Part III
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
25
“No one sees my face, sees me coming”
MAC
After the walls fell last Halloween (and I was no longer Pri-ya), with most of Dublin’s inhabitants dead or gone, I got to indulge one of my greatest teenage fantasies: I walked into Brown & Taylor and shoplifted everything I wanted.
An Alexander McQueen scarf of black skulls on pink leopard silk, a pair of totally come-fuck-me Christian Louboutin heels adorned with silver spikes that perfectly complemented the black dress I snatched off a Chanel rack, a classic Burberry raincoat lined with checked silk, a glamorous smoky faux-fur stole. A Louis Vuitton limited edition satchel, Prada wallet and purse, Dolce & Gabbana python boots, lingerie to die for!
Then I went next door and raided Estée Lauder’s makeup counter, before moving on to Lanc?me. I’d crammed my backpack with all those expensive moisturizers I’d never been able to afford and filled another with foundation and blush, eye shadow and mascara.
I’d commandeered two rooms on the fourth floor of Barrons Books & Baubles (last time I saw them they’d decamped to the fifth and switched sides) and set up my own private store stocked with feminine essentials: nail polish and remover, cotton balls and lotions, makeup and perfume and insanely expensive jewelry. (Over time, I added three diamond-crusted Rolexes I found lying in the streets to my hoard.)
I’d packed four enormous closets full of boxes of tampons and those invaluable skinny liner pads for heavy days when a tampon isn’t enough. I’d lugged home crates of vitamin D, aspirin, cold medicine, and soap. Then I went back for more and piled mountains of toilet paper in the second room. I raided three pharmacies and stashed away antibiotics and various medicinal supplies and ten years of birth control and condoms. At that point I figured I’d be lucky if I lived that long.
But there’s a second fantasy I never got to indulge that I’m fairly certain I won’t outgrow: wanting to go places I’m not allowed to go so I can see things I’m not supposed to see.
I can now.
I’m invisible.
I’M FREAKING INVISIBLE!
It’s incredibly difficult having something inside you that’s sentient and pretty much brilliant, and not at all nice, that can skim your mind to an uncertain degree, observe everything you do, study and analyze you, and wait forever for the perfect moment to seize the upper hand.
It’s worse than sleeping with the enemy, it’s living with a parasite inside you that is pathologically obsessed with a single goal: take you over, annihilate your will, and do whatever it chooses with what used to be your body. We’re conjoined twins, forced to share blood and oxygen, battling daily, sneakily to be the one who controls the supply.
Last night, when I stood in Rowena’s study bluffing the Book, outwaiting it, trying to force its hand to save us, that’s all I was initially doing.
Bluffing.
But my bluff became conviction, and the moment it did, the Book stepped in and saved our asses by turning me invisible.
Not just invisible—undetectable!
I’m no longer stalked by suffocating, smelly wraiths. Last night, they vanished, and I haven’t seen them in eighteen blissful hours.
I’m still corporeal—that was the first thing I tested after I dashed from the study, a split second before the fourth stone was placed. I didn’t look back. I ran faster than a demon from Hell breaking out with Cerberus snapping at its heels. I ran until I burst through the front doors of the abbey, into the steamy, nearly tropical night beyond, where I’d stood in the driveway, gasping for breath. I’d looked down and seen nothing but two small indentations in the grass where I was fairly certain my feet were.
I’d headed straight for the fountain, scooped up a handful of water, and heaved a sigh of relief when it worked. Although the warm water had turned invisible the moment I cupped it, I’d felt its wetness, been able to dribble it from my hand and watch it become visible again. For a moment I was afraid I was a ghost. I’d hastened to one of the large standing stones and forced myself to place a hand against its eerie, obsidian coolness. It, however, had not vanished. Apparently only small things did.
As I’d made the long trek back to Dublin on foot, not willing to boost one of the SUVs and stir any suspicions, the Sinsar Dubh had insisted I leave this world because they would never stop hunting us.
I refused.
We argued all the way back to Dublin, which had taken most of the night. It threatened, cajoled, bullied, even tried to charm.
I’d been unmoved.
So long as I don’t draw my spear, which spurs a mindless killing frenzy, I remain in control of my feet, and I’m staying on this world, period, the end.
I’ve drawn my line in the sand, and the Book had damn well better toe it. There’s no question this is war. A lukewarm one at the moment but war nonetheless.
We’ve established a détente of sorts. The Book is now willing to toss me a bit of aid because—although it taught me the hard way that if I draw my spear to kill, it can make me kill others—last night I taught the Sinsar Dubh a harder lesson: I’m willing to sacrifice myself to save the world from what I might do to it.
It’s never going to let that happen.
So it’s keeping me invisible. Any small items I pick up or put on also vanish from the realm of the seen.
When I arrived in the city early this morning, I further tested the extent of my corporeality by shouting at two See-You-in-Faery girls hanging outside Chester’s while chucking a couple of rocks in their direction. They heard me, and were hit by my inexplicably materializing rocks. It was deliciously fun. Upon my return to the bookstore, I experimented more and realized if I wasn’t careful I could give myself away by sitting on a soft chair or sofa, creating a petunia-shaped indent. It appears minor things become invisible when I touch them but major things don’t. When I walk across the rug, my invisibility has no impact on it. When I press the handle to flush the toilet, it remains visible.
I suspect if I tried to turn myself over, the Book would take further measures to impede me. No worries there. I’ll sacrifice myself if there’s no other choice but I certainly won’t go hunting for the opportunity.
In the meantime, the Sinsar Dubh has decided to keep me as cloaked as a Klingon Bird of Prey.
“Works for me,” I say cheerfully as I bang out the front door of Barrons Books & Baubles. It’s two in the afternoon, the time of day the erstwhile ex-owner of my shop and man who dominates the top of my lengthy shit-list never comes around. I just finished showering (carefully wiping down the tile before hiding the damp towels in the back of a closet) and changed clothes (into the first outfit I’ve liked in a long time, pity that no one can see it, including myself, topped off with a lovely skull-bedecked pink scarf that I no longer have to worry about getting stained and smelly), pulled on soft-soled boots, and grabbed a few protein bars from my stash. I was actually stupid enough to look in the mirror, prelude to putting makeup on. Ha. That’s not going to happen. No need to style my hair either. Eating was a special challenge, since I can’t see myself or the food and you don’t realize how heavily you rely on a peripheral visual awareness of your body to eat until you no longer have it, but after stabbing myself in the nose and chin a few times (I decide against washing my face again, if I have chocolate smudges, no one can see them), I managed.
It’s time to find out what’s going on in the world, all those details I’ve been missing. Time to do some long overdue investigating.
MacKayla Lane: unstoppable supersleuth.
For the first time in months, it’s fun to be me.