MACKAYLA LANE and JADA are under full, terrifying MIND CONTROL of the deadliest books of black magic that have ever existed! They CANNOT be saved.

They're PSYCHOTIC AND DANGEROUS!

They must be KILLED to be stopped!

Contact WeCare if you have information on their whereabouts. DO NOT APPROACH THEM YOURSELF!

Help us PROTECT New Dublin!

Join WeCare today!

I frowned. "Wait, what? This doesn't make any sense. She's not, right?" Surely in the past few days she hadn't released Cruce and fallen under his control.

"Not that I'm aware. Ryodan's been keeping close tabs on her."

"Who would print this and why?"

He cocked his head, studying me intently.

"You thought she posted the first one and I printed this in retaliation."

He shrugged. "If someone throws you to the sharks, drag them in with you. Makes two of you against the sharks. With few exceptions, humans will unite to defeat a common predator before resuming their personal vendettas, creating multiple opportunities for escape."

I loved his logic, clean, simple, and effective. "I probably would have just protested my innocence. Printed a Daily of my own denying it all." Rather than turn on Dani, even if she had turned on me. I would never admit to anyone that I'd killed a Guardian. I hated myself for it, hated the idea someone may have watched me do it. I wanted a name. It's creepy to think someone knows something terrible about you and you have no idea who they are.

"Reason never works. There's an inherent bias in the system. The attacker has the offense, which makes the defense appear defensive, therefore guilty. If neither you nor Dani printed these, someone wants both of you targeted, on the run or dead. And with two simple pieces of paper, achieved their aim. These are posted all over the city. I saw a small mob forming outside Dublin Castle, demanding the Guardians take action."

Which is why he'd thought it was Jayne who came after me. The castle had been commandeered after the walls fell to house Guardian garrisons and what passed as the city's only hospital. "But why would anyone believe this? WeCare didn't offer a shred of proof. Besides," I groused, "their writing is positively juvenile."

"Fear, boredom, and a sense of helplessness have bred many a witch hunt. He who controls the presses..."

"Controls the populace," I finished. "Don't they realize we have far bigger problems? Like the fabric of our planet being destroyed?"

"They're blaming the black holes on you and Dani. The mob was ranting that the magic you're using is so destructive it's tearing the world apart."

"And you don't worry they might be on the way here right now?" I said tartly. To further damage my home. My hands fisted.

"I might have sidled into that mob and let it drop that I saw two young women dancing naked around a glowing book in a cemetery on the edge of town."

I snorted. "And it worked?"

"The promise of naked women and violence has always been irresistible bait for frightened men. Still, it's only a matter of time before they come."

He pushed up like a graceful dark panther, muscles rippling. He didn't look as forbidding when his body wasn't covered with black and crimson tattoos. I rarely saw him with his skin unblemished. Beautiful naked man. My skin smelled of him. I didn't want to shower it off but the paint had to go.

He offered his hand, pulled me to my feet. At the last moment his head fell forward and he inhaled. I smiled. We smell good to each other when we fuck. People should always smell good to each other when they fuck or they're fucking the wrong person.

"I have work to do," he said, and I caught the hint of regret that we couldn't just forget the world, stay devolved. Life was so much simpler when we ignored everything but each other.

"We have work to do," I corrected. I wasn't sitting on the sidelines anymore.

"I. Get cleaned up. We leave within the hour."

Before I could even open my mouth to argue, he was gone, vanishing in that fluid way of his, either too fast for me to see or blending into objects like a chameleon as he moved from one to the next.

A disembodied voice said, "I'll ward the store against humans. You'll be safe here until I return. Ms. Lane."

I bristled. I'd been "Mac" to him for the past hour, deep inside his skin, taken him deep inside mine.

With two tiny words he'd erected that formal wall between us again.

"Ms. Lane, my ass," I muttered. But he was gone.

- Precisely one hour later we left by the back door, stepping into the alley between BB&B and Barrons's garage. I loathed leaving the store with all the windows shot out but Barrons assured me no harm would come to it.

While showering I'd realized something I'd overlooked when reading the Dublin Daily earlier: Today was August third-exactly one year to the day I'd first set foot on Irish soil. So much had happened. So much had changed. It was still hard to process the existence-altering vagaries of my life. Now that I was visible again I wanted to talk to Mom about some of my problems, get swallowed in one of my daddy's big bear hugs, but our family reunion would have to wait.

I shivered in the chilly damp air. My hair was still wet, blond streaked with crimson. The lemon oil I'd used to break down the spray paint had softened and separated the matted areas but hadn't eradicated the scarlet stain. Just another bad hair day in Dublin.

My wet hair wasn't the only reason I was shivering. An icy Hunter crouched in the back alley, restrained by symbols Barrons had etched on its wings and the back of its head. It was the same Hunter I'd ridden the day we tried to track the Sinsar Dubh and were deceived by the Book, scattered like frightened mice. The day the ancient Hunter, K'Vruck, had sailed alongside me, admonishing me for not flying on him and warming me with his "old friend" greeting.

I have an enormous sappy-sweet spot for the largest, most ancient Hunter whose name is synonymous with death and kiss so final it eradicates the very essence of the soul. No poodle girl here. Not even a pit bull. My chosen beast is the happy odd finality that is K'Vruck. I wondered where he was and if he might join us again in the sky tonight.

I shuddered at the thought. If so, I'd drive him away. I didn't want him near Barrons. Ever.

He wasn't my only problem in the skies. Now that I was visible, I wondered how long I had before I was smothered in noxious ghouls. It seemed like all I ever did was swap one complication for another.

This evening's conveyance was a fifth the size of its gargantuan brother. I wondered why we weren't taking one of Barrons's cars; they'd certainly outrun anything else on the road. The Hunter's leathery skin was the absence of all color, inkier than midnight in a dark grotto, swallowing what light hit it as if it had ducked into a cosmic bathroom and powdered itself with black-hole dust. Wings at rest by whatever charm Barrons used that could control such creatures, its body steamed like dry ice in the drizzly night.

I shivered again. Riding one of these great beasts was like stretching yourself across a glacier. And if you're damp anywhere and touch it with bare skin, you stick like a tongue to a metal post on an icy morning. I'd gotten conned into accepting such a dare on a rare wintry morning in Georgia, waiting for the school bus with friends. "I need to grab more-"

Barrons silenced me by tossing me a bundle of clothing: gloves, a scarf, and a thick, lined bomber jacket. The man is always prepared.

The Hunter chuffed irritably in my mind, Remove his marks. They chafe.

I was startled to hear its voice in my head. Eating Unseelie flesh deadens all my sidhe-seer senses until the high wears off. I'd assumed I'd be unable to mentally communicate with it.

Not you that possesses power to hear. I possess power to be heard, it rumbled. Wipe off.

I'll consider it, I lied, tucking my gloves into my sleeves and wrapping my scarf securely around my neck.

Its amusement tickled the inside of my head, and I suddenly knew two things: it knew I was lying and the Hunter was not restrained in any way. It was pretending.

Were you ever?

Unrestrainable. All is choice. Stop your kind from shooting at us in the skies. We are benign. The marks chafe. Remove them.

It shifted its enormous hind flanks ponderously, impatience evident.

If they do nothing, why do they chafe? I asked.

Do you like those red streaks in your hair?

A snort of laughter escaped me, and Barrons gave me a look.

Vain much?

Interfere with my vision. Do not trinket us. We will trinket you and you will not like it.

I had no desire to know how a Hunter might trinket a human.

"One must mount in order to ride, Ms. Lane," Barrons said dryly.

"I think I just demonstrated my understanding of that sequence of events back in the bookstore," I said just as dryly. "It's talking to me. Don't you hear it?"

Not even I communicate with that one, the Hunter murmured in my mind. There are doors. He has none.

What do you mean?

I said.

Huh?

I do not clarify, expound, or elaborate. Open your puny mind. If you cannot see, you do not deserve to.

I rolled my eyes thinking it was no wonder the Unseelie king had a special fondness for these creatures. They communicated in a similar fashion.

Barrons sliced his head once to the left, dark eyes glittering, brilliant. He'd fed while out and his big body was thrumming with electric energy. I was looking forward to leaning back into him, astride the Hunter's back.

Since I couldn't use my sidhe-seer senses to determine if the Hunter was speaking truth, I listened to my gut instead, stepped forward and smudged my gloved hand against its icy hide, wiping the shimmering symbol from its skin.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Barrons snarled.

"It chooses to be here. It won't harm us."

"You know that because it told you? And you believed it?"

I knew more than that. I knew if I wiped off its symbols, it would cooperate far more fully than if I didn't. Perhaps even tantalize me with an ancient secret of the universe or two, and I'm insatiably curious about what might be out there in the great beyond. Ever since I wandered the White Mansion, that infinite abode of endless wonders, I've suspected I have a bit of Gypsy in my blood. If-no, when-our problems are finally over, I plan to go exploring with Jericho Barrons. Everywhere.

This Hunter was proud, aloof, and accustomed to being utterly without authority. It didn't comprehend the meaning of the word, had to break things down in its mind like the Unseelie king had to split himself into many skins to walk among humans. I wasn't sure it was even alive in the sense we think of things being alive, unless blazing icy meteors or stars are alive. The symbols didn't constrain it. They were pesky flies on its hide and offended it to its core.

"Trust me."

He stared at me, not moving at all except for a tiny muscle in his jaw, which is a full-blown hissy fit for that man.

After a long moment of silence he ground out, "Your call, Ms. Lane."

I circled the Hunter and wiped the other one off its wing. Barrons boosted me when it crouched and I clambered up its icy back, crawled forward onto its enormous head and smudged away the final mark.

As Barrons leapt up behind me and we settled behind its wings, it purred, Ahhhhh, now we fly.

The Hunter lunged forward, and when it reached the wide intersection of streets at the edge of the Dark Zone, flapped its leathery sails, churning black ice into a small storm around us. We rose up and up.

I hated leaving the bookstore behind for who knew how long to God knew what fate. I glanced down to watch it grow tiny beneath us and assure myself attackers weren't at this very moment raiding my home, and realized why Barrons wasn't worried.

Black and turbulent, whirling with debris, a tornado encompassed eight full blocks, with BB&B nestled snugly in its eye. We soared straight up from the epicenter. A small mob was stalking a good distance from the perimeter but there was no way in without getting caught up by the cyclone that stretched into the sky.

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. Icy beast beneath me, hot man behind me. "And you did that how?" I said disbelievingly.

"Called in a Fae favor. Climate is one of their specialties."

It was a huge "favor." "Who among the Fae likes you enough to do that favor?" I knew the answer to that. No one.

"The one I didn't kill when I demanded it. After I killed the other two."

I smiled faintly. One word: badass.

I want to be Jericho Barrons when I grow up.

8.

"Everybody has a face that they hold inside..."

When we landed in a field not far from the abbey to meet Ryodan, who was standing near the Hummer in which I'd spent far too much time recently, I resolved to say nothing of what I'd seen on the monitors at the club, curious to discover if Barrons or Ryodan would volunteer information.

I wanted to know if I was "Mac," a trusted member of our tenuous confederacy, or "Ms. Lane," still on the outskirts of the inner circle. Plus, knowledge was power, and I liked harboring secrets no one knew I knew. Such as Kat training beneath Chester's with Kasteo, Papa Roach serving as Ryodan's spy network, Jada and Ryodan kissing, and Lor carrying some kind of caveman torch for Jo, perfectly willing to piss off his boss to pursue it. Lor, who was indebted to me for a favor no one knew about either. A wise woman indiscriminately picked up all the tools others left lying around. You never knew what kind of wrench or knife you might need, or when.

Barrons and I hadn't spoken since the Hunter had taken flight. Barrons-because he doesn't-and me because I'd been lost in the pleasure of the moment, gliding through a velvety night sky luminous with stars, leaning back against the raw, electric carnality behind me while pondering the intriguingly unfathomable emotions/thoughts/images in the head of the ancient beast between my legs. Thanks to my high, I'd been more attuned to the kiss of the breeze, the beauty all around me, and less attuned to physical discomfort, like the ice beneath my ass.

On the back of a Hunter with Jericho Barrons, I'm free. I'm uncomplicated. Life is good.

It ended much too soon.

Ryodan was walking across the pasture toward us, and despite that I actually like him, my hackles went up. He wanted me to open the Sinsar Dubh, he ruthlessly pursued whatever he wanted, and it was never going to happen. That made us adversaries. The Unseelie flesh in my blood might have been amplifying my bristling a bit. It was nice to know if push came to shove, I was currently capable of pushing back.

He didn't say a word. Like Barrons, not a, "Gee Mac, you're visible again," or, "How did you do it?" Or even, "Where are your carrion stalkers?" a thing I was wondering myself, telling myself maybe they'd found some other person to persecute.