“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. ”
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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. ”
TWENTY
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.
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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 had 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 self
ish 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.
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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.
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