The stranglehold on my throat was gone, and for a few moments I simply enjoyed the sensation of breath moving in and out of my lungs, of knowing my tongue was once again my own. I could feel V’lane’s name, piercing the meat of it, and realized that from the moment Barrons had used Voice to bind my will, it had somehow faded, receded beyond my reach. “I am not. The only two times you ever called me Mac is when I was near death. Since there’s no other threat around right now, you must be about to kill me. It’s perfectly logical. ”
“I didn’t call you Mac. ”
“Yes, you did. ”
“I called you Ms. Lane. ”
“No, you didn’t. ”
“Yes, I did. ”
I clenched my jaw. Sometimes, despite Barrons’ eternal old-world sophistication, and my glamour-girl cool, he and I very nearly devolve into childish fights. Frankly, I didn’t give a rat’s petunia what he’d called me, and wasn’t about to sit here and argue about it. I was free, and furious. I exploded from my chair, launched myself at him, and slammed both palms against his chest. I put every ounce of determination to Null into my hands that I could summon. My sidhe-seer core blazed like a small fiery sun in my head. Was he or wasn’t he Unseelie?
I hit him so hard that his chair toppled backward and we went skidding across the floor toward the fireplace, stopping inches from the grate. If he froze at all, it was for so brief a moment that I couldn’t decide if I’d nulled him, or merely startled him into a brief second of immobility.
Figured. More non-answers where Barrons was concerned.
I reared back, straddling him, and punched him in the jaw as hard as I could. He started to speak and I punched him again. I wished I’d eaten Unseelie. I was going to go eat ten of them tonight then come back here and finish him off, the hell with answers.
“How dare you saunter in here and force me to give you answers when you’ve never given me a single one?” I hissed. I punched him in the stomach, hard. He didn’t even wince. I punched him again. Nothing.
“You stand there all tan and glowing and wonder why I use Voice on you?” he bellowed. “Where the hell do you get off? You’ve been with V’lane again. How many slaps in the face do you think I’m going to take, Ms. Lane?” He grabbed my fist and held it when I tried to punch him again. I swung at him with the other. He caught that, too. “I warned you not to play us against each other. ”
“I’m not playing you! I’m trying to survive. And I don’t slap you when I go off with V’lane!” I tried to yank my fists from his hands. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’m trying to get answers, and since you won’t give me any, you can’t blame me for going somewhere else. ”
“So, the man who doesn’t get laid at home has the right to go off and cheat?”
“Huh?”
“Which word didn’t you understand?” he sneered.
“You’re the one who’s crippled by illogic. This isn’t home, it never will be, and nobody’s getting laid!” I practically shouted.
“You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying.
Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.
“Let go of my hands. ”
“Make me,” he taunted. “Voice me, Ms. Lane. Come on, little girl, show me some power. ”
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Little girl, my ass. “You know I can’t. And that makes what you did to me tonight even more unforgivable. You might as well have raped me. In fact, that’s exactly what you did!”
He rolled hard and fast, and I was on my back beneath him, with my hands pinned above my head, the weight of his body crushing me to the floor, his face inches from mine. He was breathing harder than the exertion merited.
“Make no mistake, Ms. Lane, I didn’t rape you. You can lie there on your pretty little P. C. ass and claim with your idealistic little P. C. arguments that any violation of your will is rape and that I’m a big, bad bastard, and I’ll tell you that you’re full of shit, and you’ve obviously never been raped. Rape is much, much worse. Rape isn’t something you walk away from. You crawl. ”
He was off me and on his feet, stalking out the door before I’d even managed to catch enough breath to reply.
PART TWO
The Darkest Hour
Nightfall.
“What a strange word.
‘Night’ I get.
But ‘fall’ is a gentle word.
Autumn leaves fall, swirling with languid grace
To carpet the earth with their dying blaze.
Tears fall, like liquid diamonds
Shimmering softly, before they melt away.
Night doesn’t fall here.
It comes slamming down. ”
—Mac’s journal
TEN
I slept fitfully and dreamed of the sad woman again.
She was trying to tell me something but an icy wind kept stealing her words each time she opened her mouth. Laughter rippled on the chilling breeze, and I thought I recognized it, but I couldn’t lift the name from my mind. The harder I tried, the more frightened and confused I became. Then V’lane was there, and Barrons too, with men I’d never seen before, and suddenly Christian appeared, and Barrons moved toward him, with murder in his eyes.
I woke up, iced to the bone, and in a state of alarm.
My subconscious had put something together that hadn’t penetrated my conscious mind: Today was Thursday, Christian was returning from Scotland, and Barrons was onto him, because of me.
I had no idea what Barrons might do to him, and didn’t want to find out. The lie-detecting Keltar was no match for . . . whatever my employer was. Teeth chattering, I grabbed my cell off the night table, and called the ALD. The dreamy-eyed boy answered, and told me Christian wasn’t due in until afternoon. I asked for an apartment, home, or cell number, and he said the personnel files were locked up in the department head’s office. She was gone for a long holiday weekend, and wouldn’t be back until Monday.
I left an urgent message for Christian to call me the instant he walked in.
I was about to tug the covers up, snuggle down, and try to shiver myself warm, when my phone rang.
It was Dani.
“She almost caught me, Mac!” she said breathlessly. “She didn’t leave PHI at all yesterday. She slept in her office, and I was up all fecking night, waiting for a chance to get in. Then a few minutes ago she finally went downstairs, for breakfast, I thought, and I slipped in but I couldn’t find the book you wanted. There was another one in her desk, so I took pictures of it, but I didn’t get many because she came right back, and I had to go out the fecking window and I tore my uniform and banged myself up something wicked. I couldn’t get what you asked for but I tried, and I got something else. That counts, doesn’t it? Will you still meet up with us?”
“Are you okay?”
She snorted. “I kill monsters, Mac. I fell out of a stupid window. ”
I smiled. “Where are you?” I could hear horns honking in the background, the sounds of the city waking up.
“Not far from you. ” She told me. I knew the intersection.
I glanced at the window. It was still dark out. I hated her being out there in the dark, regardless of her superspeed, and I doubted she had the sword. “There’s a church across the street. ” It was brilliantly lit. “I’ll meet you in front of it in ten minutes. ”
“But the rest of ’em aren’t here!”
“I’m just coming for my camera. Can you get the girls together this afternoon?”
“I
can try. Kat says you have to pick a place where the other . . . couriers . . . won’t see us. ”
I named several cafés, all of which she nixed as too risky. We finally settled on a below-street pub, aptly named The Underground, that offered darts and pool tables, but no windows.
I hung up, brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, tugged on jeans, and zipped a fleece-lined jacket over my PJ top, then jammed a ball cap on my head. My blond roots were showing. I made a mental note to stop in a drugstore on the way back and grab a couple boxes of color. It was depressing enough that I had to have dark hair. I wasn’t going to cheese it up with a sloppy dye job.
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It was 7:20 when I hit the pavement. The sun wouldn’t rise until 7:52 A. M. It would set at 6:26; I’ve become a bit obsessed with the precise timing of natural light, and keep a chart of it on my wall, next to the map where I track Unseelie hot spots and Book activity. I stayed to the lights as much as I could, moving from the pool cast by one streetlamp to the next, a flashlight in each hand, my spear heavy and comforting in my shoulder harness. My MacHalo was for deep night work only. If the people passing by thought it was bizarre that I was carrying lit flashlights, I didn’t care. I was staying alive. They could smirk all they wanted. A few of them did.
As I hurried down the street, I pictured myself three months ago, compared it to what I looked like now, and laughed. The businessman hurrying along next to me glanced over. He met my eyes, jerked a little, and stepped up his pace, leaving me behind.
It had rained during the night, and the cobbled streets were shiny in the predawn light. The city perched on the expectant edge of day about to explode: buses honking, taxis vying for space with commuters, people checking their watches and rushing to their jobs, other people . . . or things . . . already doing theirs, like those Rhino-boys sweeping the streets, and picking up trash.
I watched them surreptitiously, struck by the oddity of it. The non-sidhe-seer passerby would see only the human glamour they projected, of the still half-asleep city employee, but I saw their stumpy gray limbs, beady eyes, and jutting jaws as plain as the skin on the back of my hand. I knew they were watchdogs for higher-ranking Fae. I didn’t get why they were doing human dirty work. I couldn’t see a Fae stooping to it, Light or Dark Court. The many low-level Unseelie were chafing my sidhe-seer senses. Usually Rhino-boys don’t bother me too much, but in mass numbers they make me feel like I have an ulcer. I poked around inside my head, wondering if I could mute it somehow.
That was better! I could turn the volume down. Very cool.
Dani was leaning jauntily against a streetlamp in front of the church, bike propped against her hip. She had a painful-looking knot on her forehead; the undersides of her forearms were scraped raw, and dirty; and she’d torn holes in the knees of her pinstriped pants as if she’d gone sliding on all fours down an asphalt roof, which, she told me breezily, she had. I wanted to take her back to the bookstore, clean and bandage her up. I told my bleeding heart to get over it. If we ever ended up fighting back to back, I’d need to trust her to deal with all but critical wounds.
Dani slapped the camera into my hand with a cocky grin, and said, “Go ahead, tell me what a great job I did. ”
I suspected she didn’t hear praise often. Rowena didn’t seem the type to waste breath on a job well done, when she could save it for a job badly done. I also doubted Dani got much nurturing from the other sidhe-seers. Her mouthy defensiveness made her hard to cuddle, and her sisters-in-arms had their own worries on their minds. I thumbed on the camera, glanced at the measly seven pages she’d photographed, of the wrong stuff, and said, “Great job, Dani!”
She preened a moment, then hopped on her bike and pedaled off, skinny legs pumping. I wondered if she ever used her superspeed while biking and, if she did, would you see only a flash of green whizzing by? Kermit the Frog on steroids. “Later, Mac,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll call you soon. ”
I headed back to the bookstore by way of the drugstore. It was light enough to put away my flashlights. I did, then stared down at my camera, zooming in on the photos, trying to figure out what she’d gotten.
I knew better than to walk with my head down. I didn’t even dare carry an umbrella in the rain for fear of what I might bump into.
When I careened off the shoulder of a man standing near a dark, expensive car parked at the curb, I exclaimed, “Oh, sorry!” and kept right on going, blessing my luck that it had been a human I’d bumped into, not a Fae—when I realized I had my “volume” way down—and it hadn’t been a human.
I whirled, whipping my spear from my jacket, willing the people passing by—most with their noses buried in a newspaper, or on their cell phones—not to see me, as if maybe I could throw a little glamour of my own. Melt into the shadows with the other monsters.
“Bitch,” spat Derek O’Bannion, his swarthy features contorted with hatred. But his cold, reptilian gaze acknowledged my weapon and he made no move toward me.
Ironically, that weapon is the spear I stole from his brother, Rocky, shortly before Barrons and I led him and his henchmen to their death-by-Shade behind the bookstore. Capitalizing on Derek’s hunger for revenge, the LM recruited him as a replacement for Mallucé, taught him to eat Unseelie, and sent him after me to get the spear. I’d convinced the younger O’Bannion brother that I would kill him if he so much as blinked at me wrong, and I’d let him know just how terrible that death would be. The spear killed anything Fae. When a person ate Unseelie, it turned parts of the person Fae. When those parts died, they rotted from the inside out, poisoning the human parts of the person, and ultimately killing them. The one time I’d eaten Fae, I’d been terrified of the spear. I’d seen Mallucé up close and personal. He’d been marbled with decay. Half his mouth had rotted, parts of his hands, legs, and stomach had been a decomposing stew, and his genitals . . . ugh. It was a horrific way to die.
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O’Bannion yanked open the car door, muttered something to the driver, then slammed it again. The engine turned over and twelve cylinders purred to the quiet life of understated wealth.
I smiled at him. I love my spear. I understand why boys at war name their guns. He fears it. The Royal Hunters fear it. With the exception of the Shades, who have no substance to stab, it will kill anything Fae, allegedly even the king and queen themselves.
Someone I couldn’t see pushed the rear car door open from the inside. O’Bannion rested his hand on the top of the window. He was far more riddled with Fae than he had been a week and a half ago. I could feel it.
“Little addictive, huh?” I said sweetly. I dropped my spear, pressed it to my thigh, to dissuade potential busybodies from calling the Garda. I wasn’t willing to sheathe it. I knew how fast and strong he was. I’d been there myself, and it had been incredible.
“You should know. ”
“I only ate it once. ” Probably wasn’t so wise to admit that just then, but I was proud of the battle I’d been winning.
“Bullshit! Nobody who’s tasted the power would give it up. ”
“We’re not the same, you and I. ” He wanted dark power. I didn’t. Deep down, I just wanted to go back to being the girl I used to be. I would trespass into darker territories only if my survival depended on it. O’Bannion considered embracing the darkness a step up.
I feinted a jab at him with my spear. He flinched, and his mouth compressed to a thin white line.
I wondered, if he stopped eating it now, would he revert to fully human, or, after a certain point, was it too late, and the transformation couldn’t be undone?
How I wished I’d let him walk into the Dark Zone that day! I couldn’t fight him here and now, in the middle of rush hour. “Get out of here,” I stabbed air again, “and if you see me on the street, run as fast and as far as you can. ”
He laughed. “You stupid little cunt, you have no idea what’s c
oming. Wait till you see what the Lord Master has in store for you. ” He ducked into the car, and glanced back at me, with a smile of malevolence and . . . sick anticipation. “Trick or treat, bitch,” he said, then laughed again. I could hear him laughing, even after he’d closed the door.
I tucked the spear in my harness then stood on the sidewalk, gaping, as he drove away.
Not because of anything he’d said, but because of what I’d seen as he’d settled back into the supple, camel-colored leather seats.
Or, rather, who I’d seen.
A woman, beautiful and voluptuous, in the way of aging movie stars from a time long gone by, when actresses had been worthy of the title Diva.
My “volume” was on high. She was eating Fae, too.
Well, now I knew: While Barrons might have killed the woman he’d been carrying out of the mirror, he hadn’t killed Fiona.
I opened Barrons Books and Baubles at eleven on the dot, with a new ’do. I’d colored it two shades lighter than Arabian Nights this time and looked closer to my age again (black hair makes me look older, especially with red lipstick), then run down the street for a quick cut, and now a few longish wedges of bang framed my face. The result was feminine and soft, completely at odds with how I felt inside. The rest of it I’d twisted up and stabbed with a hair pick. The result was flirty, casual elegance.
My nails were cut to the quick, but I’d brushed on a quick coat of Perfectly Pink, and glossed on matching lipstick. Despite these concessions to my passion for fashion, I felt drab in my standard uniform of jeans, boots, a black tee under a light jacket, with spear holstered, and flashlights tucked. I missed dressing up.
I sat back on the stool behind the cashier counter, and eyed the tiny jars of wriggling Unseelie flesh lined up there.
I’d managed to cram a lot into my morning. After the drugstore, I’d hit a corner convenience, bought baby food, dyed my hair, showered, emptied the contents, and washed the jars. Then I’d gone out again, attacked a Rhino-boy, cut off part of his arm and stabbed him, putting him out of both our miseries, and making sure he didn’t live to tell any tales of a human girl stealing Fae power. Then I’d sliced and diced the stump of arm into bite-size pieces.
If only I’d kept some handy, as I’d wanted to after feeding Jayne, Moira might not have died. If something unexpected and awful happened while I was in the bookstore, I wasn’t going to be caught unprepared this time; I wanted a dose of superpower close at hand. It wasn’t as if it would ever expire. It was the only snack I knew of with an immortal shelf life.