“I think they know me,” I said when I pushed through the front door of the bookstore. Barrons was behind the counter, not Fiona. That was weird. He was actually ringing up a purchase, like a real person doing a job. He cut me a look of warning—mute it, Ms. Lane—and jerked his head toward the customer.
“Flip the sign,” he said when the patron left. He slapped a cardboard placard on the counter and began writing on it. “Who do you think knows you?”
“The Shades. They get…I don’t know, agitated when they see me coming. Like they recognize me and I piss them off. I think they’re more sentient than you know.”
“I think you have an overactive imagination, Ms. Lane. Did you turn the sign over yet?”
I flipped over the sign. That was Barrons, autocratic down to his steel-booted toes. “Why? Wrapping up early?”
He finished writing, walked over, and handed me a placard to hang on the door next to the sign.
I read it. “For how long?” I was surprised. The bookstore was our cover and now he was closing it?
“At least a few weeks. Unless you want to start running the cash register, Ms. Lane.”
“Where’s Fiona?”
“Fiona turned off all the lights and left a window open last night.”
I staggered—physically stumbled backward—and nearly fell from the impact of that mental blow. I caught myself on a display table, toppling a few baubles and stacks of the latest best-sellers. “Fiona tried to kill me?” I knew she didn’t like me, but come on. Talk about excessive!
“She claimed she was only trying to frighten you off. She wanted you to go home. I was beginning to think she’d succeeded. Where were you all day?”
I was too busy reeling from Fiona’s viciousness to answer him. It was bad enough that I had to watch my back with all the known nasties. I wasn’t well versed enough in feminine wiles to see the subtler nasties coming. “God, what did she do?” I breathed. “Sneak back in late last night? How did she get out herself?”
“Same way you did, I imagine. Flashlights. I must admit, Ms. Lane, I’m impressed with how well you cleared the place. There must have been Shades everywhere.”
“There were, and I didn’t. I only cleared part of it. V’lane did the rest,” I said absently. How ironic that I’d been so doggedly trying to save her from the very monsters she’d turned loose on me.
There was a moment of frozen silence, then Barrons exploded, “What? V’lane was here? In my store?” His fingers banded around my upper arm.
“Ow, Barrons, you’re hurting me,” I snapped.
He released me instantly.
Barrons is dangerously strong. I think he has to maintain constant awareness of what he’s touching, or he’d end up breaking bones. I rubbed my arm. I would be bruised tomorrow. Again.
“My apologies, Ms. Lane. So?”
“No, of course he wasn’t in the store; you have it warded, don’t you? Speaking of which, why didn’t your wards keep the Shades out?”
“It’s only warded against certain things.”
“Why don’t you ward it against everything?”
“Wards demand…resources. Protection has a price. All power does. Lights serve well enough to keep the Shades out. Besides, they’re stupid.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” I told him about the one that had faced off with me in the back room, how I’d lost my flashlights and been left with only a pack of matches that I’d nearly run through, how V’lane had appeared in the back alley and driven it off.
He listened intently, asked me many questions about our conversation, wrapping up with, “Did you fuck him?”
“Ah!” I yelled. “Of course not!” I rubbed my face with both hands and kept it buried there a minute. “Wouldn’t I be an addict if I did?” I raised my face.
Barrons studied me, dark eyes cold. “Not if he protected you.”
“They can do that? Really?”
“Try not to sound so intrigued, Ms. Lane.”
“I’m not,” I said defensively.
“Good. You don’t trust him, do you?”
“I don’t trust anybody. Not him. Not you. Nobody.”
“Then you might just stay alive. Where were you today?”
“Didn’t Fiona tell you?” I was learning from his tricks: answer a question with a question. Distract. Evade.
“She was hardly forthcoming when I…fired her.” There was a hesitation before the word “fired,” nearly imperceptible unless you knew the man.
“What if she comes back around and tries to hurt me again?”
“Not a worry. Where were you?”
I told him about the Garda, that I’d spent the day at the station, that O’Duffy was dead.
“And they think you slit the throat of a man nearly twice your size?” He snorted. “That’s absurd.”
A sudden, deep quietude blanketed my mind. I hadn’t told Barrons how O’Duffy had died. “Yeah, well,” I blustered around it, “you know how cops are. By the way, where have you been lately? I could have used help a few times in the past twenty-four hours.”
“You seem to have done well enough on your own. You had your new friend, V’lane, to assist you.” He said the name in a way that made the prince sound like a prancy little fairy, not the virile, lethally seductive Fae he was. “What happened to my window out back?”
I wasn’t about to admit to a man who already knew how O’Duffy had died that I knew he was keeping some kind of monster under his garage. I shrugged. “I don’t know. What?”
“It’s broken. Did you hear anything last night?”
“Had my hands a little full, Barrons.”
“Of Shades, not V’lane, one hopes.”
“Ha.”
“You weren’t in my garage, were you?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
“Of course not.” No more than you would lie to me, I didn’t add, honesty among thieves and all.