My phone broke into my musings with something that sounded suspiciously like the theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Damn gremlins! I checked the display to see a message from Grace; she was coming round after her shift ended. I texted her back to say I was working and to let herself in, then as I caught sight of the time, everything, gremlins, ghosts, witches and blood-sucking vampires, went out of my mind. I had a job to go to; my ‘hot date with a satyr’ or rather, my boss, Finn, and if I didn’t hurry up I was going to be late.
Then my ‘date’ would be ‘hot’ for all the wrong reasons.
Chapter Two
My ‘date’ was hot; nothing to do with Finn, my boss, but entirely thanks to the gas-fired heaters in the underground tunnel. The air they blasted out was enough to raise the temperature to a level that only a fire-dragon would appreciate. But I could cope with the heat; it was the ghost part of the job that had sweat slicking down my spine.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as another ghost shuffled into view, his bloated, blackened feet scuffing along the dirt floor, sending little puffs of dust into the still air. A deep cut marred his left cheek; the bone it revealed was white and glistening. His eyes stared blankly out of sunken sockets and the end of his nose was eaten away by a huge black sore. He headed straight towards us and I counted the seconds down—three, two, one—then winced, half in sympathy, half in teeth-gritted anxiety, as he hit the wall of the protective circle in which Finn and I sat. The ghost’s lipless mouth flattened against the magic while his skeletal hands scrabbled for purchase not more than four feet in front of me. I suppressed a shudder, shifting nervously in my deckchair as he slid his way round the circle until he was back on route and shambling off on his way.
Sighing with relief, I touched my laptop keypad and entered the time against the ghost’s name—Scarface—on the spreadsheet, then duplicated the info on my pad, just in case. The laptop might have an extra-strength Buffer spell in the crystal stuck to its case, but I wasn’t taking any chances. All it needed was a stray bit of magic and I’d end up with one cracked crystal, one dead hard drive and an irretrievable ghost survey.
I tapped my pencil on my pad and wondered for about the hundredth time what I’d done to deserve a night sitting under London Bridge counting ghosts, especially after my frustrating run-in with Cosette. And not just any ghosts, but the ghosts of fourteenth-century plague victims. My phobia’s bad enough when the dead look relatively normal, without adding in all the stomach-roiling stuff. Not to mention we were camped out deep in the bridge’s foundations in the area known as the tombs—right on top of the plague victims’ burial pits.
Could my night get any worse?
‘That’s the fifth time he’s done that,’ I said, drawing a little Edvard Munch face, mouth wide open in a scream. ‘I was sort of hoping he’d catch on that there was something in his way by now.’
Finn looked up absently from the book he was reading—a history of London Bridge—and my heart did its usual stupid leap inside my chest. I gave it my standard lecture. Sure, Finn looked great; his handsome, clean-cut features always had plenty of females—and not a few males—drooling, never mind the broad shoulders and honed muscles that stretched his old navy T-shirt. Even his bracken-coloured horns that stood an inch or so above his hair and marked him as a satyr just added to him being a gorgeous hunk of male. But it was just a look. He was wearing his usual Glamour, one that made him appear more human, so even in his snug, washed-out jeans there was no hint of his sleek furred thighs, or the tail I knew he had. It’s just a look, nothing to get worked up about. Yeah, and I didn’t believe myself either. Not that his true form was any less gorgeous, just different—wilder, more feral. But his Glamour made things easier when dealing with humans. A bit of Otherness is tolerable, even sought after, but show too many differences between our species and monsters like prejudice and bigotry raise their ugly heads and the humans start reaching for their not-so-metaphorical pitchforks.
Damn, running into bitchy witches’ daughters and tangling with paranoid neighbours was turning me into a pessimist.
‘Who’s done what?’ Finn asked, a faint line creasing between his brows.
I sighed. Or maybe it was spending time with a hot satyr who didn’t seem to notice me any more. Previously he’d asked me out often enough that I’d wished he’d stop. Oh, not that I hadn’t wanted to say yes—maybe not for Happy Ever After, but I’d definitely wanted a chance at Happy for Now with him—but keeping my secrets meant I’d always said no. Then the Mr October thing happened. Finn had been determined to play the white knight, and in a desperate attempt to scare him off and end his sacrificial tendencies, I’d told him that saving me from the vamps was really a moot point seeing as my father was one, and my ending up back with the suckers was probably inevitable. He’d gone quiet at my confession, an expected but still painful rejection, then in the end we’d both sort of saved each other and ourselves. But afterwards, when I’d been sure I’d lose everything now he knew—my job, my home and most of my friends—he’d kept my secret, and done some smart talking for me with the Witches’ Council. But as for any sort of relationship other than work, knowing about that half of my parentage seemed to have been the kiss of death. Not that I didn’t understand why.
The old adage of being careful what you wish for was never so true.
Or so disheartening.
‘Gen, who’s done what?’ Finn repeated the question, his moss-green eyes losing their vagueness.
‘Scarface just passed by.’ I pointed my pencil at the ghost disappearing into the distance down the tunnel nearest to Finn, one of a row that led off at right angles from the one we were in, areas between the foundation supports once used for storage, until they’d started to dig the place up and turn it into a tourist exhibition. We sat at one of the T-junctions facing each other, watching for ghosts from all directions. ‘He bumped into the circle again,’ I added, pleased my voice came out steady.
Finn cast a professional eye over the eight-foot circle. He’d drawn it—literally and magically—in the clearest part of the site, using salt for binding, shredded yew to keep out the dead and sage for clarity and protection. When I looked I could see it enclosing us like a huge bubble—not a comforting thought when bony fingers kept poking at it.
‘Hell’s thorns, Gen, the circle’s fine,’ he said, pushing a hand through his dark blond hair and scratching behind his left horn in faint exasperation. ‘It’ll take more than a couple of knocks from a ghost to break.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I lifted up the laptop to give my jeans a chance to cool down and balanced it on the chair’s frame. It wasn’t just the circle, though; I felt like I wanted to warn Scarface or something, tell him to walk round the side.
Finn gave me a reassuring smile, teeth white against his tanned skin. ‘I know you’re worried, but just try and relax, okay?’
‘Sure,’ I agreed, and he went back to his reading.
Except relaxing wasn’t an option, not with the sweat still itching down my spine. So instead I stared down the brightly lit tunnels, watching for the next ghostly spectre, telling myself yet again it was irrational to be scared. Scarface was just a soul-memory trapped by a traumatic death, stuck on replay like a faulty DVD, nothing more. If he’d ever felt anything like fear or panic, or wanted anything from the living, those feelings were long gone. I flashed back to Cosette waiting for me in the rain. Despite her wounds, she was angry, not frightened or distressed. Damn, I really needed to find out what she wanted. My phone call to Constable Taegrin had been a part success; he’d been happy to chat to Mr Travers about polishing tips, but his voice had turned disapproving when I’d mentioned my ghost problem and asked about necromancers. He’d not refused outright, but I wasn’t pinning my hopes on him. I thought about asking Finn if he knew any necros, then decided against it. Cosette wasn’t work, and Finn was snowed under seeing as he’d only recently taken over the franchise and become the boss for real. The laptop flipped over to the screensaver—Spellcrackers.com ~ Making Magic Safe—and tired of balancing it on the chair, I leaned over to settle it on my backpack.