Shadowfever

by Karen Marie Moning

  A shot of whiskey slid down the counter. I tossed it back swiftly.

  “See you learned your lesson, beautiful girl. ”

  “Been learning a lot lately. ”

  “All ears. ”

  “Tarot deck was my life. How’s that?”

  “Told you. Prophecies. All shapes. ”

  “Why’d you give me THE WORLD?”

  “Didn’t. Would you like me to?”

  “You flirting with me?”

  “If I was?”

  “Might run screaming. ”

  “Smart girl. ”

  We laughed.

  “Seen Christian lately?”

  “Yes. ”

  His hands stilled on the bottles and he waited.

  “Think he’s turning into something. ”

  “All things change. ”

  “Think he’s becoming Unseelie. ”

  “Fae. Like starfish, beautiful girl. ”

  “How’s that?”

  “Grow back missing parts. ”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Balance. World lists toward it. ”

  “Thought it was entropy. ”

  “Implies innate idiocy. People are. Universes aren’t. ”

  “So if an Unseelie Prince dies, someone will eventually replace it? If not a Fae, a human?”

  “Hear princesses are dead, too. ”

  I gagged. Would human women be changed by eating Unseelie and end up becoming them in time? What else would the Fae steal from my world? Well, er, actually, what would I and my—I changed the subject swiftly. “Who gave me the card?”

  He jerked a thumb at the fear dorcha.

  I didn’t believe that for a minute. “What am I supposed to get from it?”

  “Ask him. ”

  “You told me not to. ”

  “That’s a problem. ”

  “Solution?”

  “Maybe it’s not about the world. ”

  “What else could it be about?”

  “Got eyes, BG, use them. ”

  “Got a mouth, DEG, use it. ”

  He moved away, tossing bottles like a professional juggler. I watched his hands fly, trying to figure out how to get him to talk.

  He knew things. I could smell it. He knew a lot of things.

  Five shot glasses settled on the counter. He splashed them full and slid them five ways with enviable precision.

  I glanced up into the mirror behind the bar that angled down and reflected the sleek black bar top. I saw myself. I saw the fear dorcha. I saw dozens of other patrons gathered at the counter. It wasn’t a busy bar. This was one of the smaller, less popular sub-clubs. There was no sex or violence to be found here, only cobwebs and tarot cards.

  The dreamy-eyed guy was absent in the reflection. I saw glasses and bottles sparkling as they flipped in the air but no one tossing them.

  I glanced down at him, pouring high and flashy.

  Back up. There was no reflection.

  I tapped my empty shot glass on the counter. Another one clinked into it. I sipped this one, watching him, waiting for him to return.

  He took his time.

  “Look conflicted, beautiful girl. ”

  “I don’t see you in the mirror. ”

  “Maybe I don’t see you, either. ”

  I froze. Was that possible? Was I missing in the mirror?

  He laughed. “Just kidding. You’re there. ”

  “Not funny. ”

  “Not my mirror. ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not responsible for what it shows. Or doesn’t. ”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Somehow I got the idea you were trying to help me. Guess I was wrong. ”

  “Help. Dangerous medicine. ”

  “How?”

  “Hard to gauge the right dose. Especially if there’s more than one doctor. ”

  I sucked in a breath. The dreamy-eyed guy’s eyes were no longer dreamy. They were … I stared. They were … I caught my lower lip with my teeth and bit down. What was I looking at? What was happening to me?

  He was no longer behind the counter but sitting on a bar stool beside me, to my left, no—to my right. No, he was on the stool with me. There he was—behind me, mouth pressed to my ear.

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  “Too much falsely inflates. Too little underprepares. The finest surgeon has butterfly fingers. Airy. Delicate. ”

  Like his fingers on my hair. The touch was mesmerizing. “Am I the Unseelie King?” I whispered.

  Laughter as soft as moth wings filled my ears and muddied my mind, stirring silt from the dregs of my soul. “No more than I. ” He was back behind the bar. “The cantankerous one comes,” he said, with a nod toward the stairs.

  I looked to see Barrons descending. When I looked back, the dreamy-eyed guy was no more visible than his reflection.

  “I was coming,” I said irritably. Fingers handcuffed around my wrist, Barrons dragged me toward the stairs.

  “What part of ‘directly’ didn’t you understand?”

  “Same part of ‘play well with others’ you never understand, O cantankerous one,” I muttered.

  He laughed, surprising me. I never know what’s going to make him laugh. At the oddest moments, he seems to find humor in his own bad temper.

  “I’d be a lot less cantankerous if you admitted you wanted to fuck me and we got down to it. ”

  Lust ripped through me. Barrons said “fuck” and I was ready. “That’s all it would take to put you in a good humor?”

  “It’d go a long way. ”

  “Are we having a conversation, Barrons? Where you actually express feelings?”

  “If you want to call a hard dick feelings, Ms. Lane. ”

  A sudden commotion at the entrance to the club, two levels above us, caught his attention. He was taller than me and could see over the crowd. “You’ve got to be kidding me. ” His face hardened as he stared up at the balconied foyer.

  “What? Who?” I said, bouncing on my tiptoes to try to see. “Is it V’lane?”

  “Why would it be—” He glared down at me. “I stripped his name from your tongue. There hasn’t been an opportunity for you to get it back again. ”

  “I told one of his court to go get him. Don’t look at me like that. I want to know what’s going on. ”

  “What’s going on, Ms. Lane, is that you found the Seelie Queen in the Unseelie prison. What’s going on—given the condition she’s in—is that V’lane’s obviously been lying about her whereabouts for months now, and that can mean only one thing. ”

  “That it was impossible for me to permit the court to know that the queen was missing, and has been missing for many human years,” V’lane said tightly behind us, his voice hushed. “They would have fallen apart. Without her reining them in, a dozen different factions would have assaulted your world. There has long been unrest in Faery. But this is hardly the place to discuss such matters. ”

  Barrons and I turned as one.

  “Velvet told me you required my presence, MacKayla,” V’lane continued, “but he said your news was of the Book, not of our liege. ” He searched my face with a coolness I hadn’t seen since I’d first met him. I supposed my method of summoning him had offended. Fae are so prickly. “Have you truly found her? Is she alive? In every spare moment, I have searched for her. It has prevented me from attending you as I wished. ”

  “Velvet is a Fae name?”

  “His true name is unpronounceable in your tongue. Is she here?”

  I nodded.

  “I must see her. How does she fare?”

  Barrons’ hand shot out and closed around V’lane’s throat. “You lying fuck. ”

  V’lane grabbed Barron’s arm with one hand, his throat with the other.

  I stared, fascin
ated. I was so discombobulated by recent developments that I hadn’t even realized Barrons and V’lane were standing face-to-face on a crowded dance floor for what was probably the first time in all eternity—close enough to kill each other. Well, close enough for Barrons to kill V’lane. Barrons was staring at the Fae prince as if he’d finally caught a fire ant that had been torturing him for centuries while he’d lay spread-eagled on the desert, coated in honey. V’lane was glaring at Barrons as if he couldn’t believe he’d be so stupid.

  “We have larger concerns than your personal grievances,” V’lane said with icy disdain. “If you cannot remove your head from your ass and see that, you deserve what will happen to your world. ”

  “Maybe I don’t care what happens to the world. ”

  V’lane’s head swiveled my way, cool appraisal in his gaze. “I have permitted you to retain your spear, MacKayla. You will not let him harm me. Kill him—”

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  Barrons squeezed. “I said shut up. ”

  “He has the fourth stone,” I reminded Barrons. “We need him. ”

  “Keltars!” V’lane said, staring up at the foyer. He hissed through his teeth.

  “I know. Big fucking party tonight,” said Barrons.

  “Where? Is that who just came in?” I said.

  Barrons leaned closer to V’lane and sniffed him. His nostrils flared, as if he found the scent both repulsive and perfect for a fine, bloody filet.

  “Where is she?” a man roared. The accent was Scottish, like Christian’s but thicker.

  V’lane ordered, “Shut him up before his next question is, ‘Where is the queen,’ and every Unseelie in this place discovers she is here. ”

  Barrons moved too fast for me to see. One second, V’lane was his usual gorgeous self, then his nose was crushed and gushing blood. Barrons said, “Next time, fairy,” and was gone.

  “I said, where the bloody hell is the—”

  I heard a grunt, then the sound of fists and more grunts, and all hell broke loose at Chester’s.

  “I doona give a bloody damn what you think. She’s our responsibility—”

  “And a hell of a job you’ve done with her—”

  “She’s my queen and she’s not going anywhere with—”

  “—so far, losing her to the fucking Unseelie. ”

  “—and we’ll be taking her back to Scotland with us, where she can be watched o’er properly. ”

  “—a pair of inept humans, she belongs in Faery. ”

  “I’ll send you back to Faery, fairy, in a fucking—”

  “Remember the missing stone, mongrel. ”

  I looked from the Scotsman, to Barrons, to V’lane, watching the three of them argue. They’d been covering the same ground with no new developments for the past five minutes. V’lane kept demanding she be turned over to him, the Scot kept insisting he was taking her back to Scotland, but I knew Barrons. He wasn’t going to let either of them have her. Not only did he trust no one, the queen of the Fae was a powerful trump card.

  “How the fuck did you even know she was here?” Barrons demanded.

  V’lane, whose nose was once again perfect, said, “MacKayla summoned me. As I walked up behind you, I heard you, as anyone else might have. You jeopardize her life with your carelessness. ”

  “Not you,” Barrons growled. “The Highlander. ”

  The Scot said, “Nearly five years past, she visited Cian in the Dreaming, telling him she would be here this eve. The queen herself ordered us to collect her, from this address on this night. We have irrefutable claim. We are the Keltar and wear the mantle of protection for the Fae. You will turn her over to us now. ”

  I almost laughed, but something about the two Scots made me think twice about it. They looked like they’d been traveling hard through rough terrain and hadn’t showered or shaved in days. Words like “patience” and “diplomacy” were not in their vocabulary. They thought in terms of objectives and results—and the fewer things between the two, the better. They were like Barrons: driven, focused, ruthless.

  Both were shirtless and heavily tattooed—Lor and another of Barrons’ men I hadn’t seen before had made all of us strip down to clothing that couldn’t conceal a book, before permitting us access to the upper level of the club. Now the five of us stood, partially dressed, in an unfurnished glass cubicle.

  The one arguing, Dageus, was all long, smooth muscle, with the fast, graceful movements of a big cat and cheetah-gold eyes. His black hair was so long it brushed his belt—not that he needed one, in hip-slimming black leather pants. He sported a cut lip and a shiner on his right cheek from the skirmish that had begun at the door and spread like a contagion through several sub-clubs. It had taken five of Barrons’ men to get things back under control. Being able to move like the wind gave them a tremendous advantage. They didn’t warn the patrons to stop fighting—they simply appeared and killed them. Once humans and Fae figured out what was happening, the outbreak of violence ended as quickly as it had begun.

  The other Scot, Cian, had yet to speak a word and had escaped the brawl without a mark, but with all the red and black ink on his torso, I’m not sure I would have noticed blood. He was massive, with bunched short muscles, the kind a man gets from weight training in a gym or working off a long prison sentence. His shoulders were enormous, his stomach flat; he had piercings, one of his tattoos said JESSI. I wondered what kind of woman could make a man like him want to tattoo her name on his chest.

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  These were the uncles Christian had talked about, the men who’d broken into the Welshman’s castle the night Barrons and I had tried to steal the amulet, the ones who’d performed the ritual with Barrons on Halloween. They were nothing like any uncles I’d ever seen. I’d expected time-softened relatives in their late thirties or forties, but these were time-hardened men of barely thirty, with a dangerous, sexy edge. Both had an unfocused distance in their eyes, as if they’d seen things so disturbing that only by refocusing with everything slightly out of focus could they gaze on the world and bear it.

  I wondered if my own eyes were beginning to look like that.

  “One thing’s for certain: She doesna belong with you,” Dageus said to Barrons.

  “How do you figure, Highlander?”

  “We protect the Fae and he is Fae, which gives both of us greater claim than you. ”

  I felt someone staring at me, hard, and looked around. V’lane was watching me, eyes narrowed. So far everyone had been so busy arguing about what to do with the queen that no one had bothered asking how I’d found her or how I’d gotten her out of the prison. I suspected that was what V’lane was wondering now.

  He knew the legend of the king’s Silver. He knew only two could pass through it—unless I’d serendipitously stumbled on a truth with my lie and whoever was the current queen was immune to the king’s magic, which I doubted. The one person the king would have wanted to protect the concubine from the most would have been the Seelie Queen. He’d barred his castle against the original, vindictive queen the day she’d come to his fortress and they’d argued. He’d forbidden any Seelie from ever entering it. I had no doubt he’d used the same spells or worse on the Silver that connected his boudoir to the concubine’s. V’lane had to be wondering if he had any idea who their queen really was, who I really was, or if maybe their entire history was as suspect and inaccurate as ours. Regardless, V’lane knew something about me wasn’t what it seemed.

  Besides myself, only Christian knew the queen was really the concubine. And only I knew of this duality inside me that could be neatly explained away if I was the other half of their royal equation.

  After a long, measuring moment, he gave me a tight nod.

  What the hell did that mean? That for now he would keep his silence and not raise any questions that might further muddy already-muddied waters? I nodded back as if I had some clue wha
t we were nodding about.

  “You couldn’t even perform the bloody ritual to keep the walls up and you want me to trust you with the queen? And you,” Barrons turned on V’lane, who was maintaining a careful distance, “will never get her from me. As far as I’m concerned, you put her in the coffin she was found in. ”

  “Why don’t you ask the queen yourself?” V’lane suggested coolly. “It was not I, as she will tell you. ”

  “Conveniently for you, she’s not talking. ”

  “Is she injured?”

  “How would I know? I don’t even know what you fucks are made of. ”

  “Why would anyone put her in the Unseelie prison?” I said.

  “ ’Tis a slow but certain way to kill her, lass,” Dageus said. “The Unseelie prison is the opposite of all she is and, as such, leaches her very life essence. ”

  “If someone wanted her dead, there are quicker ways,” I protested.

  “Maybe whoever took her couldn’t get the spear or sword. ”

  That ruled out V’lane. He took it from me regularly, like now. Darroc did, too. Whoever had taken the queen captive had to have been powerful enough to take her but not powerful enough to get the spear or sword, two conditions that seemed mutually exclusive. Was it possible her kidnapper had a reason to want to kill her slowly?

  “V’lane told me all the Seelie Princesses are dead,” I said. “There’s a Fae legend that says if all successors to the queen’s power are dead, the True Magic of their race would be forced to pass to their most powerful male. What if someone was trying to time taking possession of the Sinsar Dubh with killing all the female royalty, ending with Aoibheal herself, so when the queen died, he would end up with not only the power of the Unseelie King but the True Magic of the queen, making him the first patriarchal ruler of their race? Who is the most powerful male?”

  All heads swiveled toward V’lane.

  “What do you humans say? I have it: Oh, please,” he said drily. The look he gave me was equal parts anger and reproach. As if to say, I’m sitting on your secrets, don’t turn on me. “It is a legend, nothing more. I have served Aoibheal for my entire existence and I serve her now. ”

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  “Why did you lie about her location?” Dageus demanded.

  “I have been masking her absence for many human years to prevent a Fae civil war. With the princesses dead, there is no clear successor. ”

  Many human years? It was the second time he’d said as much, but the ramifications only now penetrated. I stared at him. He’d told me far more than just one lie. On Halloween, he’d told me he had been otherwise occupied, carrying his queen to safety. Where had he really been that night when I’d so desperately needed him? I wanted to know right now, demand answers, but there was already too much going on here, and when I interrogated him, it would be on my terms, my turf.