But hey, at least Ana didn’t want to kill me like the rest of my sidhe family, so I counted that as a win. And it wasn’t as if we had any friendship to upset if I asked her about my problems with the Fertility pendant. Not to mention I was in the right place to do so, since Trafalgar Square is Ana’s home.
Or at least, the entrance to her home is through the square’s left fountain, since she lives in Between.
Betweenis the space (unsurprisingly) between the Fair Lands and the humans’ world, and is malleable enough that anyone can create their own private out-of-this-world patch . . . if they have enough power and the magic likes them. Obviously I didn’t; I couldn’t even get into Betweenon my own, never mind set up home there.
I squashed the niggling frustration and envy that Ana, a faeling, could do the sort of magic most full-blooded fae would struggle with, when I couldn’t even castmy own Privacy spells but had to buy them instead, and phoned her. Okay, she probably didn’t want to talk about the Fertility pendant, but I didn’t want to take the chance that next time the magic decided I needed to get my rocks off, it would pick some poor unsuspecting human and I’d end up fucking him or her to death.
‘Genny.’ Ana sounded oddly wary, almost as if she was expecting my call. Had Mad Max talked to her? Only as far as I knew she refused to have anything to do with her father, because he was a vamp.
I put on a bright voice. ‘Hey, I’m in the square, catching pixies, any chance we could have a chat?’
‘I’m not at home right now,’ she said flatly.
Not home? But it was nearly ten at night and she was going to give birth at any moment. Though she was an adult, so really not my call. ‘Oh, right. Mind if I ask you something, then?’
‘I’m busy, Genny—’
‘It’s about the Fertility pendant,’ I said, jumping in with both feet.
Silence, then a sharp, ‘What about it?’
‘I’ve been having a few problems with it and when I ran into Maxim last night he told me the spell in the pendant leaks. He said I could end up re-enacting my very own fertility rite if I’m not careful. And I really don’t want to end up picking up some poor human and doing him some damage because of it.’
She blew out a dismissive breath. ‘You don’t have to worry. Helen couldn’t stop the pendant leaking, but she bespelled it to focusthe leak. The magic fixes on anyone you know and find attractive enough that you want to have sex with them, who isn’t already in an ongoing sexual relationship.’
Oh. ‘Right, so I’m not going to see some hot guy on the Underground who happens to be single and want to jump his bones then?’
‘No, I shouldn’t think so. Helen didn’t want it causing her any hassles like that.’
No, she wouldn’t. Helen the Witch-bitch was all about protecting her own interests.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but it did sort of fixate on Maxim last night and I know he’s your dad, but really, there’s no way in hell I find him attractive.’ Not to mention the whole icky incest thing.
Another longer silence, then, ‘I’ll email you a recipe for a Purging Poultice spell which will help, but if you’re going to continue living with the pendant, the best way to keep the Fertility magic under control is to have sex on a regular basis.’
Not something I could guarantee doing right now . . . though the idea of ‘regular sex’ with Malik . . . was notsomething to think about in the middle of Trafalgar Square, not unless I wanted to take a dip in the cold fountain in the next five minutes. I sat straighter, got my excited libido under control and my mind back on track. ‘Thanks for the spell, Ana, but that doesn’t answer my question about Maxim.’
An annoyed huff came over the line. ‘My father and Helen know each other extremely well, remember, so the spell probably recognised him.’
It took a moment for what she meant to sink in. ‘Are you saying that Helen and Maxim have been—’
‘Yes,’ she interrupted, ‘for years. But I do notwant to discuss my father’s sex life.’
I didn’t want to either, but— Helen the Witch-bitch and Mad Max had been having an affair, or whatever, for years? Wow, I hadn’t seen that coming. Though thinking about it, I should have. I’d known they had a kid together: Jack. Helen had given him up at birth to be a sidhe changeling, and he was now one of the Morrígan’s ravens. He was the same age as me and Ana, and was another baby conceived by way of the Fertility pendant. But even knowing about Jack, and that Mad Max and Helen had got it together when she was a teenager, I’d always imagined it had been a one-off. If it wasn’t—
‘What about Finn?’ I asked, my indignation on his behalf breaking my self-imposed promise not to think about him since he’d cut me out of his life. ‘Helen jumped the broom with him for seven years. Was she still seeing your dad then?’
‘Seriously, Genny,’ Ana snapped, ‘I am notdiscussing it with you. And anyway, I don’t know. I don’t want anything to do with Maxim. He might be my father, but he’s a vampire. I don’t want him near me, or Freya. I never have done. It’s down to him that my mother is dead. She was looking for him when the other vampires took her. I don’t want the same happening to me, or, The Mother protect us, to Freya. Maxim will never be part of our lives. And if I didn’t need your blood for Freya, you wouldn’t be either. You’re too close to the vampires. It makes you dangerous.’
Well, that told me why my hopes of a happy family friendship had fizzled like a damp squib. Not that I could blame her really. Not when she was only trying to protect herself and her kid.
‘Look,’ Ana rushed on, ‘you wanted to know how to deal with the Fertility spell. I’ve told you. Either stop living with it or start having sex, I really don’t care. And whatever you do, don’t get it frustrated by getting all excited and then stopping. Oh, and its response will be stronger if you or the other person uses magic. Now I’m busy, so goodbye.’
The line went dead, leaving me staring morosely at the pixie who was now doing muscle-men poses on the lion’s head, despite only having an audience of three pigeons and a bag lady. The old woman gave a desultory clap, and part of me wanted to go back a year or so to when catching pixies and getting booed by the crowds seemed like my only problem.
I sighed. Still, at least I now knew the Fertility spell wasn’t going to have me Glamouring passing strangers and forcing them to have sex. And that the only people I had to worry about were friends I found attractive. Which had to be why it was only when Tavish used magic that I got all hot and bothered; I just wasn’t that into him.
My phone rang. A tiny flame of hope that it was Ana ringing back died as the display said ‘Katie’.
‘Hi, hon, what’s up?’
‘Hey, Genny. Sorry, but Harrods have got problems with their Magic Mirror spells in the lingerie changing rooms again.’
I groaned. ‘Thought I got it sorted this morning.’
‘No such luck,’ she said, commiserating.
I gave the last pixie a considering look. In the last couple of seconds he’d curled up like a cat on the lion’s head and was snoring away. I didn’t have to catch him – pixies are only really a problem when a pack of them get together – so this one could wait for another day. And the one I’d already caught was easy enough to deal with; the delivery service we used to ship the pixies back to Cornwall was nearby.
‘Okay,’ I said, sliding down off the bronze lion. ‘Tell Harrods I’m on my way.’
Midnight. I got home to find my flat, as usual since Sylvia and Ricou had moved in, was pitch-black. They’d left the blackout blinds down again. I flipped the light switch in a vain hope that the protective Wards hadn’t fried the electricity for the umpteenth time, but as usual nothing happened. Sighing, I bumped the front door shut with my hip, dropped the bags of Spellcrackers files I’d lugged up the five flights of stairs and, as I waited for the Ward to release its sticky hold on me, pressed my forehead tiredly against the cool wood of the door.