Quiver of Cobras Read online

  I watched him, wishing for the umpteenth time that the truce wasn’t in place and I could slide a dagger between his ribs and be done with all this. The truce was immutable, though; no Fey could harm another, regardless of how much they might want to. I sighed inwardly then I turned on my heel and left.

  Pushing away my not inconsiderable antipathy to Rubus, I flew to the apothecary’s laboratory. Carduus was a creature of habit and I knew he’d be having his afternoon tea at this time. I only had a small window of opportunity to grab what I needed without him knowing.

  I banged open the lab door and darted inside. Fortunately his shelves were well stocked and he was unlikely to miss any magic potions for a few days, if at all. Without wasting any time, I went over to the far wall.

  It took scant seconds to locate both the vials of liquid rowan and the white baneberry. Part of me was tempted to leave the latter behind and tell Charrie that I’d not been able to find it, but he’d only find another way to get it. Besides, I’d promised him that I’d do my best. Right now he was my only real ally and I couldn’t let him down, regardless of the consequences.

  Double-checking that the coast was clear, I shrugged off my coat. I carefully slid Charrie’s sword from its hiding place at my back, untying the ribbons that held it tightly in place, then I grabbed the rowan and coated the blade. I rubbed it down and made sure no edge remained untainted. I shoved the glistening blade back, secured it and adjusted my coat so that there was no sign of the weapon. That would have to do.

  I twisted left, searching the rest of the shelves until my gaze snagged on a dusty, red-hued bottle. I stared at it as if it were one of Rubus’s damned Truth Spiders. A moment later I grabbed it. Considering how much depended on its damned contents working, it felt lighter and smaller than it should have done.

  With tense shoulders, I reached for a small empty vial and hastily decanted half of the bottle’s contents into it then I refilled the bottle to the brim with water so it appeared untouched. I even took the time to grab a handful of household dust and blow it gently onto the red bottle after I’d returned it to its place on the shelf. No one would ever know I’d gone near it.

  With that perilous deed completed, I swallowed and carried on, picking up as many vials of pixie dust as I could. I needed to take as much as I could carry so it appeared that I was following my orders. I crammed a bag full of the vials. I’d dump them somewhere safe as soon as I could. Once I was out of Rubus’s den, the pixie dust would only slow me down.

  ***

  We needed plausible deniability at every step of the way. Charrie and I had already synchronised our watches, something that would have made me smile if our situation hadn’t been so serious.

  At precisely 5.23pm, Charrie strolled out of the east exit of Stretfort Mall and headed down the street, just as I wandered past ostensibly on the way to sell some pixie dust to the Fey who worked in the nearby opticians. In case someone was watching me, I jerked my head as if I were surprised to see the bogle. Then I took off after him, maintaining a decent distance between us.

  Although I knew where he was heading, I made a show of keeping well back. By the time I reached the fringes of the forest surrounding the golf course, dusk was falling. As I started moving uphill, the sword at my back chafed at my skin. Unwilling to risk scratching and poisoning myself with rowan, and convinced that no one was following me, I unfastened the ribbons so I could hold the sword instead. Then I continued upwards, weaving in and out of the trees.

  It took longer than I’d anticipated to get to the rendezvous point. Charrie was already waiting next to the eighteenth hole, hopping from toe to toe as his nervousness gave him away.

  I raised a hand to him in greeting and walked forward.

  ‘Is it coated?’ he asked, jerking his head towards the sword.

  I nodded. ‘Yes.’

  He exhaled. ‘Good. That’ll put you in the clear if a Fey comes across it. The only reason I’d scrub it with rowan would be to kill a faery.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘If you take the memory-loss potion instead of me, then you’ll be able to escape the Truth Spider. You won’t need to go through with this dreadful plan.’

  Charrie scowled at me. ‘We’ve been through this. Rubus will still take his revenge on my family. My children, Madrona. We’re bogles, we’re not protected by the truce,’ he reminded me for the umpteenth time. ‘The only way my kids will survive into adulthood is if Rubus has nothing to gain by hurting them. If I’m not around to be upset by their pain, he won’t bother to hurt them.’

  ‘Your children need their father.’

  ‘It’s my life versus seven billion humans, Madrona. And I’m already dying.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Just give me the white baneberry.’

  I stood my ground. ‘No. There has to be another way.’

  ‘You got it, right? You got the baneberry?’

  I clenched my jaw. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You brought it with you because you know there is no other way. We have to keep the sphere away from Rubus. Once I’m dead, cut off my head, wipe off your fingerprints and drink the memory-loss potion.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t work? What if I don’t call the police when I come round?’

  ‘You will. You won’t remember anything about being a faery. Calling the police will be your only option. There’s an old phone box in front of the clubhouse It’s part of the reason why I chose this location. The police will take my body and put it in the morgue. They’ll also put everything I’m carrying into an evidence locker where it will stay. Rubus won’t know the police have the sphere and, even if he finds out, he won’t be able to get to it.’

  ‘What if they release your belongings to your family?’

  ‘They won’t. They won’t believe you could have killed me so it’ll remain an open murder investigation. All the evidence will be kept until my murder is solved – which will never happen. They won’t find the white baneberry in my system either.’

  ‘It still feels like a lot could go wrong, Charrie. If we put our heads together, we can find a better way. We can still run.’

  He sighed. ‘No, we can’t.’ His eyes met mine. ‘You gave up your life and your love because of Rubus.’

  I gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘He didn’t give me much choice.’

  ‘There was a choice. You knew that by siding with him, you’d have a better chance of keeping an eye on him and stopping him doing something like this. You became a drug dealer. You effectively killed yourself, Madrona, metaphorically anyway. And you would kill yourself for real if you believed it would keep the sphere safe.’ He paused. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  I could hardly lie to him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the same is true for me. Give me the baneberry, Maddy.’ I sighed. Charrie offered me a sad smile. ‘This will work. I promise you.’

  ‘Except,’ I pointed out, ‘I won’t remember enough to know that it’s worked.’

  ‘That’s the way it’s got to be.’

  I squeezed my eyes shut and dug out the small vial containing the white baneberry. ‘Charrie…’

  ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘I know.’ He took it from me and, without another word or a moment’s hesitation, he unscrewed the top and downed the contents.

  ‘Remember,’ he said, wiping his mouth, ‘it’ll work quickly. As soon as I’m dead, drink the memory-loss potion. You’ll have about five minutes to get rid of both bottles so there’s no trace of magic. Any potential reveal spell will have to be fooled. Then cut off my head with the sword before getting rid of your own prints. Once that’s done, as far as the old Madrona is concerned all this will be over. You might be arrested for a short while but, without your memory and without any evidence, the police can’t charge you.’

  Even if they did, I’d probably deserve it. I nodded anyway.

  ‘If Rubus questions you, you won’t remember what happened. The fact that the sword is coated with rowan will suggest that I tried to ki
ll you or that maybe I was planning to kill him. I’ll be blamed, not you. He’ll run round in circles trying to work out what happened. He’ll think someone else, someone nastier, killed me and took the sphere for themselves. Not a Fey. Maybe another dragon.’ Charrie shrugged. ‘Who knows? Either way, Rubus won’t blame you and he won’t blame my family. And, most importantly, he won’t have Chen’s sphere.’

  ‘You’ll still be dead,’ I pointed out. I watched him. He was already turning pale. The baneberry worked fast.

  ‘I already was anyway.’

  ‘You’re saving everyone,’ I said. ‘You’re a hero and no one will ever know. Not even me.’

  ‘You don’t need to be recognised to be a hero,’ he told me.

  Then his knees gave way.

  Chapter One

  Ten days later. Post amnesia.

  I peered down. We had to be at least ten storeys up. I had no idea what Rubus was planning but I suspected that I wasn’t going to like it one little bit.

  ‘This entire city is mine, Madrona,’ Rubus said, sweeping out an arm. ‘Those humans down there might not know it but I am their lord and master. I give them protection.’

  I scratched my head. ‘But you’re looking for this dragon-sphere magic-sucker thingumabob that belonged to some dude. Chen? Chin? Whatever. If you find it and use it, won’t all these people be killed?’

  His handsome face darkened with fury. ‘There’s no if. I will find it. That fucking bogle, Charrie, took it and he has to be somewhere. He can’t just have vanished into thin air. Besides, over-population is a serious problem. The humans could do with a bit of culling. Magic never did any of us any harm. I suspect it will be the making of the entire race.’ He leaned towards me. ‘One day they’ll thank me for it.’

  ‘Only if any of them are still alive after you’ve flooded their world with magic that doesn’t belong there,’ I said.

  He glowered at me, his green eyes spitting venom. ‘I’m rather tired of this attitude. It was very tiring moulding you into the Madrona I needed last time. I’m not sure I have the energy to do it all over again.’

  I shrugged. ‘Then let me go.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I won’t let Morganus have you.’

  Like I was a thing to be passed around between the pair of them. I sighed and rolled my eyes. ‘Then kill me.’ I waved a dismissive hand in the air. ‘Push me off this building and be done with it.’

  ‘I thought this had been explained to you,’ he snapped. ‘The truce prevents me from hurting you in any way. It cannot be broken.’ He scowled. ‘Believe me, I’ve tried to break it.’

  I arched an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ I asked, genuinely curious. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Do you really, truly, want to know?’

  I licked my lips. I didn’t know who I was before all this happened; I didn’t remember. What I did know for sure was that I had to get Rubus to trust me. And to do that I had to be Miss Evil Incarnate. Shamefully, I didn’t think it was going to be all that hard; I already had the evil inside me. ‘I do,’ I breathed. ‘Tell me. What did you want to do?’

  Rubus eyed me for a moment, suspicion clouding his gaze. ‘I wanted to punish Morgan,’ he challenged. ‘I wanted him to suffer for suggesting we bide our time and wait for the border to re-open. For telling me that we should keep our heads down and not draw any attention our way. For ordering me to let the humans remain in charge.’ He sniffed. ‘So I tried to grab him. I was going to teach him a lesson and use a red-hot poker to blind him in both eyes. It would have been poetic justice – he kept telling me I wasn’t seeing things clearly. Ha! If I’d taken his eyes, it wouldn’t have been me with the vision problem!’

  ‘A spoon,’ I said, my own eyes wide. ‘You should have scooped them out with a spoon, one by one. You could have fed the first one to a dog while Morgan watched with his other eye.’ I bared my teeth into a grimace of a smile. ‘Then you could have injected him with rowan. That shit hurts like buggery.’

  He raised an eyebrow at me. ‘What do you know about rowan?’

  ‘I inadvertently poisoned myself with some,’ I said, suddenly realising that my big mouth might get me into trouble here. The last thing I wanted was to tell him that I’d cut myself on a rowan-edged sword that was laying underneath Charrie the Bogle’s body. The very bogle that Rubus was so desperate to locate. ‘It’s a long story.’

  Seeking a way to avoid telling him how I’d poisoned myself, I tried to draw attention from the how towards the what. ‘Do you know that when you’ve got rowan in your system, your faery skills change? I glamoured myself without realising it and then I couldn’t change back to my normal gorgeous self until I’d taken nux. It was quite disturbing.’

  Rubus looked me up and down for a long moment.

  ‘You’re trying to imagine me as a hairy man right this second, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’ He tapped his foot impatiently. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I had very itchy balls,’ I informed him.

  Even the blank-faced minions standing behind us looked horrified at that particular titbit. ‘Where did you get the nux from?’ Rubus asked, through gritted teeth.

  ‘Morgan, of course.’ There were some things I couldn’t lie about.

  ‘If you’d been with me, I’d have helped. I have more nux than he does.’

  This sounded like a case of comparing dick sizes. ‘I’m sure you would have helped,’ I told him. ‘But I wasn’t with you so I had to take help where I could get it. Rowan is freaky stuff.’ I shrugged. ‘Using it would work wonders if you wanted to hurt someone. Like your darling brother.’

  Rubus stared at me. ‘You really expect me to believe that you’d be happy if I poisoned Morganus? You’ve forgotten that I’m much, much smarter than you are, Madrona.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten everything,’ I told him in return. ‘But I can already tell that you’re a man after my own heart. Morgan is a stickler for the rules. And for being good. You’re … different. I like that.’

  Rubus folded his arms; he didn’t believe me for a second. That was okay; I had plenty of time to work on him. It wasn’t like I had to be anywhere else. Maybe I should change tactics slightly, though.

  ‘Tell me what happened near the Travotel,’ Rubus asked. ‘Who were those humans I took care of for you? What did they want?’

  I wondered whether I should point out that technically Rubus hadn’t done a damned thing to ‘take care’ of the humans – he’d sent his minions to do the job for him. But the last thing any of us needed was for Rubus to look too closely into the matter. The truth was that they were vampire hunters out to capture Julie because, in their narrow-minded view, she was an unnatural creature. Yes, she was a vampire but she had no special abilities beyond life-enhancing longevity. Regardless of that – and the binding magical non-disclosure agreement I’d signed to keep that part of her secret – Rubus couldn’t be allowed to discover the truth.

  ‘They were stalking a friend of mine.’

  Rubus raised an eyebrow. ‘You have friends?’

  ‘You have brains?’ At the answering spark of anger in his eyes, I sighed. ‘She’s a new friend. Obviously. I met her not long after the amnesia started. She’s a soap star.’ I didn’t want to have to give away Julie’s name unless I had to.

  ‘A soap star?’ He frowned. ‘Wait. There’s only one soap filmed in Manchester. Do you mean St Thomas Close?’

  How in gasbudlikins had Rubus heard of it? ‘Yeah,’ I said, heavy reluctance colouring my answer.

  For a brief moment, giddy boyish delight filled his expression. ‘I love that programme!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who is it? Who’s the star you know? Maybe you can introduce us!’

  Uh-oh. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I signed an NDA because I promised to do some work for her. Help her out with those stalkers. I can’t tell you anything about who she is.’ I met his eyes. ‘My word is my bond, Rubus. I’m sure you know that.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘You will arrange an introduction at th
e earliest opportunity. Whoever she is, she will want to meet me.’ He splayed out in his hands in a dramatic flourish. ‘I am Rubus, after all.’

  ‘She’s not a faery,’ I said. ‘She’s not going to know who you are.’

  ‘She will,’ he answered confidently. ‘Make it happen, Madrona.’

  I supposed it would at least give me an excuse to find out how she was. The surly Redcap Finn had obviously managed to escape with her in tow and no doubt was already aware that Rubus had executed his brother. I’d have to make sure Finn was alright – and it would give me a chance to find out about Morgan.

  My heart tightened at the thought. I prayed he was alive; it had been difficult to tell after our fight with the vampire hunters. Rubus had whisked me away before I’d had chance to check on him. To all intents and purposes, Morgan had appeared to be unconscious. I could only hope that he was okay. I didn’t know what I’d do otherwise.

  Rubus clasped his hands to his heart, his green Fey eyes dreamy. He let out a happy hiccup and then shook himself. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘We need to get down to business. This really is most tiresome and I’m a very busy person.’ He said this last part with the air of a harried martyr. Rubus was, of course, nothing like that. He was an evil arsebadger who I’d shove off this rooftop if I could.

  ‘Well,’ I told him earnestly, ‘I’ll do my best to hurry things along so you can get on with your other plans. I want your day to be just as wonderfully pleasant as you are.’

  Rubus flicked me a look but I smiled back innocently. Apparently deciding that complaining about my acid tongue was a waste of time, he pointed down to the street below. ‘As the truce prevents me from harming you directly, and I don’t want my best pixie-dust seller to become addicted to the stuff herself and lose her ability to attract new clients, I’ve had to come up with a different method to persuade you to my side. This worked very well last time.’