“You’ll never be able to use it on me. Not if I teach you. Teacher and student develop immunity to each other. There’s quite an incentive for you, eh, Ms. Lane? Now talk. Or I’ll take the information I want, and if you fight me, it’ll hurt.”
He was a shark who’d scented blood and he wasn’t going to stop circling until he’d devoured me. I had no doubt he would do as he was threatening, and if he got started forcing answers from me, I was afraid of what he might ask. He’d heard the address. With or without me, he was going there. It would be better if I went, too. I’d think of a plan along the way. “Get in the car. I’ll tell you while we’re driving.”
“My bike’s out front. If traffic’s bad, it’s faster. If you’ve been holding out on me, you’re in deep trouble, Ms. Lane.”
Of that, I had no doubt. But I wasn’t sure who was going to be more pissed at me before the night was through: Barrons because I hadn’t told him sooner, or V’lane because I’d broken my promise to him and told Barrons at all. The alien thing piercing my tongue felt intrusive and dangerous in my mouth.
Dublin was a dark, bizarre circus that I was walking through on a high wire, and if there was a safety net somewhere below me, I sure couldn’t see it.
SEVEN
Like jacked-up pickup trucks in the Deep South, Harleys are an ode to testosterone: the bigger and louder the better. Down south, trucks and bikes roar Look at me! Hot damn, I’m big and noisy and wild and, yeehaw, wouldn’t you like a piece of me?
Barrons’ Harley didn’t roar. It didn’t even purr. A chrome and ebony predator, it glided soundlessly into the night, whispering, I’m big and silent and deadly, and you’d better hope I don’t get a piece of you.
I could feel fury in the set of his shoulders beneath my hands as we careened through narrow alleys, around corners, laying the bike so low I had to tuck up my feet and keep my legs crushed to the sides for fear of scraping off a few layers of skin, but as with everything else Barrons undertook, he was a master of precision. The bike did things for him I wasn’t sure a bike could do. Several times I almost wrapped my arms and legs around him and clambered onto his back, for fear of falling off.
His body bristled with anger. The fact that I knew something about the Book that I hadn’t told him was as deep a transgression as transgressions could go, as far as he was concerned. I’d learned the last time we’d had a brush with the Sinsar Dubh that it was his end-all/be-all, for whatever reason. Despite the unnerving dark energy rolling off him, eventually I hugged him with all my might just to stay on the bike. It was like embracing a low-level electrical current. Sometimes I wonder if Barrons has any real awareness of risk of injury. He doesn’t live like he does.
“It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from me!” I finally shouted against his ear.
“I don’t keep ones from you that involve the fucking Book,” he snarled over his shoulder. “That’s our deal, isn’t it? If nothing else, we’re honest with each other about the Book.”
“I don’t trust you!”
“And you think I trust you? You haven’t been out of fucking diapers long enough to be trusted, Ms. Lane! I’m not even sure you should be allowed to handle sharp objects!”
I punched him in the side. “That’s not true. Who ate Unseelie? Who survived no matter the cost? Who keeps getting out there facing all kinds of twisted monsters, and still manages to find something to smile about while she does it? That takes real strength. That’s more than you can do. You’re grumpy and broody and secretive all the time. You’re no joy to live with, I can tell you that!”
“I smile sometimes. I even laughed about your . . . hat.”
“MacHalo,” I corrected tightly. “It’s a brilliant invention, and it means I don’t need you or V’lane to keep me safe from Shades, and that, Jericho Barrons, is worth its weight in gold: not needing either of you for something!”
“Who came to teach you Voice tonight? Do you think you could find another teacher? Those who can use that power don’t share it. Whether you like it or not, you do need me, and you’ve needed me since the day you set foot in this country. Remember that, and stop pissing me off.”
“You need me too,” I growled.
“That’s why I’m teaching you. That’s why I gave you a safe place to live. That’s why I keep saving your life, and try to give you the things you want.”
“Oh, the th-things I w-want,” I stammered because I was so mad I tried to spit all the words out at once. “How about answers? Try giving me those!”
He laughed, and the sound bounced back off the brick walls of the narrow alley down which we sped, making it sound like men were laughing all around me, and it was creepy. “The day I give you answers will be the day you no longer need them.”
“The day I no longer need them,” I told him icily, “will be the day I’m dead.”
By the time we arrived at the crime scene, the shooter had blown his head off, what hostages had survived were being treated, and the grim duty of counting and collecting bodies had begun.
The street was closed around the pub from one end of the block to the next, crammed with police cars and ambulances, and crawling with Garda. We parked and dismounted a block from the scene.
“I’m assuming the Book was here. Do you feel it?”
I shook my head. “It’s already gone. That way,” I pointed west. An icy channel sluiced east through the night. I would lead him in the opposite direction, and eventually claim that I’d lost its “signal.” I felt sick to my stomach, and not because of all the bodies and blood. The Sinsar Dubh is the ultimate in nausea. I reached in my pocket and thumbed out a Tums. I had the beginnings of a brutal migraine, and hoped it wouldn’t spike.
“Later you’re going to tell me everything you know. Somehow you’ve figured out how it’s moving around the city, and it’s linked to the crimes, isn’t it?”
He was good. When I nodded gingerly, trying not to split my skull, he said, “And somehow you managed to coerce Jayne into feeding you information. How you accomplished that, frankly, confounds me.”
“Gee, maybe I’m not as inept as you think I am.” I popped another Tums in my mouth and made a mental note to start carrying aspirin, too.