A short time later, I was in a slightly dented Range Rover Sport. I’d swept the husks from it, trying not to look too hard at the tiniest husk as I’d unbelted and gently placed the car seat, along with a fluffy pink teddy bear and a shirt that said I ♥ Daddy, beneath a leafless oak tree.
I headed for the abbey, mostly alongside the road because so much of it was clogged with abandoned cars. I munched a couple of protein bars as I drove and paused periodically at petrol stations and convenience stores, stocking the back of the Rover with water, food, batteries, and, at one of my stops, plastic containers of gas I’d discovered already pumped, much to my mixed emotions. I needed it and was grateful for it. But there’d been no way to miss the pile of rugged work pants, hip implant, Irish fisherman’s sweater, and boots next to the three containers. Had a father come out, too close to dusk, for gas to keep his family’s generator running? Did they still wait somewhere, cowering in the darkness?
About an hour after I’d left the city, I saw the strangest thing. Initially, from a distance, I mistook it for a very large, very low-flying bizarre plane. But as I drew closer, I could see that it was an Unseelie Hunter and some other kind of Fae that I’d never seen before locked in battle, beating air with their massive wings, tearing at each other with teeth and talons.
Were Unseelie fighting themselves, or was this a Seelie fighting an Unseelie? Were the Hunters once again keepers of Fae law, as they’d been an eternity past?
I didn’t know, I didn’t care. I just wanted to pass unnoticed beneath their radar. Hunters hunt sidhe-seers. Was I giving off a betraying scent? It was too late to go back and I needed to go forward, so I held my breath and muttered prayers to every deity I could think of that the Fae were too engrossed in their fight to look down.
One of the pagan gods must have heard me, because I passed beneath them without incident, holding my breath and watching as the battle vanished to a pinpoint in my rearview mirror. I sucked down air greedily and pretended my hands weren’t shaking. “My kingdom for a spear,” I muttered.
About thirty minutes from the abbey, I got another surprise: Dirt gave way to wintered grass.
For whatever reason, the Shades had stopped here.
Perhaps it was the farthest they’d gotten and they were hunkered in a dark culvert or had slithered beneath a fallen tree for the day, where they impatiently awaited the night to resume eating their way toward the abbey. Perhaps the soil in this part of the country didn’t taste good, salted with so many centuries of sidhe-seers living on it. Perhaps Rowena and her merry band had done something to halt their progress. Who knew? I was just glad to see something besides dirt.
The next surprise came so quickly, I had no chance to react.
One moment I was driving parallel to a road so narrow that only a whopping-good sport would call it two-lane, on a wintry Irish day, and the next I was—
Beneath the triple canopy of a lush tropical rain forest, driving on the surface of a dark, glassy swamp, throwing up a splash of foam in my wake, and I had no idea how it had happened or, more important, why I wasn’t sinking. I know cars. All kinds. They’re my passion. The Range Rover Sport has a curb weight of roughly 5,700 pounds. I should have sunk like a stone. I looked out my window. Nothing but more water beneath the eerily colored surface.
I blinked. What had just happened? Giant trees surrounded me, sprouting things from their trunks that looked like brilliant orchids mated to octopuses. Birds the size of my Rover paddled around the trees, leathery wings folded on their backs. Periodically they stabbed the water with their beaks, tossed back their heads, and swallowed. They had very large, very sharp beaks.
“V’lane?” I said incredulously. But this didn’t stink of V’lane. V’lane did “seductive” when he sifted me. Not “disturbing” and “potentially lethal,” although those two phrases certainly did spring to mind when he was around.
Still, being sifted seemed to be the only possible explanation for how abruptly my surroundings had shifted.
A hummingbird glided by. It was the size of a small elephant. Its long, pointed beak was proportionate. In my world—not that many people know it: They mistakenly “ooh” and “ah” over the sweet, delicate little sugar-water drinkers—hummingbirds are carnivores. They accept the sugar water we offer them only in order to fuel their hunt for meat.
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I was meat.
I jammed my foot down on the gas, skidding on the water, dodging trees, birds, and vines. I didn’t look behind me to see if anything was giving chase. I just drove.
Abruptly, I was back in Ireland, a dozen feet from slamming into a tree.
I pumped the brakes, skidded on dead grass, and stopped much too close to bark. I sat for a moment, gasping.
After seeing that freaky Fae sky battle, I’d thought I was ready for anything. I was wrong.
I got out, walked around to the back of the Range Rover, and stared at where I’d just been.
It took me about twenty seconds to figure out how to see it.
If I narrowed my eyes and slanted a look very casually sideways, like I was peeking, I could see the sliver of Fae reality—almost as if it were trying to hide, the better to ambush me—spiking through our own.
If human air was clear glass, Fae air was slightly thicker, slightly wavy, and slightly off-color.
I remembered Samhain night, watching from the belfry as Fae and human realms had competed for space in a world with no walls.
Apparently we’d lost a few of those battles.
It infuriated me. It was one more danger I had to watch out for. Dark Zones were bad enough. Now I had IFPs: Interdimensional Fairy Potholes screwing up my roads, lurking around, looking all innocuous and benign, waiting to blow out the tire or break the axle of the unwary traveler, stranding them in a no-man’s-land with alternate laws of physics, hostile life-forms, and no discernible rules of the road.
I got back into my Rover and slammed the door. I resumed driving, this time watching the terrain ahead much more closely.
What other surprises might this day bring?
I considered the shocks I’d already faced: Barrons doing … well, that thing he’d done in order to drag me back to reality; the discovery that I was immune to wards and the deadly sexual allure of Fae Princes; Shades taking over half of Ireland; Fae sky battles; and now IFPs.
I’d never have believed the most disconcerting shock of my day was yet to come.
I made one last stop about twenty miles from the abbey, where I got out and played with my new gun, taught myself to load and fire it.
It took me less time to get over my initial gee-what-if-I-drop-this-thing-and-blow-my-own-head-off? than I expected.
The gun felt good in my hands, solid and comforting, just like every weapon I’ve ever picked up. I think it’s somehow coded into my sidhe-seer DNA. We were born to protect, to fight. The blood knows. I suspect our bloodlines have been manipulated for a long time. Centuries, perhaps millennia.
I resumed driving toward the abbey, passing through dozens of wards. Rowena certainly was keeping her little flock busy, gadding about, etching protective runes and whatnot. I wondered what else she was keeping them so busy with that they didn’t have time to consider mutinying, which, in my opinion, they should have done years ago. Like, say, before they lost the Dark Book that this whole stupid war was about, because somebody sure must have fallen asleep on her watch to let that happen.
Oh, yes, I had a few bones to pick with the not-so-Grand Mistress.
I parked my Rover in front of the stone fortress of the abbey, got out, locked it—they were my supplies, and nobody was taking them—and marched to the door. I left my pack and MacHalo in the car but brought my gun. I was rather surprised the old woman wasn’t waiting out front, arms crossed, glasses perched on her nose, magnifying the intellect and ferocity in those sharp blue eyes, with a band of sidhe-seers gathered behin
d her, denying me entrance. We’ve never been on the best of terms, and I had no doubt that our relationship, if you could call it that, was worse now than it had been before.
Frankly, I didn’t give a damn.
The door was locked. I fired a quick burst of bullets at the handle with my favorite new toy and kicked it open.
The entry hall was empty. Could it be that no one was expecting me? I’d passed through all those wards, setting them off. I frowned. Or had I set them off?
If I could pass through wards now, was it possible I did it without tripping them? That certainly could come in handy. Still, I’d just let loose a round of automatic gunfire. Surely that had alerted someone.
When the attack came, it blasted me from nowhere, hit me like a brick wall, and I went sprawling on my ass for the third time that day. It was getting old. Something yanked at my gun and pummeled me like a speed boxer.
Then a face blurred into view and I gasped, and she gasped, then she stopped hitting me and grabbed me and hugged me so tight I thought my spine was going to snap.
“Mac!” Dani cried. “You’re back!”
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I laughed and relaxed. I loved this kid. “Have I told you you’re the Shit, Dani?”
She rolled off me and bounded to her feet. “Nope. Never. I woulda remembered it. But you can say it again, if you want. And you can tell everybody else, too. I wouldn’t mind a bit. ” Cat eyes gleamed in her gamine face.
“You’re the Shit, Dani. ” I got up and slung my gun back over my shoulder. We stood and smiled for a moment, absorbed in being happy to see each other.
Then we spoke at the same time:
“You okay, Mac?”
“What happened to you, Dani?”
“You first. ” She looked me up and down admiringly. “Dude, you look awesome. Love the coat. What you been doing? Weight training or something?”
I blushed. Then I rolled my eyes at myself. Toting automatic weapons and still blushing? I needed to get over that fast.
“Dude!” she said reverently. “With Barrons? You been having sex this whole time? S’that how he got you back from Nympho-land? I was so worried when you didn’t come back. Guess I shouldn’t a been. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Where’d he take you? I been hunting all over Dublin for you every chance I could duck under Ro’s radar. Which wasn’t often,” she said sourly, then immediately brightened. “You gotta tell me everything! Everything!”
I wrinkled my nose. “Where did this ‘dude’ thing come from?”
She preened. “Don’t I sound more like you? I been watching a lot of American movies. I been practicing. ”
“I liked you better when every other word was a cussword. And I’m not telling you anything. Not today, not ever. All you need to know is, I’m okay now. I’m back. ”
“You had sex with Barrons and you aren’t going to tell me one thing about it?” She looked incredulous. “Nothing? Not even one tiny little detail?”
Oh, God. She was so thirteen. What was I going to do with her? “Nothing. Ever. ”
“You suck. ”
I laughed. “Love you, too, Dani. ”
She grinned. “I saved you. ”
“Big-time. And I owe you big-time. ”
“You can pay me back by telling me about sex. ”
“If you’ve been watching so many movies, honey, you know more than enough. ”
“Not about … you know … him. ”
I gave her a sharp look. She sounded breathless. Gone was all mischief; she looked positively doe-eyed. Dani—tough, punk Dani—looked like she’d gone soft at the knees. I was flabbergasted. “You’ve got a crush on Barrons now? I thought it was V’lane you were so crazy about. ”
“Him, too. But when Barrons came and pulled you out of here, dude, you shoulda seen the way he looked at you!”
“I’m not a dude. Lose it. ” I was not going to ask. “So, how did he look at me?”
“Like it was his birthday and you were the cake. ”
At least he hadn’t smashed this one into the ceiling. It seemed Barrons had finally gotten his cake and eaten it, too.
I winced. I refused to entertain that metaphor further. Barrons-thoughts were far too complicated for me to deal with. Especially any that involved eating the cake. Later I might get around to asking Dani about my earliest, confused days at the abbey. Now I had other priorities. “My turn. What happened to you?” Everywhere that skin was visible on the fiery-haired teen, she had bruises. Her forearms were especially bad. Two fingers were splinted. One eye was black and blue and swollen nearly closed, her lip was busted, and both cheeks sported the yellowish-purple blossoms of healing contusions.
She glanced around edgily.
I tensed instantly. “What? Is somebody coming?”
“You never know ‘round here anymore,” she muttered, and looked around again. Although the hall was empty, she lowered her voice. “Been trying to get into the Forbidden Libraries. Hasn’t been working so well. ”
“By doing what? Blasting into the doors at high speed?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. Mostly I been falling down. No big. ”
“It’s a big to me. It doesn’t look like superhealing is one of your strengths. Try to be more careful with yourself, okay?”
She gave me a quick, startled look. “Okay, Mac. ”
Had everyone at the abbey left her alone for so long that a mere expression of concern for her well-being startled her? “I mean it. Quit banging yourself up unless it’s absolutely necessary. ”
“I hear and obey, Big Mac. ” She flashed me an outrageous grin.
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Big Mac. It was like a fist to my heart. Alina had called me Baby Mac. Sometimes Junior. I’d called her Big Mac. It was an inside joke with us. “Why’d you call me that?”
“Movies. American stuff. McDonald’s. You know. ”
“Don’t call me Big Mac and I won’t call you … Danielle. ” I took a guess and knew by her instant sour look I’d guessed right. “Deal?”
“Deal. ”
“Where’s my spear?”
She stiffened again, glanced around again, and dropped her voice even further. “Don’t know,” she said softly. “But we picked it up that day at the church. Kat brought it back. Hasn’t been seen since. I kinda thought she’d arm one of us with it. She hasn’t. ”
My lips thinned. I knew why. Rowena was carrying it herself.
“I think so, too,” Dani said, and I looked at her sharply. “Nah, I just know the way you think. We’re alike that way. We see things the way they are, not the way folks want us to believe they are or how we wish they were. ”
“Where is the old witch?”
Dani gave me a glum look. “Right now?”
I nodded.
“Behind you. ”
I whirled, bringing my gun up sharp and hard. And there it was: my biggest, most disconcerting shock of the day. Far more shocking than expanding Dark Zones, sky battles, and Interdimensional Fairy Potholes.
There stood Rowena, decked out in high Grand Mistress garb—the robes of the order that had been founded for the express purpose of hunting and killing Fae—arm in arm with a Fae. The Fae that had just sifted her in behind me.
It was no wonder Dani had been looking around nervously.
And no wonder V’lane had known my spear was at the abbey.
He was at the abbey.
All cozy with Rowena. Sifting her around, apparently.
I lowered my gun and glared at V’lane. “Is this a joke? Do you think this is funny? Why didn’t you just sift me here to begin with, if you were coming this way?”
Rowena’s nose could have pointed more skyward only if she’d been lying on her back. “As the spear is no longer your possession, nor is this Fae Prince. He has seen the light you fail to see. He aids all sidhe-seers now, not just one. ”
Oh, real
ly? We’d see about that. Both the spear and the prince. “I was talking to V’lane, old woman, not you. ”
“He doesn’t answer to you. ”
“Really?” I laughed. “You think he answers to you?” Only a fool would think a Fae Prince answered to anyone. Especially when one needed one.
“Are you fighting over me, MacKayla? I find this … attractive. ” V’lane tossed his golden head. “I have seen this in humans before. It is called jealousy. ”
“If that’s what you think, you have a problem interpreting subtle human emotions. It’s not called jealousy. It’s called ‘you’re pissing me off. ’”
“Possessiveness. ”
“My ass. ”
“Is far more shapely than last I saw it. ”
“She’s been working out. ” Dani snickered.
“You have no business looking at it,” I said.
“But Barrons does?” The temperature in the room dropped sharply.
My breath frosted the air. “We are not talking about Barrons. ” We were never going to talk about Barrons.
“I’d like to talk about Barrons,” said Dani.
“You chose,” V’lane said coldly.
“I chose nothing. I was out of my mind. Is that what this is about, V’lane? Barrons? You sound jealous. Possessive. ”
“He does,” Dani agreed.
“Haud your whist!” Rowena snapped. “The lot of you! For the love of Mary, can you not see the world is falling apart around you, yet you stand here, bickering like children? You”—she stabbed a finger at me—“a sidhe-seer, and you”—she actually poked V’lane in the arm, and he looked startled that she’d done it—“a Fae Prince!” She glowered at Dani. “And don’t even get me started on you. You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing to bruise yourself so badly? I’m Grand Mistress, not grand fool. Enough, all of you!”
“Haud your whist yourself, old woman,” I told her flatly. “I’ll bicker while the world falls apart if I feel like it. I’ve done more good and less damage than you. Who had the Sinsar Dubh to begin with—and lost it?”
“Don’t be pushing your nose into doings you can’t begin to understand, girl!”
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“Then help me understand them. I’m all ears. Where—no, how—were you keeping the Book?” That was what I wanted to know most. The secret to touching it, to containing the Sinsar Dubh, was the key to harnessing its power. “What happened? How did you lose it?”