Yeah, and trolls keep cats as pets.
I gave him the number and we both listened for the pickup.
‘Malik al-Khan.’
My heart gave its usual leap at the sound of his remote, not-quite-English accent.
‘Hi,’ I said brightly, conscious of the driver’s avid curiosity (which I suspected was another reason he’d refused to hand over his phone). ‘It’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’ve had an urgent appointment come up, so may end up running a bit late for our meeting at midnight.’
There was a pause and I suddenly wondered if I should’ve given him a heads up that ‘me’ meant me, or if I was going to end up embarrassed when Malik asked who was calling. Relief flashed through me as he said, ‘Genevieve,’ then continued in a slightly perplexed tone, ‘Why are you calling from another’s phone?’
‘Mine’s fried,’ I said, ‘so the taxi driver’s letting me use his. For a fee. Handsfree,’ I finished flatly, partly as a tacit warning, but also as the bitch in me wanted to see the disappointment in the driver’s eyes.
‘That is . . . generous of him.’ The thread of amusement in Malik’s cool voice almost surprised a snort from me. ‘Where is this urgent appointment?’
‘London’s Central Mosque. It’s in connection with the situation we discussed the other night.’
‘Then thank you for letting me know, Genevieve. I will see you later.’
The phone went dead.
I blinked. I’d been sort of thinking about asking for his help, like maybe he could send out a search party if I was more than an hour late. Evidently that wasn’t to be. Still, at least he knew where I was. And why. Which was some sort of failsafe. And my own disconcertion at the call’s quick end was nothing compared to the driver’s dissatisfaction. No doubt he’d been hoping for some juicy gossip to sell to the papers.
But I’d be stupid to rely only on Malik as a backup, so, after another haggle, I grudgingly gave the driver sixteen pounds and thirty-nine pence (the rest of my cash) and he sent a text to Tavish for me:
T no 3 appeared. Am at LC Mosque, Regent’s Park on spec. All connected somehow. Will ring b4 midnight. If not, come find me.
Backup message sent, I hitched my backpack over my shoulder, hopped out and waited until the money-grubbing taxi driver had driven away. Then I pulled out a grey pashmina I’d liberated from a cloak cupboard at the plastic surgeon’s (no doubt abandoned from last winter) and covered my head. Not only was it respectful, but people tend to ignore what they expect to see. With luck, it would get me far enough into the mosque to find the ambassador, before his henchmen caught my scent and tried to stop me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I walked through the mosque’s entrance gates and followed the short path through the near-hundred-foot-high archway and up the few steps into the wide expanse of paved courtyard. A string of open arches to my right showed a covered corridor leading to the main door; the other sides of the courtyard were watched over by rows of tall, arched windows, their glass plain. The whole building was a mix of blocky sixties concrete architecture married to the traditional patterns of Islam. It didn’t make anything pretty, but it was solid and imposing. The courtyard lights were bright enough to banish most of the shadows without bathing the space in the glare of spotlights. The place was almost empty of people but was filled with the same quiet, weighty peace that infuses most places of worship. A certainty of faith in a higher power. Allah might not be my god, but, nonetheless, his presence was felt here.
As was the ambassador.
He was near the mosque’s main door, huddled in a patch of shadow, hemmed in by a male and female. Briefly I wondered where his henchies were, and why they’d left him alone, then checked out the couple. The male was mid-twenties, tall enough to loom over the shorter ambassador, with the black curly hair and dark complexion of the Mediterranean. The female was in her late teens and petite, a pretty dark-eyed brunette with hair that waved over her shoulders, but unlike her Mediterranean pal, her skin was almost vamp pale. The male was dressed in a vest, shorts and flip-flops, clothes not entirely out of place in midsummer in London. The girl was also in flip-flops, legs bare, but then things got odd. Her top half was draped in a hip-length fur jacket more suited to the depths of a Russian winter.
Even without the jacket’s out-of-season strangeness, its colour would’ve snagged my attention. It was grey-brown; the same shade as the Emperor’s werewolves on his website picture. And the werewolves on the tarot cards. So was this female a werewolf? Wearing a wolf, or even a werewolf-skin coat? If she was, it seemed to be verging on cannibalistic to me, but hey, what did I know?
Nothing for sure, other than that the Tower tarot card had led me here and showed the ambassador being chased by a werewolf. So whatever was going on had to do with the fae’s fertility, the Emperor, and the ambassador’s kidnapped wife and child. But however I joined the dots, I couldn’t figure out what picture they made.
I kept my head down and glided behind a pillar so I could see without being seen, frustrated that I couldn’t cast a Listening spell, or at least chance getting near enough to hear without spooking them. Though, really, one look at the ambassador’s face told me he wasn’t getting good news, while the confident calm of the couple said they were entirely happy with whatever was being discussed . . . The female seemed to be doing all the talking . . . a ransom maybe? Except ransom demands weren’t usually delivered in person, were they? Something to ask Hugh’s negotiator. Later. For now, I watched and sent out a careful ping with my Spidey senses.
All three hit me as human.
Damn. My gut still said the girl, and probably the male with her, were werewolves, but then I’d never met any, so maybe I couldn’t tell. Not a particularly comforting thought when I was used to knowing who was what, no matter what shape they wore.
After a minute or two’s more quiet chat, the girl held her hand out, offering something to the ambassador.
He stared for a long moment, hope and fear warring in his expression, then held his own palm out.
She dropped whatever she was holding with a satisfied smile, and I caught a glint of gold.
He clenched his fist, nodded, then backed away. He quickly retreated through the entrance into the mosque’s interior.
The girl turned her satisfied smile towards the tall dark male, lifted a pale hand to caress his cheek, then the pair headed for a high archway that led out of the courtyard to the far side of the mosque. If I remembered right, there was a gate there that opened out on to the road.
Indecision nipped at me.
Did I go and talk to the ambassador as I’d originally intended, find out what he was hiding, and what the werewolf girl had given him?
Or did I chase the werewolfy pair?
Interrogating the ambassador was the sensible, safe option.
Only he wasn’t going anywhere.
The werewolves were.
But chasing after a couple of werewolves on my own was, well, chasing after the big bad wolves and asking for trouble, especially since I didn’t have my damn phone on me so couldn’t call for help. But if they were the Emperor’s werewolves, then the fur-coated female and her curly-haired pal could lead me straight to the vamp himself. Maybe even to the kidnap victims. And just because I was following the werewolfy pair didn’t mean I had to follow them all the way to their hideout. Or that I was going to be in danger. If things started looking iffy I could turn tail; after all, I knew how to run. Plus, if it came to a fight, well, so long as the pair didn’t take their half-and-half beast form they were as vulnerable to injury and death as any other human or animal.
And I had my ace up my sleeve, or rather my sword in my ring— Ascalon.