I blew out a breath, trying to ease the tension in my shoulders. ‘Maybe what the card’s really telling me is that the Emperor’s beasts are coming for me so we can do a deal, but that the Autarch is going to try to stop me meeting them. Which could mean the Autarch’s trying to prevent me from finding out how to release the fae’s fertility from the pendant.’

‘Hmph.’ The sound of Tavish’s fingers hitting keys quietened for a moment. ‘Nae sure the Autarch’s bothered about the fae’s fertility, doll. But stands to reason he won’t want you mixing with any outsider vampires, not when he’s always had a hankering for you himself. And I ken you said Malik does-nae think much of this Emperor, either. So my money’s on the card being a warning for you to take care about the Emperor, and also a warning to keep away from the Autarch and Malik al-Khan till this matter with the Emperor is done.’

Except I’d already agreed to Malik’s ‘date’ . . . if he ever phoned me back to arrange it. And the date wasn’t only to find out about the Emperor and the fae’s fertility. I needed to talk to Malik about us. To work out whatever our relationship was. And I needed to know the beautiful vamp was okay.

Of course, if I didn’t go on the ‘date’ I probably wouldn’t need to confront Bastien the psycho, or my phobia.

But then if Malik were in trouble, I’d be leaving him to the sadistic psycho’s not-so-tender mercies . . . something I wasn’t prepared to do.

I decided not to mention any of that to Tavish.

Instead, I said, ‘If I stay away from Malik, it makes it harder to find the Emperor. And I’d rather find him before his werewolves find me.’

‘Told you, doll.’ Tavish’s irritation came over the phone loud and clear. ‘’Twill nae take me long now I’ve found his website . . . as a matter of fact, I’m sending you another screenshot.’

I checked. The new shot of the Emperor looked the same as the last one except now below the Emperor, scrolling across the screen in Romanesque font, were the words: Forum Mirabilis.

‘Think it’s some sort of vamp chat room?’

‘I dinna ken yet, doll. Mirabilis means “Amazing”, or “Wondrous”,’ Tavish replied, his voice still distracted. ‘And there’s nae much that’s wondrous about a chatroom. Anyways, soon as I find it out, I’ll let you know.’

‘Okay, but there’s a couple of things worrying me. First up, why did the cards show a huge cat thing instead of a crayfish? That has to mean something?’

‘Hm, could be something or . . .’ A silence. ‘Could be you’re more scared of cats than crayfish?’

‘I’m not a troll, Tavish,’ I said drily, ‘and I couldn’t care one way or the other about crayfish.’

‘Well, the cards dinna always show the literal truth, she may be picking up on your subconscious fears and having herself a bit of fun—’

‘Fun!’

‘Aye, she’s a creative type, so maybe ’tis a subconscious thing from last you were scared—’

Which was ten seconds ago. When I thought of the Autarch. Which meant the thing crawling out the abyss should be a vamp.

‘—Or last saw a cat,’ Tavish finished.

‘The gnome’s,’ I said flatly. ‘The place was full of cats.’ And I’d thought of the Autarch there, too.

‘Och, well, there you go, doll. Something scared you there and the spirit’s matched it with the cats. Told you, she’s the creative type. And she can be a bit ornery at times, too’

An ornery creative type? Really? Dismay filled me. I’d rather have a pedantic-tell-it-like-it-is type answering my questions. A feeling that brought up my second, more important worry. ‘Are you sure the spirit in the tarot cards is trustworthy? That she can’t be compromised?’

He gave an exasperated snort. ‘Told you, doll. Those cards are sidhe-made.’

‘Sidhe can fudge the truth as well as anyone, Tavish. Seems weird that an out-of-town vamp, however powerful he is, who we’ve never heard of, knows how to release the fae’s fertility. I mean, what if it’s a big hoax, or some sort of trap? What if the card’s spirit is out there chatting to this Emperor vamp, or to the Autarch, and they’re cooking all this up together?’

‘She’s a spirit. She cannae talk to the living unless it’s through the cards. Only others she can talk to is like-minded spirits.’

I stared blindly at my scowling reflection, unwilling to let my ‘Bastien’ paranoia go just yet. ‘She’s like a ghost then? So a vamp could’ve got a necromancer to talk to her?’

‘Nae, doll, she’s nae so much dead as disembodied and bound to the cards.’ Tavish sigh was mildly exasperated. ‘Told you, without the cards naeone can talk to her. And right now, there’s only you can talk to her anyhows, seeing as it’s your reading she’s doing.’

Hmm. ‘What are like-minded spirits?’

‘Just that. Another spirit bound to an item, same as your blood-fruit bowl. And afore you ask, t’only way they can chat is if they’re by one another and I have the cards here with me.’

‘I thought my bowl was a magical artefact?’

‘Aye, doll, ’tis that. It uses the power of the spirit bound to it to make it magical.’

Right. Made sense now I thought about it. ‘So how do the spirits get bound to an item?’

‘Och, maybe they upset someone, or make a bad bargain. There’s nae any way to ken.’

Nasty. And probably didn’t make for a happy spirit, which my blood-fruit bowl definitely was not; no wonder it was so snarky all the time. Only it wasn’t the bowl my paranoia was panicking about, but the spirit in the tarot cards. ‘So there’s no way she could be plotting with anyone else?’

‘Doll . . .’ Another silence while Tavish obviously gathered his patience. ‘Dinna fash yerself about it. Once the reading’s done then ’twill all become clear. And ’twill nae be long before I’m into the Emperor’s website. That’ll give us more to go on.’

‘Okay, but—’

The phone went dead.

I scowled at it, wondering if it was worth calling him back, then shook my head. He knew where I was, and for all his distraction he was an invested in the outcome of the tarot reading as I was. More so, really. So I should probably let him get on with his hacking.

I double-checked the new screenshot of the Emperor’s website against the previous one. Apart from the ‘Forum Mirabilis’ bit, there was nothing new. But the tarot cards said the Emperor’s werewolves were coming for me, and never mind the ‘heads up’ theory I’d given Tavish, I’d be stupid not to prepare for the worst. No way did I want to end up howling at the moon. Only I didn’t know much more about werewolves than Tavish and Katie had told me.

Time for some research.

I grabbed a blood donation bag, hooked myself up and pushed through the Ward on the front door and out onto the landing (where thankfully, the Wards hadn’t managed to nix the electricity). Checking the Buffer spell on my laptop was clear (with all the extra security around, a thief would have a hard time getting into the building, never mind stealing the laptop. Not to mention, computers were even more susceptible than mobiles when it came to getting fried by magic; Buffer spells only give so much protection), I pulled up the online witch archives. The information on werewolves was in the public section.

I clicked on ‘Therianthropic Metamorphosis’ and started reading.

Chapter Nineteen

Therianthropes are ‘Bitten’, ‘Changed by Ritual’, or ‘Born’.

If Bitten, the bite should be done the first day of a new moon for optimum success and can only be performed by an alpha in their beast (half and half) form. The hopeful victim gets their throat ripped out (called, appropriately enough a Death Bite) and it usually takes them until the full moon to recover. If they do. Only one in ten males, and one in a hundred females, survive, apparently. Though a quick side search via Google got me enough happy pictures of New Werewolf Celebrations to think the survival rates must be better than stated.