Bloodfever f-2

by Karen Marie Moning

  “I’ll ward the store against him. You’ll be safe so long as you’re inside.”

  “If I was already tattooed, why couldn’t you find me when V’lane had me in Faery?” This was a bit of illogic that had been nagging at me.

  “I knew you were in Faery but I couldn’t track you there. The realms shift constantly, making it impossible to follow the…beacon.”

  “Why did you make me wear the cuff if I was already tattooed?”

  “So I could explain being able to find you if I had to.”

  I snorted. “What a tangled web we weave, huh? Does it really work as a locator cuff?”

  He shook his head.

  “Does it do anything?”

  “Not that concerns you.”

  “What did the Lord Master do to me that made me obey him?”

  “Parlor tricks. It’s called Voice. A Druid skill.”

  “You knew that parlor trick yourself. Is it something someone else can learn to do? Me, for example?”

  “I doubt you’ll live long enough to learn it.”

  “You did.”

  “You have no training.”

  “Try me.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Did you use it on my father? Is that what made him leave the next morning, after he and I had argued all night and I couldn’t get him to go?”

  “Would you have had him stay?”

  “Did you use it again when he called here, when I was in Faery for a month?” I was beginning to understand his methods.

  “Should I have let him fly over and get himself killed?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the abbey, Barrons?”

  “They are witches and liars. They would tell you anything to woo you to their side.”

  “Sounds like somebody else I know.” Actually it sounded like everybody else I knew.

  “I make you no promises I won’t keep, and I gave you the spear. They would take it from you. Give them half a chance and see what they do. Don’t come whining to me when they screw you.”

  “I’m going to the abbey in a few days, Barrons,” I told him, and it was a challenge. It was a “You’d better give me whatever freedom I want.” After everything I’d been through, my feelings about things had changed. He and I were partners, not OOP detector and director, and partners had rights. “I’m going to spend some time there and see what they can teach me.”

  “I’ll be here when you get back. And should the old woman try to harm you, I’ll kill her.”

  I almost muttered a “thanks” but caught myself. “I know there are no male sidhe-seers.” When he opened his mouth I said, “Spare me,” before he could toss a pithy comment my way. “I know you’re male and I know you see them. We don’t need to revisit that. I also know you’re superstrong and that you rarely touch the spear. So how long have you been eating Unseelie, Barrons?”

  He gaped a moment, then his shoulders began to shake, his chest rumbled, his dark eyes glittered with amusement, and he laughed.

  “It is a perfectly logical assumption,” I bristled.

  “Yes,” he said finally, “it is. It startled me with its logic. But it’s not true.”

  I studied him through narrowed eyes. “Maybe that’s why the Shades don’t eat you. They’re not cannibals and you’re full of their brethren. Maybe they don’t like dark meat.”

  “So, stab me,” he said softly.

  I slipped my hand beneath my jacket, fisted my hand around the hilt of the spear. It was pure bluff. We both knew I wouldn’t.

  Behind the counter the phone rang. I stared into Barrons’ dark eyes while the phone rang and rang. I remembered kissing him, remembered the images: the desert; the hot, killing sirocco; the lonely boy; the endless wars. I wondered whether if I kissed him again, I’d get inside him again. The phone rang. It occurred to me that it could be my dad. Jerking my gaze away with an effort, I pushed off the sofa and grabbed the phone.

  “Hello?” It wasn’t my dad. “Christian! Hi, yes, actually I’d love to. No, no, I didn’t forget! I got tied up.”

  I’d had other things on my mind, been wound tight as a knot.

  But I was okay now. Things were back to normal. I was Mac Lane, sidhe-seer, armed to the teeth with spear, knives, and flashlights. Barrons was…well, Barrons, and the hunt for the Sinsar Dubh was back on.

  And tonight would be a fine night to spend with a good-looking young Scotsman who’d known my sister, and learn what he knew.

  “I’ll be there in forty minutes.” I wanted to change and freshen up. “No, no need to come get me. I’ll walk. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “A date, Ms. Lane?” Barrons said, when I hung up. He was motionless. In fact, for a moment I wasn’t certain he was breathing. “You really think that’s appropriate in the midst of our current circumstances? There are Hunters out there.”

  I shrugged. “They fear my spear.”

  “The Lord Master’s out there.”

  I gave him a dry smile. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you won’t let me die.”

  He returned my smile with the ghost of one, even dryer. “He must be something, if he’s worth walking Dublin’s night.”

  “He is.” I didn’t tell him he’d been my sister’s friend. Volunteering information isn’t something Barrons and I do with each other. We let each other stew in whatever messes we’ve created for ourselves. The day he stops, I’ll stop.

  “Shouldn’t I be giving you a curfew?” he mocked.

  “Try.” I turned for the connecting doors. I would wash my face, brush on blush, mascara, and lip gloss, and put on something pretty and pink. Not because I thought of this as a date. I didn’t. Scotty might have known my sister and he might know a little about what we were, but he couldn’t live in my world. It was too dangerous for the average man, even one armed with a bit of knowledge.

  I would wear pink because I knew my future was anything but rosy. I would accessorize myself to the hilt, and I would wear flirty shoes because my world needed more beauty to counter all the ugliness in it. I would wear pink because I hated gray, I didn’t deserve white, and I was sick of black.

  As I reached the connecting door, I stopped. “Jericho.”

  “Mac.”

  I hesitated. “Thank you for saving my life.” I slipped through the door. Before I pulled it closed, I added softly, “Again.”

  Chapter 20

  I had to walk through Temple Bar to get to Trinity where I was meeting Christian.

  I passed Inspector Jayne on the way. He and two other Garda were attempting to subdue a group of combative drunks. He gave me a sharp, furious look as I passed, making it clear he’d not forgotten about me, or his brother-in-law’s murder. I had no doubt I would be seeing him again soon. I didn’t blame him. I was hunting a murderer, too, and I knew how he felt. Problem was, he was targeting the wrong person. I wasn’t.

  Although you might think after everything I’d been through I would fear the night, I didn’t. Night’s just Day’s other cheek. It’s not the darkness that frightens me; it’s the things that come out in it, and I was ready for them.

  I had a spear the Hunters didn’t want to get too close to. I had a tattoo at the nape of my neck that Barrons could use to find me anytime he wanted to, anywhere. And if I were in Faery, I suspected news would travel swiftly to V’lane on a Fae wind and I knew he wanted me alive, too. I might have powerful enemies but I had powerful protectors. Then there was Ryodan—a man capable of surviving a fight with Barrons—who was a mere phone call away in case Barrons wasn’t around, and I had IYD, in case things got really bad. After what I’ve seen from Barrons, I was confident that IYD would be a real petunia-kicker.

  If things got stupendously bad, I’d bite the nearest Unseelie instead of stabbing it, and start chewing.

  Speaking of Unseelie, they were everywhere in the busy party zone tonight, but I didn’t focus on them. I focused on the humans instead.

  They were my people.

  I ha
d a job, a purpose, more so than the task of finding the Sinsar Dubh with which my sister had charged me. I knew now that she’d never meant it to end there, anyway. I’d just been interpreting her message from my selfish viewpoint.

  Everything depends on it, she’d said. We can’t let them have it! We’ve got to get to it first!

  I knew her message by heart. I’d listened to it over and over in my head. We had to get to it first so that we could do something with it. Exactly what, I had no idea, but I had no doubt my job would be far from over when it was finally found.

  Question: When you’re one of the few people who can do something to fix a problem, just how responsible does that make you for it?

  Answer: It’s how you choose to answer that question that defines you.

  I walked through the bustling crowds dressed in pink and gold, my dark curls fluffed, my eyes sparkling, looking everywhere, inhaling the scents, enjoying the sounds. The spring was back in my step. I’d never felt more alive, more charged, more part of the world. I decided I would stop at an all-night Internet café on the way home, soak up the late-night Irish craic, and download some new tunes for my iPod. I was making a salary now. I was entitled to spend a little of it.

  I’d been knocking on Death’s door recently and I was exhilarated to be alive, no matter how bad the current state of my world, no matter how fecked-up my life.

  I stared curiously, interestedly into the faces as they passed by. I offered smiles, collected many in return. I got a few whistles, too. Sometimes the small pleasures in life are the sweetest.

  I mentally assessed the current state of my game board as I walked. Mallucé was now off it for real, a dark, headless rook, slain on the sidelines. Derek O’Bannion had risen up in his place on the shadowy side of the board ruled by the Lord Master.

  I was still willing to keep Rowena mostly on my side—the light side—and I hoped Christian MacKeltar might fit there somehow, too. It would be nice to have a little company. I was certain Dani was a light warrior.

  Barrons?

  Sometimes I wondered if he’d built the darned board, set the game in motion.

  I was three blocks from Trinity, down a side street shortcut I’d decided to take, when it happened.

  I clutched my head and moaned. “No. Not now. No!” I tried to step backward, to retreat from it, but it wouldn’t let me. My feet locked down right where they were.

  The pain in my head swelled to a vicious crescendo. I wrapped both arms around my face and cradled my aching skull.

  Nothing compares to the agony the Sinsar Dubh causes me. I ducked my chin to my chest, knowing in moments I would be on the sidewalk, curled up in a gibbering ball, then unconscious, vulnerable to anyone and anything in the night.

  The pressure ratcheted up violently, and just when I was certain the top of my skull was going to blow off and rain bone shrapnel across the street, a thousand red hot ice picks perforated my head, releasing the pressure, creating a new hell of its own, an internal inferno.

  “No,” I whimpered, staggering. “Please…no.”

  The ice picks had jagged edges and rotated like roasting skewers. My lips moved soundlessly and I collapsed to my knees, toppled into the gutter, and fell facedown into a sour-smelling puddle; so much for pretty in pink and gold. A wintry wind howled down between the buildings, chilling me to the bone. Old newspapers cartwheeled like dirty, sodden tumbleweeds over broken bottles and discarded wrappers and glasses.

  I clawed at the pavement with my fingernails, left the tips of them broken in gaps between the cobbled stones.

  With immense effort, I raised my head and looked down the street. It was nearly deserted, scourged clean of tourists by the dark, arctic wind, leaving only me…and them.

  I watched in speechless horror at the tableau that played out before my eyes.

  After a few interminable minutes, the pain began to ebb and I dropped my chin in the sour dark puddle, panting from the aftermath of agony.

  After a few more minutes, I managed to crawl from the puddle and drag myself back up onto the sidewalk, where I threw up until nothing was left.

  I knew now where the Sinsar Dubh was.

  And I knew who was moving it around.

  As momentous and mind-boggling as that information was, it wasn’t my primary concern at the moment.

  I’d been within fifty yards of the Dark Book, closer to it than I’d ever been before, I’d seen it with my own eyes—and I hadn’t passed out.

  I wonder, Barrons had said, dilute the opposite, would it still repel?

  The Sinsar Dubh had existed for a million years and although, according to Barrons, Fae things change in subtle ways over time, I was quite certain it was never going to get any nicer. In fact, I had no doubt it would only continue to grow consistently more evil.

  Previously it had repelled me so violently that it had knocked me out within seconds. Tonight I had remained conscious the entire time, closer to it than ever before, and that could mean only one thing.

  What had changed was me.

  Glossary from Mac’s Journal

  * AMULET, 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, Boudica, 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.

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

  * 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?

  CRUCE: A Fae; unknown if Seelie or Unseelie. Many of his relics are floating around out there. He cursed the Sifting Silvers. Unknown what the curse was.

  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).

  DANI: A young sidhe-seer in her early teens whose talent is superhuman speed. She has to her credit—as she will proudly crow from the rooftops given the slightest opportunity—forty-seven Fae kills at the time of this writing. I’m sure she’ll have more by tomorrow. Her mother was killed by a Fae. We are sisters in vengeance. She works for Rowena and is employed at Post Haste, Inc.

  DARK ZONE: An area that has been taken over by the Shades. During the day it looks like your everyday abandoned, run-down neighborhood. Once night falls, it’s a death trap. (Definition Mac)

  DEATH-BY-SEX-FAE: (e.g., V’lane) A Fae that is so sexually “potent” a human dies from intercourse with it unless the Fae protects the human from the full impact of its deadly eroticism. (Definition ongoing)

  Addendum to original entry: V’lane made himself feel like nothing more than an incredibly sexy man when he touched me. They can mute their lethality if they so choose.

  DOLMEN: A single-chamber megalithic tomb constructed of two or more upright stones supporting a large, flat, horizontal capstone. Dolmens are common in Ireland, especially around the Burren and Connemara. The Lord Master used a dolmen in a ritual of dark magic to open a doorway between realms and bring Unseelie through.

>   DRUID: In pre-Christian Celtic society, a Druid presided over divine worship, legislative and judicial matters, philosophy, and education of elite youth to their order. Druids were believed to be privy to the secrets of the gods, including issues pertaining to the manipulation of physical matter, space, and even time. The old Irish “Drui” means magician, wizard, diviner. (Irish Myths and Legends)

  Addendum to original entry: I saw both Jericho Barrons and the Lord Master use the Druid power of Voice, a way of speaking with many voices that cannot be disobeyed. Significance?

  FAE: (fay) See also Tuatha Dé Danaan. Divided into two courts, the Seelie or Light Court, and the Unseelie or Dark Court. Both courts have different castes of Fae, with the four Royal Houses occupying the highest caste of each. The Seelie Queen and her chosen consort rule the Light Court. The Unseelie King and his current concubine govern the Dark. (Definition J.B.)

  FOUR STONES, THE: Translucent blue-black stones covered with raised runelike lettering. The key to deciphering the ancient language and breaking the code of the Sinsar Dubh is hidden in these four mystical stones. An individual stone can be used to shed light on a small portion of the text, but only if the four are reassembled into one will the true text in its entirety be revealed. (Irish Myths and Legends)

  GLAMOUR: Illusion cast by the Fae to camouflage their true appearance. The more powerful the Fae, the more difficult it is to penetrate its disguise. The average human sees only what the Fae wants them to see, and is subtly repelled from bumping into or brushing against it by a small perimeter of spatial distortion that is part of the Fae glamour. (Definition J.B.)

  GRAY MAN, THE: Monstrously ugly, leprous Unseelie that feeds by stealing beauty from human women. Threat assessment: can kill, but prefers to leave its victim hideously disfigured, and alive to suffer. (Personal experience)

  Addendum to original entry: Allegedly the only one of its kind, Barrons and I killed it.

  HALLOWS, THE: Eight ancient relics of immense power fashioned by the Fae: four light and four dark. The Light or Seelie Hallows are the stone, the spear, the sword, and the cauldron. The Dark or Unseelie Hallows are the amulet, the box, the mirror, and the book (Sinsar Dubh or Dark Book). (A Definitive Guide to Artifacts, Authentic and Legendary)