I veer to the right and jostle her before she gets to him, knocking her off balance. She has no idea what hits her. She stumbles into a chair then crashes into a table, drinks go flying, and she lands in a tangled heap on the floor. A bottle of beer mysteriously tips itself over and pours all over her head.
Now she looks like a drowned rat. “It does have perks,” I agree.
“Little testy tonight?”
“That woman’s boobs do not belong in your face. ”
“It’s not as if I can see yours at the moment. ”
“Well, you’re damn well going to feel them. Soon. ”
“One hopes,” he murmurs.
“So, why is Ryodan willing to get involved in all this again?” I circle back to my earlier question. “I thought he couldn’t stand Christian. ”
“Jada will go after the Highlander herself if she discovers where he is. Ryodan won’t let that happen. ”
“He cares about her. A great deal. ”
Barrons says nothing, but I didn’t expect him to.
When we step into Ryodan’s office, Barrons removes the princes’ heads from a duffel bag and tosses them onto the desk next to R’jan’s.
I never knew I could be happy to see three gruesome, severed heads. More princes will no doubt be made, transformed from whatever raw material the Fae realm likes to pick up and use. But at the moment the only two princes that remain are Christian and Cruce.
“Risky as fuck,” Ryodan says, staring down at the heads.
“What?” I ask.
“Killing them now,” Barrons replies. “Their continued use as linchpins was debatable. Their absence problematic. ”
“Well, at least now we can get the women out of their mansion, help the ones they turned Pri-ya,” I say.
Ryodan says, “More princes will be made. ”
“Yeah, but they’ll have to do something like eat Unseelie flesh. And participate in a botched ritual. ”
“Any here that haven’t eaten Unseelie flesh, raise your hand,” Barrons says dryly. He glances down through the glass floor. “Ask the same question down there. ”
“Humans are eternally performing botched rituals,” Ryodan says. “Every fucking time they use a Ouija board. Among other things. ”
“Really, a Ouija board?” I knew it! The macabre board game played with unseen participants always made me uneasy. Someone tells you, Here, I’m giving you a door to death, and you play with it? Not me. No clue what’s on the other side but I’d bet it sure as hell isn’t going to be my dead sister. No matter how much I’d like to think so.
By such criteria, half this city could start turning Fae. “Barrons could become Rath. I could become Kiall,” Ryodan says.
I protest instantly, “You two are immune—”
“Not to the princess’s magic. Not to K’Vruck,” Barrons points out. “When the Fae royal court is reduced, someone or something will always be altered to complete it. Who’s to say we’re immune to being transformed?”
I refuse to entertain the possibility. “Speaking of the princess,” I ask Ryodan, changing the subject, “how are you controlling her?”
“How are you controlling the Sinsar Dubh,” Ryodan mocks.
“Day by day,” I say coolly. “And I’m doing just fine. ”
Ryodan smiles faintly. “Welcome to war games, Mac, where the terrain never stops changing and he who adapts fastest wins. ”
None of us adapt fast enough in the next moment. But then we have absolutely no warning.
The Unseelie Princess sifts in, snatches the princes’ heads, and sifts out before my brain manages to process what my eyes just saw.
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“Son of a bitch,” Barrons snarls.
“Don’t make me hunt you, Princess,” Ryodan warns softly. “You’ll become my sole target, my obsession, my compulsion, my undying homicidal fantasy, the object of my every fucking thought and inclination, and the more time I have to contemplate what I’m going to do to you when I find you—”
Christ, he’s freaking even me out. I’d never want to be that to him.
A disembodied voice snaps, “As you do not intend to kill the final prince, the Compact between us is complete. We will spare no further aid to rescue one of our enemies. ” A scrap of paper materializes and floats to the desk.
“You will sift us there,” Ryodan barks.
She doesn’t reply. The princess is gone.
Barrons picks up the paper. I peer around him and see that it’s a piece of a map. In the middle of a vast mountain range is a tiny red dot. I scowl. “Austria? Christian’s in freaking Austria?”
“Dreitorspitze,” Ryodan murmurs. “Of course. Near enough to Dublin to return for prey, yet difficult to reach. ”
If I were in a video game, I ponder irritably, there are two powers I’d be stalking: the cuff of Cruce and the highly useful ability to sift. Austria is hours away by plane, a full day or more by car. With so many fragments of Faery floating around out there since the walls fell, no one takes a plane up anymore. Not even Barrons and his men. It’s too risky. Driving is enough of a challenge, especially if it’s rainy or foggy, but at least you can see the dangerous reality warps coming in a car and have a chance to avoid them. “So, what now? We try to find more sifters?”
“Bloody hell,” Ryodan says to Barrons, “she watched too much Bewitched as a kid. ”
Barrons shoots a dry look over his shoulder at the location of my voice. “We do it the old-fashioned, tedious, human way, Ms. Lane. Drive. ”
33
“Stuck in the middle with you”
MAC
Thirty-five interminable, testosterone-soaked, cranky hours later, the six of us—me, Barrons, Ryodan, Jada, and the Keltar twins—arrive in a small town at the foothills of the Dreitorspitze mountain range, just before dawn. We stop briefly to siphon more petrol on a narrow street blocked by abandoned vehicles, filling the tank and two cans in the back of the Hummer so we’ll be prepared for a fast getaway.
The past day and a half is a surreal, grim blur in my mind, and if I’m lucky it’ll stay that way. It’s one thing to know with your brain that half the world’s population is gone, and entirely another thing to see it.
As we drove through England, France, and Germany, I’d stared out at the destroyed cities and riot-torn towns, the miles and miles of Shade-stripped landscape, derelict buses and cabs, bent and twisted streetlamps, the diminished presence of wildlife. Those humans that survived have gone to ground, holed up in barricaded homes or gathered in tightly guarded apartment buildings and hotels. Gangs are rampant, their graffiti wars painted on abandoned buildings, community centers, and underpasses. The few people we encountered in the streets when we stopped to siphon gas, or in the stores we paused to loot, were heavily armed and kept a wary distance. It appears Dublin is rebounding far more quickly than most cities. In three countries, I’ve seen no sign of people working together to rebuild, like Mom’s Green-Up group.
When I was eleven, the town a few miles east of Ashford got hit hard by a tornado, twenty-three dead and hundreds of homes destroyed. Our parents took Alina and me to help with the cleanup, food and clothing donations, and rebuilding. Though some of their friends couldn’t believe they let their kids see such horrifying devastation, we’d been glad they did, happy to help, and there’d been plenty for us to do. I still remember seeing Southwest Maple Avenue for the first time after the storm, with the quaint antique shops, pizza parlor, elaborate playground, and my favorite old-fashioned ice-cream store, destroyed, reduced to a shambles of crushed, flattened buildings, twisted slides, and fallen wires, with debris everywhere. It had made me feel dizzy and disoriented.
I’ve felt that same disorientation on this drive, multiplied exponentially.
The world is no longer the same. My world, like my Dani, is a thing of the past. I understand now why Ryodan prizes adaptability. I can’t imagine how many
times their world changed dramatically overnight, with civilizations rising, falling, new ones being born. Over countless millennia, the armies they allied themselves with were defeated or did the defeating, and a new world order was born, again and again.
They’ve seen endless cyclical changes. That’s one hell of a wave to keep riding and coming out on top.
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Or even coming out with your sanity. I feel grief for what we had, I mourn the Paris in the springtime I never got to experience, the bustling London I didn’t get to explore and now never will. I rue the world that’s gone.
I could get lost in pining for the way things used to be.
Or I could adapt and learn to ride the changes like they do, with eagerness to see what the new day has in store and unquenchable lust for life, however it unfolds. I understand now why Ryodan stays so invested in his day-to-day world and keeps them all together. Everything else falls away except for the family you’re born into, choose, or make; the circle of love you’ll die to protect and keep near you. The only thing that keeps us rooted in the past is our refusal to embrace the present. I can almost see the old Dani flashing me a gamine grin and saying, Dude, you gotta hug it with both arms and legs and hold on tight! The present is all we’ve got. That’s why they call it a present!
Icy, fierce Jada is all that’s left of my Dani.
I’ve thought about that a lot on this ride. Trying to make peace with it, figure out how to move forward with her. Stop beating myself up for chasing her into the Hall of All Days, and wondering if I can reach what’s left of Dani inside, if anything is. I study her when I get the chance, searching for some trace of the teenager in her face, her posture, and finding none. I remember the last fight we had, when I pulled her hair and she bit me. I smile faintly, wondering if we’ll ever have such a silly fight again, hoping we might just because it would mean she was reachable. Yes, Alina was murdered. By a young girl who was forced to kill her. A girl who’d already fragmented to adapt, who was further fragmented intentionally by the one who should have saved her, protected her.
I should have seen what was going on with her but didn’t, blinded by my own pain. I unintentionally drove her further into the fragmentation. I imagine Dani might have known Alina, even liked her, and been forced to end her life. I really know nothing of the details. I wonder if she found my sister the same way she’d tracked me down near Trinity, driven by curiosity and loneliness. I wonder if the two of them talked. I’d like to see the rest of Alina’s journals one day. Jada must know where they are because Dani once surreptitiously sent me pages from them—the ones that told me how much my sister loved me. I’m glad Jada has the cuff of Cruce, although I’d prefer it myself. I don’t want her on the streets without a sword or a shield. I’d worry too much.
Jada thinks she’s the victory for Dani, but Ryodan’s right. Feeling nothing is being dead inside, especially for someone like Dani who used to feel everything so intensely. The only victory here would be Dani back in charge, strengthened by Jada’s traits. I wonder if Jada’s existence is part of what made Dani impulsive and reckless, as if the facets of her personality were neatly dissected down the middle: the adult survivor traits apportioned to one side, the unabashed child to the other. The more controlled Jada was, the wilder Dani could be.
All the anger I harbored is gone, leaving only a locked, barricaded door between us, with no keys in sight. I intend to hammer the hell out of that door. I’m not losing her when she’s right in front of me. But it’ll take a committed, well-thought-out campaign to breach the icy commando’s defenses and find the young woman within. I know part of the reason Ryodan insisted on bringing her along was to force Jada to be around Barrons and me, people Dani spent time with and cared about. If anything might stir emotion inside her, it’s me, good and bad.
Ryodan finishes filling the gas tank, opens the door, and gets back in.
“Ow! If you sit on me one more time. ” I growl at him, “I’m going to kill you. ”
“Good luck with that. Don’t fucking move every time I get out. You’re on my side of the seat again. ”
“Watch out for my indent,” I say crossly.
“Hummer, Mac. Nothing causes indents. Except grenades. ”
“I have several of those,” Jada says. “Persist with your pointless bickering, I’ll share one. Pin out. ”
I ignore her. “I’m cramped. I needed to stretch. ”
“So, get out when I do. ”
“I’m afraid you’ll leave me behind since you can’t see me. ”
“I’d leave you behind if I could see you. ”
“Christ, would the two of you just shut up?” Dageus growls. “You’ve been at it for hours. I think I have a headache. ”
“We’ve been sharing two freaking feet of space for a day and a freaking half,” I say sourly. “What do you expect?” I’m beginning to wonder just how long the Book plans to keep me invisible. I’m still enjoying the hell out of it but have no desire to remain unseen forever.
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“How can you think you have a headache?” Drustan says irritably. “Either you do or you don’t. ”
“I can’t bloody well think in the backseat, so how would I bloody well know? I drive. I don’t ride. ”
Barrons laughs, and I remember him saying something similar once: Who’s driving this motorcycle and who’s in the sidecar? I don’t even own a bike with a pussy sidecar. He turns sharply and we begin our off-road ascent, slowly clambering over the rocky terrain.
“You used to ride horses,” Drustan says.
“I was bloody well controlling the bloody reins. ”
“Focus on the mission,” Jada says flatly. “Discomfort is irrelevant. Bloody means bleeding or having bled. Accuracy is expediency. You’ve not heard me complaining. ”
“We’ve not heard you talk at all,” Drustan says. “You speak less than that one. ” He gestures at Barrons, who just so happens to be driving and has been doing all of the driving since we left Dublin, barely talking to anyone, not even me except for an occasional silent message he shoots me with his eyes. Since he can’t currently see me, my ocular replies are lost on him. “Unless to correct our bloody grammar,” Drustan adds.
“Communication is difficult enough when all parties to the discussion strive for clarity,” she replies coolly. “Employ precision. ”
“Precision” and “expediency” rank right up there with “grace” as Jada’s middle freaking names. I puked on the ferry. She sure didn’t. I caught the lovely, not-one-hair-out-of-place Jada scornfully regarding my projectile over the side. We were all testy and tired and the passage was stormy and I don’t have sea legs.
Now we’re in Austria and it’s cold, and although I dressed warmly, anticipating a mountainous climb, I wish I’d put on more layers. I’ve been in a Hummer H1, modified for comfort—as if such a thing is possible in a Hummer—for a day and a half straight, sharing the front seat, half astride its enormous console with Barrons and Ryodan on either side. They put Dageus and Drustan in the backseat, and Jada behind them, to keep her and me as far apart as possible, although, loath though I am to admit it, she’s the most even-tempered of us all, relaxed, focused, and apparently undisturbed by any facet of her current physical conditions.
Sprawled like a long-legged, curvy commando in the far back on top of rappelling gear, gloves, grappling hooks, and other assorted supplies, and aside from eating protein bars and jerky constantly, Jada looks smoothly in her element.
The interior of the Hummer smells of beef jerky. And testosterone. It’s been the most trying road trip I’ve ever been on.
Before plotting our course, we’d studied Ryodan’s map of the many places that were iced, so we could avoid treacherous black holes. Between dodging untethered IFPs—other countries lack the Nine to tidy up for them—detouring around blocked roads and freeways, having to find petrol for the ferry, and siphoning abandoned vehicle
s for more gas, this drive has made sifting a thousand times more desirable than it already was.
Along the way, amid the eternal grousing that happens when you pack six alphas of varying temperaments—who can work together for a common goal but would probably kill one another—into a sardine can, we’ve been discussing possibilities and plans.
The princess scrawled a picture at the bottom of the scrap of map. After much debate we all managed to agree Christian is somehow attached to the side of a mountain in the Dreitorspitze range, but we have no idea how high or low. We just have to find the right mountain, scale the face of it, and get him down. Oh, and kill the Hag so she doesn’t rain down death on all of us as we try to escape.
Simple, right?
We agree that our primary goal is to rescue Christian, secondary to kill the Hag. However, any way we look at it, both need to happen. The Hag can fly alarmingly fast for short bursts of distance, although Ryodan claims she can’t sustain it for long according to his sources. Considering how creepy-crawly and numerous his sources are, I believe he knows what he’s talking about. If we have to climb up for Christian, it won’t be quite as dangerous. But if we have to go down for him from above, once we free him we’ll all be on top of a mountain, with no cover, and one very pissed off Hag circling. Unless she’s somewhere else, hunting something else, if we could get so lucky. Fact is, we won’t know anything until we see the scene.
“We need sifters,” I say for the dozenth time.
“Wake the fuck up, Mac,” Ryodan says, “there aren’t any. Few of the Fae can sift, and we’ve killed most of the ones that can. ”
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“Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed the princes. ”
“The princess refused to disclose their location until we did. ”
“Dree-lia can sift,” I point out.
“Have you any idea where to find her, lass?” Dageus says. “None of the Seelie are responding to our summons. ”
“We could go into Faery and hunt for them,” I say. I scowl when the lumbering Hummer nearly tosses me into Ryodan’s lap, and brace myself better on the console.
“Aye, and potentially lose years of our time trying to locate her,” Drustan growls. “Leaving Christian on the cliff, dying over and over. Bad plan. ”