Burned (8 page)

Food and medicine are the hottest commodities. Dublin’s grocery and convenience stores are empty, the hospital and pharmacies ransacked, and we’ve lost so much farm-rich land to the Shades that rebuilding is going to take time. One of the few positive things about having half the human race erased from the planet is that many supplies are out there, if you can survive the long, dangerous trek, filled with Fae and human predators alike, to find them. WeCare was trying to get a corner on the supply market but failed, squeezed out by ruthless competitors.

There are currently three places to obtain food in Dublin, where the prices vary according to whim: Chester’s, the Fae, and the black market. If you ask me, they’re all black. Of course nobody
does
ask me because nobody sees me because I lay low all the time and I’ve got a boyfriend who isn’t much for talking.

I snort. I just thought of Jericho Barrons as my “boyfriend.” I doubt that cataclysm was ever a boy and he certainly can’t be called friendly.

It’s official. I’m losing it.

Solitude and inaction are unraveling me right down to the core.

Forty-five minutes later I’m on my way back to the bookstore, another wasted day beneath my belt, headed for another thrilling evening reading dusty, crumbling manuscripts. I used to love to read. But I used to read hot romances and great murder mysteries and autobiographies. Now I read one thing: dry, archaic Fae history and legend.

I decide to cut through the Dark Zone adjacent to BB&B, see what’s happening, and make sure it’s still empty. That’ll make me feel better. I may not be able to actively fight, but at least I can keep tabs on one of my enemy’s favorite campsites, ascertain they haven’t come back.

My Unseelie swarm turns with me as I head down a narrow cobbled lane.

Nearly a year ago, my second day in this city, I’d gotten lost in these forgotten, trash-strewn blocks filled with dilapidated industrial warehouses and docks, crumbling smokestacks, abandoned cars, and thick, porous husks scattered all over the place, oblivious to the amorphous danger lurking in the shadows.

When I’d finally stumbled out of danger, or rather into danger of another sort in Barrons Books & Baubles that afternoon, it had been love at first sight—with the bookstore. The owner was another matter. That was war at first sight. I’m not sure much has changed, except that we both really enjoy the war.

Later that night Barrons had come to my rented room at the Clarin Hotel and tried to bully me into leaving. It hadn’t
worked. I might have been pink and pretty and terrified, but I’d stood my ground.

I frown and rub my forehead then pinch the bridge of my nose. Something’s itchy in my skull. Something weird just happened while I was thinking about that night. As if there’s a neatly wrapped bundle tucked away in my head and something disturbed it, kicking up dust, drawing my attention somewhere I might never have looked. Thanks to the
Sinsar Dubh
eternally infiltrating and attempting to usurp my thoughts, I’ve become a pro at navigating the dimly lit corridors inside my skull, sidestepping certain things, packing others deep into the shadows, picking up still more and carrying them into the light.

But this … I’m not even sure what it is.

It doesn’t feel like part of the Book and it doesn’t feel like me. As if someone else tucked a parcel away, taped it up in thick packing blankets, and left it in a small cave where I might never—

“You made oath, pledged détente,” a voice hisses. “This is
my
territory now.”

My gaze snaps outward and I’m surprised to find myself seven or eight blocks into the Dark Zone. My body is instantly battle ready, my hand on my spear. My wraiths chitter and flock upward to the roofs above, apparently liking the leprous, beauty-stealing Gray Woman no more than I. I really wish I could figure out what makes them decide to vacate my space at odd moments.

I savor the lack of constriction and expand my shoulders from the drawn-forward hunch I assume when they press close. With the exception of the night I saw Dani, it’s been months since I’ve been able to stand in the street alone.

Now I’m face-to-face with an Unseelie enemy—one-on-one, with nothing in my way. It’s exhilarating, like old times.

A good nine to ten feet tall, covered with open, oozing sores, the Gray Woman is hideous. I get briefly fixated on the long thin hands covered with suckers that nearly killed Dani that night, remember how I’d forced the vile Unseelie to give the teen back her life in exchange for a dirty bargain I should never have made, and would make all over again to keep Dani alive.

I stare up into her rotting face and think about the lisping Fae that killed my sister and the many times this bitch has fed, the countless lives ruined and lost.

I’ve seen none of Ryodan’s men on the streets.

My flock isn’t hemming me in.

The moment is perfection. I’m a
sidhe
-seer and a powerful Null. I have a weapon that kills the Fae. I don’t need anything from my inner psychopath. My spear is enough. There’s no taint of the
Sinsar Dubh
in this. I’ve sometimes wondered if the Book is responsible for the wraiths that stalk me, if it summoned them to torment me, believing if it prevents me from fighting the good fight long enough, I’ll flip and succumb to its endless goading.

Not a chance.

I’m going to walk home today with a bounce in my step and a good feeling in my heart, knowing I got rid of one of our many enemies. I’m going to feel like the old me again, out there batting for the team, saving who knows how many thousands of lives by ending this foul, malevolent one.

“You will leave this place. It is mine. You swore free passage and a favor owed,” the Gray Woman hisses.

This is what I’ve needed for months: a golden opportunity to kick self-doubt squarely in the teeth, remind myself that although the Book might needle me, I’m in control. I make the
decisions, not the
Sinsar Dubh
. It can talk all it wants, it can intrude into my thoughts and tempt me endlessly, but at the end of the day it’s me that’s walking my body around and calling the shots.

The Unseelie are vermin; they’ve killed billions of people and would happily gorge on our world until there was nothing left. I despise them and I despise myself for not killing more of them.

My spear glows white when I battle. I’m the good guy.

“Guess what, bitch.” I lunge for the Gray Woman. “I lied.”

Yes
, the
Sinsar Dubh
whispers.

And everything goes dark.

I claw my way back to consciousness, gasping for breath. I’m on my knees, in a gutter—no real surprise there—I’m intimately acquainted with Dublin’s gutters, having puked in more than a few of them.

I hurt everywhere. I’ve wrenched my lower back, my arms burn, my knees are bruised, and I’m drenched.

I peer up, wondering if it’s raining again. It does that a lot here.

Nope, sun is still out, well, sort of. It’s kissing the horizon beyond the—I frown. What just happened? Where am I? Not in the Dark Zone anymore, I’m halfway across the city.

A soft chuckle rolls in my head.
Land of the Free, MacKayla. Home of the Brave, Beautiful, and Homicidal. You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that
, the
Sinsar Dubh
says silkily.

Something splatters on my head, drips down my face.

I touch my cheek and pull my hand away to look at it. It’s covered with green goo.

And red blood.

My fingernails are stained. There’s stuff beneath them I refuse to examine.

Not looking up, not looking up
.

Keep acting like this, Princess, and I’ll kill you myself. Don’t think I can’t
.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
, the Book says in a singsong voice and pastes an image of me, holding a gun to my own head, kneeling on the floor in Barrons Books & Baubles, on the inside of my lids.
Just kidding. Never let you do it. I got you, babe
, it twangs in a cheesy, over-the-top Sonny and Cher impersonation.

Grimacing, I open my eyes and peer warily up.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Impaled on the streetlamp beneath which I crouch, the Gray Woman has been tortured, flayed, and dismembered.

And left alive.

Bits of her wriggle in agony. Suckers open and close convulsively and she’s somehow still making noise: moans and whimpers of horrendous pain.

I drop my head, and nearly vomit into the gutter.

Onto a human hand. Torn off at the wrist.

He got in the way
.

“No,” I whisper. I recognize the tatter of uniform attached to the wrist. It’s one of Inspector Jayne’s Guardians. I would never kill a human. Never harm an innocent. I may not like Jayne’s methods—he took Dani’s sword from her and would cheerfully relieve me of my spear if he thought he could—but he and his men perform a dangerous and much needed job for this city.

You did. And loved every minute of it. You are every bit as much a beast as you accuse me of being
.

I shake my head violently, as if I might manage to expel the Book from my skull.

I’m in control
, the
Sinsar Dubh
mocks in falsetto.
I make the decisions. Lovely MacKayla, when will you learn? You’re the car. I’m the driver. But I can only drive you because deep down you
want
to be driven
.

I shiver, chilled to my soul
. I do not
.

I watched the Book “drive” other cars. I count myself lucky there are only two dismembered human hands in the street with me. I crouch on my hands and knees, head hanging down, eyes closed, trembling from the exertion of the awful things I just did and from self-loathing. Part of me wants to lie down right here and quit. I was so sure of myself, so certain I was in control.

And so unforgivably wrong.

There are only two ways an enemy can defeat you, Ms. Lane
, Barrons said to me the other night, more lessons at the bookstore like old times.
You die. Or you quit trying. Then you die. Is that what you want? To die?

I want to live. I have so much to live for.

I’m sure the man I killed did, too. My chest is hot and tight, my muscles locked down. I can’t get a breath. I crouch in the gutter, trying to suck air, heaving soundlessly.

Get up, Mac
, I can almost hear him growl.
Get the fuck up
.

The man orders me around even when he’s not present. I hang my head and try willing my rigid muscles to relax. It doesn’t work. I’m growing dizzy from lack of oxygen.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe!
I’m starting to panic.

Sometimes if you get too focused on a goal, Ms. Lane, you make an unwanted element of it sticky
.

Not getting it
, I’d said.

Fear of the power you believe someone or something has over you is nothing but a jail cell you
choose
to walk into. By obsessing over freeing yourself from the Book, you become more certainly its prisoner
.

I force myself to do the counterintuitive, the opposite of what I want: exhale instead of inhale.

Air screeches back into my lungs so fast I choke. I crouch in the gutter, sputtering, panting.

After a few moments I push myself shakily to my feet.

How did this happen? How did the Book gain control of me without me even realizing it?

I look around slowly. Commit my crimes to memory.

Bits of Unseelie and human flesh are scattered everywhere.

There is no piece larger than a tea saucer.

I sort through them and, after a time, gather the hand of the man I murdered, cradle it to my chest, and weep.

      4      

“Pain without love, pain can’t get enough”

CHRISTIAN

It’s summer in the Highlands, white and purple heather has taken over the countryside, carpeting the meadows and bens. Lavender thistles explode from fat prickly pods and pale pink wild roses tumble over rocky outcroppings.

The devil is in the details.

So, sometimes, is salvation.

I focus on the soft crush of grass beneath my bare feet, the wind in my hair as I run.

We race down the hill, my sister Colleen and I, to swim in the icy early-summer slate water of the loch. It’s one of those perfect days, the sky a cloudless blue above a scooped-out grassy bowl that sprawls for miles between the majestic mountains of our home.

Nothing compares to my Highlands, nothing ever will. The land brings me peace and joy.

Although I hear truth in lies, although I’m sometimes feared and the villagers cede me a certain aloof respect, this is where I fit. The Keltar name is known and it’s a proud one. We’re integral to our village, our people, feeding the economy when it wanes with work on our land and castles. We understand that when those in our care prosper, we’re ten times stronger than we are alone. It’s the meaning of the word “clan”—so much more than family.

Scotland is the passion in my blood. She is where I was born and will die, my bones planted in the cemetery behind the ruined tower ivy claimed, past the slab etched with Pict runes, but not quite to the tomb of the Green Lady, where the roots from the tree at the head of her grave twisted themselves to form a lovely nude moss-covered body with a fine-featured face.

Family is everything. I’ll wed and raise my bairn behind the strong walls of Castle Keltar near the circle of standing stones known as Ban Drochaid, or White Bridge, whose purpose is known only to us and where magic beats like a living heart in the soil. I’ll teach my sons to be druids like their da and granda before him, and my daughters to be like the Valkyries of old. I feel a keen sense of belonging. I know exactly who I am: Christian MacKeltar, descended from thousands of years of an ancient, revered bloodline.

The first of my clan walked the Hill of Tara before Tara was named. Before names were, we tilled the soil of Skara Brae, gathering stones to build enclaves for our women and children. Before even that we stood on the shores of Ireland in the churning surf as the clouds exploded with light and watched the fiery descent of the Old Ones from the stars. Bidden by these new gods, we removed to the Highlands to uphold the Compact between our races.