Bloodfever
Page 61

None of your business, I said coolly.
I saw two Hunters in the city tonight, Ms. Lane. Word is more are on the way. A great deal more. Get your ass home.
I sat there frozen with a dead line. Hed said what he had to say and hung up.
I cant explain what the word Hunters does to me, but it gets me where I live. It gets me in my most sacred place, the one where I used to feel safe but never will again so long as there are Fae in my world. Its as if certain things are programmed into a sidhe-seers DNA and we have gut reactions that cant be diminished, controlled, or overcome.
Youve gone white as a sheet, lass. Whats wrong?
I considered my options. There were none. The pub I was in closed early on weeknights. It was either make a run for the bookstore now, or wait a few hours, and if more Hunters were on the way, in a few hours it would only be more dangerous.
Nothing. I slapped down a few bills and some change. Why hadnt Barrons come after me? My phone rang again. I dug it out.
I would only make us a bigger target, and Ive got my hands a bit full at the moment, he said. Stay close to the buildings, under overhangs when possible. Lose yourself in throngs of other people when you can.
What was hea mind reader? I could catch a cab.
Have you seen whats driving them lately?
No, but I sure was going to be looking now that hed said that.
Where are you?
I told him.
Youre not far. Youll be fine, Ms. Lane. Just get here fast, before more arrive. He hung up again.
I stuffed my journal and phone in my purse and stood up.
Where are you going? Christian said.
I have to leave. Somethings come up. Whatever crimes I might lay at Barrons feet, I believed he could protect me. If there were Hunters in the city tonight, I wanted the most dangerous man I knew at my side, not a twenty-something Scottish guy whod known my sisterwho was, grim case in point, deadso obviously hed been of no help to her. I want to know everything. Can I come see you at Trinity?
He stood. Whatevers going on, Mac, let me help you with it.
Youll only slow me down.
You dont know that. I might be useful.
Dont push me, I said coldly. Im sick of being pushed.
He assessed me a moment, then nodded. Come see me at Trinity. Well talk.
Soon, I promised. As I left the pub, I marveled at my ignorance. Id been sitting there, believing Rowena the final, critical piece. While Id been busy analyzing my board, making judgments and decisions, feeling pretty smart about myself, aplayer Id known nothing about had strolled up and sat down, and like everyone else, he knew a great deal more about me than I knew about him.
I was back to feeling dumb.
Just where on the game board was I supposed to place Christian MacKeltar?
I took a mental swipe at it, toppled all the pieces, and stepped into the night. The heck with it. Right now I needed to get back to the bookstore, undetected by my mortal enemy, monsters whose sole purpose was to hunt and destroy people like me.
My dad had this thing he used to say to me when Id try to convince him that a D on my report card was really close to a C. Hed say, Mac, baby, close only counts in hand-grenades and horseshoes.
I was really close; in fact, I was almost home when the Hunter found me.
FIFTEEN
I t was as if a new Dublin had been born while I was inside the pub, and I realized, with the exception of our brief drive through Temple Bar the other evening, Id not walked through the district in over a month. It had been that long since Id taken a good look at my world.
Night was their time and they came out in droves.
Rhino-boys were driving the cabs.
A caste of Unseelie new to me, ghastly white and painfully thin with enormous hungry, wet eyes and no mouths, was running the street vendor stands.
Where had the original owners gone? I was pretty sure I didnt want to know.
There was one Unseelie for every ten humans on the street. Many of them wore glamours of attractive people and were paired off with real people, and I knew they were going into bars wearing the guise of sexy tourists and picking up the real tourists.
And doing what with them?
I didnt want to know that, either. I couldnt kill them all. In these numbers, I was useless against them. I forced myself to look straight ahead. There were too many Unseelie around me and Id had too much to drink. My stomach was a roiling, queasy mess. I had to get out of here. Somewhere I could breathe. Maybe throw up.
The sidhe-seer coalition was starting to look better to me. We would need hundreds of us to fight what was happening in this city. And we only had two weapons. It was crazy; we had to find more ways to kill them.
I kept my head down and hurried through the streets, mixing in with other tourists, keeping tight beneath the eaves whenever possible, wondering what Barrons had his hands full of tonight.
The night was buzzing with Fae and I felt like a tuning fork, vibrating from their sheer numbers and nearness. I had an overwhelming desire to start screaming at everyone to run, to leave, to dosomethingI couldnt remembersomething that lurked somewhere in my genetic memorya thing wed learned to dolong agoa ritual, dark thingwed paid a terrible priceit had been our greatest shamewed made ourselves forget.