‘Of course not, Genny.’ She patted her chest. ‘I want you to save my soul from the demon too, but I appreciate you might not feel as charitable towards me as some of the innocents in there—look on them as an added incentive. Oh, and just to make it perfectly clear, Hannah intends giving your soul to the demon as well, in return for making her soul in your body a permanent transfer.’
‘Of course she does,’ I muttered. ‘So tell me about these connections.’
She waved her small arm at me. ‘Look and you will see.’
Great. More cryptic clues—
But as I looked, I realised I could still look, that I could still see the magic, and both my own body and Cosette’s were as transparent as a heat shimmer. Queasiness roiled in my stomach. I closed my eyes briefly, regaining my equilibrium, then looked again. This time I could see two ethereal threads attached to my ghostly form; the first was the black silken rope which dangled from my left arm, the rope I’d seen before, when Malik’s sword-trick at the Blue Heart had thrown me back into the nightmare of my memories. The other was a fine red thread joined to the knuckles of my left hand.
‘How do they—?’
A loud buzzing shattered the quiet as one of Doctor Joseph’s machines leapt to life.
‘Yes, it worked,’ Janet yelled loudly, and slapped Joseph on the arm. ‘C’mon, help me get it off her. You take the legs.’ She yanked at Hannah’s old body, jumping out of the way as it rolled and hit the floor with a loud smack, sounding like nothing so much as a side of meat. Joseph froze, his eyes wide above his face-mask, staring down at the blood-covered corpse.
Janet walked round and gave him a little shove. ‘C’mon, Doc, get on and do your stuff,’ she ordered.
Hands shaking, he trundled the small trolley nearer and reached for a swab. He cleaned the blood off my body’s left breast, then lifted what looked like an elephant-sized hypodermic. He held it up and pushed the syringe plunger until a bead of clear liquid appeared, then tapped the syringe until, finally appearing satisfied with his preparations, he felt along my ribs, and positioned the needle. He hesitated, and I could see his eyes blinking behind his glasses, then he pushed down hard until the needle was up to the hilt in my flesh. Then he injected the liquid.
‘Do you think that’s going to be enough?’ Janet hovered over him.
‘I’ve given her enough adrenalin to get a horse started; it’s almost three times what she needs for the body weight,’ he said quietly as he withdrew the needle and swabbed again. ‘It’s the equivalent of a massive build-up of venom, which is what I think brought her—it—the body round last time.’
We all stood and watched my body.
‘Give her another—’
My body’s spine arched and my arms and legs started spasming as if plugged into a live electrical socket. The machine beeped into life and numbers flashed red and began rising fast, and faster. My body opened its eyes; my mouth formed a wide, overjoyed grin and jerked upright.
‘Oh my goodness,’ my mouth yelled delightedly, ‘it worked, it really worked!’ My body lifted its hand and muttered and a ball of light glowed like the sun in its palm; my body threw it up and blew it a kiss. The light shattered into rainbow colours that rained down like a spring shower. ‘Oh, the power! It’s like driving a Ferrari instead of a cranky old rustbucket!’
Fuck. And I didn’t even know how to ride a bike.
I rubbed my hands over my face. I needed to work out how to get out of this, and I needed to get my own body back—before the demon appeared to claim all those poor souls, and mine—I clamped down on the terror that thinking of the demon brought and shoved it away. I looked up as my body threw another spell in the air and it showered me/it/Hannah with coloured light; and filled me with freaky confusion.
Okay, now I needed to think of my body as Hannah’s.
‘Get this stuff off me,’ Hannah said, flicking at the electrodes stuck to her chest. Doctor Joseph worked quickly, removing both the electrodes and the cap of wires that hatted her head. As soon as he was done, she fastened the gold locket around her neck.
‘Wow!’ she said, smiling at Janet. ‘You know what? I feel wonderful’—she held out her hand; it was shaking—‘if a bit quivery.’ She swung her legs off the altar and slid to the ground, reaching out to grab hold of Janet’s arm as she wobbled. ‘Time waits for no woman, or in my case, no sidhe fae. Shower first, then tidy up that mess you left at Granny’s. After that I’ll pay a visit to the bank. I still need to get the Fabergé egg.’
‘What’s the Fabergé egg for?’ I asked Cosette.
‘The egg’s a soul trap. Without it she can’t collect all those souls she’s gathered and hand them safely over to the demon, and that means the demon will take her own soul instead as payment.’
Ri-ight. So pretty much as Hannah had explained, except without the oh-so-relevant specifics.
‘What do you mean, tidy up round at Granny’s?’ Janet asked, her voice petulant. She popped another liquorice torpedo into her mouth.
Hannah gave her a disbelieving look. ‘Well, there’s Granny’s body for one, and that wood shaving mess in the hallway. The police will have found it all by now, won’t they.’
‘I s’pose so—but won’t the sidhe slut get the blame?’
‘Janet, little sister, I am the sidhe now—and if you ever call me a slut again—’ Hannah gave her a warning look. ‘And unfortunately, my stool-pigeon has flown the nest, thanks to you.’ She waved an imperious hand at Joseph. ‘Doctor, please shoot her and put her out of her misery.’
‘Shoot me?’ Janet’s mouth fell open as Joseph turned round, picked up his tranq gun and, without hesitating, aimed, then shot Janet in her ample chest—
She looked down, her eyes round with surprise. ‘But—?’ She dropped her sweeties.
‘Damage limitation, little sister dear,’ Hannah said briskly. ‘Someone’s got to get the police off my back, and since you’re actually guilty, you might as well take the blame for the baker’s, the boy’s and Granny’s deaths.’
Janet’s eyes fluttered, then she did a tree-topple and thudded to the floor.
‘Is Janet really her sister?’ I asked Cosette, stunned.
Cosette nodded.
Talk about dysfunctional families.
Hannah prodded the unconscious woman with her foot. ‘Don’t worry, if all goes well, I’ll try and get you out before they burn you at the stake.’ She looked up at Joseph. ‘Don’t just stand there; tie her up or something. You should enjoy that; after all, isn’t that what you like to do at that little club you go to?’
He pushed his glasses up his nose, lifted the tranq gun and pointed it at her.
‘Don’t be silly, Doctor,’ she sighed. ‘Just put it down, otherwise that DVD of you cavorting about in all that tacky leather and chains could still accidentally find its way onto the internet ...’
He did as he was told, his hand trembling.
‘You should be glad, you’re going to be labelled a hero for rescuing me from the dangerous sorcerer’s clutches.’ She smiled. ‘Which is much better than being labelled a pervert, isn’t it?’
His cheeks flushed with either anger or embarrassment and I remembered all the ‘clothes’ in his mirrored wardrobes—the ones he’d said belonged to a friend!
‘Compulsion spell tied to a nice bit of blackmail,’ Cosette muttered as Joseph pulled out the cord from Hannah’s discarded robe and started to tie Janet up. ‘She always was rather good at that.’
‘I see you started without me.’ A man strolled out of the gloom, his sun-streaked, gelled hair and well-trimmed van Dyke glinting blond in the candlelight, a red Souler cross pinned to the lapel of his smart grey suit. Neil Banner. Not totally surprising considering their supposedly separate but similar quests for the Fabergé egg. I wondered whether they were an established item, or if the egg had only recently made them soul-stealing mates. Not that it made any difference.