Burned (35 page)

“Kasteo.”

“Hasn’t spoken a word. The woman has only just begun to talk to him.”

I wonder, What woman?

“The black hole at the church.”

“Is minutely larger.”

“The Unseelie Princes.”

“Plot to take the spear from the woman and kill R’jan.”

My hand goes instantly to my spear. This time, however, I’m not assaulted by images of death and destruction. My Book is oddly still.

“Their fortifications.”

“Remain unchanged. They grow lax since meeting with you. Believe you think them leashed. Think they have an edge you don’t know about. Believe you’ve overestimated yourself.”

I expect Ryodan to press that issue but he says only, “R’jan’s location.”

“Three days ago moved into McCabe’s old house and is fortifying it. It appears he plans to stay.”

“Bring me precise details on his defenses. Within the hour. Sean O’Bannion.”

“Spoke last night at Temple Bar. Offered jobs rebuilding the pubs and stores for pay, and made it clear he will accept only currency in exchange for goods.”

“The Unseelie Princesses.”

“So far we have seen only the one. Met recently with Jada. They conspire to trade services.”

“For.”

“Jada offered to kill the Unseelie Princes in exchange for the location of the Crimson Hag. The princess is considering it.”

“Take the princess a message. She will trade services with me, not Jada. I will make it worth her while. The Highlanders.”

I thought he was worried about her! Why the hell did he force me to stick around if he’s willing to meet with her without me present?

“R’jan has provided them with three sifting Seelie to help them search in exchange for protection against his various enemies. Seems they have Fae lore he finds useful.”

I listen, gaping. Ryodan’s network of spies is standing right in front of me in a single entity comprised of thousands and thousands of sentient “bugs.” He literally has the whole freaking
city
bugged
. Papa Roach divests various “roaches,” sends them scurrying beneath doors and into cracks to eavesdrop on everything that happens in Dublin and report back. No wonder Ryodan knows everything all the time!

“The Unseelie King.”

“Does not appear to be in Dublin.”

He’s wrong about that.

“Mac.”

“As if she’s vanished.”

I smirk.

“Dancer.”

“Succeeds in evading us occasionally. Not certain how. He spends a great deal of time in the labs at Trinity performing various experiments. He has taken recent interest in a female musician.”

“In what capacity.”

“We have not seen them fuck.”

“The cavern beneath the abbey.”

“We are no longer able to enter. The doors have been closed. Not so much as a crack left to us.”

Okay, what the heck? We tried and tried to close those doors. Who closed them, how and when?

“Recently you neglected to mention details of significance. If the environ at the abbey or either of the princes’ lairs alter in any way, no matter how small, you will report it to me instantly.”

“Understood.”

Papa Roach waits, and when another demand isn’t forthcoming rustles, “Our servitude is nearly up. If you wish to renew our contract again, it will cost you more. There are others who value our services now.”

“For the first time in millennia you can walk among humans in your natural state, only because the Fae have come out and the world thinks you’re one of them. Piss me off and I’ll drive the Fae from this world, sending you back into the cracks and crevices and trenches of war in which you’ve scrounged for rotting carcasses since the dawn of time. You will renew your contract for the same terms. I have always seen to your needs.”

I blink, stunned. Papa Roach isn’t Fae? What the hell is it, then? What a vast, complicated world Ryodan manages!

Then I have a worse thought: Criminy, have all roaches since time immemorial been spies? Or only certain ones, and that’s why every now and then you find one in your bathtub that just won’t die no matter how much hair spray you coat it with or how hard you try to squish it?

Papa Roach makes a dry, grinding sound deep in its throat that’s creepy as hell.

“Our needs have increased.”

“You enjoy parasitic relationships with humans that were never permitted before.”

“We wish it to be required that all humans host one of us.”

I shudder.

Ryodan picks up the dark blade and toys with it. “We will discuss it at your next contract renewal.”

Papa Roach’s round eyes fix on the black blade, and its beak parts, revealing rows of tiny sharp teeth.

I suddenly think I know what the blade does. Kills whatever Papa Roach is.

“As you wish.”

When Papa Roach leaves, Lor walks in.

Dressed.

I decide to stay a little longer and leave with Lor. Who knows what I might learn next?

“Sit,” Ryodan barks.

Lor moves to the desk and drops down into a chair, shoving his blond hair back with a hand, looking wary. I don’t blame him. Ryodan is unpredictable as hell. They don’t call his way of dealing with things the “gavel effect” for nothing. He’s famed for biding his time, gathering information, processing it, then when he makes a decision, the gavel falls and everyone that pissed him off or offended him or just breathed wrong dies.

“What’s up with Dani?” Lor says.

Ryodan lays the knife on the desk. “Remember Fade telling us he’d found a kid who could move like us and was blowing through the streets, pretending to be a superhero.”

Lor laughs. “Fuck, yeah. We all accused each other of breaking covenant and making her. Skinny redhead with balls the size of mine. I’d go watch her even when it wasn’t my turn just to see what she’d do next. Kid’s better than Netflix.”

“I didn’t give her a second thought until I found a warded house where Rowena did her dirty work. Old woman kept journals Hitler would’ve enjoyed. Book after book of notes about the experiments she performed. Dani wasn’t her only unwilling subject. She recorded every detail. The drugs, the black arts, the manipulation and coercion, how she caged her, dehumanized her, turned a child into an animal, watchdog, fetch-it girl, assassin. Made her grateful for any crumb of kindness. Completely controlled her mother until—” Ryodan breaks off, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

Lor growls, “Until what?”

“Doesn’t matter. Point is, the headmistress was in Dani’s life long before she remembers it. There were a dozen volumes, filled cover to cover. When I finished reading them, I went hunting.”

Ryodan—an avenging angel? Knock me over with a feather.

“What happened? Mac killed the old bitch.”

Now that I’m hearing this, I’m sorry I didn’t kill her sooner. And make it last longer.

“Not Rowena.” Ryodan says. “I went hunting Dani. It was the kid I meant to kill. First.”

There goes the feather.
This
is the man I fight with incessantly.

“That’s fucked up, boss. That’s beyond fucked up.”

I nod vigorously, scowling.

“You went hunting Dani instead of Ro? You don’t kill the victim. You kill the perp.”

“I thought the kid’s life was like that of another child I knew. Grown men can withstand things children can’t. For centuries I took care of Barrons’s son while he searched for a way to end his torment. For an eternity I shared their fucking pain. I couldn’t put my nephew out of his misery, but I could spare the girl a hellish existence.”

I’m slammed by a one-two punch of shocks and my mouth drops open. Nephew? Freaking
nephew
? Is he serious? Ryodan and Barrons are brothers? I study his face intently, looking for similarities. So, when Ryodan called him “brother” earlier, he really meant it. I’d thought it was just guy-bro-talk. Brothers in arms or something like that. I narrow my eyes with a scowl. That makes me and Ryodan almost like … family or something. Ew. The second shock is more palatable: there
was
something of avenging angel in his actions, after all. Mercy from Ryodan. Who’d have thought.

“Why the fuck are you telling me this? And why now? Figured you’d be chewing my ass over Jo not telling me shit you never talk about.”

I was wondering the same thing. Ryodan doesn’t explain himself. Ever.

“I’m telling you because for some unfathomable fucking reason Dani likes you. That means you may prove useful in getting her back. The more you know, the more you can help.”

“Getting her back from where?” Lor demands. “What did the bitch do to her? Where are those journals? I want to see them.”

“It wasn’t just Rowena. And I suggest you leave it.”

“I suggest you go fuck yourself.”

“Once you called me king. Now you lie, fuck my ex, and tell me to fuck myself. Tread lightly, Lor. You may have changed. I have not.”

“You’re talking about my favorite human. I want names. Details. I’ll rip out their hearts. I’ll flay their fucking hides.”

“I already took care of them.”

My hands are fists, nails digging into my palms. I force myself to unclench them so I don’t drip blood on the floor. Other people abused Dani? Who? I want to kill them, too.

“Yet you let the old bitch live after you found out. What the fuck’s with that?”

Something inhuman rattles deep in Ryodan’s chest. “The moment Barrons got the
Sinsar Dubh
, I planned to lock Rowena away in a dark, hellish pit. Keep her alive so that if one day Dani remembered, she could exterminate her. Some crimes are so personal, blood-vengeance belongs only to the one who suffered them. It was the only gift I could give her.”

“Dani doesn’t remember? How’s that possible?”

“She fragmented. Not sure if the old bitch managed to intentionally cause it or if it had already happened to some degree before she came on the scene and she just drove wedges
in the door to lodge it open. When I chained Dani up in the dungeon, it wasn’t because she’d killed Unseelie in my club. I was trying to discover what she recalled of Ro’s experiments. I’d begun to suspect it was little. Skimming her mind was time-consuming and tricky as hell. Kid’s got more locked doors in that megabrain of hers than a high-security prison. Dani remembers some of it but it seems the worst memories were embedded in her other personality’s psyche, or never fully absorbed. It was difficult to read her, even unconscious. There are things she may never remember. If we’re lucky. Our super-girl carries her own kryptonite, right there in her head.”

“You gotta be kidding me. My little darlin’s a split personality?”

“Not so little anymore. And she calls herself Jada now. She’s the survivor, aware of Dani. Jada has ledgers and objectives. Dani has hopes and dreams. Dani doesn’t know about Jada. She has what she thinks of as an ‘Other’ but doesn’t realize it’s a fully formed persona.”

Lor shakes his head. “How the fuck did I miss it?”

How did
I
miss it? I narrowed my eyes, replaying memories, searching for clues.

“They’re hard to tell apart. Nearly identical, but one feels, the other doesn’t. One’s on fire with life, the other’s cold as ice. One butchers the English language. The other obeys it to the letter. Not a flicker of emotion, not an ounce of humanity. Their posture is subtly different. I’ve watched her change four times. She pulled back a fifth time, recently, outside the club while she was trying to figure out what the Hoar Frost King was after, as if she’d dipped in a toe but pulled out quickly. Each time she changed, she was unstoppable. The other has double her talent and abilities. You never saw it, then.”

Lor rubs his jaw. “No. You ordered us to stay back, out of sight. We just thought she was a helluva fighter. Stone cold at times but that’s my little honey. Couldn’t be more proud of her.” He grins but it quickly fades. “You said you went to kill her. Why didn’t you?”

“The memories Dani retains are enough that she should hate the world. Kevlar her heart. Never trust anyone or anything.”

“Sounds like someone I know.”

“I feel.”

“With your dick, maybe.”

“Hands and tongue, too.”

“So, why didn’t you kill her?”

“I found her standing outside Temple Bar, watching street mimes. Eyes brilliant, up on her tiptoes, at the back of the crowd, one hand shoved in a pocket, the other cramming a cheeseburger in her mouth. Bouncing from foot to foot trying to burn off some of that excess energy she always has. There were guts from a recent Unseelie kill in her hair. Never had friends, went to school, celebrated a birthday or Christmas, none of those rites of passage by which humans mark their time and so highly prize.”

I blink. Ryodan is talking about human experiences like he understands them? Like he’s actually given one ounce of thought to a moment of it?

“Alone. Living on the streets. Dirty. Torn jeans. Two black eyes, bruises everywhere. Not one person in the world gave a bloody damn she was alive except to use her. And she knew it.”

“That’s why you didn’t kill her? Because she was young and dirty and a beat-up, unwanted kid? World’s fucking full of ’em.”

“It was what she did next.”

What could make the implacable, imperious Ryodan change his mind? This was a man of steel who made rules and enforced them without question.

“What?”

His face changes, eyes distant on a memory, and he smiles faintly. I realize I might not know him at all. Perhaps no one does.

“She threw her head back and laughed. The kid fucking laughed, eyes shining. Like there was no greater adventure she could possibly be on. Like life was turning out to be the most exhilarating, fantastic roller-coaster ride she could ever have imagined. Fuck the pain. Fuck the misery. In the middle of the hopeless, brutal hell her short existence on this Earth had been, that girl laughed,” he finishes on a near whisper.

That was Dani. Nothing broke her. Ever. Not even if it meant splitting herself into pieces to deal with things, so she
could
laugh and want to go on living.

“You don’t snuff a life like that,” Ryodan says softly. “You honor it. You take measures to protect it, even from itself when necessary, and keep it alive.” The ghost of a smile vanishes and his face is once again a smooth, urbane mask. He clips, brisk and businesslike, “She was reckless, convinced of her own invincibility. She’s no longer reckless and far more powerful. We currently have two primary objectives: stop the cosmic anomalies that threaten to destroy this world, and get Dani back. Not necessarily in that order. I expect your full attention on those two matters. Nothing else. I’ve others addressing my secondary concerns.”