10
“There’s a she-wolf in disguise coming out, coming out”
MAC
It’s midnight, our meeting ended hours ago, and I’m alone in the bookstore. After Kat left with Sean, Ryodan said something to Barrons about cleaning up after the Hoar Frost King, which made no sense to me since the last of the ice melted weeks ago.
Barrons left to do whatever he does when he comes back with his heart beating, eyes brilliant, fury cooled. He won’t have sex with me if he’s hungry. I have my theories about why.
I once asked him what he ate and he said gently, None of your fucking business. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t signify. He is what he is. You take it or leave it, and I’m not leaving. The man isn’t vegan. He has a toothbrush. Life goes on.
After wasting hours poring over yet another tattered, disintegrating volume we brought out of the Silvers with a title that translates roughly as The Fae Obscene, I busy myself dusting and polishing shelves and counters, then check on the weapons I’ve hidden around the store. Anything to keep from thinking about this afternoon, and the terrible thing I’ve done. The terrible things I might continue to do unless I silence the Book forever. I consider going to see Inspector Jayne, learn the location of the O’Leary family, see what their needs are and fill them, but every time I begin to ponder it, I double over with guilt and grief, too sick to my stomach to move.
It’s been a while since I tended my cache. I miss my weapons, but I’m not willing to carry them. After today, I’d rather not carry the spear, but I won’t leave it lying around where someone else might find it, not even at the bookstore. Barrons despises the ancient Fae hallow because it could kill me. I like it for the same reason. A gun can kill you, too. You have to respect it.
I break down my Glocks, PPQs, my Sig and my Kimber, clean, reload, and rack. I save my Nighthawk Custom Falcon Commander .45 for last, because it’s my current favorite, then move on to my rifles. I line them up on the counter, admiring them. I enjoy handling the metal and plastic, the cool iron of the bullets Dani and I made. I practice throwing my switchblades at a Bob I set up in a back room. I even polish my spear, holding it carefully, practice trying to block the horrific images the Book throws at me.
Eventually I run out of idle tasks and begin to pace restlessly, wondering why Ryodan didn’t mention Dani tonight.
He must know she’s missing. Surely he’s looking for her. If she were here, she’d be arguing for a seat at our table. She’s always battled for Dublin, made it her first priority, even when Ro was alive, threatening her, controlling her sword, directing it.
I used Voice on Rowena after I stabbed her, and know she used her gift of mental coercion to force Dani to kill my sister, but I don’t know the details.
I thought I’d made peace with her part in my sister’s death. But it’s one thing to sit in my bookstore, telling myself I can forgive her, entirely another to look her in the face, feel that forgiveness in my heart and communicate it to my arm—as the night we met for the first time since I learned the truth had proven.
I’d lashed out. Barely managed to pull back. I’m just grateful I didn’t black out and lose complete control. I wonder why I didn’t, what was different about the night I drew my spear on Dani and this afternoon when I drew on the Gray Woman.
“Alina, Alina, Alina,” I whisper.
Sometimes I say her name in litany as if mere repetition might have the power to resurrect her from the dead. What no one tells you is that when someone you love dies, you lose them twice. Once to death, the second time to acceptance, and you don’t walk that long, dark passage between the two alone. Grief takes every shuffling, unwilling step with you, offering a seductive bouquet of memories that can only blossom south of sanity. You can stay there, nose buried in the petals of the past. But you’re never really alive again. Spend enough time with ghosts, you become one.
Still, I long for a summer day on the sand in Faery, a Corona in my hand with lime pulp dripping down the sides, near a volleyball net, even if only with the illusion of Alina.
Make it so, my hitchhiker purrs. We can.
“Been there, done that temptation,” I mutter. “Get a fresh idea. The answer is still no.”
The bell suddenly flies off the top of the front door in an explosion of hardware and screeching metal, shoots straight up in the air then crashes to the floor, where it gives a final, defiant tinkle.
I glance from it to the open door that used to be locked, startled and offended. I loved that bell. “You could have knocked,” I say irritably to Ryodan, who’s standing in the entrance. “I would have unlocked it.”
“I assume you have the spear,” he says.
“Of course I do.” I hadn’t breathed easy until Barrons handed it back to me when our meeting ended.
He jerks his head toward the door. “We’ve got problems. At Chester’s. Now.”
I’m not about to head off with the incessantly scrutinizing owner of Chester’s only to have my dark parade fall into step behind us, and get slapped on a slide beneath a microscope again. The meeting tonight was bad enough. “You told me I could never enter your club armed, and I’m not responsible for your—”
“Cut the bullshit. The rules have changed. I don’t care how many Unseelie follow you. I don’t even care why. You get a free pass tonight. Move. Now.”
I bristle. I don’t take orders from anyone but Barrons, and I don’t even do that well. I lean back against the counter and cross my arms. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“We don’t have time for this.”
“I let you goad me into action once. We killed Barrons.” Another thing I find hard to forgive.
“It was necessary to save your ass. What wasn’t necessary was you waiting so long to obey me that you got me killed, too. Then you consorted with the enemy—”
And here we go. “Consorted? Really? What century do you and Barrons get stuck in sometimes? I did not have sex with Darroc. Furthermore, it’s none of your business who I have sex with.”
“As long as you’re fucking Barrons it is.”
Sarcastically, I retort, “I thought you killed each other’s women, not took an interest in their fidelity or lack thereof. Speaking of fidelity and lack thereof, just exactly what are you doing with Jo, Ryodan? What kind of screwed-up wolf ‘consorting’ with the lamb situation is that?”
He makes a sound of impatience. “She wants. I give.”
“I doubt it’s that simple for her. Last time I was in Chester’s—”
“Which was a month ago, and if you think that means I’m not aware you’ve become high priestess to the only caste of Unseelie that once attended the king in his private quarters, you’re wrong.”
That was what they were? How did he know that? Best way to stay out from under a microscope is to keep turning it around on the person trying to view you through it. “I watched the two of you together, and it’s obvious she’s in love with you—”
“She’s a grown woman and understands what she can and can’t have. I’ve never—”
“You just keep smashing through life, wrecking everyone else’s to satisfy your own desires, don’t you?”
“—misrepresented my intentions. You should talk. And there are reasons for what I do. Christ, woman, do you ever shut up.”
“If you’d start talking about things I want to hear I might.”
“You’re pissing me off.”
“You’d be surprised how easy it is for me to live with that.”
He assesses me and I see him contemplating tossing me over his shoulder and loping away.
“I wouldn’t if I were you. I’m a wild card, remember?”
He snorts. My threat rolls right off him. But I see in his eyes the moment he decides I’m on a bitching bent and not about to stop, that humoring me will take less time and ensure more efficient cooperation. “There’s an Unseelie in my office. With Lor.”
“So?”
“She’s a princess.”
I frown. “I thought the king didn’t make any.”
“You were wrong.”
“Well, what’s the problem? Throw her out.”
“He’s having sex with her. On my desk.”
“Little confused here. What do you want me to do? Pop by with a fresh pack of Handi Wipes to tidy up your desk when they’re through?”
“He’s chained. Lor doesn’t get chained. He chains.” He pauses and I can see how much his next words offend him. “There was a time no threats to us existed on this world. The Fae changed that. It appears she may have turned Lor Pri-ya.”