Fever 4 - DreamFever (11 page)

  I wrinkled my nose. "Where did this `dude' thing come from?"

 She preened. "Don't I sound more like you? I been watching a lot of American
movies. I been practicing."

  "I liked you better when every other word was a cussword. And I'm not telling you
anything. Not today, not ever. All you need to know is, I'm okay now. I'm back."

  "You had sex with Barrons and you aren't going to tell me one thing about it?" She
looked incredulous. "Nothing? Not even one tiny little detail?"

  Oh, God. She was so thirteen. What was I going to do with her? "Nothing. Ever."

  "You suck."

  I laughed. "Love you, too, Dani."

  She grinned. "I saved you."

  "Big-time. And I owe you big-time."

  "You can pay me back by telling me about sex."

  "If you've been watching so many movies, honey, you know more than enough."

  "Not about ... you know ... him."

   I gave her a sharp look. She sounded breathless. Gone was all mischief; she looked
positively doe-eyed. Dani--tough, punk Dani--looked like she'd gone soft at the knees.
I was flabbergasted. "You've got a crush on Barrons now? I thought it was V'lane you
were so crazy about."

  "Him, too. But when Barrons came and pulled you out of here, dude, you shoulda
seen the way he looked at you!"

  "I'm not a dude. Lose it." I was not going to ask. "So, how did he look at me?"

  "Like it was his birthday and you were the cake."

  At least he hadn't smashed this one into the ceiling. It seemed Barrons had finally
gotten his cake and eaten it, too.

   I winced. I refused to entertain that metaphor further. Barrons-thoughts were far too
complicated for me to deal with. Especially any that involved eating the cake. Later I
might get around to asking Dani about my earliest, confused days at the abbey. Now I
had other priorities. "My turn. What happened to you?" Everywhere that skin was
visible on the fiery-haired teen, she had bruises. Her forearms were especially bad. Two
fingers were splinted. One eye was black and blue and swollen nearly closed, her lip
was busted, and both cheeks sported the yellowish-purple blossoms of healing
contusions.

  She glanced around edgily.

  I tensed instantly. "What? Is somebody coming?"

  "You never know `round here anymore," she muttered, and looked around again.
Although the hall was empty, she lowered her voice. "Been trying to get into the
Forbidden Libraries. Hasn't been working so well."

  "By doing what? Blasting into the doors at high speed?"

  She shrugged. "Sort of. Mostly I been falling down. No big."

 "It's a big to me. It doesn't look like superhealing is one of your strengths. Try to be
more careful with yourself, okay?"

  She gave me a quick, startled look. "Okay, Mac."

  Had everyone at the abbey left her alone for so long that a mere expression of
concern for her well-being startled her? "I mean it. Quit banging yourself up unless it's
absolutely necessary."

  "I hear and obey, Big Mac." She flashed me an outrageous grin.

  Big Mac. It was like a fist to my heart. Alina had called me Baby Mac. Sometimes
Junior. I'd called her Big Mac. It was an inside joke with us. "Why'd you call me that?"

  "Movies. American stuff. McDonald's. You know."

  "Don't call me Big Mac and I won't call you ... Danielle." I took a guess and knew
by her instant sour look I'd guessed right. "Deal?"

  "Deal."

  "Where's my spear?"

   She stiffened again, glanced around again, and dropped her voice even further.
"Don't know," she said softly. "But we picked it up that day at the church. Kat brought
it back. Hasn't been seen since. I kinda thought she'd arm one of us with it. She hasn't."

  My lips thinned. I knew why. Rowena was carrying it herself.

  "I think so, too," Dani said, and I looked at her sharply. "Nah, I just know the way
you think. We're alike that way. We see things the way they are, not the way folks want
us to believe they are or how we wish they were."

  "Where is the old witch?"

  Dani gave me a glum look. "Right now?"

  I nodded.

  "Behind you."

I    whirled, bringing my gun up sharp and hard. And there it was: my biggest, most
disconcerting shock of the day. Far more shocking than expanding Dark Zones, sky
battles, and Interdimensional Fairy Potholes.

  There stood Rowena, decked out in high Grand Mistress garb--the robes of the order
that had been founded for the express purpose of hunting and killing Fae--arm in arm
with a Fae. The Fae that had just sifted her in behind me.

    It was no wonder Dani had been looking around nervously.

    And no wonder V'lane had known my spear was at the abbey.

    He was at the abbey.

    All cozy with Rowena. Sifting her around, apparently.

 I lowered my gun and glared at V'lane. "Is this a joke? Do you think this is funny?
Why didn't you just sift me here to begin with, if you were coming this way?"

   Rowena's nose could have pointed more skyward only if she'd been lying on her
back. "As the spear is no longer your possession, nor is this Fae Prince. He has seen the
light you fail to see. He aids all sidhe-seers now, not just one."

  Oh, really? We'd see about that. Both the spear and the prince. "I was talking to
V'lane, old woman, not you."

    "He doesn't answer to you."

  "Really?" I laughed. "You think he answers to you?" Only a fool would think a Fae
Prince answered to anyone. Especially when one needed one.

  "Are you fighting over me, MacKayla? I find this ... attractive." V'lane tossed his
golden head. "I have seen this in humans before. It is called jealousy."

   "If that's what you think, you have a problem interpreting subtle human emotions.
It's not called jealousy. It's called `you're pissing me off.'"

    "Possessiveness."

    "My ass."

    "Is far more shapely than last I saw it."

    "She's been working out." Dani snickered.

    "You have no business looking at it," I said.

    "But Barrons does?" The temperature in the room dropped sharply.

   My breath frosted the air. "We are not talking about Barrons." We were never going
to talk about Barrons.

  "I'd like to talk about Barrons," said Dani.

  "You chose," V'lane said coldly.

  "I chose nothing. I was out of my mind. Is that what this is about, V'lane? Barrons?
You sound jealous. Possessive."

  "He does," Dani agreed.

  "Haud your whist!" Rowena snapped. "The lot of you! For the love of Mary, can you
not see the world is falling apart around you, yet you stand here, bickering like
children? You"--she stabbed a finger at me--"a sidhe-seer, and you"--she actually
poked V'lane in the arm, and he looked startled that she'd done it--"a Fae Prince!" She
glowered at Dani. "And don't even get me started on you. You think I don't know what
you've been doing to bruise yourself so badly? I'm Grand Mistress, not grand fool.
Enough, all of you!"

   "Haud your whist yourself, old woman," I told her flatly. "I'll bicker while the world
falls apart if I feel like it. I've done more good and less damage than you. Who had the
Sinsar Dubh to begin with--and lost it?"

  "Don't be pushing your nose into doings you can't begin to understand, girl!"

  "Then help me understand them. I'm all ears. Where--no, how--were you keeping
the Book?" That was what I wanted to know most. The secret to touching it, to
containing the Sinsar Dubh, was the key to harnessing its power. "What happened?
How did you lose it?"

  "You answer to me, sidhe-seer," she spat, "not the other way around."

  "In whose warped fantasy?"

  "While at my abbey. Now might be the time to take a careful look around you." It
was a threat.

   I didn't need to. I'd heard the other sidhe-seers crowding close while we were
arguing. The hall was large, and from the hushed murmurs, I guessed several hundred
were behind me. "What have you done since the walls came down, Rowena?" I
demanded. "Have you found the Book yet? Have you accomplished anything that might
restore order to our world? Or are you still lording your power over a band of women
who would do better with a little power of their own? You squeeze the heart out of who
and what they are with your rules and regulations. You tie them down when you should
be helping them learn to fly."

  "And getting them killed?"

  "In any war there are losses. It's their choice. It's their birthright. We fight. And
sometimes we pay terrible prices. Believe me, I know. But as long as we breathe, we get
back up and fight again."

  "You brought us the Orb spiked with Shades!"

   "You don't believe that," I scoffed. "If you did, you'd have killed me when I was Pri-
ya, unable to defend myself. I'll bet the very fact that I got turned Pri-ya is what
convinced you that I wasn't allied with the Lord Master." I shrugged. "Why turn a
turncoat? There's no need."

  "There are spies within spies."

  "I'm not one of them. And I'm staying right here, in your abbey, until you see that."

   She blinked. I'd startled the old woman. I wasn't angling for an invitation. I was
staying with or without her permission. Openly or in hiding. I didn't care which. There
were two things within these walls I needed: my spear and answers, and I wasn't
leaving without both of them.

  "We don't want you here."

  "I didn't want my sister to be murdered. I didn't want to find out I was a sidhe-seer. I
didn't want to be raped by Unseelie Princes." I listed my grievances but kept it brief.
"In fact, I haven't wanted a single thing that's happened to me in the past few months.
Fact is, I really don't even want to be here myself, but a sidhe-seer does what needs to
be done."

  We stared at each other.

  "Would you agree to supervision?" she said finally, very tightly.

  "We can discuss that." Discussing is where it would end. I would take all her BS
under advisement. Before I discarded it. "How's the Book hunt going, Rowena?" I
knew the answer. It wasn't. "Has anyone spotted it lately?"

  "What do you propose?"

  "Give me the spear and I'll go out hunting it."

  "Never."

  "`Bye, then." I walked past her, toward the door.

  Behind me, sidhe-seers exploded. I smiled. They were frustrated. They were tired of
being caged and accomplishing nothing. They were primed for a little pre-mutiny
meddling, and I was primed to meddle.

  "Silence!" Rowena said. "And you"--she snapped at my back--"stop right there!"

  The hall went still. I paused at the door but I didn't turn. "I won't go out hunting it
without the ability to defend myself." I paused and bit my tongue hard before adding,
"Grand Mistress."

  The silence stretched.

  Finally, "You can take Dani, with the sword. She will defend you."

  "Give me the spear and she can come, too. And you can send any of your other sidhe-
seers you want, as well."

  "What's to keep you from walking away, from turning your back on us the minute I
give you the spear?"

  I whirled. My hands fisted and my lips drew back. Later, Dani would tell me I'd
looked half animal, half avenging angel. It impressed even her, and the kid is tough to
impress.

   "I care, that's what," I snarled. "I drove out here through a wasteland. I saw the piles
and husks everywhere. I looked in the baby's car seat before I took it out of the Rover. I
know what they're doing to our world, and I will either stop them or die trying. So get
the feck off my back--where you've been since the night you met me--and wake up!
I'm not the bad guy. I'm the good guy. I'm the one who can help. And I will, but on my
terms, not yours. Otherwise, I'm out of here."

  Dani stepped past Rowena and joined me. "And I'm going with her."

  I looked at her, my lips rounded on "no," then I caught myself. What rights had I just
argued for? Dani was old enough to choose. In my book, old enough to kill is old
enough to choose. I think hell has a special place for hypocrites.

   Kat stepped forward from the crowd. Of all the sidhe-seers I'd met, the quietly
persistent gray-eyed brunette who had led the small group in the attack on me at
Barrons Books and Baubles (BB&B) the day I'd inadvertently killed Moira seemed the
most levelheaded, open-minded, and firmly fixed on the long-term goal of ridding our
world of the Fae. She and I had met several times, attempting a tentative partnership. I
was still open to one if she was. In her mid-twenties, she had the unassuming quiet
confidence of someone much older. I knew she had influence over the others, and I was
interested to hear what she had to say. "She's a tool, Grand Mistress. And, like it or not,
she may be our most useful yet."

  "You no longer blame her for spiking the Orb?"

  "She can stay and help us get rid of the blimey fecks if she's so innocent."

  "Language," Rowena said sharply.

  I rolled my eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud, Rowena. It's a war, not a congeniality
contest."

  Somebody snickered.

  "Wars need rules!"

  "Wars need to be won!" I fired back, to a satisfying chorus of murmured assents.

  "What say you to a vote?" Kat proposed.

   "Fine," Rowena and I both snapped in unison, and looked at each other with distaste.
I could tell that she didn't believe for a moment I might win, or she wouldn't have
agreed to it. I wasn't sure I would, either, but I figured high emotions and years of
dissatisfaction with her rule gave me nearly even odds. Kat had a large following among
the sidhe-seers, and she was arguing for me. Even if I lost, at least I'd know who I could
count on my side.

   Kat turned to face the hall, crammed to overflowing with sidhe-seers in the doorways.
"It's being left up to us, so think it through well and call it: Does she stay, or does she
go? If you're after her staying, raise your right hand and hold it high while I take your
tally."