Dreamfever
Page 90
“And the Lamborghini.”
1247 LaRuhe looked exactly the same as it did the first time I saw it, last August.
Six months ago, when I arrived in Dublin, I didn’t believe in anything remotely paranormal, had never seen a Fae in my life, and wouldn’t have believed one existed for anything in the world.
Then, a mere two weeks later, I’d been standing right where I was now, in the middle of a Dark Zone, watching as the Lord Master released a flood of Unseelie into our world through a gate fashioned from a stone dolmen that had been hidden in a warehouse behind this house.
How quickly my world had changed. Two lousy weeks!
The tall, fancy brick house at 1247 LaRuhe, with its ornate limestone façade, was as out of place in the dilapidated industrial neighborhood as I was in the middle of this whole mess.
Delicate wrought iron fenced in a dirt lawn with three skeletal dying trees. The house’s many-mullioned windows were painted black. There was an enormous dirt crater behind the residence. V’lane had not just “squashed” the LM’s dolmen—as I’d asked on the day he gifted me with the illusion of playing volleyball with Alina at the beach—he’d blasted it right out of existence, leaving a gaping hole. I regretted not being more specific and asking him to demolish the house, too. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, about to enter it again and to step into one of those mirrors I’d found so terrifying the first time I’d seen them. Then again, the LM would merely have sent me to some other awful place, I was sure.
I climbed the stairs, pushed open the door, and stepped into the elegant foyer, my boots rapping smartly on obsidian-and-ivory marble floors. I passed beneath a glittering chandelier, beyond ornate dual staircases and plush furnishings.
I knew that upstairs was the Lord Master’s bedroom, with its grand high Louis XIV bed, velvet drapes, sumptuous bathroom, and a fabulous walk-in closet. I knew he wore the finest clothing, the most expensive shoes. I knew he had a taste for the best of everything. Including my sister.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Besides, I wanted to get in and get this over with so I could lay claim to my bookstore. Barrons had flabbergasted me with his offer. I didn’t know what to make of it. Right now he was waiting, back at the bookstore, for my photo. His … associates were supposedly closing in behind me. I entered the long, formal parlor, where a dozen large gilt-edged mirrors hung on the walls, and walked through the room, past furnishings Sotheby’s and Christie’s would have dueled to the death over.
The first mirror on the right was completely black. I wondered if it was shut. It looked dead. I peered at it. The dense blackness suddenly swelled and expanded, and for a moment I was afraid it would explode from its gilt frame, grow like the Blob, and swallow me up. But at the peak of its crest, it thumped loudly, made a squishing sound, and deflated. After a moment it swelled again. Squished. Deflated. I shuddered. It was a giant black heart hanging on the wall, pumping away.
I moved on. The second mirror showed an empty bedroom.
The third was open on a prison cell containing human children. They reached through bars for me with bony, pale arms and imploring eyes. I froze. There were a hundred of them or more crammed into the tiny cell. They were filthy and bruised, with torn clothing.
I had no time for this. I couldn’t afford the emotion. I stepped closer to the mirror and turned my palm toward it to snap a picture so that later, after I’d gotten my parents out, I could make Barrons help me find this place in the Silvers and free them. But just as I was about to press the button, one of the children opened his mouth, snapped at me with vicious teeth no human child had, and made a suggestion to me no human child would, and I backed hastily away, cursing myself for allowing emotion to fog my mind.
Dani had said some of the Unseelie were imprisoning children. With that awful thought in mind, I’d looked into the Silver and seen its denizens colored by my fear and worry, which had airbrushed telling clues. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have noticed the subtle wrongness in the shape of the “children’s” heads, the unnatural ferocity in their tiny faces.
I didn’t spare a glance for the fourth mirror but walked straight to the fifth. At a slight angle from it, so the LM wouldn’t see me doing it, I snapped a picture, sent it to Barrons’ cell phone, then slid my phone into my pocket.
Only then did I let the impact of the scene hit me.
We had a definite destination.
He was in my living room, at my house, in Ashford, Georgia.
The Lord Master had my mom and dad bound to chairs and gagged, with a dozen black-and-crimson-clad guards standing around them.
The Lord Master was in my hometown! What had he done to it? Had he brought Shades with him? Were Unseelie walking the streets even now, feeding off my friends?
The one place I’d tried so hard to keep safe, and I’d failed!
I’d let V’lane take me there, given in to my weakness, stood outside my own home. Was that the fatal act that drew the Lord Master’s attention? Or had he always known and only now decided to make use of it?
In the mirror, across the fifteen or so feet that separated us, my daddy shook his head. His eyes said, Don’t you dare, baby. You stay on that side of the mirror. Don’t you dare trade yourself for us.
How could I not? He was the one who’d taught me that the heart had reasons of which reason knew nothing, the only quote of Pascal’s I remembered. All the reason in the world couldn’t have talked me into turning away now, even if I hadn’t had Barrons as backup. Even without a safety net, this was a wire I’d have walked. I might have found out my biological mother’s name last night. I might have even begun thinking of myself as Mac O’Connor, but Jack and Rainey Lane were my mom and dad, and always would be.
1247 LaRuhe looked exactly the same as it did the first time I saw it, last August.
Six months ago, when I arrived in Dublin, I didn’t believe in anything remotely paranormal, had never seen a Fae in my life, and wouldn’t have believed one existed for anything in the world.
Then, a mere two weeks later, I’d been standing right where I was now, in the middle of a Dark Zone, watching as the Lord Master released a flood of Unseelie into our world through a gate fashioned from a stone dolmen that had been hidden in a warehouse behind this house.
How quickly my world had changed. Two lousy weeks!
The tall, fancy brick house at 1247 LaRuhe, with its ornate limestone façade, was as out of place in the dilapidated industrial neighborhood as I was in the middle of this whole mess.
Delicate wrought iron fenced in a dirt lawn with three skeletal dying trees. The house’s many-mullioned windows were painted black. There was an enormous dirt crater behind the residence. V’lane had not just “squashed” the LM’s dolmen—as I’d asked on the day he gifted me with the illusion of playing volleyball with Alina at the beach—he’d blasted it right out of existence, leaving a gaping hole. I regretted not being more specific and asking him to demolish the house, too. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, about to enter it again and to step into one of those mirrors I’d found so terrifying the first time I’d seen them. Then again, the LM would merely have sent me to some other awful place, I was sure.
I climbed the stairs, pushed open the door, and stepped into the elegant foyer, my boots rapping smartly on obsidian-and-ivory marble floors. I passed beneath a glittering chandelier, beyond ornate dual staircases and plush furnishings.
I knew that upstairs was the Lord Master’s bedroom, with its grand high Louis XIV bed, velvet drapes, sumptuous bathroom, and a fabulous walk-in closet. I knew he wore the finest clothing, the most expensive shoes. I knew he had a taste for the best of everything. Including my sister.
There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Besides, I wanted to get in and get this over with so I could lay claim to my bookstore. Barrons had flabbergasted me with his offer. I didn’t know what to make of it. Right now he was waiting, back at the bookstore, for my photo. His … associates were supposedly closing in behind me. I entered the long, formal parlor, where a dozen large gilt-edged mirrors hung on the walls, and walked through the room, past furnishings Sotheby’s and Christie’s would have dueled to the death over.
The first mirror on the right was completely black. I wondered if it was shut. It looked dead. I peered at it. The dense blackness suddenly swelled and expanded, and for a moment I was afraid it would explode from its gilt frame, grow like the Blob, and swallow me up. But at the peak of its crest, it thumped loudly, made a squishing sound, and deflated. After a moment it swelled again. Squished. Deflated. I shuddered. It was a giant black heart hanging on the wall, pumping away.
I moved on. The second mirror showed an empty bedroom.
The third was open on a prison cell containing human children. They reached through bars for me with bony, pale arms and imploring eyes. I froze. There were a hundred of them or more crammed into the tiny cell. They were filthy and bruised, with torn clothing.
I had no time for this. I couldn’t afford the emotion. I stepped closer to the mirror and turned my palm toward it to snap a picture so that later, after I’d gotten my parents out, I could make Barrons help me find this place in the Silvers and free them. But just as I was about to press the button, one of the children opened his mouth, snapped at me with vicious teeth no human child had, and made a suggestion to me no human child would, and I backed hastily away, cursing myself for allowing emotion to fog my mind.
Dani had said some of the Unseelie were imprisoning children. With that awful thought in mind, I’d looked into the Silver and seen its denizens colored by my fear and worry, which had airbrushed telling clues. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have noticed the subtle wrongness in the shape of the “children’s” heads, the unnatural ferocity in their tiny faces.
I didn’t spare a glance for the fourth mirror but walked straight to the fifth. At a slight angle from it, so the LM wouldn’t see me doing it, I snapped a picture, sent it to Barrons’ cell phone, then slid my phone into my pocket.
Only then did I let the impact of the scene hit me.
We had a definite destination.
He was in my living room, at my house, in Ashford, Georgia.
The Lord Master had my mom and dad bound to chairs and gagged, with a dozen black-and-crimson-clad guards standing around them.
The Lord Master was in my hometown! What had he done to it? Had he brought Shades with him? Were Unseelie walking the streets even now, feeding off my friends?
The one place I’d tried so hard to keep safe, and I’d failed!
I’d let V’lane take me there, given in to my weakness, stood outside my own home. Was that the fatal act that drew the Lord Master’s attention? Or had he always known and only now decided to make use of it?
In the mirror, across the fifteen or so feet that separated us, my daddy shook his head. His eyes said, Don’t you dare, baby. You stay on that side of the mirror. Don’t you dare trade yourself for us.
How could I not? He was the one who’d taught me that the heart had reasons of which reason knew nothing, the only quote of Pascal’s I remembered. All the reason in the world couldn’t have talked me into turning away now, even if I hadn’t had Barrons as backup. Even without a safety net, this was a wire I’d have walked. I might have found out my biological mother’s name last night. I might have even begun thinking of myself as Mac O’Connor, but Jack and Rainey Lane were my mom and dad, and always would be.
