NULL: A sidhe-seer with the power to freeze a Fae with the touch of his or her hands (e.g., me). While frozen, it is completely powerless. The higher and more powerful the caste of Fae, the shorter the length of time it stays frozen.
O’BANNION, DEREK: Rocky’s brother and the Lord Master’s new recruit. He wants his brother’s spear back and he wants to kill me for killing his brother. I should have let him walk into the Dark Zone that day.
Addendum to original entry: He’s eating Unseelie and has hooked up with Fiona, who’s also eating it!
O’BANNION, ROCKY: Ex-boxer turned Irish mobster, and religious fanatic. He had the Spear of Destiny* in a collection hidden deep underground. Barrons and I broke in one night and stole it. His death was the first human blood on my hands. The night we robbed him, Barrons turned out all the exterior lights around the bookstore. When O’Bannion came after me with fifteen of his henchmen, the Shades devoured them right outside my bedroom window. I knew Barrons was going to do something. And if he’d asked me to choose between them or me, I’d have helped him turn the lights out. You never know what you’ll be willing to do to survive until you get backed into a corner and see what explodes out of you.
OOP: Acronym for Object of Power, a Fae relic imbued with mystical properties. Some are Hallows, some aren’t.
OOP DETECTOR: Me. A sidhe-seer with the special ability to sense OOPs. Alina was one, too, which is why the Lord Master used her.
Addendum to original entry: Very rare. Certain bloodlines were bred for this trait. Rowena’s sidhe-seers say they’ve all died out.
ORB OF D’JAI: No clue, but Barrons has it. He says it’s an OOP. I couldn’t sense it when I held it, but I couldn’t sense anything at that particular moment. Where did he get it and where did he put it? Is it in his mysterious vault? What does it do? How does he get into his vault, anyway? Where is the access to the three floors beneath his garage? Is there a tunnel that connects buildings? Must search.
Addendum to original entry: Barrons gave it to me so I could give it to the sidhe-seers, to use in a ritual to reinforce the walls on Samhain.
PATRONA: Mentioned by Rowena, I supposedly have “the look” of her. Was she an O’Connor? She was at one time the leader of the sidhe-seer Haven.
PHI: Post Haste, Inc., a Dublin courier service that serves as a cover for the sidhe-seer coalition. It appears Rowena is in charge.
Addendum: After the Book was lost, Rowena opened branches of this courier service all over the world, in an effort to track and reclaim it. It was very clever, really. She has bicycling couriers serving as her eyes and ears in hundreds of major cities. The abbey/sidhe-seers have a very wealthy benefactor who funnels funds through multiple corporations. I wonder who it is.
PRI-YA: A human addicted to Fae sex.
Addendum: God help me, I know.
RHINO- BOYS: Ugly, gray-skinned Fae who resemble rhinoceroses with bumpy, protruding foreheads, barrellike bodies, stumpy arms and legs, lipless gashes of mouths, and jutting underbites. They are lower midlevel caste Unseelie thugs dispatched primarily as watchdogs for high-ranking Fae.
Addendum to original entry: They taste horrible.
Addendum to original entry: I don’t believe they can sift space. I saw them locked in cells in Mallucé’s grotto and chained up. It didn’t occur to me at the time how odd that was, then later I thought maybe Mallucé was somehow containing them with spells. But after Jayne made his comment about imprisoning Fae, I realized that not all Fae can sift and I’m starting to wonder if only the very powerful ones can. This could be an important tactical edge. Must explore.
ROWENA: In charge to some degree of a coalition of sidhe-seers organized as couriers at Post Haste, Inc. Is she the Grand Mistress? They have a chapter house or retreat in an old abbey a few hours from Dublin, with a library I must get into.
Addendum to original entry: She has never liked me. She’s playing judge, jury, and executioner where I’m concerned. She sent her girls after me to take my spear away! I will never let her have it. I’ve been to the abbey but only briefly. I suspect many of the answers I want can be found there, either in the forbidden libraries that only the Haven is permitted to enter, or in their memories. I need to figure out who the Haven members are, and get one of them to talk.
ROYAL HUNTERS: A midlevel caste of Unseelie. Militantly sentient, they resemble the classic depiction of the devil, with cloven hooves, horns, long satyrlike faces, leathery wings, fiery orange eyes, and tails.Seven to ten feet tall, they are capable of extraordinary speed on both hoof and wing. Primary function: sidhe-seer exterminators. Threat assessment: kills.
Addendum to original entry: Encountered one. Barrons doesn’t know everything. It was considerably larger than he’d led me to expect, with a thirty-to forty-foot wingspan and a degree of telepathic abilities. They are mercenary to the core and serve a master only so long as it benefits them. I’m not sure I believe they’re midlevel, and in fact, I’m not sure they’re entirely Fae. They fear my spear and I suspect are unwilling to die for any cause, which gives me a tactical edge.
RYODAN: Associate of Barrons and IYCGM on my cell.
Addendum: Top on my list of people to track down.
SEELIE: The “light” or “fairer” court of the Tuatha Dé Danaan governed by the Seelie Queen, Aoibheal.
Addendum: The Seelie cannot touch the Unseelie Hallows. The Unseelie cannot touch Seelie Hallows.
Addendum: According to V’lane the true queen of the Fae is long dead, killed by the Unseelie King, and with her died the Song of Making. Aoibheal is a lesser royal who is one of many that has tried to lead The People since.
SHADES: One of the lowest castes of Unseelie. Sentient but barely. They hunger—they feed. They cannot bear direct light and hunt only at night. They steal life in the manner the Gray Man steals beauty, draining their victims with vampiric swiftness, leaving behind a pile of clothing and a husk of dehydrated human matter. Threat assessment: kills.
Addendum to original entry: I think they’re changing, evolving, learning.
Addendum: I know it is! I swear it’s stalking me!
Addendum: They’ve learned to work together and shape themselves into barriers.
SHAMROCK: This slightly misshapen three-leaf clover is the ancient symbol of the sidhe-seers, who are charged with the mission to See, Serve, and Protect mankind from the Fae.
SIDHE-SEER: (SHE-seer) A person Fae magic doesn’t work on, capable of seeing past the illusions or “glamour” cast by the Fae to the true nature that lies beneath. Some can also see Tabh’rs, hidden portals between realms. Others can sense Seelie and Unseelie objects of power. Each sidhe-seer is different, with varying degrees of resistance to the Fae. Some are limited, some are advanced with multiple “special powers.”
Addendum to original entry: Some, like Dani, are superfast. There’s a place inside my head that isn’t . . . like the rest of me. Do we all have it? What is it? How did we get this way? Where do the bits of inexplicable knowledge that feel like memories come from? Is there such a thing as a genetic collective unconsciousness?
SIFTING: Fae method of locomotion, occurs at speed of thought. (Seen this!)
Addendum to original entry: Somehow V’lane sifted me without my awareness that he was even there. I don’t know if he was able to approach me “cloaked” somehow, then touched me at the last minute and I just didn’t realize it because it happened so fast, or if perhaps instead of moving me, he moved the realms around me. Can he do that? How powerful is V’lane? Could another Fae sift me without me having any advance warning? Unacceptably dangerous! Require more information.
*SIFTING SILVERS OR SILVERS, THE: Unseelie or Dark Hallow, an elaborate maze of mirrors created by the Unseelie King once used as the primary method of Fae travel between realms, until Cruce cast the forbidden curse into the silvered corridors. Now no Fae dares enter the Silvers.
Addendum to original entry: The Lord Master had many of these in his house in the Dark Zone and was using them to move in and out of Faery. If you destroy a Silver does it destroy what was in it? Does it leave an open entry/exit into a Fae realm like a wound in the fabric of our world? What exactly was the curse and who was Cruce?
Addendum to original entry: Barrons has one and walks around in it!
*SINSAR DUBH, THE: (she-suh-DOO): Unseelie or Dark Hallow belonging to the Tuatha Dé Danaan. Written in a language known only to the most ancient of their kind, it is said to hold the deadliest of all magic within its encrypted pages. Brought to Ireland by the Tuatha Dé during the invasions written of in the pseudo-history Leabhar Gabh?la, it was stolen along with the other Dark Hallows, and rumored to have found its way into the world of Man. Allegedly authored over a million years ago by the Dark King of the Unseelie. (A Definitive Guide to Artifacts; Authentic and Legendary)
Addendum to original entry: I’ve seen it now. Words cannot contain a description of it. It is a book but it lives. It is aware.
Addendum: The Beast. Enough said.
*SPEAR OF LUISNE, THE: Seelie or Light Hallow (a.k.a. Spear of Luin, Spear of Longinus, Spear of Destiny, the Flaming Spear): The spear used to pierce Jesus Christ’s side at his crucifixion. Not of human origin, it is a Tuatha Dé Danaan Light Hallow, and one of few items capable of killing a Fae—regardless of rank or power.
Addendum to original note: It kills anything Fae and if something is only part Fae, it kills part of it, horribly.
*SWORD OF LUGH, THE: Seelie or Light Hallow, also known as the Sword of Light, a Seelie Hallow capable of killing Fae, both Seelie and Unseelie. Currently, Rowena has it, and dispatches it to her sidhe-seers at PHI as she deems fit. Dani usually gets it.
Addendum: Saw it. It’s beautiful!
TABH’RS: (TAH-vr) Fae doorways or portals between realms, often hidden in everyday human objects.
TUATHA Dé DANAAN OR TUATHA Dé: (TUA day dhanna or Tua DAY) (See Fae above) A highly advanced race that came to Earth from another world, comprising the Seelie and Unseelie.
UNSEELIE: The “dark” or “fouler” court of the Tuatha Dé Danaan.According to Tuatha Dé Danaan legend, the Unseelie have been confined for hundreds of thousands of years in an inescapable prison. Inescapable, my ass.
V’LANE: According to Rowena’s books, V’lane is a Seelie Prince, Court of the Light, member of the Queen’s High Council, and sometimes Consort. He is a death-by-sex Fae and has been trying to get me to work for him on behalf of Queen Aoibheal to locate the Sinsar Dubh.
VOICE: A Druid art or skill that compels the person it’s being used on to precisely obey the letter of whatever command is issued. Both the Lord Master and Barrons have used this on me. It’s terrifying. It shuts down your will, and makes you a slave. You stare helplessly out from your own eyes and watch your body doing things your mind is screaming at you not to do. I’m trying to learn it. At least to be able to resist it, because otherwise I’ll never be able to get close enough to the Lord Master to kill him, and get vengeance for Alina.
*Denotes a Light or Dark Hallow