“So if I call IISS what happens again?” she fished.
He didn’t reply and she hadn’t expected him to, but nothing ventured nothing gained. Sometimes you could trick an answer out of someone. He’d already given her as much of an answer as he would and it had been a complete nonanswer: hope you never find out.
His finger moved slowly over a long thin scar close to her spine. “Knife?”
“Whip with steel points.”
He touched a spray of white bumps. “Shrapnel?”
“Blow-dart gun.” Filled with tiny crystalized rocks. Blown by a beast on a planet of eternal night.
“This?” He touched a messy, shallow one near her hip.
“Fell down a cliff. Did that one myself.”
“Stay or go?”
“The scars? Stay. I earned them.”
He laughed. After a moment she felt something very like the tip of a knife at the base of her spine. “I’m one inch away from ripping out your throat,” she said softly.
“Blood binds. I need some of yours to set this layer of the spell.”
“How much?”
“Minor.”
“You’re mixing yours with it.”
“Yes.”
Blood spells had nasty, pervasive side effects. This man’s blood in hers was not something she wanted. His tattoo, however, was. “Proceed,” she said without inflection.
He did, and she found herself slipping back into that strange, almost dreamy place she’d been in since he’d begun inking her. As he’d worked, his big strong hands moving with precision against her skin, the angry thrumming in her body had faded, her muscles had stilled, her tension calmed. She was having a hard time remembering what had driven her out into the streets today on such a murderous rampage. Languor infused her limbs and her stomach no longer hurt. Her psyche was beginning to feel drowsy and relaxed, as if she could just stretch out and sleep for a long, long time and not have to worry while she did because this man would stand guard and she could rest knowing that whatever predators were on this world, the world’s greatest predator was right next to her and she was sa—
She sat up straighter, flexed her muscles and snapped back into high alert.
There was no such thing as safe. Safe was a trap, an ideal that could never be achieved. And hero worship was pointless. There were no heroes. Only her.
Behind her, he said, “You don’t have to be on guard all the time. Nothing can hurt you here.”
He was wrong. Anytime there was another person in the room with you, the possibility for hurt existed.
“You’re doing something to me,” she accused.
“I can have a certain…agitating effect on a woman.”
He meant “whip her into a frenzy.” She’d seen him do it.
“I can also have a gentling one.”
“Stop it. I didn’t ask for it.”
He pressed his wrist to the base of her spine, held it a long moment, no doubt melding blood with blood, then said, “That’s it for tonight.”
“Finish it,” she demanded. “I know you can.” There was a sudden coldness behind her as the heat of his body vanished.
Her shirt hit her in the shoulder, and after a moment she yanked it on over her bra, knowing it was pointless to argue. She stood, stretched, and turned around.
“Tell me what happened to you in the Silvers and I’ll finish it.”
They looked at each other across the space of the chair. “I grew up,” she said.
“The long version.”
“That was it. You said you’d give me the map.”
He tossed it to her and she caught it with one hand, slipped it into her pack. Of course he’d give it to her now. He knew she’d return for the tattoo. She’d wanted the map for two reasons: to test theories on the smallest of the holes, and alert people of their precise locations to avoid inadvertent deaths. Of far greater importance was finding a way to remove the cosmic leeches from the fabric of their reality.
“Tomorrow night, same time?” she said.
“I’m busy tomorrow night.”
Fucker. He was going to dick with her about finishing the tat?
He herded her to the door with his presence, subtly yet irrefutably.
“Got a date with Jo?” she said coolly.
“Jo’s fucking Lor.”
She looked at him. “How did that happen? Lor does blondes. And I thought you and Jo were exclusive.” She hadn’t believed that for a moment. Jo wasn’t Ryodan’s type.
His cool eyes lit with amusement. “It was a getting-over-the-ex fuck. And now they’re both tangled up in it.”
She arched a brow. “You dumped her, so she pulled a revenge fuck?”
“She dumped me. And her take on it was ‘scraping the taste of me off her tongue.’ ”
No woman dumped Ryodan. Or scraped the taste off. If Jo had, he’d not only let her, but set the plan in motion. “What are your plans for tomorrow night? Cancel them. This is more important. I could get lost,” she ordered.
“I suggest you avoid mirrors until we complete it. Day after. My office in the morning. I’ll finish it.”
“Tomorrow. During the day.”
“Busy then, too.”
Why was he delaying? What was his motive? “I’ll just let myself out.”
“You won’t. You have the sword. I have patrons. I plan to keep them.”
She was silent a moment then said, “I won’t kill any of them, Ryodan. I’ll respect your territory.”
“If I respect yours.”
“Yes.”
He held out a cellphone. “Take it. IISS won’t work yet but the other numbers will.”
She slipped the cell into her pocket as she slipped out the door.
He closed it behind her, remaining inside, allowing her to leave unattended because she’d given her word. He’d taken her word as covenant.
She turned for no reason she could discern and placed her hand, palm flat, to the door.
Stared at it, head cocked, wondering what the hell she was doing.
After a moment she shook herself and strode briskly down the hall, swiped the panel and entered the elevator. The teen she’d been would have barged into every one of Ryodan’s private places on these forbidden lower levels she could invade before he managed to stop her. And, she understood now, she’d have done it mostly for the rush of their confrontation when he finally did.
The woman had her own business to attend.
Inside the room, Ryodan removed his hand from the door.
—
“Is it the day yet? Is it? Is it? IS IT?” Shazam exploded from beneath a tangle of blankets and not one pillow, later that night when she entered their chambers.
“Soon,” she promised. “And keep your voice down,” she reminded.
“You smell again,” Shazam fretted, turning circles in agitation. “I don’t like the smell of him. He’s dangerous.”
“He’s necessary. For now.”
When she stretched out on the bed, Shazam pounced, landing on her stomach with all four paws, hard. “Not one thing more? Just necessary?”
“Ow! Good thing I didn’t have to go to the bathroom!” She knew from too many enthusiastic early-morning greetings that forty-odd pounds of Shazam was hell on a full bladder. Not to mention the tenderness of a fresh tat pressing into the bed. “Not one thing more,” she assured him.
“Did he finish it?”
“Not yet. Soon.”
He deflated as abruptly as the melodramatic beast was wont. “It’s all going to go horribly wrong,” he wailed. “Everything always does.” He sniffed, violet eyes dewing.
“Don’t be such a pessimist.”
He ruched the fur along his spine and spat a sharp hiss at her, working himself into a snit. “Pessimists are only pessimists when they’re wrong. When we’re right, the world calls us prophets.”
“Ew, fish breath!”
“Your pitiful offerings, my bad breath. Bring me better things to ea
t.”
“We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
He shifted his furry bulk around, parking his rump south of her chest (soft spots he wasn’t allowed to pounce ever), his belly so fat he had to spread his great front paws around it. Then he leaned forward and slowly touched his wet nose to hers. “I see you, Yi-yi.”
She smiled. Everything she knew about love she’d learned from this pudgy, cranky, manic-depressive, binge-eating beast that had been her companion through hell and back, too many times to count. He alone had protected her, loved her, fought for her, taught her to believe that life was worth living, even if there was no one there to see you living it.
“I see you, too, Shazam.”
28
“I would give everything I own just to have you back again…”
I’d left her. The woman that looked like my sister and had far too many of her memories and unique characteristics—I just left her there—in the basement where I’d been Pri-ya, sitting in the middle of crates of guns and ammo and various food supplies, looking unbearably lost and sad.
So, Mom and Dad think I’m dead? she’d asked as I was leaving.
They buried you. So did I, I’d flung over my shoulder.
Are they okay, Jr.? Did Mom lose it when she thought I was dead? Was Daddy—
They’re here in Dublin, I’d cut her off coldly. Ask them yourself. Go try to convince them. On second thought, don’t. Stay away from my parents. Don’t you dare go near them.
They’re my parents, too! Mac, you have to believe me. Why would I lie? Who else would I be? What’s wrong? What happened to you? How you did get so…hard?
I’d stormed out. Some part of me had simply shut down and there’d been no turning it back on. I’d gotten “hard,” as she called it, because my sister had been murdered.
For the past twenty-four hours I’d refused to even think about the imposter. I’d done nearly as good a job of keeping it in a box as I did with the Book.
But when it seeped out, it went something like this:
What if it really was her?
My sister, alone out there, and I’d turned my back on Alina in this dangerous, Fae-riddled city?
What if she got hurt? What if she was somehow truly, miraculously alive and ended up getting killed by a black hole or an Unseelie because I’d stormed away and left her alone, too wary, too suspicious, to let myself believe?
I’d have gotten my second chance—and blown it.
I suspected I might kill myself if that turned out to be the case.
What if she went to see my parents? They wouldn’t be as realistic as me. They’d welcome her back blindly. Daddy might start to feel skeptical in time but I guaran-damn-tee if that imposter knocked on their door, they’d let her inside their house in one second flat.
On the other and just as plausible hand: what if it was an imposter sent to fuck me up royally, get me to trust it, only to do something terrible to me in an unguarded moment? Who could get closer to me (and my parents) than my sister?
Or what if I was stuck in one gigantic illusion that hadn’t ended since the night I thought I’d bested the Sinsar Dubh?
Because I longed so desperately for it to be her, to believe that Alina had somehow survived, and I wasn’t stuck in an illusion, I was a hundred times more suspicious of this whole situation. My sister was my ultimate weakness, next to Barrons. She was the perfect way to get to me, to manipulate me. She was the very thing Cruce and Darroc and the Book had all offered me back, at one point or another, to try to tempt me.
I’d lived with Alina’s ghost too long. I may not have made peace with it, but I’d accepted her death. There was a painful closure in that, a door that couldn’t easily be reopened.
She claimed she couldn’t remember a single thing from the moment she’d passed out in that alley until she’d been standing in Temple Bar, a few days ago.
How convenient was that?
You couldn’t refute amnesia. Couldn’t argue a single detail. Because there were no details.
Just exactly what might have happened to her? Was I supposed to believe some fairy godmother (or Faery godmother, to be precise) had swooped in, rescued her moments before she died, healed her then put her on ice until this week? Why would any Fae do that?
Dani believed she’d killed Alina. No, I’d never gotten full details. I didn’t know if she actually remained in that alley until Alina was stone-cold dead or not. Nor did I think Jada would tell me, if I were to ask. And on that note, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want Jada/Dani having to relive it.
Oh, God, what if they ran into each other in the streets?
I glanced at Barrons as we ascended the stairs to Ryodan’s office. “There’s no other solution, Barrons,” I said bitterly. “I’m going to have to talk to it again. I need you to—”
He gave me a dry look. “Check your cellphone.”
“Huh?”
“The thing you call me on.”
I rolled my eyes, pulled it out. “I know what a cellphone is. What am I looking for?”
“Contacts.”
I thumbed it up. I had four, since he’d hooked up my parents to their incomprehensible network. There were now five.
Alina.
“You put the thing’s phone number in my cell? How does it even have a phone that works? The only network running is hardwired and about as reliable as—Wait a minute, you gave it one of your phones? When?”
“Her. Quit trying to carve emotional space with pronouns. And I’m not your bloodhound,” he growled. “You don’t dispatch me to fetch prey. When I hunt, it ends in savagery, not a fucking soap opera.”
“It wasn’t a soap opera,” I said defensively. The imposter might have been hysterical but I’d been cool as a cucumber.
He shot me a look. “The dead sister always comes back. Or the dead husband. Or the evil twin. Mayhem and murder inevitably ensue.”
“Who even says words like ‘mayhem’?” At some point, while I slept, anticipating I’d want to talk to it again, Barrons had taken a phone to it and programmed mine. And washed his hands of us. I glanced at him sideways. Or not. Knowing him, he would keep a close eye on the imposter.
“You think I should have kept interrogating it—her,” I said irritably. Easy for him to think. His heart hadn’t been quietly hemorrhaging while looking at it. He hadn’t been the one questioning his own sanity.
He gave me another look. “Strip the scenario of your volatile emotions,” he clipped.
I bristled. “You like my volatile emotions.”
“They belong in one place, Ms. Lane. My bed. My floor. Up against my wall.”
“That’s three places,” I said pissily.
“Any fucking place I’m inside you. That’s one. Keep your friends close. Enemies closer,” he said tightly. “She’s indisputably one or the other. And you bloody well let her walk away.” He turned and stalked off down the corridor.
I stared after him with a sinking feeling. Damn the man, he was right. Whatever the Alina look-alike was, forcing it out of my space and mind might assuage my immediate discomfort but that only increased the potential for future peril. Mine, hers, my parents, everyone’s.
I sighed and hurried after him. I would call the imposter the moment our meeting was over.
Assuming we all survived it.
—
When we entered Ryodan’s office, Sean O’Bannion was standing inside. Nephew to the dead mobster Rocky O’Bannion, he shared the same rugged, black Irish muscular build and good looks and was Katarina’s lover. Well, unless something was happening downstairs with Kasteo, he was. Staying in close quarters with one of the Nine, alone for a long period of time, was pretty much the worst thing a woman in a monogamous relationship could do. I wondered why she was down there. Why Ryodan had permitted it. There was no way Kat would come out of that room the same as she’d gone in.
“You haven’t seen Katarina at all?” Sean was saying to Ryodan. “Since when? Killian said he saw her he
re a few weeks ago.”
“This Killian of yours told you she was in my office?” Ryodan said.
“No, he said he saw her walking through the club. Said she seemed hell-bent on something. He kept an eye out for her but didn’t see her leave. I’ve not been able to find her since.”
Ryodan said, “I haven’t seen her lately.” He glanced up and shot me a hard look: Speak and I’ll rip out your bloody throat, woman.
Beside me, Barrons growled softly.
I’d made two oaths during my time in Dublin: one to the Gray Woman, with my proverbial fingers crossed because the bitch had tried to kill Dani and that was unforgivable enough in and of itself, but I’d also known she was going to kill still more innocents. Endlessly, until she was stopped. Steal their beauty, torture and play with them while they died. They would be someone’s sister, brother, son, daughter. And more of the human race would be lost. I’d never had any intention of honoring it. A coerced oath, forced by a murderer, while threatening the life of someone I love, is not an oath. It’s extortion.
I’d taken another oath, more recently, that I would keep forever. Even if it cost me. Even if it pained me enormously, which I was certain it would. I held Ryodan’s gaze levelly. Your secrets, mine.
After a moment he inclined his head.
Sean turned to look at me. “Have you seen Kat, Mac?”
“Not lately.” I availed myself of Ryodan’s technique, which even Christian would have had a hard time seeing through. I hadn’t seen her. Lately. Depending on how you defined lately. The trick was the same as outsmarting a polygraph, tell your mind the truth while telling the lie. “But I’m sure she’s okay,” I added hastily, not wanting him to worry more than he was. The skin beneath his eyes was smudged dark from stress and lack of sleep. I could only imagine what he was going through.