Shadowfever
Page 21

Weird thing is, Jo looks stunned and bursts out, I thought it was Liz!
I stare down the table at her. All I can see is her head, but she kinda shrugs it. Long story.
I assess the room, the scene. Were at the back of the hall. Well be last to die. What the feck do I do? Why is Barb shooting us?
I look at Jo. Shes no help. Looks blank as the page I was writing The Dani Daily on.
Dude, I wish Mac was here! What would she do? Should I freeze-frame in while Barbs shooting everybody and try to take her gun? Am I fast enough? I dont wanna die today. Tomorrows gonna be my day. And I just know its gonna be a good one, too! Sides, I got too much to do. Somebodys gotta keep an eye on Ro.
But were dropping like flies! Holy feckin crikey, Barbs wiping us out!
I cram a candy bar in my mouth whole, chew it just enough to get it in my gut. Im gonna need every ounce of energy I got to pull this off. I gotta do something. Barb aint gonna run outta bullets for a long time. The Mega cant cower behind a table and do nothing.
I poke my head out from behind the table, take a snapshot of the scene, and lock it down hard in my head. I map where every person, table, chair, and obstacle is.
Problem is Barb. Shes the unknown. Shes moving and spraying fire so erratically, I cant slam a grid of possibles down over my mental map.
Feck!
I stare, trying to pick up some kinda pattern.
I duck back behind the table as a shot zings by. Poke my head out again. Aint no pattern.
I pump breaths superfast, puffing my cheeks in and out, kicking my adrenaline up. I ease my head out, lock the grid down best I can, and am about to give my feet wings, when Barb goes kinda fuzzy around the edges and the room gets so fecking cold my breath comes out white.
Jo makes a strangled sound.
We both see it at the same time.
Whats shooting at us aint Barb at all.
Well it is, and shes screaming, but not like the psycho-rage-bitch-from-hell I thought she was.
Shes screaming in horror.
Shes fighting for control of the gun and failing. She forces it down and sprays the floor, but it comes up again. She tries to swing it left, toward the wall. It yanks back to the right. Her fingers tight on the trigger the whole time.
She blurs again.
Shes just Barb.
No, she aint! Shesdudewhat the feck is that? Shes got too many heads, too many teeth! Shes some kinda monster! And it aint no Shade!
Its Barb again.
Being forced to kill us.
Behind her, a shadow climbs the wall. Its huge! It towers, it expands, and when it laughs, my blood clots up in my veins and cant get to my brain, cause itsgot so many ice chunks in it.
Where is the Grand Bitch? it roars. I want her fucking heeeeeeead!
Jo and I look at each other.
We get it.
We both know whats got her, whats really firing those rounds, and it gets driven home like a spike through my skull that I aint nearly The Shit Mac thinks I am.
Me and Jo ooze real slow back behind the table.
Just two brave little sheep.
Hiding from a book.
The Book.
The one we been hoping to find. Talking real big about locking it down again. Yeah, right, just what the feck did we think we were gonna do with it?
The nerve of it. It came here. Here, where it was trapped for so long. It must feel pretty feckin invincible. Pisses me off so bad Im shaking. It came here. Gahthats so feckin wrong!
I read Macs journal. I know how it works. Makes folks pick it up. Me and Barb and Jo and about fifteen others went into Dublin this morning for supplies. We didnt stick together the whole time. Split up and went off after different things.
It musta got Barb alone and made her pick it up.
I get a creepy chill that goes all the way up my spine so fast I get brain freeze when it hits my head.
Feckin A! The Sinsar Dubh rode back to the abbey with us this morning! Right there on our bus!
I was sitting on the same bus with the Unseelie Kings Book and didnt even know it!
I sort through my options. I aint impervious to bullets. Dying today aint gonna do nobody no good, specially not me. Dont know how to stop it. Aint beating myself up for that. Nobody knows how to stop it.
Dont dare get close enough to let it take me.
Riding me, it could wipe out the entire abbey in record time.
I swallow. Id been starting to wonder if it was looking for me. Guess it was looking to get any sidhe-seer alone, so it could take us down from the inside and gain revenge for its captivity.
Theyre dying. Theyre all dying out there, beyond my table. Its killing me that theyre dying.
And I cant come up with one feckin thing to do about it.
Got one chance, and it aint to stop it. I grab Jo and freeze-frame outta there.
Ros face is pale, bloodless. I aint never seen her like this. She looks like shes aged twenty years in a single day. One hundred eighteen sidhe-seers were killed before Barb shot her way out of the abbey, took our bus with all our weapons, and disappeared.
A hundred more were wounded.
The Sinsar Dubh paid us a visit, gave us a little look-see, thumbed its beast nose at us, flipped us the motherfeckin bird of all birds.
Jo and me, we sit across the desk from Ro.