The Shifting Price of Prey (38 page)

She shoved her wet doggy self between me and the Irish wolfhound, and curled her lips in a snarl.

I tapped her on the nose. ‘Don’t you take that attitude with me, pup. You know he’s not supposed to be visiting you, so he’s in the wrong here, never mind he’s your
granddad—’

‘Genny!’

I turned my head to see Mary, her hand pressed to her side as if she had a stitch, staring down at Werewolf Guy in dismay. He was twitching as if he were a statue the pixies had tried to
animate. I grimaced. It looked like the Power Nap patch, or something, was disagreeing with him.

I
pointed at Freya. ‘Get her back home,’ I ordered in a low voice to Mad Max. ‘Make sure she stays there, and later, you and I
are going to have a long chat.’

Freya barked an obvious, ‘No!’

‘Yes!’ I told her.

She growled— and Mad Max snatched her up by her scruff, threw her in the fountain again then trotted calmly after her.

A round of applause from the crowd reminded me we had an audience.
Damn. Next thing the paps will turn up, and I’ll be on the front pages again.
At least the heritage wardens were
keeping the rubberneckers out of the way.

I jogged over to Mary as she lifted her radio. ‘I need a HOPE ambulance. Code six three one – unidentified magical casualty. Trafalgar Square. How long?’ It crackled
unintelligibly. ‘’K, I’ll hang on.’ She pointed at the twitching werewolf. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘All I did was tag him with Dessa’s spell,’ I said. ‘He was fine a minute ago. Better tell the medics he’s a werewolf.’

‘Unidentified is clearer. That way they won’t make mistakes. Why’s he holding the roses?’

‘Camouflage?’

‘I meant,’ she said pointedly, ‘why is he still clutching them? He’s unconscious. He should’ve dropped them, shouldn’t he?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe it’s something to do with the spell’s side-effects.’ I bent to check him out.

Mary grabbed me. ‘Leave him,’ she ordered. ‘Standard ops with un-ID’d spells. No touching the victim, and he needs to be in a circle. Here’ – she handed me a
lump of green spell chalk from her pocket – ‘draw one. About eight feet across. At least he’s on stone, it’ll make it easier.’

I started drawing a circle, crabwalking around the still twitching werewolf.

‘Cripes,’ she muttered, which was Mary’s answer to swearing with a precocious nine-year-old daughter. ‘I should never have let Dessa give you that spell. It’s got
aconite in it. If he really is a werewolf, it could kill him.’

Aconite? Oh, yeah, wolfsbane. I scowled. ‘He’s not a good guy, Mary.’

She shot Werewolf Guy a frown. ‘We don’t know that, Genny.’

I snorted. ‘He was throwing spells at my niece! And he helped kidnap three people. Good guys don’t do that.’

‘What spell?’

‘This!’ I stopped drawing and showed her the gold coin. It glinted in the sunlight.

She peered at it. ‘There’s no spell.’

‘Not now. Mad Max sort of ate it.’ I glanced at where he was sitting next to the fountain like he was auditioning for Guard Dog of the Year, and getting not a few admiring looks from
the crowd. There was no sign of Freya, so hopefully she was tucked up safe at home, in
Between
.

‘Max looks fine,’ Mary said. ‘Maybe you were mistak—’

Werewolf Guy howled in pain, his twitches turning to jerks, and blood started leaking from his nostrils, mouth and ears. A horrified buzz came from the crowd, and I caught more of the inevitable
camera flashes. Blood always brings out the ghouls. Werewolf Guy let out another howl, his spine arched, veins standing out like black cords in his neck. An answering screech came from above. The
hawk, trained to scare the square’s pigeons. Werewolf Guy convulsed as if invisible hands were trying to tear him apart.

‘Finish the circle,’ Mary shouted. ‘Quick before he shifts.’

I dragged the green chalk over the flagstones, only a foot to go . . . Time seemed to slow . . . Werewolf Guy’s eyes snapped open. He flung his arm out. They flew from his hand, scattering
in a shower of red petals. The petals landed on the grey slabs, like the pools of blood staining the snow in Malik’s memories. Werewolf Guy smiled at me with victory in his eyes. Above me the
sound of wings buffeted the air. Gut clenching, I looked up. The hawk hovered, a dark shadow against the clear summer sky. It opened its beak wide, screeching again as it vomited a stream of green
magic. The magic twisted and twirled, morphing into a verdant jade serpent, fang-filled jaws hinging wide, as it arrowed straight for me. I raised my hand,
focused
, and
called
the
magic snake, aiming to snatch it from the air—

Something shoved me aside. The Irish wolfhound, wiry hair brushing my face as he leaped, snapped his jaws on the jade serpent. I stumbled, falling atop Werewolf Guy. For a moment he trapped me
in his arms, holding me tight, then a flood of magic washed over me, spreading out over Trafalgar Square like the pressurised shockwave after an explosion. I glimpsed the hawk hovering; Mad Max
shaking the serpent like a terrier with a rat—

Mad Max, the hawk and Werewolf Guy all vanished.

I sat on the stone edge of the left fountain, half-listening to the splash of water and the background rumble of traffic, as Mary, Dessa, and a dozen Peelers from the local
police station finished taking statements. The Peelers had turned up a few minutes after it all went down, and along with the heritage wardens had managed to corral the majority of the bystanders
into a makeshift witness waiting area, using the square’s café as their base. Even without the free tea/coffee/juice on offer, the majority were eager to hang around and recount
everything exciting they’d seen.

And what they’d seen, according to Mary, came with the usual add-ons of imagination and conjecture. Some thought the hawk was an eagle, or a vulture, or even a remote control toy; Werewolf
Guy’s hair colour was everything from blond, through red, to his actual black; and the ‘dogs’ varied from ‘a brace o’ wee terriers’ to a pack of rabid
wolves— that particular witness was currently getting the third degree.

I was waiting to get my own third degree (as per Mary’s instructions) from Hugh. Waiting for Tavish to phone me back about the gold coin; I’d emailed him a set of pictures. And for
Freya to shift from her doggy shape to human, which she was refusing to do. But most of all for Ana, Freya’s mum, to turn up.

I reached down to Freya, lying sphinx-like by my feet, ears pricked forwards as she watched the square with an unwavering doggy stare, and ran my fingers through her thick silky fur. It had
dried in the sunshine, and I could just make out the darker tint on the ends, all that was left from when she’d magically dyed her hair green a couple of months ago. Attention seeking, Ana
had told me with a long-suffering sigh. Freya’s dad had left during the ToLA case, after discovering what his brother, the deranged baby-making wizard behind all the abductions, had been up
to. Supposedly, it had all come as a big shock to Freya’s dad.

Yep, and I was a goblin queen.

Freya grumbled low in her throat, flattening both ears in a sulky ‘leave me alone’ gesture. I stopped petting her. Where the hell was her mum? School was nearly finished for the day,
Ana wasn’t here waiting for her daughter to arrive home, and all my calls kept getting her voicemail. My paranoid imagination was running riot, involving Ana in various awful scenarios with
the Emperor, his werewolves, Bastien, or more likely, giving birth on the Underground.

I pushed my uneasy thoughts aside for another ten minutes until they hit critical, and dug Werewolf Guy’s gold coin in its clear plastic evidence bag out of my pocket (after a
‘discussion’, Mary had agreed I could hang on to it until Hugh said otherwise). I turned it over, examining it for any clues I might have missed the last twenty times I’d looked
at it. It was a little larger than a pound coin, had a golden eagle on one side, a man’s head crowned with a laurel wreath on the other and Romulus Augustus writ Roman-style around the
coin’s circumference. It didn’t take a genius to add coin and Werewolf Guy together, and come up with the Emperor, even without the face on the coin looking like the picture on the
Emperor’s website.

Romulus Augustus was the last western Roman Emperor. His reign started on All Hallows’ Eve in 475 when he was around fifteen, and lasted for all of ten months, until he’d was deposed
and shipped off to the Castel dell’Ovo on an island in the Gulf of Naples, from where he later ‘disappeared’ a.k.a. Accepted the Gift and became a vamp. Of course, Wikipedia
didn’t mention the becoming a vamp bit. Or that the Emperor was Head Fang of Europe and Bastien’s master.

Or that the Emperor’s werewolves had just dog/spell-napped Mad Max instead of me.

‘Idiot dog,’ I murmured, wondering again why the hell he’d pushed me aside.

Freya nipped my ankle and regarded me out of accusing doggy eyes.

‘Not you, pup. Granddad Max.’

She whimpered then tucked her head on to her front paws.

I frowned down at her where she dozed in the sunshine, her black nose twitching occasionally. I could understand Mad Max sacrificing himself for his grandkid. But even with me donating my blood
to Freya, there was no way I could see my self-seeking, use-anybody-and-don’t-give-a-fuck-who-gets-hurts cousin deciding to save me by playing snake-catching hero.

Hugh’s huge figure cut out the sun. ‘Maxim’s actions appear to be out of character,’ he said, echoing my own thoughts.

‘Yep,’ I agreed, looking up at Hugh’s ruddy face, deeply creased with worry. Two major incidents in less than a week were taking their toll. ‘Anything more from the
witnesses?’ I asked, though to be honest I didn’t expect there to be. If there had been Hugh would’ve been acting on it, not talking to me.

He shook his head as he sat, large hands cradling a mug of milky coffee. He took a sip, then looked pointedly down at the dozing Freya. I got the message: we needed her to shift to talk, but she
wouldn’t, and he had an idea to persuade her. I tilted my head to show I understood, and he started the ball rolling. ‘Run through what happened one more time for me, Genny.’

I did, ending with, ‘. . . the hawk threw the Snake spell, Max intercepted it, and was zapped away instead of me.’

Hugh nodded encouragingly. ‘So you think the hawk was using the Snake spell to remove you from the scene?’

‘Well, me or Werewolf Guy,’ I agreed. ‘We weren’t that far apart.’

‘Only the Snake spell didn’t touch the werewolf male, but he still vanished. So the spell was more likely for you.’

‘Yep, that’s what I thought too.’ I grimaced and held up the plastic evidence bag with its gold coin. ‘But that still doesn’t explain this, or why Werewolf Guy
threw it at the dogs.’

Hugh held his hand out and I dropped it in his palm. He opened the bag and sniffed, lifted it up to catch the sunlight, then held it like he was weighing it. ‘It’s solid gold, and
going by the smell, it’s as old as it looks.’ He sealed the bag and offered it back. ‘It’s probably an extremely valuable antique.’

I took it back. The plastic was slightly gritty from his skin. ‘So why throw it at a couple of dogs, even if he knew who they were?’

‘It could be payment of some kind.’

‘Payment? To Max for me?’

‘Yes. This looks like a classic set-up to me. Max uses Freya to get you here.’ Freya’s ears pricked up at her name. ‘The werewolf male tries to snatch you, your niece
warns you and the plan goes pear-shaped.’

It actually made sense, especially if you knew Mad Max. ‘Why did he snatch the Snake spell, if he was part of the plot?’

‘You were
calling
the spell, trying to catch it.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And if you caught it, it wouldn’t have worked, would it?’

‘No.’

‘So we’d have the spell as evidence, and would be able to trace it.’

Which was partly why I’d tried to catch it. That and not wanting to be
tagged
by an unknown spell, of course.

‘So,’ Hugh carried on, ‘Maxim catching the Snake spell before you could achieves two things.’ He held up two large fingers, and out the corner of my eye I saw Freya raise
her head and fix Hugh with anxious eyes. ‘One: it makes sure no evidence is left, and two: Maxim is safely removed from the crime scene and not available to answer questions.’

I heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘Sounds just like Maxim to cut and run when his plan goes wrong. Bet he turns up later with some story about how he escaped.’ Freya stood, ears back,
hackles raised. I made a show of ignoring her. ‘So there’s not much point looking for him, is there?’

Freya nudged my hand with a wet nose, then barked, loud and insistent. ‘Quiet, pup,’ I said, patting her head, as if she were just the dog she was pretending to be.

Hugh nodded, adopting his blank-stone cop’s face. ‘Yes, we’ve got better things to do than look for Maxim.’

The puppy shook like she was shedding water, magic prickled over my skin, and then Freya took her human shape. Her blonde hair was gelled into spikes, the tips still dyed green like her
fluff-ball fur, school tie pulled loose round her neck, and her overlarge white shirt messily tucked into her maroon skirt. A backpack appeared slung over one shoulder; she dropped it to the ground
with an irritated thump.