Darkfever

CHAPTER 10

"This is becoming a habit Ms. Lane," Barrons said dryly, glancing briefly up from the book he was examining when I burst into the store.

I slammed the door behind me and began locking it.

He raised his head again at the sound of dead bolts ratcheting home and dropped the book on a table. "What's wrong?"

"I think I'm going to be sick." I needed to wash. With scalding water and bleach. Maybe a hundred showers would be enough.

"No, you won't. Concentrate. The urge will pass."

I wondered if he was really so sure about that, or if he was just trying to condition me with constant denials, to keep me from puking on his precious sofa or one of his priceless rugs.

"What happened? You're white as a sheet."

I glanced at Fiona behind the cashier's counter.

"You may speak freely in front of her," he said.

I moved to the counter and sank back against it for support. My legs were shaking, my knees weak. "I saw another one," I told him.

He'd turned with me as I'd moved. Now he stopped with his back to the end of a heavy, ornate bookcase. "So? I told you you would. Was it so hideous? Is that what this is about? It frightened you?"

I took a deep breath, fighting tears. "It knows I saw it."

Barrons' mouth fell open. He gaped at me a long moment. Then he turned and punched the end of the bookcase so hard books went crashing to the floor, shelf after shelf. When he whirled back around, his face was drawn with fury. "Bloody hell!" he exploded. "Un-fucking-believable! You, Ms. Lane, are a menace to others! A walking, talking catastrophe in pink!" If gazes could scorch, his would have incinerated me where I stood. "Didn't you hear a thing I told you last night? Weren't you even listening?"

"I heard every word you said," I said stiffly. "And for the record, I don't always wear pink. I often wear peach or lavender. You braced me for another Gray Man or Hunter or Shade. You didn't brace me for this."

"How much worse could it have been?" he said disbelievingly.

"Much," I told him. "You have no idea."

"Describe it."

I did, as succinctly as possible, stumbling a little over its proportions. I got nauseated all over again merely recounting its grotesque appearance. When I finished I said, "What was it?" How does it kill? was what I really wanted to know. I didn't care about their names. I didn't want to see them at all. But I was developing a burgeoning obsession with the various ways I might die. Especially given what the thing's intentions had seemed. I'd rather the Gray Man got me, or a Shade. I mean, really, just hand me over to the Royal Hunters, please. Let them skin and stake me as Barrons had said they'd once done.

"No idea. Was it alone or with others?"

"It was alone."

"Are you absolutely certain it knew you could see it? Could you be mistaken?"

"Oh no. No doubt there. It touched me." I shuddered, remembering.

He laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. "Funny, Ms. Lane. Now tell me what really happened."

"I just did. It touched me."

"Impossible," he said. "If it had, you wouldn't be here."

"I'm telling you the truth, Barrons. What possible reason could I have to lie? The thing grabbed me." And I wanted desperately to scrub, especially my hands, because I'd grabbed it right back, trying to fight it off. Its skin had been reptilian, slimy, and I'd gotten much too close a look at those many convulsively sucking, revolting mouths.

"And then what? Said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, Ms. Lane, I didn't mean to wrinkle your lovely blouse. May I press that for you? Or perhaps you gouged it with one of your pretty pink nails?"

I was really beginning to wonder what his hang-up with pink was, but I didn't resent the sarcasm in his voice. I couldn't make sense of what had happened next, either, and I'd been mulling it over for nearly half an hour. It certainly hadn't been what I'd expected. "Frankly," I said, "it seemed strange to me, too. It grabbed me and then it just stood there looking… well… if it had been human I would have said confused."

"Confused?" he repeated. "An Unseelie stood there looking confused? As in, perplexed, confounded, baffled, consternated?"

I nodded.

Behind me, Fiona said. "Jericho, that doesn't make any sense."

"I know, Fio." Barrens' tone changed when he addressed her, softened noticeably. It was sharp as a knife when he resumed his interrogation of me. "So, it looked confused. Then what, Ms. Lane?"

I shrugged. While the thing had stood there looking stymied, finally, finally a little steel had kicked in. "I punched it in the gut and ran. It chased me, but not right away. I think it stood there a minute. Long enough that I was able to flag down a taxi and get away. I made the cabbie drive me around for a while, to make sure I'd lost it." Also to try to muddle through what had just happened. I'd been grabbed by Death but granted a reprieve, and I had no idea why. I'd been able to think of only one person who might. "Then I came to you."

"At least you did one thing right and muddied your path here," he muttered. He stepped closer, peering down at me as if I were some strange new species he'd never seen before. "What the bloody hell are you, Ms. Lane?"

"I don't know what you mean." You don't even know what you are, Alina had said in her message. If you can't keep your head down and honor your bloodline…go die somewhere else__the old woman in the bar had hissed. And now Barrons was demanding to know what I was. "I tend bar. I like music. My sister was murdered recently. I seem to have gone insane since then," I added this last almost conversationally.

He glanced beyond me, at Fiona. "See if you can uncover any record, however obscure, of this kind of thing happening."

"You don't need me to do that, Jericho," she said. "You know there is."

He shook his head. "She couldn't possibly be a Null, Fio. They're mythical."

Fiona's laugh was airy, musical. "So you say. As are many things. Aren't they, Jericho?"

"What's a Null?" I said.

Barrons ignored my question. "Describe this Unseelie for Fiona again, Ms. Lane, in as much detail as you can. She may be able to identify it." To Fiona, he said, "After the two of you have finished here, show Ms. Lane to a room. Tomorrow, purchase shears and buy an assortment of hair colors for her to choose from."

"A room?" Fiona exclaimed.

"Shears? Hair colors?" I exclaimed. My hands flew to my hair. I'd address the room part in a minute. I had my priorities.

"Can't bear to shed your pretty feathers, Ms. Lane? What did you expect? It knows you saw it. It won't stop looking for you until you're dead—or it is. And believe me, they don't die easily, if at all. The only question is whether it will alert the Hunters, or come for you by itself. If you're lucky, it's one of a kind like the Gray Man. The lower castes prefer to hunt alone."

"You mean, maybe it won't tell any of the other Unseelie?" I felt a small surge of hope. One Unseelie might just be survivable, but the thought of being hunted by a multitude of monsters was enough to make me give up without even trying. I could too easily envision a horde of hideous creatures chasing me through the Dublin night. I'd keel over and die of a heart attack before they ever caught me.

"They have as many factions among themselves as humans do," he said. "The Fae, particularly the Unseelie, trust each other about as much as you might trust sharing a cage with a hungry lion."

Or a Jericho Barrons, I was thinking a quarter hour later, when Fiona showed me to a room. That's exactly what it felt like—preparing to spend the night at Barrons Books and Baubles—like I was taking up residence in the lion's den. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. That was me. But I'd thought twice about pitching a fit, because if my choices were staying at the inn by myself or staying here, I'd rather stay here, if only to minimize my odds of dying alone and unnoticed for several days like my sister had.

The bookstore extended farther back from the street than I'd realized. The rear half wasn't part of the store at all, but living quarters. Fiona briskly unlocked one door, led me down a short corridor, then unlocked a second door and we entered Barrons' private residence. I got a fleeting impression of understated wealth as she whisked me through an anteroom, down a hallway, and directly to a stairwell.

"Do you see them too?" I asked, as we climbed flight after flight, to the top floor.

"All myths contain a grain of truth, Ms. Lane. I've handled books and artifacts that will never find their way into a museum or library, things no archaeologist or historian could ever make sense of. There are many realities pocketed away in the one we call our own. Most go blindly about their lives and never see beyond the ends of their noses. Some of us do."

Which told me nothing about her, really, but she hadn't exactly been giving off warm and friendly vibes in my direction, so I didn't press. After Barrons left, I'd described the thing again. She'd taken notes with brusque efficiency, rarely looking at me directly. She'd gotten the same tight-lipped look my mom got when she vigorously disapproved of something. I was pretty sure the something was me, but couldn't imagine why.

We stopped.at a door at the end of the hall. "Here." Fiona thrust a key into my hand, then turned back for the stairwell. "Oh, and Ms. Lane," she said over her shoulder, "I'd lock myself in if I were you."

It was advice I hadn't needed. I wedged a chair beneath the door handle, too. I would have barricaded it with the dresser as well, but it was too heavy for me to move.

The rear bedroom windows looked down four stories onto an alley behind the bookstore. The alley vanished into darkness on the left and semidarkness on the right, after bisecting narrow cobbled walkways that ran along each side of the building. Across the alley was a one-story structure that looked like a warehouse or a huge garage with glass-block windows that were painted black, making it impossible to discern anything within. Floodlights washed the area directly between the buildings white, illuminating a walkway from door to door. Dublin sprawled beneath me, a sea of roofs, melting into the night sky. To my left, so few lights pierced the darkness that it appeared that section of the city was dead. I was relieved to see there was no fire escape on the rear of the building. I didn't think any of the Unseelie I'd seen could scale the sheer brick face. I refused to dwell on the winged Hunters.

I double-checked all the locks and closed the drapes.

Then I dug my brush from my purse, sat down on the bed, and began brushing my hair. I worked on it for a long time, until it shimmered like blond silk.

I was going to miss it.

Don't leave the bookstore until I return, read the note that had been shoved beneath my door sometime during the night.

I crumpled it, irritated. What was I supposed to eat? It was ten o'clock. I'd slept late and was starving. I'm one of those people that needs to eat as soon as I wake up.

I removed the chair from beneath the knob and unlocked the door. Though my proper southern upbringing made me balk at the idea of intruding into another person's house without an invitation to make myself at home, I didn't see that I had any choice but to go hunting for his kitchen. I would get a sick headache if I went too long without food. Mom says it's because my metabolism is so high.

When I opened the door, I discovered someone had been busy while I'd slept. A bakery bag, a bottled latte, and my luggage were outside the door. Down South, store-bought food outside your bedroom door isn't a treat—it's an insult. Despite the presence of my personal belongings, Barrons couldn't have told me any more plainly not to make myself at home. Stay out of my kitchen, the bag said, and don't go looking around. Down South it meant, Leave before lunch, preferably now.

I ate two croissants, drank the coffee, got dressed, and retraced my steps of last night directly back to the bookstore. I didn't look either way as I went. Any curiosity I might have felt about Barrons was second to my pride. He didn't want me there—fine—I didn't want to be there. In fact, I wasn't sure why I was there. I mean, I knew why I'd stayed, but I had no idea why he'd let me. I wasn't stupid enough to think Jericho Barrons had an ounce of chivalry in him; damsels in distress were clearly not his cup of tea.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked him that night, when he returned to the store. I wondered where he'd been. I was still where I'd spent the entire day: in the rear conversation area of the store, the one that was almost out of sight, back by the bathroom and set of doors that led to Barrons' private quarters. I'd pretended to be reading while I was really trying to make sense of my life and contemplating the various hair color shades Fiona had brought when she'd arrived to open the store at noon. She'd ignored my efforts to make conversation and hadn't spoken to me all day expect for the offer of a sandwich at lunch. At ten after eight, she'd locked up the store and left. A few minutes later, Barrons had appeared.

He dropped into a chair across from me: elegance and arrogance in tailored black pants, black boots, and a white silk shirt he'd not bothered to tuck in. The snowy fabric contrasted with his coloring, intensifying his slicked-back hair to midnight, his eyes to obsidian, his skin to bronze. He'd rolled the sleeves back at his wrists; one powerful forearm sported a platinum-and-diamond watch, the other an embossed, wide silver cuff that looked very old and Celtic. Tall, dark, and basely sexual in a way I supposed some women might find irresistibly attractive, Barrons exuded his usual unsettling vitality. "I'm not helping you, Ms. Lane. I'm entertaining the notion that you might be of use to me. If so, I need you alive."

"How could I be of use to you?"

"I want the Sinsar Dubh."

So did I. But I didn't see how my odds of getting it were any greater than his. In fact, in light of recent events, I didn't see that I had any odds of getting the darn thing at all. What could he need me for? "You think I can help find it somehow?"

"Perhaps. Why haven't you altered your appearance yet, Ms. Lane? Didn't Fiona provide you with the necessary items?"

"I was thinking maybe I could wear a ball cap."

His gaze flicked from my face to my feet and back again in a way that said he'd taken my measure and found me seriously lacking.

"I could tuck it up and pull the bill down really low," I said. "I've done it before, back home on bad hair days. With sunglasses on, you can hardly see me at all."

He folded his arms across his chest.

"It could work," I said defensively.

He shook his head once, just a few inches to the left and back. "When you've finished cutting and coloring your hair, return to me. Short and dark, Ms. Lane. Lose the Barbie look."

I didn't cry when I did it. I did, however—damn Jericho Barrons for doing what he did to me next—throw up all over his Persian rug in the back of the bookstore when I came back down.

Looking back, I realized I began to feel it while I was upstairs washing my hair in the bathroom that adjoined my room. A wave of sudden nausea washed over me, but I thought it was an emotional reaction to changing my appearance so drastically. I'd already begun to wonder who I was and what was wrong with me; now I was going to look wrong, too.

The feeling intensified as I descended the stairs, and grew stronger as I made my way back to the bookstore. I should have paid more attention to it, but I was feeling sorry for myself to the point of obliviousness.

By the time I stepped through the second of the doors that separated Barrons' personal and professional domains, I was shivering and sweating at the same time, my hands were clammy, and my stomach was a churning mess. I'd never gone from feeling fine to feeling awful so quickly in my life.

Barrons was seated on the sofa I'd vacated, his arms stretched across the back of it, his legs spread, looking relaxed as a lion lazing after the kill. His gaze, however, was sharp as a hawk's. He studied me with voracious interest as I stepped through the door. There were some papers on the sofa next to him that I had yet to understand the significance of.

I closed the door and promptly doubled over and vomited what was left of my lunch. Most of the damage to his precious rug was water I'd drunk. I'm big on drinking lots of water. Hydrating one's skin from the inside out is even more important than using a good moisturizer on the surface. I heaved until there was nothing left, then I retched a few times more. I was on my hands and knees again, for the second time in as many days, and I didn't like it a bit. I dragged my sleeve across my mouth and glared up at him. I hated my hair and I hated my life and I could feel it blazing in my eyes.

He, on the other hand, looked pleased as punch.

"What just happened, Barrons? What did you do to me?" I accused. Improbable though it seemed, I was certain that somehow he'd had everything to do with my sudden malaise.

He laughed and stood up, looking down at me. "You, Ms. Lane, can sense the Sinsar Dubh. And you just became very, very useful to me."