My heart sank. The Witch-bitch herself had arrived. Just what we didn’t need.
I turned to see her striding through the entrance of the mortuary, tall and slender, with her blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun: the fortysomething icon for witches and the police force both. She was beautiful, even with her patrician features harsh with anger. And as usual she was blinged-up like a goblin queen, the spells stored about her jewellery-bedecked person flashing and sparking in my sight like fireworks at a trolls’ New Moon party.
I briefly closed my eyes to disperse the afterimage burned on my retinas and wondered sourly why she couldn’t have turned up half an hour later. Now we were going to have to convince her to let me check out the dead girl, a much tougher proposition than the nice fait accompli Hugh and I had been hoping for.
‘I gave strict orders to the effect that Ms Taylor’s particular talents’—the vitriol in the inspector’s voice made it clear it wasn’t my talent with magic she was alluding to—‘were not required in this case, Sergeant Munro.’ She halted, ramrod-straight, and stood far enough back that she didn’t give the impression she had to look up to Hugh; a stance she’d perfected dealing with the trolls who worked for her. ‘Please remove her from my crime scene before I have her arrested for obstruction.’
‘I’m not the one doing the obstructing, though, am I?’ I murmured, annoyed at her attitude, even though I hadn’t expected anything more from her.
Hugh moved so he was between us. ‘Ma’am, the victim is tagged with a Glamour spell; it’s possible she may not be human—’
‘I am fully aware of that, Sergeant, which is why I have arranged for a full coven chapter to remove the spells without damaging them. They are evidence, after all, and will need to be investigated. If—and I stress the word “if ”—the victim is determined “not human” after the safe removal of the spells, then I shall, of course, inform the appropriate persons within the fae communities.’
‘The coven won’t be able to get here for a good couple of hours, ma’am, and the spells have been in running water,’ Hugh said in a neutral tone, glossing over the fact that his boss had just admitted to keeping him out of the picture. ‘It’s likely that they will deteriorate before the coven arrives. Ms Taylor can remove them now.’
‘Sergeant, your concern is noted, but we will follow procedure on this. Please ensure Ms Taylor leaves.’
Angry at the way she was treating Hugh and the dead girl, and determined not to let her get away with stonewalling any longer, whatever her reason—and angry just because she was her—I stepped round Hugh and placed myself firmly in front of her, close enough to get into her personal space, close enough to smell her expensive floral perfume and close enough that the spell in her huge sapphire pendant shone like a captive star beneath the pale blue of her blouse, even without using my sight. What the hell was the spell she had stored in it? Oh yeah, something to do with protection from vampires. She had a phobia about them—a phobia that had nearly got me munched on the first time we’d met. Which was the Witch-bitch’s standard operating procedure when it came to me.
I held up my company ID card. ‘Inspector Crane, I know we don’t see eye to eye’—a hell of a clichéd understatement, despite the fact I was looking right into the Witch-bitch’s own cold baby blues—‘but you know I work for Spellcrackers.com. As a company we’ve done consultancy work for the police before. You yourself have even employed us’—okay so she’d never actually employed me, just Finn: my boss, her ex-husband, and now my sort of … well, Finn’s and my relationship is still in a stand-off position, what with the fertility curse hanging round like an over-eager matchmaking mama—‘so maybe I should stress that the “following procedure” excuse doesn’t wash.’
‘Ms Taylor—’ She paused, visibly composing herself. ‘By the time I get approval to pay your fee, the coven chapter will have been and gone.’
As excuses go, it wasn’t even as good as the ‘following procedure’ one. I flapped my ID card and trotted out a flat version of my usual work spieclass="underline" ‘Spellcrackers.com ~ making magic safe ~ Guaranteed. If you’re not satisfied with the results, then don’t pay.’
Personally I couldn’t care less whether she paid me or not; not only was removing the spells costing me nothing but my own time, since this was my day off, but this wasn’t about money. This was about the curse. And if this poor girl’s death had anything to do with it, then I wanted— no, I needed to know. No way was DI Crane going to sideline me this time.
‘You’re well aware of the Spellcrackers.com guarantee,’ I said. ‘Not to mention my time’s going to be a lot cheaper than a chapter of coven witches—surely your budget approval people can’t complain at that,’ I finished sweetly.
‘It’s too dangerous.’ Her lips thinned. ‘The body could well be magically booby-trapped.’
I laughed. She was getting desperate now. ‘Ple-ease don’t tell me you’re worried about me, Inspector?’ I leaned in closer still and lowered my voice. ‘You and I both know that there’re only the two active spells on the girl’s body, but even if we’ve both missed something … well, it’s not like you’ve ever been concerned about my wellbeing before’—which was why she’d turned up too late at Hallowe’en, and why Grace was dead— No, don’t think about that now—‘in fact quite the opposite,’ I carried on in the same low voice. ‘So I would have thought you’d jump at the chance to leave me in harm’s way. Again.’
Consideration flickered in her cool blue eyes and for a moment I thought I’d won. Then her expression smoothed over and she stepped back. ‘All very persuasive, Ms Taylor, but it is well known that you are unable to cast the simplest spell. Therefore I find I am not confident in your abilities to consider you as a suitable consultant … in this case.’
I decided that if she ever did employ me to remove a spell for her, I’d make damn sure she hadn’t tampered with it first. But she was right, my spellcasting abilities are nonexistent, despite me being made from magic—the magic’s own little joke on me, I guess. Not that I was going to let her use my handicap to her advantage.
‘This isn’t about casting spells but removing them,’ I said, ‘and that I can do. I can even offer you a free demonstration.’ I held out my hand towards Constable Martin, still standing to one side, her gaze carefully averted as she no doubt wished she was anywhere else but here. I focused on the firefly-green of the Stun spell in her baton. I called it— Shit! Too fast! The spell barrelled at me like a shining green bullet and I had a moment’s panic that I wouldn’t be able to catch it before it hit. I gritted my teeth as it skidded to a halt above my palm, millimetres above my skin, and started spinning like a drunken top.
I held it up, hiding a mixture of relief and triumph. ‘One Stun spell, Inspector.’ I smiled, ignoring the creeping numbness spreading over my palm. ‘Now, I can absorb it whole’—hopefully without knocking myself out, but hey, I wasn’t going to tell her that—‘or I can crack it’—not an option she’d choose; it was way too expensive a spell to be blasted back into the ether—‘or I can attach it to whatever you want.’
I tossed it lightly in the air, praying I didn’t fumble the catch. I tilted my head in question and bared my teeth in a smile. ‘So where would you like me to put it?’
Hugh rumbled a cautionary warning behind me.
DI Crane clenched her hands, her multitude of rings—a lesser person might call them substitute knuckle-dusters—clinking in fury. ‘That spell is police property, Ms Taylor. Return it to Constable Martin’s baton immediately.’