“He’s not adept enough to stack Silvers.”
When I get epiphanies, they come hard and fast. “Oh, God, I get it!” I exclaimed. It was no wonder he hadn’t wanted to explain the Silvers to me! “The mirror in your study connects to what’s beneath your garage! You ‘stacked’ mirrors to form a passageway filled with demon watchdogs so if anyone found their way into your mirror, they’d never survive the gauntlet you make them run.” Instead of one mirror instantly connecting to another, he’d arranged a multitude of mirrors to form a long, deadly corridor. “That’s how you get to the three floors beneath the garage. That’s why I couldn’t find the entrance. It’s been right under my nose in my bookstore all along!”
“Your bookstore?” He snorted. Then he laughed. “Walk out of this with your parents, the stones, and Darroc dead, Ms. Lane, and I’ll give you the bloody thing.”
I felt suddenly breathless. “Are we talking figurative or literal?”
“Literal. Lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Deed and all?” My heart hammered. I loved BB&B.
“To the store. Not my garage or car collection.”
“In other words, you’ll always be out back, breathing down my neck,” I said dryly.
“Never doubt it.” He gave me a wolf smile.
“Throw in the Viper?”
“And the Lamborghini.”
1247 LaRuhe looked exactly the same as it did the first time I saw it, last August.
Six months ago, when I arrived in Dublin, I didn’t believe in anything remotely paranormal, had never seen a Fae in my life, and wouldn’t have believed one existed for anything in the world.
Then, a mere two weeks later, I’d been standing right where I was now, in the middle of a Dark Zone, watching as the Lord Master released a flood of Unseelie into our world through a gate fashioned from a stone dolmen that had been hidden in a warehouse behind this house.
How quickly my world had changed. Two lousy weeks!
The tall, fancy brick house at 1247 LaRuhe, with its ornate limestone façade, was as out of place in the dilapidated industrial neighborhood as I was in the middle of this whole mess.
Delicate wrought iron fenced in a dirt lawn with three skeletal dying trees. The house’s many-mullioned windows were painted black. There was an enormous dirt crater behind the residence. V’lane had not just “squashed” the LM’s dolmen—as I’d asked on the day he gifted me with the illusion of playing volleyball with Alina at the beach—he’d blasted it right out of existence, leaving a gaping hole. I regretted not being more specific and asking him to demolish the house, too. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, about to enter it again and to step into one of those mirrors I’d found so terrifying the first time I’d seen them. Then again, the LM would merely have sent me to some other awful place, I was sure.
I climbed the stairs, pushed open the door, and stepped into the elegant foyer, my boots rapping smartly on obsidian-and-ivory marble floors. I passed beneath a glittering chandelier, beyond ornate dual staircases and plush furnishings.
I knew that upstairs was the Lord Master’s bedroom, with its grand high Louis XIV bed, velvet drapes, sumptuous bathroom, and a fabulous walk-in closet. I knew he wore the finest clothing, the most expensive shoes. I knew he had a taste for the best of everything. Including my sister.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Besides, I wanted to get in and get this over with so I could lay claim to my bookstore. Barrons had flabbergasted me with his offer. I didn’t know what to make of it. Right now he was waiting, back at the bookstore, for my photo. His … associates were supposedly closing in behind me. I entered the long, formal parlor, where a dozen large gilt-edged mirrors hung on the walls, and walked through the room, past furnishings Sotheby’s and Christie’s would have dueled to the death over.
The first mirror on the right was completely black. I wondered if it was shut. It looked dead. I peered at it. The dense blackness suddenly swelled and expanded, and for a moment I was afraid it would explode from its gilt frame, grow like the Blob, and swallow me up. But at the peak of its crest, it thumped loudly, made a squishing sound, and deflated. After a moment it swelled again. Squished. Deflated. I shuddered. It was a giant black heart hanging on the wall, pumping away.
I moved on. The second mirror showed an empty bedroom.
The third was open on a prison cell containing human children. They reached through bars for me with bony, pale arms and imploring eyes. I froze. There were a hundred of them or more crammed into the tiny cell. They were filthy and bruised, with torn clothing.