―Can‘t,‖ I said flatly. ―You and me. We‘re like sisters. Now get a grip on the teen angst and let‘s get moving. I need you tonight, and we‘ve got a lot to do.‖ It had always worked whenever Daddy did it to me: made me do something, to keep my mind off wallowing in whatever emotion I felt like I was going to die from at the moment.
She stared at me, eyes narrowed, lips drawn in a snarl, and I got the impression she was on the verge of freeze-framing out. I wondered how my parents had survived me. I wondered what she was really so upset about. I wasn‘t stupid. There was subtext here. I just couldn‘t figure out what it was. I was about to begin tapping a foot when she finally turned around and began walking. I followed her in silence, giving her the chance to cool off.
The fabric of her long black leather coat eventually relaxed and creased between her shoulder blades. She took a few deep breaths, then said, ―Sisters forgive each other a lot, don‘t they, Mac?
I mean, more than most people?‖
I thought of Alina and how she‘d fallen for the worst villain in this epic mess, even inadvertently helped him gain power. Of how she‘d waited until it was too late to call me. Recently I‘d begun to realize my sister had made some hedgy decisions. Like not telling me what was going on as soon as she learned about it and trying to handle it all herself without asking for help. Strength wasn‘t about being able to do everything alone. Strength was knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it. Alina hadn‘t called in all the reinforcements she could, and she should have. I wouldn‘t make the same mistake. Still, regardless of anything she‘d done or failed to do, it didn‘t change how much I loved her, and it never would. Nothing could.
―Like fighting over what movies to watch,‖ Dani clarified, when I didn‘t answer immediately. I was about to reply when she muttered, ―I thought you‘d think I was cool for watching ?em.‖
I rolled my eyes. ―I already think you‘re cool. And, honey, sisters forgive each other everything.‖
―Really, truly everything?‖
―Everything.‖
As we walked out of the electronics store, I caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror above the door.
It was bleak.
My Dublin no longer existed.
Smashed, broken were the brilliant neon signs that had illuminated the buildings with a kaleidoscope of colors. Long gone were the colorful, diverse people that had filled the streets with boisterous camaraderie and endless craic. Wrecked were the fa?ades of the hundreds of pubs of Temple Bar. The quaint streetlamps were twisted pretzels of metal, and no music spilled from open windows or doors. It was silent. Too silent. All animal life was gone, down to the crickets in the soil. Not one motor hummed. There were no heat pumps kicking on and off. You don‘t realize how much white noise the world makes until it suddenly stops, making it sound like prehistoric times.
This new Dublin was dark and creepy and … still not dead. The once-bustling Irish city was now undead. You could feel the life in her, lurking in the dark wreckage, but it was the kind of life you wanted to drive a stake through.
Given the number of Fae I could sense in the city—so many that it was impossible to separate them out until we were almost on top of them—we encountered surprisingly few Unseelie on the streets. I wondered if they were holding the equivalent of a convention or political rally somewhere for the great LM—freer and leader of the bastard half of the Fae race. Nor did we see Jayne, so I supposed he was off terrorizing Hunters in another part of the city. Over the course of the twenty or so blocks that we walked—‖like a Joe,‖ as Dani called it, because I wasn‘t about to come face-to-face with Ryodan for the first time feeling like I wanted to puke on his shoes—we encountered four Rhino-boys (why did they always travel in pairs?) and an awful slithering thing that was nearly as fast as Dani. I took the RBs, she got the snake. We were at the cross streets of Rêvemal and Grandin when I saw her. If my senses hadn‘t been so fuzzed with Unseelie static from too many on one channel, I might have picked up one of the sifting caste ahead and reacted better.
At first, I couldn‘t believe my eyes. In my defense, from behind I thought it was him—they looked so similar—but I knew it couldn‘t be, because Barrons and I had killed him. Then I thought he must not have been a singularity. Some of the Unseelie castes have countless numbers, like the Rhino-boys, while others are the only of their kind given dark birth by the Unseelie King, perhaps because even he considered them abominations. I had a bad moment, contemplating the horror of hundreds or even thousands of this type of Unseelie loose on the world, and in that moment I forfeited the element of surprise. I must have made some small sound, because she suddenly turned, nine feet of leprous body topped by a long, squished face that was all ravenous mouth. In a blink of an eye, she assessed and dismissed me. I was the wrong gender.
Dani got kudos for trying. She freeze-framed, but I could have told her not to bother. This one sifted. I knew because its male counterpart had once sifted down a street at me and, if not for Barrons, would have killed me.
The Unseelie vanished into thin air, leaving Dani standing a block down the street from me, sword drawn back, seething at having lost her kill. ―What the feck was that, Mac?‖ she said. ―I never seen one before. You?‖
―Barrons called it the Gray Man. We killed it. I thought it was one of a kind, but we just saw the Gray Woman.”
―What‘s her specialty?‖ Dani looked morbidly fascinated. I‘d been that way once. Obsessed with all the terrible ways I might die at an Unseelie‘s hands. Or claws. Or hundreds of sharp-toothed mouths, like Alina.
―They have a taste for human beauty. Barrons says they destroy what they can never have, devour it like a delicacy. They cast a glamour of physical perfection and choose the most attractive humans to seduce. They feed off them through touch, leeching their beauty through the open sores in their hands until they‘ve stolen all there is to steal, leaving their prey as hideous as they are.‖
They didn‘t kill their victims but left them alive to suffer, and sometimes returned to visit them, drawing some sick sustenance from their horror and misery. I‘d watched the Gray Man feed twice. He‘d been especially terrifying to me because, for years, I‘d shamelessly used my looks to my advantage, flirting for better tips, batting my eyelashes at a traffic cop, feigning sultry-blond stupidity to get my way. Before I‘d come to Dublin, I thought my looks were pretty much the only power I had, and losing them would have made me feel worthless.
―Barrons says the victims inevitably commit suicide,‖ I told her, ―because they can‘t face living, looking like they do.‖
―We‘ll bag the bitch,‖ Dani said coolly.
I smiled, but it faded quickly. We‘d arrived at our destination, and I stared, spirits sinking. I wanted answers and I‘d been counting heavily on getting some here, but 939 Rêvemal was a complete disappointment.
A few months ago, Chester‘s elegant granite, marble, and polished-wood fa?ade would have drawn the upper crust of the city‘s bored rich and jaded beautiful, but, like the rest of Dublin, it had been brought to its knees on Halloween, and the once-sophisticated three-story building was a wreck. Stained-glass windows crunched beneath our boots as we skirted riot debris. Marble entry pillars were deeply scored by gash marks that looked as if they‘d been made by something with talons of steel. Lavish French-style gas lamps had been ripped from the sidewalk and tossed in a twisted pile, blocking the club‘s entrance, as if whatever Unseelie was responsible had held some special hatred for the place.
The club sign dangled by cables in front of the pile. It had been smashed to bits. The front and sides of the building were heavily covered with graffiti. Between the lamps and the club sign, there was no getting into the building through the front door.
And no reason to.
Chester‘s was as deserted as the rest of the city.
I punched my palm with a gloved fist. I was sick of dead ends and nonanswers. ―Let‘s go hunt the Gray Woman. She‘s got to be around here somewhere,‖ I growled.
―Why?‖ Dani looked at me blankly.
―Because I‘m frustrated and pissed off, that‘s why.‖
―But I ain‘t ever been in a club,‖ she protested. ―I even dressed for it.‖
―That isn‘t a club, Dani. It‘s a destroyed building.‖
―There‘s all kinds of stuff happening here!‖
―Like what? Shades having a party inside all that rubble?‖
She laughed. ―Aw, man, I forget you‘re deaf! You can‘t hear the music. It‘s got a cool beat, different from most I‘ve heard. I been listening to it for blocks now. Down, Mac. We gotta go down.‖
*
Dani was right: The music was different. But as I would soon find out, it wasn‘t the only thing different about Chester‘s. In fact, nothing was normal. The club would shift all my paradigms and slam home the many changes the world had gone through while I‘d been otherwise …
occupied.
The entrance to the club was now around back: an inconspicuous battered metal door in the ground that looked like a forgotten cellar entry. If Dani hadn‘t been able to hear the music, I would have walked right past the place and never suspected a thing.
The door creaked as it opened on a narrow black maw. I sighed. I hate being underground, but somehow I keep ending up there. I unhooked the MacHalo from my pack, punched on all the lights, and strapped it on my head. Dani did the same, and we descended the ladder in a blaze of light, opened a second trapdoor, and descended a second ladder. We found ourselves in the middle of an industrial foyer of sorts—tastefully decorated in the height of urban chic—facing tall double doors.
I still couldn‘t hear any music. The doors had to be seriously thick. I flexed the sidhe-seer place in my head, wishing I had some idea what to expect, but the channel was still full of static, just louder.
Dani slanted me a narrow-eyed look. ―Don‘t you kinda think there‘d be guards or something?‖
―I think making it through the Dublin night alive and figuring out where this place is might be all the guards it needs,‖ I said dryly. I shoved at the door. It didn‘t budge. ―That and getting the door open.‖ I slipped off my MacHalo and strapped it, still blazing, onto my pack. I tousled my hair to get rid of hat-head.
Dani joined me, and together we shoved open the door and got our first look at Chester‘s. I love you so much you must kill me now …
The music was so loud, the bass vibrated my bones. They were playing Marilyn Manson‘s ―If I Was Your Vampire,‖ but it had been rerecorded to a completely different beat—a little dreamier, a little darker, a thing I wouldn‘t have thought possible.
I stood in the doorway and stared.
Here was the new Temple Bar. Gone underground.
Chester‘s: slick, chic, the height of urban sophistication married to industrial muscle. Chrome and glass, black and white. Coolly erotic, basely sexual. Manhattan posh wed to Irish mob. Everything’s black, no turning back …
The place was huge, the tables packed. The tiered dance floors were crammed with hot bodies. It was standing room only. I was astonished to see that so many humans had survived and were still in Dublin—partying, at that. Under other circumstances, it might have been a pleasant surprise. These so weren‘t other circumstances.
Dani grabbed my arm. It would bruise. ―Un-fecking-real,‖ she breathed. I nodded. I‘m a sidhe-seer. To me, things are simple: There are two races—human and Fae. I work with V‘lane because I have to in order to save my people. I‘ll work with the Queen of the Fae for the same reason. But it‘s programmed into my genes, coded into my blood, that these two races were always intended to live separately, and it‘s my job to keep things that way. Chester‘s was a sidhe-seer‘s nightmare.
It was crammed with Fae and humans—mingling.
No, it was worse than that. They were socializing.