He forced Rowena, white-lipped and shuddering, to her knees. I could see the battle raging within her small, st.u.r.dy frame. Her robe trembled, her lips peeled back from her teeth.

"Stop it," I said again.

"In a moment. You will never again come before me bearing weapons, old woman, or I will forgo the promises I have made, and destroy you. Help her in her quest to help me, and I will let you live."

I sighed. I didn't need to take a look around to realize that I had made no friends here tonight. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd made things worse. "Just give her back the sword, V'lane, and get us out of here."

"Your wish, my command." He took my hand and sifted us out.

The instant we rematerialized a few dozen yards from the Viper, I slammed him with the palms of both hands, willing him to freeze with every ounce of that foreign place inside my skull.

Unlike the first time I'd tried Nulling him the night we'd met, he stayed frozen longer than a few heartbeats. I was so surprised that I didn't move myself, until he began to move, and I hit him again, putting everything I had into my desire to neutralize Fae. If intention was what counted, I was strong in that department. I'd been intending to grow up one day, for years. I had intentions down pat.

I timed it. He stayed frozen for seven seconds. I searched him quickly for my spear, patting him down, sending little "Stay frozen, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d" messages with my palms along the way.

No spear.

I stepped back and allowed him to unfreeze.

We stared at each other across the ten feet I'd put between us and I saw many things in his eyes. I saw my death. I saw my reprieve. I saw a thousand punishments in between, and knew the moment he decided to take no action against me.

"It's really hard for you to view me as a valid life form, isn't it?" I said. "What would make you take me more seriously? How many years would I have to live to count as whatever it is you credit as being worthwhile?"

"Longevity is not the defining factor. I do not credit most of my own race as worthwhile; a view born not of arrogance but of eons spent among those who are the worst of fools. Why did you Null me, sidhe sidhe-seer?"

"Because you majorly screwed up my plan in there."

"Then perhaps the next time you should confide in me the subtler nuances of your plan. I believed you wanted to establish the upper hand, and I endeavored to aid you in achieving that end."

"You made them think I was allied with you. You made them fear me."

"You are allied with me. And they should fear you."

My eyes narrowed. "Why should they fear me?"

He smiled faintly. "You have barely begun to understand what you are." Abruptly, he vanished.

Then his hand was in the curls at the back of my head, and his tongue was pushing in my mouth, and that hot, dark, frightening thing was piercing my tongue and embedding itself there, and I exploded in a violent o.r.g.a.s.m.

He was ten feet away again, and I was sucking air like a fish out of water and floundering as badly. Shock waves of such intense eroticism rocked me that I was momentarily immobilized. If I'd tried to move, I would have collapsed.

"It only works once, MacKayla. I must replace my name on your tongue each time you use it. I a.s.sumed you did want it back?"

Furious, I nodded. Figured he'd not told me about that little catch.

He disappeared. This time he did not reappear.

I felt for my spear. It was back.

I stood still, waiting for the last of the aftershocks to pa.s.s. I wondered if I'd actually succeeded in Nulling V'lane tonight, or if he'd been faking it. I was growing increasingly paranoid, wondering if everyone was playing games with me. Surely anything that could move that fast could evade my soph.o.m.oric efforts at sidhe sidhe-seer magic. Or had I genuinely taken him by surprise? What might he gain by pretending? An ace in the hole? That maybe someday I'd really need need to Null him, and that would be the day I'd find out it didn't work, and never had? to Null him, and that would be the day I'd find out it didn't work, and never had?

I turned around and began walking toward the Viper. I hadn't glanced in its direction since we'd materialized. I did now, and gasped.

The Wolf Countach was parked on the far side of it, deep in the shadows, and Jericho Barrons was leaning back against it, arms crossed over his chest, dressed from head to toe in black, every bit as dark and still as the night.

I blinked. He was still there. Hard to peel apart from the darkness, but there.

"What in the . . . how . . . where did you come from?" I sputtered.

"The bookstore."

Duh. Sometimes his answers make me want to strangle him. "Did V'lane know you were standing there?"

"I think the two of you were a little too busy to see me."

"What are you doing here?"

"Making sure you didn't need backup. If you'd told me you were taking your fairy little boyfriend, I wouldn't have wasted my time. I resent it when you waste my time, Ms. Lane."

He got in his car and drove away.

I followed him most of the way back to Dublin. Near the outskirts, he kicked his horses into a gallop I couldn't match, and I lost him.

SIX.

It was a quarter till four when I drove the Viper down the back alley behind the bookstore. The predawn hours between two and four are the hardest on me. For the past few weeks, I've been waking up every night at 2:17 A.M. A.M. on the dot, as if it's my official preprogrammed time slot to have an anxiety attack, and the world will fall apart, even worse than it already is, if I don't pace my bedroom and worry it safe. on the dot, as if it's my official preprogrammed time slot to have an anxiety attack, and the world will fall apart, even worse than it already is, if I don't pace my bedroom and worry it safe.

The bookstore is unbearably quiet then, and it's not hard to imagine that I'm the only person alive in the world. Most of the time I can handle the mess I call my life, but in the b.u.t.t-crack of the night even I get a little depressed. I usually end up sorting through my wardrobe, meager as it is, or paging through fashion magazines, trying not to think. Putting outfits together soothes me. Accessorizing is balm to my soul. If I can't save the world, I sure can make it pretty.

But last night, haute couture from four different countries couldn't distract me, and I'd ended up snuggled under a blanket on the window seat with a dry volume about the history of the Irish race, including several lengthy, pedantic essays about the five invasions and the mythic Tuatha De Danaan, cracked open on my lap, staring out the back window of my bedroom at the sea of rooftops, watching the Shades slink and slither out of the corner of my eye.

Then my vision had played a trick on me, and blacked out the horizon as far as I could see, extinguishing every light, blanketing Dublin in absolute darkness.

I'd blinked, trying to dispel the illusion, and finally was able to see lights again, but the illusory blackout had seemed so real that I was afraid it was a premonition of things to come.

I pulled the Viper into the garage and parked in its allotted s.p.a.ce, too tired to even halfheartedly appreciate the GT parked next to it. When the floor trembled beneath my heel, I stomped my foot and told it to shut up.

I opened the door to step out into the alley, flinched, slammed the door shut again, and stood there on the cusp of hyperventilating.

The garage where Barrons houses his fabulous car collection is located directly behind the bookstore, across an alley approximately twenty-five feet wide. Multiple floodlights on the exteriors illuminate a path between the two, affording safe pa.s.sage from the Shades on even the darkest night. Unfortunately, we haven't yet devised a means of perpetual light. Bulbs burn out, batteries die.

Several of the lights on the facade of the garage had outlived their usefulness during the night: not enough that I'd noticed in the glare of the Viper's headlights and the soft spill coming from the bookstore's rear windows, but enough to have created a sliver of opportunity for a truly enterprising Shade, and unfortunately, I had one of those shadowing my doorstep.

I was tired, and I'd been sloppy. I should have looked up and checked the spotlights on the buildings the moment they'd come into view. Thanks to the burnt-out bulbs, a thin line of darkness now ran down the center of the alley, where the light cast by the adjacent buildings failed to meet, and the ma.s.sive Shade that was as obsessed with me as I was with it had managed to pour itself into the crack, creating an inky black wall that soared three stories high and extended the entire length of the bookstore, barring me from crossing the alley.

I'd opened the door to find it towering over me, a greedy, dark tsunami, waiting to come crashing down and drown me in its lethal embrace. Although I was 99.9% sure it couldn't do that-that it was trapped in its menacing wall-shape by the light on both sides of it-there was that petrifying .1% doubt in my mind. Each time I'd thought I'd known its limits, I'd been wrong. Most Shades recoiled from the mere possibility possibility of the palest, most diffuse light. Just waving one of my flashlights in the direction of the Dark Zone usually caused them to scatter. of the palest, most diffuse light. Just waving one of my flashlights in the direction of the Dark Zone usually caused them to scatter.

But not this one. If light was pain, this enormous, aggressive Shade was getting tougher, its pain threshold increasing. Like me, it was evolving. I only wished I was as dangerous.

I reached inside my jacket, fisted a flashlight in each hand, and yanked the door open again.

One of my flashlights wouldn't turn on. Dead batteries. When it rains, it pours. I tossed it and grabbed a second from my waistband. Two more came out with it, crashed to the ground, clattered down the steps and spun out into the alley, unlit, wasted.

I had two left. This was ridiculous. I needed a better way to keep myself safe than toting unwieldy flashlights with me everywhere I went.

I turned on another, and ordered myself to step out onto the pavement.

My feet didn't obey.

I aimed one of my flashlights directly at it. The inky wall recoiled and a hole exploded in it the exact diameter of the beam. I could see it was barely an inch thick.

I heaved a sigh of relief. It still couldn't tolerate direct light.

I studied it. I wasn't completely barred from getting to the bookstore. I could walk down to the left, parallel to the towering, dark cloud until I reached the end of the building, where the lights of the greengrocer next door prevented it from spreading further, then go around to the front door and let myself in.

Problem was I wasn't sure I had the nerve, and I wasn't entirely sure it would be smart. What if, when I was nearly to the end of the Shade-wall, the light on the grocer's building burned out? Normally, I'd relegate the odds of that happening to the realm of the absurd, but if there was one thing I'd learned over the past few months, it was that absurd really meant "more likely to happen to MacKayla Lane." I wasn't about to risk it. I had my flashlights, but I couldn't shine them on every part of my body at once, and I certainly couldn't shine them on all of it it.

I could call V'lane. He'd helped me get rid of Shades once before. Of course with V'lane there was always a price, and I would have to let him embed his name in my tongue again.

I considered my cell phone. It had three numbers programmed in: Barrons, IYCGM and IYD.

IYCGM, which was Barrons' not-so-subtle shorthand for If You Can't Get Me, would be answered by the mysterious Ryodan who-although Barrons contended he talked too much-hadn't confided anything useful to me me in our recent, brief phone conversation. I had no desire to lure anyone else close to the overly aggressive Shade. I wanted a few days reprieve between deaths on my conscience. in our recent, brief phone conversation. I had no desire to lure anyone else close to the overly aggressive Shade. I wanted a few days reprieve between deaths on my conscience.

IYD was If You're Dying, and I wasn't.

I was sick of depending on others to save me. I wanted to take care of myself. It was only a few hours until dawn. The Shade could stay out there all night for all I cared.

I stepped back into the garage, closed and locked the door, flipped on the brightest tier of interior lights, considered the collection a moment, then crawled into the Maybach to sleep.

It occurred to me, as I drifted off, that my feelings about the car had certainly changed. I no longer cared that it had formerly belonged to the Irish mobster Rocky O'Bannion, from whom I'd stolen my spear and whom I was indirectly responsible for killing, along with fifteen of his henchmen, in the very alley where the monster Shade now lurked. I was just grateful it was comfortable to sleep in.

We expect Evil to announce itself.

Evil is supposed to adhere to certain conventions. It's supposed to cause a chill of foreboding in the intended recipient of its visit; it should be instantly recognizable; and it's supposed to be hideous. Evil should glide out of the night in a black hea.r.s.e, fog streaming from its dark flanks, or dismount from a skeletal Harley, leather-clad, wearing a necklace of freshly scalped skulls and crossbones.

"Barrons Books and Baubles," I answered the phone brightly. "You want it, we've got it, and if we don't, we'll find it." I take my job very seriously. After s.n.a.t.c.hing six hours of sleep in the garage, I'd made my way across the alley to the bookstore, showered, and opened shop, business as usual.

"I'm certain of that. You finding it, that is, or I wouldn't have phoned."

I froze, hand on the receiver. Was this a joke? He was phoning phoning me? Of all the possible confrontations with Evil I'd imagined, this was not one of them. "Who is this?" I demanded, unable to believe it. me? Of all the possible confrontations with Evil I'd imagined, this was not one of them. "Who is this?" I demanded, unable to believe it.

"You know who I am. Say it."

Though I'd heard the voice only twice before-the afternoon in the Dark Zone when I'd almost died, and more recently in Malluce's lair-I would never forget it. Contrary to what Evil was supposed to be, it was a seductive, beautiful voice, mirroring the physical beauty of its owner.

It was the voice of my sister's lover-and murderer.

I knew his name, and I'd die before I'd call him Lord Master. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

I slammed down the phone with one hand and was already using my other to punch up Barrons on my cell. He answered instantly, sounding alarmed. I got right to the point. "Can the Druid spell of Voice be used over the telephone?"

"No. The spell's potency doesn't carry through-"

"Thanks, gotta go." As I'd expected, the store phone was already ringing again. I thumbed my cell off, and left Barrons sputtering. I was safe from being coerced over the phone lines, and that was what I'd needed to know, fast, before the Lord Master had been able to use it on me.

Just in case it was a paying customer, I said, "Barrons Books-"

"You should have asked me," came that seductive, rich voice. "I would have told you that Voice is diluted by technology. Both parties must be in physical proximity to each other. At the moment, I'm too far away."

I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that was what I'd been afraid of. "I dropped the phone."

"Pretend what you will, MacKayla."

"Don't address me by name," I gritted.

"What should I call you?"

"Don't."

"You have no curiosity about me?"

My hand was shaking. I was talking to my sister's murderer, the monster that was bringing all the Unseelie through his mystic dolmens and turning our world into the nightmare it was. "Sure. What's the quickest, easiest way to kill you?"

He laughed. "You have more fire than Alina. But she was clever. I underestimated her. She concealed your existence from me. She never spoke of you. I had no idea there were two with talents like hers."

We'd been equals in our ignorance. She'd concealed his existence from me, too. "How did you find out about me?"

"I'd heard rumors of another sidhe sidhe-seer, new to the city, with unusual abilities. I would have tracked you eventually. But the day you came to the warehouse, I smelled you. There was no mistaking your bloodline. You can sense the Sinsar Dubh, Sinsar Dubh, the same way Alina could." the same way Alina could."

"No, I can't," I lied.

"It's calling you. You feel it out there, getting stronger. You, however, won't get stronger. You'll weaken, MacKayla. You can't handle the Book. Don't even think of trying. You can't begin to imagine what you'd be dealing with."

I had a pretty fair idea. "Is that why you called me? To warn me off? I'm quaking in my boots." This conversation was wigging me out. I was on the phone with the monster that had killed my sister-the infamous Lord Master-and he wasn't cackling maniacally or threatening villainously. He hadn't come after me with an army of dark Fae, backed by his black-and-crimson-clad personal guard. He'd phoned me and was speaking in beautiful, cultured tones, softly, and without hostility. Was this the true face of Evil? It didn't conquer, it seduced? He lets me be the woman I always wanted to be, He lets me be the woman I always wanted to be, Alina had written in her journal. Would he ask me out to dinner next? If he did, would I accept, to get a chance at killing him? Alina had written in her journal. Would he ask me out to dinner next? If he did, would I accept, to get a chance at killing him?

"What do you want most in the world, MacKayla?"

"You dead." My cell phone rang. It was Barrons. I thumbed IGNORE. IGNORE.