They‘d surprised me.
These Hunters weren‘t just bigger. They were something else, too. Weren‘t all of them the same?
When the Unseelie King had done his experiments and created his dark race, had he made variations on his themes? Were some of the same castes more deadly and powerful than others?
The bastards had nearly split my skull with their threat. I hadn‘t been prepared for it. I was going to have to regard every Fae I encountered, from this moment on, as a wide-open possibility, unpredictable in any but the most basic ways. It pissed me off. A knife should be a knife. How was I supposed to live in a world where a knife could be a grenade? I was going to have to make no assumptions. Ever. Expect the unexpected.
I might be on my knees outside, but I wasn‘t inside. I sought that dark cave where I‘d so recently been an animal. Try, you fuckers, I blasted them.
They screamed again. I heard the pain in it, and smiled.
Trash-can lids clattered to the pavement. Debris battered my head and shoulders. The night stilled.
The Hunters were gone.
I lifted my head and watched two winged silhouettes fly past the moon. It was an eerie sight. Even more eerie, the moon had a crimson tint around the edges, like a halo of blood. Was the juxtaposition of Fae and human realms changing them? Were the dimensions bleeding together, altering each other? What would our world be like in a few more months? A few more years?
I pushed up from my knees to find Jayne staring at my spear.
―Those are the weapons you spoke of at our tea,‖ he said. ―The ones that can kill the Fae.‖
I inclined my head. I didn‘t like the way he was staring.
―We‘ve never tried to bring down one of those devil-dragons.‖
―Hunters,‖ I told him. Ironic and fitting that he‘d singled out his Fae equivalent to harass.
―They‘re enforcers of Fae law. Although they‘re Unseelie, they work for both courts, depending on who pays best.‖
I saw a flash of amusement in his dark eyes, then it was gone, and he was staring fixedly at my spear.
My fingers tightened around it.
―We know we can‘t cage them like the others we capture. They‘re too big. But with that spear, we could kill them where they fell.‖
―Cage them? You‘re caging Unseelie? How?‖
―Took us some time to sort it out. When you opened my eyes to what was happening, I opened my mind to the old legends. We Irish are steeped in them. I kept stumbling across lore that said the Old Ones couldn‘t abide iron. I decided that if werewolves hated silver and vampires hated holy water and garlic, and those things could harm them, perhaps iron could harm a Fae.‖
―Does it?‖ I asked.
―To some degree. It seems to interfere with their power. Enough of it can trap and hold some of them where they are. The more pure the iron, the better. Steel doesn‘t work so well.‖ He slipped his closefitting helmet from his head and showed me the inside. ―We coat them with iron. We lost a few good men before we learned what your so-called Hunters could do.‖
―Iron keeps the Hunters from being able to project into your head?‖ I‘d be altering my MacHalo the moment I could get my hands on some!
―Not entirely. It dampens it, makes it survivable. We all heard what you heard. Just not as painful. But we‘ve gotten pretty used to them trying to feck with us. We‘re wearing iron everywhere. Around our necks, in our pockets. It‘s what we make our bullets from.‖
―Feckin‘ brilliant!‖ Dani exclaimed. ―Mac, we need iron!‖
Jayne glanced at my spear, then at Dani‘s sword. ―Do you know how much good we could do with one of your weapons?‖ He searched my face. ―It‘s not like we‘re looking to leave you unarmed. The two of you could share the sword.‖
―No,‖ Dani and I snapped at exactly the same moment. I tensed. I didn‘t need to look at Dani to know she hovered on the verge of superspeed, a heartbeat from whizzing us out of there.
―Ms. Lane, we‘re all in this together.‖
―Not that together.‖
―Look at us. We‘re capturing hundreds of Fae a week. Locking up the ones that can‘t pull that vanishing-into-thin-air trick. Now, there‘s a lethal move for you,‖ he said bitterly.
―They call it sifting,‖ Dani told him.
He cursed. ―Well, those sifters come back and kill my men. They either sneak in behind us or track us, like they‘re playing with us. They‘d think twice if they knew we had a way to kill them. You have two weapons that can. You can‘t tell me that‘s fair.‖
―What the feck is fair, Jayne? Is it fair that I got dragged into this to begin with?‖
―We all got dragged into this,‖ he growled.
Touché, I thought. ―We can work something out,‖ I offered. ―We‘ll kill them for you.‖ The more Fae dead, the happier I‘d be.
―Some of them will still get away. Unless you‘re saying you‘ll hunt beside us. Be there to bag the buggers the moment we take them down.‖
―I can‘t. I‘m hunting something else, and without it none of this will ever end.‖
His eyes narrowed. ―Would that be the Book I was helping you track?‖
―If I don‘t find it, Jayne, we‘ll never be able to drive them from our world, and I‘m afraid the longer the walls are down, the more screwed up things are going to get. Maybe irrevocably.‖
He measured me coldly. Finally he said, ―I should barter with you. Demand favor for favor. But it‘s not my way. I care more that people survive than I care for vengeance. You might take a lesson from that. Your Book is still in Dublin.‖
―It‘s not my Book,‖ I hissed. When he‘d called it that, my spine had iced with violent chills. As if somehow it was. Or wanted to be. Or I was having some hint of a premonition of things to come. I shook it off. So, the Sinsar Dubh was still being spotted in Dublin. That explained why so many Fae were here. We were all hunting it. I wouldn‘t have thought it would be so difficult to find. It had been months since the walls had come down. Didn‘t it want to be found by Unseelie?
Weren‘t they kin? What did it want in this city? It was a huge world out there, with countless countries and opportunities for chaos and destruction. Yet it remained in Dublin. Why?
―It took one of my men a few weeks ago on his way home to his family. Would you like to know what it did then, Ms. Lane? After it hitched a ride home to his wife, kids, and his mother?‖
I kept my head perfectly still and said nothing. I wasn‘t about to ask. I knew what happened when the Book took over a human. I‘d seen so much carnage in the last few months that I was running out of room in my head for more gory images. ―I‘m sorry,‖ I said, knowing it wasn‘t enough. I understood him wanting one of the Hallows. I could even have made a really good case for it myself, in his shoes. A kinder, gentler Mac would care. A nicer me would share. I wasn‘t, and I wouldn‘t.
―It‘s unfortunate there aren‘t more weapons to go around,‖ I told him with complete sincerity, but it didn‘t change a thing. I had enough to worry about, and I had plans in the works that were every bit as good or better than Jayne‘s. I‘d meant it when I said we could work something out. We could stop by once a week, wherever he and his men were keeping the Fae caged, and kill them all for him.