Nah. He’d never let a woman stay the night. No matter how good the sex was.
“Barrons,” I said at last.
“Ms. Lane.”
“I need you to teach me to resist Voice.” I’d asked him this before, but he’d only given me one of his noncommittal replies.
There was another of those long silences, then, “In order to attempt that—and I assure you it will be no more than an attempt, one at which I highly doubt you’ll succeed—I’ll have to use it on you. Are you prepared for that?”
I shivered. “We’ll lay some basic ground rules.”
“You like those, don’t you? Too bad. You’re in my world now, and there are no basic ground rules. You learn how I teach you, or not at all.”
“You’re a jackass.”
He laughed, and I shivered again.
“Can we start tonight?” I’d been safe today, with the Lord Master on the phone. But if, instead of calling, he’d strolled up behind me on the street and commanded me to be silent, I wouldn’t have even been able to open my mouth long enough to release V’lane’s name.
I frowned.
Why hadn’t he walked up behind me? Why hadn’t he sent his army after me? Now that I thought about it, the only two times he’d ever tried to capture me were when I’d practically delivered myself to him, and he’d believed I was alone, almost as if I’d been an opportunity too convenient to pass up. Was the Lord Master in no hurry to get close to me? Did he fear my spear after seeing what it had done to Mallucé? I’d feared it intensely when I’d eaten Unseelie. I hadn’t wanted it anywhere near me. But with Voice he could easily strip it away. He’d wanted Alina’s willing participation, and now he seemed to want mine. Why? Because it was easier if I was willing, or was it more complicated than that? Did Voice work only to a certain extent, and there was something he needed from me that he wouldn’t be able to coerce? Or maybe—a chill of foreboding accompanied this thought—I was only a small part of his much larger plans, and he’d already made other arrangements for me, and it just wasn’t the right time yet. Maybe he was even now constructing a cage around me that I couldn’t see. Would I wake up one morning, and walk straight into it? I’d been duped by Mallucé. I’d believed him a figment of my imagination until the last.
I shoved my fearful thoughts away before they could multiply. I certainly wanted to get close to him. I was going to kill him. And his nasty trick of Voice was a barrier I was going to have to be able to get past.
“Well,” I prompted, “when can we start?” I didn’t trust Barrons, but he’d had plenty of opportunities to use Voice on me in the past, and hadn’t. I didn’t believe he’d use it to harm me now. At least not much. The potential gain was worth the risk.
“I’ll be there at ten.” He hung up.
It was nine-fifteen by the time I finished my invention, forty-five minutes before Barrons was due to arrive.
I turned it on, sat back, scrutinized it a few moments, then nodded.
It looked good.
Well, it didn’t really. It looked . . . strange, like something out of a sci-fi movie. But it worked, and that was all that mattered to me. I was sick of not being safe in the dark. I was sick of watching my flashlights go spinning away from me. This couldn’t spin away. And if I was right about its capabilities, I’d be able to walk straight through a Shade-wall with it on.
There was one final test I needed to perform.
It was a great invention and I was proud of it. The idea had come to me this afternoon, during a slow spell. I’d been stressing over the enormous Shade outside the bookstore, when suddenly a light had gone off in my head, or rather, several dozen.
I’d flipped the sign and locked up at seven on the dot, raced down the street to the sporting goods store on the corner, and bought everything I needed, from the biking helmet, to batteries, to brackets and caving lights, to tubes of superglue, to Velcro bands as an added precaution.
Then I’d come back to the bookstore, dialed my iPod to the latest playlist I was crazy about, cranked it up to a smidge below deafening, and gone to work.
I shook my invention. I dropped it. I kicked it, and still all parts remained intact. Superglue: after duct tape, a girl’s best friend.
I was satisfied. With three quarters of an hour until my Voice lessons, I had time to test the device, and still make it upstairs to freshen up a bit, not that I cared how I looked around Barrons. It’s just that in the Deep South, women learn at a young age that when the world is falling apart around you, it’s time to take down the drapes and make a new dress.
Every truly inspired invention needed a catchy name, and I had just the right one for mine. Who needed the Cuff of Cruce to walk among the Shades?
I slipped the biking helmet on my head and strapped it securely beneath my chin. It fit snugly so it couldn’t fall off in the heat of battle. I could do a flip (if I could do a flip) and the thing would stay stuck to my head. I’d superglued dozens of Click-It lights all over the surface of the helmet. Brackets stuck out several inches from both sides and the rear, with spelunker lights attached, pointing downward.
I swept my arms out and took a deep bow: Presenting the MacHalo!
With all the lights turned on, the helmet created a perfect halo of light around my entire body, down to my feet. I loved it. If it hadn’t been so bulky, I might have tried sleeping in it. As an added precaution, I strapped on the Velcro wrist and ankle bands I’d cut little pouches in, and sewn Click-It lights into. All I had to do was hit my wrists and ankles together and the lights clicked on.
I was ready.
But first, I wanted a test run inside the store before I went outside.
I clicked myself on from head to toe, hurried to the panel, and began flipping off the interior lights in the front part of the bookstore. Not the exterior ones, just the interior. Even though I knew the building was still surrounded in light outside, it was hard to make myself do it. My fear of the darkness had grown beyond a rational thing. That happens when you know a shadow can eat you alive if you touch it.
My hand hesitated over the last row of switches for a long, difficult moment.
But I had my MacHalo, and I knew it would work. If I gave fear a toehold, it would screw me. I’d learned that lesson from Barrons, and had it driven home by Mallucé: Hope strengthens. Fear kills.