“You haven’t seen Katarina at all?” Sean was saying to Ryodan. “Since when? Killian said he saw her here a few weeks ago.”
“This Killian of yours told you she was in my office?” Ryodan said.
“No, he said he saw her walking through the club. Said she seemed hell-bent on something. He kept an eye out for her but didn’t see her leave. I’ve not been able to find her since.”
Ryodan said, “I haven’t seen her lately.” He glanced up and shot me a hard look: Speak and I’ll rip out your bloody throat, woman.
Beside me, Barrons growled softly.
I’d made two oaths during my time in Dublin: one to the Gray Woman, with my proverbial fingers crossed because the bitch had tried to kill Dani and that was unforgivable enough in and of itself, but I’d also known she was going to kill still more innocents. Endlessly, until she was stopped. Steal their beauty, torture and play with them while they died. They would be someone’s sister, brother, son, daughter. And more of the human race would be lost. I’d never had any intention of honoring it. A coerced oath, forced by a murderer, while threatening the life of someone I love, is not an oath. It’s extortion.
I’d taken another oath, more recently, that I would keep forever. Even if it cost me. Even if it pained me enormously, which I was certain it would. I held Ryodan’s gaze levelly. Your secrets, mine.
After a moment he inclined his head.
Sean turned to look at me. “Have you seen Kat, Mac?”
“Not lately.” I availed myself of Ryodan’s technique, which even Christian would have had a hard time seeing through. I hadn’t seen her. Lately. Depending on how you defined lately. The trick was the same as outsmarting a polygraph, tell your mind the truth while telling the lie. “But I’m sure she’s okay,” I added hastily, not wanting him to worry more than he was. The skin beneath his eyes was smudged dark from stress and lack of sleep. I could only imagine what he was going through.
“I’m not so bloody sure. She’s been missing for weeks.”
“Dani was missing for weeks, too,” I said. “And she’s back just fine now.” Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate but she was back. “I’m sure she’ll show up. Maybe she’s off on confidential sidhe-seer business or something.” One thing I knew for sure, Kat was safe where she was. Physically. Mostly.
He shook his head. “No one at the abbey has seen or heard from her. And Kat’s never gone somewhere without telling me first. We tell each other everything.”
Ryodan said dryly, “No one tells each other everything.”
“We do,” Sean said coolly. “I’m sore fashed and I’ll tell you that. It’s not like my Kat. I’ve been dropping by Dublin Castle twice a day, checking the bodies the Garda are collecting off the streets.”
I cringed inwardly. “I’m so sorry, Sean. Is there anything I can do to help?” It was all I could do not to shoot Ryodan a nasty look. Sean was worried sick about Kat and he had every reason to be. If someone went missing in Dublin these days, the odds were high they were dead.
Sean said soberly, “Aye, keep your eye out. Let me know if you hear a whisper of a word about her. You’ll find me in the piano pub with the lads most evenings. If I’m not there, any one of them will get word to me.”
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” I promised.
He nodded and stepped out.
The moment the door closed, I spun on Ryodan and hissed, “I’ll keep your secrets, but you need to let him know somehow that she’s all right.”
“Because it’s not fair,” he mocked.
“Because there’s no need to inflict suffering if you can prevent it,” I retorted.
Those cool silver eyes dismissed me. “He’ll brood, he’ll pine. She’ll return. He’ll get over it. No damage done.”
I scowled at him. The man was as immutable as Barrons. They didn’t view a month of worry as remotely significant because a month was the blink of an eye to them, and besides, everyone died.
Immortals. Pains in the asses, every one of them.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said brusquely. “I have things to do.”
—
Our path to the small cell in the dungeon was interrupted again, this time by Christian MacKeltar.
The moment we stepped off the elevator and turned left, I felt an icy wind at my back and he was there.
I turned and gasped, startled. Christian looked nearly full Unseelie prince, taller than he usually was, much broader through the shoulders, with great black wings angled up and back and still sweeping the floor. Anger colored him in shades of the Unseelie prison. Ice dusted his wings, his face.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he snarled at Ryodan. “I can’t do this. I won’t.”
“Then your uncle will suffer.”
“You do it!”
“I did the hard part. He’s alive.”
“He’s never going to forgive you.”
“Yes he will. Because one day he’ll feel something besides the pain and horror and he’ll be glad that he’s alive. No matter the price. That’s the way it works for men of a certain ilk. But you know that, don’t you, Highlander?”
Ryodan turned away and we resumed walking toward the cell in silence, buffeted by an icy breeze.
—
In the narrow stone cell, I dropped into a chair, edgy and irritable.
My Unseelie flesh high had evaporated without warning, late this afternoon at BB&B, while I was struggling to disengage one of my least damaged bookcases from a pile of splintered furniture and stand it upright again.
The unwieldy tower of shelves had fractured several toes when it crashed to the floor, inadequately supported by abruptly too-weak muscles. Fortunately, even without Unseelie flesh, I heal quickly and no longer sported even a slight limp.
Unfortunately, withdrawal was setting in, making me short-tempered and more impatient than ever.
I wanted this over with. I’d already decided to tell them I still couldn’t find the Book, even with my sidhe-seer senses open again. How would they feel if I tried to make them go rooting around inside themselves for whatever was in there? Attempted to get them to let me use their inner demon in its wildest, most uncontrolled form?
They wouldn’t tolerate it for a second. Why should I? There had to be another way to save our world. Speaking of, before I went disturbing anything I shouldn’t, I glanced at Barrons. I have to show you something back at the bookstore. Tonight.