Burned (51 page)

HUMANS

J
ACK AND
R
AINEY
L
ANE
: Mac and Alina’s parents. In
Darkfever
Mac discovers they are not her biological parents. She and Alina were adopted and part of the custody agreement was a promise that the girls never be allowed to return to the country of their birth. Jack is a strapping, handsome man, an attorney with a strong sense of ethics. Rainey is a compassionate blond woman who was unable to bear children of her own. She’s a steel magnolia, strong yet fragile.

D
ANCER
: Six feet four inches, he has dark, wavy hair with gorgeous aqua eyes. Very mature, intellectually gifted seventeen-year-old who was home-schooled, and graduated from college with a double major in physics and engineering by sixteen. Fascinated by physics, he speaks multiple languages and traveled extensively with wealthy, humanitarian parents. His father is an ambassador, his mother a doctor. He was alone in Dublin, considering Trinity College for grad school, when the walls between realms fell and has survived by his wits. He is an inventor and can often think circles around most people, including Dani. He seems unruffled by Barrons, Ryodan, and his men. Dani met Dancer near the end of
Shadowfever
(when he gave her a bracelet, first gift from a guy she liked) and they’ve been inseparable since. In
Iced
, Dancer made it clear he has feelings for her. Dancer is the only person Dani feels like she can be herself with: young, a little geeky, a lot brainy. Both he and Dani move around frequently, never staying in one place too long. They have many hideouts around the city, above- and belowground. Dani worries about him because he doesn’t have any superpowers.

F
IONA
A
SHETON
: Beautiful woman in her early fifties who originally managed Barrons Books & Baubles, and was deeply in love
(unrequited) with Jericho Barrons. Fiendishly jealous of Barrons’s interest in MacKayla, she tried to kill Mac by letting Shades (lethal Unseelie) into the bookstore while she was sleeping. Barrons exiled her for it, and Fiona then became Derek O’Bannion’s lover, began eating Unseelie, and was briefly possessed by the
Sinsar Dubh
, which skinned her from head to toe but left her alive. Due to the amount of Fae flesh Fiona had eaten, she could no longer be killed by human means and was trapped in a mutilated body, in constant agony. Eventually she begged Mac to use her Fae spear and end her suffering. Fiona died in the White Mansion when she flung herself through the ancient Silver used as a doorway between the concubine and the Unseelie King’s bedchambers—which kills anyone who enters it except for the king and concubine—but not before trying to kill Mac one last time.

R
OARK
(
R
OCKY
)
O’B
ANNION
: Black Irish Catholic mobster with Saudi ancestry and the compact, powerful body of a heavyweight champion boxer, which he is. Born in a Dublin controlled by two feuding Irish crime families—the Hallorans and O’Kierneys—Roark O’Bannion fought his way to the top in the ring, but it wasn’t enough for the ambitious champ; he hungered for more. When Rocky was twenty-eight years old, the Halloran and O’Kierney linchpins were killed along with every son, grandson, and pregnant woman in their families. Twenty-seven people died that night, gunned down, blown up, poisoned, knifed, or strangled. Dublin had never seen anything like it. A group of flawlessly choreographed killers had closed in all over the city, at restaurants, homes, hotels, and clubs, and struck simultaneously. The next day, when a suddenly wealthy Rocky O’Bannion, champion boxer and many a young boy’s idol, retired from the ring to take control of various businesses in and around Dublin previously run by the Hallorans and O’Kierneys, he was hailed by the working-class poor as a hero, despite the fresh and obvious blood on his hands and the rough pack of ex-boxers and thugs he brought with him. O’Bannion is devoutly religious and collects sacred artifacts. Mac steals the Spear of Destiny (aka the Spear
of Longinus that pierced Christ’s side) from him to protect herself as it is one of two weapons that can kill the immortal Fae. Later, in
Darkfever
, Barrons kills O’Bannion to keep Mac safe from him and his henchmen, but it’s not the end of the O’Bannions gunning for Mac.

D
EREK
O’B
ANNION
: Rocky’s younger brother, he begins snooping around Mac and the bookstore after Rocky is murdered, as his brother’s car was found behind the bookstore. He becomes lovers with Fiona Asheton, is ultimately possessed by the
Sinsar Dubh
, and attacks Mac. He is killed by the
Sinsar Dubh
in
Bloodfever
.

S
EAN
O’B
ANNION
: Rocky O’Bannion’s cousin and Katarina McLaughlin’s childhood sweetheart and adult lover. After the Hallorans and the O’Kierneys were killed by Rocky, the O’Bannions controlled the city for nearly a decade until the McLaughlins began usurping their turf. Both Sean and Kat despised the family business and refused to participate. The two crime families sought to unite the business with a marriage between them, but when nearly all the McLaughlins were killed after the walls crashed, Katarina and Sean finally felt free. But chaos reigns in a world where humans struggle to obtain simple necessities, and Sean suddenly finds himself part of the black market, competing with Ryodan and the Fae to fairly distribute the supply of food and valuable resources. Kat is devastated to see him doing the wrong things for all the right reasons and it puts a serious strain on their relationship.

M
ALLUCÉ
: (aka John Johnstone, Jr.) Geeky son of billionaire parents until he kills them for their fortune and reinvents himself as the steampunk vampire Mallucé. In
Darkfever
, he teams up with Darroc, the Lord Master, who teaches him to eat Unseelie flesh for the strength and enormous sexual stamina and appetite it confers. He’s wounded in battle by Mac’s Spear of Destiny. Because he’d been eating Unseelie, the lethal prick of the Fae blade caused parts of him to die, killing flesh but not his body, trapping him in a half-rotted, agonizing
shell of a body. He appears to her as the Grim Reaper in
Bloodfever
, and after psychologically tormenting her, abducts Mac and holds her prisoner in a hellish grotto beneath the Burren in Ireland, where he tortures and nearly kills her. Barrons kills him, and saves Mac by feeding her Unseelie flesh, changing her forever.

T
HE
G
UARDIANS
: Originally Dublin’s police force, the Gardai, under the command of Inspector Jayne, eat Unseelie to obtain heightened strength, speed, and acuity, and hunt all Fae. They’ve learned to use iron bullets to temporarily wound them and iron bars to contain them. Most Fae can be significantly weakened by iron. If applied properly, iron can prevent a Fae from being able to sift.

I
NSPECTOR
O’D
UFFY
: Original Garda on Alina Lane’s murder case, brother-in-law to Inspector Jayne. He was killed in
Bloodfever
, his throat slit while holding a scrap of paper with Mac’s name and address on it. It is currently unknown who killed him.

I
NSPECTOR
J
AYNE
: Garda who takes over Alina Lane’s murder case after Inspector O’Duffy, Jayne’s brother-in-law, is killed. Big, rawboned Irishman who looks like Liam Neeson, he tails Mac and generally complicates her life. Initially, he’s more interested in what happened to O’Duffy than solving Alina’s case, but Mac treats him to Unseelie-laced tea and opens his eyes to what’s going on in their city and world. Jayne joins the fight against the Fae and transforms the Gardai into the New Guardians, a ruthless army of ex-policemen who eat Unseelie, battle Fae, and protect humans. Jayne is a good man in a hard position. Although he and his men can capture the Fae, they can’t kill them without either Mac or Dani’s weapon. In
Iced
, Jayne earns Dani’s eternal wrath by stealing her sword when she’s too injured to fight back.

CHARACTERS OF UNKNOWN GENUS

K’V
RUCK
: Allegedly the most ancient of the Unseelie caste of Royal Hunters—although it is not substantiated that he is truly Unseelie. He was once the Unseelie King’s favored companion and “steed” as he traveled worlds on its great black wings. Enormous as a small skyscraper, vaguely resembling a dragon, it’s coal black, leathery, and icy, with eyes like huge orange furnaces. When it flies, it churns black frosty flakes in the air and liquid ice streams in its wake. It has a special affinity for Mac and appears to her at odd moments as it senses the king inside her (via the
Sinsar Dubh
). When K’Vruck kills, it is the ultimate death, extinguishing life so completely it’s forever erased from the karmic cycle. To be K’Vrucked is to be removed completely from existence as if you’ve never been, no trace, no residue. Mac used K’Vruck to free Barrons’s son. K’vruck is the only being (known so far) capable of killing the immortal Nine.

S
WEEPER
: A collector of powerful, broken things, it resembles a giant trash heap of metal cogs and gears. First encountered by the Unseelie King shortly after he lost his concubine and descended into a period of madness and grief. The Sweeper traveled with him for a time, studying him, or perhaps seeing if he, too, could be collected and tinkered with. According to the Unseelie King, it fancies itself a god.

ZEW
S
: Acronym for Zombie Eating Wraiths, so named by Dani O’Malley. Hulking anorexic vulturelike creatures, they are five to six feet tall, with gaunt, hunched bodies and heavily cowled faces. They appear to be wearing cobwebbed, black robes but it is actually their skin. They have exposed bone at their sleeves and pale smudges inside their cowls. In
Burned
, Mac catches a glimpse of metal where their faces should be but doesn’t get a good look.

      PLACES      

A
RLINGTON
A
BBEY
: An ancient stone abbey located nearly two hours from Dublin, situated on a thousand acres of prime farmland. The mystically fortified abbey houses an Order of
Sidhe
-Seers gathered from six bloodlines of Irish women born with the ability to see the Fae and their realms. The abbey was built in the seventh century and is completely self-sustaining with multiple artesian wells, livestock, and gardens. According to historical records, the land occupied by the abbey was previously a church, and before that a sacred circle of stones, and long before that a fairy shian, or mound.
Sidhe-
seer legend suggests the Unseelie King himself spawned their order, mixing his blood with that of six Irish houses, to create protectors for the one thing he should never have made—the
Sinsar Dubh
.

A
SHFORD
, G
EORGIA
: MacKayla Lane’s small, rural hometown in the Deep South.

B
ARRONS
B
OOKS
& B
AUBLES
: Located on the outskirts of Temple Bar in Dublin, Barrons Books & Baubles is an Old World bookstore previously owned by Jericho Barrons, now owned by MacKayla Lane. It shares design characteristics with the Lello Bookstore in Portugal, but is somewhat more elegant and refined. Due to the location of a large Sifting Silver in the study on the first floor, the bookstore’s dimensions can shift from as few as four stories to as many as seven, and rooms on the upper levels often reposition themselves. It is where MacKayla Lane calls home.

B
ARRONS
’
S
G
ARAGE
: Located directly behind Barrons Books & Baubles, it houses a collection of expensive cars. Far beneath it, accessible only through the heavily warded Silver in the bookstore, are Jericho Barrons’s living quarters.

T
HE
B
RICKYARD
: The bar in Ashford, Georgia, where MacKayla Lane bartended before she came to Dublin.

C
HESTER
’
S
N
IGHTCLUB
: An enormous underground club of chrome and glass located at 939 Rêvemal Street. Chester’s is owned by one of Barrons’s associates, Ryodan. The upper levels are open to the public, the lower levels contain the Nine’s residences and their private clubs. Since the walls between man and Fae fell, Chester’s has become the hot spot in Dublin for Fae and humans to mingle.

D
ARK
Z
ONE
: An area that has been taken over by the Shades, deadly Unseelie that suck the life from humans, leaving only a husk of skin and indigestible matter such as eyeglasses, wallets, and medical implants. During the day it looks like an everyday abandoned, run-down neighborhood. Once night falls it’s a death trap. The largest known Dark Zone in Dublin is adjacent to Barrons Books & Baubles and is nearly twenty by thirteen city blocks.

F
AERY
: A general term encompassing the many realms of the Fae.

H
ALL OF
A
LL
D
AYS
: The “airport terminal” of the Sifting Silvers where one can choose which mirror to enter to travel to other worlds and realms. Fashioned of gold from floor to ceiling, the endless corridor is lined with billions of mirrors that are portals to alternate universes and times, and exudes a chilling spatial-temporal distortion that makes a visitor feel utterly inconsequential. Time isn’t linear in the hall, it’s malleable and slippery, and a visitor can get permanently lost in memories that never were and dreams of futures that will never be. One moment you feel terrifyingly alone, the next as if an endless chain of paper-doll versions of oneself is unfolding sideways, holding cutout construction-paper hands with thousands of different feet in thousands of different worlds, all at the same time. Compounding the many dangers of the hall, when the Silvers were corrupted by Cruce’s curse (intended to bar entry to the Unseelie King), the mirrors were altered and now the image they present is no longer a guarantee of what’s on the other side. A lush rain forest may lead to a parched, cracked desert, a tropical oasis to a world of ice, but one can’t count on total opposites either.