The Bitter Seed of Magic

‘Hang on,’ I muttered as my phone vibrated. I bumped the door to my flat closed with my hip, careful not to spill the cup of blood I’d just picked up from the Rosy Lea Café. With an annoyed sigh, I reactivated the protection Ward by banging my forehead against the painted wood; the Ward shimmered into life, a faint purple tinge on the white door. I dropped the ten-kilogram bag of salt—also from the Rosy Lea—next to the bucket beside the door and flexed my fingers, working out the cramps from carrying the salt up five flights of stairs. Life would be so much easier if I didn’t live in a converted Edwardian attic.

‘And life would be much easier if I didn’t have jealous witches, scheming fae, Machiavellian vamps, and The Mother of all goddesses to deal with on top of the fertility curse,’ I told the door, giving it a frustrated kick. I took a calming breath and muttered, ‘Stick to dealing with one problem at a time,’ and pulled my phone out.

I had a text from Finn:

I’m sorry. We need to talk. But not 2nite. I’ll CU 2morrow.

Short and not so sweet. I stared at the text, puzzled. It wasn’t like Finn and his inner white knight to leave me to my own devices, particularly when he knew my plans involved the vamps. Irrational disappointment flashed in me that he wasn’t beating my door down, as I’d half-expected him to be, along with morbid curiosity about what he was doing … and whether it had something to do with Helen.

Damn. I snapped my phone shut, put the cup down, hung my jacket up, tucked the police file Victoria Harrier had given me next to the bucket of salt, and mentally shelved Finn and the rest of the day’s dilemmas until later. I glanced at the clock: a little over four hours until sunset, so time enough for that long shower, a bite to eat and a bit of research before I headed off to Sucker Town and the vamp side of my problems.

But first things first. I might be home, but that didn’t mean I was safe.

I grabbed my drink and a handful of the salt already in the bucket and turned to look—and look—at my living room-cum-kitchen.

And at the books.

They were piled in knee-high stacks in my living room floor like a miniature village of tottering skyscrapers made of … well, stacks of books. Not being able to afford any furniture other than floor cushions was a definite advantage when it came to accommodating the fae’s curse-cracking research library, or at least the latest batch from the thousands of tomes they’d collected over the last sixty-odd years. The books had been arriving and disappearing on rotation ever since Tavish had told me about them and I’d insisted on checking them out for myself. Except I hadn’t been the one insisting, had I? It was him, or rather him and Malik, the other half of that annoying, over-protective little double act. Between the Sleeping Beauty spell and Malik’s mind-mojo, I was surprised they’d stopped at imposing the curse-cracking reading on me, and hadn’t just wrapped me up in the proverbial cotton wool and kept me under magical house arrest.

It hit me that I didn’t need the books any more: the Librarian could have them all back.

I gave a loud whoop and, grinning happily, started to weave my way through the books to the kitchen, glancing through the open bedroom door as I did so. Spring sunshine was cutting bright rectangles on the wooden floor, which was thankfully clear; at least the books hadn’t migrated in there again. A lot of them were disturbing, eye-opening and literally nausea-inducing, so definitely not required bedtime reading. In the current piles were everything from an eleventh-century grimoire bound in sorcerer’s skin (a major eew! to read, even wearing three pairs of salted surgical gloves); a papal leaflet titled Inquisitional Techniques and Demonic Exorcisms, printed in 1573; a first edition of Frankenstein— author anonymous, of course; a pile of Walt Disney picture books; Grimm’s Fairy Tales in five different languages; half a dozen new paperback releases with nothing in common other than ‘Curse’ in the title; and—

A virulent green cover on one of the many unread piles caught my eye: The Esoteric Practice of Malediction Prophecies by Michael Nix. I reached out to pick it up— Then snatched my hand away as a flash of magic revealed that the snot seeping out from its spine was real.

‘Sneaky,’ I muttered. After the first ‘WTF?’ spell I’d unwittingly triggered—the one that transported me straight to Finn; luckily he’d been working the late shift at Spellcrackers, but even so, naked is so not the way to appear anywhere unannounced—I’d taken precautions. I looked up at my chandelier hanging from the vaulted roof and counted another row of blackened beads marring the long strings of amber- and copper-coloured glass drops. The Seek and Reveal spells embedded in the beads had cost me the equivalent of three months’ wages, even using my own crystals, but since it had exposed everything they’d sent—so far, at least—it was worth the expense. I narrowed my eyes at the snot-dripping book and scattered the handful of salt over it; it belched musty orange dust and I grabbed a tissue from my jacket pocket as I sneezed.

‘I can see you’re havin’ a fun day, doll.’ The amused burr came from the bedroom door behind me.

Startled, I turned too fast, and several book stacks avalanched like mismatched dominoes into a cluttered heap around me.

‘Tavish!’ I said, and my heart gave a happy little leap at seeing him. The feeling that all would be right now he was here brought a wide beam to my face. ‘When did you get back?’

He shot me an answering grin, his sharp-pointed teeth gleaming white against the deep green-black of his skin. As his eyes crinkled, the rim of white surrounding the beautiful, brilliant silver of his pupil-less eyes vanished. The grin softened the angular planes of his long face: Tavish isn’t so much handsome—with his Roman nose and pointed chin, his face is a less delicate version of my own, showing the sidhe part of his make-up—but like the kelpie-horse that is his other shape, he is compelling, alluring—

I started to step towards him, then sneezed again, and as I blew my nose, I realised I’d been staring at Tavish like a Charm-struck human. I wiped the silly grin off my face and gave him an irritated glare. ‘You’re doing it deliberately, aren’t you?’

His own grin faded as he placed his hand on his chest. ‘Ach, doll, but it sorrows my heart tae lose your smile.’

I stifled the urge to go to him and throw my arms round him. Damn, I’d had enough of this magical attraction stuff with Finn; I didn’t need it with Tavish too. Suddenly wary, I clutched at the cup with one hand and balled the tissue in my other, needing something real to hold on to. ‘I’ll lose more than my smile if I let myself fall for your charms, kelpie,’ I said flatly.

He threw his head back with a snorting laugh and I glimpsed the delicate black-lace gills flaring either side of his throat. ‘Aye, doll, perhaps—but I wait for the day when you nae longer wish tae resist me, when we shall ride intae the depths together.’ He sobered as the turquoise swirling in the depths of his silver eyes lit an answering curl of desire inside me. ‘And ’twill be a glorious pleasure for us both, my lady.’

I looked down and nudged a couple of books with the toe of my trainer, willing the desire away. Tavish was wylde fae, a kelpie, a soul-taster, and capricious, like the magic—not to mention dangerous, if he was talking about riding into the depths. But he was also my friend. So was it a warning? Trouble was, asking outright wouldn’t get me the answer, just like it was pointless confronting him about the bracelet, or anything else. He could talk round corners for England if he chose to: at my best guess, he’d been doing it for more than a millennium.

‘If wishes were horses, we could all ride away on them,’ I murmured, recalling one of my father’s sayings.

‘If wishes were fishes, we’d all cast nets,’ he replied cheerfully.

And the fishes would be caught. Hmm. ‘You’re looking guid, doll,’ he said, still showing his teeth.

I shot him a sceptical look. I’d spent the night in a police cell; there was no way I looked ‘guid’. Then I realised he wasn’t looking at me, or rather my body’s shell, but at my soul. And it probably did look all shiny and bright to him now the black tint of the sorcerer’s soul was gone. So why wasn’t he asking how I’d got rid of it? Unless, of course, I wasn’t the only one chatting to Malik in his dreamscapes—was that why Tavish was here now? Had the two of them been plotting again? Not that any of that explained his outfit, which was unusual, even for him.

He was dressed Elizabethan-style, his starched white neck-ruff a stark contrast to his green-black skin. His dreadlocks were piled into a spiky topknot, and the beads intertwined with the dreads were a brilliant aquamarine, matching the silk lining of his pantaloons.