13
I’ve had a few paradigm shifts since the day my plane landed in Ireland and I began hunting Alina’s killer—big ones, or so I thought—but this one takes the cake.
There I stand, eyes closed, lips parted, waiting for the kiss of my sister’s lover, when suddenly something wet and warm slaps my face, drips from my chin, drenches my neck, and runs into my bra. More splatters my coat.
When I open my eyes, I scream.
Darroc is no longer about to kiss me, because his head is gone—just gone—and you’re never ready for that, no matter how cold and hard and dead you think you are inside. Being sprayed by the blood of a headless corpse—especially someone you know, whether you like him or not—gets you on a visceral level. Doubly so when you were about to kiss that person.
But even more upsetting is that I don’t know how to merge with the Book.
All I can think is: His head is gone and I don’t know how to merge with the Book. He eats Unseelie. Can I put his head back on? If I do, can he talk? Maybe I can patch him up and torture it out of him.
I fist my hands, furious at this turn of events.
I was a kiss away—okay, maybe a few nights of sleeping with the enemy and despising myself more than I ever thought possible—from getting what I wanted. But it was going to happen. I was gaining his trust. I’d seen it in his eyes. He was going to confide in me. He was going to tell me all his secrets and I was going to kill him and fix the world.
And now his head is no longer on his body, and I don’t know what I needed to know, and I can’t live in this hellish reality for the months it could take me to get the four, the five, and the prophecy.
My entire mission was distilled to one goal—and now that goal is tottering, decapitated, in front of me!
It’s a total bust.
I let him touch me for nothing.
I stare at the bloody stump of his neck as his body staggers in a small circle without a head. I’m astounded he’s still moving. It must be the Unseelie in his veins.
He stumbles and collapses to the ground. Somewhere nearby, I hear garbled sounds. Oh, God, his head is still talking.
Good! Can he form sentences? I’m in a strong bargaining position. Tell me what I want, and I’ll put your head back on.
I frown. Where are the princes? Why didn’t they protect him? Wait a minute! Who did this to him?
Am I next?
I glance wildly around.
“Whuh,” I manage. I can’t process it.
Sidhe-seer, the Hunter purrs in my mind.
I stare blankly. The Hunter that Darroc summoned for us to ride is crouched a dozen paces away, dangling Darroc’s head by the hair, swinging it from a taloned claw.
If Hunters smile, this one is. Leathery lips crack on saber teeth, and it oozes amusement.
Its … hand, for lack of a better word, is the size of a small car. How did it so tidily rip off Darroc’s head?
Did it pinch it off with its talons? It happened absurdly fast.
Why would it kill him?
Darroc was allied with the Hunters. It was the Hunters that taught him to eat Unseelie. Did they—as I once warned him they would—tire of him and turn on him?
I reach for my spear. It’s back. Great, the princes are definitely gone. But before I can pull it out, the Hunter laughs, dry and dusty, in my mind, and I am assaulted by a sense of age that defies time, of sanity that was forged down a long path of madness. It was muting itself before. This one is very different from the other Hunters.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover it was the granddaddy of them all.
It calls itself K’Vruck. Humans have no word for it. It means a state beyond death. Death is small compared to K’Vruck.
“Huh?” I stammer. The voice was in my mind.
K’Vruck is so much more complete than death. It is the reduction of matter to a state of utter inertness, from which nothing can ever rise again. It is less than nothing. Nothing is something. K’Vruck is absolute. Your species would postulate the loss of soul to try to wrap their puny brains around it.
I stiffen. I know this voice. This mockery. My spear will be no use against it. If I kill the Hunter, it would probably just hop a ride on me.
I will tell you a secret, it says silkily. You do go on. Humans. Unless you are—it laughs softly—K’Vrucked.
I suck in a ragged breath.
MacKayla, I permit none to control me. Darroc will never use his shortcut, and you will never learn it.
The Hunter pops Darroc’s head like a grape. Hair and bone slap to the pavement. And now that I’m no longer transfixed by the gory sight, I see what the Hunter holds in its other hand. Had been holding all along.
I back away faster.
There was never any chance that Darroc and I would soar up into the night, and hunt the Sinsar Dubh.
It beat us to the punch.
It hitched a ride on our Hunter and came to us.
And here I am, helpless. I have no stones, my spear is useless—
The amulet! When the Hunter ripped Darroc’s head off, it stayed on his body! I feint a wild glance around, trying hard to look at nothing in particular and everything, to keep from telegraphing my intentions.
Where the hell are the princes? They could sift me out of here! What did they do—vanish the moment Darroc was killed? Cowards!