Chapter Six #2
Wolfbane Sally snorted. “Keep myself from harm, thank you very much. Ellie Furlough’s daddy gets handsy with me, he’s going to find his fucking cock drops off.”
“So you’ll go?”
“Ohhhhhhh, Duncan!”
Shuddering with the force of her sigh. Whether intended or not, it set his own cock to stiffening. She gave him a look, an arched brow, and sipped demurely at her tea.
“Look. Here’s what I’ll do for you, darling.
And I’m listening to my instincts here—for which I really need my head examined, should really know better at my age, but anyway—here’s what I’ll do: you go and retrieve your latest poppet from the woods, bring her safely home, and we’ll revisit this conversation when you get back. We’ll talk about a price.”
Hot burst of joy through him. He swallowed. “Thank you. You know I’m good for it, Sal.”
“Oh yes.” Slyly. “I know you’re good for all sorts, Duncan. Now—shall we talk about your needs for the present?”
—
In the end, it didn’t amount to much. A couple of luck spells, the sort of thing that might make the Huldu less likely to spot him in a thicket—and might not.
He was agnostic about a lot of what witches claimed they could do, especially where the Fae were concerned—a renewal of potency for the sleeping glamour he’d used for Ellie Furlough, and a new iron talisman that he strongly suspected was out of discounted stock from the shop below.
You’re sure about all this? he said without much force, and was impatiently shushed.
It was a matter of the Sight, apparently, and what it dictated.
All good stuff for a barnyard squabble, she declared cryptically.
Can’t hurt to have, I’d say. Now just hold still for me.
How the Sight was different from the instincts Sal was supposedly getting too old to trust, Duncan couldn’t see, but neither could he be bothered to argue.
He’d come mostly for Ellie Furlough in any case, and counted himself more or less served.
The rest was window dressing, could do no harm.
Wolfbane Sally drew the curtains in the living room, lit some candles, marked Duncan up with fingertip dabs of some oriental-smelling oil to his brow and throat, backs of hands.
Then she blew some scented smoke over him and went around the room widdershins, muttering under her breath.
He sat it out and drank his tea.
She saw him to the door afterward, took his money, and gave him a maternal peck on the cheek. Something in her eyes, there and gone too fast for him to fully register it. He hesitated. She waved him away, still mock maternal, but it was enough to make him turn back after a couple of steps—
And for just a moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of something standing at her back in the shadowed hallway, something dark and hunched and grinning sardonically at him over her shoulder…
Then she closed the door.
Duncan clattered hurriedly down the stairs, glad to get back out in the sun.
He trudged down the slope to Heath Street, got lucky with his connections—were Sally’s enchantments at work already, he wondered, not quite ironically—and picked up a tram to the center a couple of minutes after he reached the stop.
Back in town, he stopped to bank Irene Rush’s cheque, got the chocolates for Niamh, and completely forgot to collect his boots.
Couldn’t be bothered to retrace his steps.
He got into the office a little after four in the afternoon.
Niamh was already there, taking a call. She nodded at him as he came in, handed him a scribbled address on a torn-out notepad page, and gestured at the rank outside.
He dutifully went out and gave the address to the first cab in the line—another Beardmore, he noted with an odd little twinge of Scottish pride; they really were pushing out the Unics these days.
The cabbie grinned when he saw where he was going for pickup—presumably it was a tony address.
He fired up the engine and rattled off with a cheery klaxon blast. Duncan went back inside.
“So,” Niamh wanted to know. “What did Mr. Martin Tea-at-Three Hardy have to say for himself? Is it work?”
“Might be,” Duncan said evasively. “Down the line a bit, you know.”
Niamh looked at him. “You fucked it up, then.”
“Not at all. Just some scheduling issues. Did you sort out some accommodation in Dowgreave yet?”
It earned him no rebate from the hard banshee stare. “I did not. Because you told me not to until you’d spoken to your man Garner. Done that yet, have you?”
“Next on the list, going up there to do it right now. Hold off line two for the next little while, would you?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
He blinked. “I am?”
She nodded down at the little bow-wrapped parcel in his hand.
“Aye, so I am.” He held the chocolates out. “For you! Some more of Mr. Cadbury’s finest, in appreciation of all the hard—”
“Knock it off, Duncan. I’m not just off the fuckin’ boat. I only get these when you’ve done something you reckon’ll piss me off. Losing a big contract with a government department, say. Suppose you’ll be inviting me out for dinner at Grimaldi’s next?”
“Funny you should—”
The phone rang.
Jangling insistent. They both looked at it. Duncan made an expectant better-get-that gesture, put the chocolate box on the desk and patted it.
“Talk about this later,” he mouthed as Niamh lifted the receiver, and then beat a hasty retreat upstairs.