“Are you kidding me? You mean besides us and whoever got the amulet? There were three of us after it that night?”
“Bloody damned convention.”
“Well, who were they? Someone else from the auction?”
“I have no bloody idea, Ms. Lane. Never seen them before. Never heard of them. As far as I knew, there weren’t any bloody Scots in the game. It’s as if they dropped from the bloody damned sky.” He paused then added darkly, “And they knew too bloody much for my liking.”
All those “bloodys” was a veritable cornucopia of emotion for Barrons. Whoever the thieves had been, whatever had transpired after V’lane had sifted me off to Faery, it had disturbed him profoundly. “Are you sure they aren’t the ones who stole it?”
“If they’d been responsible for the killings, it wouldn’t have been a massacre.”
“What do you mean?”
“Although one of the men was versed in the black arts, both were Druid-trained. Unless blood is required for a specific purpose, a Druid kills cleanly. Whoever, whatever killed the guards and staff that night did it with either the detached sadism of a pure sociopath, or immense rage.”
I stuck to the subject of the thieves to avoid the memory of those mutilated bodies. “There are Druids around today? I thought they died out a long time ago.”
“That’s what the world thinks about sidhe-seers, too,” he said dryly. “You need to lose your preconceptions.”
“How do you know one of them was into black magic?”
He shot me a sideways glance and I knew he was about to stop answering my questions. I was surprised he’d answered this many. “He was heavily tattooed. Black magic calls a price, Ms. Lane, that can be…diminished by working protection runes into the skin.”
I thought about that a moment and followed it to its logical conclusion. “Don’t you eventually run out of skin?”
“Precisely. Some payments can only be deferred, not denied. I warrant most tell themselves they’ll only do ‘one more small spell.’ It’s a drug, like any other.”
I eyed him, wondering what his elegant Italian suit and crisp white shirt might conceal. He had all the tattooing implements. What did Barrons look like without his clothes on? “Well, if these thieves weren’t at the auction,” I hurriedly dispelled that image, “how did they learn about it?”
“You think we stood around and chatted, Ms. Lane? You’d just vanished and I had no idea where you’d gone. We made short work of each other and moved on.”
Wondering what constituted “short work” in Barrons’ book, I glanced out the window. We were passing through the Temple Bar District. The increase in crime had yet to impact the craic-filled party zone. It was bustling as usual.
And teeming with Unseelie.
There was at least one for every twenty or so people. I hoped that meant they favored the tourist zone, not that all of Dublin was infested to a similar ratio. This was significantly more Unseelie than I’d seen a few days, no—a month ago—when I’d last walked these boisterous cobbled streets. “Oh, God, the Lord Master brought more of them through while I was gone, didn’t he? A lot more.”
Barrons nodded. “Somehow. Not at LaRuhe. He must have constructed a new portal somewhere. I’ve been meaning to tell you the dolmen and the warehouse were destroyed. It looked as if someone dropped a bomb on them.”
I narrowed my eyes. I’d just spotted the dainty, diaphanous Fae I’d seen sunning itself on the fountain the day I’d encountered Dani. It was standing outside a bar, in the middle of a group of young people. As I watched, it grew even more transparent and took a sort of flickering step toward a curvaceous, smiling brunette, turned—and settled straight into her skin—like slipping into a coat.
The brunette’s eyes widened for a split second and she shook her head, as if trying to dislodge something from her ear. The Fae did not exit her body. I turned as we passed, watching through the rear window. Nothing came out. I flexed my sidhe-seer sense, tried to peer past the human shell and see the Fae within.
I couldn’t. Couldn’t see it and couldn’t sense it. I might be able to penetrate their glamour, but I couldn’t detect a Fae inside a human skin. Until this moment, I’d not known it was possible for a Fae to do such a thing.
I watched until the brunette disappeared from view. She was no longer smiling. I wondered what awful thing I’d just witnessed, wondered if I even wanted to know. I could hardly hop out of the car, race back down the blocks, and attempt to exorcise the girl. The whole street would think I was nuts and the Fae inside her would know I knew. “I know. V’lane did it for me,” I told Barrons absently.
There was a moment of silence. I glanced over and I swear I saw steam coming out of his ears. “Too bad he wasn’t there to save you the day you nearly died, Ms. Lane,” he said coolly.
“He was there to get rid of the Shades. Where were you?”
“He demanded a price. I don’t ask a price of you. Nor do I try to fuck you every time I see you.”
“Yes, you do. Ask a price, I mean. You make me OOP detect. You both dress me in sleazy clothing, boss me around, and tell me as little as you have to in order to get what you want. You both tried to put a cuff on me. You succeeded. You’re no different than he is. You’re both using me. The way I see it, you’ve both saved my life once. That makes you even in my book.”
He slammed on the brakes so abruptly that my seat belt cut into my breasts. If it had been a late-model car, I’d have been eating airbag. He reached across me and flung open my door. “If you really believe that, Ms. Lane, get out.”
I glanced out at the night. We were well past Temple Bar now, and into a mixed neighborhood of commercial and residential that was tightly buttoned up for the night. Even armed with my spear and flashlights, I had no desire to be walking around those dark, deserted streets by myself.
“Oh, don’t be so melodra—AHHHH!” I clutched my head with both hands as my skull was perforated by a thousand red hot ice picks.
The abbey was going to have to wait.
Bile exploded in the back of my throat. The alien part inside my head became a crematorium for my brain, the inferno spread to every cell in my body like someone was squirting me with gasoline, inside and out.
I could feel the skin on my body blistering, charring. I could smell myself burning.
Blessedly, blissfully, I passed out.