Fever 4 - DreamFever (19 page)

  I wanted to know what Rowena knew, so I watched her carefully when I told Kat,
"Humans have found a way to open their eyes and see the Fae as we do."

   The crowd gasped. When Rowena's expression didn't change at all, I knew it was
just one more weapon, like the sword and the spear, that she'd withheld from the
women. "You knew!" I exploded. "You knew all along! And in the past two months,
you never once considered using it to help defend our planet!"

  "`Tis old lore, and forbidden," Rowena hissed. "You've no idea of the
consequences!"

  "I know what the consequences are if we don't do it! We'll lose our planet, piece by
piece! Two billion are already gone, Rowena. How many more will you let die? How
many lives do you consider expendable? It was our duty to protect the Sinsar Dubh! We
didn't. Now it's our duty to fix this mess!"

   "You knew there was a way to make the average human safer and you didn't tell us?"
Kat stared at Rowena. "All those families around the countryside that we've promised
to protect and have lost, we could have taught to protect themselves?" Her eyes filled
with tears. "For the love of Mary, Rowena, I lost my Sean and Jamie! I could have
made them able to see the Unseelie? They could have defended themselves?"

  "What she's not telling you," Rowena spat, "is that in order to see them, they must
eat the living, immortal flesh of the dark Fae."

  Sidhe-seers gasped; some made choking noises. I understood that perfectly. Even
when I'd been battling a growing addiction to it, it had still been revolting.

    "What she's not telling you," Rowena continued, "is that eating it has unspeakable
consequences! It's addictive, and once a human begins they can't stop. It changes the
person. What would you expect cannibalizing the flesh of our dark enemy to do? It
corrupts their very soul! Och, and is that the sentence you would have inflicted upon
your innocent brothers, Katrina? Would you have seen them damned rather than dead?"
Her voice rose, strong with fury. "What she's not telling you, and should be if we're
discussing dark secrets being withheld, is that it was she who taught these humans to eat
it, and she--"

   "Who has eaten it herself," I announced, before she could. "And you can kick the
addiction. I did." Score one for Rowena. As I suspected, she'd read my journal. I tried
to rapidly mentally review it, to anticipate where else she might try to pull the rug out
from under me. I'd poured my heart and soul into those pages. "Rowena says it changes
you. I'm not so sure about that. Judge for yourself whether I'm `damned,'" I told them.
"Judge for yourself whether the humans in Dublin who are fighting our war for us are
truly any different for having done what was necessary to survive. Or continue blindly
taking Rowena's word for things. If I'm so damned, why am I the only sidhe-seer out
there on the front lines doing something?"

   "Hey." Dani was suddenly on the hood of the bus, beside me. "What am I? Chopped
liver?"

  "Surf and turf," I assured her. "Top-shelf whiskey."

  She grinned.

  "Because she wants the Book herself," Rowena accused, "that's why she's out there.
So she can take power for herself."

  "Oh, balls," I scoffed. "If that were true, I would have allied myself with the Unseelie
long ago. The LM would never have had to turn me Pri-ya."

  "How do we know you're not still?" Rowena demanded.

  "I can walk," I said dryly. "Pri-ya," I told the women, "is a terrible thing to be. But
not only did I recover from it, I've acquired some kind of immunity to sexual glamour.
V'lane no longer has any death-by-sex Fae impact on me now."

  That got their attention.

  "Look, you can face what's out there and get stronger for it, or you can stay behind
these walls and take orders until our planet is beyond saving. You want to talk about
damned? Our entire race is, if we don't do something about it!"

   The women exploded again and turned to one another, talking frantically. I'd
definitely stirred them up. I'd given them more information in a few short minutes than
their Grand Mistress had in years. I'd made them feel more empowered than she'd ever
let them feel.

  Rowena gave me an icy look and turned to study her prot�g�es.

  She made no move to silence them, nor did I. I preferred they work themselves up
even more. Then I would cut in and tell them my plans. Form troops and assign tasks.

  Rowena was looking at me again.

  I suspected she wanted to address the crowd, but I wasn't about to help her silence
them. I would blow the horn in a few minutes and give my closing, rousing mutiny
speech.

  What happened next happened so quickly that I couldn't stop it.

  Rowena slipped a whistle from the pocket of her robes and blew on it sharply, three
shrill bursts. The crowd instantly fell silent, obviously trained to the sound. Then she
was speaking, and it was too late for me to stop her without seeming argumentative and
petty. I would have to let her have her say, then turn it against her when she was done.

  "I've known most of you since birth," she said. "I've visited your homes, watched
you grow, and brought you here when it was time. I know your families. I have been a
part of your everyday struggles and triumphs. Each of you is as my own child."

   She favored them with a gentle smile, the very portrait of a loving parent. I didn't
trust it one bit. I wondered if I was the only one who saw the disturbing image of a
cobra, smiling with human teeth.

   "If I have erred, it is not that I have not loved you enough but that I have loved you
too much. I have wanted, as any mother would, to keep her children safe. But my love
has prevented my daughters from becoming the women they could and should be. It has
prevented me from leading you as I must. I have erred but will no longer. We are sidhe-
seers. We are humanity's defenders. We were born and bred to battle the Fae, and from
this day forward, that is what we will do." All softness in her demeanor abruptly melted
away. She snapped straight, suddenly seemed a foot taller, and began firing orders.

  "Kat," she barked, "I want you to handpick a group and put them to work
determining how we can use iron as a weapon. Catch a few Unseelie. Test it on them.
Devote a second group to locating the most common sources of it and collect it, with all
haste." She waved a hand at the bus behind her. "We have guns enough for all of us!"
she shouted triumphantly, making it sound as if the triumph were hers. "I want iron
bullets to go around!"

  I gritted my teeth.

  "Learn how to make them," she ordered. "Set up a smithy in the old ways if we must.
Select a third group to scout Dublin, and, Katrina--you have proved yourself again and
again a worthy and valuable leader--I want you in charge of this group yourself."

  Kat glowed.

  I seethed.

  At this point, I knew the wisest thing for me to do was stay silent. But it wasn't easy.
There were a dozen biting comments I wanted to make. Reminders that I'd brought the
guns, I'd found out about iron, I'd been the one advocating battle when their precious
GM had been blindly and insistently against it. But I could read the mood of this crowd,
and at the very root of it was an adage as old as time: Better the devil you know than the
one you don't know. Especially if the devil you do know is about to give you what you
wanted anyway.

  I couldn't compete with that. I was the devil they'd known for only a few short
months. And my press hadn't exactly been good. Not with Rowena in charge of the
media.

   The Grand Mistress's voice soared in volume. "I want to know the numbers of Fae in
the city, so we can begin planning how and when to attack." She raised her small hand
into the air and made a fist. "Today is the dawn of a new order! No longer will I allow
my love for you to blind me as it has in the past. I will lead my daughters proudly into
battle, and we will do what we were born to do. We will remind the Fae that we drove
them from our world and forced them to hide for six thousand years. We will remind
them why they feared us, and we will drive them from it again! Sidhe-seers, to war!"

  The crowd exploded into cheers.

  Beside me, Dani said, "What the feck? How'd she do that, Mac?"

  I looked at Rowena and she looked at me and we had an entire conversation in a
glance.

 Child, did you really believe you could take them from me? her fierce blue glare
mocked.

  Touch�. Watch your back, old woman.

  She'd won, for now.

   But it wasn't a complete loss. Although Rowena was taking the credit for it, at least
the sidhe-seers were getting to do everything I'd wanted them to do, short of exploring
IFPs, and that could wait. I might have lost the war, but I'd won a few of the battles. My
first attempted coup had failed. My next one wouldn't.

   "Politics, Dani," I muttered. "We've got a lot to learn." Nothing had been easy for me
in Dublin. I no longer expected it to be, nor would I waste time complaining when it
could be put to better use moving forward.

  "Uh-huh," she agreed glumly. "But I still ain't giving her back my sword."

  Rowena turned her cobra smile our way. "Kat, it's long past time I bestowed this
honor upon you," she said. "You will lead us to victory carrying the Sword of Light.
Dani, give it to Katrina. The sword is now hers."

Five seconds later, I was on my hands and knees in the middle of a rocky field,
vomiting the remains of the protein bar I'd eaten an hour ago. I'd never been on such a
bumpy, horrible ride in my life. "What was that?" I groaned, wiping my mouth with the
back of my hand. "Hyperspeed?"

  "I said," Dani snapped, "I ain't giving her back my sword!"

   I looked up at her standing over me--skinny elbows poking out, fists at her waist,
fiery red hair flaming in the sunlight--and nearly laughed. The kid was a total wild
card. But our disappearing act was going to have consequences. Left to my own
devices, I would have stood my ground longer. I would have offered cooperation,
protection, and tried to sell them on it, same way I'd tried with Jayne. If that had failed,
I'd have had Dani whiz us out of there. But I would have tried first, and the trying
would have spoken volumes to some of the girls. It was too late now. I had no doubt
Rowena was exploiting the situation for all it was worth. Making us out to be complete
traitors. Turning our backs on the entire order.

   I rubbed my eyes. I was too tired to think. I needed rest. Then I would figure out how
to salvage the things I needed salvaged. It wasn't that I minded being an outcast. I'd
been feeling that way ever since I'd arrived in Dublin and had gotten downright
comfortable with it. Alone, I had a lot less to worry about. But to accomplish my goals,
I needed at least some of the sidhe-seers on my side.

  "Did ya see her face?"

  "How could I? All I saw was a big blue blur of bus as we whizzed past it, then
nothing."

   "Was she ever wicked pissed! She really didn't think I'd do it," Dani said
wonderingly, and I could tell she herself hadn't been entirely sure she'd do it. Until she
did, there was a chance Rowena might forgive her. Blame it all on me and take her back
into the fold. There wasn't anymore. Dani was persona non grata. There was no going
back from this one.

   "It was goin' good, wasn't it, Mac? I mean, I wasn't just imagining it? The girls were
listening to us and liking us?"

  I nodded.

  "Man, it went bad really fast."

  I nodded again.

  We looked at each other for a long moment.

  "Dude," she said finally, "I think we're outcasts."

  "Dude," I agreed, with a sigh.
 

A    t ten-thirty that night, I was back in Dublin and headed for 939 R�vemal Street.

  I was pretty sure I'd found Chester's.

   There were three listings in the phone book under that name: a barbershop, a men's
clothing store, and a nightclub.

   I'd opted for the nightclub because the advertisement had suited the voice of the man
I'd spoken to on the phone. Upscale, classy, with a touch of the risqu�, as if anything
one might want was available for purchase there, if one had the right currency, walked
the walk, and talked the talk.

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a passing window and smiled. I was walking
the walk. My hair was jet and a little wild. I'd moussed it and let it do what it wanted.
My lipstick was red and glossy and matched my nails. I was wearing black leather from
head to toe, not for the statement it made but for the practicality of it. With the right
kind of leather, you can sponge off just about anything. Fabric isn't blood-repellent.

  There was energy in my step and fire in my eyes. I'd finally gotten some much
needed sleep. Dani and I had holed up in a deserted house on the outskirts of Dublin
until late afternoon, then headed out for food and supplies. It had felt strangely intimate
and uncomfortable, occupying the residence of someone who'd either died in the riots
on Halloween or fled Dublin, but we needed somewhere to stay and it seemed pointless
not to take advantage of one of the tens of thousands of unoccupied homes.

  Since both my MacHalos were back at the abbey, our first stop had been a sporting-
goods store, where we built two new ones and stuffed backpacks with flashlights and
batteries. Although the Shades seemed to have left Dublin, I wasn't taking any chances.

  Then we'd gone to the mall, where I dyed my hair in a public restroom, washed up,
and changed. Dani had headed off for an electronics store, where I later found her
sprawled in front of a computer, next to a small mountain of battery packs and a pile of
DVDs. I toed a few of the DVDs out. My eyes widened. I glanced quickly at the
computer screen. Fortunately for her, it wasn't one of them. "Watch any of that porn," I
growled, "and I'm going to kick your petunia."