I’m still trying to process the dream when my body jerks and begins to move like a pre-programmed automaton.
I watch in terror as my legs make me rise, force me to leave the bathroom. My feet carry me across the room, my hands open the balcony doors. My body is propelled by an unseen power into the darkness, beyond the protection of my crimson ward line.
I’m not functioning of my own volition. I know it, and I can’t stop myself. I’m completely unprotected where I stand. I don’t even have my spear. Darroc took it away before the prince sifted me out.
I stare out at a shadowy outline of rooftops, awaiting, dreading whatever command might come next. Knowing I won’t be able to refuse subsequent orders any more than I could this one.
I’m a puppet. Someone is yanking my strings.
As if to underscore that point, or perhaps merely to make a mockery of me, my arms suddenly shoot straight up into the air, flail wildly above my head before dropping limply back to my sides.
I watch my feet as they shuffle a cheery two-step. I wish I could believe I’m dreaming, but I’m not.
I dance on the balcony, soft-shoeing it faster and faster.
Just as I begin to wonder if I’m going to be the fairy-tale girl that danced herself to death, my feet go still. Panting, I curl my fingers tightly around the wrought-iron railing. If my unknown puppet master decides I’m to fling myself off the balcony next, it’s in for a hell of a fight.
Is it Darroc? Why would he do this? Can he do this? Does he have so much power?
The temperature drops so sharply that my hands ice to the railing. When I jerk them away, ice shatters and falls into the night below, tinkling against pavement. Small patches of skin from my fingertips remain on the railing. I back up, determined not to commit forced suicide.
Never hurt you, Mac, the Sinsar Dubh croons in my mind.
I inhale sharply. The air is so bitterly cold it burns my throat and lungs.
“You just did,” I grit.
I feel its curiosity. It doesn’t understand how it hurt me. Skin heals.
That was not pain.
I stiffen. I don’t like its tone. It is too silky, too full of promise. I try desperately to get to my dark lake in time to arm myself against it, to defend myself, but a wall erupts between me and my watery abyss, and I can find no way around or through it.
The Sinsar Dubh forces me to my knees. I strain against it every inch of the way, teeth clenched. It whips me around and I collapse onto my back. My arms and legs fly out as if I’m making snow angels. I’m pinned to cold metal girders.
This, Mac, the Sinsar Dubh purrs, is pain.
I drift in agony. I have no idea how long it tortures me, but the entire time I’m excruciatingly aware of one thing: Barrons isn’t going to save me.
He isn’t going to roar me back to reality like he did the last time the Book crushed me in the street, the last time it “tasted me.”
He isn’t going to carry me back to the bookstore when it’s over, make me cocoa and wrap me in blankets. He isn’t going to make me laugh by demanding to know what I am or later cause me to weep when I steal a memory from his head and see him shattered by grief, holding a dying child.
While the Book keeps me spread-eagled against the cold steel of the balcony floor, while every cell in my body is charred, and every bone is systematically crushed one by one, I cling to memories.
I can’t get to my lake, but I can get to the outer layers of my mind. The Sinsar Dubh is there, too, examining my thoughts, probing. “Learning me,” as it said once before. What is it looking for?
I tell myself I just have to survive it. That it isn’t really harming my body. It’s only playing with me. It came for me tonight. I hunt it. And for some reason beyond my fathoming, it hunts me. The Book’s idea of a macabre joke?
It’s not going to kill me. At least not today. I guess I amuse.
It will only make me wish I was dead, and, hey—I know that feeling. Been walking around with it for a while.
After an indefinite, endless length of time, the pain finally eases and I’m yanked to my feet.
My hands grab the railing, and my upper body is contorted over it.
I curl my fingers tightly. I lock my legs down. I summon every ounce of energy I have to make my bones whole and strong again. I stare out at the rooftops, fortifying my will.
I will not die.
If I die tonight, the world will stay the way it is right now, and that’s unacceptable. Too many people have been killed. Too many people will continue to die if I’m not here to do something about it. Fueled by the need to defend something greater than myself, I gather my will and launch myself like a missile for the lake inside my head.
I slam into the wall the Sinsar Dubh has erected between me and my arsenal.
A hairline fracture appears.
I don’t know who’s more startled, me or the Sinsar Dubh.
Then suddenly it’s angry.
I feel its fury, but it’s not angry because I cracked the wall it erected. It’s angry for some other reason.
It’s as if I, personally, have pissed it off somehow.
It’s … disappointed in me?
I find that inexpressibly disturbing.
My head is ratcheted around on my spine and I’m forced to stare down.
A person stands below me, a dark splash against the brilliant snow, a book tucked beneath its arm.
The person tilts its head back and looks up.
I chomp back a scream.
I recognize the hooded cloak that swirls softly back, teased by a light breeze. I recognize the hair.
But I don’t recognize anything else because—if it really is Fiona, Barrons’ ex-storekeeper and Derek O’Bannion’s mistress—she’s been skinned alive. The horror of it is that, because O’Bannion taught her to eat Unseelie, she hasn’t died from it.
Instinct makes me reach for my spear. Of course it’s not there.
“Mercy!” Fiona screams. Her skinned lips bare bloodied teeth.
And I wonder: Do I have any mercy left in me? Did I reach for my spear because I pity her?
Or because I hate her for having had Jericho Barrons before me, and for longer?
The Book’s anger with me grows.
I feel it spilling out, filling the streets. It’s immense, barely contained.
I’m baffled.
Why does it hold itself in check? Why not destroy everything? I would, if it would just hold still long enough to let me use it. Then I’d re-create it all the way I wanted it.
Suddenly it morphs into the Beast, a shadow blacker than blackness. It expands, soars, towers up and up, until it is eye level with me.
It hangs there in the air, flashing back and forth between its own terrible visage and the meat of Fiona’s flayed face.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
When I open them again, I’m alone.
12
Stupid feckin’ stupid feckers!” I kick a can down the alley. It whizzes into the air, hits a brick wall, and flattens into it. And—dude—I mean “into” it. Couple inches deep. I snicker, knowing somebody’ll walk by one day and be like: Dude, how the feck did that can get embedded in the wall?
Just one more Mega O’Malley Mystery! City’s full of ’em.
I leave traces of me all over Dublin. My way of saying “I was here!” I been marking it up for years, ever since Ro started sending me out on my own to do stuff for her. Used to stick with little things, like bending sculptures in front of the museum just enough that I knew they were different but nobody else would prolly notice. But since the walls came down, it don’t matter no more. I embed things in brick and stone, rearrange chunks o’ rubble to spell out MEGA, hammer lampposts into twisty Ds for “Dani” and “Dangerous” and “Dude.”
I put a little swagger in my step.
Superstrength is me.
I scowl. “Stupid feckin’ feckers,” I mutter.
Hormonal is me. Up one minute, down the next.
My moods change quick as my feet fly. One minute I can’t wait to grow up and have sex; the next I hate people, and men are people; and, dude—isn’t semen about the most disgusting thing you ever seen? Like, eew, who wants some dude to squirt snot in their mouth?
Been on my own for a couple days now, and it’s swee-eeeet! Nobody telling me what to do. Ain’t gotta go to bed. Nobody telling me what to think. Just me and my shadow—and we are two cool fecks. Who wouldn’t wanna be me?
Still … I worry about those stupid sheep at the abbey.
Feck, no, I don’t! If they don’t wanna pull their heads outta their asses, ain’t my trubs!
Too bad some peeps don’t know to take me seriously. Gonna have to mess up their world to get ’em to see me.
Been at Chester’s again.
Took seven of the slithery fecks to keep me out this time. Kept telling ’em I needed to talk to Ry-O, ’cause I think he’s their leader when Barrons ain’t around.
And Barrons ain’t around.
Hunted high and low for him last night after my eyeballs got grossed out by Mac swapping nasties with the Lord Monster.
Dude—what’s with that? She could have V’lane or Barrons! Who’d wanna swap spit with an Unseelie-eater? ’Specially the one that caused this whole fecking mess! Where’d she go for so long? What happened to her?
They wouldn’t let me into Chester’s. A-fecking-gain! Getting old, real old, it is. Ain’t like I wanna drink or nothing. Stuff’s poison. Just wanted to clue ’em in.
Finally told ’em to tell Ry-O I think Mac’s in trouble. Hanging out with Darroc. Two princes protecting him.
Think he’s brainwashed her or something. Gotta get her back again. Wanted backup to cover me while I take ’em all out. Ain’t got my sidhe-sheep behind me. Since leaving the abbey, I’m Persona Non Grovel, and groveling’s the only way you get anything from Ro and her herd. Even Jo wouldn’t leave the abbey. Said it’s too late for Mac.
That’s where Ry-O was s’posed to come in. Told his freaks I was taking the Lord Monster out tonight and they could help if they wanted.
Or not.
Don’t need nobody. Not me.
Mega on the move! Faster than the wind! Leaps tall buildings in a single bound!
Dude!
Zzzoooom!
I study myself in the mirror with cold detachment. A smile curves the lips of the woman looking back.
The Sinsar Dubh paid me a visit last night. It reminded me of its crushing power, treated me to a taste of its sadism. But, far from being cowed by it, I’m more resolved than ever.
It must be stopped, and the person who knows how to accomplish that most quickly is sitting in the adjoining room, laughing at something one of his guards just said.
So many people are dead because of him. And he’s out there laughing. I realize now that Darroc was always more dangerous than Mallucé.
Mallucé looked horrific and behaved like a monster, but he rarely killed those in his enclave of worshippers.
Darroc is attractive, charming, affectionate, and he can orchestrate the annihilation of three billion humans without batting an eye, without losing an ounce of that charm. On the heels of mass homicide, he can smile at me and tell me how much he cared about my sister, show me pictures of them “having fun” together. Then kill three billion more if he gets his hands on the Book?
Merged with it, what would he be capable of? Would he stop at anything? Is he using me as detachedly as I’m trying to use him and the moment he gets what he wants I’m a dead woman?
We’re locked in mortal combat. It’s a war I will do anything to win.
I smooth my dress, turn to the side, point a toe, and admire the line of my leg in heels. I have new clothes. After wearing functional clothing, being pretty feels strange, frivolous.
But necessary for the monster of frivolous appetites out there.
Last night after the Book vanished, I’d tried to sleep but had succeeded only in getting tangled up in half-awake nightmares. I was at Darroc’s mercy, being raped by the princes again; then the unseen fourth was there, turning me inside out; then I felt the sting of needles at my nape as he tattooed my skull; then the princes were on me again; and then I was at the abbey, shivering with unquenchable lust on the floor of the cell, my bones melting, fusing to each other, my need for sex was pain beyond imagining; then Rowena was looming over me, and I clung to her, but she crushed a funny-smelling cloth to my face. I fought, I kicked, I clawed, but I was no match for the old woman and, in my nightmare, I’d died.
I’d not tried to sleep again.
I’d stripped, stood in the shower, and let the scalding spray punish my skin. Sun worshipper to the core, I’ve never been cold so often in my life as I have these past few months in Ireland.
After scrubbing myself pink and as clean as I was going to ever be again, I’d toed my pile of black leather with distaste.
I’d been wearing the same underwear for too long. My leather pants had been soaked, dried, shrunk, stained. It was the outfit I’d killed Barrons in. I wanted to burn it.
I’d wrapped myself in a sheet and stepped into the living room of the penthouse, where dozens of Darroc’s crimson-clad Unseelie were standing guard. I’d given them detailed instructions on where to go and what to get for me.
When they’d moved toward another bedroom suite to wake Darroc to obtain permission, I’d snapped, He doesn’t let you make your own decisions? He freed you only to dictate your every move and breath? One or two of you can’t go run a few simple little errands for me? Are you Unseelie or lapdogs?
The Unseelie are chock-full of emotion. Unlike the Seelie, they’ve not learned to conceal it. I got what I wanted—bags and boxes of clothing, shoes, jewelry, and makeup.
All weapons, good.
Now, as I admire myself in the mirror, I’m grateful I was born pretty. I need to know what he responds to. What his weaknesses are. How much weakness I can get him to feel for me. He used to be Seelie. It is what he is at the core, and I got an intimate look at what the Seelie are like last night.
Imperious. Beautiful. Arrogant.
I can be that.
I have little patience. I want answers and I want them quickly.
I finish my makeup with care, dusting extra bronzer across my cheeks and the upper curves of my breasts, mimicking the gold-dusted skin of the Fae.
My yellow dress clings to a body toned to perfection by marathon sex with Barrons. My shoes and accessories are gold.
I will look every inch his princess.
When I kill him.
He stops talking when he sees me and looks at me for a long moment. “Your hair was once blond like hers,” he says finally.
I nod.
“I liked her hair.”
I turn to the nearest guard and tell him what I need to change my hair. He looks at Darroc, who nods.
I toss my head. “I ask for simple things, yet they question me. It’s infuriating! Can you not give me two of your guards for my own?” I demand. “Am I to have nothing for myself?”
He’s looking at my legs, long and sleekly muscled, and my feet, pretty in high heels. “Of course,” he murmurs. “Which two do you wish?”
I wave a hand dismissively. “You choose. They’re all the same.”
He assigns a pair to carry out my wishes. “You will obey her as you would obey me,” he tells them. “Instantly and without question. Unless her orders conflict with mine.”
They will become accustomed to obeying me. His other guards will become accustomed to seeing them obey me. Tiny gains, tiny erosions.
I join him for breakfast and smile as I choke down food that tastes of blood and ashes.
The Sinsar Dubh is rarely active during the day.
Like the rest of the Unseelie, it prefers the night. Those who were so long imprisoned in ice and darkness seem to find the sunlight jarring, painful. The longer I walk around with this grief inside me, the more I understand that. It’s as if sunshine is a slap i
n the face that says, Look, the world’s all bright and shiny! Too bad you’re not.
I wonder if that’s why Barrons was rarely around during the day. Because he, too, was damaged like us and found comfort in the secrecy of shadows. Shadows are wonderful things. They hide pain and conceal motives.
Darroc leaves for the day with a small contingent of his army and refuses to take me with him. I want to push, I feel like a caged animal, but he has lines that I know better than to cross if I want him to trust me.
I pass the afternoon in his penthouse, fluttering around like a bright butterfly, picking up things, flipping through books and looking in cabinets and drawers, exclaiming over this or that, searching the place under guise of curiosity, beneath the watchful eyes of his guards.
I find nothing.
They refuse to let me in his bedroom.
Two can play that game. I refuse to let anyone in mine. I beef up my protection runes to keep my backpack and stones safe. I’ll get into his bedroom one way or another.
Late in the afternoon, I color my hair, blow it dry, and style it into a tousle of big, loose curls.
I’m blond again. How strange. I remember Barrons calling me a perky rainbow. It makes me long for a white miniskirt and pink camisole.
Instead, I slip into a blood-red dress, high-heeled black boots that hug my legs all the way up to mid-thigh, and a black leather coat with fur at the collar and cuffs, which I belt snugly at my waist to show off my curves. Black gloves, a brilliant scarf, and diamonds at my ears and throat complete my ensemble. With most of Dublin dead, shopping is a dream. Too bad I don’t care anymore.
When Darroc returns, I know by the look in his eyes that I’ve chosen well. He thinks I picked black and red for him, the colors of his guard, the colors he has told me he selected for his future court.
I chose black and red for the tattoos on Barrons’ body. Tonight I wear my promise to him that I will make things right.
“Isn’t your army coming with us?” I ask as we step from the penthouse. The night is cool and clear, the sky glittering with stars. The snow melted during the day, and the cobblestone streets are dry for a novel change.
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