Streaks of hot annoyance ran through me. It wasn’t as if I’d fucking planned for all this to happen just so that I could have an excuse to avoid having dinner with him.

Fine, my Lord, I shot at him.

Silence rebounded back at me. Well, sod you then, I thought uncharitably. I stomped back up to where I’d left Mereia and stood for a moment staring down at her corpse, all the anger abruptly flooding out of me. What right did I have to be enraged at something petty like a stupid argument with Corrigan when she was lying there dead? I might not have known her personally, but that didn’t mean her death didn’t deserve more attention. I had to stop worrying about the petty shit and start focusing on the matter in hand. Squaring my shoulders, I bent down and carefully picked her back up, unbidden and unexpected tears springing to my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, not entirely sure at that point whether I was apologising to her, to the now absent Corrigan, or to myself. I sighed heavily, and then plodded upwards, carrying my unhappy burden as gently as I could.

When I reached the clearing, I squatted down, laying her body softly on the ground. I adjusted her limbs slightly and looked at her sadly. A sudden breeze gusted through the trees, ruffling her hair. Free of the terrible crucified pose, and with her eyes closed and arms by her side, she suddenly looked at peace. The lines of pain that I’d avoided focusing on before had smoothed out, and she almost appeared to be merely sleeping. Almost. I wiped the tears away from my cheeks and glanced upwards.

“Here is Mereia,” I called out softly, unsure whether I’d get any reply. “I think that now she’s been taken down and the ward concealing her body has been destroyed, things might start returning more to normal. But you have to be careful. There’s a Batibat around here. I don’t think she’s any danger to you – she seems more fixated on men - but she might cause some problems. And the person behind what happened to your friend might show up. If he does, you need to stay hidden. I’m not going to leave until he’s dealt with, I promise you that.”

I ignored the irritating nudge I felt deep inside that my promises weren’t worth quite what they might once have been, and took a step backwards, bowing my head and closing my eyes. When I opened them again, a mere moment later, Mereia’s body had gone. I nodded to myself.

A quiet voice drifted down from somewhere amongst the higher edges of the trees. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I whispered back. Then I left.

Chapter Sixteen

Armed with the new, albeit scanty, information regarding the person behind the dryad’s violent demise, it seemed important to get in touch with Alex again. When I made it back to the others, I noted with a touch of satisfaction that Max and Larkin had, between them, managed to cast some kind of Illusion spell to hide the remaining burnt evidence from any prying eyes. They were sitting down on a small grassy hillock with Lucy some distance away. There was no sign of Corrigan. I told myself that I didn’t care and looked instead for Aubrey who, proving that the compulsion was still in play, remained in his previous position behind the tree.

Ignoring the others’ curious gazes, I stalked over to him. He was curled up unhappily on the ground, hugging his knees to himself and singing softly. He seemed to have given up on his ‘disguise’, as his trenchcoat, hat and gloves were in a neatly folded pile next to his feet. I knelt down and poked him.

“Hey.”

He didn’t respond. I poked him again, harder this time. “Give me your phone, Aubrey.”

The ex-vamp didn’t even bother to look up; he just squeezed a hand into his pocket, pulled out his mobile and held it out.

“Thanks.”

I turned it on and began to jab in Alex’s number.

Aubrey cleared his throat. I ceased what I was doing for a moment and looked at him.

“You’re really mean to me, Mack,” he whined.

“Not too long ago you told me I was really nice,” I commented.

He ignored my words and just glared up at me. “You left me here with those others. They won’t even talk to me. It’s like I don’t even exist.”

I tried not to give the ember of sympathy that stirred inside me any notice. “Yeah, well, maybe if you hadn’t acted like such a prick when you were a vampire, then maybe they’d be nicer to you now.”

“It’s not my fault. That’s like blaming a wasp for stinging or a mosquito for biting. It was in my nature to do those things. “

“You mean like now it’s in your nature to hang around on the ground and complain a lot?” I inquired.

He screwed up his face. “See! You’re just mean.”

I gave up and returned my attention to the phone.

“Mack?”

“What?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Then go and eat something.”

The phone began to ring.

“There’s nothing to eat.” He pouted at me, unhappily. I ignored him.

The ringing stopped and Alex’s voice filled the line. “Hey, Mack Attack.”

“Hey, Alex. What’s going on?”

“It’s been as dead as a grave here, dude. Not much happens around this place during the day. Not seen that fat naked woman again though at least.”

I was idly curious as to what relation Alex’s Batibat was to mine, but it was barely relevant to my needs. Batibats were entirely the wrong gender. Instead I turned to asking about the only thing that could potentially be of any use. “Have you seen any men go into the shop?”

“One or two.”

I chewed frustratedly on my bottom lip. “Can you describe them to me?”

“I can do better than that. I’ve got photos of them all so I’ll text them over. I don’t think any of them are your guy though. Most of them just looked like pretty ordinary customers.”

A strange sound reached my ears.

“What the hell is that?” asked Alex.

I glanced over at Aubrey. He was gnawing loudly on a twig, ripping parts off with his teeth and masticating wetly in a manner that any cow would be proud of. When he caught me staring, he gave me a look as if to say ‘what the fuck is your problem?’ and carried on.

“Never mind,” I said dismissively into the receiver. “I just need to be more careful about what I say, that’s all.”

“Don’t we all, dude,” drawled Alex. “So, as not much is going on here, can I leave now?”

I thought about it. I had to admit that it didn’t sound as if he was going to have much success with his venture any longer. However, I needed to know who this mysterious man was, and not just because of my promise to Balud. There was no doubt in my mind that the dryad-killer and the shop owner were one and the same. I couldn’t quite work out what the connection between the two could be: what did selling some hardware and destroying trees to get a burst of extra power have to do with each other? It stood to reason that whatever the point behind the weapons shop was, it was something nefarious and nasty. I couldn’t believe the fucker who had crucified Mereia side-lined in selling sharp and pointy silverware as a mere day job. There had to be more to it.

“Stick around for another few hours,” I advised him. There was an audible sigh. He was going to like my next request even less. “If nothing suspicious shows up and if those photos offer no clues, then you’re going to need to go in and talk to the Batibat.”

“The naked she-monster?” he screeched. “No way, Mack Attack, no way. She’ll eat me alive. You know I’m no good at confrontation stuff.”

“Alex,” I said patiently, “I’m not asking you to attack her or anything. Just see if you can get some information out of her. You’ll be good at it. I would just bulldoze in and piss her off and she’d clam up. You’ll go softly softly and be much more successful. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t have faith in you.”

“Aw, Mack Attack, I appreciate the vote of confidence but I’m just not sure…”

“You’ll be fine. And once you’ve done that then you can go back home.”

There was a moment of silence. Come on, Alex, I pleaded to myself. I need you to do this.

Eventually, he answered. “Okay, then.” There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in his answer, but it would have to do.

“Thank you. I really do appreciate it.” There was a snap of a twig in front of me and I looked up to see Solus a few feet away. “I have to go, Alex, but I know you’ll do brilliantly. You’re more capable than you think.”

“A’right. I’ll text you those photos. Bye.” He hung up.

I hoped he’d be okay. I had no doubts that Alex could charm the Batibat into revealing at least something useful. His cheeky surfer boy grin was probably exactly what her species was looking for. I just needed him to believe that he could do it. Unfortunately I was worried that he’d spend the next couple of hours not building up the confidence that he needed, but instead working himself up into a nervous lather that would lead him to babble inanely when he went inside.

“Boosting up your little hippy mage, dragonlette?” inquired Solus with a hint of humour. “I can help you instead, you know.”

“I think this needs a more gentle touch than you can offer,” I answered. “Besides, I have a feeling I’m going to need you around here. Did you find Beltran?”

“That I did.”

Exasperated, I rolled my eyes at him. “And?”

He shrugged. “The tree huggers were proving rather difficult for him to manage. You would think that a Fae could merely glamour them into decamping here, but there was some kind of block. They all seemed completely incapable of believing that there was a problem here that they might able to solve. They were determined to hang around Wales and lie in the middle of a few roads to apparently stop the inevitable.” Amusement lit his violet eyes. “Humans really can be intractable creatures sometimes.”