The Bitter Seed of Magic

Crap. I might not like the witch—okay, I was pretty sure I hatedher—but I didn’t want her disappeared involuntarily. I had a sudden image of Helen Crane being the next one to be pulled out of the Thames, and what that would mean to Fi

Hugh placed a restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘Constable Martin is with him just now, Ge

The hair rose on the back of my neck. How the hell did Helen know my real name, when only the vamps knew it? Helen was a witch; they all avoided vamps like the plague, and the vamps reciprocated in kind. Plus Helen in particular had a phobia about them. Not to mention, why the hell was she sending menotes? She had to be desperate or devious.

After a few moments I held out my hand. ‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘I’m G. N. Zakharinova. It’s my birth name.’

Hugh nodded and handed me the letter. ‘You’d better read it, Ge

I read it through the evidence bag.

To G. N. Zakharinova,

Your uncle Maxim contacted me regarding his Irish wolfhound. He was concerned about the safety of the dog’s offspring. Unfortunately this is no longer something I can guarantee. As I will not be able to speak to him through the usual cha

Helen Crane

Damn. So Helen had been guaranteeing—or rather, covering up for—‘the dog’s offspring’. And now she couldn’t, because she’d been found out, and had disappeared (willingly or not). But whether the note was a clue for the police, a cry for help or a warning she’d thought I’d take to Mad Max, I didn’t know. One thing I did know—

We had a suspect for the mastermind behind the faeling’s deaths. Mad Max’s son, whoever he was.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Hugh’s ‘talk’ about the note was in fact another round of statement-taking in one of the police vans, complete with a laptop-wielding WPC. We went over the memories the Morrígan had given me again, especially the one I’d had of the little blond-haired boy sliding down the slide in the playpark.

‘I’m pretty sure he’s Maxim’s son,’ I said, ‘and the “offspring” Helen Crane is talking about. But I don’t know who the boy is, or even how old he is. I meant to look up when kiddies’ slides were invented to see if that would give me a clue.’

‘I think I can help with that.’ The WPC looked up from her laptop. ‘From your description, Ge

‘Mid-twenties to …?’ I frowned. ‘I bet Mad Max would want to keep his son near him, if he got him back.’ I flipped through the faces I knew at the Coffin Club and hit on one immediately. ‘Gareth Wilson,’ I exclaimed, ‘the human manager at the club—he’s about the right age, and he’s definitely a natural blond like Maxim.’

‘Check the records, Constable,’ Hugh said, ‘but I don’t want any contact with the club until I say so. I know it’s still five hours until sunset, but Maxim appears to be able to move around during the day in his dog shape.’ Hugh contemplated his large troll pen as if it had all the answers, then lifted serious grey eyes to me. ‘Maxim is unlikely to be very cooperative if it’s his son who is killing the faelings, Ge

‘I’ve got something even better,’ I said, pulling a face as I told him about Malik being trapped in my bedroom. And Hugh was right. The logical way to get Mad Max to talk was to ask Malik as Oligarch to make Mad Max ‘cooperate’. But Malik’s own cooperation wasn’t necessarily a done deal.

For one, Mad Max didn’t owe Malik his Oath, and two: if there were no external humans involved, the vamps policed themselves. And if Mad Max (a vamp) and Helen (a witch) had something going on between them, it went against the centuries’ old détente between the two species. And then there was the third fact, that Malik had given his protection to London’s fae and faelings. Even if Mad Max’s son was a human, if Mad Max was part of what was going on, that would be a challenge to Malik’s own power-base as Head Fang. So in order to preempt any problems with either the Witches’ Council or the rest of the vamp families, Malik could justifiably rescind Mad Max’s Gift (a.k.a. rip his head off and burn him to ashes) and declare that an end to it.

Then there was the fact that Malik hadn’t exactly been forthcoming during our post-Coffin Club bedtime chat and had made it quite clear that he didn’t want me involved, so askinghim to help wasn’t going to work. But finding some way of forcinghim should … not only that, the situation gave me an idea of how to sort out my own problems with the beautiful, dictatorial vamp.

‘I think I can persuade Malik to cooperate,’ I told Hugh, ‘but I’ll need your help.’ Then I explained to him what I wanted, and about the flaw in his doppelgänger scheme, and how it could be fixed. And after a lot of concerned dust-puffing on Hugh’s part, we came up with a master plan: one that ensured Malik, as Oligarch, would assist the police; and meant that Hugh’s dopplegänger idea would work with or without the judicial red-tape; and as a bonus, also clubbed Malik’s ‘I Vampire, you Blood-Pet’ declaration on his arrogant buzz-cut head.

Then I let Juliet Martin take a syringe full of my blood as I chatted to Ricou, so she and Ricou could stirthe Doppelgänger spell, and in place of the payment she offered, I asked her to write me a couple of letters on behalf of the Witches’ Council. Juliet finished up, and they both made a dash for the disused mortuary just as the rainstorm came.

I sat in the van mentally going over the plans, looking for any last-minute hitches in them, as huge raindrops ricocheted off the roof like bullets, and the leaden afternoon turned dark as night. Thunder rumbled and rolled ominously above me and the air charged with nature’s power … then as lightning struck silver fire across the heavens—

Fi

He’d lost his handsome human Glamour. Now he was taller, shoulders and chest broader and more heavily muscled, the angles of his face hard and feral, his horns curving up almost a foot above his head, their points lethal and sharp. My heart thudded—he was gorgeous, and terrifying, and awe-inspiring … and with the rain now sheeting down, it took me a stu

Chapter Thirty-Nine

‘Hugh tells me Helen’s note was addressed to you,’ Fi

‘Yes,’ I said quietly, my heart thudding for a different reason, as disappointment threaded with sadness rocked through me. I’d expected him to be upset that Helen was missing, but … he’d lost his Glamour, too overcome to hold it, and he was standing there with so much pain and grief radiating off him that it was as if someone had ripped his whole world apart.