the edge of one curtain. Yep, I’d been right. No windows. ‘What did you see when you touched me?’

  She twisted her head, straining to keep me in sight. ‘Without Declan, Ms Taylor, I would not be able to control my ability. Neither Patrick nor Seamus is strong enough to help me. I would very quickly go insane.’ She slumped down on the chaise. ‘When I touched you, I saw that you would cause Declan’s death. I will not allow that to happen.’

  ‘So you decided that it would be much more convenient if I wasn’t around.’

  ‘It was nothing personal.’

  ‘Great!’ I snapped. ‘I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.’ I stalked towards the double doors, heading for the room beyond. ‘So how am I supposed to cause Declan’s death?’

  Fiona struggled up, looking anxious. ‘The vampires are to Challenge each other over you. Declan would not stand down; it is not in his nature.’ She clutched at Mick for balance. ‘But he cannot win against the Earl or Malik.’

  My stomach twisted into a tight knot. That so was not the information I wanted to hear. ‘I can tell you now,’ I said, ‘I don’t intend to be anyone’s prize.’

  ‘I don’t think you have any choice in the matter,’ she said softly. ‘The future is decided.’

  ‘Something else you saw.’ I made it a statement rather than a question. Then I opened the double doors.

  It was a bedroom. The rose and ivory décor continued right down to the rose silk sheets that covered the massive bed. The two vampires sprawled naked, their ivory skin gleaming in the rose-shaded lights on either side of the bed. Declan lay on his side, dark head pillowed on his arm, one knee drawn up. Next to him, lying on his front, arms and legs spread like a starfish, was one of his brothers, Patrick, I guessed. Somehow I couldn’t see Mick or Seamus sharing this little ménage à trois.

  I knew they would rise close to sunset, but they were lying so still, that it seemed they were more than asleep ...

  ‘Please don’t hurt them.’ Fiona’s slippered feet scuffed over the carpet as she hurried to stand beside me.

  ‘Why would I harm them?’

  ‘You are angry.’ She cast a fearful look at the two brothers. ‘Hurting them will not change what will happen.’

  ‘What will then?’ I demanded.

  ‘I have lived a long time around vampires, Ms Taylor.’ She sighed. ‘When they want something, they usually get it. Fair means or foul. If they want you—?’ She gave a delicate shrug. ‘But I will keep Declan from the Challenge. I imagine that after it has happened your fate will be decided one way or another and you will no longer be a threat to us.’

  ‘When’s this Challenge supposed to happen?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  My pulse jumped.

  Turning to look at her, I said, ‘You know he’s not going to be very happy when he wakes up and finds you tried to kill me.’

  ‘This morning, I knew you weren’t dead.’ She clutched the edges of her negligée together. ‘I knew then I couldn’t change your future, but I thought that maybe I could change theirs.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘How?’

  She puckered her lips and blew a breath towards me. ‘Do you recognise the smell?’

  A bittersweet scent drifted in the air. ‘No.’

  ‘She poisoned herself.’ Mick put his arm round her. ‘Nightshade.’

  Fiona gestured at the two vampires. ‘They will feed once they wake. It will take some time for their systems to neutralise the effects. It should keep them here until the night is past.’

  I blinked. ‘You’re going to feed them both?’

  ‘Of course.’ Her lips lifted in a small smile. ‘I always feed them on waking.’

  ‘Won’t they notice you’re unwell?’

  ‘Not until it’s too late.’ She leaned into Mick. ‘Mick will give me the antidote once they have fed.’

  She looked ill enough that I thought Mick should be giving her the antidote right now.

  I waved at the bed. ‘Declan lied to me.’

  ‘Did he?’ She frowned.

  ‘Melissa wasn’t a faeling.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t.’ Her voice carried faint confusion. ‘Did he tell you she was?’

  I thought back. ‘Declan told me that Melissa had fae blood in her.’

  ‘She did,’ Mick broke in. ‘Bobby was always doing experiments, and we did one where he injected Melissa with my blood. Bobby said it was like she suddenly got so much more attractive. That’s why Declan made her his spy. All of a sudden the vamps were round her like she was a bitch in heat.’

  Now that was a nice image, not!

  I stared down at the naked vampires. Declan may not have lied to me in words, but the magic didn’t always take notice of semantics, only intent.

  A memory edged into me.

  Matilde, my stepmother, raging at my father, screaming at him to stop.

  My father, drenched in blood that smelled like sweet apples, his voice calm. ‘Genevieve gave me her word that she would not see the beast again.’ Gripping my arm, he forced my nine-year-old self to kneel on the ground. The blood was still warm and it squelched under my knees and soaked up into my nightie. ‘The waterhorse was a danger to us all. Now she will understand the result of her lack of honour.’ The sleek ivory body of the kelpie was almost unrecognisable, but for patches of skin that still gleamed like pink-stained moonlight.

  My father hadn’t killed the kelpie; the local people had. They’d been frightened that the kelpie would drown them and steal their souls.

  The kelpie would have left before they found him if it hadn’t been for me. I hadn’t seen him again, but I had gone and talked to him—for the magic, that had been enough.

  A noise beside me brought me back to the present.

  ‘Melissa wasn’t killed by magic,’ I said.

  Fiona gasped. ‘How do you know? Have you seen her body?’

  I turned to her. ‘I don’t need to. Melissa was killed just as the police have said: her blood drained by a vampire.’ I pointed at Declan. ‘Tell him that. And tell him I have honoured my side of the bargain. Now he must honour his.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Never break a bargain with a fae.’ I smiled, and it was bitter. ‘The magic always has its price.’

  Mick gave me a sullen look. ‘Go away, Genny. We don’t want you here.’

  I sighed. Fiona and Mick had confirmed what I’d already guessed, and if they did know about the spell, short of trying to beat it out of them, they weren’t going to tell me. I’d fulfilled my obligation, but I hadn’t learned anything really useful by coming here ... yet.

  Was Fiona right about what my future held? There was only one way to find out.

  I clasped her arm, just above her glove, skin to skin.

  Mick shouted, clamped his hands round my wrist as Fiona’s eyes went wide, startled, her pulse jumping like a frightened animal under the thin skin of her throat. I held on tight, though Mick tried to pry my fingers from her flesh. She sagged, falling heavily to her knees, her mouth gasping like a waterless fish.

&n
bsp; ‘Please,’ she cried, her lashes fluttering on her cheeks, ‘no more.’

  I let her go and she collapsed, trembling into a heap of rose-coloured silk.

  ‘Go away,’ Mick shouted, shoving me back, ‘just go away!’

  Then he hoisted her in his arms, and tucking his head next to hers, he murmured small comforting noises. He carried her to the bed and laid her gently between the two vampires.

  She sighed and curled into Declan, cuddling up against him like he was a giant teddy bear.

  ‘What did you see, Fiona?’ I demanded.

  She gazed back at me, her pupils dilated by the poison, sweat beading her forehead. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing but fog.’

  Damn.

  I let myself out.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Iopened the door to my flat, freezing at the metallic crash that came from my kitchen area. Heart thumping, I peered through the doorway. There was a quiet cough, followed by a popping noise. Agatha the brownie a appeared on the countera next to my sink.

  ‘Afternoon, Lady.’ Her wrinkled face lifted in a tentative smile. ‘I hope I’m nae disturbing thee.’

  Taking a soft breath, I let the air slide back into my lungs. ‘Afternoon, Agatha. Nice of you to drop in.’ After all, I added to myself, everyone else does, so why should a brownie be any different?

  ‘Och well, the wean tried to call, only thee were nae answering yon telephonic machine.’

  Oh yeah, my mobile was still somewhere in the Blue Heart.

  ‘Never mind, you’re here now.’ I gave her an enquiring look. ‘Is Holly in trouble again?’

  Agatha stepped diffidently along the countertop. ‘Nae, Lady, she just telt me to bring thee a message.’

  Through the window I could see the sun dipping lower in the sky. I needed to be safe in the police station by the time night came—the vampires could challenge each other all they wanted, but there was no way I planned on being there to see it. I tried to swallow back my impatience as I asked, ‘What’s the message, Aggie?’

  Her brown eyes filled with worry. ‘Thee’s no angry with maself?’