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‘Okay.’ Mary clicked off her radio, and I put the gnome and Katie’s treacherous boyfriend away to deal with later. ‘Backup’s on its way in ten.’ She motioned to the other WPC. ‘Constable, wait here for them, and while you do take statements from the stallholders.’ She extended her baton with its jade-tipped Stun spell and pointed it at the mirror. ‘Constable Taegrin leads the way, as he’s less likely to be affected by any magical attack. I’ll go next, then Constable Dessa. Ge
Taegrin nodded grimly as Dessa extended her own baton with a ferocious snap. ‘Yes, ma’am!’
‘You know I could snag your Stun spells before either of you could blink, don’t you?’ I said drily.
Mary shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter, Ge
I shifted through my mental Carnival files, and as it clicked exactly which Other area this was, an errant moment of mischief made me say, ‘A few shows, nothing special.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
Taegrin ducked under the willow arch, disappearing through the mirror. Mary and Dessa followed, and like the good little civilian I was, I brought up the rear. The mirror’s illusion slipped over me like a chill breeze, and I found myself standing between my three protectors, in a visitor-free clearing, ringed by half-a-dozen exhibition tents. And when I say exhibition, I mean exhibition!
I’d read the shows’ listings on the Carnival’s manifest, but words on paper couldn’t compare. For a moment I stood and stared with the rest.
Tents one to three, respectively, offered: Dwarf Smelting ~ Golden Showers a Speciality, Sing-a-Long Sea Shanties with Susie the Sirenand Swan Maiden Dancing. Though if the gaudy painting of a swan-headed girl, scantily clad in white feathers and wrapping her long legs round a pole, was right, it definitely wasn’t the usual ‘suitable for children’ show.
Standing in front of the next tent were two male centaurs, all arrogant expressions, handlebar moustaches and oiled, pumped-up muscles. The sign above them offered Heavenly Rides. Tent five’s door flap was down, its sign turned round with ‘Closed’ scrawled across it in purple ink.
Sitting outside the last, rainbow-decorated tent was a small, green-ski
‘Fifty quid for a ball of string,’ Dessa muttered, breaking the stu
The bull-headed figure pointed an admonishing pink-lacquered finger at her. ‘I’ll have you know fifty smackers is peanuts, luv,’ he said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. The Spandex was as tight as it looked. Or maybe he was a she. ‘Why, the King of the Dark Elves himself forked out a thousand times that for the honour of chasing me.’
‘He’s not worth it,’ the centaur on the left said, sneering through his moustache. ‘You fancy a ride, witch, then I’m the one to put your money on. Old Mini over there lives up to his name.’
‘Yes, indeed!’ The other centaur looked down his nose at the pink-Spandexed minotaur. ‘I can categorically say that with Mini, what you see is certainly not what you get. That’s nothing but a distasteful plastic extension.’
O -kay!
Mini the Minotaur stuck both hands on his pink-covered hips, thrust them out and shrilled, ‘I’ll have you know Major-Me is a truly fully-functioning part of me.’
The leprechaun gave us a tired look from under bushy green eyebrows. ‘Bespelled,’ he murmured.
‘O’Keefe!’ Mini cuffed him on his pointy ear and squeaked,
‘Shut up!’
‘What’s bespelled?’ Dessa asked.
O’Keefe jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Mini. ‘His strap-on.’
I choked, swallowing back a laugh.
‘A bespelled strap-on?’ Taegrin growled. ‘More like an offensive weapon.’
Mary rounded on me, accusation in her eyes. ‘Nothing interesting!’
I widened my own eyes in mock i
Her scowl promised retribution. ‘Right,’ she said briskly, turning to address the stallholders and holding up her badge. ‘We’re looking for an Irish wolfhound. His name’s Max.’
The silence was deafening. And no Mad Max rushed up, wagging his doggy tail in greeting.
‘We know he’s here,’ she carried on, showing them the scrying crystal, which was now glowing a deep blue, indicating Mad Max should be near enough to see if not actually touch. ‘So who wants to tell me what they know?’
The two centaurs snorted and suddenly seemed to find their hooves extremely interesting. Mini produced an industrial-sized file from nowhere and proceeded to give his pink-painted nails an u
Before Mary could stop me, I jogged over, checking the somethingfor spells – none – as I did, and scooped it up. I turned, dangling my find from my finger. ‘And here we have an obvious clue.’
‘What is it?’ Taegrin rumbled.
‘Max’s doggy choke-chain collar,’ I said. ‘Complete with his diamond-encrusted dog-tags.’
Dessa frowned at Mary. ‘Think it’s a plant, or did he manage to drop it for us to find, Sarge?’
‘Hmm.’ Mary tapped her radio on. It crackled to life. ‘How close is that backup, Constable?’
‘Search group three is here now, ma’am,’ the constable’s ti
As she finished speaking, three more WPCs and Constable Lamber, his mottled beige headridge dusty, appeared in the circle of tents. They all cast quick hairy eyeball at the exhibitions, nodded to Mary, and joined Dessa and Constable Taegrin, waiting for instructions. The centaurs and Mini eyed them with professional disinterest but, as they obviously weren’t customers, dismissed them. O’Keefe, the leprechaun, just hunched deeper over his book.
Mary strode over, looked at the dog-tag I held, then at the tent with its closed sign behind me. ‘It’s probably a trap.’
Whether it was or not didn’t matter; it wasn’t like we were walking into it on our own, not with half the Met’s Magic and Murder Squad about to put in an appearance. I shrugged. ‘We’ll find out for sure when we check it out.’
She looked at me, indecision warring in her brown eyes. ‘What’s supposed to be in the tent?’
I took a couple of steps back to the tent doorway and flipped the closed signed over. It showed a picture of a golden bow and arrow, and a crystal ball. Written along the outer edge of the bow in fancy gold script was: Divine Love with Cupid.
I waggled my brows. ‘So wa
Mary rolled her eyes at me, then said, ‘Let’s do it.’
Chapter Forty-Two
Despite Mary’s easy agreement, and my saying that whatever trap might be inside Cupid’s tent had probably been scrapped long ago thanks to the very obvious police presence, it still took a long, toe-tapping fifteen minutes for Mary to organise our backup to her satisfaction. She also took time to organise a search of all the other tents, inside and out, and to interrogate the leprechaun and the others for any extra intel on ‘Cupid’. But, much to Mary’s a