His fingers closed on the edges of the Book, and it was no longer an innocuous hardcover. Before my eyes it had morphed into the massive, ancient, deadly black tome with intricate locks, and they were all falling away, and the book was opening in O’Bannion’s hands, and I knew that whatever was left of Derek O’Bannion inside the psychopath did not want the Book to open. It wanted nothing more than to die without ever having glimpsed so much as a single page. Not even one line.
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Yet he was being forced to open it.
His fingers began to burn, then his hands were ablaze and he was screaming.
The flames licked up his arms, spread down his chest and legs, and engulfed his face, and suddenly Derek O’Bannion flared white-hot and erupted into ash that exploded ten feet in every direction.
I scrubbed frantically at myself, clawed ash from my hair, and spit it from my lips.
An icy gust scattered all trace of what had been O’Bannion.
The Sinsar Dubh whumped to the pavement at my feet.
Open.
Growing up, I knew my parameters. I was pretty enough that one of the class jocks would always ask me to prom, but I’d never score the quarterback.
I was smart enough to squeak into college, but I’d never be a brain surgeon.
I could lift my own aluminum-framed bike off the ceiling rack in the garage, but I couldn’t budge my dad’s bike that he’d had since law school.
There’s comfort in knowing your limits. It’s a safety zone. Most people find theirs, get in it, and stay there for the rest of their lives. That’s the kind of life I thought I was going to live.
There’s a fine line between being stupid and knowing you have to test your limits if you want to do any real living at all.
It was a line I was poised on very delicately at the moment.
The Sinsar Dubh lay open at my feet.
I’d avoided looking at it since the moment it hit the pavement. Don’t look down, don’t look down was my mantra.
Merely opening it had incinerated O’Bannion.
If I gazed into its naked pages, what would it do to me?
I half whispered, half hissed Barrons’ name, then was struck by the absurdity of what I’d just done. Did I think if I didn’t make much noise, the Book wouldn’t notice me?
Hello! It had noticed me. In fact, I was its sole focus. It had been playing with me since the moment I’d appeared on its radar tonight.
Because I was me? Or did it play any person who stumbled near?
“Barrons,” I shouted, “where the hell are you?”
My only reply was an echo bouncing off brick buildings on the eerily silent street.
I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead and tried to find the thing at my feet with that sidhe-seer center of my mind.
Got it!
But it was … inert.
I wasn’t getting any reading off it at all. Because of the stone in my hand? Because it was conning me in the same way it conned everyone? By masquerading as nothing of consequence at all?
It was entirely too possible. There were too many unknowns. I was wrong. I wasn’t poised between stupid and testing my limits. Miles of uncharted stupid stretched on both sides of the line on which I stood.
I had to back away, a straight and narrow path down that line. Taking great pains not to fall off on either side.
I would wait for Barrons. Take no chances.
I took a step back. Then another. Then a third, and my heel caught on something solid, and I stumbled and began to go down.
It was base instinct to try to balance myself by reaching out with both hands and looking at the ground.
“Shit!” I snapped, and yanked my gaze back up.
But it was too late. I’d seen the pages. And I couldn’t not look again.
I dropped to my knees and knelt before the Sinsar Dubh.
* * *
I knelt before it because, on its ever-changing pages, I’d glimpsed the blond, icy-eyed woman who had earlier stood sentinel, forbidding me entrance to one of the Haven’s most important libraries. I’d seen her moving from one scene within the Book to the next.
I needed to know who she was and how to get past her. I needed to know everything the Book knew about her. How did it know her?
You needed to know, Barrons would mock later; isn’t that what your Eve told Adam when she plucked your apple?
It’s not my apple, I would counter. You tried to pluck it, too. Aren’t we all after the same thing, thinking we “need” something the Book has in its pages? I have no idea what tempts you, but something does. Tell me, Barrons, come clean: Exactly how long have you been hunting it, and why?
He wouldn’t answer, of course.
Like I said, miles of stupid on both sides of that line.
But kneeling in front of it right now, I was absolutely certain I was on the verge of an epiphany. That truly useful, liberating knowledge was minutes—no, mere seconds away. Knowledge that would give me control over my life, power over my enemies, that would shed light on the mysteries I was unable to solve, show me how to lead, how to succeed, grant me whatever I wished for most.
As I searched those two constantly changing pages, I was tormented by the drone of an insect at my ear.
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I swatted at it incessantly, but it refused to go away. I was busy. There were things here I needed to know, just beyond my comprehension. All I had to do was let go, quit worrying. Learn, absorb, be. And everything would be all right.
After a time, the buzz became a whine. The whine became a shout. The shout a bellow, until I realized it wasn’t an insect at all but a person roaring at me.
Telling me about myself. Who I was. Who I wasn’t. What I wanted.
What I didn’t want.
“Walk away!” the voice thundered. “Get up, Mac. Haul your ass out of there now! Or I’ll come kill you myself!”
My head snapped back. I stared down the street.
I narrowed my eyes, squinted. Barrons came into focus.
There was an expression of horror on his face. But it wasn’t directed at the Book open at my knees, and it wasn’t directed at me.
It was focused on whatever was behind me.
Chills iced my spine. What made Jericho Barrons feel horror?
Whatever it was, it was breathing down my neck. Now that I’d been jarred from the trance I was in, I could feel it, malevolent, mocking, beyond amused, laughing, right behind my ear.
“What are you?” I whispered, without turning.
“Infinite. Eternal. ” I heard the sound of chain-saw blades, felt a gust of breath that smelled of oil, metal, and decay hot on my cheek. “Without parameters. Free. ”
“Corrupt. An abomination that should never have been. Evil. ”
“Sides of a coin, Mac,” it said in Ryodan’s voice.
“I’ll never flip. ”
“Maybe something’s wrong with you, Junior,” it said, soft and sweet, in Alina’s voice.
Barrons was trying to move toward me, hammering his fists on an invisible wall.
I turned my head.
O’Bannion crouched behind me, his emaciated body pressed to mine, the scent of death surrounding us, those awful chain-saw blades an inch from my face.
He gnashed his teeth at me and laughed. “Surprise! Gotcha, didn’t I?”
I didn’t have to look back to know the Book wasn’t lying on the pavement.
It never had been.
I hadn’t actually seen a thing. It had all been illusion, glamour. Which meant the Sinsar Dubh had somehow skimmed my mind and plucked from it the images it believed would draw me in, keep me occupied. Some part of my brain must have been thinking about the woman, wondering how I would get past her tomorrow.
It had shown me a glimpse of what I wanted to see, then kept me busy hunting
for more with elusive, sketchy images, all promise, no substance.
While in reality it had been crouching behind me, doing … what? What had it been up to while I’d been staring into pages that weren’t there?
“Learning you. Tasting you. Knowing you, Mac. ” O’Bannion’s bladed hand caressed my arm.
I shook it off.
“Sweet. So sweet. ” O’Bannion’s breath was on my ear.
I gathered my will, lunged to a half crouch, and dragged myself down the pavement, away from it.
“I SAY WHEN WE’RE DONE!”
I was crushed to the street, flattened with pain, and I realized the stones hadn’t been protecting me, nor had any change in my strength or abilities. The Sinsar Dubh had released me from my pain and could return it any time it chose.
It chose now.
It soared over me, rising, stretching, transforming into the Beast, telling me, in graphic detail, what I could do with my puny little stones that only a fool would believe could contain, could dampen, could ever hope to even brush the greatness of something as limitless and perfect as it. It lacerated me with red-hot blades of hatred and cold black blades of despair.
Agony screamed inside my skin.
I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t flee.
I could only lie there whimpering, immobilized by pain.
When I came to, it took me a moment to figure out where I was.
I blinked in the low light and remained motionless, performing a rapid physical assessment of myself.
I was relieved to realize I was experiencing no current pain—it was all residual. My head was one massive bruise. My bones felt as if they’d been crushed, splinted, and had barely begun to heal.
Internal check completed, I turned my attention to my surroundings.
I was in the bookstore, propped on my favorite chesterfield sofa before the fire in the rear conversation area. I was iced to the bone, wrapped in blankets.
Barrons stood in front of the fire, a tall, powerful shape surrounded by flame, his back to me.
I exhaled with relief, a tiny noise in the large room, but Barrons whirled instantly, a sound rattling deep in his chest, guttural, animal. It made my blood run cold.
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It was one of the most inhuman sounds I’d ever heard. Adrenaline erased my pain. I rose up on all fours on the sofa, like some wild thing myself, and stared.
“What the fuck are you?” he snarled. His dark eyes burned ancient and cold in his face. There was blood on his cheeks. Blood on his hands. I wondered if it had come from me. I wondered why he hadn’t bothered trying to wash it off. I wondered how long I’d been out. How had I gotten back here? What time was it, anyway? What had the Book done to me?
Then his question penetrated. I pushed the hair from my eyes and began to laugh. “What am I? What am I?”
I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t help it. I held my sides. There might have been an edge of hysteria in it, but after all I’d been through, I figured I was entitled to a little lunacy. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Jericho Barrons was asking me what I was!
He made that sound again, like a rattlesnake—a giant one—was shaking a warning tail in his chest. I stopped laughing and looked at him. The sound chilled me the same way the Sinsar Dubh did. It made me think that Jericho Barrons’ skin might be a slipcover for a chair I never wanted to see.
“Kneel, Ms. Lane!”
Shit. He’d Voiced me!
And it was working!
I crashed off the sofa in a tangle of blankets and landed on my knees, gritting my teeth. I thought I was immune to Voice! The LM’s hadn’t worked on me! But then, Barrons is better at everything.
“What are you?” he roared.
“I don’t know!” I shouted. I didn’t. But I was sure beginning to wonder. V’lane’s comment that night at the abbey had been haunting me with increasing frequency: They should be afraid of you, he’d said. You have only begun to discover what you are.
“What does the Book want from you?”
“I don’t know!”
“What was it doing to you while it kept you there in the street?”
“I don’t know! How long did it keep me there?”
“Over an hour! It turned into the Beast and eclipsed you. I couldn’t fucking get to you! I couldn’t even fucking see you! What was it doing?”
“Learning me. Tasting me. Knowing me,” I gritted. “That’s what it said. Stop Voicing me, Barrons!”
“I’ll stop Voicing you when you can make me stop Voicing you, Ms. Lane. Stand up. ”
I pushed to my feet on trembling legs, residual pain in every ounce of my body. I hated him at that moment. There was no need to kick me when I was already down.
“Fight me, Ms. Lane,” he growled, without the aid of Voice. “Pick up the knife and cut your hand. ”
I glanced down at the coffee table. An ivory-handled knife with a wicked, jagged blade shimmered in the firelight. I was horrified to find myself reaching for it. I’d been here before. This was exactly how he’d tried to train me in the past.
“Fight!”
And just like in the past, I kept reaching.
“Bloody hell, look inside yourself! Hate me! Fight! Fight any way you can!”
My hand stopped. Pulled back. Moved forward again.
“Cut yourself deep,” he hissed in Voice. “Make it hurt like hell. ”
My fingers closed around the hilt of the knife.
“You’re a natural victim, Ms. Lane. A walking, talking Barbie doll,” he sneered. “See Mac’s sister get killed. See Mac get raped. See Mac get fucked. See Mac get crushed in the street by the Book. See Mac dead on top of the trash heap out back. ”
I sucked in a sharp, pained breath.
“Pick up the knife!”
I raised it jerkily in my hand.
“I’ve been in your skin,” he taunted. “I know you inside and out. There’s nothing there. Do us all a favor and die so we can start working on another plan and quit thinking maybe you’ll grow the fuck up and be capable of something. ”
Okay, enough! “You don’t know me inside and out,” I snarled. “You may have gotten in my skin, but you have never gotten inside my heart. Go ahead, Barrons, make me slice and dice myself. Go ahead, play games with me. Push me around. Lie to me. Bully me. Be your usual constant jackass self. Stalk around all broody and pissy and secretive, but you’re wrong about me. There’s something inside me you’d better be afraid of. And you can’t touch my soul. You will never touch my soul!”
I raised my hand, drew back the knife, and let it fly. It sliced through the air, straight for his head.
He avoided it with preternatural grace, a mere whisper of a movement, precisely and only as much as was required to not get hit.
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The hilt vibrated in the wood of the ornate mantel next to his head.
“So, fuck you, Jericho Barrons, and not the way you like it. Fuck you—as in, you can’t touch me. Nobody can. ”
I kicked the table at him. It crashed into his shins. I picked up a lamp from the end table. Flung it straight at his head. He ducked again. I grabbed a book. It thumped off his chest.
He laughed, dark eyes glittering with exhilaration.
I launched myself at him, slammed a fist into his face. I heard a satisfying crunch and felt something in his nose give.
He didn’t try to hit me back or push me away. Merely wrapped his arms around me and crushed me tight to his body, trapping my arms against his chest.
Then, when I thought he might just squeeze me to death, he dropped his head forward, into the hollow where my shoulder met my neck.
“Do you miss fucking me, Ms. Lane?” he purred against my ear. Voice resonated in my skull, pressuring a reply.
I was tall and strong and proud inside myself. Nobody owned me. I
didn’t have to answer any questions I didn’t want to, ever again.
“Wouldn’t you just love to know?” I purred back. “You want more of me, don’t you, Barrons? I got under your skin deep. I hope you got addicted to me. I was a wild one, wasn’t I? I bet you never had sex like that in your entire existence, huh, O Ancient One? I bet I rocked your perfectly disciplined little world. I hope wanting me hurts like hell!”
His hands were suddenly cruelly tight on my waist.
“There’s only one question that matters, Ms. Lane, and it’s the one you never get around to asking. People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm. It’s the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. Prove yourself. How much truth can you take, Ms. Lane?”
I could feel his mind rubbing up against mine. It was a shockingly sensuous feeling. He was reaching for my thoughts the way I’d hammered at him for his, only he was seducing me into opening my mind, making me blossom like a flower for his sun, beckoning me into one of his memories.
Then I was no longer in the bookstore, a breath away from wanting to kill or—who the hell knew?—kiss Jericho Barrons, I was—
In a tent.
Sawing open a man’s chest with a bloody blade.
Drawing back my arm and punching my fist into the bones that protected his heart.
Closing my hand around it.
Ripping it out.
I’d already raped his woman—she was still alive, watching her husband die. As she had watched her children die.
I raised his heart above my face, squeezed it in my fist, let the blood drip—
He was trying to drown me in the scene of slaughter. Force it on me, graphic detail by detail. But there was more. There was something behind it.
That was what I wanted to see.
I gathered my will, drew back, and launched myself into the scene he was forcing on me. It ripped down the center like a movie screen, revealing another screen behind it.
More slaughter. Him laughing.
I sought that dark glassy lake in my sidhe-seer center. I didn’t summon what lay in its depths. I merely coaxed a little strength from it. Whatever lay beneath that lake offered it willingly, inflating my mental muscles.