Darkfever f-1

by Karen Marie Moning

  I peered around the corner of a stack of pallets—and erked back violently.

  I eased myself to the floor on legs that were shaky again, a hand pressed to my pounding heart, wishing fervently that I'd never gotten out of bed this morning.

  After a few deep, careful breaths, I leaned forward and looked again. I think I was hoping I'd just imagined it.

  I hadn't.

  Though I'd seen pictures in guidebooks and on postcards, I would have expected to find this kind of thing in the middle of a farmer's pasture, not in the rear of an industrial warehouse in the heart of a commercial district, midcity. I'd also gotten the impression they were more moderately sized. This one was huge. I tried to imagine how it had gotten here, then remembered I wasn't dealing with human methods of locomotion. With the Fae, anything was possible.

  Looming behind about a hundred Rhino-boys and other assorted Unseelie—who threw no shadows in the oppressive, strange light spilling from it—was a dolmen. Two towering stones stood upright about twenty-five feet apart, and a single long slab of rock lay across the top, making a doorway of the ancient megaliths.

  All around the doorway, symbols and runes were chiseled into the concrete floor. Some glowed crimson, others pulsed that eerie blue-black of the stone we'd stolen from Mallucé. A red-robed figure stood facing the dolmen, a deep cowl concealing its face.

  An arctic wind so cold it made my lungs hurt blasted through the stones, chilling more than my flesh; the dark wind bit into my soul with sharp, icy teeth, and I suddenly knew if I had to withstand it for very long I would slowly begin to forget every hope and dream that had ever warmed my heart.

  But it wasn't the soul-searing wind or the Rhino-boys or even the red-robed figure the Fae watchdogs were addressing as "my Lord Master" that had me cowering in shadows.

  It was that the immense stone doorway was open. And through it was pouring a horde of Unseelie.

  CHAPTER 23

  I won't bore you with the details of the monsters that came through the doorway that day. Barrens and I would discuss them later and try to identify their castes, and you'll meet most of them soon enough, anyway.

  Suffice to say, there were hundreds of them, tall and short, winged and hoofed, obese and gaunt, all of them pretty much horrific, and as they stepped through, they grouped off, ten or so to each Rhino-boy. From the bits I gathered, the Unseelie watchdogs had been assigned the task of acclimating their new charges to the world.

  My world.

  I cringed behind the stack of pallets, watching, too terrified to move. Finally, the last one came through. With more chanting and the sharp rapping of a gold-and-black scepter upon some of the glowing symbols, the red-robed Lord Master closed the doorway. The symbols went dark and the bitter wind ceased. The light in the warehouse brightened, became lighter somehow, and the Unseelie began casting shadows again. Feeling returned to my chilled face and fingers, and dreams to my heart.

  "You have your instructions," the Lord Master said, and I wondered how such an evil thing could have such a beautiful voice.

  Genuflecting as if to a god, the Rhino-boys began herding their newly arrived brethren toward the aisle. A group of about thirty assorted monsters remained behind with the Lord Master.

  I plastered myself against the stack of pallets as every single one of the new arrivals passed within a dozen feet of me, accompanied by its "trainer." They were some of the most harrowing few minutes of my life. I got an up close and personal look at things we've never even come close to creating in our scariest horror flicks.

  After the last of them had marched, slithered, flapped, or crawled down the long aisle and exited the building, I slumped back against the pallets, closed my eyes, and kept them closed.

  So this was what Alina had wanted me to know: That behind 1247 LaRuhe was a gate to hell, and here the Lord Master was bringing his dark servants through from their previously inescapable Unseelie prison and turning them loose on our world.

  Okay, now I knew.

  Just what was I supposed to do about it? Alina had seriously overestimated me if she thought I could, or would, do anything about this problem. It wasn't my problem. My problem was finding the bastard who'd betrayed her and bringing him to whatever justice I could. If he was human, I might let the courts have him. If he was an Unseelie masquerading as human, he'd die at the end of my spear. That was all I cared about.

  We've got to find the Sinsar Dubh, Alina had said. Everything depends on it.

  What depended on it? I had a sinking feeling the answer to that question was one of those Fate-of-the-World things. I didn't do Fate-of-the-World things. That wasn't in my job description. I poured drafts and mixed drinks, wiped counters and washed glasses. After work I swept up.

  Had Alina wanted me to find the Dark Book because somewhere within its dangerous, encrypted pages was the way to defeat the Lord Master and destroy his Unseelie portal? Why should I care? It was in Dublin, not Georgia! It was Ireland's problem. They could handle their own troubles. Besides, even if I managed to accomplish the impossible and find the stupid Dark Book, how was I supposed to translate it? Barrons had two of the stones necessary, but I had no clue which team he was playing for. Nor did I have any idea where the other two stones were, how to find them, or how to use them—assuming I ever actually managed to get my hands on them.

  What had Alina expected me to do? Commit to staying in Dublin indefinitely, searching for all this woo-woo stuff and living in constant fear? Devote my life to this cause? Be willing to die for it?

  It was one heck of a tall order for a short-order bartender. I would have snorted if I hadn't been on the uncomfortable verge of peeing my pants with fear for the past half hour.

  She'd died for it.

  I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut even harder.

  I'd never measured up to Alina, and I never would. I had no desire to open my eyes. I might see something else she thought I should be responsible for, I thought resentfully. I was getting out of here. I was going to put as much distance as possible between me and the prison-portal and the red-robed Lord Master and the whole Dark Zone.

  I sighed.

  I really was. Just as soon as I took just one last small look around the corner to see if there was anything else I should know. Not that I planned to do anything with the information. I just figured since I was already here, I might as well gather all of it I could. Maybe I could pass it on to that interfering old woman, or V'lane, and one of them could do something about it. If V'lane really was one of the good guys, then he and his queen should take immediate, decisive action to plug this unacceptable hole between our worlds. Hadn't Barrons mentioned something about a Compact? Wasn't there some kind of agreement this violated?

  I opened my eyes.

  And failed miserably at both my attempt to climb out of my own skin, and my efforts to sink into the floor.

  Barrons and I had wondered where Mallucé was. Now I knew.

  Less than a dozen feet away from me, fangs bared, flanked by six beady-eyed Rhino-boys.

  CHAPTER 24

  Trying to disappear hadn't worked, so I exploded up, hissing and kicking and slamming my hands into everything I could, well, lay my hands on.

  Unlike the other night, when I'd tried to kill the Gray Man, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, I just acted on instinct.

  It turned out my instincts were amazing.

  I left the spearhead tucked into my waistband, so I could use both hands. There was something inside me that worked like the missile-targeting system of a stealth bomber, locating and locking onto anything Fae once it was within a few feet of me.

  As Mallucé dropped back and let the six Rhino-boys close in, I slammed my palms out in opposite directions, hitting two of them smack in their barrel chests. I spun, slammed out again, catching another two in the ribs, then dropped to the floor and slammed out a third time.

  On my knees, I tossed my hair out of my eyes and assessed the situation. I'd frozen
all six of them in two seconds flat.

  But how long would they stay frozen? That was the critical question.

  Mallucé looked startled—I guess he'd never seen a Null in action before—then glided toward me in that sinuous way of his. I reached inside my jacket for the spearhead, then remembered what Barrons had said, or rather hadn't said about how to kill a vampire. Mallucé wasn't Fae, so I could neither freeze nor stab him and expect it to work. Nor, according to Barrons, would a stake through his heart do the job, so I didn't see any reason my spear would, either. I removed my hand from my jacket. I didn't want to show my ace-in-the-hole until I had no other choice. Maybe, just maybe, I could get close to the Lord Master. And maybe I could use the spear to kill him. And then maybe I could freeze all the Unseelie and outrun a vampire. It sounded like a plan to me. The only one I could think of.

  I pushed up and began backing away. It seemed it was what the vampire'd wanted, anyway. I held his too-bright yellow gaze as he backed me past the pallet, onto the rune-chiseled floor in front of the dolmen, and into a circle of Unseelie Rhino-boys and assorted monsters.

  "What is this, Mallucé?" Though he was behind me and I couldn't see him, I would never mistake the voice of the Lord Master. It was rich, multitonal, and musical, like Vlane's.

  "I thought I heard something behind the pallets," Mallucé said. "She is a Null, Lord Master. Another one."

  I couldn't help it. I had to know. "You mean Alina, don't you? The other Null, she was Alina Lane, wasn't she?" I accused.

  The vampire's creepy citron eyes narrowed. He exchanged a long glance with the red-robed thing behind me.

  "What do you know about Alina Lane?" the Lord Master said softly, in that melodious voice. It was the voice of something larger than life, an archangel, perhaps—the one that fell.

  "She was my sister," I snarled, whirling around. "And I'm going to kill the bastard that killed her. What do you know about her?"

  The crimson cowl shook with laughter. I fisted my hands at my sides to keep from whipping out my spear and lunging for the red-robed figure. Stealth, I told myself. Caution. I doubted I'd get more than one chance.

  "I told you she would come, Mallucé," said the Lord Master. "We will use her to finish what her sister began." He raised his hands as if to encompass the group and addressed all the Unseelie gathered there. "When everything is in place, I will open the portal and unleash the entire Unseelie prison on this world, as I promised you. Restrain her. She comes with us."

  "Now, that was just stupid, Ms. Lane," Barrons said, shaking his head, as he dropped onto the floor next to me, his long black coat fluttering. "Did you have to go and tell them who you were? They would have figured it out soon enough."

  I blinked, stupefied.

  I guess the Lord Master, Mallucé, and all the rest of them were just as stunned by the unexpected entrance as I was, because we all gaped at him, and then we all looked up. 7 just wanted to see where in the world he'd come from. I think they were checking to see if there were any others up there. He had to have been on the ceiling girders. They were thirty feet high. I didn't see a convenient rope dangling anywhere.

  When I looked back down, the Unseelie ruler had pushed back his crimson cowl and was looking at Barrons, hard. He didn't seem to like what he saw.

  I gasped, stunned.

  I stared in disbelief and confusion at Alina's boyfriend, the Lord Master. The leader of the Unseelie wasn't even Fae! Even Barrons looked a little thrown.

  The Lord Master barked a command, then he turned in a whirl of red robes. Dozens of Unseelie closed in on us instantly.

  Things got kind of crazy then, and I still have a hard time sorting them out. As his minions cut off any chance of pursuit, the prick who'd used and killed my sister and had been planning to do the same to me ordered them to take me alive, or else, and kill the other one.

  Then I was surrounded by Unseelie and I couldn't see Barrons anymore. Somewhere in the distance, I heard chanting, and the runes in the concrete beneath my feet began to glow again.

  I closed my mind to everything but battle. I fought.

  I fought for my sister, who'd died alone in an alley. I fought for the woman the Gray Man had fed on while I'd eaten french fries, and the one he'd consumed two days ago, while I'd watched in helpless horror. I fought for the people the Many-Mouthed-Thing had killed. I fought for the dehydrated human husks blowing down the forgotten streets between Collins Street and Larkspur Lane. I might have even fought for a few of O'Bannion's henchmen. And I fought for the twenty-two-year-old young woman who'd arrived in Dublin pretty darned sure of herself, who no longer had any idea where she'd come from or where she was going, and who'd just broken her third Iceberry Pink nail.

  The alabaster spearhead seemed to blaze with holy light in my hand as I ducked and twisted, slammed and stabbed. I could feel myself turning into something else and it felt good. At one point I caught sight of Barrons' startled face, and I knew that if he was looking at me like that, I was truly something to see. I felt like something to see. I felt like a well-built, well-oiled machine with one purpose in life: to kill Fae. Good or bad. Take 'em all.

  And I did, one after another. Duck, slam, stab. Whirl, slam, stab. They went down fast and hard. The spear was pure poison to them, and I was getting a weird kind of high off watching them die. I have no idea how long I could have kept it up, if they'd all been Fae, but they weren't and I screwed up.

  I'd forgotten about Mallucé.

  When he crept up behind me, I sensed him there just like a Fae—apparently my radar picked up on anything otherworldly within a certain perimeter—and I spun and stabbed him in the gut.

  I realized my error instantly, although I had no idea how to correct it. The vampire was a more serious threat to me than any of the Unseelie, even the Shades—at least I knew how to drive those life-suckers back: light. I didn't have any idea what this life-sucker's weakness was, or even if he had one. Barrons had talked like killing a vampire was pretty much impossible.

  For a moment, I just stood there, my weapon buried in his stomach, hoping it would do something. If it had any effect on him at all, I sure couldn't tell. I stared stupidly into those feral yellow eyes, glowing in that white, white face. Then my wits returned and I tried to pull the spear out for another stab at him, this time in the chest—maybe Barrons was wrong, I had to try something—but the razor-sharp tip had gotten lodged in a knot of gristle or bone or something and wouldn't yield.

  He closed his hand on my arm. It felt cold and dead. "You little bitch! Where is my stone?" the vampire hissed.

  I got it then—why he'd not brought it up before, when he'd first seen me. He was two-timing the Lord Master and couldn't risk the Rhino-boys knowing.

  "Oh God, he doesn't even know you had it, does he?" I exclaimed. The moment I said it, I realized my mistake. Mallucé had more to lose if the Lord Master discovered he was betraying him, than by owning up to inadvertently killing the sidhe-seer in the heat of battle. I'd just signed my own death warrant.

  I yanked frantically on the spearhead. Mallucé bared his fangs as the weapon gave and I stumbled back. Off balance, I lashed out again—but a millisecond too late. The vampire backhanded me across the face and I flew backward through the air, arms and legs folded forward like a rag doll, just as I'd seen his bodyguard do that night at the House of Goth.

  I slammed into the side of a stack of pallets that gave about as much as a brick wall. My head snapped back and pain ricocheted through my skull. I heard things in me crack.

  "Mac!" I heard Barrons shout.

  I slumped down the plastic-shrouded wall, thinking how weird it sounded, him calling me Mac. He'd only ever called me Ms. Lane. I couldn't breathe. My chest was locked tight, and I wondered if my ribs had broken and punctured my lungs. The spear was slipping from my fingers. That arctic wind was back, chilling me body and soul, and I understood dimly that the gate was open again.

  My lids were as heavy as paperweights and I blinked
slowly. My face was wet. I wasn't sure, but I thought I was crying. I couldn't be dying. I finally knew who'd killed my sister. I'd looked into his face. I hadn't avenged her yet.

  Barrons swam before my eyes. "I'll get you out of here. Hold on," he told me in a slow-motion voice and was gone.

  I blinked again, heavily. I still couldn't breathe and my vision was going in and out, especially in one eye. One moment it was all shadowy, then there was Barrons again. He and Mallucé were facing each other, pacing a tight circle. The vampire's eyes glowed and his fangs were fully extended.

  As my grasp on consciousness failed, I tried to decide what on earth Barrons had just done to Mallucé that had sent the absurdly strong vampire slamming into a stack of pallets and crashing into a forklift; how I'd gotten into his arms, and just where he thought he was taking me at such breakneck speed.

  To a hospital, I hoped.

  I regained consciousness several times during our flight.

  Long enough, the first time, to realize I hadn't died, which I found dimly astonishing. The last time I'd seen Mallucé slam someone into a wall, the man had been way bigger than I, and he'd died instantly, bleeding from multiple orifices.

  I must have muttered something to that effect, because Barrons' chest rumbled beneath my ear. "The spear did something to him, Ms. Lane. I'm not sure what or why, but it slowed him down."

  The next time I regained consciousness, he said, "Can you hook an arm around my neck and hold on?" The answer was yes—one. The other one wouldn't move. It dangled limply from my shoulder.

  The man could run. We were in the sewers, I could tell by the splash of his boots and the smell. I hoped I wasn't deluding myself with optimism, but I didn't hear the sound of pursuit. Had we lost them? All of them?

  "They don't know the underground like I do," he said. "Nobody does."