Fever 3 - Faefever (21 page)

“So you say,” Kat said softly.

Those were fighting words. I rose from my seat, hands splayed on the table.

She rose, too. “Easy, Mac. Hear me out. I’m not accusing you, or your sister. If I truly believed you traitors to our cause, I wouldn’t be here. I saw the look on your face when Moira—”She broke off, and I saw deep, unspoken grief in her eyes. They’d been close. Still, she was here, trying to connect with me, because she believed it was best for our cause. “We’re not here to speak of the dead but to plan for the living,” she continued after a moment. “I know that things are not always what they seem. We learn that from birth. But you can see the bind we’re in. We need you, but we don’t know you. Rowena is against you and, while we normally support her in all things, her attempts to recover the Book have failed. She has tried many times. We need results, and time is of the essence. You asked Dani for a show of faith, and she gave you it. Now we’re asking you to return the favor.”

I bit back an instinctive refusal. “What do you want?” I’d vowed never to prove myself to the old woman, but these women were not Rowena. I badly wanted to be invited to the abbey again. They were the only people I knew who were like me. I’d been banned from the only club I’d ever wanted to join. With V’lane’s name on my tongue, I wouldn’t be at their mercy at the isolated fortress. If things took a threatening turn, he’d be there to rescue me the moment I opened my mouth.

“Can you sense
all
Fae objects?”

I shrugged. “I think so.”

“Have you heard of the D’Jai Orb?”

When I nodded, she leaned forward and said urgently, “Do you know where it is?”

I shrugged. I’d been holding it in my hands a little over two weeks ago, but I had no idea where it was right now, only that it was in Barrons’ possession. “Why?”

“It’s important, Mac. We need it.”

“Why? What is it?”

“A relic from one of the Seelie Royal Houses that contains some kind of Fae energy that Rowena believes can be used to reinforce the walls. We need it fast, before Samhain.”

“Sowen. What’s sowen?”

“If you can get the Orb and bring it to us, we’ll tell you everything we know, Mac. Even Rowena will have to believe in you then.”

ELEVEN

I
hurried back to the bookstore, deep in thought. Not, however, with my head down. I wasn’t making that mistake again today. I won the struggle not to frown at two Rhino-boys that were repairing a streetlamp. What was their deal? Shouldn’t they be supporting their dark brethren, the Shades, and busting out the lights, instead of fixing them?

I couldn’t believe the
sidhe
-seers had been guardians of the Book and lost it. How had it been lost? What had happened that night twenty-some years ago?

My meeting with the
sidhe
-seers had answered few questions, and raised more.

What was sowen? How did the D’Jai Orb fit in? How had Barrons gotten it? What did he plan to do with it? Sell it to the highest bidder? Could I steal it from him? Did I want to burn that bridge? Were there any bridges
left
between us?

If the Orb was my passport to
Sidhe
-seer Central, I was determined to get it, by fair means or foul. Was Rowena manipulating their efforts to befriend me? Had she allowed Dani to photograph those pages and give them to me, seemingly on the sly?

My short time in Dublin had me looking for games within games everywhere I turned. I’d sure like to get Christian into the same room with a few people and employ his lie-detecting abilities while I asked questions.

Speaking of the Scot, I tried calling him again. There was no answer, again. Grrr. Wondering what exactly constituted “afternoon” in the dreamy-eyed boy’s world, I let myself into the store, opened my laptop, and logged onto the Net.

My search for “sowen” yielded no results. I tried half a dozen different spellings, and was about to give up when a Google search result caught my eye. It was about trick-or-treating, which brought to mind O’Bannion’s earlier crack.

I looked up Halloween and bingo, there it was: sowen—gee, why didn’t
I
think of spelling it S-a-m-h-a-i-n?

Samhain had its origins, like many modern holidays or celebrations, in pagan times. As the
sidhe
-seers had been inclined to erect churches and abbeys on their sacred sites, the Vatican had been wont to “Christianize” ancient, pagan celebrations in an if-you-can’t-beat-them-and-don’t-want-to-join-them-rename-it-and-pretend-it-was-yours-all-along campaign.

Scrolling past the various names, etymology, and pictures of jack-o’-lanterns and witches, I read.

Great. So, these past few months
hadn’t
been the dark ones?

I read entry after article, astonished by how many countries and cultures held similar beliefs. I’d never given any thought to the origins of Halloween, just happily collected the candy, and in later years had a blast with the costumes and parties, and enjoyed the great tips if I was working.

Bottom line was the walls between our world and the “Otherworld” were dangerously thin on the last day of October, at their most vulnerable at precisely midnight, the crack between one half of the year and the next, the threshold between light and dark, and if anything was going to try to get through, or if anyone—say an evil ex-Fae with vengeance issues—wanted to bring them crashing down around our ears, that was the time to try it.

Certain nights of the year, lass,
Christian had told me,
my uncles perform rituals to reinforce our pledge and keep the walls between our realms solid. The last few times, some other dark magic rose up, and prevented the tithe from being fully paid. My uncles believe the walls won’t last through another incomplete ritual.

Certain nights. Wouldn’t last through another incomplete ritual.

Was Samhain the night the MacKeltars’ next ritual was to be performed? Were we
that
close to disaster—two short weeks away? Was this the meaning of O’Bannion’s snide threat?

I thumbed redial and called the ALD again. Again, there was no answer. The waiting had been making me crazy all day, and now I didn’t just need to warn him, I needed answers. Where
was
he?

Powering down my laptop, I locked up and headed for Trinity.

Surprisingly, I dozed off, slumped sideways against the wall outside the locked offices of the ALD. I think it was because I felt like Mac 1.0 there, in the brightly lit hallway, on a college campus, surrounded by the happy sounds of youth that didn’t have a clue what was waiting for them out in the real world.

I woke to someone touching my face and my inner
sidhe
seer exploded.

The next thing I knew, Christian was on the floor beneath me, and my spear was at his throat. My muscles were rigid. I was ready for a fight; my adrenaline had no outlet. Dreams had shattered the moment I’d felt myself touched. My brain was cold, clear, and hard.

I took a deep breath, and ordered myself to relax.

Christian nudged the spear from his throat. “Easy, Mac. I was just trying to wake you. You looked so sweet and pretty asleep.” His smile was fleeting. “I’ll not be making that mistake again.”

We separated awkwardly. As I’ve said before, Christian is a man, and there’s no mistaking it. I’d been straddling him much the way I’d straddled Barrons recently. Either my spear hadn’t intimidated him or he’d managed to . . . well, rise above it.

Speaking of my weapon, his gaze was fixed on it with fascination. It was emitting a soft, luminous glow. “It’s the Spear of Destiny, isn’t it?” He looked awed.

I slid it back in my shoulder harness and said nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had it, Mac? We’d been bidding on it, trying to buy it. We thought it was out there on the black market. We need it now more than ever. It’s one of only two weapons that can kill—”

“I know. It kills Fae. That’s why I have it. And I didn’t tell you because it’s mine and I’m not giving it up.”

“I didn’t ask you to. There’s nothing I could do with it, anyway. I can’t see them.”

“Right. And that’s why you shouldn’t have it.”

“A little touchy, are we?”

I flushed. I was. “Someone tried to steal it from me recently, and it went badly,” I explained. “Where have you been, anyway? I’ve been calling you all day. I was getting worried.”

“My plane was delayed.” He unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “I’m glad you’re here. I was going to call you as soon as I got in. My uncles have an idea they want me to talk to you about. I think it’s a terrible idea, but they insist.”

“Samhain is the night your uncles have to perform the next ritual, isn’t it?” I said, as we stepped inside. “And if they don’t get it right, the walls between our worlds are going to come down and we’re all screwed.” I shivered. It had sounded weirdly like I’d just made a proclamation:
The walls between our worlds are going to come down and we’re all screwed.

Christian closed the door behind me. “Smart girl. How’d you figure it out?” He gestured to a chair opposite his but I was too wound up to take it. I paced instead.

“The
sidhe
-seers mentioned Samhain. They want . . .” I trailed off and looked at him hard, searching his gaze for . . . I don’t know . . . maybe a big, block-lettered message that said YOU CAN TRUST ME, I’M NOT EVIL. I sighed. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. “They want the D’Jai Orb to try to reinforce the walls. Would it work?”

He rubbed his jaw and it made a rasping sound. He hadn’t shaved in several days and the shadow beard looked good on him. “I don’t know. It’s possible. I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it does. Who are these
sidhe
-seers? You’ve found more of your own, then?”

“You’re kidding, right?” He knew so much about Barrons, and the Book, that I’d assumed he also knew about Rowena and her couriers, and probably V’lane, too.

He shook his head.

“You said you followed Alina. Didn’t you see other women out there, watching things that weren’t there?”

“I had reasons to watch your sister. She had a photocopy of a page of the
Sinsar Dubh
. I’ve had no cause to watch others.”

“I got the impression your uncles knew everything.”

Christian smiled. “They’d like that. They think quite highly of themselves, too. But no, for a long time we believed all the
sidhe
-seers had died out. A few years ago, we discovered we’d been wrong. How many have you come across?”

“A few,” I hedged. He didn’t need to know. V’lane and Barrons knowing about the abbey was bad enough.

“Not the truth, but it’ll do. You can keep the numbers to yourself. Just tell me this: Are there enough to put up a fight if we need them to?”

I didn’t sugarcoat the sour fact. “Not with only two weapons. So, what’s this terrible idea of your uncles’?”

“A while back, they had a run-in with Barrons, and they’ve been toying with the idea since. They’re no longer toying. Uncle Cian says power is power, and we need all of it we can get.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of run-in? Where?”

“At a castle in Wales, a month and a half ago. They’d been chasing the same relics for some time, but never actually tried to rob the same place, on the same night.”

“
Those
were your uncles? The other thieves that were after the amulet, the night Mallucé took it?” The night V’lane had snatched me out, sifted me off to a beach in Faery!

“You know where the amulet is? Who is Mallucé? And they aren’t thieves. Some things shouldn’t be loose in the world.”

“Mallucé is dead and no longer matters. The Lord Master has it now.”

“Who’s the Lord Master?”

I was astonished. What
did
he know? Anything of use? “He’s the one who’s been bringing the Unseelie through, the one who’s been trying to tear the walls down!”

He looked blank. “
He’s
the one who’s been doing the magic against us?”

“Duh,” I said.

“Doona be ‘duh’ing me, lass,” he growled, his burr thickening.

“How can you know so many things, but none of the important ones?
You’re
the ones who are supposed to be protecting the walls!”

“Right, the walls,” he said. “And we’ve been doing it. To the best of our ability. With our own blood. Can’t try much harder than that, lass, unless you want us to revert to the archaic ways and sacrifice one of our own, an idea I just went home to explore, but was forced to conclude wouldn’t work. What about the
sidhe
-seers? Aren’t they supposed to be doing something, too?” He cast my accusation of slacking off on the job right back at me.

“Yes. As a matter of fact they were.
They
were supposed to be protecting the Book.” I distanced and acquitted myself.

His opened his mouth, closed it again, then exploded, “
You’re
the ones who had the
Sinsar Dubh
to begin with? We knew somebody was guarding it; we just didn’t know who. Och, for the love of Christ, lass, what did you do with it?
Lose
the bloody thing?”

I clarified my pronouns again. “
They
lost it. I’m not part of them.”

“You certainly look like a
sidhe
-seer to me.”

“Don’t be trying to blame me, Scotty,” I snapped. “Your uncles were supposed to be keeping the walls up. The
sidhe
seers were supposed to be guarding the Book. The Fae were supposed to strip the LM’s memory before they dumped him on us, and
I
was supposed to be home with my sister playing volleyball on a beach somewhere. It’s not my fault.
None
of this is my fault. But for some idiotic reason, I seem to be able to do something about it. And I’m trying, so get off my back!”

We faced off, breathing fast and shallow, glaring at each other, two young people living in a world that was coming apart at the seams, doing their best to stop it, but realizing rapidly just how long the odds were. Tough times make for tough words, I guess.

“What’s your terrible idea?” I said finally, in an effort to get things back on track.

He inhaled and released it slowly. “My uncles want Barrons to help them hold the walls on Samhain. They say he’s Druid trained, and not afraid of the dark side.”

I laughed. No, he certainly wasn’t afraid of the dark side. Some days I was pretty sure he
was
the dark side. “You’re right. It’s a terrible idea. Not only does he know you guys have been spying on him, Barrons is mercenary to the core. He doesn’t give a rat’s petunia about anyone but himself. Why would
he
care if the walls come down? Everybody’s afraid of him. He has nothing to lose.”