There were no new developments. The floodlights were on, the windows were closed. I dragged the back of my hand across my brow with a sigh of relief. Ever since the Shades had gotten into the store, I’d not been able to get them off my mind, especially the big, aggressive one that had menaced me in Barrons’ parlor, and was currently moving restlessly back and forth at the edge of the darkness.
I blinked.
It was shaping a tendril of itself into something that looked suspiciously like a fist with a single upright human finger—you know which one. Surely it wasn’t learning from me, was it? I refused to entertain the thought. There was no room for it in my head; my brain was full. It had been a trick of the shadows, nothing more.
I turned for the stairs and was on the top step, my hand on the doorknob, when I felt its presence behind me.
Dark.
Empty.
Vast as the night.
I turned, as inexorably drawn as if a black hole had opened at my back and I was being sucked into its event horizon.
The specter stood motionless, watching me in silence, still as death. The inky folds of its voluminous, cowled robe rustled in the breeze.
I narrowed my eyes. There was no breeze. Not the merest hint of wind stirred the back alley. Not a hair on my head moved. I licked my finger and held it up. The air was flat, stagnant.
Yet the specter’s robe rippled, buffeted by a draft that wasn’t there.
Great. If I’d been looking for proof that the ghoulish vision haunting me was a delusion, I’d just gotten it. I’d obviously Photoshopped this thing in from stills stored in my memory compiled from movies, childhood ghost stories, and books. In my mind’s media banks its robes always rustled, I never saw its face, and it always carried a sharply curved, lethal blade mounted on a tall pole of ebony wood like the one it was toting now. It was perfect. Too perfect.
Why was I doing this to myself?
“I don’t get it,” I said. Of course, the specter said nothing. It never did and never would. Because Death wasn’t standing in this alley with me, waiting, with patience born of perpetuity, for the right moment to punch my ticket, call in my chip. The Eternal Footman wasn’t holding out my coat, a subtle yet irrefutable signal that the dance, for me, was over, the ball done, the night through.
And if I wanted further evidence that this clichéd spirit was just that—an apparition, a figment of an overwrought imagination—I had only to remind myself that Barrons, Jayne, and Derek O’Bannion hadn’t seen it, when they’d been in its vicinity. Jayne and O’Bannion weren’t necessarily conclusive evidence, but Barrons was. Good grief, the man could smell a kiss on me. He didn’t miss anything.
“Is it because I killed Rocky O’Bannion and his men? Is that why I keep seeing you? Because I collected their clothes and threw them in the trash instead of sending them to the police, or back to their wives?” I’d had my share of psych courses in college. I knew a perfectly healthy human mind could play tricks on itself, and mine wasn’t healthy. It was burdened by vengeful thoughts, regrets, and rapidly multiplying sins. “I know it’s not because I killed all those Unseelie in the warehouse or stabbed Mallucé. I feel good about those things.” I studied it a moment. How honest did I have to be with myself to get rid of it? “Is it because I left Mom back home in Ashford, grieving, and I’m afraid she’ll never get better without me?”
Or had this thing’s dark conception taken place long before that? Had the seeds of it been planted on a warm sunny day by the side of a swimming pool, while I was stretched out, tanning my pampered hide and listening to happy, mindless music while four thousand miles away my sister was stretched out, bleeding to death in a dirty Dublin alley?
Was it because I’d talked to Alina every week for hours, over the course of months, and never once clued in to anything in her voice, never pulled my head out of my happy little world far enough to sense that something was wrong in hers? Because I’d dropped my stupid cell phone in the pool, been too lazy to get a new one, and missed her dying call, and my last chance for the rest of my life to hear her voice? “Is it because I failed her? Is that it? Am I seeing you because I’m ashamed that I’m the one that lived?”
Darkness yawed beneath the specter’s cowl, a nameless, blameless, silken darkness that promised oblivion. Was I subconsciously seeking it? Had my life become so foreign and awful that I wanted out and—contrary to torturing myself with fear of death, a death I thought I deserved—was I actually comforting myself with the promise of it?
Nah, that was way too complicated for me. There wasn’t a suicidal bone in my body. I believed in silver linings and rainbows, and all the monsters and guilt in the world weren’t going to change that.
What, then? I couldn’t think of anything else I felt bad about, and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to keep hunting; psychoanalyzing myself ranked right up there with getting an unnecessary root canal.
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, my feet hurt from walking all day, and I was tired. I wanted comfort food, a warm fire, and a good book to read.
Wasn’t I supposed to be able to banish my own demons? I felt like the biggest idiot, but gave it a try. “Begone, dastardly fiend!” I flung one of my flashlights at it.
It sailed straight through it and bounced off the brick wall behind it. By the time it clattered to the cobbled street, my Grim Reaper was gone.
I just wished I believed it would stay gone.
TEN
“Why hasn’t the Lord Master come after me yet? It’s been two weeks.” When Barrons stepped into the bookstore Monday evening, an hour earlier than was his usual custom, I voiced the worry that had been on my mind all day.
It was raining again. Unlike the streets, the customers had dried up. Despite the lack of patrons, I felt guilty about having closed early more often than not since I’d started my new job, and was determined not to lock the doors this evening until seven o’clock on the dot. I’d been staying busy restocking shelves and dusting displays.
“I suspect, Ms. Lane,” he said, closing the door behind him, “our reprieve is a matter of convenience. Note the ‘our’ in that sentence, in case you were foolhardily considering striking out on your own again.”
He was never going to let me forget that I would have died that day I’d gone off into the Dark Zone by myself, if he hadn’t come after me. I didn’t care. He could dig at me all he wanted to. His heavy-handedness was beginning to roll off me. “Convenience?” It was certainly convenient for me, but I didn’t think that was what Barrons meant.
“His. He’s probably occupied with something else at the moment. If, when he disappeared through his portal, he went to Faery, time moves differently there.”
“That’s what V’lane said.” I emptied the cash drawer, counted the bills into stacks, then began punching in numbers on an adding machine. The store wasn’t computerized, which made bookkeeping a real pain in the neck.
He gave me a look. “The two of you are getting downright chatty, aren’t you, Ms. Lane? When did you last see him? What else did he tell you?”
“I’m asking the questions tonight.” One day I was going to write a book: How to Dictate to a Dictator and Evade an Evader, subtitled How to Handle Jericho Barrons.
He snorted. “If an illusion of control comforts you, Ms. Lane, by all means, cling to it.”
“Jackass.” I gave him a look modeled on his own.
He laughed, and I stared, then blinked and looked away. I finished rubber-banding the cash, put it in a leather pouch, and punched the final numbers in, running the day’s total. For a moment there he hadn’t looked dark, forbidding, and cold, but dark, forbidding, and … warm. In fact, when he’d laughed he’d looked … well … kind of hot.
I grimaced. Obviously I’d eaten something bad for lunch. I inked the day’s earnings into the ledger, tucked the pouch into a safe behind me, then skirted the counter, and flipped the sign on the door. I waved to Inspector Jayne as I locked the door. I saw no point in pretending he wasn
’t there. I hoped he was wet, cold, and bored to tears. I certainly hadn’t needed the reminder of O’Duffy’s death staring me in the face all day.
“What about Mallucé?” I asked. “Is he definitely dead?” I’d been so busy worrying about the enemies I was seeing on a regular basis that I hadn’t gotten around to worrying about the ones I hadn’t seen in a while.
Mallucé—born John Johnstone, Jr., to a wealthy British financier—had conveniently lost both his parents in a hit-and-run car accident that had never been resolved to the insurance company’s satisfaction, and gained a nearly billion-dollar fortune at the same time, all at the tender age of twenty-four. He’d promptly divested himself of his redundant name, assumed the singular Mallucé, and reentered society as one of the recently undead. That had been eight or nine years ago. Since then, he’d acquired a worldwide cult following of true believers who traveled in droves to the south-side Goth mansion where the citron-eyed, steampunk vamp held court.
Whether or not he was really a vampire—Barrons didn’t seem to believe it—was anyone’s guess. All I knew for sure was that he was something more than human. Icy pale, tall with the slim, muscled body of a dancer, I’d watched him fling a nearly seven-foot, massively bulked bodyguard across the room, to his death, with a single backhanded blow. I still wasn’t sure how I’d survived the blow I’d taken that day in the Dark Zone, after I’d stabbed him with my spear.
“There was a memorial service at his compound last week,” Barrons replied.
Yes! This was what I’d been waiting for, his worshippers to mourn him! “So, he’s dead.” I encouraged him to say the words. Despite how certain his news made me, I wanted Barrons’ verbal confirmation that there was one less bad guy out there after me now.
He said nothing.
“Oh, why won’t you just say it? If you hold a memorial service for someone who’s undead then he must be no longer ‘un,’ which means he’s dead. Right? Otherwise they would have held a creepy welcome-back-to-life service, not a weepy we’ll-always-remember-you service.”
“I told you, Ms. Lane, never believe anything’s dead—”
“—I know, I know, until you’ve ‘burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them,’ I shot back at him dryly, with a roll of my eyes. According to Barrons, some things couldn’t be killed. He’d strongly hinted that vampires fell into that category. Obviously Barrons hadn’t read Vampires for Dummies. According to the VFD’s authors, who’d allegedly interviewed hundreds of undead in their quest for the truth even dummies could follow (Mallucé was so famous they’d devoted an entire chapter to him), vampires were easily staked and tidily dispatched and subject to all kinds of worldly limitations and afflictions.
“His solicitor was at the auction, Ms. Lane, bidding heavily on several items, including the amulet.”
My hopes went flat as a tire on nails. “He’s alive?”
“It would be unwise to speculate. It could be that someone else is pursuing his interests, using his name and representatives as a front. Perhaps the Lord Master has assumed control of Mallucé’s finances and following. There would be little to stop him.”
That was a frightening thought. Whatever fanatic worshippers Mallucé had managed to acquire, I had no doubt the Lord Master could increase tenfold. Though I’d seen him only once, his face was permanently etched in my memory, in fine detail. I’d studied the photos that had been taken of him and my sister in and around Dublin, for hours. He was inhumanly beautiful, like a Fae, but not Fae. My sidhe-seer take on him had been as confused as my take on Mallucé. Human … but … not quite human.
Of one thing I was certain: On a charisma scale of one to ten, my sister’s ex-boyfriend was an eleven. Mallucé’s followers wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d fall on their knees, supplicant in a heartbeat. The night I’d stolen the OOP that Mallucé had been hiding from the Lord Master, I’d seen enough of his groupies to know they were so desperate for something to live for that they’d die to get it. That was more oxymoronic than jumbo shrimp in my book. Not to mention just plain moronic.
“Go put these on.” Barrons tossed a parcel at me.
I regarded it warily. Barrons’ clothing choices were never simpatico with mine. He and I could walk into the same store and shop all day, and by the end of it, I still wouldn’t have gotten around to selecting the one outfit that would have been his first choice. He goes for stark versus accessorized, dark over bright, jewel tone instead of pastel, carnal over flirty. I rarely recognize myself when he dresses me. Deep inside I’m still my daddy’s rainbow and pink girl.
“Let me guess,” I said dryly, “it’s black?”
He shrugged.
“Tight?”
He laughed. That was twice in one night. Barrons rarely laughed. I narrowed my eyes. “What’s with you?” I asked suspiciously.
“What do you mean, Ms. Lane?” He stepped closer. Too close. Was he looking at my breasts again? I could feel the heat of his big body, along with the energy that always seemed to roll off him, that strange electrical current that bristled, omnipresent beneath his golden skin. There was something different about him tonight. Control was Barrons’ middle name. Why then was I getting this feeling of … wildness … of an emotion I couldn’t identify but was surely kin to violence. And there was something more …
If he’d been any other man and I’d been any other girl, I’d have called the narrowing of his heavy-lidded dark eyes lust. But he was Barrons and I was Mac, and a blossoming of lust was about as likely as orchids blooming in Antarctica.
“I’ll just go change.” I turned away.
He caught my arm, and I glanced back. Backlit by wall sconces, he didn’t look like Barrons at all. Light glanced off the sharp planes and shadowed the angles of his face, merging his bones together into a fierce, brutal mask. Though he was looking directly at me, it was with a thousand-yard stare and if he was seeing me at all, it was not a me I knew. To dispel the profound tension of the moment, I said, “Where are we going tonight, Jericho?”
He shook himself, as if stirring from a dream. “Jericho? Are you kidding me, Ms. Lane?”
I cleared my throat. “I meant Barrons and you know it,” I said crossly. I had no idea why I’d just called him by his first name. The one time I’d tried to elevate our bizarre relationship, for lack of a better word, to a first-name basis—in my defense he’d just saved my life and I was narcotized by gratitude and nearly unconscious at the time—he’d mocked and flatly refused me. “Forget it,” I said stiffly. “Let go of my arm, Barrons. I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”
His gaze dropped, skimmed my breasts.
I pulled away.
If he’d been any other man and I’d been any other girl, I’d have said Barrons was looking for some action tonight. Maybe, despite the age difference, he and Fiona had been lovers and now that she was gone, he was getting horny. That was a scary thought. One that proved more recalcitrant than I’d have liked when I tried to shove it from my mind.
Forty-five minutes later, we were on a private plane destined for Wales, and the commission of yet another felony. Inspector Jayne followed us to the airport, and looked furious when he realized we were taking not a plane he might have boarded himself, but a private charter.
I’d been right about black and tight. Beneath a raincoat I had no intention of removing until I absolutely had to I was wearing a clingy catsuit that fitted me so snugly I might as well have been naked for all it revealed. Barrons had secured a work belt around my waist with myriad pockets and pouches into which he’d stuffed my spear, flashlights, and half a dozen other gadgets and gizmos I couldn’t identify. It weighed a ton.
“What is this amulet, anyway?” I asked as I settled back into my seat. I wanted to know what I was risking life, limb, and modesty to steal.
He took the seat opposite me. “You never really know what a Fae relic is until you get your hands on it. Even then, it may take time to figure out
how to use it. That includes the Hallows.”
I raised a brow and glanced down at my spear. I hadn’t had any problems figuring it out.
“That’s what most would call a no-brainer, Ms. Lane. And I can’t guarantee that it doesn’t have another purpose entirely to a Fae. Their history is sketchy, full of inaccuracies, and planted liberally with lies.”
“Why?”
“Multiple reasons. For one, illusion amuses them. Two, they frequently re-create themselves, and each time they do so, they divest all memory.”
“Huh?” Divest memory? Could I get in on this? I had a few I’d like to lose and they didn’t all begin with my sister’s death.
“A Fae will never die of natural causes. Some of them have lived longer than you could possibly fathom. Extreme longevity has an unfortunate and inescapable by-product: madness. When they feel it approaching, most choose to drink from the Seelie Hallow, the cauldron, and wipe their memories clean so they can start over. They retain nothing of their former existence and believe they are born the day they drink. There is a record-keeper; one who scribes the names of each incarnation each Fae has borne, and maintains a true history of their race.”
“Doesn’t the record-keeper eventually go mad, too?”
“He or she drinks before that happens and the duty changes hands.”
I frowned. “How do you know all this, Barrons?”
“I’ve been researching the Fae for years, Ms. Lane.”
“Why?”
“The amulet,” he said, ignoring my question, “is one of the gifts the Unseelie King fashioned for his favored concubine. She was not of his race and possessed no magic. He wished her to be able to weave illusions for her amusement, like the rest of his kind.”
“But the auctioneer made it sound as if the amulet did more than weave illusions, Barrons,” I protested. I wanted it to work. I wanted it. “He made it sound like it impacted reality. Just look at the list of prior owners. Whether they were good or bad, they were all incredibly powerful.”
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