But on the face of it, the charge was for Misappropriation of Police Property, the police property in question being the Stun spell I’d
More bad news: I was locked up in a state-of-the-art silver-lined police cell. The twelve-foot-square room had no windows, a six-inch steel door, a CCTV camera high in each corner, icky plastic facilities, and the ultimate in sleeping luxury: a barely there foam mattress. The cell was designed for keeping vamps and dangerous witches in line. Maybe I should be flattered she thought so much of me? Nah, she was just going for overkill again.
I shifted uncomfortably on the thin mattress and carefully tugged down the sleeves of the snazzy white paper jumpsuit provided by the Met’s fashion dept, adjusting them so that the silver-plated ‘slave-bracelets’ studded with chips of jade (Stun spells) and citrines (Magic Dampening spells) no longer touched my skin. I did the same with the jumpsuit’s legs—not that it would make much difference; every time I moved the heavy leg manacles slipped down again, so now I had a nice neat line of silver-burn blisters encircling both ankles.
Yet another helping of bad news: my phone call to Malik—or, to be precise, as it was daylight, my call to Sanguine Lifestyles, the vamps’ 24/7 answering/gofer service. The request to make the call had just popped out of my mouth without any conscious decision on my part. That meant Malik had not only used his vamp mojo on me but planted a mind-locked order in my head. No wonder my memories of him were so hazy.
‘Damn arrogant vamp,’ I muttered. I didn’t need to be
After all, I wasn’t stupid. If the Witch-bitch thought she could make a strong enough case out of my stealing the Stun spell to show I was a danger to humans, I could be taking a one-way trip to the guillotine. It was an extreme possibility, but thanks to fae not having ‘human rights’, it was still a possibility, and one she’d taken great pleasure in reminding me of during my arrest. Calling Malik, hell, calling
Still, irritation at high-handed vamps aside, at least the woman at Sanguine Lifestyles had been reassuring. ‘No problem, Ms Taylor. If you can give me the details, I will have a solicitor there within half an hour.’
It had sounded too good to be true.
Now, eight hours later, of course, I’d discovered it was.
I growled in frustration and frowned at my left arm.
The final bad news was that as well as wearing the pretty police-issue jewellery, I was now also sporting a nifty spell bracelet. I’d uncovered it when I’d been looking for any magical leftovers from the Sleeping Beauty spell. Like that one, the bracelet had been nothing more than a line of shadow hidden beneath Malik’s mark. With the citrines in the silver manacles dampening my magic, it had taken me all day to force the bracelet back into its original form.
But hey, time was one thing I had plenty of.
I gave the bracelet an assessing look. Tavish really had gone to town when he’d made it. Even pissed off as I was at the tricky, scheming kelpie, I had to admire his spellcraft. The plait of green-black horsehair tied tightly round my wrist was threaded with twelve glass beads, five clear, and the rest deep red. I hadn’t a clue what they did. Interspersed between the beads were seven tiny charms. The first two were detailed replicas of a red telephone box and a red London bus, both made from enamelled gold. The telephone box had been crushed: I guessed to stop me from communicating with anyone outside London. And the bus was missing its wheels: probably to make sure I couldn’t leave—or be taken from—the capital. The third charm was a wooden spindle—no guesses needed as to what that did—but at least it was broken, thanks to Finn’s kiss. The fourth was an inch-long miniature sword—like some sort of scimitar—so perfectly carved from obsidian that it could only be the work of a Northern dwarf. The fifth and sixth were a gold egg, crackled like old china, and a plain gold cross; again, I hadn’t a clue what they did. And the last was a miniature platinum ring set with a black crescent-shaped gem.
Malik’s ring.
I knew it was his, not just because I recognised it, but as I touched it the knowledge of who it belonged to, and what it was for—contacting him—was suddenly there in my mind. Damn vamp and his mind-mojo.
‘Of course, I should’ve known the pair of them were in it together,’ I told the ring. ‘They’re as bad as each other when it comes to being scheming, arrogant and over-protective.’ And it wouldn’t be the first time the pair had joined forces to make my life ‘safer’ in their opinions. ‘Question is, do I try and activate you, or not?’
I tapped my knee thoughtfully. The worst that could happen would be I’d end up knocked out by the Stun spells stored in the fancy silver manacles. The best …
‘Hell, there’s got to be some good news in all of this,’ I muttered.
I stared at the bright bead of blood.
It trembled with magic.
Then before the spells in the silver manacles could kick in, or I changed my mind, I smeared the blood on the ring. It dropped off the bracelet into my palm, growing large enough for me to wear.
‘Here goes nothing,’ I murmured, and pushed it on my finger.
Chapter Nine
The over-large double doors in front of me were Victorian style, the six panels painted white, the frames a bright sky-blue. The paint looked fresh enough that I gingerly touched it to check it wasn’t still wet; and that the doors weren’t some magical construct. The paint was dry, and the doors felt as mundane as any other. There were no locks or handles, just steel push-plates. Curious about whether this place was as real as the doors felt, I glanced around. I was on a small, boxy landing. Behind me, a large green arrow pointed down a dimly lit concrete stairwell (which thankfully didn’t have the sulphurous nose-wrinkling smell of most such places) but otherwise there was nothing to indicate where I was … except I was now in jeans and, oddly, one of the lime-green hi-vis T-shirts sporting the Spellcrackers.com logo that we wore whenever we worked in a public place. And my feet were bare and half-frozen: the concrete floor was cold.
The knowledge in my mind told me Malik’s ring was a way to contact him. I’d sort of expected to get the magical equivalent of a telephone call, to hear his voice with its not-quite-English accent in my head. But as soon as I’d put the ring on, I was just standing here in front of the blue and white doors.
I eyed them speculatively. ‘Right, enough of cold feet, let’s find out where you lead.’
I pushed the right door open. It swung back easily, if slowly, and without the spooky sound effects I was half-expecting, and left me staring into a long shadowed corridor about ten feet wide. The corridor was made from steel beams, the ones on the walls criss-crossing each other to leave large diamond-shaped gaps that had been fitted with glass. The diamond windows framed a spectacular view of the dying sun searing the cloud-laden sky with golden fire. It reminded me of one of Tavish’s Turneresque paintings. I frowned; the corridor was familiar too … then it clicked: it was one of the high walkways of Tower Bridge.
I’d chased gremlins along every single frustrating step of both the two-hundred-foot-long corridors, five—or was it six?—times, in the last month alone. The little machine-hexing monsters kept getting down and dirty in the bridge’s engine rooms, and Spellcrackers had won the contract to evict them … which was proving to be so much easier said than done. But now, as I scanned the gloomy walkway, it was empty of all life apart from the lone figure about halfway along gazing out over the Thames.
Malik al-Khan.
I headed towards him, bare feet silent (but warming up) on the rough blue carpet. As I came closer, he turned to me, his expression enigmatic. I stopped, stunned at the sight of his pale, perfect face, his dark almond- shaped eyes that showed his part-Asian heritage, the black silk of his hair where it slipped just below the sculptured line of his jaw … Damn. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful he was. A memory surfaced of him lying still and defenceless during the demon attack, and my heart lurched wildly at the thought that I might have lost him too. Shocked at my reaction, I clutched Grace’s pentacle at my throat and scowled, my steps slowing.
