“Jayne is otherwise occupied at the moment.”
“You can’t know everything.” Now I was the one who sounded pissy.
He gave the Hunter’s hide a little pat, like one might give a horse.
It reared into an attack pose, craned its neck around, shot a flaming look of banked hatred over its shoulder, and snorted a thin tendril of fire from one nostril in unmistakable rebuke.
Barrons laughed.
I have to admit, aside from the cold and Barrons being much too close, I enjoyed the ride. It was an experience I would never forget. It’s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.
Dublin was still without power, but it had been so for months, and wind and time had carried all smog and pollution out to sea. No smokestacks puffed, no cars emitted fumes. There was no halo of city lights competing with the brilliant moonlight. The city had been swept clean. It was the world the way it used to be, hundreds of years ago. The stars twinkled as sparklingly visible in the Dublin night sky as they did in rural Georgia.
The river Liffey split the city down the middle, its many bridges dissecting the long silvery path, all the way to the bay.
To the north, Jayne’s men were otherwise occupied indeed, battling a horde of Unseelie I’d never seen before, just a few blocks from the alley where my sister had died. Grief welled, but I slammed it down so hard and fast into my padlocked box that I barely felt it.
On the south side, we passed silently above my sister sidhe-seers over and over. MacHalos blazing, led by Kat and Dani, they scouted the streets, doing what damage they could.
Dani had hated my going off without her tonight and had argued fervently that her superstrengths might well be necessary in a pinch. She’d been far more piqued than mollified by my reminder that Barrons was faster than she was.
We flew for hours, circling, circling. It was nearly four in the morning by the time I finally sensed the Sinsar Dubh.
The second I did, there went my head—a killer pounding at my temples, spreading to encompass my skull in an ever-tightening vise.
“Got it,” I said tightly, pointing in the general direction.
The Hunter took us down. We skimmed rooftops as I tried to target its precise location. Tops of church spires and smokestacks passed a dozen feet beneath us. The lower we got, the more intense my pain grew and the colder I felt. Teeth chattering, shivering with misery, I guided him: Left; no, right; no, turn here, yes, there. Hurry, it’s getting away. Wait, I can’t feel it. There it is again.
Abruptly, the Sinsar Dubh stopped. We overshot it by five city blocks and had to circle back around. Hunters don’t corner like Porsches.
“What’s it doing?” Barrons demanded.
“Besides killing me? Don’t know.” Didn’t really care at the moment. “Are you sure we need to do this?”
“It’s merely pain, Ms. Lane, and of finite duration.”
“You try functioning with your head split open and someone stirring your brains. Isn’t there some Druid spell you could do that would help?”
“I lack both tattoo implements and the time. Besides, I’m not certain it would work, and although you recently demanded I dress you in crimson and black, I have no desire to see you wearing it permanently.”
“And the reminders just keep coming,” I muttered, and rolled my eyes. The motion, coupled with my nausea, nearly made me throw up.
“Only because you seem to keep forgetting who saved your ass.”
Unfortunately, not the many things he’d done to it.
The Hunter drew in its wings and dropped to the ground in silence. I slid off its leathery back and hit the pavement, puking.
“Where is it?” Barrons was demanding before I’d even finished.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Dead ahead. Three blocks?” I guessed.
“Can you walk?”
I nodded and gagged from the movement but didn’t throw up again. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, so there was nothing left to throw up. I took perverse comfort in the pain. Obviously I wasn’t the one who was going to doom the world. If I was so bad, the Book would have liked me, wanted me to come closer, not repelled me. Ryodan was wrong. The Sinsar Dubh didn’t want anything to do with me.
We closed in, Barrons stalking, me stumbling. Behind us, the Hunter lifted off, vanishing in a sudden snowstorm of black ice.
“And there went our ride,” I said sourly. As awful as the Sinsar Dubh inevitably left me feeling, there was no way I’d be able to make the long trek back to the bookstore. I hoped the stones would succeed in corralling it—even without the fourth—and maybe diminish the pain it was causing me.