Karen Moning - Darkfever

What had Alina expected me to do? Commit to staying in Dublin indefinitely, searching for all this woo-woo stuff and living in constant fear? Devote my life to this cause? Be willing to die for it?

It was one heck of a tall order for a short-order bartender. I would have snorted if I hadn't been on the uncomfortable verge of peeing my pants with fear for the past half hour.

She'd died for it.

I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut even harder.

I'd never measured up to Alina, and I never would. I had no desire to open my eyes. I might see something else she thought I should be responsible for, I thought resentfully. I was getting out of here. I was going to put as much distance as possible between me and the prison-portal and the red-robed Lord Master and the whole Dark Zone.

I sighed.

I really was. Just as soon as I took just one last small look around the corner to see if there was anything else I should know. Not that I planned to do anything with the information. I just figured since I was already here, I might as well gather all of it I could. Maybe I could pass it on to that interfering old woman, or V'lane, and one of them could do something about it. If V'lane really was one of the good guys, then he and his queen should take immediate, decisive action to plug this unacceptable hole between our worlds. Hadn't Barrons mentioned something about a Compact? Wasn't there some kind of agreement this violated?

I opened my eyes.

And failed miserably at both my attempt to climb out of my own skin, and my efforts to sink into the floor.

Barrons and I had wondered where Mallucé was. Now I knew.

Less than a dozen feet away from me, fangs bared, flanked by six beady-eyed Rhino-boys.

Trying to disappear hadn't worked, so I exploded up, hissing and kicking and slamming my hands into everything I could, well, lay my hands on.

Unlike the other night, when I'd tried to kill the Gray Man, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing, I just acted on instinct.

It turned out my instincts were amazing .

I left the spearhead tucked into my waistband, so I could use both hands. There was something inside me that worked like the missile-targeting system of a stealth bomber, locating and locking onto anything Fae once it was within a few feet of me.

As Mallucé dropped back and let the six Rhino-boys close in, I slammed my palms out in opposite directions, hitting two of them smack in their barrel chests. I spun, slammed out again, catching another two in the ribs, then dropped to the floor and slammed out a third time.

On my knees, I tossed my hair out of my eyes and assessed the situation. I'd frozen all six of them in two seconds flat.

But how long would they stay frozen? That was the critical question.

Mallucé looked startled—I guess he'd never seen a Null in action before—then glided toward me in that sinuous way of his. I reached inside my jacket for the spearhead, then remembered what Barrons had said, or rather hadn't said about how to kill a vampire. Mallucé wasn't Fae, so I could neither freeze nor stab him and expect it to work. Nor, according to Barrons, would a stake through his heart do the job, so I didn't see any reason my spear would, either. I removed my hand from my jacket. I didn't want to show my ace-in-the-hole until I had no other choice. Maybe, just maybe, I could get close to the Lord Master. And maybe I could use the spear to kill him. And then maybe I could freeze all the Unseelie and outrun a vampire. It sounded like a plan to me. The only one I could think of.

I pushed up and began backing away. It seemed it was what the vampire'd wanted, anyway. I held his too-bright yellow gaze as he backed me past the pallet, onto the rune-chiseled floor in front of the dolmen, and into a circle of Unseelie Rhino-boys and assorted monsters.

"What is this, Mallucé?" Though he was behind me and I couldn't see him, I would never mistake the voice of the Lord Master. It was rich, multitonal, and musical, like Vlane's.

"I thought I heard something behind the pallets," Mallucé said. "She is a Null, Lord Master. Another one."

I couldn't help it. I had to know. "You mean Alina, don't you? The other Null, she was Alina Lane, wasn't she?" I accused.

The vampire's creepy citron eyes narrowed. He exchanged a long glance with the red-robed thing behind me.

"What do you know about Alina Lane?" the Lord Master said softly, in that melodious voice. It was the voice of something larger than life, an archangel, perhaps—the one that fell.

"She was my sister ," I snarled, whirling around. "And I'm going to kill the bastard that killed her. What do you know about her?"

The crimson cowl shook with laughter. I fisted my hands at my sides to keep from whipping out my spear and lunging for the red-robed figure. Stealth, I told myself. Caution. I doubted I'd get more than one chance.

"I told you she would come, Mallucé," said the Lord Master. "We will use her to finish what her sister began." He raised his hands as if to encompass the group and addressed all the Unseelie gathered there. "When everything is in place, I will open the portal and unleash the entire Unseelie prison on this world, as I promised you. Restrain her. She comes with us."

"Now, that was just stupid, Ms. Lane," Barrons said, shaking his head, as he dropped onto the floor next to me, his long black coat fluttering. "Did you have to go and tell them who you were? They would have figured it out soon enough."

I blinked, stupefied.

I guess the Lord Master, Mallucé, and all the rest of them were just as stunned by the unexpected entrance as I was, because we all gaped at him, and then we all looked up. 7 just wanted to see where in the world he'd come from. I think they were checking to see if there were any others up there. He had to have been on the ceiling girders. They were thirty feet high. I didn't see a convenient rope dangling anywhere.

When I looked back down, the Unseelie ruler had pushed back his crimson cowl and was looking at Barrons, hard. He didn't seem to like what he saw.

I gasped, stunned.

I stared in disbelief and confusion at Alina's boyfriend, the Lord Master. The leader of the Unseelie wasn't even Fae! Even Barrons looked a little thrown.

The Lord Master barked a command, then he turned in a whirl of red robes. Dozens of Unseelie closed in on us instantly.

Things got kind of crazy then, and I still have a hard time sorting them out. As his minions cut off any chance of pursuit, the prick who'd used and killed my sister and had been planning to do the same to me ordered them to take me alive, or else, and kill the other one .

Then I was surrounded by Unseelie and I couldn't see Barrons anymore. Somewhere in the distance, I heard chanting, and the runes in the concrete beneath my feet began to glow again.

I closed my mind to everything but battle. I fought.

I fought for my sister, who'd died alone in an alley. I fought for the woman the Gray Man had fed on while I'd eaten french fries, and the one he'd consumed two days ago, while I'd watched in helpless horror. I fought for the people the Many-Mouthed-Thing had killed. I fought for the dehydrated human husks blowing down the forgotten streets between Collins Street and Larkspur Lane. I might have even fought for a few of O'Bannion's henchmen. And I fought for the twenty-two-year-old young woman who'd arrived in Dublin pretty darned sure of herself, who no longer had any idea where she'd come from or where she was going, and who'd just broken her third Iceberry Pink nail.

The alabaster spearhead seemed to blaze with holy light in my hand as I ducked and twisted, slammed and stabbed. I could feel myself turning into something else and it felt good . At one point I caught sight of Barrons' startled face, and I knew that if he was looking at me like that, I was truly something to see. I felt like something to see. I felt like a well-built, well-oiled machine with one purpose in life: to kill Fae. Good or bad. Take 'em all.