Anxiety itched down my spine. The last time another sidhe had come to London I’d ended up on the run for murder. Of course, Witch-bitch Helen Crane had been in charge then, not Hugh. But—
‘To be honest, Hugh, another sidhe hanging around isn’t too likely. The gates to the Fair Lands are still sealed shut and the fae aren’t taking any chances where Clíona’ – a.k.a. my not-so-dear sidhe queen grandmother – ‘is concerned. They don’t want her getting her hands back on the Fertility pendant.’
‘But it could be possible?’ Hugh insisted.
‘I suppose so,’ I admitted. ‘Tavish would know for certain. I can ask him, if he’s around.’ I explained about Tavish going AWOL last night.
‘I’d appreciate it, Genny.’
I flipped open my phone, turned towards the windows to shade the screen from the sun, then stopped as I saw the tigers had appeared from their hiding place. They were both lying down, mouths slightly open in the hot sunshine, eyes half closed, obviously relaxed. Had something frightened them away? Something to do with the kidnap? Or was this their normal routine? As I wondered, I realised that now, unlike the unnatural silence when I’d first arrived, I could hear the background noise of animals out in the zoo. As if, like the tigers, the animals had emerged from wherever they’d been hiding. Maybe that eerie quiet had been due to whatever magic had been used to kidnap the victims.
‘Hugh?’
He looked up from his notepad. ‘Yes?’
I told him my thoughts. His ruddy face creased with interest. ‘I’ll have someone look into it. No stone unturned is always a good motto.’
I rolled my eyes at his usual mountain troll pun, then called Tavish and got his voicemail. Again. Damn. If the kelpie didn’t answer soon I was going to go round and bang on his door. I left another message, filled Hugh in, gave a statement and grabbed a lift in one of the police vans adapted for trolls back to Spellcrackers.
Where Katie told me the pixie apocalypse had hit London.
Chapter Fourteen
I hauled myself on to the huge bronze lion – one of the four in Trafalgar Square – and straddled its back haunches. The metal beneath my legs was still hot from the summer sun, despite it being early evening and the lion in shade. Sitting there, with the musical sound of the square’s fountains in the background, was almost enough to send me to sleep. Especially after the exhausting day I’d had.
The damn pixies hadn’t left another statue unmoved.
The eagle on top of the RAF monument on Victoria Embankment had taken up dive-bombing the glass-topped pleasure boats on the Thames, leaving scratches on their plastic roofs; the gold wolf’s head fountain at the Aldgate pump had been howling randomly at passers-by, resulting in one man being taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack; the griffin at Temple Bar had become an intermittent flame-thrower, leaving scorch marks on nearby buildings; the sphinx at Cleopatra’s Needle had whispered childish riddles, smacking down a heavy clawed paw whether the answers were right or wrong; Eros in Piccadilly had targeted passing double-decker buses with badly shot arrows, luckily managing to miss anything alive; and so my day had gone.
In fact, the only statues that didn’t seem to be hit by the pixie apocalypse were the pixies’ usual targets: the lions here in the square.
Apparently they’d only been two of the little blighters here all day. I’d nabbed the first quickly – it was asleep in the cat carrier ready to get shipped back to Cornwall – and now I was after the last one. Which was currently doing standing back-flips on the lion’s head, to the delight of the tourists below.
I eyed the pixie, wondering how much trouble it was going to be as I adjusted my elbow-length gloves. Made of supple swamp-dragon leather they were thick enough to protect from the pixies’ bites, but the leather’s spongy texture didn’t damage the pixies’ chitinous teeth (the problem with cowhide). I gave the gloves a good sniff, checking the honey scent of the Pix-Nap cream smeared on them was still strong enough to attract the pixie’s attention.
Thankfully the ‘sensitive nose’ I’d picked up from Mad Max’s blood had worn off by mid-afternoon. The sensory input had been relentless, distracting and, not a few times, disgusting to the point that eating had been out of the question. Mad Max must have a strong stomach, but then he was a vamp who turned into a dog so I guessed he was used to it.
Now, though, my nose seemed to have rebelled and I was having trouble smelling anything.
I rolled my shoulders and started inching along the lion’s back—
My phone vibrated, making my heart leap; it was late enough to be Malik.
I yanked a glove off, checked the display. Not Malik but Tavish.
‘Hey,’ I said, my disappointment washed away by relief that he was finally returning my calls. ‘I was about to send out a search party. What the hell happened to you?’
‘Och, doll, dinna fash yerself,’ he said in his soft burr. ‘I had a bit of sorting out to do, then I got a mite distracted by a body in the river.’
Tavish is a soul-taster. He long ago promised, under River Lore, not to Charm humans into the water but only to feed on those souls who die in the river, not that he feeds on the whole soul, only the sorrows, guilts and sins weighing it down. But the heavier the soul, the longer it takes, sometimes prolonging his victim’s dying for his own pleasure. Not that I had a problem when those souls were usually drug dealers or the like who were in the river by design, usually not their own. End up in the Thames with death staining your soul and all the kelpie’s promises are off. Whether you want to die or not, you’ve no choice but to ride into the depths with him if he finds you.
But that he’d been doing that now filled me with furious disbelief. ‘You’ve been off playing with your food while I’ve been worrying about your tarot cards and the fae’s fertility?’
‘Aye, well, it’s nae quite like that, doll. The body wasnae truly wanting to die.’ His voice held an odd note, not quite sadness; regret maybe, with an undertow of excitement. ‘Only ’twas a time afore my other self realised that.’
Did that mean he’d tasted an innocent’s soul? Someone who was in the river by accident? And broken his promise? But asking another fae that, or if they’d just taken someone to their death, isn’t the done thing. Not to mention, tragic as that might be, I was more interested in getting answers to my own questions.
‘Have you spoken to Hugh?’ I asked. ‘About the possibility of another sidhe being in London?’
‘Aye, doll. I chatted to him and the witch Mary Martin nae long ago. ’Tis nae possible, the gates are fully sealed.’ Relief flooded through me to such an extent that I realised I’d been more worried than I’d thought; the last thing I needed was any of my sidhe relatives turning up again. ‘But I’ve told him we’ll do a wee double-check on the gates, to be sure,’ Tavish added.
Right. Better safe than sorry. ‘Good. But you could’ve phoned and kept me in the loop,’ I grumped.
‘Aye, and so I am now, doll.’ He ignored my exasperated snort, saying, ‘And I’ve been doing a bit of checking. I’m thinking I’ve found your Emperor.’
My exasperation took a back seat. ‘I’ll bite.’
I heard the soft click-clack of his keyboard. ‘I’ve sent you a screenshot. Tell me what you ken.’
‘Okay.’ I scrolled through to my emails and viewed the attachment, which showed the same image as the Emperor tarot card had. A dark-haired, hawk-nosed male in his thirties wearing a purple toga and golden laurel-leaf crown, sitting on a golden throne, a golden eagle perched atop the Rod of Asclepius behind him. But instead of holding a silver dagger, this Emperor gripped a golden chain. On the end of the chain, reclining at the Emperor’s feet, were two large grey-brown wolves. ‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘But on the tarot card he was holding a silver dagger; he didn’t have the wolves.’