THREE
S till no knight errant.
It was V’lane. And here I’d been thinking things couldn’t get any worse.
Not a knight, but a Prince. Of the Seelie or Light Court, if anything he says can be believed. And hardly errant, V’lane is a death-by-sex-Fae. They don’t wander in search of adventure and romance, they incite killing ardor.
I glanced down at myself to see if I still had my clothes on. I was relieved to find I did. Fae royalty exude such intense sexuality that they override every survival instinct we have, clouding a woman’s mind, provoking her erotic senses beyond anything she was meant to experience, turning her into an inhumanly aroused animal, begging for sexual release. The first thing a woman does when one shows up is start stripping.
In a romance novelist’s hands, that might come off as hot, campy, even sexy. In reality, it’s icy, terrifying, and most often ends in death. If the woman is left alive, she’s Pri-ya, barely able to function, a Fae sex-addict.
I glanced back at the Shade and hastily lit another match. If anything, it was watching me even more intently now.
“So, assist me already,” I snapped.
“Does that mean you accept my gift?”
During our first encounter several weeks ago, V’lane had offered me a mystical relic known as the Cuff of Cruce, a gesture of goodwill, he’d claimed, in exchange for my help finding the Sinsar Dubh for his ruler, Aoibheal, High Queen of the Seelie Court. According to him, the cuff protects the wearer from assorted nasties, including the Shades.
According to my intractable host and mentor, with a Fae, Light or Dark, there’s always a catch, and they don’t believe in full disclosure. In fact, they don’t believe in disclosure at all. Would we disclose our intentions to a horse before we rode it, or a cow before we ate it?
Perhaps the cuff would save me. Perhaps it would enslave me.
Perhaps it would kill me.
During our last encounter, V’lane tried to rape me in the middle of a public place—not that being raped in a private place would have been any better, just that, adding insult to injury, I’d regained control of myself only to discover I was nearly naked in the middle of a crowd of voyeuristic jerks. It was a hurtful, hateful memory. I’d been racking up a lot of them lately.
Mom raised me better, I want that noted for posterity’s sake: Rainey Lane is a fine, upstanding woman.
I told V’lane exuberantly and in vivid detail what I was going to do to him at the earliest opportunity, and exactly where I was going to shove my Fae-killing spear—razor-sharp tip first—when I was done. I sprinkled the expletives with colorful adjectives. I might not be much of a cusser, but a bartender gets an education whether she wants one or not.
I had fourteen matches left. I struck another.
Framed in the window beyond the Shade, V’lane rose, skin of shimmering gold, eyes of liquid amber, inhumanly beautiful against the backdrop of velvety night. I think he was floating in the air. He tossed his hair, a gilded waterfall glinting with metallic sparks, cascading over a male body of such sensual perfection, such hedonistic temptation that I had no doubt Satan had laughed on the day of his creation—and sounded pretty much like V’lane did now. When his laughter subsided he murmured, “And you were such a sweet thing when you got here.”
“How do you know what I was like when I got here?” I demanded. “How long have you been watching me?”
The Fae prince raised a brow but said nothing.
I raised a brow back. He was Pan, Bacchus, and Lucifer, painted a thousand shades of to-die-for. Literally. “Why don’t you come in?” I asked sweetly. I had a suspicion I wanted to test.
V’lane’s mouth tightened and it was my turn to laugh.
Barrons was amazing. “You can’t get past the wards, can you? Is that why I’m not naked?” I dropped the match just as it began to burn my fingers and lit another one. “Do the wards somehow diminish your pow—”
I didn’t even get to finish my sentence. A forest fire of debilitating sexual need blasted me—i’mhungrystarvingdyingwithoutyoupleasewon’tyoupleasewon’tyougivemewhatineed—scorching the air in my lungs, flash-frying my brain, and charring my backbone.
I collapsed to the floor, human ashes.
As suddenly and unexpectedly as the sexual inferno had razed every cell in my body, it was gone, leaving me cold and, for brief moments, in agonizing pain, ravenous for delights that could only be sampled by eating from a banquet table at which humans were never meant to sit. Forbidden fruit. Poisonous fruit. Fruit a woman might sell her soul for. Perhaps even betray mankind.
“Careful, sidhe-seer. I have chosen to spare you. Do not press your luck.”
I locked my jaw, pushed myself up, and lit another match, studying my enemies in the flickering light. Both would devour me. Just in different ways. If forced to choose, I’d take death-by-Shade.
“Why have you chosen to spare me?”
“I want us to be…what is your word? Friends.”
“Psychotic rapists don’t have friends.”
“I was unaware you were a psychotic rapist or I would not have offered.”
“Ha.” I’d set myself up for that one.
He smiled, and I recognized the urge I suddenly felt to believe everything was wonderful with my world for the illusion it was. Royal Fae pack a psychic punch. Barrons says their entire being is designed to seduce on every level. Glamour piled upon illusion heaped upon deceit. You can’t believe a word they say.
“I am unaccustomed to interacting with humans, and have been known to underestimate my impact upon them. I did not understand how deeply the Sidhba-jai would disturb you. I wish to start again,” he said.
I dropped my match and lit another. “Start by getting rid of the Shade.”
“With the cuff, you would be able to saunter among them freely, without fear. You would never be so vulnerable again. Why would you refuse such power?”
“Oh, gee, let’s see…maybe because I trust you less than I trust the Shades?” At least the Shade was too stupid to be deceptive. I think.
“What is trust, sidhe-seer, but expectation that another will behave in a certain fashion, consistent with prior actions?”
“Great definition. Examine your prior actions.”
“I did. It is you who do not see me clearly. I came to you offering a gift to protect your life. You are a beautiful woman who dresses to command male attention. I gave it to you. I did not know the Sidhba-jai would distress you as it did. I even offered to pleasure you without price. You refused me. Perhaps I was offended. You menace me with a weapon stolen from my race. You speak to me of reasons not to trust when you have given me a multitude. You are a suspicious larcenous being with homicidal tendencies. Despite your continued threats to do vile things to me, I remain here, withholding what offends you, offering aid.”
I was getting low on matches. How cleverly he’d turned things around, as if he’d done nothing wrong, and I was the dangerous one. “Oh, drop the act, Tinkerbell, and get rid of my problem. Then we’ll talk.”
“Will we? Talk?”
I frowned and lit another match. There was a catch here somewhere but I wasn’t sure what it was. “I said we would.”
“As friends, we’ll talk.”
“Friends do not have sex, if that’s what you’re getting at.” That wasn’t true, but he didn’t necessarily know that. I’m heir to the “sex is just sex” generation and I hate it. Not only friends have sex, people who don’t like each other have sex. I’d once caught Natalie and Rick, two people I know for a fact can’t stand each other, banging away in the bathroom at The Brickyard. When later I’d asked her what had changed, she’d said nothing, she still couldn’t stand him, but he’d sure looked hot tonight. Doesn’t anybody get that sex is what you make it, and if you treat it like nothing, it is? I don’t clean the restrooms anymore. I leave that to Val. She’s lower on the seniority totem pole.
For the past few years, I’ve been on a quest for a good old-fashioned date, the kind where the guy calls, makes the plans, picks you up in a car that’s not his dad’s or his other girlfriend’s, and takes you somewhere that shows he put thought into what you might like, not what he might get off on like the latest how-many-naked-boobs-can-we-cram-into-this-movie-to-disguise-the-complete-lack-of-plot movie. I’m looking for the kind of date that starts with good conversation, has a sweet and satisfying middle, and ends with long, slow kisses and the dreamy feeling that you’re walking on clouds.
“That is not what I was implying. We will sit, the two of us, and talk of more than threats and fears and the differences between us. We will spend one of your hours as friends.”
I didn’t like the careful way he’d phrased that. “One of my hours?”
“Our hours are much longer, sidhe-seer. See how freely I converse with you? Telling you of our ways. So trust begins.”
Something about the Shade drew my attention. It took me a minute to figure out what it was. Its demeanor had changed. It was still predatory, but it was angry now. I could sense it the same way I’d felt its mockery earlier. I could also sense that its anger was not directed at me. I lit another match and contemplated it. I had four matches left, and an uneasy suspicion that V’lane might be doing something to rein in the amorphous life-sucker.
Was it possible this unnaturally strong Shade could take me, even in the light, if V’lane weren’t here right now? Had he been holding it at bay since the beginning?
“One hour,” I ground out. “But I’m not taking the cuff. And you won’t do that sexing-me-up thing. And I need coffee before we begin.”
“Not now. At a time of my choosing, MacKayla.”
He was calling me by name like we were friends. I didn’t like it one bit. I lit my third-last match. “Fine. Fix my problem.”
I was wondering just what I’d agreed to, and how many more demands V’lane would make before getting rid of the Shade—I had no doubt he’d draw it out until the last moment to scare and humiliate me as much as possible—when he mocked silkily, “Let there be light,” and suddenly all the lights in the room popped on.
The Shade exploded, shattering into countless dark pieces. They scrabbled toward the night, frantic cockroaches fleeing a bombed room, and I could sense the Unseelie was in unspeakable pain. If light didn’t kill them, it was certainly their version of Hell.
After the last quivering fragment scuttled over the sill, I hurried to shut the window. The alley was once again brightly lit. And empty.
V’lane was gone.
I collected my flashlights, tucked them back into my waistband, and walked through the store, hunting for Shades lurking in corners or hiding in closets. I found none. All the lights were back on, inside and out.
It disturbed me deeply. As effortlessly as V’lane had helped me, he could dump me back into the dark if he felt like it, without ever even having to enter the store.
What else could he do? How powerful was a Royal Fae? Shouldn’t the wards keep him from being able to influence physical matter beyond them? Speaking of wards, why hadn’t they kept out the Shades? Had Barrons only warded the property against the Lord Master? If he could perform such tricks, why not ward the entire building against everything? Except, of course, store patrons, although it was obvious the bookstore was just a cover—Barrons needed more money like Ireland needed more rain.
I needed answers. I was sick of not getting any. I was surrounded by egotistical, unpredictable, moody, pushy jackasses, and my feeling was if you can’t beat them, join them. I was confident I, too, could be a pushy jackass. I just needed a little practice.
I wanted to know more about Barrons. I wanted to know if he lived in this building or not. I wanted to know more about his mysterious garage. He’d slipped up not long ago, and mentioned something about a vault three floors beneath it. I wanted to know what a man like him stored in an underground vault.
I began with the store. The front half was just what it seemed, an eclectic and well-stocked bookstore. I dismissed it and moved to the rear half. The first floor was as impersonal as a museum, liberally and exorbitantly fitted with antiquities and artwork, but nothing that betrayed any real glimpse into the mind of the man who’d acquired the many artifacts. Even his study, the one room I expected to offer some personal portrayal of the man, presented only the cool, impersonal reflection of a large wood-framed mirror that occupied the wall between cherry bookcases, behind the ornate fifteenth-century desk. There was no bedroom, kitchen, or dining room on the first floor.
Every door on the second and third floors was locked. They were heavy, solid wood doors with complicated locks that I couldn’t force or pick. I started out stealthily jiggling the doorknobs because I was afraid Barrons might be in one of the rooms, but by the time I got to the third floor, I was giving them good hard shakes and pissed-off kicks. I’d awakened tonight to find myself in the dark. I was tired of being in the dark. I was tired of everyone else having control of the lights.
I stomped back downstairs and outside to the garage. The rain had abated but the sky was still dark with thunderclouds, and dawn was a promise I wouldn’t have believed, if I’d not lived through twenty-two years of them. Down the alley to my left, Shades restlessly shaped and reshaped the darkness at the edge of the abandoned neighborhood.
I flipped them off. With both hands.
I tested the garage door. Locked, of course.
I went to the nearest blacked-out window and smashed it in with the butt of my flashlight. The tinkle of breaking glass soothed my soul. No alarm went off. “Take that, Barrons. Guess your world isn’t so perfectly controlled, after all.” Perhaps it was warded like the bookstore, against other threats, not me. I broke out the jagged edges so I wouldn’t get cut, hoisted myself over the sill, and dropped to the floor.
I flipped on the light switches by the door then just stood there a minute, grinning like an idiot. I’ve seen his collection before, even ridden in a few of the cars, but the sight of them all together, one gleaming fantasy after another, is a total rush to somebody like me.
I love cars.
From sleek and sporty to squat and muscley, from luxury sedan to high-performance coupe, from state-of-the-art to timeless classic, I am a car fanatic—and Barrons has them all. Well, maybe not all. I haven’t seen him driving a Bugatti yet, and really, with 1003 horsepower and a million-dollar price tag, I’m hardly expecting to, but he’s got pretty much every car of my dreams, right down to a sixty-four and a half Stingray, painted what else but British racing green?
There, a black Maserati crouched next to a Wolf Countach. Here, a red Ferrari stretched on the verge of a purr, next to a—my smile died instantly—Rocky O’Bannion’s Maybach, reminding me of sixteen deaths that shouldn’t have happened to men who hadn’t deserved to die, and at least part of it was on my head: sixteen deaths I’d celebrated because they’d bought me a temporary stay of execution.
Where do you put such conflicting feelings? Is this where I’m supposed to grow up and start compartmentalizing? Is compartmentalizing just another way of divvying up our sins, apportioning a few here and a few over there, shoving our internal furniture around to hide some, so we can go on living with the weight of them individually, because collectively they’d drown us?
I shoved all thought of cars from my mind and began looking for doors.
The garage had once been some kind of commercial warehouse, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it occupied nearly a city block. The floors were polished concrete, the walls poured concrete, the beams and girders steel. All the windows were painted black, from the glass-block apertures near the ceiling, to the two double-paned glass openings at ground level by the doors, one of which I’d busted. The garage had a single retractable dock door.
Other than that and a bunch of cars, there was nothing. No stairs, no closets, no trapdoors hidden beneath rubber mats on the floor. I know, I looked, there was nothing.
So where were the three subterranean levels and how was I supposed to get down to them?
I stood in the center of the enormous garage surrounded by one of the finest car collections in the world, tucked away in a nondescript alley in Dublin, and tried to think like its bizarre owner. It was an exercise in futility. I wasn’t sure he had a brain. Perhaps there was only a coldly efficient microchip in there.
I felt more than heard the noise, a rumble in my feet.
I cocked my head, listening. After a moment, I got down on my hands and knees, brushed a thin veneer of dust from the floor, and pressed my ear to the cold concrete. Far beneath me, in the marrow of the ground, something bayed.
It sounded maddened, bestial, and it raised the fine hair all over my body. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the mouth capable of making such a sound. It bayed over and over, each soul-chilling howl lasting a full minute or more, echoing up from its concrete tomb.
What was down there? What kind of creature possessed such lung capacity? Why was it making such a sound? It was darker than a wail of despair, emptier than a funeral dirge; it was the bleak, tortured baying of a thing beyond salvation, abandoned, lost, condemned to the agony of hell without beginning or end.
Chicken flesh sprouted all over my arms.
There was a new cry then, this one more terrified than tortured. It rose in gruesome concert with that long, terrible howl.
They both stopped.
There was silence.
I rapped my knuckles on the floor in frustration, wondering just how far in over my head I was.
No longer feeling quite so jackassy or pushy, I left to go back to my room. As I stepped into the alley, the wind scooted trash along the pavement, and the dense cloud cover drifted apart to reveal a window of dark sky. Dawn was moments away, yet the moon was still bright and full. To my right, in the Dark Zone, Shades no longer crouched in the shadows. They’d fled something, and it wasn’t the moon or the dawn. I’d watched them a lot from my window lately; they ceded the night in petulant degrees, the largest of them lingering until the last.
I glanced to my left and sucked in a breath.
“No,” I whispered.
Just beyond reach of the building floodlights a tall, black-shrouded figure stood, folds of midnight cloth rustling in the wind.
Several times over the past week, I’d thought I’d glimpsed something out a window, late at night. Something so trite and clichéd that I’d refused to believe it was real. And I wouldn’t now.
Fae were bad enough.
“You’re not there,” I told it.
I dashed across the alley, vaulted up the stairs, kicked open the door, and burst through it. When I looked back, the specter was gone.
I laughed shakily. I knew better.
It had never been there to begin with.
I took a shower, dried my hair, got dressed, grabbed a chilled latte from the fridge, and made it downstairs just in time for Fiona to show up, and the police to arrive to arrest me.