Fever 3 - Faefever (27 page)

Seven days left. Six. Five. Four.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something going on out there, staring me straight in the face, that I was missing. I might have gotten pretty good at thinking outside my tiny little provincial box, but I suspected there was a much larger box that I needed to think outside of now, and to do that, I had to
see
the box.

Toward that end, I spent my days, armed to the hilt, collar turned up against the cold, walking the streets of Dublin, elbowing my way past tourists who continued to visit the city despite the gloom and the cold and the high crime rate.

Slipping between Unseelie horrors, I popped into a pub for a hot toddy, where I eavesdropped shamelessly on conversations, human and Fae alike. I stopped in a corner dive for fish and chips and chatted up the grill cook. I stood on the sidewalk and made small talk with one of the few remaining human newsstand vendors—coincidentally the same elderly gentleman who had given me directions to the Garda when I’d first arrived here—and who now confided in his lovely lilt that the headlines of the scandal rags were right; the Old Ones
were
returning. I toured the museums. I visited Trinity’s astounding library. I sampled beers at the Guinness brewery and stood up on the platform, staring out at the sea of roofs.

And I had a startling realization: I loved this city.

Even swimming as she was with monsters, deluged by crime, tainted by the violence of the
Sinsar Dubh,
I loved Dublin. Had Alina felt this way? Terrified of what might come, but more alive than she’d ever been?

And more alone.

The
sidhe
-seers weren’t returning my calls. Not even Dani. They’d chosen. Rowena had won. I knew they were afraid. I knew she and the abbey were all most of them had ever known, and that she would skillfully manipulate their fears. I wanted to storm over to PHI and fight. Call the old woman out; argue my case with the
sidhe
-seers. But I didn’t. There are some things you shouldn’t have to ask for. I’d given them their show of faith. I expected some in return.

I walked the streets. I watched. I made notes in my journal about the various things I saw.

Even Barrons had abandoned me, off looking into some ancient ritual he believed might help on Samhain.

Christian called and invited me out to MacKeltar-land, somewhere in the hills of Scotland, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the city. I felt like her vanguard, or maybe just the captain going down with her ship. His uncles, Christian told me grimly, were tolerating Barrons, but barely. Nonetheless, they’d agreed to work together for the duration. His tone made it clear that once the ritual was over, there might be an all-out Druid war. I didn’t care. They could fight all they wanted once the walls were fortified.

Three days before Halloween, I found a plane ticket to Ashford outside my bedroom door. It was one-way. The flight was that afternoon. I stood holding it for a long time, eyes closed, leaning back against the wall, picturing my mom and dad, and my room at home.

October in south Georgia is fall at its finest: trees dressed in ruby, amber, and pumpkin; the air redolent with the scent of leaves and earth, and down-home southern cooking; the nights as clear as you can find only in rural America, far from the sky-dimming lights of city life.

Halloween night, the Brooks would host their annual Ghosts and Ghouls Treasure Hunt. The Brickyard would hold a costume contest, inviting the town to come as they
wished
they were. It was always a blast. People chose the strangest things. If I wasn’t working and it was warm enough, Alina and I would throw a pool party. Mom and Dad were always cool about it, checking into a local bed-and-breakfast for the night. They’d made no secret of the fact that they rather looked forward to getting away from us all for a romantic night alone.

I lived my trip home while holding that ticket.

Then I called and tried to get Barrons’ money refunded. The best they could do was reassign the funds, for a fee, to a future fare in my name.

“Did you think I’d run?” I asked later that night. Barrons was still wherever he was. I’d rung him up on my cell phone.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Would you have gone, if I’d made it round-trip?”

“No. I’m afraid something might follow me. I gave up the idea of going home a long time ago, Barrons. One day I will. When it’s safe.”

“What if it never is again?”

“I have to believe it will be.”

There was a long silence. The bookstore was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I was lonely. “When are you coming home?” I asked.

“Home, Ms. Lane?”

“I have to call it something.” We’d had this exchange once before, standing in a cemetery. I’d told him if home was where the heart was, mine was six feet under. That was no longer true. My heart was inside me now, with all its hopes and fears and pains.

“I’m nearly done. I’ll be there tomorrow.” The line went dead.

_____

Three o’clock in the morning.

I shot straight up in bed.

Heart hammering. Nerves screaming.

My cell phone was ringing.

“What the feck?” Dani snapped when I answered. “You sleep like the fecking dead up there! I been calling you for five fecking minutes!”

“Are you okay?” I demanded, shivering. I’d been in that cold place again. Shadowy dream remnants slipped away but the chill remained.

“Look out your window, Mac.”

I pushed out of bed, grabbed my spear, and hurried to the window.

My bedroom, like the last one that Barrons trashed, is on the rear of the building, so I can watch the back alley out my window, and keep tabs on the Shades.

Dani was standing down there, in the narrow path of light between the bookstore and Barrons’ garage, cell phone propped between her skinny shoulder and ear, grinning up at me. Shades watched her hungrily from their roost in the shadows.

She was wearing a long black leather coat that was straight out of a vampire movie, and much too big through the shoulders. As I watched, she slid something long and alabaster and shiningly beautiful out from under it.

I gasped. It could only be the Sword of Light.

“Let’s go kick some fairy ass.” Dani laughed, and the look in her eyes was anything but thirteen years old.

“Where’s Rowena?” I dropped my PJ bottoms and thrust a leg into jeans, teeth chattering. I hate my Cold Place dreams.

“Ro’s away. She left on a plane this afternoon. Couldn’t take the sword with her. I snuck out. You wanna talk or you wanna come slay some Unseelie, Mac?”

Was she kidding? This was a
sidhe
-seer wet dream. Instead of sitting around, thinking, talking, researching—I could get out there and
do
something! I thumbed off my phone, layered two T-shirts beneath a sweater and a jacket, tugged on boots, grabbed my MacHalo on the way out and strapped it on, wishing I had one for her, too. No matter; if we ended up in the dark somewhere, I’d stick to her like
sidhe
-seer glue.

We took down eighty-seven Unseelie that night.

Then we lost count.

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.

“I can’t do anything to help the MacKeltars, Barrons.”

“I didn’t say you should. Perhaps you should remain in the store tomorrow night. It’s the safest place for you.”

“You want me to
hide
?” My voice rose with disbelief on the last word. Months ago, I might have happily hid. Watched late night TV while painting my fingernails and toenails to match, a divine shade of pink. Now? Not a chance.

“Sometimes caution is the wisest course,” he said.

“Tell you what, Barrons: you come be cautious with me, I’ll stay in, too. Not because I want your company,” I said before he could make a pithy comment, “but because of that whole good-for-the-goose-and-gander thing. I’m not going to gander helplessly.”

“You’re the goose, Ms. Lane. I’m the gander.”

As if I could mistake his gender. “That was a double entendre,” I informed him stiffly. “I was being clever. Gander has multiple meanings. What good is being clever when the person you’re being clever to is too dense to get it?”

“I’m not dense,” he said just as stiffly, and I sensed one of our childish fights looming on the horizon. “As a double entendre it didn’t work. Look up double entendre.”

“I
know
what double entendre means. And you can just shove your stupid birthday cake. I don’t even know why I bothered!”

The silence was so protracted that I decided he’d hung up.

I hung up, too, wishing I’d done it first.

Twenty minutes later, Barrons stepped through the door from the back of the bookstore. Ice was crystallized in his hair, and he was pale from extreme cold.

I was sitting on the sofa in the rear conversation area, too aggravated to sleep. “Good. You’ve finally stopped pretending you don’t use the mirror. It’s about time.”

“I only use the mirror when I must, Ms. Lane. Even for me, it is . . . unpleasant.”

Curiosity overrode irritation. “What constitutes ‘must’? Where do you go?”

He glanced around. “Where is the cake?”

“I threw it away.”

He gave me a look.

I sighed, got up, and got it out of the fridge. It was a seven-layer chocolate cake, with alternating raspberry and chocolate cream fillings, frosted pink, with a
Happy Birthday JZB
in the center, delicately scripted and adorned with flowers. It was beautiful. It was the only thing that had made my mouth water in weeks, besides Unseelie. I set it on the coffee table, then got plates and forks from the cabinet behind the counter.

“I’m confused, Ms. Lane. Is this cake for me, or for you?”

Yeah, well, there was that. I’d been planning on eating a lot of it myself. I’d spared no expense. I could have downloaded forty-seven songs from iTunes instead. “They were out of black icing,” I said dryly. He wasn’t reacting the way I’d planned. He didn’t look the least bit touched or amused. In fact, he was regarding the cake with a mixture of horror and . . . grim fascination; the same way I regard monsters I’m about to kill.

I fidgeted. At the time I’d ordered it, it’d seemed like a good idea. I’d thought it was a humorous way of poking fun at our . . . relationship, while also saying, I know you’re really old and probably not human at all, but whatever you are, you still have a birthday, just like the rest of the world.

“I believe candles are customary,” he said finally.

I reached in my pocket, pulled out candles in the shape of numbers, and one I’d whittled to a stub of a period, and stuck them on top of the cake. He looked at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.

“
Pi,
Ms. Lane? I’d pegged you for failing high school math.”

“I got a
D
. The little stuff always trips me up. But the big stuff stuck with me.”

“Why pi?”

“It’s irrational and uncountable.” Funny girl, wasn’t I?

“It’s also a constant,” he said dryly.

“They were out of sixes. Seems this time of year six-six-six is big,” I said, lighting the candles. “Obviously, they haven’t seen the real Beast, or they wouldn’t be playing at worshipping it.”

“Have there been more sightings?” He was still frowning at the cake, looking at it as if he expected it to sprout dozens of legs and begin scuttling toward him, thin-lipped, teeth bared.

“It’s been transferring hands every day.” There was a stack of papers by the couch. The crimes the newspapers were reporting made eating breakfast while reading it risky.

He lifted his gaze from the cake to my face.

“It’s just a cake. I promise. No surprises. No chopped-up Unseelie in there,” I joked. “I’ll even eat the first slice.”

“It’s far from ‘just’ a cake, Ms. Lane. That you procured it implies—”

“—that I was having a sweet craving and used you for an excuse to indulge. Blow out the candles, will you? And lighten up, Barrons.” How had I not realized the delicacy of the ice I was on? What in the world had made me think I could give him a birthday cake and he’d be anything but weird about it?

“I’m doing this for you,” he said tightly.

“I get that,” I said. I was really glad I’d vetoed getting balloons. “I just thought it would be fun.” I stood, holding the cake out to him in both hands, so he could blow out candles before they dripped wax on the pretty confection. “I could use a little fun.”

I sensed violence in the room a split second before it erupted. In retrospect, I think he thought he had it caged, and was nearly as surprised as I.

Cake and candles exploded from my hands, shot straight up in the air, hit the ceiling, and stuck there, dripping gobs of icing. I stared up at it. My lovely cake.

Then I was trapped between the wall and his body, with no awareness of having gotten there. He’s frighteningly quick when he wants to be. I think he could give Dani a run for the money. He had my hands pinned above my head, braceleted at the wrists by one of his. The other was around my throat. His head was down and he was breathing hard. For a moment, he rested his face in my neck.