Dreamfever_The Fever Series

by Karen Marie Moning

  He grabbed me beneath my armpits, stood up, taking me with him, and set me on my feet.

  I clutched his arm. “My parents?”

  “I don’t know. I came in after you at LaRuhe.”

  “Barrons?”

  “He was trying to get to Ashford, to go after Darroc. I was the only one able to get in before the tunnel collapsed on our end. It took me a while to find you. I found this, too.” He tossed my backpack at me. “Your spear’s inside.”

  I could have kissed him! I grabbed my pack and swiftly consolidated possessions, then yanked out my spear and caressed it. Holding it in my hand made me feel like a Travis Tritt song—ten feet tall and bulletproof.

  “The creature will attack anything in your vicinity. At the moment, that’s me. I can get you out. It can’t. It only kills. Remember that.”

  Ryodan took my hand and led me close to the river, much nearer the sheer drop of the gorge than I was comfortable with, but I understood why he did it. The crushed-shale edge was soft as sand and made no noise beneath our feet. I looked up at him.

  “How did you track me? Do you have a mark on me, too?” I whispered.

  “I can follow Barrons’ mark. Another word and you’re going over the edge.”

  I said no more. If it came down to my survival or his, I was pretty sure he’d choose his. I wondered why Barrons hadn’t done anything to keep Ryodan safe from the monster. Given him a Barrons-scented shirt to wear or something.

  As if he’d read my mind, he murmured, “It’s the tattoo he put on you that keeps you safe from it. No fucking way he’s branding me. I came in armed. I hunted it all night through the rain. It ran me out of ammo. It’s one clever fuck.”

  I had heard automatic gunfire! “You were trying to kill it?” I breathed, aghast. What a weird paradigm shift. It had been protecting me. Ferociously. Now it was my enemy?

  Ryodan gave me a sharp look. “Do you want out of here or not?”

  I nodded fervently.

  “Then keep your spear handy, shut the fuck up, and hope it doesn’t kill me. I’m your way out.”

  When the monster attacked—and I guess there never really was any doubt in my mind that it would—it did so with the same explosive suddenness with which it had hit the wild boar, blasting out of nowhere, crashing Ryodan to the ground, a fury of fangs and talons.

  I watched helplessly as they twisted and rolled, watching for an opportunity to do something. Anything.

  The monster was much larger than Ryodan, but Barrons’ mysterious brother-in-arms was pretty savage himself. His wristbands sprouted knives and spikes.

  As I watched them battle, it speeded up into something very close to Dani’s freeze-framing and blurred beyond my vision’s ability to follow. I could no longer separate their forms. Ryodan seemed to be every bit as preternaturally agile as the monster.

  I was able to snatch only brief glimpses as one or the other flashed into view, momentarily slowed by a wound.

  Snarls filled the air as they rolled and fought, battling to the gorge’s edge—so near I held my breath and prayed they wouldn’t both go over—then back again.

  I caught a glimpse of Ryodan, bleeding from dozens of wounds.

  Then a flash of my monster, flesh torn, jaws bloody and snapping.

  They rolled into a blur again at the river’s edge.

  I watched, wide-eyed, leaping this way and that, trying to find a moment, an angle, an opportunity to help. I felt strangely torn.

  The monster had saved my life repeatedly. It was my savage guardian demon. It had protected me.

  But, as Ryodan had pointed out, it could do only that.

  It couldn’t help me get back home. And it was going to kill my “way home,” if it could. Leaving me protected but stranded. I couldn’t allow that. I had to get out of here.

  I caught another glimpse of Ryodan. The monster was tearing him to pieces!

  Then Ryodan must have injured the monster, because it flashed into view and stayed a moment. Before I could blow what might be the only chance I got, I steeled myself, lunged for it, and jammed my spear into its back, right where I figured its heart was, if its internal anatomy was anything like a human’s.

  It jerked, whipped its head around, and roared at me.

  Ryodan seized the opportunity, plunged a knife into its chest, and ripped upward, slicing the monster open from gut to throat.

  Its head whipped back around and it shoved Ryodan so hard it drove him to the cliff’s edge. As I watched, horrified, he stumbled on the soft shale lip and slipped over the side!

  I think I screamed, or maybe I’d been screaming for a while, I don’t know; things that day got a little blurred for me.

  Ryodan’s hands locked around a rock that protruded from the bank. I prayed it was embedded deeply enough in the shale to hold him.

  The monster rose to its full height, baying with rage and pain, my spear stuck in its back.

  I held my breath as Ryodan inched back up onto the bank. There was so much blood on his face that I could barely make out his eyes. How was he still moving? His cheek was sliced open so deep I could see bone! His chest was a mass of bloody crisscrossed slashes.

  The monster staggered then, and I think I must have made a noise. Relief that it was going down? Sorrow? Maybe shame for my part in it? I had a whole mess of emotions going on.

  It turned its head and looked straight at me, and there was something in its feral yellow gaze that made me gasp.

  For an awful suspended moment, I could have sworn I saw an accusation of betrayal in its gaze, of disbelief at my foul duplicity, as if we’d had some kind of agreement, some unspoken pact between us. It stared at me with reproach; its yellow eyes burned with hatred for my treason. It flung back its head and bayed with desolation and despair, an anguished cry of grief and madness.

  I clamped my hands to my ears.

  It took a step toward me. I couldn’t believe it was still standing, flayed as it was.

  When it took a second step, Ryodan managed to stagger to his feet, launch himself onto its back, wrap an arm around its neck—and slit its throat. “Get the bloody fuck out of here, Mac,” he snarled.

  Gushing blood, the beast reached back, dug its talons into Ryodan, ripped him off its back, and flung him straight into the gorge.

  “No!” I exploded.

  But Ryodan was already gone, falling down, down into the river, a hundred feet below.

  I stood, staring stupidly at the monster with the flayed body and slit throat.

  It was still standing.

  I was hot and cold, shaking. I felt like I was in some fevered dream, a nightmare from which I couldn’t escape. I could feel myself detaching from the world around me, turning to stone inside, shutting down all emotion.

  The monster staggered toward me. Went down on one knee and stared up at me. It shuddered, then collapsed to the earth, facedown.

  My spear stuck out of its back.

  The forest was silent and still.

  As I watched the monster’s blood run into the soil, I took distant, unemotional stock of my situation.

  Ryodan was dead.

  Nothing could have survived that fall—assuming he’d been able to recover from his wounds, which was a pretty far stretch.

  The monster was also dead, or very near it and would be soon, lying in a rapidly growing pool of blood.

  I’d lost my way out.

  I’d lost my protector, too.

  Somewhere in this realm, the Lord Master was hunting me, tracking me by a mystical brand he’d etched on my skull.

  Somewhere in this realm was an IFP that contained a dolmen that would take me back to Ireland. Unfortunately, I had no idea which one it was, or in which direction, or how many there were to choose from on this world.

  My pouch of stones was still attached to the monster’s horns, and the tatters of my sweater were still tied by its sleeves to a leg. When it was dead, I would reclaim the stones. That was a plus of sorts in the ledger of my
life, assuming I overlooked that they were really nothing more than a slow boat to hell.

  The monster gurgled wetly and seemed to deflate.

  I waited a few moments, picked up a stick, took a cautious step forward, and poked it.

  There was no reaction. I poked harder, then nudged it with my foot.

  I tested the spear in its back, jostling its wound. Again, there was no reaction.

  It was definitely dead.

  I crouched beside it and had begun to untie my pouch when suddenly its horns softened and melted into a river that flowed past its head, puddling like an oil slick on blood.

  I snatched my pouch from its matted hair.

  The shape of its head began to change.

  Webs and talons vanished.

  Matted locks became hair.

  I stumbled backward, shaking my head. “No,” I said.

  It continued to change. Slate-gray skin lightened.

  “No,” I insisted.

  My denial had no effect. It continued to transform. Height diminished. Mass decreased. It became what it was.

  What it had been all along.

  I began to hyperventilate. Squatting, I rocked back and forth in a posture of grief as old as time.

  “No!” I screamed.

  I’d thought I’d lost everything.

  I hadn’t.

  I stared at the person who lay dead on the floor of the forest.

  The person I’d helped kill.

  Now I’d lost everything.

  Dear Reader:

  I know it’s been a wild ride, but it’s almost over. Shadowfever is the fifth and final installment in the trials and triumphs of MacKayla Lane-O’Connor. And there will be triumphs. I’ve promised that from the beginning.

  As I’ve said on my website and in many interviews, the Fever series came to me, fully formed, as I’ve written it, demanding that I be true to the plot and characters, no matter how difficult parts of it have been to write. Switching from writing third person omniscient point of view that you’ll find in my earlier novels to the first person limited point of view in the Fever novels was a challenge but one that I’ve found immensely rewarding. I couldn’t have told Mac’s story any other way.

  The devil is in the details—as is the delight. It’s the nuances that make a story rich, compelling, fascinating, that draw us in and make us love, and hate, and hate to love, and love to hate the characters. It’s what they choose to quest for; how they mark time; the decisions they make, small and large; the awkwardness of forging bonds; the obvious-to-us-yet-blurred-to-them emotions, doubts, convictions, uncertainties, truths, joys; the beauty of watching them try, fail, try again, fail again, and finally get it right that makes a story—and any life, really—worthwhile. Thanks for joining me on Mac’s quest.

  Still want more Fever? Drop by www.karenmoning.com, where you’ll find a message-board forum full of fun, brilliant folks who I sometimes think know the details of my series as well as I do. (Okay, on a tough day, when I can’t find my notes, maybe a little better, LOL.) You’ll also find a link to the Fever Fan Merchandise Store, where you can buy all kinds of stuff like Barrons’ Babe or V’lane’s Vixen tees, Unseelie Sushi Juice mugs, MacHalo stamps, BB&B memorabilia, even your own Sidhe-Seers, Inc badge.

  There’s also a link to BLOODRUSH, the official Fever sound track, a collection of songs written and performed by Neil Dover. It’s an awesome CD with “Little Lamb,” “I Am Not Afraid,” plus five new songs and an acoustic reprise. Check out “Sweet Dublin Rain,” with Mac’s cool rap. For “Taking Back the Night,”—the sidhe-seers anthem—a hundred and fifty fans came in from all over the world to join us in the recording studio in Atlanta, and sing the ending. It was a total blast! The insert contains photos from the studio, a lot of extras, and deleted scenes that aren’t available anywhere else.

  Mac’s hot-pink MacHalo and Barrons’ black version—the Z-Lo—have been touring for the past six months, and the pictures are a hoot. You can see where in the world they’ve both been at www.flickr.com/photos/karenmariemoning. The photos are fantastic, funny, amazing. I love getting the opportunity via photos and e-mail to meet so many of you that I haven’t met in person. Thanks for making Mac’s adventure such a blast!

  Stay to the lights.

  Karen

  Glossary From Mac’s Journal

  *A MULET, THE: Unseelie or Dark Hallow created by the Unseelie King for his concubine. Fashioned of gold, silver, sapphires, and onyx, the gilt “cage” of the amulet houses an enormous clear stone of unknown composition. A person of epic will can use it to impact and reshape reality. The list of past owners is legendary, including Merlin, Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. Last purchased by a Welshman for eight figures at an illegal auction, it was all too briefly in my hands and is currently in the possession of the Lord Master. It requires some kind of tithe or binding to use it. I had the will; I couldn’t figure out the way.

  Addendum: The LM still has it, and I think he uses it to help control the Unseelie Princes. He had it with him but didn’t try to use it on me. Why? Is he afraid it might not work on me?

  BARRONS, JERICHO: I haven’t the faintest fecking clue. He keeps saving my life. I suppose that’s something.

  Addendum to original entry: He keeps a Sifting Silver in his study at the bookstore, and when he walks through it, the monsters retreat from him, just like the Shades do. I saw him carry the body of a woman out of it. She’d been killed, brutally. By him? Or by the things in the mirror? He is at least several hundred years old and possibly, probably, way older than that. I made him hold the spear to see if he was Unseelie, and he did, but I found out later from V’lane that the Unseelie King can touch all the Hallows (as can the Seelie Queen) and, although I can’t fathom why the Unseelie King wouldn’t be able to touch his own Book, maybe that’s exactly why Barrons thought he would be able to touch it. Maybe it evolved into something more powerful than it began as. Also, I can’t rule out that he might be some kind of Seelie/Unseelie hybrid. Do the Fae have sex and reproduce? Sometimes … I think he’s human … gone very wrong. Other times I think he’s nothing this world has ever seen. He’s definitely not a sidhe-seer, but he sees the Fae as plain as day, just like me. He knows Druidry, sorcery, black arts, is superstrong and fast, and has heightened senses. What did Ryodan mean by his comment about the Alpha & Omega? I’ve got to track that man down!

  Addendum to original entry: He admitted he killed the woman he carried from the mirror! I’m pretty sure I figured out where that Silver goes, but I haven’t the opportunity to try it yet. I think it connects to the underground floors beneath his garage. I stood in that garage, looking across the hood of the Hummer at Barrons, while whatever he keeps trapped down there bayed. He refused to answer any of my questions about it. (Gee, that’s hardly a surprise.)

  Addendum to original entry: What he did to bring me back from being Pri-ya … I can’t stop thinking about it. What I saw in his head, the child, the grief, it slays me. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be anything but a fine beast again. That I could forget again. Everything. And just be.

  *CAULDRON, THE: Seelie or Light Hallow from which all Seelie eventually drink, to divest memory that has become burdensome. According to Barrons, immortality has a price: eventual madness. When the Fae feel it approaching, they drink from the cauldron and are “reborn” with no memory of a prior existence. The Fae have a record keeper that documents each Fae’s many incarnations, but the exact location of this scribe is known to a select few and the whereabouts of the records to none but him. Is that what’s wrong with the Unseelie—they don’t have a cauldron to drink from?

  CHESTER’S: Ryodan’s nightclub, 939 Rêvemal Street. Former gathering place of the rich, bored, and beautiful. Like a cockroach, Chester’s would probably survive any fallout. Since Dublin fell, it went underground and now serves an entirely new clientele. Or, rather, serves us to an entirely new clientele. Chester’s is now the Fae hot spot for preying on humans. T
he Gray Woman had no interest in her waiter’s menu, only her waiter. Ryodan lets it happen, right under his nose, watching from high in his glass aerie. Fae worshippers sacrifice themselves left and right for a chance at immortality, and I’m pretty sure it’s not even a real chance, just a temporary high. I’m going to shut the place down, one way or another.

  COMPACT, THE: Agreement negotiated between Queen Aoibheal and the MacKeltar clan (Keltar = hidden barrier or mantle) roughly six thousand years ago to keep the realms of mankind and Fae separate. The Highland clan of Druids has performed certain rituals and tithed every Samhain (pronounced Sow-en, also known as Halloween) to honor the Compact. The walls Queen Aoibheal erected to separate worlds weren’t sung into existence with the Song of Making, because the Fae lost it so long ago, but were somehow rigged from a portion of the Unseelie’s prison walls and reinforced with blood and oaths. Rigging the new walls that way seriously weakened the prison walls. When our walls came down, all the walls came down.

  CRUCE: A Fae. Unknown if Seelie or Unseelie. Many of his relics are floating around out there. He cursed the Sifting Silvers. Before they were cursed, the Fae used them freely to travel through dimensions. The curse somehow corrupted the interdimensional channels, and now not even the Fae will enter them. Unknown what the curse was. Unknown what damage it caused or what the risk in the Silvers is. Whatever it is, Barrons apparently doesn’t fear it. I tried to get into the Silver in his study. I can’t figure out how to open it.

  Addendum to original entry: I found out what the curse was! Cruce hated the Unseelie King and cursed the Silvers to keep him from entering them again, so he couldn’t get to his concubine. Cruce wanted the concubine and all the worlds inside the Silvers for himself. But the curse went wrong and screwed everything up. Cross-reference with Silvers.

  CUFF OF CRUCE: A gold-and-silver arm cuff set with blood-red stones; an ancient Fae relic that supposedly permits the human wearing it “a shield of sorts against many Unseelie and other … unsavory things” (this according to a death-by-sex Fae—like you can actually trust one).