Bloodfever

Chapter 5

I flipped the sign, boldly lettered in hot pink Sharpie—Barrons Books and Baubles Summer Hours: 11 A.M. to 7 P.M., M.-F., it said—and locked the front door, feeling good about myself.

I’d just completed my first day on the new job.

Up until now, bartending had been my only marketable skill but today I’d broadened my employment horizons and could now add store clerk to my résumé. An opportunity had presented itself to make money, and I wasn’t about to let it pass me by. Barrons had offered me the job last night—unless you want to start running the cash register, Ms. Lane, he’d said.

After only one day, I could see the job was far more complex than merely ringing up the occasional purchase. There was stocking to worry about, special ordering to be done, bookkeeping to stay on top of, and spending time with patrons, helping them find things they didn’t know they wanted. The store carried some cool stuff but there were things that definitely needed changing. Some of the magazines had to go; I wasn’t about to waste my precious time chasing teenage boys away from the Male Interest racks. The Female Interest racks were seriously lacking; I planned to add more high-end fashion magazines along with some eye candy, and the store definitely needed a more festive selection of writing implements. The hot pink Sharpie was mine. BB&B offered only your basic pens plus a few prissy-looking calligraphy sets, the kind that make it take forever to write a single letter. Barrons obviously didn’t understand that shorthand—LMAO, IMHO, GFY—was the new longhand, and in a world where everything was high-speed and wireless, nobody wanted dial-up anymore.

My reasons for accepting the job were twofold: I was eventually going to run out of money, sooner rather than later; and if the Garda pushed their investigation, I could cite my job as the reason for my continued stay in Dublin. I was training to learn to run my own bookstore back in the States, I would tell them.

Fiona’s recently extended hours were absurd; there was no way I was working an eleven-hour day. Since I was in charge now, I’d made my first executive decision and chosen new hours of operation, opening late enough that I could either sleep in in the mornings or use them to take care of personal business. As far as State of the World business was concerned, I’d decided it wasn’t my problem.

Vengeance for my sister—and only blood relative, as far as I knew, but those were murky waters I wouldn’t swim in any more than I’d call home right now—was my first and only priority. Well, that and staying alive.

I’d had twenty-seven customers today, not counting the boys I’d run off, and I’d made good use of my time in between to begin putting the pictures I’d found at the Lord Master’s, the ones of Alina in and around Dublin, into the new diary I’d purloined from the collection of hand-tooled leather journals sold at BB&B.

Alina.

God, why? I wanted to shout at the ceiling. Why her? There were millions of creeps in dozens of countries across the world—why hadn’t he taken one of them? Now that I knew I was adopted, I resented God doubly. Other people had lots of relatives. I’d only had one.

Would I ever stop hurting? Would I ever stop missing her? Would I ever live another day without this gouged-out place in my soul that I was desperate to fill with something, anything? Unfortunately, it was an Alina-shaped hole and nothing else would fit it.

But…maybe vengeance would soften the edges of it. Maybe killing the bastard who had killed her would make them less sharp, less jagged, and I could stop cutting myself on them.

Pasting the pictures of Alina into my journal had made the grief of losing her feel fresh all over again. With everything that had been happening to me lately, I’d actually woken up a time or two in the morning without the instant, crushing thought: Alina’s dead; how am I supposed to get through the day? top on the list in my brain. I’d thought things like I robbed a mobster yesterday and now he’s going to kill me. Or vampires are real, whodathunk? Or I’m afraid Barrons was my sister’s boyfriend. Things like that. A week ago, I’d laid that last one to rest, much to my relief.

Now that weirdness in my life was the norm, grief and rage had resurfaced with a vengeance, on a level I couldn’t deal with.

Inside me was a Mac I’d never met before. I couldn’t dress her up. I couldn’t make her take a bath. She wouldn’t mix in pleasant society. I couldn’t corral a single one of her thoughts. My only hope was she wouldn’t suddenly sprout a mouth.

She was a bloodthirsty, primitive little savage.

And she hated pink.

I dug in my heels. “No way. I’m not going in there. I draw the line at grave-robbing, Barrons.”

“It’s not your pen.”

“Huh? Whose is it?” What pen? I’d thought we were talking about crumbling gravestones, hallowed ground, and theft that was a crime against the tenets of church and man. We’d finished our discussion about pens on the way over, along with my plans for ordering new, cooler ones. He’d listened to me prattle in what I suspect was bemused silence. I get the feeling few women chat Barrons up.

And I’m paying you how much for running my bookstore? was all he’d finally asked. At the last minute, I’d tacked a little on to the sum I’d decided upon earlier. When he agreed, I almost whooped with joy except he’d stopped the Viper at that moment, and I’d taken my first good look around.

We were on the outskirts of the south side of Dublin, on a narrow lane, right next to a very dark, very old cemetery. The last time I’d been in a cemetery had been for Alina’s funeral.

I closed my hands around the cold iron bars of the main entrance and swept a brooding glance over the headstones.

“The pen is a metaphor, Ms. Lane. Drawing lines isn’t your prerogative. It’s mine. You’re the OOP detector. I’m the OOP director. You’ll walk the cemetery. I’m particularly interested in the unmarked graves behind the church but make a thorough search of the building and the grounds, as well.”

I sighed. “What exactly is it I’m looking for?”

“I don’t know, perhaps nothing. This church was built on the site of an ancient meeting circle once presided over by the Grand Mistress of the sidhe-seers herself.”

“In other words,” I muttered, “it’s probably a wild-goose chase.”

“Remember the cuff V’lane offered you?”

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

“Legend has it there are multiple cuffs, each with a different purpose. Legend also has it that, in ancient times, sidhe-seers collected every Fae relic they could get their hands on, and if it proved indestructible, secreted it away where they believed Mankind would never find it. Some say when Christianity came to Ireland, sidhe-seers encouraged the building of churches in specific places, even funded them, perhaps to keep their secrets safely buried on consecrated ground. Laws governing the digging up and relocating of remains are rigidly enforced.”

It sounded plausible to me. “These sidhe-seers, were they like a club or something, back in the day?”

“As much as they could be. Times were very different then, Ms. Lane. Communication between enclaves took weeks, sometimes months, but in times of threat, they gathered in preappointed places and performed ritual magic. This was one of them.”

“Where did all the sidhe-seers go? You said there are more of us out there?”

“When the Fae withdrew from our realms, the world no longer had any use for sidhe-seers. A once vaunted position became obsolete. Those accustomed to being highly valued lost their purpose overnight. In time, sidhe-lore was forgotten. Over the centuries, talents went fallow. As for where the ones who remain are, the next time you’re out, look around. Watch. When you see something from Faery, look not at the Fae, but the crowd to see who else is watching it. Some know what they are. Some are on medication for psychological disorders. Some betray themselves to the first one they see and are killed by it. It’s how I knew what you were. I saw you watching the Shades.”

Psychological disorders? I tried to imagine seeing the monsters I’d recently encountered as a child, having no explanation for them, and realizing no one else could see them. I would have told my mother. She’d have been horrified, taken me for counseling. And if I’d told the counselor the truth? Drugs—a lot of them. I could see it happening all too easily. How many sidhe-seers were out there, too sedated to care what was going on in the world? “So this Grand Mistress, she ran things?”

He nodded.

“Is there still one today?”

“One would expect the bloodline that directed the sidhe-seers for millennia to have maintained the lore.”

That was one evasive answer I wasn’t willing to accept. “What does that mean? Do you or don’t you know if there is one, and if so, who is she?”

He shrugged. “If there is one, her identity is tightly guarded.”

“So, there’s something you don’t know. Amazing.”

He smiled faintly. “Do your thing, Ms. Lane. You might be criminally young, but the night is not.”

My “thing” entailed making like a brisk vacuum through the church, and when I’d finished with the spartan stone chapel, sweeping over the graves, up and down burial lanes, in and around mausoleums, searching with an inner antenna I’d not known I possessed, to collect things a few weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed existed.

I saved the unmarked graves behind the church for last. I was armed to the teeth with flashlights, although I knew no Shades were here. Where Shades dwell, no night crickets chirp, not a blade of grass stirs, and tree limbs gleam bare and white as old bones.

I expected my stroll through the cemetery at night to be unnerving. I didn’t expect to find the hushed world of the human dead soothing, peaceful, but there was an undeniable synergy here. Natural death was part of life. Only unnatural death—like Alina’s—opposed the order of things and demanded retribution, a balancing of the scales on a cosmic level. I read the inscriptions as I passed. The epitaphs not worn to dust by time were heartfelt and warm. There were a surprising number of octogenarians and even centenarians interred here. Around these parts, life had once been simple, good, and unusually long, especially for the men.

Barrons waited in the car. I could see him in profile, talking on his cell phone.

Finding an object of power, or OOP, for short, is a talent not all sidhe-seers have. From what Barrons says it’s rare. Alina had the gift, too, which is why the Lord Master used her.

Don’t think I don’t see the similarities between us: my sister and the Lord Master, Barrons and me. Difference is, I don’t believe Barrons is out to destroy Mankind. I don’t think he particularly cares much for Mankind, but I don’t think he has any deep-seated desire to see us all wiped out. Another difference is he hasn’t tried to seduce me, and I’m not in love with him. I have a clear head about what I’m doing and why. And, if one day, I learn Jericho Barrons did kill O’Duffy for snooping into his life, and is one of the bad guys, well…I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. I never used to understand that saying, but I think I finally get it. I’m hotheaded and inexperienced right now. I need to know more about the Fae, and what I am. I need to be cooler, smarter, tougher, stronger, and packing better arsenal before I go after revenge. I need more OOPs, like the spear. I need Barrons. He’s an endless source of information, and knows all the right places to look. Take this cemetery, for instance. I never would have known it existed, or what it had once been. I don’t know the first thing about my heritage and even less about Irish history. Criminally young, he charged, and I can’t argue. But I can change.

I stepped into the shadows beyond the church, swinging my flashlights left and right. This part of the graveyard was enclosed by a low, crumbling wall of stone, and had been fending for itself for years. No gardener toiled here. The grass grew tall and dense, and not one flower broke the stark pallor of many small cairns neglected beneath the heavy boughs of oak and slender limbs of yew. A broken wrought-iron gate swung from a single hinge that creaked a rusty protest when I pushed it open and stepped in.

So much for my talents—I was thigh-high in grass, and tripping over the darn thing before I sensed it.

In my defense, there wasn’t much of it left.

“What is it?” I asked Barrons, horrified.

When I’d stumbled over the monstrosity, I’d screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Barrons had come at a run.

It was a misshapen lump at our feet, motionless but for the occasional, terrible shudder.

“I do believe it’s what’s left of a Rhino-boy,” Barrons said slowly.

“What happened to it?”

“I believe, Ms. Lane that something has been…gnawing at it.”

“What in the world eats Rhino-boys? And why?”

He glanced at me and I was stunned to see that he looked stunned himself, which was an exorbitant display of emotion for Barrons. “It had to be another Fae.” He sounded appalled. “Nothing human could take down one of these things, and would certainly have no cause to eat it. As for the why, I have no idea. It goes against everything that is Sidhe. Fae do not savage one another. Even the lowest of the Unseelie would consider this an atrocity, an abomination. Packs of them would turn on the defiler.”

“Will it die?” I asked. There was so little of it left. Yet it lived, and its agony was obvious.

“Not unless you stab it with your spear, Ms. Lane.”

“Will it eventually regenerate or something?” It was missing major parts.

“No. Only the royal castes have that power. It will exist in this form forever, unless one of its own race stumbles across it and takes pity on it, which is unlikely. Or you do.” His gaze was heavy on me. “Do you? Pity it?”

I stared into his dark eyes. Sometimes they seem bottomless, not entirely human, and this was one of those times.

“Tell me, Ms. Lane, will you walk away from it? Let it suffer for eternity? Or are you an angel of mercy?”

I bit my lip.

“Which will it be? Knowing one of these things murdered your sister. Perhaps not a Rhino-boy, but certainly one of its brethren.”

“The Lord Master killed my sister.” I was sure of it.

“So you say. He’s not Fae and the marks on her body were.”

There was that. Still, if he hadn’t actually dealt the killing blow, he was the one who’d orchestrated it. I narrowed my eyes. Barrons was testing me. I had no idea what his twisted idea of a passing grade was. I only knew what I had to do. There is a synergy to life and death, and this did not fit.

I slid the spear from my boot and stabbed the Rhino-boy. Barrons smiled, but I don’t know if he was mocking me for being weak or lauding me for being compassionate. Screw him. It was my conscience I had to live with.

As we were leaving the cemetery, I made the mistake of looking back.

The black-shrouded specter stood, dark folds rustling, one ghostly hand on the rusted gate, watching me. Its darkness was as enormous as the night. And like the night, it was all around me, pressing at me, caressing me, knowing me.

I cried out and stumbled over a low gravestone. Barrons caught my arm and saved me from a nasty spill. “What is it, Ms. Lane—pangs of regret? So soon?”

I shook my head. “Look back at the gate,” I said numbly. It had never appeared to me before when someone else was around.

Barrons turned, scanned the old partitioned-off cemetery for several moments, then glanced back at me. “What? I see nothing.”

I turned and looked. He was right. It was gone. Of course. I should have known. I sighed. “I guess I’m just a little spooked, Barrons. That’s all. Let’s go home. There’s nothing here.”

“Home, Ms. Lane?” His deep voice was gently amused.

“I have to call it something,” I said morosely. “They say home is where the heart is. I think mine’s satin-lined and six feet under.”

He opened the car door for me—the driver’s side. “Shall we dispel some of that youthful angst, Ms. Lane?” He offered me the keys. “Not far from here there’s a road that goes on for miles, through positively desolate parts.” His dark eyes gleamed. “Devilish curves. No traffic. Why don’t you take us for a drive?”

My eyes widened. “Really?”

He brushed a curl from my forehead and I shivered. Barrons has strong hands with long, beautiful fingers, and I think he carries some kind of electrical charge because every time he touches me it shoots an unwelcome thrill through my body. I took the keys from his hand, being careful not to make contact with skin. If he noticed, he let it pass unremarked.

“Try not to kill us, Ms. Lane.”

I slid behind the wheel. “Viper, SR10 coupe. 6-speed, V-10, 510 horses at 5,600 rpm, 0–60 in 3.9 seconds,” I babbled happily. He laughed.

I kept us alive. Barely.

I think it’s human nature to nest. Even the homeless stake out that special park bench or spot beneath the bridge, and feather it with items prized from someone’s trash. Everybody wants their own safe, warm, dry place in the world and if they don’t have one, they’ll do their best to create one with what they’ve got.

I was nesting on the first floor of BB&B. I’d rearranged the furniture, stashed a boring brown throw in a closet, and replaced it with a silky yellow one, brought two peaches-and-cream candles down from my bedroom, plugged in my new sound dock behind the cash register and tuned it to a cheery playlist, and propped photos of my family on top of my predecessor’s TV.

MacKayla Lane is here! it all said.

OOP-detector/monster-killer by night—bookseller by day was a much-needed respite. I liked the spicy fragrance of candles burning, the clean, new scent of freshly printed newspapers and glossily inked magazines. I liked ringing up sales and the sound the cash register made. I enjoyed the timeless ritual of taking money in exchange for goods. I liked the way the wood of the floors and shelves gleamed in the afternoon sun. I liked lying on my back on the counter when no one was around, trying to make out the mural on the ceiling, four floors above me. I enjoyed recommending great reads and discovering new ones from the customers. It all came together in a warm, nesty sort of way.

At four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, I was surprised to find myself bustling around the store, humming beneath my breath, and feeling almost…it took me a few moments to identify the feeling…good.

Then Inspector Jayne walked in.

And if that wasn’t bad enough—with him was my dad.