Fever 1 - Darkfever (24 page)

Then the pictures changed, about four months after she arrived in Dublin , according to the dates on the photos. In the second packet of photos there were dozens of Alina alone, taken in and around the city, and it was obvious from the way she was looking at the person behind the camera that she was already deeply in love. Much as it chafed me to admit, the man behind the lens had taken the most beautiful pictures of my sister that I'd ever seen.

You want to believe in black and white, good and evil, heroes that are truly heroic, and villains that are just plain bad, but I've learned in the past year that things are rarely so simple. The good guys can do some truly awful things, and the bad guys can sometimes surprise the heck out of you.
This
bad guy had seen and captured the very best in my sister. Not just her beauty, but that unique inner light that defined her.

Right before he'd extinguished it.

I found it impossible to understand that no one had been able to describe him to me. He and my sister must have turned heads all over the city, yet no one had even been able to tell me what color his hair was.

It was shimmering copper, streaked with gold, and it fell to his waist. Now, how could people not remember that? He was taller than Barrons and beneath his expensive clothing was the kind of body a man only got from weight lifting and intense self-discipline. He looked to be somewhere around thirty, but could easily have been younger or older; there was a timelessness about him. His skin was tanned gold and smooth. Though he was smiling, his strange copper eyes held the arrogance and entitlement of aristocracy. Now I understood why he'd furnished his home with the extravagant opulence of the Sun King who'd built the palace at Versailles —it fit him like a glove. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn he
was
the king of one of those small foreign countries few people ever heard of. The only thing that marred his perfection was a long scar running down his left cheek, from cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, and it didn't really mar him at all. It only made him more intriguing. There were many pictures of them together that had obviously been taken by someone else—yet not one person had been able to describe him to the police, or tell them his name. Here, they were holding hands and smiling at each other. There they were shopping. Here, they were dancing on top of a table down in the Temple Bar District.

There they were kissing.

The more I looked at the pictures, the harder it was to see this man as a villain. She looked so happy with him and he looked just as happy with her.

I shook my head sharply. She'd thought so, too. She'd believed in him right up to the day she'd called and left me her frantic message:
I thought he was helping me
, she'd said,
but
—
God, I can't believe I
was so stupid! I thought I was in love with him and he's one of them, Mad He's one of them
!

One of who ? An Unseelie that could somehow pass for human, duping even a
sidhe-seer
? I wondered again if such a thing was possible. If he wasn't Unseelie, what was he, and why would he ally himself with monsters? The man was clearly a consummate actor to have fooled Alina. But she'd found him out in the end. Had she grown suspicious and followed him here? To his home in the Dark Zone, smack in the middle of where my Spidey-sense was getting all kinds of warnings about supernatural danger?

Speaking of supernatural danger, I'd been so intent on investigating the address Alina had sent me to, then gotten so sidetracked by the photos, I'd not realized whatever had push-pulled me in this direction wasn't even in the house. It was out back, beyond it.

And it was getting stronger.

Way
stronger. Like it just had woken up.

I slipped the photos back in their envelopes, stuffed them into an inner pocket of my jacket, and got up. As I hurried through the first floor of the house again, looking for a rear exit, I noticed that there was something really wrong with the mirrors on the walls. So wrong, in fact, that after glancing into the first few, I stopped looking and stepped up my pace sharply. Those surreal-looking glasses were my first taste of the true "otherness" of the Fae. Although some Seelie and Unseelie walk and talk just like we do, we are so not the same species.

I found a back door, let myself out, and headed straight for the half-raised corrugated steel dock door of a warehouse that sat back off the alley about fifty feet behind 1247 LaRuhe. Whatever was pulling me was in there.

I must have been crazy that day is all I can figure. Though I moved with stealth and kept to the side of the entrance, I walked straight in. The temperature plummeted the moment I crossed the threshold and entered the shadowy interior. The building could easily have housed several football fields. It was an old distribution center, with racking systems a good thirty feet high to my left and right, and a central aisle between them, wide enough to drive two delivery trucks down, side by side. The long aisle was littered with plastic-wrapped pallets stacked ten to fifteen feet high that had not yet been unloaded and transferred to the racking. The chipped and scarred concrete was strewn with haphazard piles of wooden crates and forklifts that looked as though they'd been abandoned midlift. Far down the long aisle, I could see a stark, heavy light, and hear voices.

I crept toward the light, slipping from stack to forklift to crate, working my way stealthily along, drawn by an instinct I could neither understand nor refuse. The nearer I got, the colder it grew. By the time I reached the third-to-last row of racking between me and whatever was ahead, I was shivering and watching my breath puff tiny ice crystals into the air.

By the second-to-last row of racking, the metal of the fork-lift I crouched behind was painfully icy to the touch.

By the last row, I was so nauseated I had to sit down and stay put awhile. All that remained between me and whatever was ahead were stacks and stacks of pallets in a disorganized row that looked as if they'd been shoved back to clear a large area of floor space. Beyond those stacks, I could see the top parts of what looked like massive stones. The dense light that pressed into the gloom where I crouched wasn't natural. It was a heavy, somehow dark light, and not one of the objects it was shining on threw a shadow.

I have no idea how long it took me to get my queasy stomach under control. It might have been five minutes, it might have been half an hour, but eventually I was able to stand up again and forge on. It occurred to me that perhaps I
shouldn't
forge on; I should just "run like hell" as Barrons had once counseled me and not look back, but there was that whole "pull" part of the push-pull thing going on. I
had
to see what was up there. I had to know. I'd come too far to turn back now. I peered around the corner of a stack of pallets—and erked back violently. I eased myself to the floor on legs that were shaky again, a hand pressed to my pounding heart, wishing fervently that I'd never gotten out of bed this morning.

After a few deep, careful breaths, I leaned forward and looked again. I think I was hoping I'd just imagined it.

I hadn't.

Though I'd seen pictures in guidebooks and on postcards, I would have expected to find this kind of thing in the middle of a farmer's pasture, not in the rear of an industrial warehouse in the heart of a commercial district, midcity. I'd also gotten the impression they were more moderately sized. This one was huge. I tried to imagine how it had gotten here, then remembered I wasn't dealing with human methods of locomotion. With the Fae, anything was possible.

Looming behind about a hundred Rhino-boys and other assorted Unseelie—who threw no shadows in the oppressive, strange light spilling from it—was a dolmen.Two towering stones stood upright about twenty-five feet apart, and a single long slab of rock lay across the top, making a doorway of the ancient megaliths.

All around the doorway, symbols and runes were chiseled into the concrete floor. Some glowed crimson, others pulsed that eerie blue-black of the stone we'd stolen from Mallucé. A red-robed figure stood facing the dolmen, a deep cowl concealing its face.

An arctic wind so cold it made my lungs hurt blasted through the stones, chilling more than my flesh; the dark wind bit into my soul with sharp, icy teeth, and I suddenly knew if I had to withstand it for very long I would slowly begin to forget every hope and dream that had ever warmed my heart. But it wasn't the soul-searing wind or the Rhino-boys or even the red-robed figure the Fae watchdogs were addressing as "my Lord Master" that had me cowering in shadows. It was that the immense stone doorway was open. And through it was pouring a
horde
of Unseelie.

Iwon't bore you with the details of the monsters that came through the doorway that day. Barrens and I would discuss them later and try to identify their castes, and you'll meet most of them soon enough, anyway.

Suffice to say, there were hundreds of them, tall and short, winged and hoofed, obese and gaunt, all of them pretty much horrific, and as they stepped through, they grouped off, ten or so to each Rhino-boy. From the bits I gathered, the Unseelie watchdogs had been assigned the task of acclimating their new charges to the world.

My
world.

I cringed behind the stack of pallets, watching, too terrified to move. Finally, the last one came through. With more chanting and the sharp rapping of a gold-and-black scepter upon some of the glowing symbols, the red-robed Lord Master closed the doorway. The symbols went dark and the bitter wind ceased. The light in the warehouse brightened, became lighter somehow, and the Unseelie began casting shadows again. Feeling returned to my chilled face and fingers, and dreams to my heart.

"You have your instructions," the Lord Master said, and I wondered how such an evil thing could have such a beautiful voice.

Genuflecting as if to a god, the Rhino-boys began herding their newly arrived brethren toward the aisle.A group of about thirty assorted monsters remained behind with the Lord Master. I plastered myself against the stack of pallets as every single one of the new arrivals passed within a dozen feet of me, accompanied by its "trainer." They were some of the most harrowing few minutes of my life. I got an up close and personal look at things we've never even come close to creating in our scariest horror flicks.

After the last of them had marched, slithered, flapped, or crawled down the long aisle and exited the building, I slumped back against the pallets, closed my eyes, and kept them closed. So
this
was what Alina had wanted me to know: That behind 1247 LaRuhe was a gate to hell, and here the Lord Master was bringing his dark servants through from their previously inescapable Unseelie prison and turning them loose on our world.

Okay, now I knew.

Just what was I supposed to do about it? Alina had seriously overestimated me if she thought I could, or would, do anything about this problem. It wasn't
my
problem. My problem was finding the bastard who'd betrayed her and bringing him to whatever justice I could. If he was human, I might let the courts have him. If he was an Unseelie masquerading as human, he'd die at the end of my spear. That was all I cared about.

We've got to find the Sinsar Dubh, Alina had said. Everything depends on it.
What
depended on it? I had a sinking feeling the answer to that question was one of those Fate-of-the-World things. I didn't do Fate-of-the-World things. That wasn't in my job description. I poured drafts and mixed drinks, wiped counters and washed glasses. After work I swept up. Had Alina wanted me to find the Dark Book because somewhere within its dangerous, encrypted pages was the way to defeat the Lord Master and destroy his Unseelie portal? Why should I care? It was in Dublin , notGeorgia ! It wasIreland 's problem. They could handle their own troubles. Besides, even if I managed to accomplish the impossible and find the stupid Dark Book, how was I supposed to translate it? Barrons had two of the stones necessary, but I had no clue which team he was playing for. Nor did I have any idea where the other two stones were, how to find them, or how to use them—assuming I ever actually managed to get my hands on them.

What had Alina expected me to do? Commit to staying in Dublin indefinitely, searching for all this woo-woo stuff and living in constant fear? Devote my
life
to this cause? Be willing to die for it?

It was one heck of a tall order for a short-order bartender. I would have snorted if I hadn't been on the uncomfortable verge of peeing my pants with fear for the past half hour.
She'd
died for it.

I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut even harder.

I'd never measured up to Alina, and I never would. I had no desire to open my eyes. I might see something
else
she thought I should be responsible for, I thought resentfully. I was getting out of here. I was going to put as much distance as possible between me and the prison-portal and the red-robed Lord Master and the whole Dark Zone.

I sighed.

I really was. Just as soon as I took just one last small look around the corner to see if there was anything else I should know. Not that I planned to
do
anything with the information. I just figured since I was already here, I might as well gather all of it I could. Maybe I could pass it on to that interfering old woman, or V'lane, and one of
them
could do something about it. If V'lane really was one of the good guys, then he and his queen should take immediate, decisive action to plug this unacceptable hole between our worlds. Hadn't Barrons mentioned something about a Compact? Wasn't there some kind of agreement this violated?

I opened my eyes.

And failed miserably at both my attempt to climb out of my own skin, and my efforts to sink into the floor.

Barrons and I had wondered where Mallucé was. Now I knew.

Less than a dozen feet away from me, fangs bared , flanked by six beady-eyed Rhino-boys.

Trying to disappear hadn't worked, so I exploded up, hissing and kicking and slamming my hands into everything I could, well, lay my hands on.

Unlike the other night, when I'd tried to kill the Gray Man, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, I just acted on instinct.

It turned out my instincts were
amazing
.

I left the spearhead tucked into my waistband, so I could use both hands. There was something inside me that worked like the missile-targeting system of a stealth bomber, locating and locking onto anything Fae once it was within a few feet of me.

As Mallucé dropped back and let the six Rhino-boys close in, I slammed my palms out in opposite directions, hitting two of them smack in their barrel chests. I spun, slammed out again, catching another two in the ribs, then dropped to the floor and slammed out a third time. On my knees, I tossed my hair out of my eyes and assessed the situation. I'd frozen all six of them in two seconds flat.

But how long would they stay frozen? That was the critical question.

Mallucé looked startled—I guess he'd never seen a Null in action before—then glided toward me in that sinuous way of his. I reached inside my jacket for the spearhead, then remembered what Barrons had said, or rather hadn't said about how to kill a vampire. Mallucé wasn't Fae, so I could neither freeze nor stab him and expect it to work. Nor, according to Barrons, would a stake through his heart do the job, so I didn't see any reason my spear would, either. I removed my hand from my jacket. I didn't want to show my ace-in-the-hole until I had no other choice. Maybe, just maybe, I could get close to the Lord Master. And maybe I could use the spear to kill him. And then maybe I could freeze all the Unseelie
and
outrun a vampire. It sounded like a plan to me. The only one I could think of. I pushed up and began backing away. It seemed it was what the vampire'd wanted, anyway. I held his too-bright yellow gaze as he backed me past the pallet, onto the rune-chiseled floor in front of the dolmen, and into a circle of Unseelie Rhino-boys and assorted monsters.

"What is this, Mallucé?" Though he was behind me and I couldn't see him, I would never mistake the voice of the Lord Master. It was rich, multitonal, and musical, like Vlane's.

"I thought I heard something behind the pallets," Mallucé said. "She is a Null, Lord Master.
Another
one."

I couldn't help it. I had to know. "You mean Alina, don't you? The other Null, she wasAlina Lane , wasn't she?" I accused.

The vampire's creepy citron eyes narrowed. He exchanged a long glance with the red-robed thing behind me.

"What do you know aboutAlina Lane ?" the Lord Master said softly, in that melodious voice. It was the voice of something larger than life, an archangel, perhaps—the one that fell.

"She was my
sister
," I snarled, whirling around. "And I'm going to
kill
the bastard that killed her. What do
you
know about her?"

The crimson cowl shook with laughter. I fisted my hands at my sides to keep from whipping out my spear and lunging for the red-robed figure. Stealth, I told myself. Caution. I doubted I'd get more than one chance.

"I told you she would come, Mallucé," said the Lord Master. "We will use her to finish what her sister began." He raised his hands as if to encompass the group and addressed all the Unseelie gathered there.

"When everything is in place, I will open the portal and unleash the entire Unseelie prison on this world, as I promised you. Restrain her. She comes with us."

"Now, that was just stupid,Ms. Lane ," Barrons said, shaking his head, as he dropped onto the floor next to me, his long black coat fluttering. "Did you have to go and tell them who you were? They would have figured it out soon enough."

I blinked, stupefied.

I guess the Lord Master, Mallucé, and all the rest of them were just as stunned by the unexpected entrance as I was, because we all gaped at him, and then we all looked up. 7 just wanted to see where in the world he'd come from. I think they were checking to see if there were any others up there. He had to have been on the ceiling girders. They were thirty feet high. I didn't see a convenient rope dangling anywhere.

When I looked back down, the Unseelie ruler had pushed back his crimson cowl and was looking at Barrons, hard. He didn't seem to like what he saw.

I gasped, stunned.

I stared in disbelief and confusion at Alina's boyfriend, the Lord Master. The leader of the Unseelie wasn't even Fae! Even Barrons looked a little thrown.

The Lord Master barked a command, then he turned in a whirl of red robes. Dozens of Unseelie closed in on us instantly.

Things got kind of crazy then, and I still have a hard time sorting them out. As his minions cut off any chance of pursuit, the prick who'd used and killed my sister and had been planning to do the same to me ordered them to take me
alive, or else, and kill the other one
. Then I was surrounded by Unseelie and I couldn't see Barrons anymore. Somewhere in the distance, I heard chanting, and the runes in the concrete beneath my feet began to glow again. I closed my mind to everything but battle. I fought.

I fought for my sister, who'd died alone in an alley. I fought for the woman the Gray Man had fed on while I'd eaten french fries, and the one he'd consumed two days ago, while I'd watched in helpless horror. I fought for the people the Many-Mouthed-Thing had killed. I fought for the dehydrated human husks blowing down the forgotten streets betweenCollins Street andLarkspur Lane . I might have even fought for a few of O'Bannion's henchmen. And I fought for the twenty-two-year-old young woman who'd arrived in Dublin pretty darned sure of herself , who no longer had any idea where she'd come from or where she was going, and who'd just broken her
third
Iceberry Pink nail. The alabaster spearhead seemed to blaze with holy light in my hand as I ducked and twisted, slammed and stabbed. I could feel myself turning into something else and it felt
good
. At one point I caught sight of Barrons' startled face, and I knew that if he was looking at me like that, I was truly something to see.
I
felt
like something to see. I felt like a well-built, well-oiled machine with one purpose in life: to kill Fae. Good or bad. Take 'em all.

And I did, one after another. Duck, slam, stab. Whirl, slam, stab. They went down fast and hard. The spear was pure poison to them, and I was getting a weird kind of high off watching them die. I have no idea how long I could have kept it up, if they'd all been Fae, but they weren't and I screwed up. I'd forgotten about Mallucé.

When he crept up behind me, I sensed him there just like a Fae—apparently my radar picked up on anything otherworldly within a certain perimeter—and I spun and stabbed him in the gut. I realized my error instantly, although I had no idea how to correct it. The vampire was a more serious threat to me than any of the Unseelie, even the Shades—at least I knew how to drive those life-suckers back: light. I didn't have any idea what
this
life-sucker's weakness was, or even if he had one. Barrons had talked like killing a vampire was pretty much impossible.

For a moment, I just stood there, my weapon buried in his stomach, hoping it would do something. If it had any effect on him at all, I sure couldn't tell. I stared stupidly into those feral yellow eyes, glowing in that white, white face. Then my wits returned and I tried to pull the spear out for another stab at him, this time in the chest—maybe Barrons was wrong, I had to try
something
—but the razor-sharp tip had gotten lodged in a knot of gristle or bone or something and wouldn't yield. He closed his hand on my arm. It felt cold and dead. "You little bitch! Where is my stone?" the vampire hissed.

I got it then—why he'd not brought it up before, when he'd first seen me. He was two-timing the Lord Master and couldn't risk the Rhino-boys knowing.

"Oh God, he doesn't even know you
had
it, does he?" I exclaimed. The moment I said it, I realized my mistake. Mallucé had more to lose if the Lord Master discovered he was betraying him, than by owning up to inadvertently killing the
sidhe-
seer in the heat of battle. I'd just signed my own death warrant. I yanked frantically on the spearhead. Mallucé bared his fangs as the weapon gave and I stumbled back. Off balance, I lashed out again—but a millisecond too late. The vampire backhanded me across the face and I flew backward through the air, arms and legs folded forward like a rag doll, just as I'd seen his bodyguard do that night at the House of Goth.

I slammed into the side of a stack of pallets that gave about as much as a brick wall. My head snapped back and pain ricocheted through my skull. I heard things in me crack.

"Mac!"I heard Barrons shout.

I slumped down the plastic-shrouded wall, thinking how weird it sounded, him calling me Mac. He'd only ever called meMs. Lane . I couldn't breathe. My chest was locked tight, and I wondered if my ribs had broken and punctured my lungs. The spear was slipping from my fingers. That arctic wind was back, chilling me body and soul, and I understood dimly that the gate was open again. My lids were as heavy as paperweights and I blinked slowly. My face was wet. I wasn't sure, but I thought I was crying. I couldn't be dying. I finally knew who'd killed my sister. I'd looked into his face. I hadn't avenged her yet.

Barrons swam before my eyes. "I'll get you out of here. Hold on," he told me in a slow-motion voice and was gone.

I blinked again, heavily. I still couldn't breathe and my vision was going in and out, especially in one eye. One moment it was all shadowy, then there was Barrons again. He and Mallucé were facing each other, pacing a tight circle. The vampire's eyes glowed and his fangs were fully extended. As my grasp on consciousness failed, I tried to decide what on earth Barrons had just done to Mallucé

that had sent the absurdly strong vampire slamming into a stack of pallets and crashing into a forklift; how I'd gotten into his arms, and just where he thought he was taking me at such breakneck speed. To a hospital, I hoped.

****

I regained consciousness several times during our flight.

Long enough, the first time, to realize I hadn't died, which I found dimly astonishing. The last time I'd seen Mallucé slam someone into a wall, the man had been way bigger than I, and he'd died instantly, bleeding from multiple orifices.

I must have muttered something to that effect, because Barrons' chest rumbled beneath my ear. "The spear did something to him,Ms. Lane . I'm not sure what or why, but it slowed him down." The next time I regained consciousness, he said, "Can you hook an arm around my neck and hold on?" The answer was yes—one. The other one wouldn't move. It dangled limply from my shoulder. The man could run. We were in the sewers, I could tell by the splash of his boots and the smell. I hoped I wasn't deluding myself with optimism, but I didn't hear the sound of pursuit. Had we lost them? All of them?

"They don't know the underground like I do," he said. "Nobody does." How weird. I was a chatterbox and didn't even know it, reeling off question after question despite the pain I was in. Or was he reading my mind?

"Not a mind reader,Ms. Lane ," he said. "You think all over your face sometimes. You need to work on that."

"Shouldn't I go to the hospital?" I asked muzzily when I woke up for the third time. I was back in bed, in my borrowed bedroom at Barrons Books and Baubles. I must have been out for a while. "I think things are broken."

"Your left arm, two ribs, and a few fingers.You're bruised all over. You were lucky." He pressed a cold compress to my cheek and I inhaled sharply with pain. "At least your cheekbone didn't get shattered when he struck you. I was afraid it had. You look a little worse for the wear,Ms. Lane ."

"Hospital?"I tried again.

"They can't do anything for you that I haven't already done and would only ask you questions you can't answer. They'll blame me if I bring you in looking like this and you won't talk. I already set your arm and fingers," he said. "Your ribs will heal. Your face is going to look… well… yeah. You'll be fine in time,Ms. Lane ."

That sounded ominous. "Mirror?" I managed weakly.

"Sorry," he said. "Don't have one handy."

I tried to move my left arm, wondering when and where Barrons had added casting to his seemingly endless resume. He hadn't. My arm was in a splint, as were several fingers on that hand. "Shouldn't I have casts?"

"Fingers do well with splints. The break in your arm isn't acute and if I cast you, it will only cause your muscles to atrophy. You must recover quickly. In case you haven't noticed,Ms. Lane , we've got a few problems on our hands."

I peered blearily up at him through my one good eye. My right one was swollen completely shut from the contusion on my cheek. He'd called me Mac back there in the warehouse, when Mallucé had hit me. Despite my doubts about Barrons, and my worries over whatever arrangement he had going on with the Shades, he'd been there for me when it mattered. He'd come after me. He'd saved my life. He'd patched me up and tucked me into bed and I knew he would watch over me until I was whole again. Under such circumstances, it seemed absurd to continue calling meMs. Lane and I told him so. Perhaps it was time I did better than "Barrons" myself. "You can call me Mac, er… Jericho . And thanks for saving me." One dark brow rose and he looked amused. "Stick with Barrons,Ms. Lane ," he said dryly. "You need rest. Sleep."

My eyes fluttered closed as if he'd spoken a spell over me and I drifted into a happy place, a hallway papered with smiling pictures of my sister. I knew who her killer was now, and I was going to avenge her. I was halfway home. I wouldn't call him Jericho if he didn't like it. But I wanted him to call me Mac, I insisted sleepily. I was tired of being four thousand miles away from home and feeling so alone. It would be nice to be on a first-name basis with somebody here. Anybody would do, even Barrons.

"Mac."He said my name and laughed. "What a name for something like you. Mac." He laughed again. I wanted to know what he meant by that, but didn't have the strength to ask. Then his fingers were light as butterflies on my battered cheek and he was speaking softly, but it wasn't in English. It sounded like one of those dead languages they use in the kind of movies I used to channel-surf through quickly—and now regret not having watched at least one or two of because I probably would have been a whole lot better prepared for all of this if I had. I think he kissed me then. It wasn't like any kiss I'd ever felt before. And then it was dark. And I dreamed.