Rays of sun slanted intermittently down as we pierced banks of fantastically colored fog, until the Hunter, perhaps intuiting my innate desire to enjoy the sun at any opportunity, soared straight up and broke the dense cover to float lazily above rainbow-hued cumulus and nimbus stretching as far as the eye could see, granting me a clear view of the star I so worship, whose undiluted presence is so rare in rainy Dublin.
For a time, I stretched out, ignoring the ice beneath my back, soaking up the golden rays on my front, basking like a cat at a warm hearth. Who needed a Fae trip to the beach when I could sunbathe in the sky? But it wasn’t long before the clouds swirled once again in my mind and I reluctantly refocused, urging my ride to take us low again so I could get a Hunter’s-eye view of the city.
We plummeted through mist, dropping down and down until at last I glimpsed rooftops and streets and gas lamps dotting the overcast, cloudy morning that was a typical day in Dublin.
People were out, heading off to help rebuild in exchange for supplies. Street vendors were once again hawking wares at portable stands, including food and drinks. Guardians stood by the fours near each vendor, reminding me it was far from a safe city yet.
Still, I felt a fierce flash of pride and optimism. The walls had fallen. We’d gotten back up. The ice monster had come. We’d survived and the city had recovered. Now we had black holes. We would figure it out.
“Lower,” I urged. I wanted a closer look at certain parts of town. I wanted to know if any of the Shades had returned, if there were new castes of Unseelie in town, if we had more black holes of considerable size to worry about. I would have gone on a focused hunt for all the black holes, but apparently Ryodan had been keeping track of them for some time now. No point in duplicating our efforts.
As we flew through a whiteout of fog above the docks, circling wide to turn back over the city, I suddenly gasped, “No! Stop! Turn the other way!” A flock of my dreaded stalkers had just materialized directly ahead of us, streaking out from behind a bank of low-slung clouds.
But my outcry came too late. We dove straight into the center of the clutch and I squeezed my eyes shut—remnant of some absurd ostrich instinct that if I couldn’t see them maybe they couldn’t see me—bracing myself for their sudden cloying presence on all sides.
Nothing.
I sniffed cautiously. No awful stench, no rustle of leathery cloaks, no creepy chittering.
I opened my eyes a slit.
I was still alone on the Hunter’s back.
I opened them wide and glanced over my shoulder. My ghoulish stalkers were vanishing rapidly behind us.
“Didn’t they see me?” I exclaimed. Was I so small and unexpected astride a Hunter that they’d not noticed me? I nudged the icy beast to get its attention. “Do you know what those things you just flew through are?”
Minions. It spoke in my mind. To one nearly as ancient as I.
“One what? A Hunter?”
Collector.
“Collector of what?”
Powerful, broken things. It presumes to fix them. It once tried to fix the one you call Unseelie king. It rumbled with soft laughter.
I couldn’t imagine anything trying to “fix” the Unseelie king. What would it change? Where would it even begin? And how powerful was this “collector” if it could actually tinker with something as omnipotent as the King of the Dark Fae? “I take it that didn’t go well.”
Subjective.
“Was one of the things we flew through the collector?”
That one does not appear until it has decided. Dispatches minions to assess. Not all things are deemed fixable.
I bristled. For months now I was being assessed by something’s minions? There was an ancient thing out there that had decided I was “broken” and wasn’t sure whether it wanted to fix me? That was offensive on too many levels for me to count. I had yet another enemy out there and didn’t even know what it looked like.
But it had been watching me.
All this time, through countless hooded eyes. Pressing close to me, sleeping beside me in Chester’s, monitoring my every move. And when I’d killed its minions, it had simply dispatched more. Always watching. Until the Book made me invisible and the collector had apparently lost the ability to keep track of me.
I snatched a hasty glance at my hand, fearing the worst. But no, I was still visible. Then why hadn’t they noticed me?
“Does it have a name?” I wanted something concrete to call my unknown enemy. Something to research, ask around about. Ryodan had once said my ghouls had attended the Unseelie king in his private quarters. Now I knew why. They’d scouted him, too, in a time long past.
Sweeper.
A simple word but I had sudden chills at the base of my spine. I’d heard it before. The Dreamy-Eyed Guy, one of the Unseelie king’s many skins, had recently said, “ ’Ware the Sweeper, BG. Don’t talk to its minions either.” The damn king had known all along I was being hunted by it. And that was all the warning he gave me?
“I really hate the Unseelie king,” I muttered.
You are.
“Am not,” I groused. I’d laid that to rest. I might have been contaminated by the peculiar half-mad being but I wasn’t him.
Were you not, you would not fly.
“Tell me about the Sweeper,” I said. “Tell me everything.”
It said nothing.
“Have you seen it?”
The Hunter moved its great head from side to side, mouth open, straining wind through its teeth.
“Do you know anyone who knows more about it?”
Perhaps the one that inhaled the child.
“K’Vruck!”
It rumbled again, laughing at me. Name this. Name that.
“Do you know where K’Vruck is?”
Nightwindflyhighfree.
“Could you find him?”
I do not hunt for you. Not-king.
I sighed. “If you see him, will you tell him I’m looking for him?”
Again there was no reply. I made a mental note to be more circumspect in the future about telling the Hunters I wasn’t the king. If they sensed something in me, they accorded respect, I wanted that respect. And cooperation.
I leaned forward over the Hunter’s back. Something had just caught my eye, a thing I couldn’t believe we’d forgotten.
“Fly low and land there.” I pointed to the center of the city’s largest Dark Zone.
Months ago, V’lane/Cruce had rebuilt the dolmen at 1247 LaRuhe in order to help the Keltar free Christian from the Unseelie prison. And there it stood, towering and ominous, behind the uncharacteristically formal house, smack in the middle of the crater left when Cruce had destroyed the warehouse it once occupied. The Highlanders had either neglected to dismantle the stone gate to the prison when they were done with it, or it had been rebuilt again.
I shivered. I’d walked the Unseelie prison. It hadn’t been empty. There’d been things lurking in blue-black crevices, terrible things that hadn’t ventured forth despite having been granted their freedom.
All portals between my world and Faery: bad.
And if I were successful, I’d have the Hunter fly me to the abbey, where I’d knock down those stones, too. Perhaps I’d be able to convince my ride to assist, lend a massive wing or perhaps char them with its smoky breath.
Nor do I perform tricks for you, it said in my mind.
The Hunter touched down in a wide intersection, flapping debris into funnel clouds with its giant leathery wings, showering the cobbled streets with black ice.
“Stay here until I get back.” I stripped off the gloves I was wearing, checked to make sure my spear was tucked into the makeshift holster I’d created with my scarf, and hurried down the street toward what had once been the Lord Master’s house.
—
The estate at 1247 LaRuhe was exactly the same as it had been last time I saw it, extravagant, forgotten, and as out of place in the casually dilapidated, industrial neighborhood as slend
er Kat had looked in powerful, forbidding Kasteo’s subterranean gym.
The first time I’d come here, I was following my sister’s last clue, chiseled as she lay dying. I believed it would lead me to the Book she’d wanted me to find, and instead discovered her boyfriend, learned he was the Big Bad ushering Unseelie into our world, and was nearly killed by one of his bloodthirsty companions. Six months later, I’d visited the house again, because Darroc had taken my parents captive and I was hell-bent on freeing them.
It hadn’t gone as planned, but few of my ventures in this city had.
Today my plan was simple.
I would skirt the house and head straight for the giant stones of the dolmen to see if my Unseelie-flesh-enhanced strength was considerable enough that, with a chain or rope purloined from a nearby building, I might be able to send the whole thing crashing to the ground.
Or perhaps I’d find one of those little bobcats in a nearby warehouse I could use to push it over. I could drive anything if there was gas in it.
One less portal.
My plan was not to go inside the tall, fancy brick house with the ornate facade and the blacked-out mullioned windows that made me feel as if the bone-pale structure was a bleached skull with creepy shuttered eyes that might pop open at any moment, insanity blazing within.
As I stood at the wrought-iron gate, one hand resting between pointy posts, the dense cloud cover gusted lower, shrouding the eaves, dispatching wispy tendrils down the sides to ghost across the barren yard.
I drew my jacket closer and turned up the collar. No sun penetrated the fog, and the abandoned property abruptly seemed painted in shades of the Unseelie prison, harsh whites, gunmetal grays, and eerie blues.
This particular Dark Zone in heavy fog was not one of my better memories of Dublin.
I shook off my chill, opened the gate, and stepped briskly onto the long curved walkway. As I hurried past skeletal trees, the gate screeched shut behind me and latched with an audible clack.
One year ago I’d followed the elegant walkway straight to the door and brazenly slammed the ornate knocker against burnished wood.
I’d let myself in and rummaged around, astonished to discover signs of my sister’s presence mingled with that of an urbane, Old World man with lavish Louis XIV taste in decor and strikingly Barronsesque taste in clothing.
I’d sat on the bottom stair inside the silent, luxurious home and pored over pictures of Alina I’d taken from an upstairs bedroom. Thumbed through photos of her with her mysterious, handsome lover. I’d glimpsed my first unusual mirrors here, although I’d not understood what they were at the time.
The mirrors. I smacked myself in the forehead. Shit.
I paused a few steps from the porch, wondering if anyone had bothered to smash them, if perhaps Barrons had spelled them shut after I shoved into one six months ago, planning to step out in Georgia, only to end up lost in the Hall of All Days, where—like Dani—I had stared at billions of mirrors, wondering if I would ever be able to find my way home again.
I didn’t like the idea of anything I’d glimpsed within those hellish Silvers having access to our world. We had enough problems as it was.
I sighed. There was no way I was leaving today without closing all portals at this location.
I took a step forward. Aware I was trudging a little. There were reminders of my sister here. I didn’t want to go inside. But want and responsibility are rarely boon companions.
I took another step.
And froze.
One window on the house had not been blacked out.
The stained-glass transom above the lavishly carved front door.
And somewhere inside that abandoned house, a light had just come on.
13
“Let’s imitate reality—insanity…”
Spear, check.
Unseelie flesh in my blood, check.
Attitude, check.
I silently ascended the porch stairs and pressed my hand to the door.
Damn. Sidhe-seer senses, not a check.
I had no way of knowing if what was within was Fae, human, or perhaps even something else entirely. I took nothing for granted anymore. Whatever it was, it wanted light for some reason. I couldn’t envision an Unseelie flipping a switch or yanking a chain. They liked the dark. They’d lurked in it so long their eyes were well-accustomed to gloom.
I tested the knob, turning slowly.
Unlocked.
I took a fortifying breath and nudged the door open as quietly as possible, just far enough to steal a glimpse inside the house.
Nothing. But then, I couldn’t see much from this point of view.
I listened intently. Thanks to my heightened senses, I was able to discern soft footfalls upstairs on thick carpet. One set. There was a single entity moving inside.
I waited, listening to see if more footfalls joined them.
After a solid minute of hearing the sound of only one person/Fae/whatever, I eased open the door, slipped quickly inside and closed it behind me.
I inhaled deeply, mining for clues about the intruder. I untangled various elements: mildew of an old, unoccupied house; an acrid mold from the eternal rain with no heat running in the colder months and no air when it was warmer; something sulfurous that was no doubt escaping from one of the damned mirrors; a touch of wine spilled long ago—perhaps my sister having a drink with Darroc that had ended in impassioned lovemaking and forgotten wineglasses.
A doughnut.
I inhaled again, deeply. Sure enough. I smelled a doughnut. And coffee. The scent of yeast and something sugary was enormously enticing. I marveled that somewhere in Dublin someone was making doughnuts again. My stomach rumbled loudly. I made a mental note to find that vendor. Food had been in short supply for so long I could only give kudos to the black market if they were managing to obtain baking ingredients.
I moved quietly into the foyer, across black and white marble floors, beneath an elaborate crystal chandelier, my gaze focused tightly ahead, skirting a large round table with a dusty vase of silk flowers and pausing at the foot of an elegant, spiraling staircase.
Soft footfalls directly above.
The sound of a drawer sliding open. A muffled curse.
I couldn’t make out much. The walls and floors were of solid, hundred-year-old construction and served as sound insulation.
I cocked my head, listening, trying to fathom who might come here and search the premises. Besides me. For a moment I wondered if that was what I might find, should I ascend those curving stairs, if I’d somehow gotten trapped in a time loop, if the Sinsar Dubh was playing games with me.
If I doggedly mounted these carpeted risers, was it me I’d find up there?
Like I said, I take nothing for granted anymore. Not a damned thing.
Darroc? Had he truly died?
Some other sidhe-seer, dispatched by Jada, to reconnoiter the house?
Nah. Sidhe-seers worked in twos or more, not alone. Jada and I were the oddity, not the norm.
I eased my foot onto the first riser, placing it squarely in the middle because stairs always squeak when you’re trying to climb them silently. Sure enough, it let out a sullen squeal.
Biting my lip, I eased up, foot sideways, attempting to distribute my weight evenly, moving cautiously.
Above me a door banged shut and I heard another muffled curse, followed by an angry, “Where are you?”
I froze. Sniffed the air. Faint, but there. So faint I’d not caught it, but then I hadn’t expected to.
Squaring my shoulders, I marched up the stairs, determined to lay this particular bullshit to rest once and for all.
Another door banged, footfalls approached. I stiffened and stopped halfway up the stairs as the intruder burst from one of the bedrooms and stormed toward the very stairs I was on.
No. No. No.
This was wrong. This was so bloody wrong.
Alina stood at the top of the stairs, emotion flooding her beautiful features.<
br />
Shock. Astonishment. Joy.
Tears trembling in eyes I knew as well as my own. Better. I’d looked at her much more than I’d looked at myself in a mirror.
“Mac?” she breathed. “Holy crap, is it you, Jr.? Oh my God, oh my God!” she squealed. “When did you get here? What are doing in this house? How did you even know to look—Oh! Ahhhhh!”
She froze, mid-sentence, her joy morphing to pure horror.
I froze, too, midway up two more stairs, boot in the air.
She began to back away, doubling over, hands going to her head, clutching it. “No,” she moaned. “No,” she said again.
“You are not my sister,” I growled, and continued bounding up the stairs. I was confronting it this time. Staring it down cold. Proving the truth to myself, even without my sidhe-seer senses. My bastard Book, or Cruce, or whoever the hell was behind this was not playing this game with me.
Never this game.
The Alina-thing whirled and ran, hunched in on herself, clutching her stomach as if she, too, felt as kicked in the gut as I did.
“Get back here, whatever you are!” I roared.
“Leave me alone! Oh, God, I’m not ready. I don’t know enough,” she cried.
“I said get the hell back here! Face me!”
She was sobbing now, dashing through the house, stumbling into walls and crashing through doors. Slamming them behind her and locking them.
“Alina!” I shouted. Even though I knew it wasn’t her. I didn’t know what else to call the monster. Was my Book projecting an image? Or was the worst I’d feared for so many months now true?
Had I really never stepped out of the illusion that night we’d “allegedly” defeated the Sinsar Dubh?
Had it suckered me so completely that I only “believed” I’d been the victor but was in truth living in a matrixlike cocoon, my body in stasis, under complete dominion of the Book, merely dreaming my life? And I could either dream good things or have nightmares?
For months now I’d been crippled by that debilitating fear.
I didn’t trust one damned thing about my so-called reality.
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