"When life pushes me I push harder. What doesn"t kill me makes me stronger"
MAC.
The next few days pa.s.s in the closest thing to hopeful peace I"ve known in months. Even surrounded by the debauchery of Chester"s, my inner book remains silent. I don"t know if seeing the king made it shut up for some reason, if familiar routine makes me that much stronger, or if it thinks it has me trapped in the cesspool of life here at Chester"s and my capitulation is only a matter of time.
I tend bar amid my Unseelie coven, watch for the various forms of the king, keep an eye out for princesses, and await Barrons"s return, hopefully with Dani in tow. I can"t wait to tell him the king is back and we can quit losing time in the Silvers.
When the ruler of the dark Fae took an interest in Dublin before, his various incarnations often came to the club. The Unseelie King is too vast to walk among humans in a single human body. He has to divide himself into multiple skins, and when he does, not everyone sees him the same way. Where I saw a young, hot guy with gorgeous eyes, Barrons saw a frail old man, Christian saw a Morgan Freeman look-alike, Jo saw a pretty French woman. It"s only a matter of time before we see one of them again, or I hear of a McCabe sighting or run into the old news vendor on the streets. I"ll be faster next time because I won"t be struck dumb and motionless by his unexpected return.
The thought of living divided like this, tempted every day by power I can"t use, tortured by thoughts of what my inner monster might be able to make me do if I"m not vigilant one hundred percent of the time, is more than I can stand.
Can"t eviscerate essential self, the king once said. But this copy of the Book isn"t my essential self. It"s his.
And I"ll be d.a.m.ned if I"m keeping it.
At least now I can stop considering a risky plan B. The king came to Dublin once before because his book escaped. It seems logical if Cruce escaped, the king would return and re-ice him and I could demand he free me. Unfortunately I"m not entirely convinced the king would (a) return or (b) give a s.h.i.t about any of it. His priorities spring of stars and infinity, not the tiny moments that span a human life. And there we"d be, with Cruce loose.
Dicey plan.
Humming beneath my breath, I finish polishing my bar. It"s eleven in the morning and I"ve just opened my subclub for business. The gla.s.ses sparkle, so clean they squeak. Ice is stocked, gla.s.ses frosted, condiments fresh, liquor replenished.
I"m bent over, reaching in the fridge to pull out lemons and start making my twists, when I hear a deep baritone say, "Laprhoaig. No ice."
The accent is Scottish, the voice one I"ve heard before. I glance up into eyes strikingly similar to Christian"s, before he began turning Unseelie. They bore into mine, cheetah-gold, a.s.sessing. Same five o"clock shadow, chiseled features, and beautiful dark skin. Serious power rolls off the man.
It"s Christian"s uncle, the Keltar they call "the Inhabited." He once opened himself up to thirteen ancient, dark druids and has never been able to exorcise them.
I can sympathize with that problem.
The last time I saw him was the night we interred the Sinsar Dubh beneath the abbey. He was with his twin brother, Drustan, a druid who died in a fire but somehow came back to life and allegedly possesses an incorruptible heart; another of Christian"s uncles, Cian, who spent a thousand years trapped in a Silver; and Christian"s father, who was also druid to the Seelie. Talk about your messed-up family.
"Dageus, right?"
"Aye." He palms the gla.s.s I slide him and takes a sip. "What"s with all the Unseelie behind the bar with you, la.s.s?"
Another question I"m sick of. I get it a hundred times a day, at least once from every person that takes a stool and orders a drink, and as the day goes on, half a dozen times from the really drunk ones. I"ve heard every variation on every joke they could possibly slap lamely together in their inebriated, s.e.x-obsessed minds.
"Ghosts," I say, "of all the Unseelie I killed. They haunt me." I"ve found it usually shuts people up. He doesn"t look at all surprised, but then why would he? His ghosts haunt him from the inside.
"Where"s the b.a.s.t.a.r.d that runs this club?"
"Around somewhere. Are you here because you"ve located Christian?" I ask hopefully.
"Nay. We"ve tried summoning the queen repeatedly to request her aid, but she"s no" responding to any of our rituals."
I wonder if buried in their countless records and annals they have a summoning spell for the king. Although I don"t appear to currently need it, I file the thought away for future reference, aware that asking such a question might only open a new can of worms, and turn more pairs of intensely penetrating Keltar eyes my way than I"d like.
"Now that the Compact is broken, we"ve no influence over the Fae world. Christian"s gone, without trace. The only thing of which we"re certain is he"s no" in Ireland anymore. We"ve fair torn the country apart searching."
"Can"t you try tracking the Crimson Hag instead?"
"We"ve naught of her to use in such a spell. We"d need flesh, bone, a gut from her gown might serve."
"No recent sightings?"
"The Unseelie Princes claim she tried to capture them shortly after she took Christian, but they"ve since joined forces, and she"s no" been seen again." He rubs a stubble-shadowed jaw. "It happened differently than I foresaw," he says heavily. "I was watching for the wrong signs."
I"m about to ask what he"s talking about when Ryodan takes a stool beside him. "Keltar. Hear you"re looking for me."
Translation: he was sitting upstairs in his office, watching his endless cameras, eavesdropping. I"m surprised he came down. Appears he has enough respect for the Highlander to do more than he does for most: acknowledge his presence and appear as requested. Interesting.
Dageus says just as coolly, "Hear you met with a Seelie Prince, had negotiations. You will be summoning him for us now."
Ryodan cuts him an amused look. "Will I."
"Aye."
"Think again."
"What do you want with R"jan?" I ask Dageus.
"He"s a sifter and is currently in control of all Seelie. I want him to dispatch other sifters to hunt the Hag for us."
"Couldn"t you send some of your men as well?" I say to Ryodan quickly. "If Christian hadn"t distracted the Hag and she"d kept killing that night, who knows what might have happened. We owe him, Ryodan. All of us. We can"t just leave him out there, being killed over and over again."
"It"s keeping her busy and out of my f.u.c.king hair," Ryodan says.
I should have known better than to try an emotional entreaty with him. I employ reason in my next attempt. "If we don"t save him from the Hag, he"ll be more problematic to you, to all of us, should he eventually escape. He was sane enough to sacrifice himself. That sanity won"t last long in her hands."
Ryodan shrugs. "We put him down if he returns. No different than any other Unseelie Prince. If he"s not useful, he"s disposable."
"No other Unseelie Prince would have sacrificed himself," I snap.
"He is Keltar, and that is all the difference necessary," Dageus says. "In exchange for your aid, we"ll help you reclaim the abbey from those who"ve taken over." He drops the bomb quietly.
"What?" I practically shout. "Someone has taken over the abbey?" I look at Ryodan and my hands curl into fists. He knew! And said nothing to me. "When did you find out about this?" I demand. "And why didn"t you tell me? You do remember what"s under there, right?"
"I"ll handle it when the others return. And don"t say that again in here."
I grit my jaw. I can"t believe I just said it. Here of all places. No, I didn"t spell out what was beneath the abbey but I said enough that a curious eavesdropper might decide to go looking.
Dageus says, "Three have already met their deaths. No doubt more will be finding graves the longer you delay."
Not if I have anything to say about it, and I could write a dissertation. I strip the ap.r.o.n from my waist and begin closing my bar down. I shiver, dreading the answer to my next question. All good coups begin with the deposing of the current leader. "Is Kat okay?"
"I"m sure she is. She"s a survivor," Ryodan says.
I glare at him. He"s never said anything that nice about me.
Dageus finishes his drink and slides it back for another. "I doona ken the names of the slain. During battle for possession of the grounds, a sidhe-seer escaped. We found her stumbling, badly injured, along the road toward Dublin. Drustan took her to the hospital at Dublin Castle. Your Inspector Jayne said he will commit the aid of his Guardians but only if the sidhe-seers turn over either the spear or sword to his troops. Permanently."
I slap lids on the condiments and shove them in the fridge. Not a chance in h.e.l.l. "What happened, Ryodan? You were supposed to place more powerful wards around the grounds. That was part of our negotiations."
"My men have been busy, in case you"ve forgotten. Besides, you asked us to place more wards against Fae. Not humans."
"Humans took control?" This just keeps getting worse. "Who?"
"The new sidhe-seers say it"s their home now."
I narrow my eyes and snarl. Sidhe-seers came into our town and took our home? I promised Kat we wouldn"t let this happen. I promised her we would protect the abbey. We"re the home team. n.o.body takes our stadium. "How many are there? What weapons do they have? How did they take the abbey? Didn"t Kat put up a fight?"
Dageus says, "If your Kat who was with us that night is in charge now, that may explain things. The woman we found said their headmistress has been missing for nigh a week, and someone inside their own group, Margery, invited the new sidhe-seers in."
Nearly a week? That means she disappeared the day after our meeting! "Have you seen her?" I ask Ryodan.
"What do you think, she comes to visit me," he says. "This is Katarina we"re talking about."
"Bar"s closed," I snap at a guy about to sit down.
He looks at Ryodan and Dageus. "They"re sitting here."
"I said it"s closed."
"Pour me a drink, b.i.t.c.h. It"s a free f.u.c.king world." He drops a leg over the stool.
Ryodan smashes a fist out sideways, squarely into the guy"s face without even looking, while saying, "a.s.suming I arrange this meeting, the Keltar will aid in regaining control of the abbey regardless of the outcome." The guy flies backward off the bar stool and crashes to the floor.
"Unlike you, we are men of our word. Unlike you," Dageus growls, "we are men. As in human."
"Humans break." Ryodan doesn"t say it, doesn"t have to, it hangs in the air: We don"t.
The guy Ryodan punched picks himself up, gives us looks like we"re all crazy, and backs away into the crowd.
I tell Dageus, "The meeting with R"jan happens after we free the abbey."
"It happens before or no" at all," Dageus says flatly.
"More sidhe-seers could die!" I say heatedly.
"Aye. Once. Christian is being butchered o"er and o"er again every day." The Highlander"s brogue thickens. "Who kens it-perhaps he"s died a hundred times so far. Have you any idea what that can do to a man?"
I shiver. Yes. It sounds too similar to the h.e.l.l Barrons"s son suffered. Regenerating only to be killed each time he was reborn. It turned the small boy into an animal, drove the child deep into madness from which there was no return. What is the same fate doing to Christian, even as we speak, who was highly unstable to begin with? He certainly hasn"t had an easy time of it since I arrived in Dublin: catapulted unarmed into the Silvers for years by a botched ritual, fed Unseelie by myself, locked in a desperate battle for control over what he"s becoming, and now held captive by a monster that rips out his guts every time he heals.
"His mind is fragile. His body is no". "Tis a dangerous and deadly imbalance that can go terribly wrong."
It certainly is.
To Ryodan, I say, "Summon the prince for Dageus or I"m moving back to the bookstore, and leaving you on your own with the Unseelie Princesses. With Barrons in Faery, you"re the only one I"m protecting anyway."
To Dageus, I say, "Get your clan ready to fight."
"Och, MacKayla, "tis no" a thing for which the Keltar need preparing. We were born ready."
19.
"Hey, hey mama, like the way you move"
LOR.
"Think you missed a spot," I tell the voluptuous blonde that"s washing my d.i.c.k.
I"m Pri-ya, I can"t be expected to bathe myself. They"ve been giving me sponge baths "cause I"m pretty much covered from head to toe in p.u.s.s.y juice. They feed me and f.u.c.k me and clean me. Reminds me of the good old days when a man protected women with his club and they took care of him in return.
This week has been one of the finest of my existence-well, at least in the past century anyway-a veritable f.u.c.k-party 24/7, with five to ten women in the room at any given time, their sole reason for existing to sate my many needs, all blond, all buxom, all h.o.r.n.y as h.e.l.l. Life rocks. It"s better than Woodstock.
At first I pretended to be completely senseless, incapable of speech, but that gets old fast. Can"t tell a woman what you want next if you"re not talking, can"t ask what they want, although I never have a problem figuring that out. You watch their faces, listen to the sounds they make. Do they whimper, or do that sudden inhale that turns into a killer, husky purr? Do they growl and turn a good f.u.c.k into a better fight? Most women in these times got a whole lot of frustration to take out in bed, when they know they got a man big and tough enough to handle it. Are they the kind that tries not to make any sound at all, like they"re too tough to crack? That"s just waving a big-a.s.s red flag at this bull. Those are the ones that always end up making the most noise by the time I"m done with "em. I especially like the ones that hiss like a cat when I f.u.c.k "em hard from behind, rubbing back, h.o.r.n.y and pa.s.sionate and wild.
d.a.m.n, I love women.
One thing that seems universal is that after a good hard f.u.c.king, most of "em love to lay back and have a man take his time with them, stroking "em from head to toe, licking, petting, telling "em how beautiful they are, making "em come over and over, especially with their hands tied, not that I"m into your run-of-the-mill S&M. I like to know the woman in my bed wants to call me master. That being said, I do like chains. Something about the heavy links against soft, silken skin, telling me I can take my time doing whatever I want. Test their s.e.xual limits.
"There"s another sticky spot." I point to my groin where a smear of honey lingers. She licks it off with catlike delicacy. Then starts sucking. Christ.
Once I realized the boss had fallen for my charade and wasn"t checking on me, I quit being so disgustingly Pri-ya. According to the promise I made Mac, I got one more week of this, then it"s back to the grind.
I mean to make the most of it. Then I"ll hunt and kill the Unseelie b.i.t.c.h that has some kind of strange magic that actually worked on me.
Turn me Pri-ya? You can"t amp up my s.e.x drive. It"s already over the top.
Aw, f.u.c.k me, this blonde"s got a tongue that could strip copper tubing clean! I grab her head and pull her up to kiss the honey from her mouth. As I roll her beneath me, crushed between a tangle of naked, h.o.r.n.y women, and about to drive in deep, I hear a woman say sternly, "Get out of here. All of you."
What the f.u.c.k? I didn"t even hear the door open. Has the boss figured me out? Did Mac rat on me?
I ignore it. They"re gonna have to drag me out of this bed.
"You know I"m Ryodan"s girlfriend. You know he listens to me. You want to keep your jobs?"
I freeze, halfway in. It"s Jo. What the h.e.l.l is she doing here?
Reluctantly, with a p.i.s.sed off sound, the woman in my arms tries to disengage. I groan and hold on, won"t let her go.