I swatted at it incessantly, but it refused to go away. I was busy. There were things here I needed to know, just beyond my comprehension. All I had to do was let go, quit worrying. Learn, absorb, be. And everything would be all right.
After a time, the buzz became a whine. The whine became a shout. The shout a bellow, until I realized it wasn’t an insect at all but a person roaring at me.
Telling me about myself. Who I was. Who I wasn’t. What I wanted.
What I didn’t want.
“Walk away!” the voice thundered. “Get up, Mac. Haul your ass out of there now! Or I’ll come kill you myself!”
My head snapped back. I stared down the street.
I narrowed my eyes, squinted. Barrons came into focus.
There was an expression of horror on his face. But it wasn’t directed at the Book open at my knees, and it wasn’t directed at me.
It was focused on whatever was behind me.
Chills iced my spine. What made Jericho Barrons feel horror?
Whatever it was, it was breathing down my neck. Now that I’d been jarred from the trance I was in, I could feel it, malevolent, mocking, beyond amused, laughing, right behind my ear.
“What are you?” I whispered, without turning.
“Infinite. Eternal.” I heard the sound of chain-saw blades, felt a gust of breath that smelled of oil, metal, and decay hot on my cheek. “Without parameters. Free.”
“Corrupt. An abomination that should never have been. Evil.”
“Sides of a coin, Mac,” it said in Ryodan’s voice.
“I’ll never flip.”
“Maybe something’s wrong with you, Junior,” it said, soft and sweet, in Alina’s voice.
Barrons was trying to move toward me, hammering his fists on an invisible wall.
I turned my head.
O’Bannion crouched behind me, his emaciated body pressed to mine, the scent of death surrounding us, those awful chain-saw blades an inch from my face.
He gnashed his teeth at me and laughed. “Surprise! Gotcha, didn’t I?”
I didn’t have to look back to know the Book wasn’t lying on the pavement.
It never had been.
I hadn’t actually seen a thing. It had all been illusion, glamour. Which meant the Sinsar Dubh had somehow skimmed my mind and plucked from it the images it believed would draw me in, keep me occupied. Some part of my brain must have been thinking about the woman, wondering how I would get past her tomorrow.
It had shown me a glimpse of what I wanted to see, then kept me busy hunting for more with elusive, sketchy images, all promise, no substance.
While in reality it had been crouching behind me, doing … what? What had it been up to while I’d been staring into pages that weren’t there?
“Learning you. Tasting you. Knowing you, Mac.” O’Bannion’s bladed hand caressed my arm.
I shook it off.
“Sweet. So sweet.” O’Bannion’s breath was on my ear.
I gathered my will, lunged to a half crouch, and dragged myself down the pavement, away from it.
“I SAY WHEN WE’RE DONE!”
I was crushed to the street, flattened with pain, and I realized the stones hadn’t been protecting me, nor had any change in my strength or abilities. The Sinsar Dubh had released me from my pain and could return it any time it chose.
It chose now.
It soared over me, rising, stretching, transforming into the Beast, telling me, in graphic detail, what I could do with my puny little stones that only a fool would believe could contain, could dampen, could ever hope to even brush the greatness of something as limitless and perfect as it. It lacerated me with red-hot blades of hatred and cold black blades of despair.
Agony screamed inside my skin.
I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t flee.
I could only lie there whimpering, immobilized by pain.
When I came to, it took me a moment to figure out where I was.
I blinked in the low light and remained motionless, performing a rapid physical assessment of myself.
I was relieved to realize I was experiencing no current pain—it was all residual. My head was one massive bruise. My bones felt as if they’d been crushed, splinted, and had barely begun to heal.
Internal check completed, I turned my attention to my surroundings.
I was in the bookstore, propped on my favorite chesterfield sofa before the fire in the rear conversation area. I was iced to the bone, wrapped in blankets.
Barrons stood in front of the fire, a tall, powerful shape surrounded by flame, his back to me.
I exhaled with relief, a tiny noise in the large room, but Barrons whirled instantly, a sound rattling deep in his chest, guttural, animal. It made my blood run cold.