Bloodfever
Page 31
Well, thats just stupid. How do you get them, then? I narrowed my eyes. I am not helping you steal that thing, Barrons.
He laughed. You dont want it? The auctioneer was incorrect, Ms. Lane. Its not the Amulet of Cruce. The Unseelie King himself fashioned that trinket; its one of the four Unseelie Hallows.
A few months ago Id never have believed in anything like the Hallows, but a few months ago Id never have believed myself capable of killing, either.
The Hallows were the Faes most sacred, powerful, and obsessively coveted relics. There were four Light or Seelie Hallows: the spear, the sword, the cauldron and the stone, and four Dark or Unseelie Hallows: the amulet, the box, the mirror, and the most terrible of them all, the Sinsar Dubh.
You saw who owned it in the past, Barrons said. Even if you dont want it, can you abide a Dark Hallow out there, loose in the world?
Thats not fair, using my sidhe-seer-ness against me to get me to commit a crime.
Life isnt fair, Ms. Lane. And you happen to be up to your ears in crimes. Get over it.
What if we get caught? I could get arrested. I could end up in jail. I wouldnt survive prison. The drab uniforms, the lack of color, the rut of penitentiary existence would unravel me completely in a matter of weeks.
Id break you out, he said dryly.
Great. Then Id be on the run.
You already are, Ms. Lane. You have been ever since your sister died. He turned and disappeared beyond the connecting doors.
I stared after him. What didnt Barrons know? I knew Id been running since then, but how did he?
After Alina was murdered, Id started to feel invisible. My parents had stopped seeing me. With increasing frequency, Id caught them watching me with a heartbreaking mixture of longing and pain, and Id known it was Alina they were seeing in my face, my hair, my mannerisms. They were hunting for her in me, summoning her ghost.
Id stopped existing. I was no longer Mac.
I was the one whod lived.
He was right. Justice and revenge had been only part of my motivation for leaving Ashford. Id run from my grief, from their pain, from being a shadow of another person, better loved for bitterly lost, and Ireland hadnt been nearly far enough.
The worst of it was that now I was caught up in a deadly marathon, running for my life, desperate to stay one step ahead of all the monsters behind me, and there was no finish line in sight.
NINE
S peaking of the better loved for bitterly lost, I had one day left to clean out her apartment. By midnight all of Alinas belongings had to be out, or the landlord had the right to set them to the curb. Id packed the boxes up weeks ago. I just needed todrag them to the door, call a cab, and pay a little extra to have the cabbie help me load and transport them to the bookstore, where I could wrap them and ship them home.
I couldnt believe Id so completely lost track of time, but Id had monsters to fight, a police interrogation to deal with, a graveyard to search, my dad to send home, a mobsters brothers death to avert, a new job to learn, and an illegal auction to attend.
It was a wonder I got anything done, really.
And so Sunday afternoon, August 31, the last day of Alinas lease, the day she should have been packed and waiting for a cab to take her to the airport and, finally, home to me and Georgia, and endless summer beach parties on the cusp of fall, found me propping a dripping umbrella at the top of her stairs and wiping my shoes on the rug outside her door. I stood there a few minutes, shuffling aimlessly, taking deep breaths, digging for my compact to remove the speck from my eye that was making them water.
Alinas apartment was above a pub in the Temple Bar District, not far from Trinity, where shed been studying, at least for the first few months that shed been here, when shed still been going to class, before shed begun looking stressed and losing weight and behaving secretively.
I could understand how Id forgotten about cleaning out her apartment, but now that I was standing outside it, I couldnt believe Id forgotten about her journal. Alina was a diary addict. She couldnt live without one. Shed been keeping one ever since she was a little girl. Shed never missed a day. I know; I used to snoop and read them and torment her with secrets shed chosen to confide to some stupid book over me.
During her tenure abroad, shed confided the biggest secrets of her life to a stupid book over me, and I needed that book. Unless someone had beaten me to it and destroyed it, somewhere in Dublin was a record of everything that had happened to her since the day shed set foot in this country. Alina was neurotically detailed. In those pages would be an account of all shed seen and felt, where shed gone and what shed learned, how shed discovered what she and I were, how the Lord Master had tricked her into falling for him, andI hopeda solid lead on the location of the Sinsar Dubh: who had it, who was transporting it, and for what mysterious reason. I know what it is now, shed said in her final, frantic phone message, and I know where The call had ended abruptly.
I was certain Alina had been about to say she knew where it was. I hoped shed written it down in her journal and hidden the journal somewhere she thought I, and only I, would figure out how to find it. Id been finding them all our lives. Surely shed left me a clue for how to find the most important one.
He laughed. You dont want it? The auctioneer was incorrect, Ms. Lane. Its not the Amulet of Cruce. The Unseelie King himself fashioned that trinket; its one of the four Unseelie Hallows.
A few months ago Id never have believed in anything like the Hallows, but a few months ago Id never have believed myself capable of killing, either.
The Hallows were the Faes most sacred, powerful, and obsessively coveted relics. There were four Light or Seelie Hallows: the spear, the sword, the cauldron and the stone, and four Dark or Unseelie Hallows: the amulet, the box, the mirror, and the most terrible of them all, the Sinsar Dubh.
You saw who owned it in the past, Barrons said. Even if you dont want it, can you abide a Dark Hallow out there, loose in the world?
Thats not fair, using my sidhe-seer-ness against me to get me to commit a crime.
Life isnt fair, Ms. Lane. And you happen to be up to your ears in crimes. Get over it.
What if we get caught? I could get arrested. I could end up in jail. I wouldnt survive prison. The drab uniforms, the lack of color, the rut of penitentiary existence would unravel me completely in a matter of weeks.
Id break you out, he said dryly.
Great. Then Id be on the run.
You already are, Ms. Lane. You have been ever since your sister died. He turned and disappeared beyond the connecting doors.
I stared after him. What didnt Barrons know? I knew Id been running since then, but how did he?
After Alina was murdered, Id started to feel invisible. My parents had stopped seeing me. With increasing frequency, Id caught them watching me with a heartbreaking mixture of longing and pain, and Id known it was Alina they were seeing in my face, my hair, my mannerisms. They were hunting for her in me, summoning her ghost.
Id stopped existing. I was no longer Mac.
I was the one whod lived.
He was right. Justice and revenge had been only part of my motivation for leaving Ashford. Id run from my grief, from their pain, from being a shadow of another person, better loved for bitterly lost, and Ireland hadnt been nearly far enough.
The worst of it was that now I was caught up in a deadly marathon, running for my life, desperate to stay one step ahead of all the monsters behind me, and there was no finish line in sight.
NINE
S peaking of the better loved for bitterly lost, I had one day left to clean out her apartment. By midnight all of Alinas belongings had to be out, or the landlord had the right to set them to the curb. Id packed the boxes up weeks ago. I just needed todrag them to the door, call a cab, and pay a little extra to have the cabbie help me load and transport them to the bookstore, where I could wrap them and ship them home.
I couldnt believe Id so completely lost track of time, but Id had monsters to fight, a police interrogation to deal with, a graveyard to search, my dad to send home, a mobsters brothers death to avert, a new job to learn, and an illegal auction to attend.
It was a wonder I got anything done, really.
And so Sunday afternoon, August 31, the last day of Alinas lease, the day she should have been packed and waiting for a cab to take her to the airport and, finally, home to me and Georgia, and endless summer beach parties on the cusp of fall, found me propping a dripping umbrella at the top of her stairs and wiping my shoes on the rug outside her door. I stood there a few minutes, shuffling aimlessly, taking deep breaths, digging for my compact to remove the speck from my eye that was making them water.
Alinas apartment was above a pub in the Temple Bar District, not far from Trinity, where shed been studying, at least for the first few months that shed been here, when shed still been going to class, before shed begun looking stressed and losing weight and behaving secretively.
I could understand how Id forgotten about cleaning out her apartment, but now that I was standing outside it, I couldnt believe Id forgotten about her journal. Alina was a diary addict. She couldnt live without one. Shed been keeping one ever since she was a little girl. Shed never missed a day. I know; I used to snoop and read them and torment her with secrets shed chosen to confide to some stupid book over me.
During her tenure abroad, shed confided the biggest secrets of her life to a stupid book over me, and I needed that book. Unless someone had beaten me to it and destroyed it, somewhere in Dublin was a record of everything that had happened to her since the day shed set foot in this country. Alina was neurotically detailed. In those pages would be an account of all shed seen and felt, where shed gone and what shed learned, how shed discovered what she and I were, how the Lord Master had tricked her into falling for him, andI hopeda solid lead on the location of the Sinsar Dubh: who had it, who was transporting it, and for what mysterious reason. I know what it is now, shed said in her final, frantic phone message, and I know where The call had ended abruptly.
I was certain Alina had been about to say she knew where it was. I hoped shed written it down in her journal and hidden the journal somewhere she thought I, and only I, would figure out how to find it. Id been finding them all our lives. Surely shed left me a clue for how to find the most important one.
