I turned my head.
O’Bannion crouched behind me, his emaciated body pressed to mine, the scent of death surrounding us, those awful chain-saw blades an inch from my face.
He gnashed his teeth at me and laughed. “Surprise! Gotcha, didn’t I?”
I didn’t have to look back to know the Book wasn’t lying on the pavement.
It never had been.
I hadn’t actually seen a thing. It had all been illusion, glamour. Which meant the Sinsar Dubh had somehow skimmed my mind and plucked from it the images it believed would draw me in, keep me occupied. Some part of my brain must have been thinking about the woman, wondering how I would get past her tomorrow.
It had shown me a glimpse of what I wanted to see, then kept me busy hunting for more with elusive, sketchy images, all promise, no substance.
While in reality it had been crouching behind me, doing … what? What had it been up to while I’d been staring into pages that weren’t there?
“Learning you. Tasting you. Knowing you, Mac.” O’Bannion’s bladed hand caressed my arm.
I shook it off.
“Sweet. So sweet.” O’Bannion’s breath was on my ear.
I gathered my will, lunged to a half crouch, and dragged myself down the pavement, away from it.
“I SAY WHEN WE’RE DONE!”
I was crushed to the street, flattened with pain, and I realized the stones hadn’t been protecting me, nor had any change in my strength or abilities. The Sinsar Dubh had released me from my pain and could return it any time it chose.
It chose now.
It soared over me, rising, stretching, transforming into the Beast, telling me, in graphic detail, what I could do with my puny little stones that only a fool would believe could contain, could dampen, could ever hope to even brush the greatness of something as limitless and perfect as it. It lacerated me with red-hot blades of hatred and cold black blades of despair.
Agony screamed inside my skin.
I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t flee.
I could only lie there whimpering, immobilized by pain.
When I came to, it took me a moment to figure out where I was.
I blinked in the low light and remained motionless, performing a rapid physical assessment of myself.
I was relieved to realize I was experiencing no current pain—it was all residual. My head was one massive bruise. My bones felt as if they’d been crushed, splinted, and had barely begun to heal.
Internal check completed, I turned my attention to my surroundings.
I was in the bookstore, propped on my favorite chesterfield sofa before the fire in the rear conversation area. I was iced to the bone, wrapped in blankets.
Barrons stood in front of the fire, a tall, powerful shape surrounded by flame, his back to me.
I exhaled with relief, a tiny noise in the large room, but Barrons whirled instantly, a sound rattling deep in his chest, guttural, animal. It made my blood run cold.
It was one of the most inhuman sounds I’d ever heard. Adrenaline erased my pain. I rose up on all fours on the sofa, like some wild thing myself, and stared.
“What the fuck are you?” he snarled. His dark eyes burned ancient and cold in his face. There was blood on his cheeks. Blood on his hands. I wondered if it had come from me. I wondered why he hadn’t bothered trying to wash it off. I wondered how long I’d been out. How had I gotten back here? What time was it, anyway? What had the Book done to me?
Then his question penetrated. I pushed the hair from my eyes and began to laugh. “What am I? What am I?”
I laughed and laughed. I couldn’t help it. I held my sides. There might have been an edge of hysteria in it, but after all I’d been through, I figured I was entitled to a little lunacy. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Jericho Barrons was asking me what I was!
He made that sound again, like a rattlesnake—a giant one—was shaking a warning tail in his chest. I stopped laughing and looked at him. The sound chilled me the same way the Sinsar Dubh did. It made me think that Jericho Barrons’ skin might be a slipcover for a chair I never wanted to see.
“Kneel, Ms. Lane!”
Shit. He’d Voiced me!
And it was working!
I crashed off the sofa in a tangle of blankets and landed on my knees, gritting my teeth. I thought I was immune to Voice! The LM’s hadn’t worked on me! But then, Barrons is better at everything.
“What are you?” he roared.
“I don’t know!” I shouted. I didn’t. But I was sure beginning to wonder. V’lane’s comment that night at the abbey had been haunting me with increasing frequency: They should be afraid of you, he’d said. You have only begun to discover what you are.
“What does the Book want from you?”
“I don’t know!”
“What was it doing to you while it kept you there in the street?”
“I don’t know! How long did it keep me there?”
“Over an hour! It turned into the Beast and eclipsed you. I couldn’t fucking get to you! I couldn’t even fucking see you! What was it doing?”
“Learning me. Tasting me. Knowing me,” I gritted. “That’s what it said. Stop Voicing me, Barrons!”
“I’ll stop Voicing you when you can make me stop Voicing you, Ms. Lane. Stand up.”
I pushed to my feet on trembling legs, residual pain in every ounce of my body. I hated him at that moment. There was no need to kick me when I was already down.
“Fight me, Ms. Lane,” he growled, without the aid of Voice. “Pick up the knife and cut your hand.”
I glanced down at the coffee table. An ivory-handled knife with a wicked, jagged blade shimmered in the firelight. I was horrified to find myself reaching for it. I’d been here before. This was exactly how he’d tried to train me in the past.
“Fight!”
And just like in the past, I kept reaching.
“Bloody hell, look inside yourself! Hate me! Fight! Fight any way you can!”
My hand stopped. Pulled back. Moved forward again.
“Cut yourself deep,” he hissed in Voice. “Make it hurt like hell.”
My fingers closed around the hilt of the knife.
“You’re a natural victim, Ms. Lane. A walking, talking Barbie doll,” he sneered. “See Mac’s sister get killed. See Mac get raped. See Mac get fucked. See Mac get crushed in the street by the Book. See Mac dead on top of the trash heap out back.”