I know stuff about Mac that she’d kill me for, if she knew I knew. Good thing she doesn’t know. I never want to fight Mac.
But here I am, hunting her.
I don’t believe she spiked the Orb with Shades. Pretty much everyone else does, though. They don’t know Mac like I do. I know Mac like we’re sisters. No way she betrayed us.
Seven hundred thirteen of us alive at the abbey at five o’clock last night. Five hundred twenty-two sidhe-seers left at last count. Taking Dublin back. Hunting Mac. Kicking every bit of Fae ass we see along the way.
No sign of her yet. But we’re headed in the right direction. There’s an epicenter of power in the city, reeking stinking nasty Fae as toxic as the fallout plume from a nuclear explosion. We all feel it. Taste it. Practically see the mushroom cloud hanging in the air. We don’t even talk to one another. Don’t need to. If Mac’s still in Dublin, that’s where she is, straight ahead. No way any sidhe-seer could turn away from this kinda pull. I hope she’s nailing their butts with the spear. We’ll fight back to back like we did a couple nights ago.
But I’ve got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach …
Bull-fecking-crikey! I don’t feel sick. I never feel sick. Sick is for wusses and wannabes.
Mac can take care of herself. She’s the strongest of us all.
“‘Cept me,” I mutter, with a swagger and a grin.
“What?” Jo says behind me.
I don’t bother answering. They already think I’m cocky enough. I have reasons to be cocky. Uh-huh, I’m that good.
Five hundred twenty-two of us closing in. We fight like banshees and can do some serious damage, but we’ve got only one weapon—the Sword of Light—that can kill a Fae.
“And it’s mine.” I grin again. I can’t help it. Fecking A, it’s the supercoolest gig in the world to be a superhero. Superfast, super-strong, with a few extra “supers” in me that Batman would trade all his toys for. What everybody else wishes they could do, I can. Behind me, Jo says “What?” again, but I’m not grinning anymore. I’m back to feeling prowly, pissed. Being fourteen—well, I almost am—blows. One minute I’m on top of the world, next I’m mad at everybody. Jo says I’m hormonal. She says it gets better. If better means I’m gonna turn into a grown-up, thanks but not. Gimme a blaze of glory any day. Who wants to get old and wrinkly?
If the Unseelie hadn’t taken the power grids down last night, turning the whole city into a Dark Zone, I’d’ve come after Mac sooner, but Kat made us hide like cowards ‘til dawn. Not enough flashlights, she said.
Duh, I’m superfast, I said.
Great, she said, so you’d have us watch you whiz superfast right through a Shade and die? Smart, Dani. Real smart.
Pissed me off, but she had a point. When I’m moving like that, it is hard to see what’s coming at me. With the power grids down, ain’t nobody gonna dispute the Shades own the night once it falls.
Who put you in charge? I said, but it was rhetorical and we both knew it, and she walked away. Ro put her in charge. Ro always puts her in charge, even though I’m better, faster, smarter. Kat’s obedient, dutiful, cautious. Gag me with a spoon.
Crashed and burned cars everywhere we turn. I thought there’d be more bodies. Shades don’t eat dead flesh. S’pose other Unseelie do. The city is spooky quiet.
“Slow down, Dani!” Kat yells at me. “You’re speeding up again. You know we can’t keep up with you!”
“Sorry,” I mutter, and slow down. With what I feel up ahead and this stupid sick feeling in my stomach—
“Not sick.” My teeth clench on the lie. Who the feck am I kidding? I feel sick, sick, sick. My palms and pits are slick with dread. I wipe my sword hand against my jeans. My body knows things before my brain can. Always been that way, even when I was a kid. Used to freak Mom out. It’s what makes me fight so good. I know what I’m gonna find up ahead is gonna be one of those things I’ll wake up in the middle of the night wishing I could scrape out from behind my eyeballs.
Whatever we’re headed for, whatever’s throwing all that fallout into the sky, is more Fae power than I’ve ever felt before, all clumped together in one place. The way we work things, the other sidhe-seers close in and pound ass while I do what I’ve been doing best since Ro took me in when Mom was murdered.
I kill.
* * *
We range out like a net. Five hundred strong. Drape ourselves, sidhe-seer by sidhe-seer, around the epicenter and close in tight. Nothing’s getting through us unless it flies. Or sifts.
Aw, crap! Or sifts. Some of the Fae can travel from place to place at the blink of a thought—just a hair faster than me, but I’m working on that. I have a theory I been testing. Haven’t worked out the kinks yet. The kinks are killer.
“Stop,” I hiss at Kat. “Tell ‘em all to stop!”
She cuts a hard look my way but bites a sharp command that rips down the line. We’re well trained. We move together and I tell her my worry: that Mac’s in there, in serious trouble, and if the big-bads throwing off all that power are sifters—which most of the big-bads are—she’ll be gone the second we’re spotted.
Which means I’m going in alone. I’m the only one who can sneak-attack fast enough to pull it off.
“No way,” Kat says.
“No choice, and you know it.”
We look at each other. She gets that look grown-ups get a lot and touches my hair. I jerk. I don’t like to be touched. Grown-ups creep me out.
“Dani.” She pauses heavily.
I know that tone like I know the back of my hand, and I know where it’s going: Lectureville on a runaway train. I roll my eyes. “Save it for somebody who cares. Newsflash: It ain’t me. I’ll go up”—I jerk my head at a nearby building—”to get the lay of things. Then I’m going in. Only. When I. Come. Back. Out.” I spit each word. “Can you guys can go in.”
We stare at each other. I know what she’s thinking. Nah, reading minds isn’t one of my specialties. Grown-ups telegraph everything. Somebody kill me before I get one of those Play-Doh faces. Kat’s thinking if she makes the call against me and loses Mac, Ro’ll have her head. But if she lets me make the call and things go bad, she can blame it on headstrong, uncontrollable Dani. I take the blame a lot. I don’t care. I do what needs to be done.