Darkfever

CHAPTER 18

Shades: perhaps my greatest enemy among the Fae, I wrote in my journal.

Dropping my pen between the pages, I checked my watch again; still ten more minutes to go until the museum opened. I'd had bad dreams last night, and I'd been so eager to get out of the bookstore and into the sunny morning, to go do something touristy and refreshingly normal, that I hadn't thought to check what time the museum opened. After stopping for coffee and a scone, I'd still arrived a half an hour early and was one of many people milling outside, standing in groups or waiting on benches near the domed entrance of the Museum of Archaeology and History on Kildare Street.

I'd managed to snag a bench for myself and was making good use of my extra time by updating recent events in my notebook and summarizing what I'd learned. My obsession with finding Alina's journal was shaping what and how I chose to write in my own: about everything, and in great detail. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and you never knew what clues someone else might be able to pick up on in your life that you were blinded to by living it. If anything happened to me, I wanted to leave behind the best possible record I could, in case someone else would take up my cause—although frankly, I couldn't imagine anyone who would—and I hoped Alina had done the same.

I picked up my pen.

According to Barrons, I wrote, the Shades lack substance, which means I can neither freeze nor stab them. It appears I have no defense against this low-level caste of Unseelie.

The irony was not lost on me. The Shades were the most base of their kind, barely sentient, yet—despite the spearhead in my purse (tip securely cased in a wad of foil) allegedly capable of killing even the most powerful shark in the Fae sea—I was still helpless against the bottom-feeders.

Well, I was just going to have to stay off the bottom, then, and arm myself tooth and nail with what did work against them. I jotted a quick addition to a shopping list I'd been compiling: several dozen flashlights in varying sizes. I would begin carrying two or more on me at all times and scatter the rest around the bookstore, in every corner of every room, bracing for the horrifying possibility that the power might, one night, go out. Despite the bright morning sun, I shivered, just thinking about it. I'd not been able to get the Shades off my mind ever since yesterday when I'd discovered those piles of clothing collapsed around their papery remains.

Why do they leave clothing behind? I'd asked Barrons when I'd passed him in the rear hall, late last night on my way to bed. The man was a serious night owl. At my tender age—in my defense, I'd like to point out that I've had a very stressful life lately—I'd been bleary-eyed and exhausted by one in the morning, yet he'd looked disgustingly energized and awake, and in high spirits again. I knew my question was hardly important in the overall scheme of things, but sometimes it's the tiniest, insignificant details that nag at my curiosity the most.

In the same way the Gray Man hungers for beauty that will never be his, Ms. Lane, Barrons had said, the Shades are drawn to steal that which they can never possess as well: A physical manifestation of life. So they take ours and leave behind what has no animation. Clothing is inert.

Well, what are those papery things? I'd asked, gripped by a revolting fascination. I'm assuming they're parts of us, but which ones?

Morbid tonight, are we, Ms. Lane? How would I know? Barrons' shrug was a Gallic ripple of muscle beneath crimson silk. Perhaps condensed skin, bones, teeth, toenails and such, sucked dry of life. Or perhaps our brains are unpalatable to them. Maybe they taste like frog, Ms. Lane, and Shades hate frog.

"Ugh," I muttered, as I scribbled the gist of our nocturnal conversation on a new page.

While I was finishing up, there was a sudden mass exodus around me, and I glanced up at the now-open doors of the museum. Tucking my journal carefully into my purse so it didn't hamper easy access to my spearhead, I slung my bag over my shoulder and rose, pleased to realize I was barely registering the nausea caused by such close contact with the OOP. I was determined to carry the thing with me everywhere, so I'd forced myself to sleep with it last night, hoping the more contact I had with it, the less disturbing I would find it over time. It seemed to be working.

My mood perked up as I stepped into the grand rotunda entrance. I've always liked museums. I should probably pretend it's because I'm so erudite and scholarly and love to learn, but the truth is I just love shiny, pretty things, and from what I'd heard about this place, it was packed full. I couldn't wait to see them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get very far.

One day I would stop taking off my clothes in V'lane's presence, but the cost of that resistance would be a piece of my soul.

Today, here and now, strolling through the National Museum of Archaeology and History, dazzled and delighted by the Or exhibit, a treasure trove of Ireland's gold, I had no idea that pieces of one's soul could be lost.

Back then, I was so blind to everything that was going on around me. Back then, I was twenty-two and pretty and up until the month before, my biggest concern had been whether Revlon would discontinue my favorite Iceberry Pink nail polish, which would be a disaster of epic proportions as it would leave me without the perfect complement for the short pink silk skirt I was wearing today with a clingy pearly top, and shimmery gold sandals, flattered by just the right heel to show off my golden, toned legs. A polished pearl-drop necklace swung between my full breasts, matching earrings and a pearl bracelet at my wrist gave me just the right look of youthful glam. My Arabian Night curls were soft around my face and I was turning more than a few male heads. I notched my chin a bit higher and smiled inside. Ah, the simple pleasures in life…

A few display cases down, over by the stairs, a really cute guy was checking me out. He was tall, athletically built, with short dark hair, great skin, and the dreamiest blue eyes ever. He looked to be about my age, maybe a few years older—a college student, I was willing to bet—and he was exactly the kind of guy I'd have gone out with back home. He gave me an appreciative nod and a smile, making his interest plain. Distinguish yourself, my mom had told Alina and me, in an age where girls often make themselves too available to boys, by making him work a little for your attention. He'll think he's won a prize when he gets it, and he'll work that much harder to keep it. Boys turn into men and men put a premium on what's hardest to get.

Have I mentioned what a wise woman my mother is? My dad is still head over heels for her after thirty years, still thinks the sun rises and sets on Rainey Lane's head, and if one day she didn't get out of bed, neither would the morning. And neither would he. Alina and I never lacked for love, but we always knew our parents loved each other a little bit more. We found it disgusting and, at the same time, reassuring that they never stopped locking us out of the bedroom at the weirdest times of day, sometimes twice in the same day. We'd roll our eyes at each other, but in a world where the divorce rate is more alarming than oil prices, their ongoing love affair was our Rock of Gibraltar.

I started to give the guy a demure smile, but the moment my lips began to curve, they froze. Why bother? It wasn't as if dating was something I could schedule neatly in, right between vampires, life-sucking Fae, mobsters, and OOP-detecting. Would he come pick me up at Barrons for our date? Gee, what if my enigmatic and cold-blooded host chose that night to turn off the outside lights again?

Bye-bye cute boy, hello pile of clothes.

That thought iced the blood in my veins. I stepped up my pace and left the boy behind in a hurry. Continuing through the exhibit, I focused on my recently discovered raison d'être, stretching my Spidey-sense in all directions, waiting for a tingle.

I got nothing.

I moved through room after room, past artifact after relic, display after display, without getting the faintest twinge of nausea. I was, however, getting a few other twinges. Apparently the cute boy had stirred up my hormones, because I was suddenly having downright kinky thoughts about him and wondering if he had a brother. Or two. Maybe even three.

That was so not me. I'm a one-man woman. Even in my fantasies I go for good old-fashioned steamy sex, not multi-partnered porn. A particularly graphic image of cute boy plus brothers swam up in my mind and I nearly staggered from the raw eroticism of it. I shook my head sharply, and reminded myself what I was doing here: looking for OOPs—not orgiastic, mindless sex.

I'd nearly given up hope of encountering anything of interest when my gaze was drawn to a scrap of pink silk and lace lying on the floor a few feet away to my left, back in the direction from which I'd come.

I couldn't help but think how pretty it was and walked back over toward it, to see what it was.

My cheeks flamed. Of course I'd liked it.

It was my panties.

I snatched them up and performed a hasty inventory of myself.

Skirt, check. Shirt, check. Bra on, good. Thank you, God. Apart from the draft on my bare bottom, and the excruciatingly painful state of arousal I was in, I seemed to be okay. Apparently I'd gone straight to the panties, reached beneath my skirt, slipped them off, and continuing walking without even noticing. If I weren't so enamored of pink, if I weren't so into fashion, I might have continued blithely disrobing, thinking all kinds of happy, horny thoughts, until I'd have been strolling the museum naked. As it was, I'd been sidetracked by the vision of my own good taste lying there on the floor. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or appalled by how shallow I was.

"Where are you?" I snapped, stepping back into my panties and smoothing my skirt down over my hips. Though I stood in the middle of a large room full of people exclaiming over various treasures, not one person was paying me the slightest bit of attention. There was no doubt in my mind what had just brought me to such an intense, base state of sexual arousal that I'd begun subconsciously stripping.

A Fae was here somewhere, glamouring things up, and it was one of the death-by-sex ones. I assumed it was V'lane, mostly because the thought that there might be multiple, terrifyingly beautiful, mind-bending, libido-distorting Fae in my world was more than I could handle.

From somewhere behind me, laughter rolled like smooth, round, cool pearls sliding slowly over my clitoris, and I was suddenly a great, bottomless abyss of excruciating sexual need. My legs were shaking, my panties were gone again, my inner thighs were soaking wet, and I was so hungry for sex that I knew for a fact I was going to die if I didn't get it right here and now.

A clatter drew my gaze to the floor. Next to my panties was my pearl bracelet. I wasn't sure if I'd done what I'd just felt between my legs, or if it had. "V'lane," I whispered, through lips swollen and plumped, just like my breasts were swelling and plumping. My body was changing, making itself ready for its Master, growing softer and wetter and riper and fuller.

"Lie down, human," it said.

"Over my dead body, Fae," I snarled.

It laughed again and my nipples were on fire. "Not yet, sidhe-seer, but one day you might beg for death."

Anger. That was it. Anger had worked before. Anger and another A-word. But what was it, that word? What had saved me before? What was that unhappy thought, that miserable thought that could make me go cold inside and feel like Death myself?

"Apple," I muttered. No, that wasn't it. Artifact? Adam? Alleged? Allowed? Wasn't I? Allowed to have sex right here and now? Hadn't it said, "Lie down, human?" Who was I to disobey?

I knelt on the cool marble floor of the museum and slipped my skirt up over my hips, baring, presenting. Here I am. Take me.

"On all fours," it said behind me, laughing again, and again I felt the cool slip of pearls being dragged slowly between my thighs, over my taut bud, between my swollen, slick lips. I dropped forward on my hands and knees. My spine arched, my bottom lifted, and I made a sound that wasn't at all human.

My mind was going. I could feel it and I still didn't even know if it was V'lane behind me or some other Fae that was going to nail me to the floor and slowly screw me to death. Then its hands were on my bottom and it was positioning me, and if I was a Null, I'd forgotten I had hands, and if there was a spear nearby, I'd forgotten I had a purse, and if I'd once had a sister who'd been killed somewhere in Dublin—

"Alina!" The word exploded from me with such vehemence and desperation that spittle sprayed from my lips.

I wrenched myself free, reared around, and slammed both palms into V'lane's chest. "You pig!" I scuttled sideways, a bare-bottomed crab, desperate to reach the purse I'd dropped several yards away, along with my shirt and shoes.

By the time I reached my small pile of abandoned possessions, the Fae was already unfrozen again. Barrons had been right, the higher the caste, the more powerful the Fae. Apparently I could only freeze royalty for mere moments. It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

"We are not pigs," it said coldly, rising. "It is humans who are the animals."

"Yeah, right. I'm not the one that almost just raped me!"

"You wanted it and you still do," it said flatly. "Your body burns for me, human. You want to worship me. You want to be on your knees."

The horror of it was—it was right. I did. Even now, my back was still arched with sensual invitation, my bottom was questing up like a cat in heat, and my every move was supple, sinuous. I was one great big come-hither. There was a mindless nymphomaniac inside me and it didn't care how many orgasms it took to die. With trembling hands, I grabbed my purse. "Stay away from me," I warned.

Its expression said it was in no hurry to get close to me at the moment. Its expression said it was revolted by my all-too-brief power over it, by a mere human having dominion in any manner over something so glorious as itself. "Why have you come here? What of ours is here, sidhe-seer?" it demanded.

Unzipping my purse, I nudged the ball of foil from the tip and closed my hand on the spear, but left it tucked inside. I wanted to preserve the element of surprise. "Nothing."

"You lie."

"No, really, there's nothing here," I said truthfully, not that I would have told it if there had been.

"It has been five days, sidhe-seer. What did you take from O'Bannion?"

I blinked. How in the world did it know that?

"He died trying to get it back, that's how. I know where you stay," it said. "I know where you go. It is useless to lie to me."

I preferred to believe the Fae had read the thoughts on my face, not plucked them from my mind. I bit my tongue to keep from whimpering. It was doing something to me again. It had my pearls again. And was working between my legs with them, one hard, cool ball after the next.

"Talk, sidhe-seer."

"You want to know what we took? I'll show you what we took!" I curled my fingers tightly around the base of the spearhead, yanked it from my purse, and drew it back threateningly. "This!"

It was the first time I ever saw such a look on a Fae's face and it would not be the last. It filled my veins with such a heady rush of power that it was very nearly equal to the insane sexual arousal I was feeling.

V'lane, prince of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, feared something.

And it was in my hand.

The imperious Fae was gone. Just like that. Blink of an eye, if I'd blinked. I hadn't. He'd vanished.

I sat, breathing deeply, clutching the spear, and trying to regroup.

The room seeped slowly back into my consciousness: a buzz of noise, a blur of color, and finally, snippets of conversation here and there.

"What do you suppose she's doing?"

"No idea, man, but she's got a great ass. And talk about your tits to die for!"

"Cover your eyes, Danny. Now." A mother's tight, pinched voice. "She's not decent."

"Looks better than decent to me." Accompanied by a low whistle and the flash of a camera.

"What the hell is in her hand? Should somebody call the cops?"

"I dunno, maybe the paramedics? She doesn't look so well."

I glanced around, wild-eyed. I was on the floor, surrounded by people on all sides, a circle of them, pressing in on me, staring down at me with greedy, curious eyes.

I sucked in a ragged breath that wanted to come back out as a sob, crammed the spear back in my purse—how in the world would I explain having it? — yanked my skirt back down over my bottom, clasped my bra over my bare breasts, fumbled for my shirt, yanked it over my head, picked up my shoes, and scrambled to my feet.

"Get out of my way," I cried, plunging blindly into the crowd, shoving them aside, vultures, one and all.

I couldn't help it. I burst into tears as I raced from the room.

For such an old woman, she sure could move fast.

She cut me off less than a block away from the museum, darting in front of me, blocking my path.

I veered sharply left, and detoured around her without missing a beat.

"Stop," she cried.

"Go to hell," I snapped over my shoulder, tears scalding my cheeks. My victory over V'lane with the spear had been completely overshadowed by my public humiliation. How long had I been sitting there with parts of me sticking out that no man had ever gotten a good look at in broad daylight unless armed with a speculum and a medical license? How long had they been watching me? Why hadn't someone tried to cover me up? Down South, a man would have draped a shirt around me. He would have taken a quick glance while he did it, I mean, really, breasts are breasts and men are men, but chivalry is not entirely dead where I come from.

"Voyeurs," I said bitterly. "Sick scandal-starved people." Thank you, reality TV. People were so used to being taken straight into other people's most intimate moments and viewing the sordid details of their lives that they were now far more inclined to sit back and enjoy the show than make any effort to help someone in need.

The old woman got in front of me again and I veered right this time, but she veered with me and I crashed into her. She was so elderly and tiny and fragile-looking that I was afraid she might topple over, and at her age, a fall could mean serious broken bones and a long recovery period. Good manners—unlike those creeps in the museum, some of us still had them—temporarily eclipsed my misery, and I steadied her by the elbows. "What?" I demanded. "What do you want? You want to bean me in the head again? Well, go ahead! Do it and get it over with! But I think you should know that I couldn't help seeing this one and the situation is—well, it's complicated."

My assailant was the old woman from the bar that first night I'd arrived in Dublin; the one who'd rapped me with her knuckles and told me to stop staring at the Fae and go die somewhere else and—although now I knew she'd saved my life that night, she might have done it more nicely—I was currently in no mood to thank her.

Tilting her silvery-white head back, she stared up at me, a flabbergasted expression on her wrinkled face. "Who are you?" she exclaimed.

"What do you mean, who am I?" I said sourly. "Why are you chasing me if you don't know who I am? Do you make a habit of chasing strangers?"

"I was in the museum," she said. "I saw what you did! Sweet Jesus, Mary Mother of God and all the saints, who are you, lass?"

I was so disgusted with people in general that I shrieked, "You saw what that thing was trying to do to me and didn't try to help me? If it had raped me, would you have just stood there and watched? Thanks a lot! Appreciate it. Gee, it's getting to the point where I'm not sure who the bigger monsters are—us or them." I spun sharply and tried to walk away but she latched onto my arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

"I couldn't help you and you know it," she snapped. "You know the rules."

I shook her hand off my arm. "Actually, I don't. Everyone else seems to. Just not me."

"One betrayed is one dead," said the old woman sharply. "Two betrayed is two dead. We count precious each of our kind, never more so than now. We cannot take risks that might betray more of us, especially not me. Besides, you held your own in a way I've never seen—and against a prince, no less! Sweet Jesus, how did you do it? What are you?" Her sharp blue gaze darted rapidly from my left eye to my right and back again. "At first your hair fooled me, then I knew it was you, from the bar. That skin, those eyes, and the way you walk—och, just like Patrona! But you can't be Patrona's, or I'd have known. From what O'Connor line do you come? Who is your mother?" she demanded.

I tossed my head impatiently. "Look, old lady, I told you that night in the bar that I'm not an O'Connor. My name is Lane. MacKayla Lane, from Georgia. My mom is Rainey Lane and before she married my dad, she was Rainey Frye. So there you have it. Sorry to disappoint you, but there's not a single O'Connor anywhere in my family tree."

"Then you were adopted," the old woman said flatly.

I gasped. "I was not adopted!"

"Ballocks!" the old woman snapped. "Though I've no notion the hows and whys of it, you're an O'Connor through and through."

"The nerve!" I exclaimed. "How dare you come up to me and tell me I don't know who I am? I'm MacKayla Lane and I was born in Christ Hospital just like my sister and my dad was right there in the room with my mom when I was born and I am not adopted and you don't know the first thing about me or my family!"

"Obviously," the old woman retorted, "you don't, either."

I opened my mouth, thought better of it, shut it, and turned and walked away. I would only be giving credence to the old woman's delusions by rebutting them. I wasn't adopted and I knew that for a fact, as certainly as I knew she was one crazy old woman.

"Where are you going?" she demanded. "There are things I must know. Who you are, if we can trust you and how, by all that's holy, did you get your hands on one of their Hallows? That night in the bar I thought you Pri-ya" — she spat the word like the foulest of epithets—"from the moonstruck way you were staring at it. Now I've no idea what you are. You must come with me now. Stop right there, O'Connor." She used a tone of voice that, not so long ago, would have stopped me dead in my tracks and turned me around, out of respect for my elders if nothing else, but I wasn't that girl anymore. In fact, I was no longer even certain who that girl had really been, as if Mac BTC—Before The Call that day by the pool—hadn't quite been real, just an empty, pretty amalgam of fashionable clothes, happy music, and coltish dreams.

"Stop calling me that," I hissed over my shoulder, "and stay away from me, old woman." I broke into a sprint but wasn't fast enough to outrun her next words, and I knew as soon as she said them that they were going to chafe like sharp pebbles in my shoes.

"Then ask her," rang out the old woman's challenge. "If you're so certain you're not adopted, MacKayla Lane, talk to your mother and ask her."