“That wasn’t the end of his hell. I had rivals who rode the desert, too. Death for hire. Many were the times we’d thinned each other’s pack. One day, they found him walking the sands. They played with him.” He looks away. “They tortured and killed him.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because when I finally put things together, I tortured and killed a few of them and they talked while they died.” His lips smile; his eyes are cold, merciless. “They set up camp not too far from where he was reborn every dawn and found him the next day. Once they realized what was happening, they believed he was demon spawn. They tortured and killed him over and over. The more he came back, the more determined they were to destroy him. I don’t know how many times they killed him. Too many. They never let him live long enough to change. They didn’t know what he was, nor did he. Just that he kept coming back. One day another band attacked, and they didn’t have time to kill him. He was left alone, tied up in a tent for days. He got hungry enough that he turned. He never turned back. It was a year before we were hired to hunt the beast that was scouring the country, ripping out the throats and hearts of men.”
I was horrified. “They killed him every day for a year? And you were hired to kill him?”
“We knew it was one of us. We’d all changed. We knew what we’d become. It had to be him. I hoped.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I actually hoped it was my son.” There was naked hunger in his eyes. “How long was he a child tonight? How long did you see him before he attacked you?”
“A few minutes.”
“I haven’t seen him like that in centuries.” I could see him remembering the last time. “They broke him. He can’t control his change. I’ve seen him as my son only five times, as if for a few moments he knew peace.”
“You can’t reach him? Teach him?” Barrons could teach anyone.
“Part of his mind is gone. He was too young. Too frightened. They destroyed him. A man might have withstood it. A child had no chance. I used to sit by his cage and talk to him. When technology afforded, I recorded every moment, to catch a glimpse of him as my son. The cameras are off now. I couldn’t watch the recordings, looking for him. I have to keep him caged. If the world ever found him, they would kill him, too. Over and over. He’s feral. He kills. That’s all he does.”
“You feed him.”
“He suffers if I don’t. Fed, sometimes he rests. I’ve killed him. I’ve tried drugs. I learned sorcery. Druidry. I thought Voice might make him sleep, even die. It seemed to hypnotize him for a time. He’s highly adaptable. The ultimate killing machine. I studied. I collected relics of power. I drove your spear through his heart two thousand years ago, when I first heard of it. I forced a Fae princess to do her best. Nothing works. He’s not in there. Or if he is somewhere, he is in constant, eternal agony. It never ends for him. His faith in me was misplaced. I can never—”
Save him, he doesn’t say, and I don’t, either, because if I’m not careful I’m going to start crying, and I know it would only make things worse for him. He’s thousands of years past tears. He just wants release. Wants to lay his son to rest. Tuck him in and say good night forever, one last time.
“You want to unmake him.”
“Yes.”
“How long has this been going on?”
He says nothing.
He will never tell me. And I realize a number doesn’t really matter. The grief he felt in the desert has never abated. I understand now why they would kill me. It’s not just his secret. It’s theirs, too. “All of you return to the place you first died every time you die.”
He is instantly violent. I understand.
They kill to keep anyone from doing to them what was done to his son. It is their only vulnerability: wherever they come back at dawn the next day. An enemy could sit there, waiting for them, and kill them over and over again.
“I don’t want to know where that is. Ever,” I assure him, and mean it. “Jericho, we’ll get the Book. We’ll find a spell of unmaking. I promise. We’ll put your son to rest.” I feel suddenly vicious. Who had done this to them? Why? “I swear it,” I vow. “One way or another, we’ll make it happen.”
He nods, folds his arms behind his head, stretches back on a pillow, and closes his eyes.
As the moments pass, I watch the tension leave his face. I know he’s in that place where he meditates, where he controls things. What extraordinary discipline.
How many thousands of years has he been taking care of his son, feeding him, trying to kill him and ease his agony, if only for a few moments?
I’m back in the desert again, not because he takes me there but because I can’t get the look on his son’s face out of my head.
His eyes say, I know you will make the pain stop.
Barrons has never been able to. It never ended. For either of them.
The child, whose death destroyed him, has destroyed him every single day since. By living.
Dying, Barrons said, is easy. The man who dies escapes, plain and simple.
I’m suddenly glad Alina is dead. If the light comes for anyone, it came for her. She rests somewhere.
But not his son. And not this man.
I press my cheek to his chest, to listen to his heart beating.
And for the first time since I met him, I realize it isn’t. Have I never heard his blood rush before? His heart pound? How could I not have noticed?
I look up at him to find him staring down his chest at me, an unfathomable expression in his eyes. “I haven’t eaten lately.”
“And your heart stops beating?”
“It becomes painful. Eventually I would change.”
“What do you eat?” I say carefully.
“None of your fucking business,” he says gently.
I nod. I can live with that.
* * *
He moves differently down here. He doesn’t try to conceal anything. Here, he is himself and moves in that way that seems one with the universe, smooth as silk, flowing noiselessly from room to room. If I forget to pay attention to where he is, I misplace him. I discover he’s leaning against a column—when I’d thought he was the column—arms folded, watching me.
I explore his underground lair. I don’t how long he’s lived, but it’s clear he has always lived well. He was a mercenary once, in another time, another place, who knows how long ago. He liked fine things then, and his taste hasn’t changed.
I find his kitchen. It’s a gourmet chef’s dream—stainless-steel top-of-the-line everything. Lots of marble and beautiful cabinets. Sub-Zero fridge and freezer well stocked. Wine cellar to die for. As I devour a plate of bread and cheese, I imagine him here all those nights when I trudged up to my fourth- or fifth-floor bedroom and slept alone. Did he pace these floors, cook himself dinner, or maybe eat it raw, practice dark arts, tattoo himself, go for a drive in one of his many cars? He was so close all that time. Down here, naked on silk sheets. It would have driven me crazy if I’d known then what I know now.
He peels a mango while I wonder how he managed to get his hands on fruit in post-wall Dublin. It’s so ripe it drips down his fingers, his arms. I lick the juice from his hands. I push him back and eat the pulp off his stomach, lower, then end up with my bare ass on the cool marble of the island and him inside me again, my legs locked around his hips. He stares down at me, as if he’s memorizing my face, watches me like he can’t quite believe I’m here.
I sit on the island while he makes me an omelet. I’m ravenous, body and soul. Burning off more calories than I can eat.
He cooks naked. I admire his back and shoulders, his legs. “I found the second prophecy,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Why does it always take you so long to tell me the important things?”
“You should talk,” I say drily.
He slides the plate in front of me and hands me a fork. “Eat.”
When I finish, I say, “You have the amulet, don’t you?”
He catches his tongue in his teeth briefly a
nd gives me a full-on smile. It says: I’m the biggest baddest fuck and I have all the toys.
We go back to his bedroom and I get the page from Mad Morry’s notebook and the tarot card from my pocket.
He looks at the card. “Where did you say you got this?”
“Chester’s. The dreamy-eyed guy gave it to me.”
“Who?”
“The good-looking college-age guy that bartends.”
His head moves funny, like a snake drawing back to strike. “How good-looking?”
I look at him. His gaze is cool. If you want that kind of life, get the fuck out of my house now, his eyes say.
“Nothing like you, Barrons.”
He relaxes. “So, who is he? Have I ever seen him?”
I tell him when and where and describe him, and he looks puzzled. “I’ve never seen the kid. I saw an elderly man with a heavy Irish accent pouring drinks a few times when I came to get you, but no one like you’re describing.”
I shrug. “Point is, it’s too late for the first prophecy to work.” I hand him the page. “Darroc was convinced he was the one who could use the amulet. But I read his translation and it sounds like it could be you or Dageus. Or any number of men.”
Barrons takes the parchment from me and scans it. “Why would he think it was him?”
“Because it says he who is not what he was. And he used to be Fae.”
He turns it over, looks at Darroc’s translation, then flips back to Mad Morry’s prophecy.
“Darroc didn’t speak Old Irish when I trained him and, if he picked it up since then, he didn’t learn it very well. His translation is wrong. It’s a rare dialect and gender neutral. It says the one that is possessed … or inhabited.”
“That’s what the first prophecy said.”
He looks at me and raises a brow. It takes me a moment to interpret his expression.
“You think it’s me.” Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. As if some part of me always knew it was going to come down to this in the end: me against the Sinsar Dubh, winner take all. It smacks of fate. I hate fate. I don’t believe in her. Unfortunately, I think the bitch believes in me.
He moves to a vault behind the painting I’d been watching candlelight flicker over earlier and removes the amulet. It’s dark in his hands. The moment he approaches me, it pulses faintly.
I reach for it. It blazes when I touch it. It feels right in my hands. I’ve wanted it since the moment I first saw it.
“You’re the wild card, Mac. I’ve thought that since the beginning. This thing thinks you’re epic. So do I.”
Quite a compliment. I cup the amulet in my hands. I know this piece. I turn inward, hunting, searching. I’ve learned so much tonight, about him, about myself. In this place, I feel fearless. Nothing can touch me, nothing can do too much damage to me. I feel calmer than I’ve felt in a long time. If I can use this, I can find the spell to unmake his son. I can end their suffering.
Show me what is true, I say, and shake off my blinders. I quit trying to force myself on the truth to reshape it, and I let the truth force itself on me. What have I been hiding from? What monsters have been stalking me, waiting patiently for me to look at them?
I close my eyes and open my mind. Fragments of times forgotten flash past me so fast I see only blurs of color. I trust my heart to take me where I need to go and tell me when to stop.
The images slow, become static, and I am in another place, another time. It’s so real, I can smell the scent of spiced roses nearby. I love the smell because it makes me think of her. I keep the roses everywhere. I look around.
I am in a laboratory.
Cruce is gone.
I watched him leave.
He loves me, but he loves himself more.
I finish the fourth amulet without him. The first three were imperfect. This one does what I want it to do.
Balances the scales between us.
She will shine as brilliantly in the night sky as do I. Giants mate with giants or not at all.
I will take it to my beloved myself.
I cannot make her Fae, but I will give her all our powers in other ways.
Perhaps I am a fool to give her an amulet capable of weaving illusion that could seduce even me, but my faith in my love knows no bounds.
My wings trail the floor as I turn. I am enormous. I am singular. I am eternal.
I am the Unseelie King.
44
Dusk comes hard-edged and violet.
Dancer’d like that thought. He’s a poet, brilliant cool with words. Wrote a piece the other day ’bout murdering clocks ’cause they feck us up, keep us stuck in the past and keep us from living the day. Used to have this thing in my past riding me all the fecking time, but now she knows, and I say, fine, get the monkey off my back.
I shift, restless, staring down at BB&B. There’s a limo out front. Pulled up hours ago, ain’t moved since. Couldn’t see who got out. Somebody changed the sign. I think it musta been Mac, and it cracks me up but I don’t laugh from the belly like I used to. Swallow it instead.
Ain’t like she ain’t gonna try to kill me.
And I ain’t gonna die, so.
There we are.
Guess somebody’s gonna bite it.
Been watching the place off and on for days. Watching the watchers. Everybody’s nervous. Chewing each other’s heads off.
Book went nuts the other day. Turned some guy into a suicide bomb, walked him right into Chester’s. Lots o’ peeps died getting him outta there, blown up when it blew. They’re paranoid out at the abbey. Think it’s gonna be next. Ain’t nobody can track the thing, ’cause Mac’s gone missing.
So’s Barrons.
Without ’em, we’re stuck. Ain’t nobody can sense the Book ’til it’s on top of us. Dancer thinks it’ll make a nuke one day. End us all. He says we gotta put it down fast.
I watch, knees up, arms around, perched on a water tower. Nobody looking this high.
I been shut out. Ro won’t let me near none o’ the action. Kat and Jo keep me in the loop. They don’t know I killed Alina. Mac don’t know, ’cause I just found out, but there’s a third prophecy. Something ’bout mirror images and sons and daughters and monsters within being monsters without. Jo wasn’t done translating yet but she was worried big-time. Seems the longer the Book’s loose, the worse the odds get.
I heard Ry-O telling that white-haired dude with the freaky eyes that Mac’s gotta die. But not before the Book gets shut down. Pissed him off real bad that it came into his club and tried to blow it. You don’t mess with Ry-O.
He’s got dudes on top of the bookstore. They move funny.
Jo’s hanging on a roof a few buildings over, with Kat and her trusty little group of sidhe-sheep. “Baaaaa,” I say under my breath. They’re staring through binocs. Never look my way. Only see what they ’spect to see. What she tells ’em to see. Dickheads. Pull your heads out, I think. Smell the sheep shit.
The things I know.
The Scots are on top of a five-story in the Dark Zone. They got binocs, too.
These eyeballs of mine don’t need no help seeing. I’m supercharged, superwired, super-D! All-seeing, all-hearing, all-jamming, all the time.
I smell V’lane. Spice on the wind. Dunno where he is. Somewhere near.
Five days Mac and Barrons been gone. Since the night they tried to trap the Book.
Ro’s blaming it all on Mac. First, she was glad Mac was gone. Said we didn’t need her, didn’t want her. But she came to her senses when it strolled into Chester’s. See, she was there when the Book paid its little visit wearing a corset of dynamite, and ain’t nothing Ro likes better than her own wrinkly ass. Gah. That’s a visual I coulda done without.
Ry-O’s blaming the Druids. Saying they must’ve got the chant wrong.
The Scots are blaming Ry-O. Saying evil can’t trap evil.
Ry-O laughs and asks what the feck they are.
V’lane’s pissed at everybody. Says we’re all inept, pun
y mortals.
I snicker. Dude, got that right. I sigh, dreamy-like. Think V’lane’s got the hots for me. Wanna ask Mac what she—
I rip open a protein bar and munch it, scowling. What was I thinking? As if I’m ever gonna ask Mac anything again. I shoulda hunted those feckers that killed Alina. Shoulda got rid of ’em. She never woulda known. I smile, thinking about killing ’em. I scowl, thinking about how I didn’t.
“Dither much, kid?”
Voice like knives. I stiffen and try to freeze-frame out, but the feck’s got my arm and he ain’t letting go.
“G’off me,” I spit around a mouthful of chocolate and peanut, thinking, Who uses words like that? But I know who it is, and he worries me ’bout as much as the Book does. “Ry-O,” I say, real cool.
He smiles like I think Death must smile, all fangs and hard eyes that ain’t never held an ounce of—
I breathe in sharp-like without meaning to, ’stead of swallowing, and choke on peanuts. Throat squinches up, can’t breathe, start thumping my chest.
He dressing for Halloween? Ain’t here yet.
Pounding my sternum ain’t gonna work and I know it. I need the Heimlich but can’t do it on myself ’less he lets go of me so I can slam myself into the ledge. I use superstrength to yank my arm free, practically pull it outta the socket.
He’s still got me. Ain’t goin’ nowhere.
He manacles my wrist with long fingers and studies me. Watching me choke. Cold fecker. Watching me foam, my eyes get wild. I’m drooling! Dude—this is so not cool.
Gonna die up here on a water tower, choking on a fecking protein bar. Topple off, splat to the pavement. Everybody’s gonna see.
Mega O’Malley croaks like a Joe!
No fecking way.
Just when I’m getting light-headed, he slams a fist into my back and I spit out a mangled mouthful. Can’t breathe for a minute. Then screech it in. Air ain’t never been sweeter.
He smiles. His teeth are normal. I stare at him. Mind playing tricks? I been watching too many movies.
“Got a job for you.”
“No way,” I say instantly. Ain’t falling in with his crowd. Got the feeling you don’t get to fall back out. You just fall. ’Til you hit bottom. Ain’t going that low. Got trubs of my own.
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