I swallowed, and the bitterness ran like sour juice down my throat, until it hit my stomach—

And I disappeared into a furnace of remembered pain.

Chapter Fifteen

There was a banging noise in my head; it meant something … The noise rolled around my mind like waves breaking on a shore, loud and close, then fading away … A rank butcher’s shop smell of spoiled blood wrinkled my nose. And the noise came back, this time shrieking like a storm wind battering through the trees. I half-opened my eyes and peered in confusion at the scattered pile of books next to me, and at my kitchen area beyond them. Why was I lying on the floor in my flat? Quiet footsteps tapped and scuffed on wood …

Memory caught up with consciousness and hit me like a Beater goblin’s baseball bat— The baby. I curled into a ball, protectively hugging my stomach, a whimper of terror escaping from my mouth … then, as I felt my belt buckle dig in at my waist and registered the absence of actual pain, reality began to reassert itself. Pulse leaping with frantic hope, I ran my hands over my body, checking, and finally lay back and stared blindly at my beaded chandelier in heartfelt relief.

I wasn’ t pregnant, and I hadn’t lost a child.

And if there was no child—what the fuck was the whole Ellen Ripley/ Alienbaby show all about?

The quiet footsteps stopped and something white blurred my view of the ceiling.

‘Fiddlesticks! Mother’s going to snap my twigs off if you’re broken,’ an annoyed voice muttered.

I squinted at a pair of feet in strappy silver sandals standing in the congealing blood next to my face: one heel was broken and half the pink-painted toenails were chipped. The feminine feet didn’t look threatening—but looks aren’t what matter; whoever it was had forced their way through my protective Wards, so chipped pink toenails or not, they could probably take me. My gaze skimmed over the shoes, past the thin ankles and up the slim, badly scratched legs that disappeared into white stretchy shorts. I stopped at the tattered edge of a pink and white flowered skirt that tented above me. Something about the way the material flared up was odd … like there should be an up-breeze to go with the movement. Then the skirt’s owner flattened the material as she bent down to study me, her bright eyes shining like polished green conkers, her lack of eyebrows giving her face an unfinished look. A scratched pink cycle helmet perched askew on her clipped scalp, the broken strap dangling by her left cheek.

Another dryad—and going by the eyes, I’d say it was Sylvia, Lady Isabella’s own daughter. Last time we’d met she’d tried to kidnap me.

This time I suspected her intentions were ‘friendlier’, as in ‘Nominated Go-Between’ … I really hoped so; I wasn’t sure I was up to dealing with much else right now.

‘Are you hurt, Ms Taylor?’ she shrieked, giving my shoulder a hard poke.

I winced at the noise— did she think I was deaf or something?—and smacked her hand away. ‘Not as much as you’re going to be if you touch me again. And hel- lo’—I pointed at my face—‘eyes open here?’

‘Just because your eyes are open doesn’t mean you’re awake, or even alive.’ She straightened, hands keeping the skirt under control.

‘I was moving! Dead people don’t move.’ Not usually anyway.

‘You were convulsing,’ she stated. ‘It’s not the same as moving. And you’re covered in blood.’

‘Lamb’s blood,’ I muttered, irritatedly eyeing the flattened Rosy Lea Café takeaway cup and my uncomfortable, blood-drenched jeans. Note to self: next time someone sics an Alien-inspired illusion spell on you, put the cup of blood down first. ‘It was dinner,’ I added with a sigh.

She tilted her head enquiringly to one side. ‘Are you going to lick it off the floor?’

Eew!‘No!’

‘Oh,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘Well, anyway, you should be grateful I was here to save you.’

Save me! What the—?I grimaced; was she channelling her graft-brother Bandana or something? And lying on the floor looking up her skirt was getting old, and as I didn’t appear to be suffering any ill-effects of whatever magic Tavish’s new mistress—or whoever the hell she was—had treated me to, I got to my feet.

‘Listen up, Sylvia’—I poked hershoulder, hard enough to rock her back on her broken heel—‘even if you did rush to my rescue, which is debatable, you’re a dryad, so you’ll have a long wait before I’m indebted to you or any of your pals.’

‘Gosh, you really are an ungrateful sort, aren’t you?’ she pouted, rubbing her shoulder.

‘C’mon, drop the injured act, Sylvia. It’s really not going to get you anywhere.’ I stuck my hands on my hips. ‘Ri- ight, let’s get a few things straight: this is my home, and you’re an uninvited guest, so you can start off with how you managed to get in, before Istart snapping off your twigs.’ Not that I actually knew where her tree was, but—

‘There’s no need to be like that.’ She made a little moue of disdain and fluffed out her flowery skirt—which I now realised was actually a fifties-style dress, one more suited to a summer heatwave than a cold spring day, since the halter top only just covered her ‘Hello, boys!’ cleavage. The top also didn’t hide the cuts and scratches marking her bare skin, the ones she was now examining intently.

‘I’m waiting,’ I said.

‘Oh, well.’ She gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I wanted to see you, but none of your neighbours would buzz me in; they all said I’d have to phone you,’ she said, holding out her hand. A small compact mirror appeared in it. She opened the compact and adjusted her helmet. ‘I mean, can you believeit?’

Actually, I could. My witch neighbours might not be overjoyed to have me still living in the building, but after the events leading up to All Hallows’ Eve, they’d beefed up security.

‘I tried phoning, but you weren’t answering, and I knew you were here because the trees outside told me you’d come home. Then I remembered the old escape ladder at the back of your building that leads to the flat roof.’ She waved the compact vaguely at my bedroom. ‘I did intend to knock, until I saw you convulsing on the floor.’ She snapped the compact shut. ‘Your Ward caused me a bit of bother, though. Good thing the window frame is wood and not one of those horrid plastic ones, otherwise I’d never have got in.’ She held out her scratched arms and chewed her bottom lip. ‘It’s going to take a while to mend the damage though.’

I lookedthrough my bedroom doorway—now reassuringly back to being the entrance to my own room and not to Tavish’s shadowed bedroom in the Fair Lands. The bottom half of the sash window was raised up—so at least Sylvia hadn’t broken through the physical window—and still framed in the opening was the sheet of metaphysical blue glass—the Ward—which now had a cartoon starburst of a break in its centre. Damn.That was going to cost me. But while I was updating the Ward, I might as well do the sensible thing and get one that denied entry to everyone, since Sylvia, Tavish and Lizard Lady were probably just the start of my uninvited guests. Anxiety constricted my chest. Tavish is a centuries-old wylde fae, and let’s face it, no one gets to live that long if they’re stupid and easily trapped, so the Lizard Lady, whoever she was, had to be über-powerful, which didn’t bode well for Tavish. But then again, Tavish could be slippier than a whole nest of eels when he wanted, so his whole ‘nae longer my ain master’ tip-off might not be as troublesome to him as it appeared. Not that there was anything I could do to help him right now—

‘Ooh, have you seen this?’ Sylvia flapped a magazine— Witch Weekly—in my face. The front cover had a picture of a pretty teenage witch holding a cocktail and sitting in a jacuzzi with half a dozen older guys. The headline read: