The Cold Kiss of Death

throat. A gold chain nestled in the crease of her neck and he hooked his fingers under it and followed it down to where an oval gold locket rested between her breasts. He slid his hand under the locket, cupped it in his palm as if weighing it, then smiled at the Ancient One. ‘You have the sidhe’s necklace, Crone, the one that belonged to her stepmother. You shall give it to me, then once she knows I have it, she will come to me of her own accord and the witches’ protection will no longer overly concern me.’

The Ancient One’s hand tightened on the head of her cane, her knuckles whitening. ‘I can’t do that, my lordship. I took it as security only. I have agreed to return it once the debt is repaid.’

‘While the sidhe uses the spell, she still owes you, is that not correct?’

‘It is, my lordship, but—’

‘Then there is still a debt.’ He released the gold locket, which slapped hollowly on Rosa’s chest, and adjusted his cuffs. ‘The necklace will be secure with me, probably more so, so there is nothing to alarm you.’

‘No, I will not risk it.’ She held a shaking hand up in denial. ‘The sidhe is young and unskilled, but it is not wise to cross one of the noble fae—’

‘It is not wise to cross me, Crone,’ he interrupted, leaning forward, menace in his lowered voice. ‘Do not think your Black Arts will protect you either. I have lived more than eight centuries, and I have dealt with sorcerers before.’ His lips parted on a glimpse of fang. ‘And I still live,’ he hissed, ‘and they do not—since even a demon-powered carcase such as yours is still mortal, and thus still needs blood and a beating heart to sustain it.’ He straightened. ‘Now, give me the sidhe’s necklace.’

Her stick trembled under her grip. ‘As you command, my lordship.’ She turned towards us, and for an instant it looked like the empty sockets of her eyes were crawling with fat grey maggots. ‘Hannah, fetch the black opal collar from the safe and bring it to me,’ she ordered. The large death’s head ring on her finger winked its amber eyes in anger. And Hannah, my lovely, bring me also the powdered dragons’ scale. This piece of blood-sucking shite needs to be taught a lesson.

Next to me, Hannah spoke more words in the hair-raising language.

The picture flickered. Time seemed to jerk from one frame to the next, then the tableau from the past flooded with red and a shower of blood obliterated my view. The blood coated the glass, which cracked and shattered, exploding outwards into hundreds of sharp shards of pain-bright light.

Instinctively I flung my hands up to protect my eyes, imagining that something had hit the plate-glass window and broken it, but I quickly realised it too was an illusion. I leaned my forehead against the cool glass and stared blindly down at the crowded dancefloor below, trying to take in the implications of Hannah’s memory.

For three years I’d been using my Alter Vamp spell, thinking I was donning a particularly expensive disguise sold me by the Ancient One. But all those three years I’d been walking round in Rosa’s body, and all that time she’d been at the mercy of the Earl, a manipulative, sadistic, bastard blood-sucker. Bile rose in my throat. Rosa might have been a vamp herself, and judging by her memories and her reputation she was no Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes—not that many vamps were—but no way would I wish that kind of existence on her, or anyone. And no way did I want it to continue. It wasn’t just about not using the spell any more for my own sanity; now I needed to find her body and release her from whatever magical bondage held her.

‘The Earl killed her, you know.’ Hannah’s words brought my attention back to her. She stood there, her hands curling into claws, her face screwing up with hatred. ‘When I returned with the necklace, he laughed and ripped her head off in front of me, like he was twisting the head of a chicken. But he was right, she was a sorcerer, and the first thing any sorcerer does is safeguard their soul.’ She laughed herself, a harsh sound, like the guttural memory spell. ‘There’s no point selling it to a demon if you don’t get the chance to enjoy the rewards is there?’

She walked over to the silver-faced drinks cabinet and opened it. Lifting what looked like a squat-bellied brandy bottle, she saluted me. ‘I loved Gwen.’

I gave her a puzzled look. ‘Who’s Gwen?’

‘My mistress, the Ancient One, of course.’ She pulled at the cork stopper and it came out with a muted pop. ‘Oh, she wasn’t really the stereotypical skeletal crone; that was just a façade. Gwen was vibrant, beautiful, full of life ...’ She trailed off, frowning at the bottle’s label as if surprised to see it there.

‘So what does this memory have to do with you wanting the Fabergé egg?’ I asked flatly.

‘What?’ She looked back at me, then attempted a smile, but her mouth turned down instead of up. ‘The egg’s her back-up soul storage. Standard operating procedure, in case there’s no available body nearby. It’s valuable enough not to be damaged or thrown away, and at the worst she’d end up sitting in a vault or a display case for a while until I could release her—wasted time, of course, but better than turning up in Hell without your demon debt paid.’ She shuddered at the thought, then tipped the bottle up and drank straight from it. ‘Very unrefined, I know, but...’

I narrowed my eyes, still suspicious. ‘If the egg was that important to her, how did the Earl get it?’

‘My fault,’ she admitted. ‘The Earl decided to make me his pet sorcerer—after all, Gwen had taught me most of her spells by then. But I didn’t have the same protection as she did.’ She held up the back of her hand to me and waggled her finger; her death’s head ring winked its amber eyes at me. ‘It wasn’t until he grew tired of using me that I was able to sort things out in my mind and work out what I’d told him—what he’d made me give him.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘After a while I managed to retrieve the ring, and then I was able to resist him to a degree, but the 3V infection meant I still had to do his bidding.’

She took another swig, and pointed the bottle at me. ‘I tried to get the egg back, but the bastard blood- sucker wasn’t stupid; he knew why I wanted it and he wasn’t about to allow me to bring Gwen back, not when he’d killed her once. So when he thought I was getting close, he gave it away—to you.’ She let out a snort of disgust. ‘Ironic really; all he wanted was you and your sidhe blood, and she would have served you up to him on a platter if he’d just been patient, but no, he couldn’t wait, and he killed her in a fit of temper.’

It was a good story—and most of it was probably true—but there was something wrong somewhere, and I couldn’t quite work it out. Why did Hannah want to bring her mistress back? As far as I could see she had everything sorted: enough money, the Earl gone, a way to manage her 3V—Darius—without being controlled, so other than her professed love ... One thing was clear, though: if the Earl killed the Ancient One a year ago, that meant Hannah had been caretaking Rosa and my Disguise spell ever since. Which meant she knew where Rosa’s body was.

‘Okay, Hannah, you’ve shown me your sad little scene, so what’s the deal?’

‘I don’t do deals, Genevieve,’ she remonstrated gently. ‘I only do favours.’

‘Uh-huh. What sort of favours?’

‘Of course,’ she said slyly, ‘I could show you which body is lying on that slab now, but somehow I think you’re smart enough to work that one out.’

Shock sparked through me and I closed my eyes for a moment. My body was there, in that room, wherever Rosa’s normally was—stupid! I’d never considered that my body might be anywhere else other than with me, even after I’d realised the spell didn’t just disguise me. Mentally I snorted. At least that explained why I couldn’t use magic, or why no one other than Hannah had ever recognised me as a sidhe when I was ‘Rosa’, not even Malik.

Hannah came over to me with a reassuring smile. ‘Oh don’t worry, there’s no harm can come to you, not now the Earl is gone.’ Her fingers tightened round the neck of the bottle. ‘He really was disgustingly perverted at times —another reason you should be grateful to me.’

Nausea roiled in my stomach as her words brought images slithering around the edges of my mind. I shoved them away; no way did I want to think about the Earl or what he might have done when my body was lying helpless ...

‘Gratitude isn’t what comes to mind when you’re holding my body hostage,’ I snapped.

‘Ah but I’m not—that would go against my ethos of not doing anything that would benefit me directly. It really isn’t a good idea to use the power for yourself when a demon has a lien on your soul; they’ve got this weird profit and loss sin-sheet thing going, so being in the black is just asking for trouble. So I can assure you that you are quite safe, and your own body will revert to you at dawn when the spell shuts down, just as it usually does.’ She tilted her head back as she drank, the pulse in her throat flashing like a distracting beacon, then carried on, ‘But Elizabetta really does want Rosa to take up her offer, and as I’ve offered to help her, I’ve something that might persuade you.’ She puckered her lips and blew me a kiss. The air filled with a spray of fine liquid that expanded outwards into fat black globules like in a slow-motion movie. They splattered against my face with the force of