I knew only that it was huge, dark, dangerous . . . and almost here.
I exited the room on tiptoe, and pulled the door shut, leaving the smallest of slivers through which to peer, braced to yank it shut and run like hell.
The mirror belched an icy gust of air.
It was here!
Long black coat fluttering, Jericho Barrons stepped out of the glass.
He was covered with blood that had iced to crimson frost on his hands, face, and clothing. His skin was pale from extreme cold, and his midnight eyes blazed with an inhuman, feral light.
In his arms he carried the brutally savaged, bloody body of a young woman.
I didn’t need to feel her pulse to know that she was dead.
TWO
I’d like to speak with Inspector Jayne, please,” I said into the phone, early the next morning. As I waited for him to pick up, I gulped down three aspirins with my coffee.
I’d hoped to be done with the insufferable inspector for a while, but after last night I’d realized I needed him. I’d devised a plan that was simple yet brilliant, and I lacked only one thing to implement it: my unsuspecting victim.
After a few moments and a series of clicks, I heard, “Jayne here. How can I help you?”
“Actually, I’m the one that can help you.”
“Ms. Lane,” he said flatly.
“The one and only. You want to know what’s going on in this city, Inspector? Join me for tea this afternoon. Four o’clock. At the bookstore.” I caught myself on the verge of adding, in a deep announcer’s voice, and come alone. I’m the product of a generation that watches too much TV.
“Four it is, but Ms. Lane, if you’re wasting my time . . .”
I hung up, in no mood for threats. I’d accomplished what I needed. He’d be here.
I’m not much of a cook. Mom is such a great one, and well, let’s just call a spade a spade and get it over with, until a few months ago I was so spoiled and lazy that if the thought of fending for myself had occurred to me, I would have promptly thrust it away in favor of beautifying myself and coaxed Mom into making me one of my favorite snacks. I’m not sure who’s guiltier, me for doing it, or her for putting up with me.
Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in.
But today I’d donned my chef’s hat, limp and unused though it was. I might have purchased the tray of rich, buttery shortbreads at a pastry shop down the street, but I’d made the sandwiches myself, cutting loaves of fresh bakery bread into pretty little shapes with fancy edges, preparing the filling, and spreading my special recipe between the slices. My mouth watered just looking at the bite-size snacks.
I glanced at my watch, poured water over Earl Grey to steep the tea, and carried cups to the table near the rear conversation area, where a fire crackled brightly, chasing the chill from the gloomy October day. Though I was loath to lose business or break routine, I’d closed the shop early because I had to conduct this meeting at a time when I knew my employer was unlikely to show up.
I’d gotten a major wake-up call last night when I’d watched Jericho Barrons step out of the mirror.
I’d fled up the stairs faster than a Fae sifting space, locked my door, and barricaded it, heart pounding so hard I’d thought the top of my skull might blow off.
It was bad enough that he was keeping an Unseelie Hallow in the store, hidden from me, and using it, probably regularly, considering it was in his study, but . . . the woman . . . God, the woman!
Why had Barrons been carrying a blood-covered body in his blood-covered arms? Logic screamed: Duh, because he’d killed her.
But why? Who was the woman? Where had she come from? Why was he bringing her out of the Silver? What was inside that mirror? I’d examined it this morning, but it had been flat, impenetrable glass again, and whatever the way inside, only Barrons knew it.
And the look on his face! It had been the look of a man who’d done something that he’d found in, if not pleasure, some kind of comfort. In his face there’d been a certain . . . grim satisfaction.
Jericho Barrons was a man it wouldn’t be hard to romanticize (overlooking the toting around of savaged bodies, of course). Fiona, the woman who’d run the bookstore before I’d come along, had been so blindly in love with him that she’d tried to kill me to get me out of her way. Barrons was powerful, broodingly good-looking, insanely wealthy, frighteningly intelligent, and had exquisite taste, not to mention a hard body that emitted some kind of constant low-level charge. Bottom line: He was the stuff of heroes.