‘I’d kind of got that by the fact she’s murdered someone,’ I said drily.
‘She may not realise she has done so.’ The tips of Grianne’s ears twitched. ‘It is important you take care that she is not harmed.’
‘Fine. The information, Grianne.’
‘It is in your pocket, child.’ She turned, the air wavered about her, she dropped to all four doggy paws and bounded off, nails clicking sharply along the street.
‘Make an exit, why don’t you?’ I muttered, pulling out a folded sheet of parchment from my jacket pocket. Opening it, I glanced at the name—
—and sighed. Helen Crane, a.k.a Detective Inspector Helen Crane, Head of the Metropolitan Magic Murder Squad, the person in charge of hunting me down for a murder I didn’t commit.
Crap. Could my day get any worse?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Helen Crane’s blood had been used to open a gate between London and the Fair Lands, a gate that led to her child—a child she’d given to the sidhe. A changeling, then. What was I supposed to do, ring her up and say, ‘Hi, Helen, I know we’re not best buddies or anything, but hey, just heard you’ve got a long-lost kid, one that’s off in the Fair Lands, and guess what? Someone’s using your blood connection to let the murderer come through—any ideas who that might be?’
And I could just imagine the superior look on her beautiful, patrician face as she replied, ‘Well, that’s very interesting, Ms Taylor, but isn’t this the murder we suspect you’re responsible for? The one I’m investigating? And not that it’s relevant, but don’t you think I’d know if someone had used my blood?’
Damn. Whichever way I looked at this, it didn’t get any better.
Helen liked me even less than Grianne did, and she had even less incentive to listen to me, thanks to our butting heads over Finn—her ex ... and if anyone would know about DI Helen Crane’s long-lost child, her ex should. Okay, so they’d only had a broom marriage, but even so, seven years and seven days isn’t exactly ships passing. Asking Finn what he knew about it was a way better option that trying to beard a powerful witch in her police den at Old Scotland Yard. Not to mention I’d been planning on seeing him as soon as anyway.
‘ Genevieve!’
I jerked my head up at the sound of my name and scanned my surroundings. The street was empty, other than the three costumed actors outside the London Bridge Experience. Beyond them, thirty-odd feet away, was Tavish’s doorway, still propped open for my return, but Tavish hadn’t appeared there, and no one else was near it. I did a quick circle, checking out the steps leading up to the bridge above, and squinting at the bridge parapet—
‘ Genevieve,’ the voice came again—
—from the direction of the actors. I frowned at them. The two women were engrossed in their gossiping, but the man was standing off to one side. As I looked, he started shuffling towards me, dragging his feet over the ground. I froze like the proverbial rabbit, pulse jumping in my throat, staring at the sunken eye sockets, the nose eaten away by a sore, the deep cut marring his left cheek ... and as he got closer, I caught the rotten smell of putrefying flesh. The hairs at the nape of my neck lifted in shock. He wasn’t staff; he wasn’t an actor playing the part of a plague victim, but the real thing: Scarface, the ghost who’d kept bumping into Finn’s magic circle.
Adrenalin finally broke through my fear and I started sprinting for Tavish’s doorway on the other side of the bridge.
Scarface jerked and shuffled faster, changing his course to cut me off.
The world narrowed to the gap between ghost and wall.
The women looked up in surprise.
The gap got smaller.
An arm stretched out for me—
A scream lodged in my throat—
—and then I was past him, my lungs burning, nearly there—
—and my foot caught the kerb, sending me sprawling. Sharp grit cut into my palms and my jeans-clad knees. Skeletal fingers snapped at my ankles. I cried out and kicked back, my feet sinking into something soft and fleshy, then I struggled to my feet and, staggering, started running again, crouched over, not daring to look behind me, desperate to reach the doorway and safety. I hit the opening at full pelt and felt the magic resisting me like sticky syrup as bony fingers raked down my back. I screamed again, threw myself forward, not caring for anything except getting away, grabbing for something, anything, to stop him dragging me back ...
I smashed into a hard body and familiar arms wrapped around me, pulling me through, leaving the clawing fingers behind. I huddled against him, hiccoughing and trembling with adrenalin and fear.
‘Sssh,’ he murmured, his breath a soothing warmth over the top of my head as his familiar berry scent curled into me and his reassuring hands stroked my back. ‘It’s okay, Gen, I’ve got you,’ and I felt his lips touch my hair.
I pressed closer to him, instinctively seeking the comfort he was offering, and slipped my arms around his waist, tucking my face into the warm hollow of his neck. He tensed, a brief moment of wariness, then it was gone and I felt his heart beating calm and steady next to my own more frantic thump-thump. His heat seeped into me, calming my trembling. Part of me thought about moving out of his embrace, but I wanted to be there, wanted him to hold me, wanted to be held because I was me, not because I was sidhe, not because of my blood, not because I might break a curse, not because of anything.
A tear rolled down my cheek and I blinked, then before I could stop it another followed it, and another. I started to pull away, squeezing my eyes tight, my cheeks burning with the hot prickle of shame at giving into my stupid, unreasonable fear, but his arms tightened even more.
‘No, Gen,’ Finn said quietly, ‘let me hold you.’
I stayed, letting him hold me, letting the tears fall and listening to the steady beat of his heart while his hands gentled my back and his scent surrounded me. Gradually the tears stopped, and this time when I pulled away he let me, his hands up sliding to rest on my shoulders.
I rubbed my eyes and face and gave him a rueful smile as I briefly touched his damp shirt where it lay open at his throat. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to leak all over you.’
‘Hey, I’m happy to be leaked on.’ He lifted my hands and turned them over, frowning at the almost healed cuts and grazes on both my palms. ‘Want to tell me what’s the matter?’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said, slowly pulling my hands from his. ‘A ghost spooked me and—Well, you know ... that’s all.’
‘Don’t, Gen,’ he said, moss-green eyes dark and serious. ‘Don’t brush off what just happened. Talk to me.’
Talk to him?Okay, that was what I’d told Grace I’d do, wasn’t it? And while I’d talked to him at Tavish’s, it had been about what had happened to me, and not about whatever our relationship was or wasn’t ... only knowing about the curse sort of changed things on the relationshipfront ... I looked around to see where I was. Pale wood and chrome furniture, sand-coloured carpet, a view out of the window over the cobbled expanse of Covent Garden between the Apple Market and St Paul’s Church: Finn’s office at Spellcrackers.com.
‘I’m not sure what to say,’ I said finally, crossing my arms. ‘Other than I’m tired. I had a hell of a night, on top of all this murder business there’s the droch guidhe, then this ghost jumps me and instead of behaving like a rational person, I do the frightened idiot act and run.’
‘Straight to me,’ he said softly.
Oh— Oh, that didn’t sound good. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed being held, or that I didn’t want him, but surely he couldn’t think that now the curse was out in the open—or rather, hanging around like an eager invisible matchmaker—that one little embrace meant I was going to choose him, could he? Didn’t he realise that right now I was even less sure about where I stood with him than I’d ever been before? That I needed time to sort things out in my head?