It pawed the ground, shifted its haunches. I knew what that meant. Cats do it before they pounce.
I pawed at the ground and gave a deeply enraged snarl. I felt deeply enraged. I shifted my haunches, too.
It blinked beady eyes and grunted thickly.
I grunted back and pawed the ground again.
Standoff.
I had a sudden vision of myself from above.
This was what I’d been reduced to: MacKayla Lane-O’Connor, descended from one of the most powerful sidhe-seers lines, OOP detector, Null, once Pri-ya, now immune to pretty much all Fae glamour, not to mention possessing interesting healing abilities, on the ground on my hands and knees, dirty, wet, wearing a badly battered MacHalo and singed boots, facing off a deadly wild boar without a single weapon except fury, hope for a better tomorrow, and determination to survive. Wiggling my butt. Pawing the ground.
I felt a laugh building inside me like a sneeze and tried desperately to suppress it. My lips twitched. My eyes crinkled. My nose itched and my gut ached with the need to laugh.
I lost it. It was just all too much. I sat back on my heels and laughed.
The boar shifted uneasily.
I stood up, stared the boar down, and laughed even harder. Somehow, nothing’s quite as scary when you’re not on your knees.
“Fuck you,” I told it. “You want some of me?”
The boar regarded me warily, and I realized it wasn’t a mystical creature. It was just a wild animal. I’d heard lots of stories about people in the mountains of North Georgia who’d gotten away from wild animals through sheer bluff and bluster. I had a lot of that to offer.
I took a furious step toward it and shook my fist. “Get out of here! Shoo. Go away. I’m not dying today, you jackass! GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” I roared.
It turned and began to slink—inasmuch as a thousand-pound wild boar can—away across the meadow.
I stared, but not because it was retreating.
My last command had come out in layers that were still resonating in the air around me.
I’d just used Voice!
I had no idea whether the boar had been driven away by my lack of fear and threatening bluster or by the power of my words—I mean, really, can you Voice something that doesn’t understand English?—but I didn’t much care. The point was, I’d used it! And it had come out sounding pretty darned huge!
How had I done it? What had I found inside myself? I tried to recall exactly what I’d been feeling and thinking when I shouted at it.
Alone.
I’d been feeling completely and utterly alone, that there was nothing but me and my impending death.
The key to Voice, Barrons had said, is finding that place inside you no one else can touch.
You mean the sidhe-seer place? I’d asked.
No, a different place. All people have it. Not just sidhe-seers. We’re born alone and we die alone.
“I get it,” I said now.
Regardless of how many people I surrounded myself with, no matter how many friends and family I loved and was loved by in return, I was alone at the moment of being born and at the moment of dying. Nobody came with you and nobody went with you. It was a journey of one.
But not really. Because, in that place, there was something. I’d just felt it, when I’d never been able to feel it before. Maybe in the moment of being born and the moment of dying, we’re nearer to pure. Maybe it’s the only time we’re ever still enough to feel that there’s something bigger than us; something that defeats entropy; that has always been and will always be. A thing that can’t be flipped. Call it what you will. I only know it’s divine. And it cares. It was no longer my “comfort zone. ” It was my truth.
I watched the boar slink off across the field. In a few moments, it would be clear of the pouch of stones, and I would retrieve them. Not that I trusted them much. But they were better than nothing, and I needed them to secure the Book when I got out of here.
I’d just begun to step forward to pick up my cell, then go for the stones, when an enormous gray beast suddenly exploded in a blur of horns and fangs and talons from nowhere.
I stumbled back.
It slammed into the boar’s side, sank fangs into its throat, grabbed its neck, and ripped off its head, spraying blood, taking its kill down between me and the pouch.
Growling, it hunkered over the boar’s body and began to eat.
I stared, hardly daring to breathe. If the thing had been standing upright—and it looked as if it could—it would come close to nine feet. It had three sets of sharp, curved horns spaced at even intervals on two bony ridges that ran down each side of its head. The first set was at its ears, the second midway back on its skull, and the final pair sprouted from the rear of its head and curved downward toward its back. Hanks of long black hair tangled around a prehistoric face, with a crested forehead, prominent bones, and deadly fangs. Its hands and feet were lightly webbed with long talons. Its skin was slate gray, smooth as leather. It was massively muscled and obviously male.
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I hadn’t seen or heard it coming.
I wasn’t about to try out-growling it or attempt to use my newfound skill in Voice, which might or might not work on animals. If I was very lucky, I’d get to slink away quietly, without it ever noticing me. Bluffing a boar was one thing. The boar had been a simple animal, one that might have sprung from earth’s genetic codes. I didn’t need a DNA test to tell me this one hadn’t.
I began easing back slowly, barely lifting my feet from the ground. I’d have to come back later for my cell phone and the stones.
Its head snapped up and it looked straight at me, blood all over its face. So much for my hope of slinking off unnoticed.
I held perfectly still, one foot in the air. Bunnies freeze to outwit enemies. Supposedly, bears are deceived by it.
It wasn’t fooled. It sat back on its haunches and considered me with cunning, narrowed eyes, as if trying to decide what I might taste like. Rage burned in its gaze, as if it were a lion with thorns permanently embedded in all four paws.
I held my breath. Eat the boar, I willed. I’m lean muscle, not plump pork belly.
It shifted its body away from the boar toward me, completely dismissing its kill. Shit, shit, shit.
I was its target now.
With no warning whatsoever, it was suddenly on all fours, running straight at me. The thing was preternaturally fast.
I fumbled my dirk from my sheath and dropped into a crouch, heart slamming in my chest.
“STOP RIGHT THERE!” Voice swelled out of me, saturating the air, echoing in a thousand voices. It was formidable, phenomenal, daunting as hell. I couldn’t believe I’d made such a noise. Barrons would have been so proud. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I roared. “YOU WILL NOT HARM ME!”
Unaffected, the monster kept coming.
I braced myself for impact. There was no way I was going down without a fight. If it stayed on all fours, I’d feint and twist, go for its eyes with my dirk and what was left of my nails. Maybe its male parts. Whatever I had to do to survive.
Half a dozen feet away, the horrific thing stopped so abruptly that it clawed open the earth with its talons. Chunks of sod went flying, narrowly missing my head. Its yellow eyes narrowed to slits, and it snarled.
It was so close to me that I could feel the gust of its hot breath, smell the fresh warm blood on it. I stared at it wildly. It had vertical pupils, expanding and contracting in alien yellow eyes. It bristled with fury, chest heaving in short, rapid pants, as it snarled incessantly.
Shifting its weight forward, it shook its head and snapped its jaws. Saliva and blood sprayed me.
I cringed but didn’t dare wipe it away.
Suddenly it rippled into motion, with such smoothly muscled grace that for a bizarre moment I found it … beautiful. The thing was a natural-born executioner. It was
at the top of its game. Powerful, uncomplicated animal. It had few purposes in life. It had been born and bred to kill, conquer, reproduce, survive. For the duration of that strange moment, I nearly envied it.
It began circling me, taloned hands and feet ripping up tufts of grass and dirt, tossing its head from side to side, yellow eyes burning with bloodlust.
I turned with it, never taking my eyes from its face. I stared into that killing gaze, as if I could hold it at bay with a mere refusal to be cowed. Was this some kind of preslaughter ritual? It hadn’t done it to the boar.
It stopped, cocked its horned head, tipped its monstrous face, and … sniffed in my direction.
What the hell was it doing? I held my breath, hoping I smelled inedible. The fangs—God, those fangs were as long as my fingers!
It didn’t seem to like whatever it had smelled. The smell seemed to make it even angrier. It growled long and low, then, without warning, it lunged!
Dirk clenched in my fist, I held my ground. Our actions define us. I would either live or die fighting.
But I didn’t get the chance to fight.
At the last second, the monster howled and twisted in midair.
All I saw was a blur of motion. One moment it was launching straight for me, the next it was tearing through the grass, racing back to the boar. As I watched, it sank its fangs into the boar’s flesh and, with a violent shake of its head, flayed it open and began to eat, bones crunching, gristle popping.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. I was so shaky I wasn’t sure my legs would support me. I was too freaked out to process thought.
Mobility returned on the wings of adrenaline.
I darted forward, snatched my cell phone from the ground, and ran like hell.
Some time later, I sat in a glade of tall grass and white-barked trees, leaning back against a trunk, trying to get a grasp on my situation. It had taken nearly half an hour for me to stop shaking. I’d wanted to run as far away from the terrifying monster as I could, but I needed those damned stones.
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This day had not unfolded remotely as I’d planned. I was having a hard time accepting where I was and what was happening to me.
I’d begun this afternoon with a clear agenda: I’d stepped into a Silver with the perfectly reasonable expectation (oh, God, did that sum up how warped my world had gotten or what?) of stepping out on the other side in my own living room, in my own world, where I would either rescue my parents from the LM’s evil clutches, with Barrons’ help, or die trying.
Now here I was on some foreign world inside the network of the Silvers, which were—according to Barrons—a place that was virtually impossible to navigate and where one could stay lost forever, being attacked by one predator after another.
I’d been absurdly, dangerously sidetracked. Things had taken such an unprecedented twist that I felt as if I’d slipped down one of Alice’s rabbit holes.
It was one thing to watch Fae invade Dublin and try to take over my world, to fight them on my turf. It was entirely another to find myself world-hopping via mirrors and mystical stones, forced to do battle on foreign ground. At least back home, I knew where to get the things I needed, and I had allies to help me. Here, I was screwed.
Events were going on without me back in my world, and I needed to be part of them. I had to get out of here! I had to save my parents, question Nana O’Reilly, get into the Forbidden Libraries, figure out where V’lane was, uncover the prophecy … The list was endless.
But I was stuck on one of the worlds in the network of the Silvers, with a terrifying monster between me and stones that I didn’t dare leave behind. Not only were they of use here (though risky), but I had to take them back to my world so I could use them there.
If I needed any proof of how difficult the Silvers were to get out of—and survive in—I only had to think of Christian, who’d been wandering lost for two months, and been on the verge of death when I’d found him.
How would I survive two months? How would I survive two weeks?
What was happening to my parents?
I punched IYD on my cell phone for the hundredth time and, for the hundredth time, nothing happened.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. Barrons had gotten out of here.
How? Why hadn’t he told me he’d been sucked in with Christian? Why so many lies? Or, as he would call them, “omissions. ”
I opened my eyes and checked my watch. It was still 1:14. Duh. I took it off and stuffed it into a pocket. The thing was obviously useless here. I was waiting for the monster to finish devouring the boar so I could go get my stones. I thought it had been at least an hour or two, but the sun hadn’t moved in the sky at all since I’d sat down, which meant either my sense of time was badly skewed or the days were much longer here than I was used to.
While I killed time, I sorted through my options. The way I saw it, I had three. Once I had the stones back, I could A: start hunting for IFPs, risk entering one, and hope it wouldn’t trap me in a desert like the one Christian had gotten stuck in; or B: use the stones and hope that I was really far away from the Unseelie prison and they’d send me back to the Hall of All Days or some other place with mirrors to choose from; or C: stay right where I was and hope that, even though IYD didn’t work here, Barrons would still be able to track me by my brand. And that the monster would move on and find something else to terrorize and kill. Otherwise, remaining in this area wouldn’t even be an option.
Barrons was obviously familiar with the worlds inside the network of Silvers, considering how quickly he’d gotten out. Which seemed to indicate he’d been in here at least once prior to having been sucked in with Christian.
Of all my options, staying put and giving Barrons the chance to track me seemed the most sensible. Once before I’d discounted his ability to save me, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.
It had taken him four days to get out.
I’d give him five to find me. But five was the max I would allow, because I was afraid I might start thinking, Yeah, but what if today is the day he comes? Then I’d be afraid to ever leave. It was imperative I make firm decisions and stick to them.
That resolved, I stoked my courage, stood up, and moved stealthily to the edge of the glade, to see if I could reclaim my stones.
The monster was still eating. It stopped, raised its head, and sniffed. Was it looking at me through the trees?
I dropped to all fours and retreated inch by inch. After I’d put some distance between us, I got up and ran back to my tree.
Why hadn’t it killed me? Why had it stopped? Was I inedible? I knew sometimes animals were rabid and killed simply to kill. I’d never seen such fury in an animal’s eyes before. One of my friends had been bitten by a rabid dog, and I’d seen it kenneled before it was put down. It had looked more frightened than angry. The gray monster didn’t possess one ounce of fear. It was nothing but savagery.
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Two more times I slipped through the glade to check. Both times it was still eating and showed no signs of stopping.
I returned to my tree, where I watched the sun crawl across the sky. The day heated up and I stripped off my coat, sweater, and jersey. I made a sling from the jersey, knotted the MacHalo in it, and tied it to a stick, hobo style.
I spent my time alternately worrying about Mom and Dad, trying to convince myself that Barrons had rescued them; Dani being at the abbey and what rash decisions she might make without me there to keep an eye on her; Christian and where he’d gotten off to and hoping he’d found food because I’d never gotten the chance to give him one of my protein bars; and even V’lane, for disappearing and never popping up again.
I couldn’t think of a single thing to worry about for Barrons.
I pondered life, trying to make sense of it, wondering how I could ever have grown up believing the world a sane,
safe, orderly place.
I was about to push myself up to go check on my stones for the fourth time when I heard a twig snap.
My head whipped around.
The monster was crouched on all fours, no more than twenty feet away from me.
It stared though the tall grass, head hunkered low, yellow eyes glittering.
Was it done with the boar and hungry for me now?
I grabbed my hobo stick and coat and shot up the tree so fast I think I gouged sod from the earth. Heart in my throat, I flew from limb to limb.
I hate heights as much as I hate confined spaces, but halfway up I forced myself to stop and look down. Could the monster climb? It didn’t look as if it should be able to, with what I estimated had to be four hundred pounds of muscle plus all those talons, but in this world who knew? Especially with the weirdly fluid way it could move.
It was on the ground beneath the tree, on all fours, tearing at the grass where moments ago I’d been sitting.
As I watched, it found my sweater. It pierced it on long talons and raised it to its face.
I gasped. The sweater wasn’t the only thing of mine it had. Tied to its rear horns by a leather drawstring was my rune-covered bag.
The monster had my stones!
When it finally wandered off—with my sweater knotted around one of its hind legs—I descended the tree. After a long, internal debate with myself, I shrugged and began to follow it.
I was furious at the latest turn of events.
Why had the damned thing picked up my stones, and how—with those lethal talons—had it managed to tie the bag to its horns? Wasn’t knot-tying pretty damned evolved for a prehistoric-looking beast? And what was the deal with my sweater?
It realized I was following it, stopped, turned around, and looked at me.
My instincts screamed for me to tuck tail and run again, but there was something strange going on here. Although it bristled with fury, it hadn’t taken a single step my way.
“Those are my stones and I need them,” I tried.
Feral yellow eyes narrowed, unblinking.
I pointed to its horns. “The pouch. It’s mine. Give it back. ”
Nothing. There wasn’t a flicker of understanding or anything remotely resembling intelligence in its gaze.