“Sounds like you have someone in mind. I’m so not in the mood, Mac. He’d only pale in comparison.”
“Maybe not.” I lean across the counter and speak softly into her ear.
When she leaves, wearing a thoughtful expression, I ponder the seed I planted, hoping it yields healthy fruit. I think it will. I think it’s exactly what she needs to buffer her heart, cleanse her body from craving the touch of a man we both know she can never hold.
Besides, there’s a possibility it will piss Ryodan off, in a territorial sort of way, which will still further ease the sting to Jo’s wounded heart.
Heaven knows the man I pointed her at won’t mind.
I smile and line a few choice bottles up on my counter, and try my hand at pouring high and flashy. Patrons love a good show.
When I glance up to greet a couple of new customers, I inhale sharply and stare right past them, staggered by the vision I see, unable to process my abrupt change in fortune. Talk about tall, dark, and utterly unexpected.
Time grinds to a halt and everything goes still around me, the thronging patrons receding beyond the edges of my periphery, leaving only one: the Dreamy-Eyed Guy, wearing an amused expression, is standing three clubs away, watching me toss my bottles flamboyantly, and I recall a night I watched him do the same.
He inclines his head, dark eyes starry. Nice show.
The Unseelie King is back in town, wearing his old skins again!
We’ve been scouring ancient books and scrolls for months, trying to find the spell to summon him, and the surgeon I need just arrived out of the blue! The one with butterfly fingers who creates and destroys worlds and can surely remove this great staining darkness inside me!
I didn’t think he’d ever come back willingly, off with his concubine somewhere, rekindling her memory and reclaiming her love.
Elation floods me. I can get my life back, and while I’m at it, get rid of my smelly Unseelie, too. Approach the queen about the Song of — I swiftly terminate that thought and repadlock it.
I vault the counter, sending glasses flying and shoving startled patrons off their stools, but by the time my feet hit the floor, the Dreamy-Eyed Guy is gone.
18
“When life pushes me I push harder. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”
The next few days pass in the closest thing to hopeful peace I’ve known in months. Even surrounded by the debauchery of Chester’s, my inner book remains silent. I don’t know if seeing the king made it shut up for some reason, if familiar routine makes me that much stronger, or if it thinks it has me trapped in the cesspool of life here at Chester’s and my capitulation is only a matter of time.
I tend bar amid my Unseelie coven, watch for the various forms of the king, keep an eye out for princesses, and await Barrons’s return, hopefully with Dani in tow. I can’t wait to tell him the king is back and we can quit losing time in the Silvers.
When the ruler of the dark Fae took an interest in Dublin before, his various incarnations often came to the club. The Unseelie King is too vast to walk among humans in a single human body. He has to divide himself into multiple skins, and when he does, not everyone sees him the same way. Where I saw a young, hot guy with gorgeous eyes, Barrons saw a frail old man, Christian saw a Morgan Freeman look-alike, Jo saw a pretty French woman. It’s only a matter of time before we see one of them again, or I hear of a McCabe sighting or run into the old news vendor on the streets. I’ll be faster next time because I won’t be struck dumb and motionless by his unexpected return.
The thought of living divided like this, tempted every day by power I can’t use, tortured by thoughts of what my inner monster might be able to make me do if I’m not vigilant one hundred percent of the time, is more than I can stand.
Can’t eviscerate essential self, the king once said. But this copy of the Book isn’t my essential self. It’s his.
And I’ll be damned if I’m keeping it.
At least now I can stop considering a risky plan B. The king came to Dublin once before because his book escaped. It seems logical if Cruce escaped, the king would return and re-ice him and I could demand he free me. Unfortunately I’m not entirely convinced the king would (a) return or (b) give a shit about any of it. His priorities spring of stars and infinity, not the tiny moments that span a human life. And there we’d be, with Cruce loose.
Dicey plan.
Humming beneath my breath, I finish polishing my bar. It’s eleven in the morning and I’ve just opened my subclub for business. The glasses sparkle, so clean they squeak. Ice is stocked, glasses frosted, condiments fresh, liquor replenished.
I’m bent over, reaching in the fridge to pull out lemons and start making my twists, when I hear a deep baritone say, “Laprhoaig. No ice.”
The accent is Scottish, the voice one I’ve heard before. I glance up into eyes strikingly similar to Christian’s, before he began turning Unseelie. They bore into mine, cheetah-gold, assessing. Same five o’clock shadow, chiseled features, and beautiful dark skin. Serious power rolls off the man.
It’s Christian’s uncle, the Keltar they call “the Inhabited.” He once opened himself up to thirteen ancient, dark druids and has never been able to exorcise them.
I can sympathize with that problem.
The last time I saw him was the night we interred the Sinsar Dubh beneath the abbey. He was with his twin brother, Drustan, a druid who died in a fire but somehow came back to life and allegedly possesses an incorruptible heart; another of Christian’s uncles, Cian, who spent a thousand years trapped in a Silver; and Christian’s father, who was also druid to the Seelie. Talk about your messed-up family.
“Dageus, right?”
“Aye.” He palms the glass I slide him and takes a sip. “What’s with all the Unseelie behind the bar with you, lass?”
Another question I’m sick of. I get it a hundred times a day, at least once from every person that takes a stool and orders a drink, and as the day goes on, half a dozen times from the really drunk ones. I’ve heard every variation on every joke they could possibly slap lamely together in their inebriated, sex-obsessed minds.
“Ghosts,” I say, “of all the Unseelie I killed. They haunt me.” I’ve found it usually shuts people up. He doesn’t look at all surprised, but then why would he? His ghosts haunt him from the inside.
“Where’s the bastard that runs this club?”
“Around somewhere. Are you here because you’ve located Christian?” I ask hopefully.
“Nay. We’ve tried summoning the queen repeatedly to request her aid, but she’s no’ responding to any of our rituals.”
I wonder if buried in their countless records and annals they have a summoning spell for the king. Although I don’t appear to currently need it, I file the thought away for future reference, aware that asking such a question might only open a new can of worms, and turn more pairs of intensely penetrating Keltar eyes my way than I’d like.
“Now that the Compact is broken, we’ve no influence over the Fae world. Christian’s gone, without trace. The only thing of which we’re certain is he’s no’ in Ireland anymore. We’ve fair torn the country apart searching.”
“Can’t you try tracking the Crimson Hag instead?”
“We’ve naught of her to use in such a spell. We’d need flesh, bone, a gut from her gown might serve.”
“No recent sightings?”
“The Unseelie Princes claim she tried to capture them shortly after she took Christian, but they’ve since joined forces, and she’s no’ been seen again.” He rubs a stubble-shadowed jaw. “It happened differently than I foresaw,” he says heavily. “I was watching for the wrong signs.”