Burned (30 page)

“I’m not Dani. Nor have I ever had a tattoo. But if someone thought to place a mark on me I neither wanted nor approved, I would certainly cut it out. I’m no cattle to be branded.”

I rub the tattoo on the back of my skull and shoot Barrons a pissed look. “Moo,” I say frostily.

“Don’t even start,” he says. “It saved your life repeatedly.”

“It was for your protection,” Ryodan says.

“Precisely,” Barrons clips.

“I don’t need protection nor have I ever,” Jada says. “I protect. I hunt. I am the predator, not the prey. Leave now and I will permit you to go. We will, however, meet again.”

I slant a look up. “Precisely.”

“ ‘Permit,’ ” Ryodan mocks. “Explain your ability to move in hyperspeed.
Dani
.”

“If this ‘Dani’ is to be identified on the basis of a single attribute, one might propose anyone—even you—are this person upon whom you seem so fixated, as you, too, share that talent.”

Jada is suddenly gone and I feel her touching me, patting me down at light speed, looking for the Book, finding nothing. By the time Barrons blurs into motion to blast her away, she is standing near the desk again.

Ryodan told me Dani could move fast enough to give him a run for his money. When she chose. I frown. He also said there were things Dani didn’t know. Exactly what kind of things?

The women on the floor stare up, watching, awaiting the next command from their leader.

“She’s not carrying it,” Jada informs Green Camo.

Green Camo says, “I feel two. One where it should be. The other coming from her.”

“Of this you are certain.”

“Unequivocally.”

“You will leave now,” Jada informs Ryodan and Barrons. “But she,” Jada looks at me, “will remain.”

Was that a flicker in those icy emerald eyes? I narrow my eyes, staring back, searching for some hint of Dani O’Malley. It isn’t there.

“She,” Barrons growls, “is not remaining anywhere but with me.”

“Maybe I want to stay here with them,” I say, not meaning a word of it. “At least the
sidhe
-seers only tried to kill me. Not steal pieces of my mind.”

“I didn’t steal anything. I merely kicked it beneath a rock until you could deal with it. It’s not my bloody fault it took you so long. Had I wished to excise it completely I could have.”

“It’s not your right to excise anything. Temporarily or permanently.”

“Take her below,” Jada orders the women.

“Don’t push me,” I warn.

“You’ll go willingly or you’ll be dragged. I don’t understand how you have become another
Sinsar Dubh
nor do I care. I’ve seen stranger things.”

I shoot a glance at Ryodan and am surprised to see he appears completely unfazed to learn that I am the
Sinsar Dubh
walking, or rather, about to be running.

“It’s unnecessary to understand how an animal became rabid to put it down,” Jada continues. “You’ll be dealt with accordingly.”

“Good luck with that,” I say coolly.

My inner copy is perversely silent. I know why. It’s waiting
to see what I’m willing to do. That’s a big fat nothing. It’s going to have to protect itself, offer me something I can use free of price.

Nice bluff, MacKayla
, it purrs.
Try again. You will never let them lock you up and you know it
.

You
will never let them lock us up
, I retort silently.
I will not kill these people. Give me crimson runes. I’ll only use them on the others, not you. I swear
.

You will kill everyone and destroy everything around you in order to survive. It’s the way you’re wired. I know. I’m the wiring
.

I recite feverishly:

And the Raven never flitting still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door …

“Look around you. You can’t even control one Book. How do you think to control two,” Ryodan says.

Jada/possibly Dani says coolly, “In fishing for information, one might advocate the use of interrogatories.”

Ryodan laughs. “Ah, Dani, there you are. You can run. But you can’t hide.”

“If by that you mean this Dani person to whom you so erroneously and tediously refer also remarked upon your deliberate omission of proper punctuation as a psychological tactic intended to subtly coerce, the logical conclusion is merely that multiple women find your methods transparent,” she delivers in a cool rush.

If Jada wasn’t currently threatening me, I’d like her for that one. I should run but I’m stuck on this train wreck channel, trying to decide if Jada could possibly be Dani, trying to silence
my inner demon o’er whom the lamplight isn’t streaming so well. It’s goading me, scaring me, telling me they’re going to imprison me and no one will care. No one will save me.

Barrons won’t let that happen.

Barrons took your memory
, the
Sinsar Dubh
reminds.
He’s mercenary to the big, badass core. You are not the exception to his self-serving rules. There are no exceptions
.

“You signed a contract I keep in my office,” Ryodan says to Jada. “Drop by, I’ll show it to you.”

“I signed nothing. But if I had, a coerced oath endures only as long as the coercer holds greater power. There’s no power greater than mine in this room.”

Ryodan says softly, “Holy strawberries, Dani, we’re in a jam.”

I look at him like he’s sprouted two heads. Holy strawberries? In a jam? Even Barrons looks stumped.

He continues, “But don’t worry. Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods—you really butchered that one, by the way—I’ve got it in the bag. How about this one: holy borrowing bibliophile, let’s book.”

Jada’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly.

“Ah, but I couldn’t possibly have heard that one, could I. Unless I was there when you didn’t know it. As I’ve always been there. Dani. I know what’s wrong. And we’re going to fix it.”

“My name is Jada and there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m superior in every way.”

Now she sounds like Dani.

“I tasted your blood. I know your fucking soul. I felt you in Chester’s and I felt you tonight.”

“Like you, I have no soul. Like you, there are ledgers to be
balanced. You’re in the red. Unlike you, I don’t sit at a desk and endlessly shove papers around.”

“You talk as if you know me.”

“So I’ve heard. If you tasted someone’s blood against their will, it is likely that person will kill you for it.”

“Bring it on. Dani.”

“Jada.”

“You think this keeps you safe. You think you don’t feel.”

“There are ledgers. Those I kill. Those I reward.”

“There are
legends
. You used to be one.”

She says coolly, “I am legend.”

“Dani’s a legend,” Ryodan says. “Not you.”

“This Dani appears to matter to you.”

“Always.”

“Perhaps you had a funny way of showing it.”

“How would you know.”

“I’ve heard.”

“You’ve heard, my ass. I know you. I saw you when Dani was ten.
Jada
. You looked right back at me. We fought that night. I won her back from you and I will again. I’ve seen you other times as well. You may wear a woman’s body now but it belongs to Dani. You have no right to be here.”

I gape at Ryodan. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Not only did Dani leave and come back older, but she came back someone else? There’s a word for it … I rummage for what remains scattered around my brain from the entry-level psychology course I took … aha! Dissociative disorder. Is he saying she’s fragmented? And he
knew
this? No way. I would have seen it. Wouldn’t I?

Jada trains her emerald gaze on me. “She is who doesn’t belong here. Faulty logic imprisons one
Sinsar Dubh
while the
other is permitted to roam Dublin. It is what it is regardless of the vessel.”

“Oh, you should so talk,” I snap. “Dani.”

“I. Am. Jada.”

“Whoever the fuck you are,” Barrons growls, “you’re not touching Mac.”

“Well, you’re not touching me either,” I growl up at him.

“Deal with it, Ms. Lane.”

“Deal with it?” I say incredulously. “Ms. Lane, my bloody ass. You called me Mac that very night, that first night we met and screwed our brains out, and what do I get ever since? I’ll tell you what I—”

“During. You changed. You became the woman after. A stiff blindered horse that spooked on new terrain. I expected better—”

“Oh, and because your
expectations
weren’t met—”

“They were bloody well exceeded, which is why the after—”

“You think you have the right to just strip the entire experience from one party to the—”

“—was such a grand disappointment, and if—”

“—event as if they—”

“It wasn’t an ‘event.’ It was a motherfucking revelation.”

“—don’t even have the right to remember whatever the hell mistake they—”

“Which is precisely why I did it. You thought it was a mistake, then you—”

“—chose to make, just like they might
choose
to keep the memory, because after all, they were there and it
was
theirs and possession
is
nine-tenths of—”

“—started getting all tight-lipped and pissy and I knew if—”

“—law.”

“I
am
the law.”

“Apparently.
Heil
.” I click my heels together and salute.

“Can’t you two find a better fucking moment for this,” Ryodan says tightly.

“Really,” Green Camo agrees.

“Stay the hell out of my business,” I snap at both of them.

“Don’t decorate the goddamn room with it,” Ryodan fires back.

“As if you’re not doing some decorating of your own. You’re just pissed that my argument with Barrons derailed your argument with Dani.”

“Mac can decorate anything she bloody well pleases. With anything she pleases,” Barrons says tightly. “Her business, your blood, half your fucking face, who gives a fuck.”

“Nice defense,
Jericho
. Not. He can’t push me around, but you can?” Frosted sugar coats my words.

“Merely trying to keep us on point,” Ryodan clips.

I say, “I’m dead on point. The point is—”

“That I am not Dani,” Jada interrupts coolly. “The point is the three of you are dysfunctional, volatile, inefficient, and in my way. Not to mention—” She pierces me with that emerald ice stare.“—a grave threat to our world.”

“Oh,
I’m
dysfunctional, Ms. Alter Ego? Really? Pot meet kettle.” The second I say it, I wish I hadn’t. If Jada really is Dani, her current state is my fault.

Someone enters the foyer behind me, boots tapping smartly on the floor, and Jada stares past me at the new arrival.

“I couldn’t find Clare and Sorcha,” the woman behind me says.

“No matter. You will place them as I instructed you. Quickly.”

The look on Jada’s face chills me. It tells me she believes she’s won.

Place them? What “them”? I frenziedly sort and discard possibilities, racing to a terrifying conclusion: if Jada actually
is
Dani, she knows how to immobilize the
Sinsar Dubh
—with the four stones we placed on the slab in the cavern. The same stones Kat retrieved from the cavern and tucked away for safekeeping. Once the
Sinsar Dubh
was no longer on the slab, they were unnecessary and we worried about leaving coveted objects of power lying around the cavern since we couldn’t close the doors. Jada’s been in residence long enough to have found them.

I’m always blocking lately, with the exception of my constant antenna for the Unseelie Princess. Now, I cautiously open my
sidhe
-seer senses.

And gasp.

I feel them! The pulsing blue-black binding presence of the stones is here in the room with me!

Lock you up, lock you down, make you sleep beneath the ground
, the
Sinsar Dubh
coos.

Make you sleep, too
, I retort silently.

“She brought the stones,” I say to Barrons. “Stop her!”

He’s on it before I finish speaking. There’s a blur of motion as he lunges for the woman Jada called Brigitte, but Jada blocks him and they collide with such force that they both go flying backward to opposite sides of the room and crash against the walls.

Then Barrons and Ryodan are rushing Brigitte, who’s already placed one of the stones in the far corner, but they slam into Jada, who manages to get there a split second before them. She grabs Brigitte and freeze-frames her to place the next stone but
collides with Barrons and one of the stones goes flying, smashes into a painting on the wall and drops to the floor. The painting crashes down on top of it. I lunge for it, determined to get at least one of the damn things so they can’t box me in, but the others beat me to it by a mile.

I leap for it again and get slammed into a wall by a blur. I pursue the stone obsessively for a good thirty seconds but all I get for my effort is a bloody nose and three broken fingers.

I finally back off and watch the three blurs whiz around the room as they fight a battle I can’t even track, much less get in on, feeling bizarrely invisible.

Jada’s women are doing the same thing, with the exception of Brigitte, who’s being used as a hockey puck by three players who aim for and block goals at the speed of light. She’s bloodier every time she surfaces for a split second before vanishing again.

I sidle toward the door. If I’m not in the room, they can’t trap me.

Every
sidhe
-seer in the room moves to stop me. Their expressions are icy, easy to decipher.

I am the target.

I am the enemy.

Green Camo gives me a condemning look that makes me want to throttle the bitch. I’ve subdued the Book this long, and done a bang-up job with one small exception. I’d like to see how well she would handle being possessed by the Unseelie King’s darkest demons.

Draw your spear
, the
Sinsar Dubh
purrs.
Destroy them. You know you can
.