The Shifting Price of Prey (51 page)

‘It doesn’t,’ I agreed. ‘And it’s blocking the exit.’ Coincidence or deliberate? I sent my inner radar out. ‘It pings as an animal. No magic, nothing
like human or fae in there.’

‘My take too.’

‘I’m guessing it could be some sort of ailuranthrope?’ I said, though I’d never heard of a weretiger, or even a normal tiger, that strange grey and black colour, not to
mention the big cat looked suspiciously like the one that had climbed out of the abyss on the Moon tarot card. The card had said, ‘The beasts are coming.’ Maybe it hadn’t been
talking about the Emperor and his werewolves after all.

‘Whatever it is,’ Finn said grimly, ‘there’s only one of it, and nearly forty swampies.’

‘Think we can take it?’ I asked, dropping my backpack and kicking it out of the way.

The cat gave a guttural growl.

Finn made a similar low sound. ‘Is the sky blue?’

I looked up. Blue sky wasn’t always a given in
Between
. It was now, if you ignored the smoky yellow haze from the sulphur.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How about I try to scare it, and if it doesn’t run, you do your horny bit.’ Then we were high-tailing it to the nearest hotel in the humans’
world. ‘On three, two, one—’ I jumped up, yelling and waving my arms, and ran at the cat.

It sat back on it haunches, a ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ look on its face.

I skidded to a stop, Finn’s arms going round my waist as he dragged me back. ‘Guess that answers the question whether it’s an animal or not,’ I said, glaring at the
cat.

‘Oh, he
is
an animal, Ms Taylor,’ a familiar smarmy voice said. ‘But not
just
an animal.’ A squat figure appeared out of the charred foliage at the base
of the twin-stemmed oak tree: Mr Lampy, the wrinkles in his round face deepening as he gave us a wide smile, his ultra-white human dentures blinding. The mustard-coloured lichen mapping his bald
pate ruffled in the hot wind. His bare feet crunched on the cinder path as he strained forward, pulling what looked like the bastard child of a wheelbarrow and a chariot behind him. He stopped once
he was fully through the entrance, produced a dirty hanky from his tweed jacket and mopped his face.

‘What’s going on?’ I demanded.

‘I’m guessing an ambush of some sort,’ Finn breathed against my ear. ‘You run for it while I hold the cat off. Keep to the left of the cinder path and look for a copse of
goat willow by a small stream; the entrance there will bring you out on Wimbledon Common near the windmill. Speak to Dimitris’ – Finn’s closest brother – ‘and
he’ll bring help.’

It was a sensible plan. Running the swampies’ foot-stomping gauntlet wasn’t that hard. I knew how to run, even if the recent chaos had meant I’d missed my usual morning
exercise the last few days. But I wasn’t going to leave Finn to deal with the big cat and the gnome on his own, however sensible-sounding his plan. It didn’t feel right, not when there
were two of us, and two of them. But as I was about to object, another grey and black striped big cat slunk through the entrance behind the gnome as if it were embarrassed to be here. Then as if to
seal the deal, a third big cat bounded through, skidding to a clumsy halt next to the others. Fuck. No way could we outrun all three of them.

The gnome gave a satisfied sniff and tucked his hanky away. ‘Glad you decided to take my suggestion and look into the path here, Ms Taylor.’ Crap, I’d forgotten he’d
asked me to do that. ‘It really does make things easier for me.’

‘Easier?’

The gnome waved at the three big cats. ‘The boys here have a little problem they need your help with, Ms Taylor.’

‘Gen,’ Finn’s voice was barely audible. ‘Run.’

The gnome’s beady eyes flicked warily at Finn. Stupid satyr with a hero complex. It was going to get him killed one day. I clenched my fist and released Ascalon. The blessed and be-spelled
sword sprang into my grip and I shifted into a ready stance. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘let’s chat.’

A strangled surprised noise came from beside me. ‘You’ve got a sword?’

Oh yeah. Finn didn’t know about Ascalon. Amazing what you miss when you disappear for three months. ‘Yep.’

‘You know how to use it?’

‘Yep,’ I said, baring my teeth at the gnome and his boys.

‘Good.’ Finn’s voice was a satisfied growl.

The gnome reacted, but not by backing off as I expected. He shook his head as if me producing Ascalon was somehow disappointing. Then the horrid little male, who was obviously far stronger than
he looked, grabbed the embarrassed-looking cat by the scruff and threw him at me. The big cat yelped, all four paws stuck out as he flew at me with a horrified expression on his feline face.
Reluctant to kill him with Ascalon when he wasn’t so much attacking as being sacrificed, I leaped to the side, only just missing skewering him. He landed on his paws less than a foot from me
and for a second we froze, staring into each other’s eyes. Then shock ripped through me as a burning sensation engulfed my hand, the cat’s eyes lit with reflected green fire, and
Ascalon vanished back into its ring.

‘He’s an innocent, Ms Taylor!’ the gnome called. ‘Your sword won’t work when there’s an innocent around.’

Fuck. I scrambled back from the big cat who was still frozen.

‘Gen!’

Finn’s warning shout jerked my head up in time to see the nasty gnome rubbing his hands together, then tossing them in our direction. A dozen cotton wool balls flew towards us, buzzing
like angry bees.
Security Stingers ~ the Ultimate Intruder Deterrent
. Crap. If the spells got us we’d be asleep and helpless in seconds. Luckily once the stingers launched, they
didn’t deviate too far from the original target area—

‘Split!’ Finn pushed me away, obviously having the same idea.

I turned and sprinted along the cinder path that led to help. A couple of stingers buzzed my head, their sticky threads trailing my face like grasping cobwebs. I stumbled, nearly went down, then
cracked
the threads, feeling the magic slice my forehead as the spells disintegrated. Blood dripped in my eyes as I ran faster—

Something thudded into my back, smacking me to the ground. Pain shot through my head as it bounced off the cinders. More pain burned down my back as claws punctured my skin and the hot heavy
weight of a big cat pinned me. I yanked my magic up, flung it at the animal. If I could catch him in my Glamour, he would have to obey me.

A fat mud-covered hand clamped a silver bangle studded with jade and citrines round my left wrist: a police-issue manacle. My magic cut out as if it had been ripped from me. I screamed as
someone shouted, ‘Get off her!’ And the Stun spells in the jade chips ignited.

My body convulsed as if I’d been zapped with high-voltage electricity.

‘Hurry up and change, boys, and get them in the cart,’ the gnome’s voice ordered. ‘We need to get moving before the beasts take an interest.’

‘Both of them?’ The man’s question was a low growl. ‘Going to slow us down.’

‘The Forum Mirabilis is in town. The satyr will bring a nice price at the auction. Those horns alone are worth a good few thousand each, and he’s a sex fae; I can get a king’s
ransom for his—’

Unconsciousness took me.

I
nsistent fingers prised my lips open where I lay on my back, groggy from being yanked from unconsciousness. A small piece of meat, raw and still
warm, landed on my tongue. Gamey-tasting blood infused with a strange, wild magic trickled down my throat. A hand clamped my mouth shut, pinched my nose, forcing me to swallow. I resisted,
struggling, determined not to give in this time, concentrating on the firelight seeping beneath the tape closing my eyelids. My lungs began to burn. Despair and fury flooded me as, same as the last
however many times, the instinctive need for air and the lure of the blood made me swallow before desperately gasping for oxygen like a landed fish. The meat slid into my stomach to join the rest
where it congealed into a heavy solid lump, the magic in it seeming to snuff out.

Where was Finn?

Was he okay?

I sent out my senses, searching for him. Nothing other than the two humans; the gnome’s boys, cats, or whatever the fuck they were. Only there’d been three of them. Where was the
third? And the gnome? Where had they taken Finn?

Gods, I prayed he was still alive. The memory of the gnome’s comment about the money he could make for a satyr at auction was like a fist squeezing my heart. Tears of rage and anguish
pricked my eyes as I damned myself for not running when Finn had first told me. Then maybe they wouldn’t have caught both of us and I could’ve brought help.

Something sharp pricked my arm . . .

Only unlike the other times, I didn’t float back into sleep but hovered on the cusp, pulse pounding erratically as I realised I was frozen inside my own body. Terrified they’d up the
dose of whatever, I fought the panic using my childhood trick:
one elephant, two elephants
. . . I needed to know what was going on if I was going to get out of this . . .
five
elephants
. . . Find Finn . . .
seven
. . .
nine
. . . my pulse slowed as calm spread through me.

‘She’s under,’ a male said, sounding tired.

‘You sure, son?’ It was the same growling male who’d said taking both Finn and me was going to slow the cart down.

The tape was peeled carefully from my eyes. I could feel it happening, but the sensation was odd, no pain even when I felt the tape snag a couple of lashes. Anaesthetic? Only the human sort
didn’t work with my sidhe metabolism . . . unless they were using the stuff meant for animals. Enough of that even worked on vamps. Crap. Someone lifted my eyelids. I got a snapshot of a
vaguely familiar pale face and dark hair before a penlight blinded me . . .

‘Pupils not reacting so she’s under.’

. . . He was one of the two males I’d seen hanging round the gnome’s . . .

A couple of buttons on my shirt were popped, sparking unease even as I realised I was still dressed. Something cold touched my chest. ‘Heartbeat’s stable too.’

. . . Shit. Of course he was familiar. He was Katie’s treacherous boyfriend. Marc. Damn. Not only was he two-timing her with some redhead, now he
was prodding my breast
. . .

‘The bite’s healing up,’ Marc said. ‘Same as the cuts on her face and her back where you clawed her.’ Accusation threaded the words. ‘Don’t think
it’s going to fester.’

‘How she get bit by some human anyway?’ Growling Male said.

‘Don’t know,’ Marc answered quietly, and relief filled me as my shirt buttons were closed. ‘But I don’t think it’s interfering.’

Interfering? With what?
Footsteps sounded as the two males moved.

‘Bloody hell,’ Growling Male said, his voice coming from further away now. ‘Yous thought this time it was gonna work for sure. Why ain’t she shifting yet?’

‘Who knows?’ Marc snapped. ‘Maybe the stuff the gnome gave you for the circle is wrong. Maybe there’s something missing from the ritual. Maybe whoever he got to hack the
witch archives copied the wrong ritual. Maybe she can’t shift because she’s already too magical. I told you we shouldn’t trust him.’

Shifting? Ritual? Witch archives . . .

‘Told you, son, more magical the better, so long as they ain’t one of them fae who already shift to somethin’ else, like a tree. That’s what the notes reckoned was wrong
with those girls that chink weretiger tried the ritual on.’

. . . chink weretiger . . .

A loud noise. Stone hitting stone. ‘Don’t fucking call me son, Carlson,’ Marc shouted. ‘I’m not your kid, and after this I never want to see you again. This is all
kinds of fucked up wrong. We can’t just kidnap a woman and force her into the shift.’

. . . Fuck. They were trying to make me into a big-cat-shifter. Like them.

‘Heh, s— lad, I knows it ain’t right, but I promised yer Da when he passed, I’d find yer a mate. He was ma brother. Ain’t gonna break ma promise to him.’

‘Da would never have wanted this.’

‘Ain’t wanting it either, Marc, lad. But we tried gitting a female through that Forum an’ you seen the money those folk are putting up for that Bengali cat and her kit.
Ain’t no chance for us to match it.’

‘I told you putting that listing on the Forum was a fucking stupid idea, Carlson. Information on the internet goes viral in seconds.’

‘Forum said it were private, lad.’

‘Nothing’s private on the internet. All that stupid listing did was tell everyone we weren’t extinct. I’ve already seen a load of blogs speculating about us.’

‘Ain’t nothing to be done now, lad. Yer twenty-four in a few days. Already long past yer prime. You need a mate.’

‘I don’t want a fucking mate.’ More stone crashed against stone.

I didn’t want him for a fucking mate either.

‘Yer want to live, don’t yer, boy?’

‘Not like this. What’s the point of living if I have to spend my life mated to a woman who hates me? If I hate myself?’

‘Heh, s— lad, she ain’t gonna hate you. Not soon as the mate bond takes. The magic’ll see to that.’