“Rowena said alive or dead,” Kat says stiffly. She left “It sounds like she’ll be dead soon and our problems will be solved” hanging unspoken.
“We want the Book, remember?” I try reason. Times I think I’m the only one in the whole abbey that’s got any.
“We’ll find it without her. She betrayed us.”
Feck reason. Pisses me off when people jump to conclusions they have no proof for. “You don’t know that, so stop saying it,” I growl. Somebody’s fist is holding Kat’s coat collar, got her up on her toes. It’s mine. I don’t know who’s more surprised, her or me. I drop her back on the ground and look away. I’ve never done anything like that before. But it’s Mac in there and I have to get her out, and Kat’s wasting my time big-time with total BS.
Her mouth sets with tiny white lines around it, and her eyes take on a look I get a lot. It makes me feel mad and alone.
She’s afraid of me.
Mac isn’t. One more way we’re like sisters.
Without another word, I give my feet the wings they live for and vanish into the building.
* * *
From the rooftop, I stare.
My fists clench. I keep my nails real short; still, they gouge blood from my palms.
Two Fae are dragging Mac down the front steps of a church. She’s naked. They drop her like a piece of trash in the middle of the street. A third Fae exits the church and joins them, and they stand, imperial guards around her, heads swiveling, surveying the street.
The raw sex they’re throwing off blasts me, but it’s not like V’lane, who I’m gonna give my virginity to one day.
I’m as obsessed with sex as anybody, but those … things … down there … those incredibly—fecking A, they hurt to look at; something’s wet on my cheeks; are my eyes boiling in their sockets?—beautiful things scare even me, and I don’t scare easy. They don’t move right. Storms of color rush under their skin. Black torques slither at their necks. There’s nothing in their eyes. Nothing. Eyes of pure oblivion. Power. Sex. Death. They reek of it. They’re Unseelie. My blood knows. I want to fall on my knees at their feet and worship, and Dani Mega O’Malley don’t worship nothing but herself.
I wipe my face. My fingers come away red. My eyes are leaking blood. Freaky. Kinda cool. Vamps got nothing on Fae.
I close my eyes, and when I open them again I don’t look directly at the things guarding Mac. Instead, I take a wide-angle image of the scene. Every Fae, fire hydrant, car, pothole, streetlamp, piece of trash. I map objects and empty spaces on my mental grid, lock it down tight, calculate margin of error based on likely movement, slap it over my snapshot.
I squint. A shadow moves in the street, almost too fast to see. The Fae don’t seem to know it’s there. I watch. They don’t respond to it. No heads swivel to follow it. I can’t focus on it. Can’t make out its shape. It moves like I move … mostly. What the feck? Not a Shade. Not a Fae. A blur of shadow. Now it’s hanging over Mac. Now it’s gone. Bright side—if the Unseelie aren’t noticing it, they shouldn’t notice me when I whiz in to snatch her. Dimmer side—what if whatever it is can see me? What if we collide? What is it? I don’t like unknowns. Unknowns can kill.
I catch the glint of Mac’s spear in a red-robed man’s hand. He’s carrying it at arm’s length from his body. Only Seelie or humans can touch the Seelie Hallows. He’s one or the other. The Lord Master?
They have Mac. They have the spear. Don’t know if I can grab both so won’t try. Would chance it if it wasn’t Mac. They hurt her bad. She’s bloody everywhere. She’s my hero. I hate them! Fae took my mother and now they’ve taken Mac. I refresh my snapshot of the scene right before I let myself go nuts inside, let that ancient sidhe-seer place in my head swallow me whole.
Instantly, I’m cool and perfect and detached from everything. I’m the Shit. It’s the most massive high in the world!
I zip from one freeze-frame to the next. No in-betweens.
I’m on the roof of the building.
I’m in the street.
I’m between the guards. Lust—wantneedsexdie—incinerates me, but I’m moving too fast and they can’t touch what they can’t see and they can’t see me and all I have to do is not cave; hate, hate, hate, make armor from it. Got enough hate to Kevlar all Ireland’s Garda.
I grab Mac.
Freeze-frame.
Heart in my throat! Shadow-thing blocks my path! What is it?
I’m past it.