The Sweet Scent of Blood

doing.’

His brows came together in a frown. ‘I take it the sucker did it?’

Of course, the sucker did it! I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I needed to get to the Shamrock, and for that I needed Finn to leave. Think ... Then something he’d said struck me. ‘Were the parts found with the bodies, the heads, the hearts and the other bits?’

‘Why?’

‘No, of course they weren’t,’ I murmured, half to myself. ‘You said human males. If they’d found the heads, they’d have known they weren’t human.’

‘They weren’t human?’ He gave me a quizzical look.

‘No, not when they died.’ I glanced at the clock to check the time; daylight would disappear too fast for my liking

‘So the question is,’ Finn crossed his arms, ‘why is your sucker friend trying to frame you?’

‘I haven’t a clue, but I’m not going to find out by staying here, am I?’ I moved round him, needing to get my boots. ‘C’mon, Finn, discussion time’s over for now. I told you I’ve got something to do.’

‘Not yet, Gen. We haven’t finished talking.’

My insides felt like they were going to explode, and I almost kicked my bedroom door with frustration. I settled for glaring over my shoulder instead. ‘Yes. We. Have.’

‘Gen, you keep evading me and changing the subject, or rushing off somewhere.’ A muscle clenched in his jaw. ‘But we need to talk about all this stuff with the vamps, that spell-tattoo you’ve got, the murders, whatever it was that happened at the police station. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to sort all this out. Now!’

So not a conversation I wanted to have—my heart just wasn’t in it—even though I’d guessed it was going to be inevitable sooner or later. And with only a few hours of daylight left, later was the option I was going for. I sighed and swiped my hands over my face, then gave him a resigned look. ‘Just give me a couple of minutes to finish dressing, okay?’

‘Go ahead,’ he said, calmly moving to stand under my long beaded light, arms crossed, legs apart, like he was on guard duty or something. ‘I’ll wait right here.’

I shut the door carefully, resisting the urge to slam it, and leaned my head against it. Why did Finn always bring out the worst in me? Never mind my emotions felt like they were on a rollercoaster ride. Why couldn’t I just have my nice quiet life back where all I had to deal with was a pack of persistent pixies? And now Finn looked like he thought I was going to make a run for it or something. Still, he’d got that right: I was. I tugged my boots on, slipped some money in my pocket and took a couple of quiet steps to the open window.

Finn’s talk would have to wait until later.

My visit to Mick couldn’t.

I bent and swung my leg over the low windowsill leading out onto the flat roof. My boot snagged on something not there. Breath catching, I jerked my leg back and felt a strange, sticky resistance, almost like I’d stepped into a large glob of chewing gum. I looked. The spell even looked like chewing gum, stretching out in long elastic strands from the window frame, wrapping around my boot and creeping up my calf. Crap, what the hell was Finn playing at?

‘Finn,’ I yelled, furious, ‘get in here—now!’

The door slammed back and he burst into the room, then he stopped and stared at me in disbelief. Then a smile twitched his lips. ‘Having a bit of trouble, my Lady?’

‘Nice try, Finn,’ I smirked, ‘but I think you forgot something. Watch this!’ I held up my hand and called the spell...

‘Gen, that’s really not such a—’

... the sticky spell splattered into my hand, digging into my skin, then snapped back towards the window. It jerked me off-balance and dumped me in a heap on the floor; the chewing gum contracting in on itself and trapping me even tighter.

‘—good idea,’ he finished, wincing. ‘It’s a snapper-snare. The more you stretch or tease, or try and crack the magic, the worse it gets. We—that is, me and my brothers spent years perfecting it when we were kids.’ He finished with a touch of sheepish pride.

‘I don’t care how long it took to make it,’ I spat, ‘just get it off me. What the hell is it doing there anyway?’

‘I put it there earlier.’ he held his hands up in apology.

‘Don’t worry, it wasn’t to catch you, Gen.’ He gave me a quick grin, then knelt and took a dried-up conker- shell out of his pocket. ‘When I recovered, I came round to check on you.’ He plunged his hands into the sticky spell and started rolling the spiky conker-shell carefully between his palms. ‘I got here just as the sucker was going. I couldn’t stay, and I didn’t want to leave you without any protection, just in case he decided to come back, so I set the snapper-snare.’

I huffed, watching as he coaxed the magic off me—sticky spell-traps on my window was taking this whole shining-knight thing too far. ‘A standard back-off ward would’ve been easier.’

He grimaced. ‘A ward wouldn’t have held the sucker until the sun came up.’

My mouth fell open. ‘The sun would’ve fried him!’

He looked at me and smiled, determination in his eyes. ‘Of course.’ Then he leaned forward and pulled the last strand of magic off my boot.

I stared at him, speechless. Somehow I’d never imagined Finn thinking like that, never mind actually doing it. Or even why he would deliberately set a trap to kill a vampire. It didn’t fit with what I thought I knew about him.

Sitting back on his heels, he said cheerfully, ‘Did you want to try the front door next, or can we have a sensible talk like adults?’

I shoved a hand through my hair in resignation. ‘Fine, I admit it, going out the window was a bit childish.’ I shuffled back and leant against the wall. ‘But there really is somewhere I need to be, Finn, so can we make it quick, okay?’

‘Let’s start with this.’ He waved, taking in both the window and me. ‘When did you start inviting suckers over for a bloodfest? ’

‘Please don’t tell me this is all because you’re jealous.’

‘Jealousy has got nothing to do with it. This is about business. ’

‘I take it this is my new boss I’m supposed to listen to?’

‘Yes.’

I drew my knees up and hugged them. ‘And if I don’t want to,’ I said quietly, ‘does that mean I’m out of a job?’

‘Pretty much.’

Damn.

‘Gen, don’t be naïve. You work for a witch company. These are vampires we’re talking about. Keep going like this and it won’t be long before the Witches’ Council make you persona non grata.’

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to work out what would be the fastest way to end this. ‘Finn, you’ve heard what happened at the police station,’ I said, keeping my voice calm. ‘So no doubt the Council know all about it by now too—the new Detective Inspector there is a witch, so she’s probably told them.’ And with added glee, seeing as she really didn’t like me, but I kept that bit to myself. ‘So you see, it’s not like what’s going on is a secret.’

Finn groaned. ‘You see, that’s where you’re wrong. Up until now it has been: the Council don’t know a thing. Friday night at the police station, Helen had permission to use a spell to keep everything under wraps, and after that fiasco with the goblin, the vampires were more than happy to agree.’

So that explained why the goblin’s death hadn’t made the news, and why Old Scotland Yard had been hack- free. It didn’t explain why Finn was calling Detective Inspector Crane by her first name, as if they were old friends, or how he knew so much. And there was something else wrong with what Finn was saying, something about it all being kept under wraps—

Finn leaned over and took my hand in his and I looked at him, surprised. ‘Gen, forget that for now.’ An odd