Part 11 (2/2)
She scans bodies and faces, seeking the one she desires: the more beautiful, the better.
She would select one of the mysterious Nine that work behind the scenes of this club, but the monster she hunts may find them too barbaric or perhaps too dangerous to take the bait. Their formidable reputation precedes them into distant lands.
She has found mention of the Nine in millennia-old annals, tracked them into present times through paintings and photographs. She has identified six of them by name, knows a seventh only by his long silver hair and dark burning eyes. She found a very old portrait of him in Romania that astounds. She knows two of them are half brothers, with different fathers, although the world would never guess it by looking. She knows the sorrow the one she will permit to live may feel, but her ledgers must be balanced. She has been unable to cement either face or name for the remaining two into the meticulous compartments of her memory. The single time she saw all nine of them in one place, one was hooded, the other's face too heavily painted to see.
Knowledge is power.
Kasteo, Barrons, Fade, Ryodan, Lor, Daku.
She nearly smiles at the last name. He was once a gladiator for sheer love of the game, and in another century and land, an epic samurai. She antic.i.p.ates their battle second most.
Their ways are as vile as the Fae, yet two of the six names she knows are not on her list. Two of them she will permit to live.
She hears and dismisses s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation as she pa.s.ses.
”Who is she?”
”Never seen her before.”
”f.u.c.k, the b.i.t.c.h is hot!”
”You don't stand a chance, Bruegger. She'd tear you up.”
”And I'd die a happy man.”
”Think she's Fae?”
”Dunno. She sure as h.e.l.l moves like one.”
The Fae she has studied, as well, dissected and a.s.similated what she found useful. There are many of them on her list.
But she's not Fae. She's human.
She moves silently through the subclubs. In her wake, a man who was foolish enough to try to grab her a.s.s as she pa.s.sed clutches a broken and bloodied hand, and howls with drunken pain and fury.
This time she does smile.
No one touches her except in the clash of a battle she has chosen.
High above, behind the gla.s.s bal.u.s.trade that shapes a perimeter walkway into an inner courtyard for the private upper levels, she spies the perfect worm for her hook and contemplates the anomaly: humans are not permitted up there. Only the Nine and their few chosen. Yet he is both human and up there. Unattended. Stripping and tossing his clothing over a chrome railing to a delighted crowd of women below.
He is nude then and she a.s.sesses him clinically. Yes, perfect.
As she approaches the gla.s.s staircase that provides access to the levels where the Nine are rumored to maintain their residences, in addition to the owner's office, the electronic heart of the enormous club, she processes the second anomaly: the stairs are not guarded at the bottom by two of the Nine, a minor challenge for which she was prepared. Inconceivable, were it not fact.
She would escalate to high alert, but she lives there.
Silently, without questioning her luck-luck always favors the arrow that knows its goal-she ascends the stairs.
10.
”There's a she-wolf in disguise coming out, coming out”
MAC.
It's midnight, our meeting ended hours ago, and I'm alone in the bookstore. After Kat left with Sean, Ryodan said something to Barrons about cleaning up after the h.o.a.r Frost King, which made no sense to me since the last of the ice melted weeks ago.
Barrons left to do whatever he does when he comes back with his heart beating, eyes brilliant, fury cooled. He won't have s.e.x with me if he's hungry. I have my theories about why.
I once asked him what he ate and he said gently, None of your f.u.c.king business. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't signify. He is what he is. You take it or leave it, and I'm not leaving. The man isn't vegan. He has a toothbrush. Life goes on.
After wasting hours poring over yet another tattered, disintegrating volume we brought out of the Silvers with a t.i.tle that translates roughly as The Fae Obscene, I busy myself dusting and polis.h.i.+ng shelves and counters, then check on the weapons I've hidden around the store. Anything to keep from thinking about this afternoon, and the terrible thing I've done. The terrible things I might continue to do unless I silence the Book forever. I consider going to see Inspector Jayne, learn the location of the O'Leary family, see what their needs are and fill them, but every time I begin to ponder it, I double over with guilt and grief, too sick to my stomach to move.
It's been a while since I tended my cache. I miss my weapons, but I'm not willing to carry them. After today, I'd rather not carry the spear, but I won't leave it lying around where someone else might find it, not even at the bookstore. Barrons despises the ancient Fae hallow because it could kill me. I like it for the same reason. A gun can kill you, too. You have to respect it.
I break down my Glocks, PPQs, my Sig and my Kimber, clean, reload, and rack. I save my Nighthawk Custom Falcon Commander .45 for last, because it's my current favorite, then move on to my rifles. I line them up on the counter, admiring them. I enjoy handling the metal and plastic, the cool iron of the bullets Dani and I made. I practice throwing my switchblades at a Bob I set up in a back room. I even polish my spear, holding it carefully, practice trying to block the horrific images the Book throws at me.
Eventually I run out of idle tasks and begin to pace restlessly, wondering why Ryodan didn't mention Dani tonight.
He must know she's missing. Surely he's looking for her. If she were here, she'd be arguing for a seat at our table. She's always battled for Dublin, made it her first priority, even when Ro was alive, threatening her, controlling her sword, directing it.
I used Voice on Rowena after I stabbed her, and know she used her gift of mental coercion to force Dani to kill my sister, but I don't know the details.
I thought I'd made peace with her part in my sister's death. But it's one thing to sit in my bookstore, telling myself I can forgive her, entirely another to look her in the face, feel that forgiveness in my heart and communicate it to my arm-as the night we met for the first time since I learned the truth had proven.
I'd lashed out. Barely managed to pull back. I'm just grateful I didn't black out and lose complete control. I wonder why I didn't, what was different about the night I drew my spear on Dani and this afternoon when I drew on the Gray Woman.
”Alina, Alina, Alina,” I whisper.
Sometimes I say her name in litany as if mere repet.i.tion might have the power to resurrect her from the dead. What no one tells you is that when someone you love dies, you lose them twice. Once to death, the second time to acceptance, and you don't walk that long, dark pa.s.sage between the two alone. Grief takes every shuffling, unwilling step with you, offering a seductive bouquet of memories that can only blossom south of sanity. You can stay there, nose buried in the petals of the past. But you're never really alive again. Spend enough time with ghosts, you become one.
Still, I long for a summer day on the sand in Faery, a Corona in my hand with lime pulp dripping down the sides, near a volleyball net, even if only with the illusion of Alina.
Make it so, my hitchhiker purrs. We can.
”Been there, done that temptation,” I mutter. ”Get a fresh idea. The answer is still no.”
The bell suddenly flies off the top of the front door in an explosion of hardware and screeching metal, shoots straight up in the air then crashes to the floor, where it gives a final, defiant tinkle.
<script>