She waved the chopsticks. ‘Tavish says one of these in the heart will paralyse a vamp. He said I’d probably never need to use it, just wave it around to get their attention and remind them to behave.’ She leaned forwards and hooked her heart-shaped pendant from inside her top. ‘He also added some spells to this; one that stops the vamps using their mind-lock on me, and another that makes me smell like a faeling. He said all the fae and faelings in London are under the Oligarch’s protection, thanks to you, so none of them will even come near me so long as I wear this.’
Wow. Tavish hadbeen busy, but in a good way.
Katie gave me a lopsided smile. ‘So, thanks for telling me, Genny. I know you didn’t ’cause you didn’t want to worry me, but I’d rather know. And I know vamps can’t get me if I stay safe behind a threshold and don’t invite them in. That doesn’t apply to werewolves.’
She had a point. The counselling must’ve done more good than I thought, making her look at things in a practical, proactive way and not just panicking. A lesson I could do with, particularly when it came to dealing with the Autarch.
‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘I didn’t want to worry you. Sorry. I’ll tell it like it is next time.’
‘Good.’ She nodded, packed her stuff away and worked on in silence for a few minutes, then gave a final flourish with her scissors to set me free.
I waggled my foot in relief and she peered at me, grey eyes glinting with mischief. ‘Your face looks better now. Less like you’ve got beetles tunnelling under your skin and more like you’re hungover.’
‘Nice image.’ I snorted, jumping up to peer in the overdesk mirror. Hungover was about right, but even as I looked, the dark circles were fading. I prodded my ribs, no pain. Mad Max’s blood had done the business. In fact, I was pretty sure another ten minutes would see me healed of everything other than Malik’s rose-coloured bruises. What I needed now was something to eat and a shower. Not necessarily in that order. Spying the room service menu, I asked Katie to order us some breakfast, then headed for the bathroom.
I stood under the hot shower, easing the kinks in my muscles and mulling over Mad Max.
Never mind the mystery of why he’d helped me, the real question was: what was he doing sniffing round me like a hound following a scent? Either he was spying on me, or Malik . . . or hell, maybe Malik had asked him to watch out for me? He’d obviously asked someone to buy me new clothes. And that someone might have been Mad Max.
So, if Malik hadasked Mad Max to keep an eye on me, that would explain why he’d helped me. Even if his help was the reallytough-love type. But really, why would Malik trust Mad Max? He knew I didn’t. And aside from the fact he was a crazy sonofabitch, Mad Max owed his Oath to the Autarch.
Then again, the Autarch might be Mad Max’s liege and master, but maybe crazy Max wasn’t so insane after all, since he appeared to hate and fear the psychotic sadist as much as I did.
Of course, there was a third option. Mad Max was keeping an eye on me for the sidhe side of the family. Which was almost as worrying an idea as him spying on me for the Autarch.
Shivering despite the steam, I wrapped a towel tightly around myself and grabbed the hotel hairdryer.
The only way I was going to get any solid answers was to do what I’d planned to do before the fertility magic and Mad Max had hijacked my night— speak to Malik in the Dreamscape. I gave my hair a hurried blast of heat, checked my phone and gauged I had just enough time before work to try now. A plus being that Katie could watch over my sleeping body while she was eating breakfast.
Decision made, I touched Malik’s rose-shaped bruises on my left wrist, releasing the bracelet hidden there. It appeared with its usual chinking of charms—
Malik’s ring was gone.
My mind skidded to a shocked halt. Malik had to have taken the ring, but why?
Unless it was Mad Max? He’d had enough opportunity, and could do magic, though his ability still left suspicion pricking down my spine. But if it had been him, that still the question of why. Damn it. Speculating was pointless. All that mattered was the ring was gone and I couldn’t contact Malik that way. I was going to have to speak to him the non-magical way.
And go on the date.
Of course, going on the date could bring me face to face with the Autarch. Something that made me want to run far, far away, and hide.
But I’d already done that once. And I was older now, so maybe, like Katie, it was time for me to deal with my Autarch phobia, instead of letting my terror rule my life. After all, I might not carry a vamp-repelling kit, but I had something way better— the sword Ascalon.
Heart thudding, I took a deep breath and left a message with Malik’s answering service to say I was accepting his invitation, and I was free any night this week. The woman at Sanguine Lifestyles politely and efficiently said she’d pass the message on to Mr al-Khan, and rang off.
I stood for a couple of minutes waiting for my pulse to calm, then finished dressing, ate the bacon butty Katie had ordered, paid the hefty hotel bill Mad Max had stuck me with (including two porn pay-per-view films – Bitch of the Baskervillesand The Brides of Cujo,images from which made me want to bleach my brain – and which I mentally added to all the ‘debts’ he owed me. I was sogoing to take my pound of flesh using a very large, very blunt blade) and we headed for Spellcrackers.
Halfway there, my phone rang: Detective Inspector Hugh Munro.
‘Morning, Hugh. Social or business call?’
‘Official business, I’m afraid, Genny,’ he rumbled in his gravelly voice. ‘A woman and her son have disappeared, possibly kidnapped, and there appears to be some sort of strange magic involved. I’d like your help, please.’
Crap. ‘Of course. Where?’
‘London Zoo.’
‘On my way.’
Chapter Twelve
Forty minutes later my taxi dropped me off in the small car park opposite the main entrance to the zoo. I checked the other vehicles: three of the police vans designed for trolls (to be expected), about six other parked cars (again, probably usual) and two long limousines with blacked-out windows (definitely not usual). Both limos were backed into the shade of the scrubby line of trees screening the car park from the rest of the zoo, which butted against Regent’s Park beyond. Two chauffeurs were leaning against the furthest limo, caps tipped back and smoke curling up between them from their cigarettes. The limos’ licence plates both started the same: 112 D 2. The rest of the number was hidden behind the guys’ legs. Diplomatic plates. The words ‘International Incident’ flashed in my head.
That didn’t bode well for the victims.
I crossed to the zoo’s main entrance.
The shutters were down on the two outside sections between the entrance columns – the zoo didn’t open to the public for a good couple of hours yet – but the middle shutter was drawn up to about my shoulder height. The uniformed WPC – the W standing for both witch and woman – standing guard was one I didn’t recognise. She greeted me perfunctorily and waved to a zoo employee sitting slumped over the steering wheel of an open-topped utility cart, ready to take me to the crime scene.
The zoo employee – his name badge stated ‘David O’Reilly’ – straightened, tossed me a brooding look from red-rimmed eyes and told me to, ‘Hop in.’
I hopped in and caught a whiff of something rank. Glancing over my shoulder, I eyed the tarp covering the cart’s flatbed. Whatever was piled beneath it was lumpy and stunk worse than a swamp dragon’s cave . . . Crap!Bad pun aside, it suddenly clicked that I was getting a ride on the shit wagon.
The cart jerked forward and I grabbed the metal side-bar as the vehicle’s electric motor whirred loudly in seeming complaint. We took a left between the reptile house and the Gorilla Kingdom, judging by the signs. David stared straight ahead, broad shoulders hunched inside his green polo shirt like he was cold, a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel despite the cart trundling along at not much more than a fast walking pace after its initial leap.