The Sweet Scent of Blood

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, picked 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.