―I‘d prefer it not end this way,‖ he said softly, and sliced air with a hand gesture. His men closed in around us.
Dani moved to stand next to me, shoulder to shoulder. I imagined that to them we looked like two young girls, huddling close, daunted by such a show of armed manpower.
―So would I,‖ I said just as softly. ―Never try to take from me, Jayne. Never make that mistake. What‘s mine is mine. You really don‘t know what you‘re messing with.‖
―I don‘t want to ?mess‘ with you at all, Ms. Lane. I‘m merely looking for a little teamwork.‖
―I‘ve already got my team, Jayne.‖ I looked at Dani and nodded.
Her face lit up and she grinned. ―Tuck in your elbows, Mac.‖
I poked them out, the better to bruise a few ribs along the way. I got a gratifying chorus of grunts, heard guns clatter to the pavement.
They didn‘t even see us go.
―We need iron, Mac,‖ Dani said as we moved down the street, back at normal speed again. We‘d put a huge chunk of the city behind us in a matter of seconds. Her mode of transportation, nauseous as it made me, was worth its weight in gold.
I nodded absently, still mulling over the Jayne encounter. I regretted that it had ended on a note of animosity. I wanted every front in the battle for our planet united, with no cracks any Fae could slip through.
―We need more than iron.‖ I was busy making a mental list to scribble in my journal later. Between high school and college, my dad had made me take a Franklin Planner course. He said it would help me get control of my life. I told him I had control of my life: sun, friends, fashion, marriage one day. That’s not enough for you, baby, he said.
I argued; he bribed. I took the course, let Daddy spend a fortune on pink flower-covered calendar pages, doodled on them until I got bored, and shelved it.
What a brat I‘d been.
One of the primary tenets of the course was that highly successful leaders kept journals, morning and night, in order to stay tightly focused on their goals. I was going to be a highly successful leader.
―I don‘t have a gun, Mac. I need a gun.‖ Dani had turned to face me and was walking backward, bounding from foot to foot, a thousand watts of hyper energy, gobbling a candy bar. I was surprised her auburn hair wasn‘t crackling with static electricity from frantic friction with the pavement.
I laughed. ―All weapons are good weapons, is that it?‖
―Aren‘t they?‖
Watching her was like watching a Ping-Pong ball bounce back and forth: zing-zing, zing-zing. I liked the way she thought. ―I‘ve got a plan.‖
―You said you‘d make them take us back at the abbey. Is this part of it?‖
―You bet.‖ I eyed her speculatively. ―Just how super is your superhearing? If there was somebody really stealthy nearby, could you hear him before we stumbled on him?‖
Her eyes narrowed. ―How stealthy?‖
―Very.‖
She gave me a suspicious look. ―We talking Jericho Barrons stealthy?‖
I frowned. ―How do you know how stealthy he is?‖
―I saw him the day he busted you out. The nine of ?em were all the same. Oozing whatever it is he oozes.‖
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried to wrap my brain around what she‘d just said. Then,
―Nine?‖ I said. ―Eight other men like Barrons? As in exactly like him?‖
―Well, they weren‘t ninetuplets or nothing, but yeah. He had eight other … whatever they are with him. Big men. Bad-asses. Major show of force, breaking you out. Ro never woulda let you go.‖ She was bouncing from foot to foot so rapidly, she was becoming difficult to focus on.
―I don‘t remember that! How come I didn‘t see them? I mean, I know I was … out of it, but—‖
―He didn‘t let any of ?em near you. It was like he didn‘t even want ?em to see you. None of ?em was human, that‘s a fact.‖
I sucked in a sharp breath. ―You know that? How?‖
Her face was too blurred to see, but I heard the scowl in her voice. ―He grabbed me out of superspeed. Like it was no effort at all. Nothing human could do that.‖
―Barrons was able to stop you?‖ I said incredulously.
―Snatched me right outta the air.‖
―How could he even move fast enough to get to you in the first place?‖ I exclaimed. Was there anything the man couldn‘t do? Most of my plans relied heavily on Dani‘s superspeed.
―?Zactly what I thought.‖
I tried to focus on her but couldn‘t. It was giving me a headache. ―Would you slow down?‖ I said, exasperated. ―You‘re impossible to see.‖
―Sorry,‖ said the smudge of long black leather coat, MacHalo lights, and luminous sword.
―Happens when I get excited or upset. Pissed me off that he could do it. Hang on.‖ She was visible again, tearing open another candy bar.
―So, there are eight others like Barrons.‖ I tried to wrap my mind around the fact. Where had they been all this time? What were they? What was he? Another caste of Unseelie no one knew about? ―You‘re absolutely certain? It‘s not possible they were normal men?‖
―No way. They moved weird. Way weirder even than Barrons, like he‘s the civilized one of the lot. It was creepy. I didn‘t pick up Fae, but I sure didn‘t get no human read off ?em, either. And some of their eyes were way fecked up. Nobody wanted to get near ?em. Sidhe-seers plastered against the walls, trying to stay as far outta their way as possible. One of ?em had a blade to Ro‘s neck. All toting Uzis, storming in there, not taking shit from nobody. You could tell they were Death walking if anybody even blinked wrong. The girls couldn‘t stop talking about it. They were pissed, but … well, they were kinda fascinated, too. Shoulda seen the way those dudes looked. The way Barrons looked. Dude,” she said reverently, then glanced at me, alarmed. ―I mean, man, you shoulda seen it. Don‘t call me Danielle, I hate that name.‖
There were eight other … beings … like Barrons out there. I could barely deal with one. Who and what were they? Of all the things I‘d learned today, this one rattled me the most. I‘d considered him an anomaly. One of a kind. He wasn‘t. I should have expected the unexpected. Eight others like him. At least eight others, I amended. Who knew? Maybe he‘d only brought a limited number with him. Maybe there were dozens more. And he‘d never told me about them. Not one word.
Any reservations I might have entertained about the plan I‘d been working on since encountering Jayne vanished.
―You‘re right, Dani,‖ I said. ―You need a gun. In fact, we need a lot of guns. And I know just where to find them.‖