FOURTEEN
I settled into the tufted leather seat of the high-backed snug, or booth as we call them back home in the States, and ordered a beer and a shot.
For the first time since I’d come to Dublin, I felt curiously at peace, as if a critical game piece had been placed on the board today, and the match was finally, fully under way.
On one side of the board was the Lord Master. He was bad. He was bringing Unseelie through. He planned to destroy our world.
On the other side of the board was me—tiny little hand waving here, a dot the size of a pencil tip on an aerial shot of the planet. I wanted vengeance for my sister and I wanted the Fae to get the feck, as Dani would say, out of our world. I was good.
There were three other major players on the board: V’lane, Barrons, and Rowena.
They all had one thing in common: They wanted me.
One was a Fae. One was an unknown. One was—I was pretty sure, though she’d not said and I’d not asked—the Grand Mistress of sidhe-seers.
They all had their private agendas and secrets.
And I had no doubt all three of them would lie to me as smoothly and easily as they’d put a knife through each other’s backs.
I pulled out my journal and began writing.
I started with V’lane. According to Rowena, he’d been telling me the truth. He was a Seelie prince, a member of the queen’s High Council, and working on her behalf to stop the Unseelie from entering our world and taking it over. That seemed to place him on my side of the board, the good side, which was a little hard to swallow because I knew that he was ruthless and would manipulate me to the brink of death to achieve his ends, in addition to trying to have potentially lethal sex with me along the way.
He was at least one hundred and forty-two thousand years old, probably substantially older. I wasn’t sure it was possible for him to understand how a human felt about anything, therefore the damage he might do to me, even if he was trying to abstain from damaging me, was immense.
Barrons was next. Indisputably self-serving, could he be the most treacherous of the three? When Rowena had mentioned the abbey, a few hours from town, then said that Dani had been looking for me at the bookstore for the past month, I’d known instantly that Barrons must have followed the young girl and tracked her, or Rowena herself, back to the abbey at some point.
My abbey.
Then he’d had the gall to try to make me do a drive-by, no doubt to see if the Sinsar Dubh was perhaps secreted away beneath the abbey grounds—after all, who better to stand guard over a book of dark Fae magic than a horde of sidhe-seers who could see any and all of the monsters that might try to come after it?—without ever saying, Oh, by the way, I found the headquarters of sidhe-seers while you were gone and I bet they might be able to tell you something about yourself. No, there would be no voluntary sharing of useful information with me.
Barrons walked among Shades and came to no harm. Barrons could see the Fae; he knew about Druids; he had abnormal strength and speed; and although it had taken me some time to admit it to myself, what stared out at me from behind those jet eyes didn’t seem thirty years old. Was he a human who’d somehow learned to cheat time? Was he Fae and I couldn’t sense it? If so, how powerful a Fae was he, that he could out-glamour a sidhe-seer? Was it possible one of those diaphanous Fae had slipped inside him and taken over what used to be Barrons? I discarded that thought the instant I had it. I didn’t believe anything, not even a Fae, could take over Jericho Barrons.
Fiona had disappeared after attempting to harm his OOP detector. An inspector who’d been snooping into his business was killed. People that interfered with Jericho Barrons had a convenient way of vanishing or dying. Still…I had no proof he’d done anything nefarious in either of those cases.
He didn’t seem to want more Unseelie in our world. Nor, however, did he seem to have any interest in trying to save our world. Was he really so mercenary and ambivalent? Did he genuinely want the book just to sell it to the highest bidder?
Then there was the question of how he planned to touch it, assuming we found it. The Sinsar Dubh was so evil it corrupted anyone who came in contact with it. Did he believe he could tattoo protection spells into his skin that would permit him to touch it without it corrupting him? Could he?
I rubbed my forehead and tossed back my shot. It burned all the way down my throat. I thumped my chest with my fist and drew a scorched breath.
The only thing that was certain about Jericho Barrons was that nothing was certain. With far more questions than answers, I couldn’t place him on either side of the board.
With V’lane tentatively on the good side, and Barrons on the sidelines, next was Rowena. What a piece of work. Rowena should have been someone I could position firmly on my side of the game, and in terms of single-mindedly opposing the Unseelie and the Fae in general, I could. The problem was I didn’t feel I could in terms of my welfare.
I knew V’lane and Barrons both wanted me alive, and had the ability to keep me in that condition. However, I wasn’t so sure about Rowena. If she believed there was someone more qualified—and more malleable than I—to honor her holy triumvirate of See, Serve, and Protect with my spear, to what lengths might she go to take it from me? If humans met Fae ruthlessness with equal ruthlessness, how were we different from them? Didn’t there have to be some defining factor? Was I really supposed to walk up to a human woman and kill her because a Fae had stepped inside her, without first trying to see if there was some way to get it out? Tonight when I went to sleep would I dream about the deaths I’d caused by letting her walk away?
Thinking about Rowena sucked. I added a little note with an asterisk: if she isn’t the Grand Mistress, who is?
I moved on to making notes about the minor players like Mallucé, who’d been working for, and two-timing, the Lord Master. According to Barrons he’d still not been seen or heard from during the month I’d been gone, which I decided meant the vampire’s memorial service had been for real, and he really was dead. If he’d survived what Barrons and I had done to him, he would have been back among his worshippers long before now. I wondered if the Lord Master had someone new serving his purposes. I brushed Mallucé off the board. One down!
I decided the McCabes, O’Bannions, and sundry collectors of Fae artifacts weren’t part of the game. Only those seeking the Sinsar Dubh or working for someone who was merited their own square.
I accorded all the Unseelie in our world pawn status. It seemed their primary purpose was to indulge their twisted appetites, spy on humans, and create general chaos. To keep things stirred up while the Lord Master pursued his private agenda, and when he’d ultimately achieved his ends, serve him. If there was any single Unseelie more significant than another, either I hadn’t yet encountered it, or was too dense to see it.
I paused with my pen above the page, wondering about the players behind the scenes, as yet unseen.
The Seelie Queen, I wrote. According to V’lane she wanted the Sinsar Dubh, but why? Did she need it to recontain the Unseelie? Were there spells in there that governed their darker brethren? What was the Sinsar Dubh, really? I knew it was a book of black magic authored by the Unseelie King, but what did it do? What did everyone want it for? Did each player have a different desire/use for it? What spells and enchantments were scribed in its pages that were so heinous they could corrupt anyone who came in contact with it? Could words and symbols wield such power? Could mere scribblings on parchment unmake a person’s moral fiber? Weren’t we made of sterner stuff?
I was in no hurry to find out. My two brushes with the Dark Book had pushed me beyond pain into unconsciousness, left me weak as a baby and wishing desperately that I’d never found my way onto this game board.
Where was the Unseelie King in all this?
Did he signify or was he an absentee landlord?
If my book of dark magic had gone missing, you could bet your petunia I’d be out there looking for it. Was he? Why hadn’t he tracked me down, too? Everyone else had. How had his book gotten away from him in the first place? For that matter, indulging myself in perfect paranoia—which, in the world I inhabited, seemed perfectly reasonable—had it gotten away from him? What if it was nothing more than bait at the end of a very long fishing line? If so, what was he fishing for? Was the Lord Master himself a pawn, being moved about by a much darker, unspeakably ancient hand? Was the playing board bigger than I could see? Were we all pawns of something much larger than we knew?
Somewhere out there on the game board, the Sinsar Dubh was moving around. Who was moving it? How was it being moved? And why?
And what kind of prankster benevolent being—this was the one I really wanted to know—would create something like me that could sense the most dangerous of all relics, then give me a fatal flaw that caused me to pass out every time I got near it?
I ordered another shot and tossed it back, indulging myself in a ritual I’d witnessed too many times across my bar: swallow, shudder, breathe.
“Mind if I join you?”
I glanced up. It was the guy with the Scottish accent from the Ancient Languages Department at Trinity; “Scotty,” the one I’d gotten the envelope about the illegal auction from. Small world. And everyone keeps telling me how large a city Dublin is.
I shrugged. “Sure, why not.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly.
I suspected he was unaccustomed to such a blasé response from women. He was about the same age as the dreamy-eyed guy he worked with, but the resemblance ended there. His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of-man, but Scotty was broader, his body more filled out, and there was maturity in the way he walked and moved, a quiet self-assurance, as if, even at his age, he’d already been tested.
Six foot two or three, his hair was long and dark and pulled back at his nape. Gold tiger eyes swept me appreciatively. Estrogen responded to testosterone—this boy was a man—and I sat up a little straighter.
“To fine Scotch and lovely lasses.” He clinked a glass of whisky to my mug of beer and we drank. I chased it with a third shot: swallow, shudder, breathe. That cold place in my stomach, where I felt alone and lost, was finally starting to warm up.
He extended his hand. “I’m Christian.”
I took it. His hand swallowed mine. “Mac.”
He laughed. “You don’t look like a Mac to me.”
“Okay, I give up. Why does everyone keep saying that? What do I look like?”
“In most places Mac is a man’s name and you, lass, look nothing like a man. Where I come from you just introduced yourself to me as ‘from the clan of’ and I’m still waiting for the rest of your name.”
“You’re from Scotland.”
He nodded. “From the clan of the Keltar.”
Christian MacKeltar. “Beautiful name.”
“Thanks. I’ve been watching you since you came in. You look…pensive. And if I’m not mistaken, that was your third shot. When a lovely lass drinks shots alone I worry. Is everything okay?”
“Just a rough day. Thanks for asking.” How sweet he was. A much-needed reminder that there were nice people in the world; I just didn’t get to hang out with them often.
“You write?” He gestured to my journal. I’d closed it the moment he’d sat down.
“I keep a diary.”
“Really?” A brow rose, his golden gaze shone with interest.
I almost laughed. I had no doubt he thought I wrote about cute boys and pretty clothes and the latest reality TV show hunk I had a crush on; all those things that used to occupy my mind. I was tempted to shove it across the table at him, tell him to read a page or two, then see if he still wanted to sit with me, and after three shots, I was just buzzed enough to do it.
I was tired of lies and tired of being alone and tired of feeling disconnected. I was tired of being with people I couldn’t trust and wanting to trust people I couldn’t be with, like this guy for example, or his coworker, the dreamy-eyed guy. I was hungry for normalcy and angry enough to want to destroy any chance I had at getting it.
“Check it out.” I shoved my notebook across the table.
He looked startled, conflicted. I could tell he wanted to know my innermost thoughts—what man would turn down a chance to read what a woman really thought, uncensored?—yet knew he should preserve my dignity if I was too drunk to do it myself, and shove it back at me. Which would win: man or gentleman?
The man opened my journal to the first page, a page of descriptions of the latest Unseelie I’d been seeing, followed by a page of speculation about how they killed and how I might best kill them.
I let him finish both pages before reclaiming my notebook.
“So,” I said brightly, “now that you know I’m nuts—” I broke off and stared at him. “You do know I’m nuts, right?” There was something very wrong with the way he was looking at me.
“MacKayla,” he said softly, “come somewhere with me, somewhere…safer than this. We need to talk.”
I sucked in a breath. “I didn’t tell you my name was MacKayla.” I stared at him, a little too toasted to deal with the panic I was feeling over this unexpected paradigm shift. I’d been trying to destroy my chances at normalcy only to find out I’d never had any chance at normalcy in this situation because the normal boy wasn’t normal.
“I know who you are. And what you are,” he said quietly. “I’ve met your kind before.”
“Where?” I was bewildered. “Here, in Dublin?”
He nodded. “And elsewhere.”
Surely not. Was it possible? He’d known my name. What else did he know about me? “Did you know my sister?” I was suddenly breathless.
“Aye,” he said heavily, “I knew Alina.”
My mouth dropped. “You knew my sister?” I practically screeched. How did he know us? Who was this man?
“Aye. Will you come with me, somewhere private we can talk?”
When my cell phone rang, even buried as it was in my purse, it was so loud it nearly scared me out of my skin, and pub patrons three booths down turned to glare. I didn’t blame them; it was an obnoxious ring, a blaring band of celestial trumpets, set on full volume. Obviously Barrons hadn’t wanted me to miss a call.
I fumbled for it, flipped it open, and pressed send. Barrons sounded pissed. “Where the f*ck are you?” he demanded.
“None of your business,” I said coolly.
“I saw two Hunters in the city tonight, Ms. Lane. Word is more are on the way. A great deal more. Get your ass home.”
I sat there frozen with a dead line. He’d said what he had to say and hung up.
I can’t explain what the word “Hunters” does to me, but it gets me where I live. It gets me in my most sacred place, the one where I used to feel safe but never will again so long as there are Fae in my world. It’s as if certain things are programmed into a sidhe-seer’s DNA and we have gut reactions that can’t be diminished, controlled, or overcome.
“You’ve gone white as a sheet, lass. What’s wrong?”
I considered my options. There were none. The pub I was in closed early on weeknights. It was either make a run for the bookstore now, or wait a few hours, and if more Hunters were on the way, in a few hours it would only be more dangerous.
“Nothing.” I slapped down a few bills and some change. Why hadn’t Barrons come after me? My phone rang again. I dug it out.
“I would only make us a bigger target, and I’ve got my hands a bit full at the moment,” he said. “Stay close to the buildings, under overhangs when possible. Lose yourself in throngs of other people when you can.”
What was he—a mind reader? “I could catch a cab.”
“Have you seen what’s driving them lately?”
No, but I sure was going to be looking now that he’d said that.
“Where are you?”
I told him.
“You’re not far. You’ll be fine, Ms. Lane. Just get here fast, before more arrive.” He hung up again.
I stuffed my journal and phone in my purse and stood up.
“Where are you going?” Christian said.
“I have to leave. Something’s come up.” Whatever crimes I might lay at Barrons’ feet, I believed he could protect me. If there were Hunters in the city tonight, I wanted the most dangerous man I knew at my side, not a twenty-something Scottish guy who’d known my sister—who was, grim case in point, dead—so obviously he’d been of no help to her. “I want to know everything. Can I come see you at Trinity?”
He stood. “Whatever’s going on, Mac, let me help you with it.”
“You’ll only slow me down.”
“You don’t know that. I might be useful.”
“Don’t push me,” I said coldly. “I’m sick of being pushed.”
He assessed me a moment, then nodded. “Come see me at Trinity. We’ll talk.”
“Soon,” I promised. As I left the pub, I marveled at my ignorance. I’d been sitting there, believing Rowena the final, critical piece. While I’d been busy analyzing my board, making judgments and decisions, feeling pretty smart about myself, a player I’d known nothing about had strolled up and sat down, and like everyone else, he knew a great deal more about me than I knew about him.
I was back to feeling dumb.
Just where on the game board was I supposed to place Christian MacKeltar?
I took a mental swipe at it, toppled all the pieces, and stepped into the night. The heck with it. Right now I needed to get back to the bookstore, undetected by my mortal enemy, monsters whose sole purpose was to hunt and destroy people like me.
My dad had this thing he used to say to me when I’d try to convince him that a D on my report card was really close to a C. He’d say, Mac, baby, close only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes.
I was really close; in fact, I was almost home when the Hunter found me.