FIFTEEN
I spent most of the day before Halloween cleaning up after the prior night’s festivities. Unlike the aftermath of fun back home in Georgia, the remnants of a rollicking good time in Dublin weren’t sticky plastic cups, crusts of half-eaten pizza, and cigarette butts dropped in beer bottles, but dead monsters and body parts.
Problem: when you kill a Fae, they cease projecting glamour, and contrary to pop culture’s inane belief, the corpses do not disintegrate. They remain here, in our world, perfectly visible to all. In the pleasure of the kill, I forgot the corpses. So did Dani. It’s not like they suddenly become visible to me when they die. They’re always visible to me.
I learned from the morning news about the discovery of “movie props displayed in gruesome fashion around Dublin,” rubbery monsters from the set of some “in-production horror movie, arranged as a prank, and people mustn’t be alarmed, but call the Garda; they’ve designated manpower to clean . . . er, pick them up.”
My phone was ringing before the spot was over. It was Rowena. “Clean them up, you bloody imbecile!”
I was eating breakfast. “They just said the Garda are taking care of it,” I muttered around a mouthful, mostly to irritate her. I’d been thinking the same thing. I needed to tidy up, and quickly. I was ashamed of myself for not realizing what I was doing.
“Did you leave a trail of bodies that can be traced to you?”
I winced. Probably. “I didn’t know you cared, Ro,” I said coolly.
“Was Dani with you last night?” she demanded.
“No.”
“You did all that by yourself?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How many?”
“I lost count. Over a hundred.”
“Why?”
“I’m sick of doing nothing.”
She was quiet for several moments, then, “I want you at the abbey for the ritual tomorrow.”
I almost choked on a bite of crusty muffin top. That was the last thing I’d expected her to say. I’d been bracing for a lengthy accounting of my many failings, and had been contemplating hanging up before she had the chance to begin. Now I was glad I hadn’t. “Why?”
There was another long silence. “There is strength in numbers,” she said finally. “You are a powerful sidhe-seer.” Whether I like it or not remained unsaid, but floated in the air.
Like the MacKeltars, she wanted all the power that she could get at her disposal.
I’d been thinking of crashing it anyway. I felt drawn to fight with them. If they were making a stand, I wanted to be there. I didn’t feel drawn to join the MacKeltars the same way. I guess blood tells. Now I had an invitation. “What time?”
“The ceremony begins precisely one hour after sunset.”
I didn’t need to consult the calendar hanging in my bedroom upstairs to know the sun would rise tomorrow at 7:23 A.M. and set at 4:54 P.M. Nature rules me in ways she never used to. I can’t wait for the long, bright days of summer again, and not just because of my love of the sun. These short, dreary days of fall and winter frighten me. December 22, the Winter Solstice, will be the shortest day of the year, at seven hours, twenty-eight minutes, and forty-nine seconds of daylight. The sun will rise at 8:39 and set at 4:08. That gives the Shades fifteen hours, thirty-two minutes, and eleven seconds to come out and play. More than twice as much as humans get. “When will we know for sure it worked?”
“Shortly after we open the orb,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain of that. It was unsettling to hear doubt in Rowena’s voice.
“I’ll think about it.” That was a lie. I’d most definitely be there. “What’s in it for me?”
“That you ask such a thing only reinforces my opinion of you.” She hung up.
I finished my muffin and coffee, then headed out to sweep up breadcrumbs, and keep the monsters from my door.
I stuffed Unseelie corpses in trash Dumpsters, hid them in abandoned buildings, and even managed to shove two into a concrete pour on a construction site when the workers took a coffee break.
I dragged the ones closest to the bookstore into the nearby Dark Zone. Even in broad daylight, it was hard for me to make myself go in there. I could feel Shades in all directions, the pulsating darkness of their voracious, terrible hunger. Where did they go? Were they wedged in tiny dark crannies of the bricks, watching me? Did they slither off underground? Were they piled up in dark corners inside the decrepit buildings? How small could they get? Might one be hiding in that empty soda can, at just the right angle to avoid the light? I’d never been a kick-the-can girl, and wasn’t about to start now.
The streets were oddly empty. I would find out later that record numbers of people called in sick the last two days before Halloween. Fathers took long overdue personal days. Mothers kept their children home from school, for no good reason. I think you didn’t need to be a sidhe-seer to feel the taut, expectant hush in the air, to hear the distant drumming of dark hooves on a troubled wind, moving closer, closer.
Closer.
I sliced, diced, and bottled a new stash of Unseelie while I was out. I’d expected Jayne days ago, but decided maybe the effects lasted longer in ordinary humans.
On my way back to the bookstore, I stopped at the grocery to grab a few items, then popped into a bakery and picked up the order I’d placed yesterday.
Then I stood under the spray of a steaming hot shower, naked but for the thigh sheath I’d taken to wearing so I could give myself better than a one-handed hair washing, and scrubbed away the taint of dead Unseelie.
By midnight, Barrons hadn’t shown up and I was feeling pissy. He’d said he’d be here. I’d planned for it.
By one, I was worried. By two, I was certain he wasn’t going to show. At three-fifteen, I called him. He answered on the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?” I snapped, at the same time he snapped, “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been waiting for hours,” I said.
“For what?”
“You said you’d be here.”
“I was delayed.”
“Maybe you could have called?” I said sarcastically. “You know, picked up the phone and said ‘Hey, Mac, I’m running late.’ ”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Then Barrons said softly, “You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Do not wait on me, Ms. Lane. Do not construct your world around mine. I’m not that man.”
His words stung. Probably because I’d done exactly that: structured my night around him, even played out in my head how it was going to go. “Screw you, Barrons.”
“I’m not that man, either.”
“Oh! In your dreams! Allow me to put this into words you taught me yourself: I resent it when you waste my time. Keys, Barrons. That’s what I’ve been waiting for. The Viper’s in the shop.” And I missed it like I missed my long blond hair. We’d bonded, the Viper and I. I doubted I’d ever get it back. It had been heavily damaged from its high-speed trip down the sidewalk and, if I knew Barrons as well as I thought I did, he’d sell it before he’d drive it again, no matter how flawlessly it was repaired. I kind of felt the same way. When you spend that much money, you want perfection. “I need a car to drive.”
“Why?”
“I’ve decided to go to the abbey for the ritual,” I said.
“I’m not certain that’s wise.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“Maybe it should be,” he said.