Bloodfever f-2

by Karen Marie Moning

  I rolled over and looked at her. “Is this a dream, Alina?”

  She turned toward me and smiled. “No.”

  “Is it real?”

  She smiled again, sadly. “No.”

  “Then what is this?”

  She bit her lip. “Don’t ask me, just enjoy the day.”

  “I need to know.”

  “It’s a gift from V’lane. A day on the beach with me.”

  “An illusion,” I said. Water to a man stranded for two and a half days in the desert without a drink. Beyond refusing, even if it was poisoned. I knew better but it didn’t stop me from trying: “So if I were to ask how you met the Lord Master, or where to find the Sinsar Dubh?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know those things.”

  I wasn’t surprised. V’lane must have lifted her from my memories, which meant she would know only what I knew, and made questions about anything other than experiences I recalled, or my current situation, pointless. “How long have I been here?” As V’lane’s creation, she should know that.

  She shrugged again.

  “Longer than a human hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I choose to stay?”

  “And have anything you wanted, MacKayla. Forever.”

  Alina never called me MacKayla. In fact, neither did my parents or any of my friends. Only V’lane did. Was he behind those sunny eyes? And still, I wanted to stay here, lose myself on this beach, in this sun, live this day over and over again for the rest of my life. Forget the rain and the fear, the pain and my uncertain future. I could die happily on a hammock in the sun, seventy years from now, surrounded by lost dreams.

  “I love you, Alina,” I whispered.

  “I love you, too, Mac,” she whispered back.

  “I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I missed your call. I’m sorry I didn’t figure out something was wrong.”

  “You never failed me, Mac. You never will.”

  Tears filled my eyes. Where had those words of absolution come from? Did the icy Fae prince understand more about human emotion than he let on?

  I hugged Alina, inhaled deeply, and memorized every sensory detail I could greedily gather.

  Then I squeezed my eyes shut and went to that place in my head that was so alien, and I fed the foreign fire. When I’d stoked it hot enough and high enough, I murmured, “Show me what is true,” and opened my eyes.

  My arms were empty. Alina was gone.

  V’lane knelt in the sand before me.

  “Never do that to me again,” I said in a low voice.

  “You did not enjoy your time with her?”

  “It wasn’t her.”

  “Tell me you did not enjoy it.”

  I couldn’t.

  “Then thank me for it.”

  I couldn’t do that either. “How much time has passed?”

  “I would have retrieved you but I was loath to disrupt your pleasure. You have had so little of it lately.”

  “You said you would take no more than one hour of my time.”

  “And I meant it. You chose to stay in Faery when you followed her across the sand. I understand freedom is a commodity humans prize highly. I permitted you yours.”

  When I would have argued his underhanded methods he pressed a finger to my lips. It was warm, strong, but there was absolutely nothing Fae in his touch. He was muting himself for me. He felt like a man, a strong, solid, sexy man, nothing more. “Some wounds need salve to heal. Illusion is the great salve. Tell me, has your grief for your sister lessened?”

  I considered his words and was startled to realize it was true. Although I knew the Alina I’d just played with, and cried with, and hugged and begged forgiveness of had not been real, my day in the sun with her had given me a degree of closure I’d not had before. Although I knew the Alina who’d absolved hadn’t been my Alina, her words had comforted me all the same.

  “Never again,” I repeated. Illusion might be a salve, but it was also dangerous. There was enough danger in my life.

  He flashed a smile. “Your wish.”

  I closed my eyes a moment, trying to clear Alina from my thoughts; the sight, scent, and sound of her lingered all around me. From hugging her, I still smelled Beautiful on my skin. Later I would re-live every moment, and it would comfort me again. I opened my eyes. “What of the Lord Master?”

  “The warehouse was deserted. I destroyed the dolmen. It did not appear anyone had been there in weeks. I suspect he never returned to that location once it had been discovered. Tell me everything you know of him.”

  “I’m tired,” I said. “Our hour is up.” Plus some. “Return me now.”

  “Tell me of the Sinsar Dubh. You owe me that.”

  I told him what I knew, that I’d felt it pass me in the streets of Dublin, moving rapidly in a car of some kind, past the bookstore, a little over two weeks ago. He asked me many questions that I couldn’t answer because the mere nearness of the Dark Book had knocked me out, a fact he seemed to find amusing.

  “We will see each other again, MacKayla,” he said.

  Then he was gone and I was somewhere else. I blinked. Although I’d not terminated our time together prematurely, V’lane still hadn’t returned me to Wales; he’d deposited me in Barrons Books and Baubles. Probably just to irritate Barrons.

  It took me a few moments to adjust and focus. Having realities swapped so quickly and completely seems to exceed what the human mind can process—we were not fashioned for such a method of travel—and it goes blank, like the static on late-night television, for a few seconds. It’s a vulnerable time. A person could be ambushed in such a moment.

  My hand went instantly to my spear. I was relieved to find it was once again there, in the belt draped around my—“Haha, V’lane,” I muttered, pissed—hot pink bikini. “Jackass.” It was no wonder I was cold.

  Then my brain processed what I was seeing and I gasped.

  Barrons Books and Baubles had been ransacked!

  Tables were overturned, books torn from shelves and strewn everywhere, baubles broken. Even my little TV behind the counter had been destroyed.

  “Barrons?” I called warily. It was night and the lights were on. My illusory Alina had told me more than an hour had passed. Was it the same night, nearly dawn? Or was it the night following our theft attempt? Had Barrons come back from Wales yet? Or was he still there, searching for me? When I’d been so rudely ripped from reality, who or what had come through those basement doors?

  I heard footsteps, boots on hardwood, and turned expectantly toward the connecting doors.

  Barrons was framed in the doorway. His eyes were black ice. He stared at me a moment, raking me from head to toe. “Nice tan, Ms. Lane. So, where the fuck have you been for the past month?”

  Chapter 12

  One afternoon,” I insisted. “I spent maybe six hours there, Barrons!”

  I’d lost a month of my life, on a beach in the sun with Alina. It was incomprehensible. Had I aged a month or stayed the same? What if I’d chosen to hang out with Alina for a week? Would I have lost a year? Ten? What had changed since I’d been gone? I glanced out the window. One thing hadn’t—it was still raining.

  “In Faery, you fool,” he snarled. “You know time doesn’t move the same there! We talked about that!”

  “V’lane promised it would be only an hour of my time. He tricked me,” I said hotly.

  “‘V’lane promised. He tricked me,’” he mocked in falsetto. “What did you expect? He’s a bloody Fae, Ms. Lane, and one of the—what do you call them—death-by-sex ones. He seduced you and you fell for it. What else did you fall for? Why did you agree to give him an hour in Faery in the first place?”

  “I didn’t agree to give him an hour in Faery! I agreed to spend an hour with him at a time of his choosing. He didn’t say anything about where it would be spent.”

  “Why did you agree to spend an hour with him at all?
”

  “Because he helped me clear the Shades from the bookstore!”

  “I would have helped you clear the Shades!”

  “You weren’t there!” We were shouting at each other.

  “Deals with the devil, Ms. Lane, never go well. That’s a given. You will not make one again. Do you understand me? If I have to chain you to a fucking wall to protect you from your own stupidity, I will!” He glared at me.

  I rattled my chains. “Wrists. Beam. Chained already, Barrons. Come up with a new threat.” I glared back.

  He tried to stare me down, make me quail and look away. I didn’t. Not even with my arms chained behind me, wearing only a string bikini. I was losing the ability to quail and I would never again be the kind of girl that looked away.

  “Who trashed the bookstore, Barrons?” I demanded. I had a lot of questions and so far I’d not gotten the chance to ask a single one. The moment he’d seen me, he’d charged me, roughly bundled me over his shoulder, hauled me to the garage, stripped off my tool belt, and chained me to a support beam. I hadn’t even tried to fight him off; there was more steel inside Barrons than the post behind me.

  A muscle in his jaw worked. He turned away, walked to a small metal worktable on wheels, and rolled it over next to me. Then he retrieved a long, flat wooden box from one of the many tool shelves.

  “What are you doing?” I said warily. He removed items from the box and began placing them on the table next to me. First came two tiny bottles that contained liquids: one crimson, one black. Were they poisons? Drugs? Next came a knife, very sharp, with a long, deadly point. “Are you going to torture me?” I said incredulously. He withdrew a sooty candle with a long black wick. “Or cast a spell on me?” Could he do that?

  “What I am going to do, Ms. Lane, is tattoo you.” He opened the bottles, unwrapped a set of needles bound in embossed leather, and lit the candle. He began heating a needle in the flame.

  I gasped. “No, you’re not. Mom’ll kill me.” The liquids were inks, not drugs. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. Drugs wore off. Inks were permanent.

  He gave me a hard look. “Grow up.”

  I was growing up and doing a fine job of it, whether he thought so or not. It wasn’t immature that I considered my mother’s feelings. In my book, it was just the opposite. Besides, I felt the same way she did. Heir to a generation that tattooed, pierced, and performed cosmetic surgery on themselves as casually as they shaved their heads, I’d vowed years ago to go to the grave the same way I’d been born, just a lot more wrinkly. “You are not tattooing me,” I repeated.

  “Stop me.” His smile was so cattish that I felt twitchy mouse ears sprout from the top of my head. He was serious. He’d chained me up, and now he was going to tattoo me. He was going to stand close to me, work slowly and methodically on my naked skin for what might be hours depending on the complexity of the tattoo. The thought made me feel light-headed, queasy.

  I told myself to be calm. I would get to the bottom of this. I would talk him out of it. “Why are you going to tattoo me, Barrons?” I asked in the most reasonable, soothing voice I could muster.

  “The design contains a spell, so I can find you the next time you decide to indulge yourself in a childish whim.”

  “A whim?” I rattled my chains angrily. “It was no whim. You weren’t there to help me with the Shades so I made the best bargain I could with who was available.”

  “I wasn’t talking about V’lane. I was talking about choosing to stay in Faery.”

  My temper flared white hot. “You have no idea what it was like! My sister died without warning and suddenly there she was again, standing right in front of me. I got to see her, touch her, hear her voice again! Do you know what it’s like to lose someone? Actually, probably the right question for you is have you ever loved anyone other than yourself? Loved them so much that you couldn’t stand to go on living without them? Do you even know what love is? I did not indulge myself. I had a weakness.” And I’d gotten over it. I’d made the illusion disappear with my will. I’d seen through it. I was proud of myself for that. “People who feel things sometimes have weaknesses, but you wouldn’t know the first thing about that, would you?” I said bitterly. “The only things you feel are greed, mockery, and occasionally you probably get a hard-on, but I bet it’s not over a woman, it’s over money or an artifact or a book. You’re no different than any other player in this game. You’re no different than V’lane. You’re just a cold, mercenary—”

  His hand was on my throat, and he was crushing me back with his body into the cold steel beam behind me. “Yes, I have loved, Ms. Lane, and although it’s none of your business, I have lost. Many things. And no, I am not like any other player in this game and I will never be like V’lane, and I get a hard-on a great deal more often than occasionally.” He leaned fully against me and I gasped. “Sometimes it’s over a spoiled little girl, not a woman at all. And yes, I trashed the bookstore when I couldn’t find you. You’ll have to choose a new bedroom, too. And I’m sorry your pretty little world got all screwed up, but everybody’s does, and you go on. It’s how you go on that defines you.” His hand relaxed on my throat. “And I am going to tattoo you, Ms. Lane, however and wherever I please.” His gaze dropped down over my sun-kissed, lightly oiled, very bare skin. The delicately strung together hot pink triangles covered very little, and while I’d not minded so much on the beach, being nearly naked around Barrons felt a lot like going to a shark convention lightly basted in blood.

  This was a line I couldn’t let him cross. I had to own myself. I had to win this one. “If you do this, Barrons, I’m going to walk out of this place as soon as you’re done and never find another OOP for you. If you force this on me, you and I are through. I’m not kidding. I’ll find someone else to help me.” I stared into those jet eyes. I didn’t throw V’lane’s name at him because I had no desire to wave the red cape at the bull. The calm of unshakable resolution settled over me, and I injected it into my voice. “Don’t do it. I let you push me pretty far sometimes, but not this time. I will not have you put your”—it took me a moment to find the right words—“sorcerer’s brand on me, so you can hunt me down whenever and wherever you please. And that, Jericho Barrons, is non-negotiable.”

  There are some lines you just can’t let another person cross. They don’t always make sense, they might not always seem like the most important things, but only you can know what they are, and when you butt up against one, you have to defend it. Besides, who knew what else the tattoo might do?

  We stared at each other in silence.

  This time, if we had one of those wordless conversations of ours I couldn’t hear a thing he said because I was too busy broadcasting a single, deafening word: No. As an afterthought, I felt for that strange place inside my skull, stoked it up into a furnace of flames, and tried to channel everything it would give me into the implacable refusal I was throwing his way. Tried to magic-up my “no,” in a manner of speaking, to amplify it.

  I was astonished when Barrons suddenly smiled.

  Even more so when he began to laugh, softly at first, but the rumble grew. I felt it deep in his chest, expanding. His hands moved from my throat to my shoulders, his teeth flashed in his dark face. He was electric, a live current up against my body, humming with vitality, burning with energy.

  “Well done, Ms. Lane. Just when I think you’re all useless fluff and nails, you show me some teeth.”

  I didn’t know if he was talking about my vocal refusal, or if my freshman effort to use that sidhe-seer place in my head to shove at him had worked, but he reached around me and worked at the chains binding me to the post. After a few moments, they dropped to the concrete with a clatter of steel.

  “You win. This time. I won’t tattoo you. Not today. But in lieu of that, you will do something for me. Refuse and I tattoo you. And, Ms. Lane, if I chain you up one more time tonight, there’ll be no more talking. I’ll gag you.”

  He unbuttoned his shir
tsleeve, rolled it back, removed a wide silver cuff from his wrist, and handed it to me. I had a déjà vu moment, flashback to V’lane and the Cuff of Cruce, although this cuff was very different. I’d seen it on him many times. I accepted it and turned it in my hand. It was hot from his skin. Forged of thick silver, ornately embossed with Celtic knotwork, runes, and symbols, and lightly blackened, it looked ancient, like something out of a museum. “Put it on. Never take it off.”

  I glanced up. He was too close. I needed distance. I stepped out from between him and the beam, skirting the pile of chains. “What does it do?” I asked.

  “It will allow me to locate you if you disappear again.”

  “Could you really have found me in Faery if I’d been tattooed?”

  He looked away and said nothing. Then, “I would have at least known you were alive. I didn’t even know that.”

  “Why didn’t you offer me the cuff first, instead of trying to tattoo me?”

  “Because, Ms. Lane, a cuff can be removed or forgotten. A tattoo can’t. I still prefer the tattoo. The cuff is a concession, and one I’m making only because you’ve finally pulled your head out and begun exploring your…talents.” He smiled faintly.

  Aha, so what I’d tried to do with that strange place in my skull had had some effect on him! That was something. It wasn’t exactly bending spoons with a thought, but it was a start. “Couldn’t somebody cut a tattoo off me?” Didn’t the ink go only so many layers of skin deep?

  “It would be risky and immensely painful. I intended to hide it.”

  I looked down at myself. “Just where were you planning to hide a”—I veered sharply away from that cliff—“I don’t want to know.” I examined the cuff. “Does it do anything else?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about. Put it on. Now.”

  I saw all kinds of nonnegotiable in his eyes and I knew he would tattoo me, and I would have to leave, and despite my bravado, I wasn’t ready to be on my own in this dark world.

  I slipped it on my wrist. It was huge. I pushed it up my arm but it just slid back down, and fell off over my hand. He caught it before it hit the floor, and forced the ends apart. He placed it above my biceps and squeezed it until the ends met. I had just enough muscle to keep it where it was.