I caught myself sighing, terminated it halfway through and forced myself to smile instead. Attitude was everything. There was always a bright side or two somewhere: I could light the gas fires, dry off, prop a book on a pillow, sprawl out on the chesterfield with my favorite throw and lose myself in a story, knowing Barrons was back, would return at some point, and my mind would soon be fully occupied figuring out how to keep them from trying to make me open the Sinsar Dubh while coming up with some other way to get rid of the black holes.
A breath of contentment feathered the knot of anxiety in my stomach, easing it a bit. Home. Books. Barrons soon. It was enough to work with. All I could do was take one moment at a time. Do my best in that moment. Pretend I was fully invested when I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to invest in anything again.
I was just unlocking the store, about to step inside, when I glimpsed a sodden Dublin Daily plastered up against the door. Propping the door open with a boot, I ducked to fetch the rag.
That was when the first bullet hit me.
5
“And walked upon the edge of no escape, and laughed ‘I’ve lost control’…”
To be fair, I didn’t actually know a bullet had hit me.
All I knew was my arm stung like hell and I thought I’d heard a gunshot.
It’s funny how your mind doesn’t quite put those two things together as fast as you’d think it would. There’s a kind of numbing of disbelief that accompanies unexpected assault, resulting in a moment of immobility. I vacillated in it long enough to get shot a second time, but at least I was rising from my crouch, slipping sideways through the door, so it grazed my shoulder blade rather than puncturing one of my lungs or my heart.
A third bullet slammed into the front of my thigh before I got the door closed. I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic fire hitting the inside of the alcove before a spray of ammo blasted the glass in the door and both sidelights. Above my head the lovely leaded glass transom exploded. The antique panes in the tall windows shattered, spraying me with slivers and shards.
I threw myself into a somersault, tucking my head, extending my wounded arm to guide me through with each rotation, and rolled across the hardwood floor, wincing with pain.
Who was shooting at me?
No. Wait. How was anyone shooting at me? I was invisible!
Wasn’t I?
No time to check.
Men were yelling, footsteps pounding, more bullets.
I scrambled behind a bookcase, frantically trying to decide what to do next.
Run out the back?
Trash that idea. More footsteps and voices coming from that direction, too.
I was trapped. Apparently they’d been lurking in shadows, surrounding the store when I’d sauntered up to it, without noticing. I wasn’t keeping watch for humans. I was so accustomed to being invisible, I wasn’t watching for much of anything.
I nudged a sliding ladder to the left with my foot, bounded up it, kicked it away and vaulted four feet through the air to land on top of a tall, wide bookcase.
I flattened myself on my stomach and snatched a glance at my hand.
Still invisible.
Then how were they shooting at me? And why? Who knew I was invisible? Who could possibly have any reason to shoot at me? What had they done—hidden outside and waited for the door to open by an unseen hand then started firing blindly?
Grimacing with pain, I reared back like a cobra on its belly and stared down.
The Guardians.
Were shooting at me.
Spilling into my bookstore by the dozens.
It didn’t make any sense.
Two officers burst into the room from the rear. An auburn-haired man near the front door barked, “She’s in here somewhere! Find her.” He began shouting orders; dispatching men to sweep the main room, others upstairs, and more to my private quarters in the rear.
They didn’t just search, they wrecked my home. Needlessly. Swiping magazines from the racks, toppling my cash register from the counter, smashing my iPod and sound dock to the floor.
I was growing angrier with each passing moment. And worried.
I was a sitting duck.
I tallied my tactical advantages primarily by their dearth: no spear, no gun, the only weapon on my body was a single switchblade. I wasn’t carrying because I was invisible and had the cuff of Cruce on my wrist. I didn’t fear humans. Jada’s sidhe-seers had been leaving me alone. I only worried about Fae, and with the cuff I was supposedly untouchable.
I couldn’t achieve my normal agility at the moment because, damn it, bullets hurt! I might be hard to kill, healing even as I lay there, but it was still painful as hell. The store wasn’t warded against humans, only monsters. How else would I sell books?
I searched the cluster of angry men for Inspector Jayne. There were about thirty Guardians in the store, all wearing the recently adopted uniform of durable khaki jeans and black tee-shirts, draped in guns and ammo, many toting military backpacks.
Where was Jayne? Had he sent them here, and if so, why? Had he finally decided to come after my spear in force? Was he prepared to kill me for it? I’d heard he’d taken Dani’s sword when she was down, so I guessed I couldn’t put it past him.
Too bad I didn’t have the spear. Jada did. And how did he know I was—Oh God, had Jada told him? Would she betray me like that? Send someone else to eliminate me because she wasn’t feeling up to it, or didn’t want the blood of both Lane sisters on her hands? Maybe she just didn’t feel like wasting her or her sidhe-seer’s time on such a pesky detail.
“Find the bitch,” the auburn-haired man growled. “She killed our Mickey. Left him in a fucking pile of scraps. Find her now!”
I frowned. How did they know I’d killed one of their own? Had someone been watching me the day I’d slain the Gray Woman and inadvertently taken the life of a human in the process? Then why wait so long to come after me?
“Brody,” another man called, and the red-haired man’s head whipped in his direction. “There’s blood here. We hit her. I knew we did.”
I froze, staring down at the floor where the man was pointing. I’d left a trail of blood along with a long smear of water as I rolled across the hardwood floor. The trail ended where I’d leapt to my feet about ten feet from the bookcase upon which I was perched. I eased my hand to my thigh to see if I was still bleeding. It came away dry, thanks to whatever elixir Cruce had given me that made me regenerate. Shit. I had a bullet in my thigh. How was I going to get it out? Had I bled down the side of the bookcase before the wound closed? I inched my hand across the top of the bookcase. It was wet. I eased my fingers over the side.