Strength. That was what I needed. Unseelie strength and power; the darkness that was kith and kin to the Book, living inside me.
Where was my purse?
I fumbled for it through the pain. It was in the car. I’d never make it there. I couldn’t even stand up. I whimpered with the agony of simply trying to raise my head. Where was Barrons? What was he doing? The air was ice. The pavement beneath me frosted, and I felt it move up my knees, and creep over my thighs. An arctic wind whipped at my hair, tore at my clothes. Debris battered me.
What was Barrons doing? I had to see!
I sought the sidhe-seer place in my head. The mere existence of the Book inflamed it. It was everything we feared in the Fae. Everything we existed to defend against.
I inhaled fast and deep, sucking down breaths so icy they burned my lungs. I tried to embrace the pain, and convince myself I was one with it. What had Barrons said? I overmuscled things. I had to relax, quit fighting it. Let it crash over me and ride it like a wave. It was easier said than done, but I managed to push back on my knees, and raise my head.
In the middle of the cobbled street, thirty-five feet away, was the Beast.
It looked at me. Hello, Mac, it said.
It knew my name. How did it know my name? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The shrieking in my head stopped. The pain vanished. The night stilled. I was in the eye of its storm.
Barrons was five feet from it.
I wish I could describe it to you. I’m glad I can’t. Because if I could find the words for it, they would be stuck in my head forever, and I don’t want anything about it stuck in my head. Its visage is terrible enough, but once it’s no longer in front of you, your brain can’t quite hold on to it. The way it moves, the way it looks at you. The way it mocks. The way it knows.We see ourselves in other people’s eyes. It’s the nature of the human race; we are a species of reflection, hungry for it in every facet of our existence. Maybe that’s why vampires seem so monstrous to us—they cast no reflection. Parents, if they’re good ones, reflect the wonder of our existence and the success we can become. Friends, well chosen, show us pretty pictures of ourselves, and encourage us to grow into them.
The Beast shows us the very worst in ourselves and makes us know it’s true.
Barrons was leaning.
The Beast became the innocent hardcover.
Barrons bent to one knee.
The hardcover became the Sinsar Dubh, with bands and padlocks. It waited. I could feel it waiting.
Barrons reached.
For the first time in my life, I prayed. God, no, please, God, no. Don’t let Barrons pick it up and turn evil because if he does, we’re all lost. I’m dead, the walls are down, and the world is a bust.
I realized, then, that the reason I’d been so conflicted since the night I’d watched Barrons step out of the Unseelie mirror was because, in my heart, I didn’t really believe he was evil. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think he was good, either, but bad is potential evil. Evil is a lost cause. I hadn’t been willing to trust my heart because I’d been afraid I’d make Alina’s mistakes, and as I was dying, the bodiless narrator of my life would remark, Gee, there goes the second Lane girl, dumber than the first. The most confused we ever get is when we’re trying to convince our heads of something our heart knows is a lie.
His fingers were inches from the Sinsar Dubh.
“Barrons!” I shouted.
He flinched and looked back at me. His eyes were black on black.
“Jericho,” I cried.
Barrons shook his head, once, a violent jerk from side to side. Moving like a man with bones fractured in every limb, he pushed himself slowly to his feet, and began backing away.
Suddenly the Book morphed into the Beast and rose, and rose, and rose until it towered over us, eclipsing the sky.
Barrons turned then, and ran.
The pain was back, crushing, crucifying. The night turned cold and life-sucking, and the wind returned, screaming with the voices of the unavenged dead.
I felt myself scooped up.
I flung my arms around Barrons’ neck and held on as he ran.
At four o’clock in the morning, we were sitting in front of a fire in the bookstore, in the rear conversation area, behind bookcases where no passersby might see us, not that any were expected at four o’clock in the morning on the edge of a Dark Zone.
I was snuggled in a nest of blankets, staring into the flames. Barrons brought me a cup of hot cocoa he’d microwaved, using two packets of instant from Fiona’s old stash behind the cash register. I accepted it gratefully. Every few minutes, I jerked with a convulsive chill. I doubted I would ever get warm again.
“She’s with O’Bannion, you know,” I told him through lips that burned with cold. Even Barrons looked chilled, pale.
“I know,” he said.
“She’s eating Unseelie.”
“Yes.”
“Do you care?”
“Fio is her own woman, Ms. Lane.”
“What if I have to kill her?” If she came after me now, I’d have no choice but to stab her.
“She tried to kill you. If her plan had worked, you would have been dead. I underestimated her. I didn’t think her capable of murder. I was wrong. She wanted you out of the way and was willing to sacrifice anything I might want, or need, to accomplish it.”
“Were you her lover?”
He looked at me. “Yes.”
“Oh.” I swirled the cocoa with my spoon. “She was a little old, don’t you think?” I rolled my eyes at myself as soon as I said it. I was going by appearances, not reality. Reality was Barrons was at least twice her age; who knew how much more?
His lips curved faintly.
I began to cry.
Barrons looked horrified. “Stop that immediately, Ms. Lane.”
“I can’t.” I sniffled into my cup of cocoa so he couldn’t see my face.
“Try harder!”
I gave a great sniff and shudder, and turned it off.
“I have not been her lover for . . . some time,” he offered, watching me carefully.
“Oh, get over yourself! That’s not why I cried.”
“Why, then?”
“I can’t do it, Barrons,” I said hollowly. “You saw it. I can’t get . . . that . . . that . . . thing. Who are we kidding?”
We stared into the flames for a time, until long after my cocoa was gone.
“What did it feel like to you?” I said, finally.