Eyes narrowed, she spun in a tight circle. The Unseelie were insatiable patrons of Chester’s, but currently there wasn’t a single Rhino-boy, not one of the grotesque singularities, or any of the Lord Master’s militant guards to be seen. Not even Papa Roach with his stumpy-legged body formed of gelatinous, shiny carapaces was ambling about, hawking his fat-devouring, cockroachian wares, and she’d begun to suspect the revolting creature lived somewhere in Ryodan’s palatial demesne.
The Sinsar Dubh had returned and there were no Unseelie in Chester’s; it was a worrisome coupling of facts.
Nodding coolly to Fade and the eerie white-haired member of the Nine with dark, burning eyes whose name she’d not yet uncovered, she ascended the staircase, moving like a Joe, staring down at the dance floors, absorbing every detail. Although there were many advantages to accessing the slipstream, moving faster than reality blinded her to it, and she couldn’t assess and report on current events if she didn’t take the time to see them.
When she reached Ryodan’s office, the dark glass was set to privacy, which meant the occupants could see out but no one could see in. She placed her palm against the panel. The door whisked aside and she peered into the dimly lit room.
Barrons stood glowering in one corner. Cruce towered, seething, in another, his upper body canted away from the wall, betraying the degree to which his mutilated back pained him. Christian leaned back against a third corner, arms folded over his chest, majestic wings high, curled inward around his body. All of them stared fixedly at nothing, as far from one another as they could be in such a confined space. There was more hostility in the office than air, and she wondered how long they’d been occupying such tight quarters, waiting for her to join them.
Barrons shot her an impatient glare. “About fucking time you got here.”
Jada stepped inside and the door whisked shut behind her. She moved into the only corner left open, assessing the others. What an unexpected and powerful team—assuming they didn’t kill one another before getting down to their goals. Death, War, whatever Barrons was, and herself, a superhero. “Where did you find Christian?” she asked Barrons.
The Highlander shot her a look of disgust. “Bloody Mac bloody fucking cocooned me and left me behind a pile of bloody rocks, that’s where.”
Cruce bristled. “At least you still have your wings.”
Christian ignored him. “Then those slobbering beasts of Barrons bloody licked me to death. First the Hag then this. Christ, whatever happened to going to college and dating pretty lasses?”
Cruce flashed him a cruel smile. “Those days are long gone, little brother.”
“I’m no’ your bloody brother. I’m no’ your fucking anything.”
“Barrons’s beasts?” Jada said. Why did Christian think they were his? And how badly had being cocooned harmed him? He was pale, shifting his weight from foot to foot as if trying to find a comfortable position.
Christian muttered, “Whatever the fuck they are. Only time I ever saw them was at the abbey. Figured he brought them.”
“Mac said she did. She told me she found them in the Silvers,” Jada fished.
“Well there you go, lass. And Mac never lies or does anything the least bit shady.”
Ignoring the jibe, she turned to Barrons. “There are no Unseelie in Chester’s.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he replied tersely. “Cruce tried to summon a few of the lesser castes. They didn’t appear.”
“Summon how?”
“When he absorbed the spells from the Book, he gained the True Names of the Unseelie.”
She pinned Cruce with a sharp look. “What else did you get?” Obviously the Book hadn’t affected him like it had Mac, but he’d gotten more than names.
“None of your fucking business, sidhe-seer.”
“So, why didn’t the Unseelie come?” she pressed.
“Because your lovely MacKayla now possesses the same knowledge, and they recognize her as more powerful than me. That will change.”
“How did Mac come to be possessed by the Sinsar Dubh in the first place?” Christian said. “I thought there was only one copy and Cruce absorbed it. Where the bloody hell did a second copy come from?”
“Yes.” Cruce seized the topic with avid interest. “How did the lovely MacKayla come by another copy of the Sinsar Dubh?”
“Twenty-odd years ago, while Isla O’Connor was carrying the corporeal Sinsar Dubh, it deposited a copy of itself into her unborn fetus,” Barrons said curtly.
Christian stared at him incredulously. “You’re telling me Mac had the bloody Book all along?”
“I believe it was dormant until she came to Ireland,” Barrons said. “Something about it being here gave it strength it didn’t have before. When she used one of its spells to save Jada from the Sweeper, it took possession of her.”
Cruce’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed to slits. “The entire time I was hunting it, she had it inside her?”
Barrons said, “She didn’t know it was inside her until after we interred you. Jada, Alina was able to locate Mac. Fade tracked and followed her. She’s holed up at Mallucé’s abandoned mansion, with a mile of Unseelie surrounding her on every side. Tens of thousands of the fucks, even more than attacked the abbey.”
“That’s a problem,” she said. “We have to get close enough to position the stones, and that means within ten feet or so. We also have to get her out, once we’ve contained her.”
“Fade said she was staggering when she entered the mansion, appeared to be having difficulty walking,” Barrons said.
Jada told him how clumsy Mac had seemed when she first stood up from the table.
“Now it’s your turn, fairy,” Barrons growled to Cruce. “When you absorbed the spells from the Book, was there something sentient within?”
The temperature in the office dropped sharply and ice crystals glazed the floor. “The correct term is ‘Fae.’ And yes, there was sentience within, but it vanished the moment the Book crumbled. I do not believe the Sinsar Dubh possessed the power to replicate itself. No Fae does. Not the queen. Not even the king. The sentience within the Sinsar Dubh must have found a way to split itself, transferring part into Isla, leaving part behind, weaving a spell to ensure much of what it left behind would expire if the Book was ever read. Fae revile the very notion of duplicate selves. We prize our individuality and position.”
“So, what does that make Mac?” Christian demanded. “How powerful is she?”
Cruce smiled coolly. “Powerful enough to be a threat that must be eliminated immediately. The king cast every spell he ever used to create the Unseelie castes into a single vessel. When the spells commingled, they did exactly what anyone with half a brain would have expected—gave birth to the most powerful Unseelie singularity yet. Then the bloody fool left it trapped inside a book, alone. We do not sleep nor do we suffer solitude well. It is the most dreaded of Fae punishments to be bound in isolation without stimulation. Any Fae imprisoned with nothing for half a million years will go mad. Then come back from it. Then go mad again, worse. Over and over. Even if MacKayla carries only part of the Sinsar Dubh’s sentience, she is still a pure psychopath with immeasurable knowledge and power. That is what you seek to remove from her. There is no way to strip such a being from her body. It will never let her go. It will destroy her if it thinks you might succeed. There is no saving MacKayla. You must accept that you have no choice but to kill her.”
Barrons said softly, “I will never accept that.”
“Then you doom us all,” Cruce warned.
Barrons murmured, “Psychopaths have their weaknesses.”
“And are so savage one rarely gains the offensive long enough to exploit them,” Cruce retorted.
“The two of you should know,” Christian said dryly.
Barrons closed his eyes and rubbed his jaw, the rasp of his hand against stubble loud to Jada’s ears in the hostile silence of the office. Finally he opened them and said to C
ruce, “If you were the Mac version of the Sinsar Dubh, what would you want?”
“A better body,” Cruce said without hesitation. “One not human, with no mortal limitations. That would be any Fae’s first priority.”
“How would you get a better body? I already offered mine. It refused.”
Jada inhaled sharply. “Are you kidding me? Do you know what it might do with your—” She broke off, not about to discuss the Nine’s extraordinary abilities in front of Cruce.
Cruce said, “If it can’t seize another body—and it must doubt its ability or it would have taken your offer, or tried to take mine—it will go after the Seelie Queen’s elixir, the true Elixir of Life.”
“Which is where?”
Cruce shrugged. “None but the queen is privy to that information.”
Jada said, “She’s missing and has been since the night you were iced at the abbey.” And they desperately needed her if they were to have any hope of saving their world. She alone possessed the power to wield the dangerous Song of Making.
“Then it would appear the Book is out of luck,” Cruce said lightly.
Christian shook his head. “False. There is something it can do and you know it. What is it?”
Barrons growled, “We’ll hand you to Mac on a bloody platter if you don’t tell us everything you know. Either you’re with me or you’re in my motherfucking way.”
Cruce slanted his iridescent eyes half closed, and Jada could practically see him tallying his options and odds in columns the same way she did. After a moment he said, “I will offer you a deal.”
“We’ve already made a deal,” Jada said sharply.
“You forced concessions at a time of duress. I insist we renegotiate. I know what the Book wants and how it will go after it.”
“And what do you want in return?” Barrons said acerbically.
Cruce said mildly, “No more than I wanted before—to kill the queen and become the rightful ruler of my race. This time, however, you and your merry little band will help me accomplish it.”
Barrons was motionless a long moment then inclined his head in assent.
“You can’t be serious,” Jada exclaimed. What was he doing? They didn’t dare kill the queen. They needed her.
“You can’t bloody kill the queen of the Fae just to get your bloody girlfriend back,” Christian spat.
Cruce glanced pointedly at Jada and Christian. “Do you speak for them as well?”
“Yes,” Barrons said, shooting them both lethal looks.
“We’re in.” Jada flashed Christian a look that said, Trust that Barrons has a plan. “But if Mac comes to harm, the deal’s off.”
“Saving her without harm is your problem,” Cruce said, shrugging. “Mine is merely getting you close enough to place the stones.”
“And placing one of them yourself,” Jada added.
“We’re not using him,” Christian snarled.
“He’ll be there anyway,” she said. “The fewer people we bring into this the better.”
“But you have already impeded my plan,” Cruce continued evenly, “and must rectify that. MacKayla will not go after the queen until she has one of the immortal weapons in her possession.”
Jada said incredulously. “You want me to give Mac the spear back?”
“No. I want you to permit her to recover it in a way that convinces her she bested you. The Sinsar Dubh is deeply paranoid.”
Christian shot him a dark look. “She already came after us once and you want to put a weapon in her hands that can kill us both?”
“She thinks us out of her way in cocoons, and immortality is her priority. The longer the Sinsar Dubh inhabits MacKayla’s body, the more it will despise its limitations. The moment she has the spear, she will go for the queen to coerce from her the Elixir of Life. When she does, we will trap her.”
“But no one knows where the queen is,” Jada reminded.
Cruce said, “The Sinsar Dubh knows a place at which our queen can be summoned and Aoibheal cannot refuse to attend. I know that location, too. Both the Book and I possess a vast store of the king’s knowledge.”
Barrons glanced at Christian.
“Truth.”
“Where?” Barrons demanded.
Cruce said coldly, “I trust you no more than you trust me. Once MacKayla has the spear and begins to make her move, I will take you there. The quarters are tight and her army will be unable to accompany her. That is where we will trap MacKayla and kill Aoibheal.”
Christian narrowed his eyes. “If you know how to summon Aoibheal, why haven’t you done it already? What do you need us for?”
“Because he doesn’t have any way to kill her,” Jada said. “He’d have to put her back in the Unseelie prison and wait for her to die.”
Barrons smiled mockingly. “That’s not why. Both Cruce and the Sinsar Dubh covet the Fae queen’s power. The moment she’s killed, the True Magic of their race will pass to the next most powerful Fae. Historically, it has always gone to a female but legend holds if a Fae male is strong enough and the females are all dead, the matriarchy could become a patriarchy. Neither the Book nor Cruce is convinced the queen’s magic wouldn’t choose another if they killed her now.”
Christian shot Cruce a look of challenge. “So the legend is true, the power will jump when she dies, if she hasn’t passed it on first. Bring it on, bro.”
“Ah, now you call me brother. Save your challenge for another day, puppy. Your fledgling power poses no threat to me.”
“So you say,” Christian retorted.
Barrons said, “The Book believes the queen’s power might go to the Sweeper-enhanced Unseelie princess. Cruce fears it would choose Mac over him. Isn’t that right, fairy?”
The Fae prince’s eyes glittered dangerously. “You had better pray to your many puny gods—”
“I neither pray nor have gods.”
“—that never happens, because MacKayla would then be the Sinsar Dubh and the Seelie Queen, beyond deadly, capable of raining down infinite destruction on both our realms.”
Christian growled, “Which means we can trust you right up until the moment we help you kill the queen, because you’ll be both then, too.”
Cruce’s smile was all teeth. “Pretty much. Got a better idea?”
Jada said, “Once Mac has the spear back, how will we know when she heads for the place she can summon the queen?”
“We watch the Unseelie princess. After MacKayla uses her True Name to summon her, she will head straight for the queen. The moment the princess disappears, we know to go ahead and lie in wait.”
“While Mac conveniently removes the Unseelie princess from both your paths,” Barrons said dryly. “Then we remove Mac from yours.”
“Precisely. That is our deal.”
“What about Mac’s ability to sense the stones?” Barrons pressed. “Won’t that keep her from coming into wherever it is you’re taking us?”
“Her ability to sense objects of power is useless there.”
“Christian will sift me there. You will sift Jada,” Barrons ordered.
Christian shook his head. “I’m far from a reliable sifter. I’ll need to know the location so I have time to perfect it.”
Cruce spat contemptuously, “You are an unreliable sifter because you resist your true nature. You will never attain your full power until you relinquish your hold on your precious humanity. Let it go, puppy. Walk with the big dogs. Embrace what it is to be Fae, immortal and powerful beyond your wildest dreams.”
“That boat’s never leaving the dock. You’ll have to tell me where. I need practice or none of this will work.”
“Irrelevant,” Cruce said impatiently. “Sifting to that place is impossible and for good reason.”
Barrons smiled faintly, smugly, looking pleased for no reason Jada could discern, and said, “I assume you know where the Unseelie princess is?”
Cruce said coolly, “Earlier today, while I was sifting your sidhe-seers about, I to
ok the time to drop an ancient scroll into an interested party’s hands. It contained the princess’s True Name. The bitch is already trapped in a cage of iron and wards and believes one of the new, young Seelie princes acquired the power to summon her from a long-forgotten scroll. He is another that foolishly didn’t question sudden good fortune, too busy brooding about what he deems unfair bad fortune. He awaits one of the immortal weapons to slay her.” Cruce shot Jada a look. “You will not be obliging him.”
“Why would I? I’d never give a Seelie prince the spear or the sword.”
“You might this one,” Cruce said with an amused look.
“You already summoned and trapped her without telling us?” Christian said, incensed. “What else have you done that you’ve not seen fit to inform us about?”
Jada frowned. “Won’t the Book have to eliminate the Seelie prince, too?”
“As I have already told you, fledglings don’t signify and will not for some time. They are not strong enough to attract the True Magic. Only Mac, myself, and the Unseelie princess are powerful enough to be contenders.”
“Where is the Unseelie princess and who is this new Seelie prince?” Barrons demanded.
“You will find them both at Dublin Castle. The young Fae princeling is the current leader of your New Guardians. But he will not be for long. Soon his transformation will become noticeable to humans, and they will never follow what they trap and kill.”
“Inspector Jayne is turning Fae?” Jada exclaimed, horrified. “A Seelie prince?”
“One and the same. He has been cannibalizing our race far too long to escape without price. Even now I feel birth pangs as others begin the transformation.”
“Who?” Christian demanded.
The prince said laconically, “I do not as yet know.”
“Why can’t I feel them?”
“Woof, woof,” was Cruce’s cool reply. “Embrace it. Or soon even they will surpass you. Like sharks, we circle when we smell blood. Get hungry. Or get eaten.”