The Bitter Seed of Magic (A Spellcrackers Novel) (34 page)

Ignoring her, and the rest of the witchy crew, I turned to Hugh. ‘So, do you want me to check this victim to see if she’s
tagged
with any spells?’

‘Please, Genny.’

I
looked
. It was almost an anticlimax to see the same two spells as before: the dirty-white silly-string spell which cocooned the girl’s body, and underneath it, the faint out-of-focus waver of a Glamour spell.

‘Looks like the same spells that were on Sally the raven faeling,’ I said.

‘That’s what Constable Martin thought, but I wanted your opinion too.’ Hugh laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Do you think you can remove the spells intact, Genny?’

I
looked
at the salt and sand circle. It was for containment, plain and simple, with no added extras.

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘so long as I can do things my way, and I don’t have to worry about anyone mixing silver or anything else in the circle under the pretext of Health and Safety.’

‘That won’t be a problem,’ Hugh said reassuringly. ‘What do you need?’

‘The main spell seems to be some sort of preservative/ stasis effort. The raven faeling’s injuries didn’t appear until after I removed it yesterday; it was only then she started to bleed. So the first thing’s a doctor.’ The poor girl needed someone better than me to resuscitate her if she turned out to be not as dead as she looked.

Hugh indicated the flamboyant hazel-eyed witch. ‘Witch Juliet Martin here is our official doctor on call. She has both the necessary medical and magical expertise.’

Witch Martin came around the circle and held out her hand to me. ‘Please, call me Juliet.’

I hesitated a moment – most folk with magical ability don’t do skin-to-skin contact, for fear of being inadvertently (or otherwise)
tagged
with a spell – then took her hand. Her shake was firm. ‘Genny Taylor,’ I said redundantly, since she obviously knew who I was. I looked enquiringly across the circle at Constable Martin.

‘My daughter, Mary,’ Juliet confirmed with a warm smile.

Nice to know we were keeping it all in the family.

I narrowed my eyes at Juliet. Time to test just how accommodating she was going to be. ‘Can you cope if I put the spell in a plastic bucket?’

She gave me another warm smile. ‘Indeed I can, Ms Taylor.’ She sent one of the WPCs off to fetch one.

Now for the important part.

I took a deep breath, stepped into the circle and crouched near the girl’s head. Her blue eyes stared sightlessly up, for a moment reminding me of Malik, wrapped in the rug under my bed, and I briefly wondered what I was going to do about him and his
orders
, then I dismissed him. Time enough to deal with the beautiful vampire when he woke up for the night; right now I needed to concentrate on the beautiful, blue-eyed blonde in front of me, who looked much too young to die. Of course, that could just be her Glamour spell; underneath that she was probably something else entirely. But like Sally, the dead raven faeling, I couldn’t tell. However the Glamour spell had been
stirred
, it had some way of camouflaging her essence as well as her physical appearance.

The more I stared at her, the more she looked oddly familiar. I frowned, trying to place where I’d seen her—

‘She’s in the reality show filmed at Morgan Le Fay College,’ Juliet said as she joined me in the circle. She put down her doctor’s bag, then carefully tucked her flouncy skirt underneath her and crouched on the other side of the girl’s body. ‘Her name is Miranda Wheater. She’s in the sixth form.’

I clicked where I’d seen Miranda before: on the front of the glossy magazine Sylvia had shown me before the Librarian had taken back the fae’s curse-
cracking
books. The girl – or witch – had been in a jacuzzi, complete with a fancy cocktail and half a dozen older men, and the headline had shouted something about a curse, which was obviously why the fae had added the magazine to their collection.

I looked from Juliet to Hugh. ‘I take it someone’s checked on Miranda’s whereabouts?’

‘Miranda is thankfully alive and well and at the college,’ Juliet assured me. ‘This child is someone else. There has been a spate of this type of appearance-altering spell, where the wearer has chosen a figure in the public eye who hasn’t given their consent to any Doppelgänger spells. The Witches’ Council has received a number of complaints about them. While it is not as important as finding out who is responsible for this poor girl’s death, finding which witch has been
casting
the spells might provide us with some valuable information in both cases.’

‘Which witch for which spell’ made me think of Ricou and his Johnny Depp Glamour. I filled Hugh in, and suggested Ricou might be able to help. The WPC returned with my plastic bucket, and Hugh sent her back out to fetch him.

‘How do you intend to do this, Genny?’ Juliet asked.

‘Can you see what looks like thick silly-string all over her?’ I asked, lifting a strand. She nodded, which was a small relief; not everyone saw the magic the same way. ‘Then it’s probably easier if you just watch.’

I touched the edge of the circle with my finger and activated it with my magic. It sprang easily up into a clear dome above us, luckily with no nasty surprises. The knot in my stomach eased slightly. I
focused
on the silly-string, then plunged my hands into the spell and
called
the magic.

 

Ten minutes later I wrestled the last of the silly-string off the girl and into the bucket. I wiped my hand over my forehead, then wished I hadn’t as the slimy residue of the magic stuck to me like the slug-slime the goblins use in their hair gel.

I gave an involuntary shudder, and anxiously checked the girl. Thankfully, even with the removal of the Preservative/ Stasis spell she hadn’t developed any obvious injuries, or started bleeding from head wounds, or suddenly taken a last gasp at life as the dead raven faeling had. The knot in my stomach eased some more in relief.

Remembering Ricou’s small spell tattoos on his inner arms, I slowly ran my fingers up the girl’s smooth, pale skin, stifling another shudder at the lifeless feel of it. Nothing on the left. I leaned over and started on the right, hitting pay-dirt – or rather,
spell-
dirt – just above her inner elbow. I
focused
, and let a tiny trickle of power drip into the spell sparking under my forefinger. The Glamour peeled away from her like a banana shedding its skin.

The beautiful blue-eyed, blonde fifteen-year-old was gone, and in her place was a green-eyed, green-haired, green-skinned female of around forty with deep bracketed lines running from her small nose to her pinched mouth. Huge drooping breasts and a roll of excess flesh around her waist and hips made her look as if she’d lost a lot of weight quickly. For a moment I thought she was a
bean nighe
, one of the dark fae, but then I realised she couldn’t be, because her body hadn’t
faded
after death. I brushed the dead faeling’s hair away from her ears to find they ended in a definite point. Not a
bean nighe
then.

‘Oh,’ Juliet gasped softly, as she placed her stethoscope over the female’s heart, ‘she’s a leprechaun faeling, isn’t she? I’ve never seen one before.’

I hadn’t either, but I had once seen a full-blood leprechaun: Juliet was right. I sat back on my heels as she checked the leprechaun faeling over, hoping that whatever had killed her had been quick and painless, and wondering who she was.

‘Her name’s Aoife,’ Ricou said, startling me.

I looked up to see him standing outside the circle. I hadn’t noticed him arrive, but the rest of the WPCs had, and they weren’t bothering to hide their stares. He was still in his Johnny Depp guise, but he’d taken his trilby off and was holding it against his chest, sadness etching his face.

‘Her father is a full-blood leprechaun,’ he continued, then turned to Hugh. ‘He came over from Ireland in the sixties and hitched up with a girl from Dagenham. They split when Aoife was still a kid. Her mum’s passed now, but her dad’s back over there. This will cut him up.’ He paused. ‘Aoife means
beauty
. She was beautiful too, when she was younger . . .’ He crushed his hat.

‘Is she anything to do with the Morrígan?’ I asked.

‘Her father’s from
Rath Cruachán
.’ Ricou frowned. ‘That’s in County Roscommon. Which is where the MacCúailnge, the Old Donn, hailed from, so she could be.’

I
leaned on the railing surrounding the mortuary dock and stared out over the Thames. The brisk wind blew my hair back and brought me the ozone scent of the river; rain was on the way. Ricou’s information about Aoife’s likely connection to the Morrígan had sent Hugh into detective sergeant mode and next thing I knew, we were all giving statements. I’d told Hugh everything about the Morrígan, the dreams, the Coffin Club and the vamps, and anything else I could think of (that The Mother’s gag clause would let me) that could possibly help. Then he’d asked me to wait while he checked a few things out.

I’d spent my waiting time dredging the Internet via my phone for info about
Rath Cruachán
. Google hits on the name brought up the
Táin Bó Cúailnge
– the Cattle Raid of Cooley – apparently fought over the ownership of Donn Cúailnge, a stud bull, who had once been fae. And Donn Cúailnge was linked to the Morrígan romantically (although ‘romance’ and ‘stud bull’ didn’t necessarily go together in my mind) and their romance had obviously borne fruit in the person of the Old Donn. Which meant the Old Donn was a horned wylde fae, and a prime candidate for The Mother’s photofit of the villain of the piece. If it wasn’t for everyone telling me he was dead, I’d have been pretty sure I’d found the faelings’ killer. Now I was back to thinking the photofit was symbolic, which wasn’t helping much in the whole killer identification stakes.

I turned at the sound of heavy footsteps to find Hugh approaching, carrying two takeaway cups. ‘So any chance you’re going to let me in on your evidence?’ I asked. Then I added, ‘The deaths are to do with the fertility curse, and the latest one does sort of implicate—’

‘If you will give me a chance, Genny.’ He smiled, his pink granite teeth gleaming in his ruddy face, and handed me one of the cups: hot chocolate. ‘From everyone’s statements and our own investigations, it appears that whoever is killing the faelings has resurrected the
Between
that is attached to the Tower of London.’

‘Which is where Victoria Harrier was trying to take me.’ I wrapped my hands around the hot cup, sending mental thanks to Sylvia that Victoria Harrier’s plans hadn’t succeeded.

‘Yes, Victoria Harrier does appear to be the lynchpin in all this,’ Hugh said. ‘She’s on the Board of Directors of a TV production company – Adonis Films – which is making a series of historical documentaries at the Tower. That is how she’s gained access, we think. There have also been rumours on the streets about “short-term work contracts”, aimed particularly at faelings, which lead back to Adonis. Who of course deny all knowledge.’

‘And that’s how they’re finding the girls,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Hugh agreed. ‘Adonis is also the company that make the reality TV show at Morgan Le Fay College – where Victoria Harrier is one of the board of governors. The college appears to be where the Doppelgänger spells originate from.’

‘Wow, so she’s really smack in the middle of it all!’

Hugh nodded. ‘Adonis Films and the college are both subsidiaries of the Merlin Foundation, which is the wizards’ ruling body. Victoria Harrier is a director of the foundation, so we’re looking into it as well.’

‘Yeah, she mentioned the Merlin Foundation; she’s a big fan.’ I took a sip of chocolate. ‘Except—Somehow I don’t see Victoria Harrier as a criminal mastermind. I mean she’s obviously intelligent enough, but why faelings? And what’s it got to do with the curse?’ A possibility hit me. ‘Unless it’s all down to the vamp who’s got his fangs in the Harrier family?’

He drank his tea, a frown creasing his ruddy face. ‘The vamp angle is one we’ll consider along with everything else, Genny, but I don’t want to draw any conclusions yet, not until we’ve questioned Victoria Harrier.’

‘Right,’ I said, shivering as a chill wind gusted over the river. ‘But then even if it is a vamp, Victoria Harrier can’t be working on her own, can she? I mean, there’re at least fifteen faelings missing, and if the vamp has got his fangs into her, then the rest of the Harrier family are possible victims too. Are you checking them out?’

‘Of course.’ Hugh gave me a look that plainly said I was trying to teach a troll how to break rocks here. ‘Ana, the daughter-in-law, is a bit of a recluse. She spends most of her time in the fossegrim’s
Between
in Trafalgar Square. It makes it difficult to pin her down. So it’s unclear yet whether she is involved, or by how much. Her husband has been in America for the last six months with his work, and Dr Craig—’

‘Dr Craig! What’s he got to do with it?’

‘—and Dr Craig, who is Victoria Harrier’s other son, has been estranged from his whole family for the last ten years,’ Hugh carried on, ignoring my interruption. ‘Apparently he didn’t approve of his brother marrying a faeling. And until we’re able to talk to them all, we can’t be certain of anything.’

My astonishment at Dr Craig’s parentage turned to puzzlement. ‘But that means Dr Craig is a wizard. I knew he could sense a bit of magic, but it’s odd I never picked up on it when I worked with him at HOPE. And odd that he never actually mentioned it, don’t you think?’

‘People will always surprise us, Genny, even when we think we know them well. Like DI Helen Crane. After your email yesterday, I had the crime scene photos of the circle that she
drew
around Sally Redman double-checked. You were right; there was something wrong with the yew.’

I suppressed an
I knew it!
grin along with the urge to pump my arm in the air in vindication.
Helen the Witch-bitch
was
a crooked cop
. It wasn’t just my biased imagination. Now I could legitimately hate her as ‘my evil witch nemesis’ without feeling guilty. ‘She laid the spell the wrong way round, didn’t she?’