The Circle (Hammer) - By Elfgren, Sara B.,Strandberg, Mats Page 0,128

that way,’ she says. ‘You dupe people. And you’re the first successful business in the City Mall since it was built. Not especially discreet.’

Mona is about to take a drag, but her hand stops before it reaches her mouth. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to know how we can help each other,’ Vanessa answers. ‘I’ll keep quiet about your activities if you keep quiet about mine.’

Mona stares at her, as if she’s trying to decide whether Vanessa’s threat is serious. Vanessa stares back at her. Doesn’t even blink. Mona is the type who would never respect her if she looked away. Finally Mona snorts, but Vanessa spots a glint of appreciation beneath those turquoise-daubed eyelids.

‘You’ve got some nerve, I’ll give you that. Mona Moonbeam is no snitch, that much I can promise you, but she’s not someone you can push around either. Don’t you forget that.’

‘I won’t,’ Vanessa says. She hesitates. ‘There’s something I need to get hold of. Do you have things in stock that aren’t on display in the shop?’

Mona lights a new cigarette from the old one and smiles wanly. ‘Tell me straight out what you’re looking for.’

‘Ectoplasm,’ Vanessa says.

Mona smirks and nods, then ducks behind the curtain.

Vanessa takes the opportunity to text Minoo. ‘Got the ectoplasm.’

Now all that’s left is the problem with Anna-Karin.

Mona’s bracelet rattles at the other side of the curtain. When she comes out she’s holding a brown glass jar filled with a light-coloured cream. ‘Extra virgin,’ Mona says, and holds out the jar.

It’s warm – warmer than it could have become from Mona’s hand. Vanessa tips the jar to the side. The ectoplasm barely moves. It looks like partially congealed meringue. She unscrews the lid and sniffs. It is odourless, the olfactory equivalent of deafening silence. ‘What exactly is this stuff?’

‘Soul matter,’ Mona answers.

‘Never heard of it. How do you make it?’

‘You don’t. It’s excreted by witches when they act as mediums for the dead.’

Vanessa recalls the white substance oozing out of the corner of Ida’s mouth when she hovered in the fairground that first night. She puts the lid back on and screws it tight. The warm contents jiggle inside the jar.

‘Looks to me like you’re scared of your first ritual,’ Mona says.

‘Who says it’s my first?’

Mona doesn’t answer. She just rattles out her irritating chuckle and lights another cigarette. If chain smoking were a sporting event, she’d be world champion several times over. Vanessa looks at the jar again. She doesn’t like asking Mona questions, but no one else can answer them.

‘Do you have to use this … drool?’

‘I don’t know if you have to exactly,’ Mona says. ‘If you’re just doing some light magic you can use chalk or graphite to draw the circles. If you’re in a round room you can use the walls as the outer circle. But proper ecto binds the energy better than anything else. If you try to perform heavy-duty magic with chalk circles the whole thing’ll go poof.’

‘Poof?’

‘That cute little head of yours will go up in smoke.’

Vanessa is suddenly very thankful that the Crystal Cave exists. They had discussed trying something else if they couldn’t get their hands on ectoplasm.

‘How much is it?’ Vanessa asks.

‘Five grand.’

‘Five thousand?’ That’s exactly how much money Vanessa has in her bag. Hardly a coincidence, she thinks. It’s no easy job negotiating with a clairvoyant.

‘Were you expecting a student discount? It’s not like you just spit out all this stuff in a single session. It takes a long time to collect enough for a jar.’

‘But five thousand? Seriously?’ Vanessa says quickly, so that she doesn’t have to listen to a lengthy description of the finer points of spittle harvesting.

‘If you want to blame someone, blame the Council,’ Mona says. ‘They control all official trade in ectoplasm. That means the rest of us have to add a surcharge for the risks we take. I’m sure you understand how it works, considering what your boyfriend does for a living. Have you dumped him yet, by the way?’

Vanessa doesn’t answer. She digs out ten five-hundred-crown notes from her bag. They’re crumpled. Nicolaus literally had them hidden under his mattress.

Five thousand crowns is more money than Vanessa has ever held. Mona takes it without blinking. It’s obvious she’s used to dealing with such sums. She puts the jar of ectoplasm into one of her crackly plastic bags and hands it to Vanessa across the counter.

‘Do come again, won’t you?’ she says. ‘You should all shop here more often because I’ve stocked