“Now tell me who you are.”
“Vengeance,” I said in a cold voice.
“Better, Ms. Lane. But try again. And when you speak to me, bow your head.”
I was bleeding by the time the night’s lesson was over. In several places. They were self-inflicted wounds.
I understood why he’d done it. This was tough, well, not love, but tough life lessons. I had to learn this. And I would do whatever it took.
When he’d made me pick up the knife and cut myself, I’d seen a glimmer of light in the darkness inside my skull. I’d still cut myself, but something deep inside me had stirred. It was there, somewhere, if I could just dig deep enough to get to it. I wondered who I’d be by the time I got there. Was this why Barrons was the way he was? Who had put Jericho Barrons on his knees? I could hardly even picture it.
“Did you hurt yourself when you learned?” I asked.
“Many times.”
“How long did it take you?”
He smiled faintly. “Years.”
“That’s unacceptable. I need this now. At least to be able to resist, or I’ll never be able to get near the LM.”
I thought he was going to argue with me about getting near the LM but he said only, “That’s why I’m skipping years of training, taking you far ahead into difficult territory. Tonight was only the beginning of . . . pain. If you’re not okay with where it’s going, tell me here, and now. I won’t ask again. I’ll push you as far as I think you can go.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m okay with it.”
“Go bandage yourself, Ms. Lane. Use this.” He withdrew a small bottle of ointment from his pocket.
“What is it?”
“It will speed the healing.”
When I returned, he held open the door, and ushered me into the night.
I glanced instinctively to the right. My gargantuan Shade was a dark cloud on top of the building next door. It loomed menacingly, and began to slither down the brick façade.
Barrons stepped out behind me.
The Shade retreated. “What are you?” I said irritably.
“In the Serengeti, Ms. Lane, I would be the cheetah. I’m stronger, smarter, faster, and hungrier than everything else out there. And I don’t apologize to the gazelle when I take it down.”
Sighing, I moved for the bike but he turned left. “We’re walking?” I was surprised.
“For a few hours. I want a look at the city, then we’ll come back for a car.”
Unseelie were everywhere in the damp, cobbled streets. The ever-increasing crime rate didn’t seem to be keeping anyone at home. The juxtaposition of the two worlds—carefree humans, some half drunk, others only beginning their night on the town, laughing and talking, mingling with the predatory, grimly focused Unseelie draped loosely in glamour that I now had to work to see, as opposed to having to work to see past—painted the night with the slick menace of a traveling carnival.
There were Rhino-boys, and those creepy-looking street vendors with the huge eyes and no mouths; there were winged things, and things that scampered. Some were in high glamour, walking down the sidewalk with human companions. Others perched on buildings, birds of prey, selecting a kill. I half-expected one of them to recognize us, sound the alarm, and descend in force.
“They’re self-serving,” Barrons said, when I mentioned it. “They obey a master as long as he’s in their face. But an Unseelie’s true master is its hunger, and this city is a banquet. They’ve been trapped for hundreds of thousands of years. There is little left of them but hunger at this point. It’s consuming to feel so empty, so . . . hollow. It blinds them to all else.”
I looked at him sharply. He’d sounded strange there at the end, almost as if he felt . . . sorry for them.
“When did you last kill one of them, Ms. Lane?” he said suddenly.
“Yesterday.”
“Was there trouble you didn’t tell me about?”
“No. I just cut him up for parts.”
“What?” Barrons stopped and looked down at me.
I shrugged. “A woman died the other day. She wouldn’t have, if I’d had it handy. I won’t make that mistake again.” I was secure in my conviction that I was doing the right thing.
“The woman in my store?” When I nodded, he said, “And just where are you keeping these . . . parts, Ms. Lane?”
“In my purse.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
”I think I just said I did,” I said coolly.