He grabbed his phone, pressed a button and clamped it to his ear. After a few seconds, he asked, ‘Helen, when was the last time you used blood in a spell?’
I pressed my lips together; nice to see his ex was on speed-dial, and that she answered him almost faster than the speed of light.
‘No, I need the answer first, then I’ll tell you.’ He snagged a pen and pulled his pad towards him. ‘That was the Seek-Out spell you did at Old Scotland Yard, wasn’t it? And before that?’ He listened. ‘More than a month ago, right. And what about the Witches’ Council Blood Bank?’
I raised my eyebrows. The council kept a Blood Bank for spells?
‘Okay.’ His face turned thoughtful. ‘Who would have access to it?’ He scribbled a couple of names on the pad in front of him. ‘Yes.’ He met my gaze briefly and admitted, ‘She’s with me.’
Damn, he just had to tell her, didn’t he? On the other hand, he couldn’t lie outright, and if he’d been evasive she’d have twigged.
‘No, I will not—and neither will you, not until after I ring you back, okay?’ His knuckles whitened as he gripped his pen. ‘Helen, it’s to do with what happened in the past, with the changeling.’ Another longer pause, then, ‘Five minutes, no more, and I’ll phone you back.’
He thumbed the phone off and looked at me, his eyes unreadable. ‘She says there’s no blood stored at the police station; they use it too infrequently. They call in a police doctor as and when they need it. So there’s no possibility of anyone stealing it from there.’
‘And the witches’ Blood Bank?’
‘The council takes donations from all working witches for use in the more complicated spells; it’s easier than trying to get them all together at casting time. Helen gives once a month.’
I could see the benefits. Most Witches’ Council spells took a whole coven—thirteen witches—which was why they were so damned expensive. ‘When did she last donate?’ I asked.
He tapped his pen. ‘A week ago yesterday.’
Yes! Now we were getting somewhere. I jerked my head towards the scribbles in front of him. ‘Who’s got access?’
He flipped the pad round to face me. ‘These three are the administrators.’
I didn’t recognise the first two, but the third—‘Sandra Wilcox is one of my neighbours.’
‘I know, and she’s also a highly respected member of the Witches’ Council, and not only that, she’s over eighty years old. Somehow I can’t see her stealing blood and persuading a sidhe to kill someone.’
‘She’s also a paranoid old witch who’s been campaigning like mad for the last month to get me evicted. Can Helen check and see if her blood’s still there?’
‘It won’t be. Blood is destroyed if it’s not used within five days. It loses its potency.’
‘Destroyed by the administrators, no doubt,’ I said drily. ‘So the old witch could’ve used it and no one would be any the wiser.’ I stood. ‘I’m going over there to find out what she knows.’
‘Gen, I’m really not sure that’s a good idea. Let me fill Helen in and she can arrange to talk to her.’
‘C’mon, Finn,’ I sighed, ‘no way am I going to let my fate hang on two witches, not when both of them are fully-paid-up members of the Get Rid of the Sidhe Club. And Helen’s got every reason to keep this under wraps, ’cause she’s hardly likely to want giving up her child to the sidhe to become public knowledge, is she?’
‘Helen will do her job—’
‘Phone her then, Finn, if that’s what you want. I know you have faith in her. But I don’t, so I’m going over there now, and if that means a whole division of police turn up, so much the better. That way there’ll be no sweeping things under the carpet.’
I turned on my heel and left.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Five days isn’t a long time to be away from home, but I’d missed it. Shoving that less-than-cheerful thought aside, I looked, and looked, around the communal hallway and up the stairs, checking for any new spells that might be lying in wait. Nothing. I pushed the main door shut without activating the Ward; the police needed to get in, after all. Taking a deep breath, I inhaled beeswax and faint musty earth—the scents of the goblin cleaner and Mr Travers, my landlord—almost buried beneath the less pleasant reek of Witch Wilcox’s garlic and bleach-laced Back-off spell: garlic for vamps, bleach for fae, so Tavish had told me.
The spell was going to be a problem. How was I supposed to knock on the old witch’s door if I couldn’t get near it? Still, determination had to count for something. And if the sidhe was with her, better I got her back to Grianne before the police turned up, even if it meant I’d probably spend the next few days sitting in a cell waiting for Grianne’s queen to sort it all.
I ran quietly up the stairs and stopped a couple of steps shy of the third-floor landing and lookedagain.
Sure enough, the anemone spell’s violet-coloured tentacles undulated over the landing. As I studied it, the dark gaping mouth in the centre of the anemone thing puckered up to a small round hole and then expanded, blowing me something that looked disturbingly like a kiss. Damn! The spell had been hanging around long enough to develop a sense of humour! I really hated it when the magic did that—I usually ended up being the butt of its jokes.
‘Well, if it isn’t the little sex-deprived bean sidhe,’ a rough voice drawled. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to turn up. Got ourselves a nice little party all planned.’
Adrenalin flooded my body as I looked up towards the voice. A male, a purple bandana tied round his clipped head, was leaning over the banister; he was the dryad who’d chased me from outside The Clink museum: Bandana. He grinned, revealing teeth stained brown from bark-chews, his eyes glinting the anaemic yellow of dying autumn leaves.
I went for the important question, keeping my voice light and slightly bored. ‘Who’s invited to this party then?’
‘A couple of close friends.’ He rubbed his jaw, leaving streaks of pale green where he’d scratched away his surface skin. Then he leaned further out, looking down through the narrow gap that separated the stairs from the landing. ‘I think you might have met them in passing.’
I looked down quickly. The lanky turban-headed dryad was making his way up towards me, his red turban bobbing with each long stride, and following him was a straw Panama above a pair of wide pinstripe-suited shoulders. Yep, friends all right; though not mine, obviously. Panama stopped to catch his breath, then squinted up.
‘Hi.’ He gave me a fat-fingered wave. ‘Nowhere for you to run to now, bean sidhe,’ he said, much too happily. ‘I liked the blonde bimbo look better, but then, this isn’t about looks, is it?’
‘Not where you’re concerned, Shorty,’ I said sweetly.
His face screwed up in anger and he started thudding up the stairs again. Red Turban hooked a long arm round Shorty’s stocky neck and yanked him to a halt. ‘Cool it,’ he said in a surprisingly high voice. ‘The bean sidheis not to be damaged, remember.’
Good to know they planned to pull their punches. Shame for them I had no intention of reciprocating the go-easy policy.
Red Turban released Shorty and looked up at me, his expression cold. Then he patted Shorty on the back and said, ‘I can show you plenty of other ways to get maximum enjoyment out of her body, whatever it looks like.’
Not if I can help it, you won’t!I thought, determined. Red Turban’s twin popped his blue-turbaned head over the banister above me and gave me an equally cold stare. Ambushed! How lucky was I? Then another dryad—this one in a yellow beanie hat—sneered as he hung over the banister next to Blue Turban and Bandana. So, five of them in total.
A low rustle, like leaves shifting in the wind, filled the stairwell. Crap, now they were talking together—not that I needed to understand what they were saying to work out their objective, not when they’d got me cornered and outnumbered.