The streets were oddly empty. I would find out later that record numbers of people called in sick the last two days before Halloween. Fathers took long overdue personal days. Mothers kept their children home from school, for no good reason. I think you didn’t need to be a sidhe-seer to feel the taut, expectant hush in the air, to hear the distant drumming of dark hooves on a troubled wind, moving closer, closer.
Closer.
I sliced, diced, and bottled a new stash of Unseelie while I was out. I’d expected Jayne days ago, but decided maybe the effects lasted longer in ordinary humans.
On my way back to the bookstore, I stopped at the grocery to grab a few items, then popped into a bakery and picked up the order I’d placed yesterday.
Then I stood under the spray of a steaming hot shower, naked but for the thigh sheath I’d taken to wearing so I could give myself better than a one-handed hair washing, and scrubbed away the taint of dead Unseelie.
By midnight, Barrons hadn’t shown up and I was feeling pissy. He’d said he’d be here. I’d planned for it.
By one, I was worried. By two, I was certain he wasn’t going to show. At three-fifteen, I called him. He answered on the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?” I snapped, at the same time he snapped, “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been waiting for hours,” I said.
“For what?”
“You said you’d be here.”
“I was delayed.”
“Maybe you could have called?” I said sarcastically. “You know, picked up the phone and said ‘Hey, Mac, I’m running late.’ ”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Then Barrons said softly, “You’ve mistaken me for someone else. Do not wait on me, Ms. Lane. Do not construct your world around mine. I’m not that man.”
His words stung. Probably because I’d done exactly that: structured my night around him, even played out in my head how it was going to go. “Screw you, Barrons.”
“I’m not that man, either.”
“Oh! In your dreams! Allow me to put this into words you taught me yourself: I resent it when you waste my time. Keys, Barrons. That’s what I’ve been waiting for. The Viper’s in the shop.” And I missed it like I missed my long blond hair. We’d bonded, the Viper and I. I doubted I’d ever get it back. It had been heavily damaged from its high-speed trip down the sidewalk and, if I knew Barrons as well as I thought I did, he’d sell it before he’d drive it again, no matter how flawlessly it was repaired. I kind of felt the same way. When you spend that much money, you want perfection. “I need a car to drive.”
“Why?”
“I’ve decided to go to the abbey for the ritual,” I said.
“I’m not certain that’s wise.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“Maybe it should be,” he said.
“I can’t do anything to help the MacKeltars, Barrons.”
“I didn’t say you should. Perhaps you should remain in the store tomorrow night. It’s the safest place for you.”
“You want me to hide?” My voice rose with disbelief on the last word. Months ago, I might have happily hid. Watched late night TV while painting my fingernails and toenails to match, a divine shade of pink. Now? Not a chance.
“Sometimes caution is the wisest course,” he said.
“Tell you what, Barrons: you come be cautious with me, I’ll stay in, too. Not because I want your company,” I said before he could make a pithy comment, “but because of that whole good-for-the-goose-and-gander thing. I’m not going to gander helplessly.”
“You’re the goose, Ms. Lane. I’m the gander.”
As if I could mistake his gender. “That was a double entendre,” I informed him stiffly. “I was being clever. Gander has multiple meanings. What good is being clever when the person you’re being clever to is too dense to get it?”
“I’m not dense,” he said just as stiffly, and I sensed one of our childish fights looming on the horizon. “As a double entendre it didn’t work. Look up double entendre.”
“I know what double entendre means. And you can just shove your stupid birthday cake. I don’t even know why I bothered!”
The silence was so protracted that I decided he’d hung up.
I hung up, too, wishing I’d done it first.
Twenty minutes later, Barrons stepped through the door from the back of the bookstore. Ice was crystallized in his hair, and he was pale from extreme cold.
I was sitting on the sofa in the rear conversation area, too aggravated to sleep. “Good. You’ve finally stopped pretending you don’t use the mirror. It’s about time.”
“I only use the mirror when I must, Ms. Lane. Even for me, it is . . . unpleasant.”
Curiosity overrode irritation. “What constitutes ‘must’? Where do you go?”
He glanced around. “Where is the cake?”
“I threw it away.”
He gave me a look.
I sighed, got up, and got it out of the fridge. It was a seven-layer chocolate cake, with alternating raspberry and chocolate cream fillings, frosted pink, with a Happy Birthday JZB in the center, delicately scripted and adorned with flowers. It was beautiful. It was the only thing that had made my mouth water in weeks, besides Unseelie. I set it on the coffee table, then got plates and forks from the cabinet behind the counter.
“I’m confused, Ms. Lane. Is this cake for me, or for you?”
Yeah, well, there was that. I’d been planning on eating a lot of it myself. I’d spared no expense. I could have downloaded forty-seven songs from iTunes instead. “They were out of black icing,” I said dryly. He wasn’t reacting the way I’d planned. He didn’t look the least bit touched or amused. In fact, he was regarding the cake with a mixture of horror and . . . grim fascination; the same way I regard monsters I’m about to kill.
I fidgeted. At the time I’d ordered it, it’d seemed like a good idea. I’d thought it was a humorous way of poking fun at our . . . relationship, while also saying, I know you’re really old and probably not human at all, but whatever you are, you still have a birthday, just like the rest of the world.
“I believe candles are customary,” he said finally.