The Sweet Scent of Blood

by Suzanne McLeod

  Toni stood behind him, her face blank in mind-lock. The cap of white-blonde hair almost hid the swelling purple bruise in the centre of her forehead. In her hands, she held a short knife and an ornate silver cup, faint steam swirling above it. No doubt it contained the spell.

  Time to do some bet-hedging of my own.

  ‘Hugh,’ I shouted.

  ‘He can’t hear you, my dear.’

  ‘He can hear you though, can’t he?’ I kept my gaze fixed on the screen. ‘Tell him to look up and wink his left eye.’

  The Earl tilted his head as if listening.

  Hugh’s massive hands clenched and his face filled the screen, deep fissures creasing in his red skin. He bared his polished granite teeth in a growl.

  ‘He refuses,’ the Earl said, his tone indifferent.

  I bared my own teeth in a smile. I hadn’t expected Hugh to agree. But now I knew he was alive and we weren’t just watching a recording.

  Now for the rest.

  I walked over to Toni and took the knife from her unresisting hand and slashed it across the raised red scar running down my left arm. Blood welled as I dropped the blade. I took the cup in my right hand. It felt cool to my fingers, so not silver then. I turned towards the Earl. ‘Here’s the deal. I want Rio dead, and you give me your word that you will allow all my friends - and their friends - to leave and go home in safety. Do that, and I’ll agree your terms.’

  Surprise flickered across his face. ‘I had thought you would object much more strenuously.’

  I hoisted the cup and offered my bloody arm. ‘Do we have a deal or not?’

  He inclined his head at Toni. ‘Is the witch included in your negotiations?’

  ‘No.’ She doesn’t need to be, I added silently.

  He rubbed his hands. ‘In that case, it is agreed.’

  A chime split the air.

  Above me on the silent plasma screen, Rio staggered to her feet and stood there swaying. Hugh lowered his head and charged towards her, his feet thundering across the arena. She held out her arms, as though to catch him. He crashed into her, head-butting her in the chest, knocking her backwards, and she lay broken on the blue floor as Hugh moved to stand over her.

  Looking up at him, she drew her lips back in a snarl. Rio wasn’t gone, not yet. Hugh turned away and I chewed my lip. I wanted him to kill her; I wanted her dead - it was the only way to break her Blood-Bond with Finn - but I knew Hugh would hurt inside if he did that, and I didn’t want that for him. But as I watched, Hugh hesitated, his head angling to one side, then he swung back and as though the camera was rolling in slow-motion, he raised his granite foot and stamped down, crushing Rio’s skull like a sledgehammer crushing an eggshell.

  The screen went black.

  The Earl bowed, though the action looked ungainly in his nakedness. ‘And now I believe it is your turn, my dear.’

  I sniffed the cup. It was mostly blood, the Earl’s. The faint scent of liquorice caught my nose, and a sharp spike of bitterness that I recognised as the spell. I held my wrist over the cup and watched as my own blood joined with his. A ripple of power tightened within me, a small insignificant herald to the fact I was giving my life away. I put the cup to my lips, then, holding my breath, I tipped it up and drank. The liquid slid cold and sticky down my throat and settled queasily in my stomach. I drained all but the last few drops and held the cup out to him.

  He took it from me and drank what was left. Power stained his skin blue and he flashed all four of his fangs in a wide grin. ‘Now for the finalé.’

  He called me.

  I felt the tug inside me and knew I couldn’t refuse him.

  ‘Feels like it’s my turn to provide the refreshments then.’ I walked into his arms and offered him my throat as he bade me.

  He struck, needle-sharp teeth piercing my neck shooting venom into my blood. The pain shocked through me. Bastard. He could’ve shielded me, but he hadn’t even bothered. The venom hit my heart, making it thud fast and hard, speeding and pumping the blood through my veins and arteries.

  He fed.

  The Blood-Bond wouldn’t let me struggle, but it couldn’t stop the tears spilling down my face.

  The Earl sucked on my blood until my heart was weak and my body cold and I sagged, almost lifeless, in his arms. This was what they wanted, what they all wanted: to feed until they killed. The power of life and death. Only with a human it was only ever a one-time thing. Not with a fae. Fae could be taken to the brink again and again. And the Blood-Bond would stop me from harming or killing either the Earl or myself. It would be centuries before he might finally let me fade into death.

  I whimpered at the thought.

  He gripped me tighter, thrusting himself against me, pushing himself into my belly. His hips jerked and his jaw worked hard and greedy at my throat.

  I whimpered again, knowing it would excite him further.

  Waiting ...

  Then I released the magic.

  Tiny black pearls sheathed in golden hope flowed through my blood, and into the Earl.

  I fear you have misled yourself, my dear - in my mind the Earl sounded amused - if you feel your Glamour is a way to turn the tables. Your magic cannot harm me; why even before our Bond it would have been nothing more than a delicious appetiser.

  His amusement faded as the tiny black pearls of compulsion - the compulsion spell I’d pulled from Constable Curly-Hair’s True Love bracelet - trapped him in my Glamour.

  I held him there on the edge, making him feed until I felt my heart stutter and stop and my stomach clench with hunger, until I felt Rosa and her need rise inside me. I pushed him from me.

  The Earl stood still, his face blank, pinpricks of gold in his pale blue eyes, staring at me with entranced adoration.

  Would it work, or would the Blood-Bond still bind me in another’s body?

  I shoved the doubts aside and coated my hand in the last drops of blood trickling from my throat. Praying to any god that would listen, I smeared the blood over the tattoo on my hip.

  The red haze clouded my body.

  The compulsion broke and dissipated.

  I glanced down at my creamy-white skin, tossed my long black curls over my shoulder and ran my tongue over my fangs.

  The Earl’s eyes opened wide—

  I smiled at him.

  —knowledge flooded back into his face.

  I punched my fist into his chest.

  And ripped out his heart.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I clutched the Earl’s heart until I felt the life leave his body. I walked far enough from him that the blood spreading out from his corpse - my blood - wouldn’t be able to reach it, then carefully placed the heart on the blue-rubber floor. I shuddered as my Alter Vamp body healed itself. I glanced up at the screens. They were black and still, and the silence told me the magic dome still shimmered above, even though I could no longer feel it. I turned full circle and searched the empty arena.

  Toni had gone.

  The Earl might be dead, but the spell wasn’t, and Toni held its formula in her head. It wasn’t over yet.

  Then I sensed it: an awareness, a hint of spice in the air, and fear, anticipation, and something more, fluttered in my belly.

  Malik al-Khan.

  He was watching, hidden in the shadows - only there were no shadows inside the dome; the stadium lights made it as bright as day.

  My silent heart thudded once. ‘You can’t have the witch.’ My shout reverberated in the air.

  A breeze teased around me, playing with the long black hair that curled over my shoulders.

  ‘I know you’re here,’ I shouted again. ‘You can have whatever you want, but not the witch.’

  The sensation of silk slid soft over my naked skin.

  ‘Malik al-Khan.’ I held my arms out wide in offering. ‘This needs to be settled.’

  ‘Rosa ...’ His voice whispered behind me.

  I crouched and swivelled to face him.

  He wasn’t
there.

  ‘Or is it Genevieve?’ Again the sound came from behind me.

  I straightened and turned slowly, running my tongue over my fangs.

  He stood perfectly still, his long black leather coat almost sweeping the ground. A pale length of flesh gleamed from his throat down to the leather trousers sitting low across his hips. The dark silk of his hair shone under the arc lights. He watched me, the obsidian-black of his eyes enigmatic.

  Toni stood a few feet behind him, her face still blank with mind-lock.

  ‘What is it you think I want?’ His voice was soft.

  ‘Me.’ My voice was calm. It didn’t betray the child crying in my mind. ‘My agreement to come back with you.’

  His long, elegant fingers brushed a wing of hair from his forehead while he studied me. ‘You would sell yourself in order to destroy the spell?’

  ‘When you put it like that,’ I said, ‘yes, in a heartbeat.’

  Part of me didn’t care. It was over anyway. I’d been running and hiding since I was fourteen, trying to stay alive, trying to stay free, but I had always known that one day my prince would find me and someone would come to take me back. Getting rid of the spell was the honey that sweetened the pill.

  ‘If that is what you wish.’ Malik turned, and beckoned Toni to him.

  She walked up to stand at his side and a sunny smile broke over her face.

  ‘You may see for yourself.’ He took her hand and held it out to me like a gift. ‘The spell is gone.’

  I frowned, suspicion making me wary. I grasped her hand and cupped her face. Her smile didn’t change. I pushed into her mind and found ... nothing. There was no tangled net of thoughts, no mind-lock, just nothing. Her mind was gone. She wouldn’t be telling anyone anything ever again. Shock made my heart beat again. Malik hadn’t just wiped her mind clean, he’d obliterated it. Nausea roiled in my gut that he could do that, that it was even possible. He touched her shoulder and she walked away into the dome.

  Toni had been condemning me and every other fae the vamps might capture to an eternity of slavery.

  The spell was gone.

  Then the nausea dissipated and all I felt was glorious relief.

  The spell was gone.

  Malik would have to force me to go back, and no way was I going to make it easy.

  I smiled at him, flashed my fangs. ‘Looks like you’re out of bargaining chips.’

  ‘What about Rosa?’

  Damn. There was always something, wasn’t there? He wanted to destroy Rosa’s body to save her soul from a demon - only it wasn’t a demon, it was me. Would he still want to do that, now he knew it was me sharing her body?

  I shrugged. ‘What about Rosa?’

  He waved towards the Earl’s corpse. ‘That was ... unexpected. ’ He moved to stand in front of me and held out his hand. The pearl handle of my knife gleamed like an accusation. ‘As was this, Genevieve.’

  I didn’t move. ‘Puts you in a bit of a predicament doesn’t it?’ I gave him a mock sympathetic look. ‘I mean, you can’t kill this body, not without killing me too. It’s one of those golden-egg-and-goose-type things.’

  He released the blade and pressed the sharp point to my breast. The silver burned against my skin. ‘Why is it,’ he asked, his eyes half-lidded and his lips lifting in wry amusement, ‘that I cannot take both your lives?’

  ‘C’mon, Malik, cut the crap.’ I raised my chin. ‘I was a child. Children are young, not stupid. I may never have seen your face, but I recognised your touch.’ Almost from the first, I added silently, only I hadn’t wanted to admit it, not to myself, not even when my dream-mind showed me the truth. ‘I’m just surprised it took him so long to send you after me.’

  ‘You are right, of course.’ Malik slid the blade down to rest just under my ribs.

  ‘Nice to know the homicidal maniac hasn’t forgotten me,’ I said, my pulse speeding faster in my throat.

  ‘He tasked me with bringing you back to him ten years ago.’ He sighed, and the sound slipped like sorrow into my heart. ‘Only I did not do as he wished.’ The knife dented my flesh.

  My mouth dropped open. ‘What?’

  ‘The Autarch is no longer my Master, Genevieve. He has not been so for nearly twenty years.’ Cool fingers circled my left wrist. He lifted the knife and traced an ice-hot slash down my inner arm. Blood trickled in an eager rivulet to splash onto the blue floor.

  I flashed back to him doing the same thing to my four-year-old self. The knife had been set with a dragon’s tear, an oval of amber the same colour as my sidhe eyes. He’d taken my blood with my father’s good wishes, tasted me in proxy for my prince.

  As then, I stood frozen, unable to move.

  Malik bent his head to my arm, licking a long firm line along the slash. He gazed at me, his pupils flaring red. ‘How could I call him Master when I coveted what he owned’ - he kissed his lips to mine and I tasted my own honeyed blood as his voice whispered through my mind - ‘for myself.’

  Need and desire and a fledgling hope took flight inside me.

  He broke the kiss.

  And I asked the question. ‘Why did you kill Melissa?’

  His expression didn’t change. ‘She had uncovered the witch. Once her vampire lover had realised, they would have fled again, taking the spell with them.’

  So that was the information Melissa had been selling: Toni’s identity. Only Malik had always known where Toni was. The trees had been gossiping about him watching Spellcrackers - watching Toni - not me. ‘Why didn’t you just kill the witch?’

  ‘Genevieve.’ His voice held slight impatience, ‘The witch was under the protection of the Witches’ Council. To do so would have violated our rules and started something I did not wish.’

  ‘What about the spell?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t you want it for yourself ?’

  ‘I have no need of it.’

  Of course he didn’t. He already had me - ever since I was four years old. ‘So what happens now?’ I breathed.

  He reversed the knife, placed its handle in my palm and clasped his hands round mine to hold it straight and true. ‘What happens now is your choice.’ He spread his arms wide. The scar I’d given him bloomed rose-red against his pale skin.

  I looked down at the blade, then up at his beautiful face.

  And did nothing.

  Malik smiled and my heart thudded in my chest. ‘Genevieve.’

  He whirled round, an edge of darkness swinging from his coat, and strode away, vanishing into nothingness.

  Epilogue

  The spell dome dissipated, leaving me standing in the much smaller car park of the Leech & Lettuce. To one side Katie, still clutching the vodka bottle, watched over Finn. On the other side sat Hugh, his head bowed, his police back-up - Constables Taegrin and Curly-hair - beside him. Behind me lay the bodies of Rio and the Earl, surrounded by a squad of Beater goblins. The tiers of seats still ringed the car park, but they were empty. The vampire audience had gone.

  Hannah picked her way in her Jimmy Choos over the stony ground. ‘The police will be here soon, Genevieve. I suspect that you might want to stay until your friends are safe, so I have a gift for you.’ She offered me a cloak. ‘It might be wise if you were to disappear before they arrive.’

  I gave her a quizzical look. ‘Disappear as in “not seen”, or actually go away?’ I asked.

  ‘As I told you’ - she smiled - ‘I enjoy helping people.’

  I took the cloak from her, wrapped it around me and vanished from sight.

  The police arrived in force. Detective Inspector Crane in the lead, along with a whole slew of paramedics from HOPE. And as the night waned and dawn approached, all that was left were the bodies. The goblins doused them in petrol and set them alight, the acrid fumes smoking and polluting the air. When there was nothing left but ashes, they swept those into a box and marched down to the river. I followed and watched silently as the fast-flowing Thames rushed the scattered ashes down to the sea.

  Now I sit i
n the Rosy Lee Café and stare out of the window. The heat-wave has finally broken and rain is pelting down on London’s dusty streets and sluicing through the gutters.

  Katie brings me an orange juice and my usual BLT sandwich with lashings of mayonnaise. She smiles and bustles away to serve the rest of the lunchtime crowd. She is still having nightmares, but it has only been a week, and the bad dreams might dim in time.

  Declan kept his side of the bargain and offered the Gift to Melissa. Sadly, it didn’t succeed. Two nights ago, she was cremated at a private family ceremony. Bobby, aka Mr October, was there to support Melissa’s mother, all charges against him having been dropped. Alan Hinkley wasn’t able to attend: he is still in a coma and Bobby is spending his nights beside his father’s hospital bed, waiting for him to recover.

  Constable Curly-hair is under suspension pending disciplinary action. She refused to pass on the details of Katie’s abduction to Hugh, or anyone else, because of me. By the time Hugh and his back-up team arrived at the Leech & Lettuce, the sun had gone down and the Earl was waiting. Hugh is currently convalescing in the Cairngorms with his tribe.

  Thanks to my boss, Stella, and her campaigning, and Finn’s overwhelming evidence about Toni’s activities, the Witches’ Council has reinstated my contract with Spellcrackers.com. I get to keep my job, and my home - the compromise being that the witches will no longer offer me their protection, as Detective Inspector Helen Crane was entirely too happy to inform me.

  Finn was taken to HOPE and then transferred to sanctuary, where he underwent the treatment to purge the salaich sìol from his blood. Three of his brothers turned up to take him back to recuperate with his herd. As his salaich sìol infection is so recent, the purge should be successful, but it will be another month before anyone will know for sure. We spoke briefly before he went. He plans to come back to London and take over the franchise at Spellcrackers.com, once he’s well enough.

  He held my hand and told me he would keep my secrets.

  I don’t know what that means, or how I feel about that for now, so I’ve tucked him away in that box in my mind, along with all the other things I’m not yet ready to think about.