Shadowfever f-5

by Karen Marie Moning

  He took her to the sofa, tucked blankets around her, and shoved the sofa closer to the fire and turned it on. “She’s freezing. I’ve half a mind to take her back and let the place finish her off,” he said darkly.

  “We need her.”

  “Maybe.” He sounded unconvinced. “Fucking fairies.”

  I blinked and he was no longer by the couch—he was nose-to-nose with me. My breathing quickened. It was the first time he’d ever put his preternatural speed to full use in front of me.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, trailed his fingers down my cheek. He traced the shape of my lips, then let his hand fall away.

  I wet my lips and looked up at him. The lust I felt when standing so close to him was almost unbearable. I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to pull his head down and kiss him. I wanted to strip, and shove him back, and be his reverse cowgirl, ride him hard until he made raw, sexy, rough sounds as he came.

  “How long have you known you were the Unseelie King’s concubine?” Though his voice was soft, his words were too precise. Tension shaped his mouth. I knew every nuance of that mouth. Fury was gnawing at him and needed an outlet. “You shoved through that Silver with no doubt you’d make it through.”

  My laughter held a note of hysteria. Oh, if only that was the extent of my problems!

  Was I a woman, obsessed with the woman on the couch?

  Or was I the male king of the Fae, obsessed with Jericho?

  I consider myself open-minded about gender preference—love is love, and who’s to say how the body follows the heart?—but both of those scenarios were hard for me to accept for myself. Neither fit me like a glove, and sexuality should. When it’s right, it feels good on you, like your own skin, and the only thing that felt like skin to me was woman to man. Then there was the whole Oh, gee, I’m the screwup responsible for this whole mess. No more blaming the Unseelie King for making so many bad decisions and messing up my world. Was I the one who’d messed up theirs? If so, I bore an unbearable amount of guilt.

  I raked my hair back from my face with both hands. If I kept thinking about it, I was going to lose it.

  I’m not the concubine, Jericho. I’m afraid I must be some part of the Unseelie King in human form. “Not very long,” I lied. “I recognized things in the White Mansion, and I kept having dreams that made sense only if I was her. I knew there was a way to test it.”

  “You bloody fool, if you’d been wrong it would have killed you!”

  “But I wasn’t wrong.”

  “Obtuse and illogical!”

  I shrugged. Apparently I’d been a lot worse than that.

  “You will never do such an idiotic thing again,” he said, muscles bunching in his jaw.

  Given my track record, I was pretty sure I would. I mean, really, if I was the Unseelie King—the most powerful Fae ever—I’d somehow ended up human and clueless. That meant I was not only evil, obsessed, and destructive, I was inexcusably stupid.

  He began to circle me, looking me up and down like an exotic in a zoo. “And you thought I was the king. That’s why you tried to drag me through it with you. You just can’t get enough of killing me, can you? What’s the last thing you said to me?” He mocked in falsetto: “What’s the worst that can happen? I lead you into some trap and you die for however long it is you go away?”

  I said nothing. I saw little point in trying to justify myself anymore.

  “I imagine it got all your little romantic notions atwitter again, didn’t it?”

  “Is ‘atwitter’ even a word?”

  “Did you think we were star-crossed lovers, Ms, Lane? Did you need that excuse?”

  He gave me that wolf smile and I thought, Right, star-crossed lovers with a double-edged sword. Because that’s what this man was. Sharp, edgy, dangerous. With no safe side. And, yes, actually, I had thought we were star-crossed lovers. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  I turned to circle with him, meeting that dark, hostile gaze. “I thought we resolved this in the mansion, Jericho. It’s Mac.”

  “It’s Mac when I’m fucking you. The rest of the time, it’s Ms. Lane. Get used to it.”

  “Boundaries, Barrons?”

  “Precisely. Where’s the king, Ms. Lane?”

  “You think he calls me to check in? Says, Honey, I’ll be home for dinner tonight at seven? How the hell should I know?” Which was technically the truth. Even Christian would have had a hard time with that one. I didn’t know where all his parts were.

  The concubine made a faint sound and we turned to look at her.

  His eyes narrowed. “I’ve got to get her out of here. I won’t have the entire Fae race trying to get past my wards. I suppose we’ll have to protect her.” His distaste couldn’t have been more evident. If given a choice between having a razor-blade enema and protecting a Fae—had it been any other Fae than the all-powerful queen—Barrons would have willingly died a few times from internal bleeding.

  But she was the one Fae he wasn’t willing to sacrifice—yet.

  I was definitely up for moving her somewhere else; the farther from me, the better. I’d been worried that he might try to keep her at the bookstore and had been prepared to argue that, no matter how formidable his wards were, with the two of us coming and going constantly, she’d be left alone too much to guarantee her safety. “What do you have in mind?” I said.

  Half a Dani Daily flapped on a streetlamp in the chilly night breeze. I plucked it off, scanned it for the date AWC, and did some hasty calculations. If it had been posted today—which it probably hadn’t, considering its condition—the date was March 23. Maybe a week later.

  I read it and smiled faintly. She’d taken the bull by the horns while I was gone. The kid feared nothing.

  The Dani Daily

  147 Days AWC

  Dudes—Listen Up if You Wanna Survive!

  A few simple rules and regs will keep you alive!

  1. Skintight clothes or nothing at all! Don’t be bashful, don’t be shy. Don’t leave no place for a book to hide. The fecker’s on the rampage, has been for weeks! Need to be seeing with your own eyeballs ain’t nothing hiding on your peeps.

  2. No splitting up! Do NOT go anywhere alone. That’s when it gets you! If you see a book, DON’T PICK IT UP!!!!!

  3. Don’t leave your hidey-holes at night! Don’t know why, but it likes the dark. Yes, I’m talking about the SINSAR DUBH. I said it, you heard me. You dudes who ain’t been seeing my rags, it’s a book of dark magic created by the Unseelie King almost a million years ago. Past time you know the truth. If you pick it up, it will make you KILL EVERYBODY AROUND YOU, starting with the peeps you love. Start following the rules! No deviations, no stupid fecking

  The bottom half had been torn off, but I didn’t need to see any more. I’d really just wanted to know the date. I’d missed her birthday. Chocolate on chocolate, she’d said. I’d planned to make her a cake myself. I’d throw a belated party for her, even if it was just the two of us.

  Hardly something the Unseelie King would think about: birthday parties for humans.

  “You might have all night, but some of us don’t,” Barrons growled over his shoulder.

  I stuffed the paper in my pocket and hurried to catch up. We’d parked the Viper a block away. The queen wore a hooded cloak and was wrapped in blankets.

  “You have all night tonight and tomorrow night and all eternity for that matter. So how long were you dead this time?” I asked, needling him.

  The rattle moved in his throat.

  I took a perverse pleasure in irritating him. “A day? Three? Five? What does it depend on? How badly you’re injured?”

  “If I were you, Ms. Lane, I’d never bring that up again. You think you’re suddenly a major player because you went through that Silver—”

  “I left Christian at the mirror. I found him in the prison,” I cut him off.

  His mouth snapped shut, then, “Why the fuck does it always take you so long to tell me the important things
?”

  “Because there are always so many important things,” I said defensively. “Her hair’s dragging again.”

  “Pick it up. My hands are full.”

  “I’m not touching her.”

  He shot me a look. “Issues much, Ms. Concubine?”

  “She’s not even the real queen,” I said irritably. “Not the one that ruined the concubine’s life. I just don’t like Fae. I’m a sidhe-seer, remember?”

  “Are you?”

  “Why are you so pissed at me? It’s not my fault who I am. The only thing that’s my fault is what I choose to do with it.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance that said, That might be the only intelligent thing you’ve said tonight.

  I looked past him to the wrecked façade of Chester’s ahead, and for a moment it looked eerily like a ruin of standing stones, black against a blue-black sky, from a faraway time and another place. A full moon hung above it, wearing a halo of crimson, round fat face splattered with craters of blood. More Fae changes in our world.

  “When you get inside, go to the stairs and one of them will escort you up. Go directly to the stairs,” he said pointedly. “Try not to get in trouble or cause a riot on the way.”

  “I don’t think that’s a fair statement. Life isn’t always chaotic around me.”

  “Like when isn’t it?”

  “Like when I’m …” I thought a minute. “Alone,” I finished pissily. “Or asleep.” I didn’t ask about my parents. It felt … wrong, as if I no longer had any right to ask questions about Jack and Rainey Lane. It made my heart hurt. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll meet you inside.”

  “Because if I knew whatever secret back entrance you’re about to use,” I said sarcastically, “I might broadcast it to all the Fae, is that it?” He trusted me even less now that he thought I was the king’s mortal lover. How would he treat me if he thought I was the Big Bad himself?

  “Move it, Ms. Lane,” was all he said.

  I descended into the belly of the whale to find it crammed to the gills with humans and Unseelie—standing room only at Chester’s tonight.

  I couldn’t be the king. These would be my “children.” I didn’t feel remotely paternal. I felt homicidal. That sealed it. I was human. I had no idea why the mirror had let me through, but eventually I’d figure it out.

  I glanced around, shocked. Things had changed while I’d been gone. The world just kept morphing into something new without me.

  There were Seelie in Chester’s now, too. Not many, and it didn’t look like they were getting the warmest welcome from the Unseelie, but I’d already spotted a dozen, and the humans were going crazy over them. Two of those horrid little monsters that made you laugh yourself to death were dive-bombing the crowd, clutching tiny drinks that sloshed over the rims as they flew. Three of those blinding-light trailers were whizzing through the masses. In a cage suspended from the ceiling, naked men danced, writhing in sexual ecstasy, fanned by ethereal, gossamer-winged nymphs.

  I continued scanning the club and stiffened. On an elevated platform, in the sub-club that catered to those with a taste for very young humans, stood the golden god who’d comforted Dree’lia when V’lane had taken her mouth away.

  It was all I could do not to march over there, stab him with my spear, and denounce V’lane as a traitor.

  Then I had a better idea.

  I pushed through the crowd, pulled myself up next to him, and said, “Hey, remember me?”

  He ignored me. I imagined he heard that a lot if he’d been coming here awhile. I stood beside him, looking out over the sea of heads.

  “I’m the woman that was with Darroc the night we met in the street. I need you to summon V’lane.”

  The golden god’s head swiveled. Disdain stamped his immortal features. “Summon. V’lane. Those two words do not go together in any language, human.”

  “I had his name in my tongue until Barrons sucked it out. I need him. Now.” This golden god might have disconcerted me once, but I had a spear in my holster and a black secret in my heart, and nothing disconcerted me anymore. I wanted V’lane here, now. He had a few things to answer for.

  “V’lane did not give you his name.”

  “On multiple occasions. And his fury with you will know no bounds if he learns I asked you to get him for me and you refused.”

  He regarded me in stony silence.

  I shrugged. “Fine. Your call. Just remember what he did to Dree’lia.” I turned and walked away.

  He was in front of me.

  “Hey, what the fuck ya think ya doing? No sifting in the club!” someone cried. The golden god jerked and disentangled himself from the arm that he’d materialized around. It seemed to slide from his body, as if the section containing it had abruptly become energy, not matter.

  The guy the arm belonged to was young, with a faux-hawk, a petulant expression, and twitchy, restless eyes. He clutched his offended appendage, rubbing it as if it had gone to sleep. Then he seemed to see what had just sifted in next to him and his eyes rounded almost comically.

  A drink appeared in the golden god’s hand. He offered it to the guy with a murmured regret. “I did not mean to break the rules of the club. Your arm will be fine in a moment.”

  “S’cool, man,” the guy gushed as he accepted the drink. “No worries.” He stared up at the Fae worshipfully. “What can I do for ya?” he said breathlessly. “I mean, man, I’d do anything, ya know? Anything at all!”

  The golden god bent down, leaning close. “Would you die for me?”

  “Anything, man! But will you take me to Faery first?”

  I leaned in behind the golden god and pressed my mouth to his ear. “There’s a spear in a holster beneath my arm. You broke a rule and sifted. I bet that means I can break a rule, too. You want to try it?”

  He made that hissing Fae sound of distaste. But he eased away and stood straight.

  “Be a good little fairy,” I purred, “and go get V’lane for me.” I hesitated, weighing my next words. “Tell him I have some news about the Sinsar Dubh.”

  Laughter and all voices died; the club fell silent.

  Movement ceased.

  I glanced around, absorbing it. It was as if the entire place had been freeze-framed by the mere mention of the Sinsar Dubh.

  Though the club was a bubble frozen in time, I swore I felt eyes resting heavily on me. Was there some kind of charm cast over this place so that if someone uttered the name of the king’s forbidden Book, everyone but the person who’d spoken the words and the person who’d laid the spell would momentarily freeze?

  I scanned the sub-clubs.

  Air hissed between my teeth. Two tiered dance floors down, a man in an impeccable white suit was holding frozen court in a kingly white chair, surrounded by dozens of white-clad attendants.

  I hadn’t seen him since that night long ago, when Barrons and I had searched Casa Blanc. But, like me, he wasn’t frozen.

  McCabe nodded to me across the sea of statues.

  Just as suddenly as everything had frozen, life resumed.

  “You have offended me, human,” the golden god was saying, “and I will kill you for the slight. Not here. Not tonight. But soon.”

  “Sure, whatever,” I muttered. “Just get him here.” I turned away and began shoving my way through the crowd, but by the time I reached the kingly white chair, McCabe was gone.

  I had to pass the sub-club where the dreamy-eyed guy tended bar to get to the stairs. “Directly,” construed as a geographical command, didn’t preclude stopping along the way and, since I was parched and had a few questions about a tarot card, I rapped my knuckles on the counter for a shot.

  I could barely remember what it felt like to mix drinks and party with my friends, jam-packed with ignorance and shiny dreams.

  Five stools down, a top hat gauzed with cobwebs was a dark, unused chimney badly in need of sweeping. Strawlike hair swept shoulders that were as bony as broomsticks in a pin-striped
suit. The fear dorcha was hanging with the dreamy-eyed guy again. Creepy.

  Nobody was sitting next to it. The top hat rotated my way as I took a seat, four empty stools away. A deck of tarot cards was artfully arranged in its suit pocket, a natty handkerchief, cards fanned. Knobbed ankles crossed, displaying patent-leather shoes with shiny, pointy toes.

  “Weight of the world on your shoulders?” it called like a carny selling chances at a booth.

  I stared into the swirling dark tornado beneath the brim of the top hat. Fragments of a face—half a green eye and brow, part of a nose—appeared and vanished like scraps of pictures torn from a magazine, momentarily slapped up against a window, then torn off by the next storm gust. I suddenly knew the debonair and eerie prop was as ancient as the Fae themselves. Did the fear dorcha make the hat, or did the hat make the fear dorcha?

  Because my parents raised me to be polite and old habits die hard, it was difficult to hold my tongue. But the mistake of speaking to it was not one I’d make twice.

  “Relationships got you down?” it cried, with the inflated exuberance of an OxiClean commercial. I half-expected helpful visual aids to manifest in midair as he hawked his wares—whatever they were.

  I rolled my eyes. One could certainly say that.

  “Might be just what you need is a night on the town!” it enthused in a too-bright voice.

  I snorted.

  It unfolded itself from the stool, proffering long bony arms and skeletal hands. “Give us a dance, luv. I’m told I’m quite the Fred Astaire.” It tapped out a quick step and bent low at the waist, thin arms flamboyantly wide.

  A shot of whiskey slid down the counter. I tossed it back swiftly.

  “See you learned your lesson, beautiful girl.”

  “Been learning a lot lately.”

  “All ears.”

  “Tarot deck was my life. How’s that?”

  “Told you. Prophecies. All shapes.”