She shrugged. ―He was überpissed that Ro let you go. I told him nothing coulda stopped Barrons, but that just seemed to piss him off more. Said he‘d been stuck guarding the queen and couldn‘t get to you. I think he planned to do what Barrons did, and when he learned Barrons beat him to it by a few hours, he totally melted down. I thought he‘d ice us all.‖
―Why is he still here? And after that little trick, how did he get to be such buddies with Rowena?‖ I tried not to think about what might have happened if V‘lane had gotten to me first. It didn‘t seem to me that sex with another death-by-sex Fae would have done anything but kept me Pri-ya. I could hardly imagine V‘lane telling me stories of my childhood or showing me pictures of my family to help bring me back.
Dani grinned. ―Easier to show you.‖ She moved toward me so quickly that she blurred out of sight and was gone.
Then I was gone, too, or, rather, the hallway we‘d been standing in was gone, and I couldn‘t make out anything but blurs of motion and noise. I could feel Dani‘s hands on my shoulders. She was whizzing me somewhere at an extreme rate of speed.
I banged my elbow on something that grunted. ―Ow!‖ I said.
Dani snickered. ―It helps if you keep your elbows tucked in.‖
―Watch where you‘re going, kid!‖ someone yelled.
―Oops, sorry,‖ Dani muttered.
Something slammed into my hip. ―Ow,‖ I said again. I heard someone curse; it faded quickly.
―We‘re almost there, Mac.‖
When we stopped, I scowled at her and rubbed my elbow. It was no wonder she was bruised all the time. ―Let‘s just walk the next time, okay?‖
―Are you kidding me? S‘the coolest thing in the world to move like I do! I‘m not usually so clumsy, but there are more people out of their rooms ?cause you‘re here and they‘re all talking
?bout you. I know these halls by heart. I can do ?em in my sleep, but the fecking people get in the way.‖
―Maybe you could persuade them to start signaling their turns,‖ I said dryly. ―You know, like you do when you‘re bicycling around as couriers.‖
Her face lit up. ―Think they would?‖
I snorted. ―Doubt it. We‘re not exactly their favorite people.‖ I glanced around. We were in a huge room filled with a U-shaped conference-table arrangement and dozens of chairs. ―Why did you bring me here, and what—‖
I broke off, staring past her at the enormous maps covering the walls. After a moment, I turned slowly.
―We call it the War Room, Mac. S‘where we keep track of things.‖
The entire room was wallpapered with maps, hung from ceiling to floor. There were notations everywhere, with Post-it notes stuck on some areas and enlarged inserts taped to others. Some of the cities bore the Sidhe-Seers, Inc. (SSI) emblem of the misshapen shamrock, our oath to See, Serve, and Protect.
―Where‘s the key?‖ What did all these symbols and notes stand for?
Dani saw where I was looking. ―The shamrocks show the headquarters of the foreign branches of Post Haste, Inc. Ain‘t no key. Ro won‘t let us write it down. Room‘s majorly warded.‖
―We have that many sidhe-seer offices?‖ I was incredulous. There were more of us worldwide than I‘d ever have guessed. SSI had obviously been global for a long time. Our ―war‖ had also gone global while I‘d been out of it. The Unseelie hadn‘t stayed in one place once they were freed. They‘d ranged out over the entire planet and, according to what I was seeing on the maps, certain castes seemed to prefer certain climes. There were drawings and notes scribbled everywhere. It would take days for me to absorb it all. I walked around the room slowly. ―What are these?‖ I pointed to two areas close together, which were marked off with brown slash marks.
―Wetlands. There‘s a caste of Unseelie that‘s nuts about swamps, and they take you down as fast as Shades. We don‘t go near them.‖
―And these?‖ Squares, heavily outlined in bold black marker.
Dani flinched. ―Some of ?em ?ve been rounding up kids, really young ones. They keep ?em for a while before they … do things with ?em. We try to find where and break ?em out.‖
I inhaled sharply and kept walking. I stopped when I reached a column of dates, with numbers written next to them that had been crossed out dozens of times.
The most recent date was January 1.
The number next to it was a few billion shy of the nearly seven billion it should have been. I pointed a finger and didn‘t even try to pretend it wasn‘t shaking. ―Is this date and number telling me what I think it‘s telling me? Is that how many of us are left on this planet?‖
―By our estimates,‖ Dani said, ―total world population has been reduced by more than a third.‖ It was one of the few complete, well-spoken sentences I‘d ever heard pass her lips. I looked at her sharply and caught a split second of a completely different Dani—a geeky, smart thirteen-yearold abandoned by everyone she‘d ever trusted or loved, in a world gone mad. It was so quickly masked by an insouciant grin that I wondered if I‘d really seen it at all. ―Dude. Pretty intense, huh?‖ Her green eyes sparkled.
―Dude me one more time and you‘re Danielle forever.‖ I looked back at the maps. I was never going to be able to sleep tonight. A third of our world‘s population was dead. ―How long was I
… out of it? What‘s the date?‖
―January seventh. And, sorry, it just slips.‖
―What does this have to do with V‘lane?‖ Keep talking, I told myself, so you don‘t melt down. We‘d lost a third of our planet‘s population! More than two billion people were dead! They‘d been dying the whole time I‘d been a mindless animal. The guilt was crushing. I followed the maps around the room, looking for Georgia, feeling sick inside. The state had two inky spots smudged on it, one over Savannah and one over Atlanta, both of which were only a few hours from Ashford, Georgia, my hometown. Most of the spots on the maps were over major cities. ―What are the dark smudges?‖ I asked tightly, afraid I knew.
―Dark Zones.‖ My face must have betrayed my thoughts, because she added hastily, ―V‘lane checked on your folks. He says they‘re okay.‖
―Recently?‖
She nodded. ―He keeps watch. Says he does what he can.‖
I drew a deep breath, the first since I‘d laid eyes on the maps. ―How did the Shades spread so quickly?‖ I demanded. ―How did they even get overseas? Is the power out everywhere in the world?‖
―V‘lane says initially other Unseelie were helping ?em, ?til they decided the Shades were chewing up their new playground too fast. Now he says Unseelie are fighting each other for territory. Some of ?em are even trying to get the power back up, to keep the Shades out.‖
I remembered the sky battle I‘d seen, wondered what it had been about.
―One time when I went into Dublin looking for you, I saw humans walking with Rhino-boys, going down into a boarded-up bar. Didn‘t follow, ?cause it freaked me out so bad. They were girls, Mac. Dunno if they were Pri-ya, but they didn‘t look like it. Looked like they went ?cause they wanted to.‖ Her lambent gaze clouded. ―Mac, I think Unseelie are the new vamps to some fecked-up groupies out there.‖
―Does V‘lane know all this? Are the Seelie doing anything about it?‖ I was horrified. I knew my generation. We had a world of opportunities for instant gratification at our fingertips, with few or no censors, and most of my friends hadn‘t had a daddy like mine, who said things like, Don’t confuse intensity of emotion with quality of emotion, baby, when I‘d gotten tangled up with class heartbreaker Tommy Ralston. The more he‘d hit on my girlfriends, the harder I‘d worked to keep him. It was like I was addicted to whatever made me feel most intensely, even though it was hurting me. Pain is not love, Mac. Love makes you feel good. I missed my dad. I needed to see my parents. See with my own eyes that they were all right.
―V‘lane says they‘re trying to stop the worst of the Unseelie,‖ Dani said, ―but they can‘t kill each other, ?cause they don‘t die and we got the sword and the spear. V‘lane says the Seelie want ?em back, but so far none of ?em have tried to take ?em from us. He says it‘s just a matter of time, though.‖
Chaos. It was complete chaos. Unseelie free, fighting Seelie, fighting one another, acquiring human groupies like Mallucé‘s band of Goth worshippers. I wouldn‘t be at all surprised if Mallucé‘s cult had simply converted allegiance to the latest, greatest exotic danger in town. A third of the world population gone!
All because we‘d failed to keep the walls up on Halloween. Because I’d failed. I closed my eyes and rubbed them, as if it might somehow rub the horrifying reality of a world with a third less people right out of existence, or at least out of my mind.
―At first, we had no clue what was going on anywhere. No phones or text messages. No email. No Internet. No TVs or radios. S‘like living in the Stone Age. Well, maybe not that bad,‖ she allowed with a grin, ―but you get the picture. Then V‘lane offered to help. Said he could sift around, gather intel, find out what was going on, carry messages, take Ro places. After he iced her like that, she didn‘t trust him one bit. Not that she ever trusted him. But it was an offer she couldn‘t refuse.‖
―What about the Sinsar Dubh? I take it no one‘s gotten their hands on it yet?‖
She shook her head.
―Has anyone seen it recently?‖
She shook her head again. ―I think that‘s the real reason Ro let you stay, and would have even if they‘d voted against you. Just woulda pushed you ?round harder. Her and V‘lane been swapping information, bartering with each other. She told him what I told her I saw in the street the day I rescued you—‖
―I wondered how V‘lane knew about that.‖ I might have found his knowledge of the Unseelie Princes incriminating, except both V‘lane and Barrons always seemed to have the inside scoop on everything. It no longer surprised me.
―—in exchange for him telling her what you‘d learned about how the Book was moving around. That you were targeting it by tracking the worst crimes. But now there‘s so much violence everywhere, and no newspapers or TV, so there‘s no way to find the fecking thing.‖
I thought about that and smiled. ―Except for me.‖ I was even more important now. Dani grinned back. ―Yup. I figure we‘re the two most kick-ass weapons she‘s got.‖
―But she‘s still keeping the sword from you, isn‘t she, Dani? Doling it out when she feels like it?‖
Dani‘s expression soured and she nodded.
It was time for some meddling, and Dani was definitely primed. ―Doesn‘t it seem wrong to you that the two most powerful sidhe-seers in this abbey aren‘t armed at all times? Don‘t you think, since you‘re superstrong and superfast, you deserve to carry the sword? I bet even your hearing is superheightened, isn‘t it? That‘s why you heard me come in today, when no one else did, isn‘t it?‖
She nodded.
―You‘re amazing, Dani. You‘re hands down the most valuable asset Rowena has. And look at me—not only can I track the Book, I can Null the bastards. Freeze them, shut them down cold while we kill them. Remember the night we fought together?‖ It had been exhilarating. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do it every night, until the night was ours again. I wanted to be out there prowling, hunting them like they hunted us. I wasn‘t willing to be afraid any longer. It was time for them to be afraid of me.
Her eyes narrowed, her lips parted on a sharp breath, and she nodded again. Her sword hand was clenching and unclenching, like mine did when I didn‘t have my spear and I thought about Fae. I wondered if I got that almost-not-quite-human look on my face sometimes, too. I didn‘t need to see a window to know that night was falling. I could feel the approach of twilight in my bones, as surely as I imagined a vampire must. No matter how heavily warded the perimeter of the abbey was, without my spear I felt like I was missing an appendage: the most important one. I might be immune to death-by-sex Fae glamour—though I wouldn‘t trust that completely until I‘d tested it on some other Fae besides V‘lane—but they could still capture me if they came in force. And if turning me Pri-ya wouldn‘t work this time, they could just torture me to make me do what they wanted. I wasn‘t immune to torture. Pain bothered me. A lot. I needed my spear. Now.
―Dani, you and I were made for those weapons. Nobody else can use them like we can! Nobody else is as strong or has as many abilities. By keeping the spear and sword, Rowena makes all of us vulnerable. How dare she sit in her study with both of the only weapons that can kill the Fae, leaving the whole abbey unprotected? She‘s too old to use them! If a Fae got past the wards, she‘d be worthless in a fight. We‘d be sitting ducks. She knows the Seelie want the Hallows back. That it‘s just a matter of time. Shouldn‘t those weapons be in the hands of the two sidhe seers most capable of defending and keeping them? And isn‘t that us?‖
―What are you thinking? You wanna go talk to her together? Gang up on her? Tell her she has to give us the weapons?‖ Dani looked thrilled by the idea.
I snorted. ―Talk? Hardly. Rowena needs a little wake-up call. We don‘t work for her. We don‘t answer to her. We work with her. By choice. Or not at all.‖
Fear battled with savage glee in the adolescent‘s face. ―You know there‘s no going back if we do this,‖ she said breathlessly.
―Who wants to go back?‖ I said coolly. ―I want to go forward. And if you‘re always looking over your shoulder, worrying about the next step you‘re taking, you can‘t. Hesitation kills.‖
―Hesitation kills,‖ Dani echoed like a battle cry, and punched the air with her fist. ―I‘m in, Mac.‖