Fever 5 - Shadowfever (43 page)

I didn’t want to be alone in Dublin when this was all over!
What would I do? Run the bookstore, surrounded by memories for the rest of my life as those of us who remained painstakingly rebuilt the city? I couldn’t stay here if he didn’t. Even if he left, he’d still be here, everywhere I looked. It would almost be worse than him dying. Barrons’ residue would stalk this place as vividly as the concubine and the king lived in the White Mansion’s inky corridors. I’d know he was out there, forever beyond my reach. Glory days: achieved and gone by twenty-three, like a has-been high school football player sitting in his double-wide, chugging beer with his friends at thirty, two kids, a nagging wife, a family van, and a grudge against life.
I slumped down on my bed.
Everywhere I turned, I’d see ghosts.
Would Dani’s ghost haunt me in the streets? Would I make that happen? Would I go that far? Premeditated murder of a girl who was little more than a child?
You choose what you can live with
, he’d said.
And what you can’t live without
.
It had never occurred to me that the outcome of my time in Dublin might be a future of living in a bookstore without Barrons ever again, walking the streets filled with my—
“Oh, feck it, she was my sister,” I growled, punching my pillow. I didn’t give a damn if we weren’t born to each other: Alina had been my best friend, my heart-sister, and that made us sisters any way I looked at it.
“Where was I?” I muttered. Ah, yes, streets filled with my sister’s ghost, compounded by the ghost of the teenager I’d come to think of as my little sister, who’d been involved with killing my sister. Would I walk the streets with those phantoms every day?
What an awful, empty life that would be!
“Alina, what should I do?” God, I missed her. I missed her like it was yesterday. I heaved myself up from bed, grabbed my backpack, dropped cross-legged on the floor, pulled out one of her photo albums, and opened the sunny yellow cover.
There she was with Mom and Dad at her college graduation.
There we were, at the lake with a group of friends, drinking beer and playing volleyball like we were going to live forever. Young, so damned young. Had I ever really been that young?
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I turned the pages.
There she was on the green at Trinity College, with new friends.
Out in the pubs, dancing and waving to the camera.
There was Darroc, watching her, his gaze possessive, hot.
There she was looking up at him, completely unguarded. I caught my breath. Goose bumps rose on my arms and neck.
She
had
loved him.
I could see it. I knew my sister. She’d been crazy about him. He’d made her feel what Barrons made me feel. Bigger than I could possibly be, larger than life, on fire with possibilities, ecstatic to be breathing, impatient for the next moment together. She’d been happy in those last months, so alive and happy.
And if she’d lived?
I closed my eyes.
I knew my sister.
Darroc had been right. She would have gone to him. She would have found a way to accept it. To love him anyway. We were so fatally flawed.
But what if … what if her love might have changed him? Who could say it wouldn’t have? What if she’d gotten pregnant and there was suddenly a baby Alina, helpless and pink and cooing? Might love have softened his edges, his need for revenge? It had worked greater miracles. Maybe I shouldn’t think of her as flawed but as a wrench in the works in a good way, who might have changed the outcome for the better. Who could say?
I turned the page and my cheeks flamed.
I shouldn’t look. I couldn’t help it. They were in bed. I couldn’t see Alina. She had the camera. Darroc was naked. From the angle, I knew Alina was on top of him. From the look on his face, I knew he was coming when she took it. And I could see it in his eyes.
He’d loved her, too.
I dropped the album and sat staring into space.
Life was so complicated. Was she bad because she’d loved him? Was he evil because he’d wanted to reclaim what had been taken from him? Hadn’t the same motives driven the Unseelie King and his concubine? Didn’t the same motives drive humans every day?
Why hadn’t the queen just let the king have the woman he loved? Why couldn’t the king be happy with one lifetime? What might have happened to the Unseelie if they’d never been imprisoned? Might they have turned out like the Seelie court?
And what about my sister and me? Would we really doom the world? Nurture or nature: What were we?
Everywhere I looked, I could see only shades of gray. Black and white were nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we tried to judge things and map out our place in the world in relevance to them. Good and evil, in their purest form, were as intangible and forever beyond our ability to hold in our hand as any Fae illusion. We could only aim at them, aspire to them, and hope not to get so lost in the shadows that we could no longer see the light.
Alina had been aiming for the right thing to do. So was I. She hadn’t made it. Would I fail? Sometimes it was hard to know what the right thing to do was.
Feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, I reached for the photo album, pulled it back on my lap, and began to turn the page.
That’s when I felt it. The pocket was too thick. There was something behind the photo of Darroc staring up at Alina like she was his world, coming inside her.
I slid the photo out with trembling hands. What would I find secreted away here? A note from my sister? Something that would give me more insight into her life before she’d died?
A love letter from him? From her?
I withdrew a piece of old parchment, unfolded it, and gently smoothed it open. There was writing on both sides. I turned it over. One side was covered from upper margin to lower. The other side had only a few lines on it.
I recognized the paper and script on the full side instantly. I’d seen Mad Morry’s writings before, although I didn’t read Old Irish Gaelic.
I turned it over, holding my breath. Yes, he’d translated it!

IF THE BEAST OF THREE FACES IS NOT CONTAINED BY THE TIME THE FIRST DARK PRINCE DIES THE FIRST PROPHECY SHALL FAIL FOR THE BEAST SHALL HAVE GORGED ON POWER AND CHANGED. ONLY BY ITS OWN DESIGN WILL IT FALL. HE WHO IS NOT WHAT HE WAS SHALL TAKE UP THE TALISMAN AND WHEN THE MONSTER WITHIN IS DEFEATED SO SHALL BE THE MONSTER WITHOUT.

I read it again. “What talisman?” How accurate was his translation? He’d written, He
who is not what
he
was
. Had Darroc really been the only one who could merge with the Book? Dageus wasn’t what he was. I was willing to bet Barrons wasn’t, either. Really, who of us was? What a nebulous statement. I’d hardly call that definitive criteria. Daddy would have a heyday in court with such a vague phrase.

By the time the first dark prince dies …
It was already too late, if that was true. The first dark prince was Cruce, who couldn’t possibly be alive. At least once in the past seven hundred thousand years, he would have shown his face. Someone would have seen him. But even if he was alive, the moment Dani had killed the dark prince who came to my cell at the abbey, it had been too late for the first prophecy to work.

The shortcut was a talisman. And Darroc had had it.
Something nagged at my subconscious. I grabbed my backpack and began to rummage through it, hunting for the tarot card. I dumped out the contents, picked up the card, and studied it. A woman stared off into the distance while the world spun in front of her.
What was the point? Why had the DEG—or the
fear dorcha
, as he’d claimed—given me this particular card?
I took painstaking note of the details of her clothing and hair, the continents on the planet. It was definitely Earth.
I examined the border of the card, looking for concealed runes or symbols. Nothing. But wait! What was around her wrist? It looked like a fold in her skin until I looked closer.
I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
It had been worked into the border, cleverly concealed as a sort of pentacle, but I knew the shape of the cage that housed the stone. Around the woman’s wrist was the chain of the amulet Darroc had stolen from Mallucé.
The dreamy-eyed guy
had
been trying to help me.
The talisman from the prophecy was the amulet. The amulet was Darroc’s shortcut!
It had been within my reach the night the
Sinsar Dubh
popped Darroc’s head like a grape. I’d touched it. It had been so close. Then the next thing I knew I was over a shoulder and it was gone.
I smiled. I knew where to find it.
As a man, Barrons collected antiquities, rugs, manuscripts, and ancient weapons. As a beast, he’d collected everything I touched. The pouch of stones, my sweater.
No matter his form, Barrons was a ferret after shiny baubles that smelled good to him.
There was no way he’d walked away from it that night. I’d touched it.
I slipped the parchment, translation, and tarot card in my pocket and stood up.
It was long past time to find out where Jericho Barrons went when he left the bookstore. He didn’t go far.
In all the time I’d known him, I was willing to bet he never had.
When I reached the bottom step, I smelled him. The faint hint of spice hung in the air outside his study. The study where he kept his Silver.
The entire time I was
Pri-ya
, I’d never seen him sleep. I would drift off, but each time I’d wake, he’d be there, lids heavy on glittering dark eyes, watching me as if he’d been laying there just waiting for me to roll over and ask him to fuck me again. Always ready. As if he lived for it. I remembered the look on his face when he’d stretch himself over me.
I remembered how my body had responded.
I’d never done Ecstasy or any of the drugs some of my friends had tried. But if it was like being
Pri-ya
, I couldn’t imagine wanting to do it willingly.
A part of my brain had still been aware, in a dim sort of way, while my body was out of my control.
If he’d brush a hand over my skin, I’d nearly scream from needing him inside me. I would have done anything to get him there.
Being
Pri-ya
was worse than being raped by the princes.
It had been hundreds of rapes over and over again. My body had wanted. My mind had been vacant. Yet some part of the essential me had still been there, fully aware that my body was completely out of my control. That I wasn’t choosing. All my choices had been made for me. Sex should be a choice.
Only one had been left to me: more.
When he’d push inside me and I’d feel him begin to penetrate, it had turned me into a wild thing—hot, wet, and desperate for more of him. With every kiss, every caress, every thrust, I’d just needed more. He’d touched me, I went nuts. The world dwindled down to one thing: him. He really
had
been my world in that basement. It was too much power for one person to have over another. It could put you on your knees, begging.
I had a secret.
A terrible secret that had been eating me alive.
What did you wear to your senior prom, Mac?
That had been the last thing I’d heard,
Pri-ya
.
Everything from that moment on had really happened.
I’d faked.
I’d lied to him and myself.
I stayed.
And it hadn’t felt any different
.
I’d been just as insatiable, just as greedy, just as vulnerable. I’d known exactly who I was, what had happened at the church, and what I’d been doing for the past few months.
And every time he’d touched me, my world had dwindled down to one thing: him.
He was never vulnerable.
I’d hated him for that.
I shook my head, scattered the broody thoughts.
Where would Barrons go to be alone, relax, maybe sleep? Beyond the reach of anyone. Inside a heavily warded Silver.
With the scent of him still hanging in the air, I ransacked his study.
I was feeling ruthless and tired of playing by rules. I didn’t know why there should be any rules between us, anyway. It seemed absurd. He’d been in my space since the moment I’d met him, larger than life, electrifyingly present, shaking me up and waking me up and making me just this side of insane.
I grabbed one of his many antique weapons and pried open the locked drawers of his desk.
Yes, he’d see that I broke into it. No, I didn’t care. He could just try to take his anger out on me. I had a fair share of my own.
He had files on me, on my parents, on McCabe, on O’Bannion, people I’d never heard of, even his own men.
There were bills for dozens of different addresses in many different countries.
In the bottom drawer, I found pictures of me. Stacks and stacks of them.
At the Clarin House, stepping out into the dewy Dublin morning, tan legs gleaming beneath the short hem of my favorite white skirt, long blond hair swinging in a high ponytail.
Walking across the green at Trinity College, meeting Dani for the first time, by the fountain.
Coming down the back steps of Alina’s apartment, exiting into the alley.
Slinking down the back alley, looking at O’Bannion’s abandoned cars, the morning I’d realized that Barrons had turned out all the lights and let the Shades take the perimeter, devouring sixteen men to kill a single one who was a threat to me. There was shock, horror, and something unmistakably relieved in my eyes.
Fighting back-to-back with Dani, sword and spear blazing alabaster in the darkness. There was a whole series of those shots, taken from a rooftop angle. I was on fire, face shining, eyes narrowed, body made for what I was doing.
Through the front window of the bookstore, hugging Daddy.
Curled on the sofa in the rear conversation area of BB&B, sleeping, hands tucked against my chest. No makeup. I looked seventeen, a little lost, completely unguarded.
Marching into the Garda station with Jayne. Heading back to the bookstore, without flashlights. I’d never been in danger that night. He’d been there, making sure I survived whatever came my way.
No one had ever taken so many pictures of me before. Not even Alina. He’d caught my subtlest emotions in each shot. He’d been watching me, always watching me.
Through the window of a crofter’s cottage, I was touching Nana’s face, trying to push into her thoughts and see my mother. My eyes were half closed, my features drawn with concentration.
Another rooftop shot. I had my palm on the Gray Woman’s chest, demanding she restore Dani.
Was there anything he didn’t know?
I let the photos fall back into the drawer. I was feeling light-headed. He’d seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. He never asked me any questions, unless he thought
I
needed to figure out the answers. He never decked me out in convenient labels and tried to stuff me in a box. Even when there were plenty of labels to stick to me. I was what I was at that moment and he liked it, and that was all that mattered to him.
I turned and stared into the mirror.
The reflection of a stranger stared back.
I touched my face in the reflection. No, she wasn’t a stranger. She was a woman who’d stepped out of her comfort zone in order to survive, who’d become a fighter. I liked the woman I saw in the looking glass.
The surface of the mirror was icy beneath my fingers.
I knew this Silver. I knew all the Silvers. They had something of … K’Vruck in them. Had the king selected an ingredient of their creation from the Hunter’s home world?
As I gazed into it, I sought that dark, glassy lake and told it I wanted in.
Missed you
, it steamed.
Come swim
.
Soon
, I promised.
Alabaster runes popped up from the black depths, shimmering on the surface.
It was that easy. I asked, it gave. Always there, always ready.
I scooped them up and pressed them, one after another, to the surface of the Silver.
When the final one was in place, the surface began to ripple like silvery water. I trailed my fingers through it and the waters peeled back, receded to the black edges of the mirror, leaving me staring down a fog-filled path through a cemetery. Behind tombstones and crypts, dark creatures slithered and crept.
The Silver belched a gust of icy air.
I stepped up, into the mirror.
As I suspected, he’d stacked Silvers to form a gauntlet no intruder would make it through alive, protecting his underground abode.
Nine months ago, if I’d been able to figure out how to get in, I’d have gotten killed within the first few feet. I was attacked the instant I stepped inside. I didn’t have time to draw my spear. When the first volley of teeth and claws came at me, my lake instantly offered and I accepted without hesitation.
A single purple rune glowed in my palm.
My attackers fell back. They hated it, whatever it was.
I swirled through fog to my waist, absorbing the barren landscape. Skeletal trees glowed like yellow bones in the sickly moonlight. Crumbling headstones listed at acute angles. Mausoleums hulked behind wrought iron gates. It was brutally cold here, almost as frigid as the Unseelie prison. My hair iced, my brows and nose hairs frosted. My fingers began to numb.
The transition from this Silver to the next was seamless. All of them were. Barrons was far more adept at stacking Silvers than Darroc had been and even more skilled, it seemed, than the Unseelie King.
I didn’t even see the change in my environment coming. I suddenly had one foot in an icy cemetery and the other in a stifling desert of black sand, sun beating down on me. I glided forward into the searing heat and was instantly parched. Nothing attacked me on this scorched terrain. I wondered if the sun alone would keep certain trespassers out. The next mirror gave me fits. Abruptly, I was underwater. I couldn’t breathe. I panicked and tried to back out.
But I hadn’t been able to breathe in the Unseelie prison, either.
I stopped fighting it and half-swam, half-walked on the ocean floor of some planet—not ours, because we didn’t have fish that looked like small underwater steamboats with whirling wheels of teeth.
My glassy lake offered a bubble of sorts, sealed it around me, and everything that came at me bounced off.
I was beginning to feel downright indestructible. Cocky. I put a little swagger in my rolling steps.
By the time I passed through half a dozen more “zones,” I was beyond cocky. Every threat that came at me, my dark lake had an answer for. I was getting drunk on my own power.
From a landscape that would have been called “Midnight on a Far Star” if it had been a painting, I burst into a dimly lit room and blinked.
It was Spartan, Old World, and smelled
good
. Deep, drugging spices. Barrons. My knees felt soft. I smell him, I think of sex. I’m a hopeless case.
I knew instantly where I was.
Beneath the garage behind Barrons Books and Baubles.