Fever 5 - Shadowfever (49 page)

I could feel it, too, rushing toward us, as if it knew that if it hurried, it could catch us with our pants down, me undecided, all of us exposed by my inability to commit.
I moved toward Isla, playing the chain through my fingers. How could I accept that I didn’t have to fight this battle? I’d been preparing for it. I was ready. Yet here she stood, telling me I didn’t need to worry. I wouldn’t doom the world, and I didn’t need to save it. Others had been preparing for the same moment and were more qualified.
That surreal feeling was back. And what was that buzzing at my ear? I kept thinking I was hearing Barrons roaring, but every time I looked at him, he wasn’t saying a word. “I need a spell from the Book,” I said.
“Once it’s locked up, we can get anything you need. Pieter knows the First Language. It’s how your father and I met, working on ancient scrolls.”
I stared into the face so like my own but older, wiser, more mature. I wanted to say it, needed to do this, at least once. I might never get the chance again. “Mother,” I tried the word on my tongue.
A tremulous, radiant smile curved her lips. “My dear, sweet MacKayla!” she exclaimed.
I wanted to touch her, be in her arms, breathe in the scent of my mother, and know I belonged. I focused on my only memory of her, deeply buried until this moment. I focused on it hard, thinking about how treasured it was. How I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it all these years. How my child’s mind had taken a single snapshot: Isla O’Connor and Pieter staring at me with tears in their eyes. They’d been standing by a blue station wagon, waving good-bye to us. It was pouring rain, and someone had held a bright pink umbrella with green cartoon flowers above my baby carriage, but the wind had whisked a chill mist beneath it. I’d flailed my tiny fists, cold and crying, and Isla suddenly broke away from Pieter to tuck the blanket more securely around me.
“Oh, darling, it was the hardest thing I ever did that day in the rain, letting you go! When I tucked you in, I wanted so desperately to snatch you up and keep you with us forever!”
“I remember the umbrella,” I said. “I think it must be where I got my love of pink.”
She nodded, eyes shining. “It was bright pink with green flowers.”
Tears stung my eyes. I stared at her a long moment, memorizing her face.
Isla opened her arms. “My daughter, my beautiful little girl!”
Bittersweet emotion flooded me as I moved into my mother’s arms. When they closed warm and comforting around me, I began to cry.
She stroked my hair and whispered, “Hush, darling, it’s all right. Your father and I are here now. You don’t need to worry about a thing. It’s all right. We’re together again.”
I cried harder. Because I could see the truth. Sometimes it’s there in the flaws.
And other times it’s there in too much perfection.
My mother’s arms were around my neck. She smelled good, like Alina, of peaches-and-cream candles and Beautiful perfume.
And I didn’t have a single memory of this woman.
There’d been no blue station wagon. No pink umbrella. No day in the rain.
I slid the spear from my holster and drove it up between our bodies.
Straight into Isla O’Connor’s heart.

Isla inhaled, sharp with pain, and went stiff in my arms, clutching at my neck. “Darling?” Blue eyes stared into mine, blank and confused. She was Isla. “You stupid little bitch!” Blue eyes stared into mine, fiercely intelligent, furious, hard

with rage. She was Rowena.
“How could you do this to me?” Isla cried.
“If only I’d killed you that night in the pub!” Blood-tinged spittle sprayed from Rowena’s

lips.
“MacKayla, my darling, darling daughter, what have you done?”
“Och, and ’tis because of you all this happened!” Rowena spat. “You bloody damned

O’Connors, bringing naught but trouble and misfortune to us all!”
I felt her legs buckle, but she caught herself on my shoulders and didn’t go down. She
was one tough old woman.
I shuddered. I’d never been talking to Isla. It was Rowena all along, carrying the
Sinsar
Dubh
, possessed by it. But now she was dying, and the Book’s ability to maintain a convincing
illusion was dying with her. She was flashing back and forth between the illusion of Isla and the
reality of Rowena.
“Did you kill my sister?” I shook the old woman so hard her hair spilled loose from its
tight bun.
“Dani killed your sister. And the two of you were always cozying up. Och, and I imagine
you feel differently about her now!” She cackled.
I used Voice. “
Did you order her to do it
?”
She writhed, mouth contorting. She didn’t want to answer me. She wanted me to suffer.
“Yesss!” the word exploded in an unwilling hiss. I hoped it hurt.
“
Did you use your mental coercion to make her do it
?”
Her jaw locked and her eyes narrowed to slits. I repeated the question, rattling the
windows in the study with the multilayered thunder of compulsion.
“Yesss! ’Twas my right. ’Tis why I was given such gifts!
And
the cleverness to use them.
It requires the layering of many subtle commands, knowing precisely where to nudge. No other
could have done it.” She gave me a smug stare, proud of herself.
I grimaced and looked away, stilled by the horror of it.
Here it was at last—the truth of my sister’s murder. I finally knew what had happened to
Alina.
The day she’d discovered Darroc was the Lord Master, the same day she’d called me,
crying, and left a message, was the day she’d been killed—but not at all for the reasons I’d
thought. If it hadn’t been for Rowena, Alina would have lived through that day. I’d have gotten a new phone, called her in a few days, and she’d have answered. Life
would have gone on for the two of us. She and Darroc would probably have gotten back
together, and who knew how things might have turned out? Her message had been misleading
from the beginning, but she’d had no idea this old woman was her enemy.
This bitch, this meddling tyrant who believed it was her right to use her “gifts” to force a
child to kill, had ordered Dani to take Alina to a dark alley to be murdered.
My hands trembled. I wanted to kill her the same way.
Had Rowena specified the monsters Dani should find and leave Alina with? Had she
insisted Dani stay and watch the deed be done? Had Alina begged? Had they both wept, knowing
the wrongness of it? I’d been forced to want sex. Dani had been forced to murder. My sister. At
thirteen. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to watch yourself kill someone you didn’t
want to kill. Had Dani known Alina? Liked her? And been compelled to kill her anyway? “And I tried to kill you in your cell when you were a mindless whore, but you wouldn’t
die! I slit your throat. I suffocated you. I gutted you, I poisoned you! Still you came back. Finally
I painted over the wards to let them take you and destroy you!”
“
You
painted over the—you were going to give me back to the princes?” I was
flabbergasted. She
had
tried to kill me. I hadn’t just dreamed it. I shoved both thoughts from my
mind. I wanted answers and, from the look of her, she wasn’t going to last long. Voice echoed
out of me, reverberating off the walls. “
Why did you kill Alina
?”
“Are you daft? She consorted with the enemy! My spies followed her to his house and
saw him with Unseelie! ’Twas reason enough. Then there was the prophecy! I’d’ve killed her at
birth if I could’ve. If I’d known she was still alive, I’d’ve hunted her!”
“
Did you know who she was when you killed her? Did you know she was Isla’s
daughter
?”
“Och, of course,” she sneered. “I had Dani lure her to us when my girls told me they’d
spotted an untrained
sidhe
-seer, same as I sent her to you! Alina Lane, she called herself, but I
knew the instant I saw her who she was. Isla, all over again, plain as day! And my Kayleigh dead
because of her mother!”
I wanted to strangle her with my bare hands, choke the breath out of her. Over and over. “
Did you know who I was when you saw me that first night
?”
A troubled look creased her brow. “ ’Tis impossible.
You
can’t be. You weren’t born. I’d
have known were Isla pregnant! Women talk. They never spoke of it!”
“
How did the Book get out
?” I demanded.
A crafty light entered her eyes. “You think I let it out. I did no such thing. I do the work
of angels! An angel came to me and warned me that the spells holding it had weakened. It bid me
enter the forbidden chamber and strengthen the runes. Only I could do it. I had to be brave! I had
to be strong! I was both. I see, serve, and protect! I have always been there for my children!” I caught my breath. The Book seduced. I was willing to bet there had been no angel. The
old woman charged with protecting the world from the
Sinsar Dubh
hadn’t strengthened the
runes. She’d erased them.
“I did as the angel instructed. ’Twas your mother who let it out!”
“
What happened the night the Book escaped? Tell me everything!
”
“You are an abomination. The doom of us all.” The light in her eyes was matched by a
craftier smile. “I’ll die here, well I ken it, but I’ll not be giving the likes of you any peace. Isla
was a traitor and a whore, and you’re more of the same.” She grabbed my hand and thrust her
small frame forward on the spear, twisting it as she went. “Ahhhh!” she cried. Blood gushed
from her mouth.
She died sudden, mouth open, eyes wide.
Disgusted, I dropped her and stepped back, watched her fall to the floor. The
Sinsar Dubh
whumped to the floor. I stepped back hastily.
Behind me, Barrons was roaring. I glanced over my shoulder. He was hammering at an
invisible barrier, his eyes wild, shouting.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I have it under control. I saw through it.” I was trembling, cold
and hot and nauseated. It had all been so real. It felt as if I’d killed my mother, even though my
brain knew I hadn’t. For a short time, I’d believed the lies. And my heart hurt as if I’d lost a
family I’d never had.
I looked back at Rowena. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes empty, mouth slack. The
Sinsar Dubh
lay between us, closed, seemingly inert, a massive black tome with
many locks.
I had no doubt it had chosen Rowena for her knowledge of wards so she could carry it
past Barrons’ protective spells, straight into the heart of our heavily warded world. I thought back, isolating the moment the illusion had begun. From the instant I’d stepped
out of the Silver tonight, nothing had been real.
Rowena and the
Sinsar Dubh
had been waiting to ambush me in the bookstore the
moment I’d appeared. It had skimmed my mind, picking out the details I would find most
convincing.
I’d never left the study, never followed Barrons into the rear conversation area, or sat on
the couch, or met my mother. It had “tasted me” on many occasions. It knew me. And it had
played me like a virtuoso, sawing away at one heartstring after the next.
Creating a “father” for me had been a masterstroke. It had married memories to longings
and given me what I wanted most: family, safety, freedom from crushing choices. All to get me to hand over the amulet, to con me into placing the one thing capable of
deceiving both of us into Rowena’s hands.
And if I had—oh, God, if I had! I would never have known from that moment forward
what was real and what wasn’t.
I’d been so close to doing it, but the Book had made two mistakes. I’d fed it a thought
about Barrons and it had immediately altered him to bring him in line with my expectations.
Then I’d fed it a false memory, amplified it with the amulet, and it had played it right back at me. I had no doubt the real Barrons had been walled off from me the entire time. The Barrons
who had stood beside me in the bookstore had been an illusion the Book had constantly tweaked,
according to the feedback it had been getting from me.
Almost had you
… it purred.
“Almost only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes.” I stared down at the
Sinsar Dubh
,
with its black cover and many complicated locks. But something wasn’t right. It had never
looked right to me.
I consulted my memories. I remembered the day the Unseelie King had created it. This
was not what he’d made. “Show me what is true,” I murmured.
When the
Sinsar Dubh
’s true form was revealed, I gasped. Sung into existence from slabs
of purest gold and shards of obsidian, it was exquisite. I’d summoned crimson stones from one of
the galaxies the Hunters liked to fly that housed tiny dancing flames. And although I’d put locks
on my Book, top and bottom, they were decorative, never meant to secure it. My encryption was
protection enough.
Or so I’d thought.
I’d made it lovely. I’d hoped the beauty of its binding might temper the horror of its
contents.
I smiled sadly. For a brief time I’d believed I was Isla’s daughter. No such luck. I was the
Unseelie King. And it was long past time for my battle with my darker half to end. According to the prophecy as I understood it, I’d triumphed over my “monster within.” It had been my hunger
for illusion, to lose myself in a life I’d never had.
I fisted my hand around the amulet. It blazed with blue-black light. I was epic. I was
strong. I had created this horror and I would destroy it. I would not be defeated.
Not defeat, MacKayla. I want you to come home
.
“I am home. My bookstore.”
Is nothing. I will show you wonders beyond your imagining. Your body is strong. You will
hold me and we will live. Dance. Fuck. Feast. It will be grand. We will K’Vruck the world
. “I’m not holding you. Ever.”
You were made for me. I for you. Two for tea and t-t-t-tea for two
.
“I’ll kill myself first.” If I thought it might come to that, I would.
And let me win? You would die and let me rule? Allow me to encourage you
. “That’s not what you want, and you know it.”
What do you think I want, sweet MacKayla?
“You want me to forgive you.”
I have no need of absolution
.
“You want me to take you back.”
In, sweet thing, take me
in.
Warm and wet like sex is warm and wet
.
“You want to be the king. You want to turn us evil again.”
Evil, good, create, destroy. Puny minds. Puny caves. Time, MacKayla. Time absolves
. “Time does not define the act. Time is impartial; it neither condemns nor absolves. The
action contains intent, and intent is where the definition lies.”
Bore me with human law
.
“Enlighten you with universal law.”
You convict me of evil intent?
“Unequivocally.”
In your eyes I am a monster?
“Absolutely.”
I should be—how do you say?—put down?
“That’s what I’m here for.”
What, then, does that make you, MacKayla?
“A repentant king. I eviscerated my evil, imprisoned you once before, and I will again.”
How you amuse
.
“Laugh all you want.”
You believe you are my maker
.
“I know I am.”
My sweet MacKayla, you are such a fool. You did not make me. I made you
. A chill slid down my spine. Its voice oozed satisfaction and mockery, as if it were
watching me head straight toward a train wreck and enjoying every minute of it. My eyes
narrowed. “Not falling for the chicken/egg discussion. Your evil didn’t make me the king. I was
the king, and I turned evil. I wised up and dumped my evil into a book. You were never
supposed to live. And I plan to rectify that.”
Not chickens and eggs. A human woman. And you—a tiny little embryo
. My mouth opened on a retort, but I hesitated.
Of all the lies it had woven so far, this one held a startling ring of truth. Why?
What I told you before was true. I took Isla to escape the abbey. And she
was
pregnant. I did not expect to find you in her. I did not know howhumans replicated. As I used her to kill the other humans who had dared to restrain me—ME, locked in a cold stone vacuum for an eternity of nothingness, have you any idea the HELL?—there you were. The wonder. Unformed life in her body. Mine for the taking. I marveled at the beauty of you. Unshaped, unfettered by scruple, unhampered by human weaknesses. Your race and its obsession with sin! You chain yourselves to the whipping post because you fear the sky. It is those chains, those limits, that make the
bodies I take so fragile, tear them apart so soon after I possess them
.
But you were different. You hungered, you slept, you dreamed, but you were pure. You
knew no right or wrong; you were empty. You did not resist me. You were open. I filled you. I
nestled down inside you, replicated myself and left it there. You are my child. You suckled at my
breast, MacKayla. I was your mother’s milk; I gave you your defenses against the world. On that
day, before your body could sustain itself separately, before you ever had the chance to do
something so stupid and small as become human, I claimed you. I gave birth to you. Not Isla
. “You’re lying. I’m the king,” I said flatly.
You seek truth? Can you face it?
I said nothing.
The truth is within you. It always has been. It is there in the one place you refuse to go
. I narrowed my eyes. Perhaps I’d been congratulating myself on subduing my inner
monster too soon.
Don’t talk to it, beautiful girl
, the dreamy-eyed guy had said, long ago in
Chester’s, long before I’d met the
fear dorcha. Never talk to it
. I wondered if he’d meant the
Sinsar Dubh
then. Too late. I was waist-deep in quicksand. Struggling would only hasten my
descent.
You have only ever taken what I offered, what I floated to the surface. Dive in, MacKayla.
Graze the bottom of your lake. You will find me down there, shining in all my glory. Lift my lid.
Know the truth of your existence. If I am evil, we are evil. If I should be “put down,” so must
you. There is no sentence you can cry upon me that you must not carry out upon yourself. There
is no point in fighting me. You are me. Not a king. Me. Always have been. Always will be. You
can’t eviscerate me. I am your soul