The Cold Kiss of Death

seductive about it; I felt as if I could launch myself into it and find what I sought ...

I forced myself to turn, to put my back to the emptiness. Between is the gap that links the humans’ world and the Fair Lands. It’s a dangerous place, the magic that fuels it is fierce and untamed, and persuasive enough that the legends about those who stray from the paths are full of wonder or terror or death.

Or nothing at all.

The sky, deepest blue and curved like a huge bowl overhead, brightened. A hot yellow sun blazed like a furnace and in seconds sweat slicked between my breasts and down my spine. Inside me, the Knock-back Wards I’d absorbed at the bakery flared, the magic lifting its nose like a dog snuffling around this new place. I dug inside the jacket pocket for a couple of liquorice torpedoes and stuffed them in my mouth. As soon as the sugar hit my system, I used the extra boost and willed the Knock-back Wards into quiet sleepiness. Mixing spells with the magic here, even those as basic as the Wards, could be a hit-and-miss affair: sometimes it worked, sometimes it was like putting a match to a touchpaper.

I scanned the area. Before me was a beach of golden sand that stretched further than I could see. On one side was a white cliff with a sand-coloured camouflage tent pitched at its base, shadowed by the overhang: Tavish’s home, or at least its current façade. On the other side of the beach was a glittering, mirror-dark sea, but the water was still and silent, and probably as deep as the abyss.

Tavish was in the water—in his human shape—but still in the water.

Damn, that so wasn’t a good start.

He was sitting at the water’s edge, half-submerged, with his back to me. I could see his long legs stretched out in the shallows, his arms braced behind him on the sand as he raised his face to the sun. The bottle-green dreads that streamed down his back looked like seaweed hung out to dry, the silver-beaded tips glinting in the sunlight. He didn’t acknowledge me. Ignoring the nerves still twisting in my stomach, I shrugged out of the jacket and sighed in relief as a cool breeze teased around me. I almost ditched the jeans too—the T-shirt Joseph had given me was long enough to pass as a baggy dress—but instead I just removed the baseball cap and ran my fingers through my shorter hair. I kicked off the old trainers and walked down the dozen steps to the beach. The sand was pleasantly warm beneath my feet, not as burning-hot as the fiery sun would suggest ... but this was Between. And expecting Between to follow the rules of the humans’ world was a recipe for disaster.

When I was close enough to see Tavish’s delicate gills flare like black lace fans either side of his neck, but far enough away—from him and the water—that I almost felt safe, I stopped.

‘Hello, Tavish.’

‘Long time nae see, doll.’ He turned to look at me over his shoulder, his face breaking into a welcoming smile, his sharp-pointed teeth white against the darkness of his skin—not black, but the deepest green found where the sunlight just penetrates the depths of the sea. ‘But you took your ain sweet time getting here. I’ve been expecting you this last two days.’

I smiled back, couldn’t help myself as my magic exalted at the sight of him and the nerves inside me settled. I sat where I was, crossing my legs Indian-style, and trailed my fingers through the soft sand. Tavish might be centuries old—he’s cagey about how many—but like most fae he didn’t look like he’d reached thirty yet. He’s the most fae-looking of all those I know, and yet somehow he still easily passes for human without using a Glamour. His long, angular features, Roman-straight nose and almost pointed chin are a less delicate, more male face than my own, but with enough echoes of my own face that anyone can see the sidhe in his make-up. I’d often wondered if he wasn’t a lot older than anyone guessed, maybe even born in the Shining Times, when the sidhe would procreate with any living thing that attracted their attention. Only Tavish doesn’t have our cat-like pupils—or any pupils at all; his eyes are a brilliant silver with a rim of white, like the horse that is his other shape. He wasn’t so much handsome as compelling, alluring ...

I dragged my gaze from him, realising I was staring like a charm-struck human—one that would unwittingly follow the kelpie anywhere, even into the treacherous water—and made an effort to look at the rest of the scenery.

‘The place looks different,’ I said as an opener. ‘More tropical than your last.’

‘Aye, well, I fancied a wee change,’ he said, his accent soft and warm. ‘This time o’ year the Highlands can be a wee bit blowy, for all the heather colours the hills with nature’s own beauty.’

I waved back at the abyss. ‘So what happened with that?’

‘Hmph,’ he snorted, ‘t’was nae in the plan, though you’re in luck, for it had a hankering tae be this side of the steps, got itsel’ all decked out with one of those rope and plank bridges. It took me a heck of a while tae convince the magic tae move it over there.’

Which is Between all over. It’s malleable—unlike the humans’ world or the Fair Lands—in fact, malleable enough that anyone with enough magical mojo can impose their will. But sometimes the magic comes up with its own quirky interpretation of what it’s asked for. Tavish had forged his patch a couple of centuries ago, but even after moulding it to his own desires for all that time, it looked like the magic could still leave him living on a knife’s edge—or rather, a cliff ’s edge ...

‘It wants something,’ I murmured, frowning.

‘Aye, doll, don’t we all!’ He laughed, the sound a soft snicker. ‘Doesnae mean we’re going tae get it, though.’

Disappointment slid inside me. I lifted a handful of sand, letting the grains fall through my fingers. Maybe he wasn’t as welcoming as his smile had suggested. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to help me?’

‘Nae, doll, it means I mayn’t be having the answers you seek.’ He rolled onto his front to face me, propping himself on his arms. The water surged over his wide shoulders and streamed down the muscled indentation of his spine, sparkling aqua and turquoise against his skin. ‘But ask away.’

I blinked away the afterimage of the bright water, then said slowly, ‘You know the CCTV recording they’re all showing on the news? Is there any chance it’s been tampered with, or that there’s a clue that the police haven’t shown or picked up on yet?’

‘There’s naught on the recording tae see, other than yoursel’ going intae that shop.’ His gills flared. ‘And the explosion.’

‘Really not what I was hoping to hear.’ I pursed my lips.

‘The wonder of it is why you chose tae go in anyway, doll.’ He drew a wavy line in the sand and the breeze picked up, ruffling the sea behind him.

‘No wondering about it, Tavish.’ I frowned, trying to work out why he was asking. ‘I’ve been in there nearly every morning for the last couple of weeks.’

‘Why?’ he persisted, scooping a deep sand-basin in front of him.

I drew my knees up and hugged them, not happy about his tone. ‘The baker was having a few witch problems—milk turning sour, bread not rising, that sort of thing.’

‘Sounds more like brownie problems, but’—water trickled into the sand-basin—‘you get where I’m going wi’ this?’ He looked at me enquiringly.

‘Someone’s set me up,’ I stated, hoping he wasn’t asking me anything else, like was I guilty. ‘Yeah, I managed to work that one out for myself. Trouble is, while Tomas—the dead baker— told me it was a witch, I never actually met her.’ I gave him a wry smile. ‘Maybe you can see where I’m going too?’

‘Aye, t’is true: witch or sidhe, there’s nae possibility of a human telling the difference betwixt them if the sidhe doesnae want them tae.’ The small puddle in the sand overflowed in front of him. ‘But then there’s nae sidhe in London other than yoursel’, doll. Hasnae been this last eighty-odd years.’

Which was when there’d been a falling-out between London’s fae and one of the sidhe queens, and the queen had sealed the gates.

A hundred years past, the queen in question had fallen in love with a human and chosen to bear a son. Of course, her son had been human, as are all children born of sidhe and human, so she’d left him behind when she’d returned to the Fair Lands. But she loved him, and visited him as he grew up, and she charged London’s fae to watch over him when she wasn’t there. Then one day he fell in with a bad crowd, and he ended up being lured to his death by the vampires. The queen blamed London’s fae and not only did she seal the gates, she also laid a droch guidhe—a curse—on them that they should also know the grief in her