Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever Page 27

  TABH’RS (TAH-vr): Fae doorways or portals between realms, often hidden in everyday human objects. (Def. J.B.)

  TUATHA DÉ DANAAN or TUATHA DÉ (TUA day dhanna or Tua DAY): (See Fae above) A highly advanced race that came to Earth from another world. (Definition ongoing)

  UNSEELIE: the “dark” court of the Tuatha Dé Danaan. According to Tuatha Dé Danaan legend, the Unseelie have been confined for hundreds of thousands of years in an inescapable prison. Inescapable, my ass.

  A Note About The Fever Series.

  Every now and then a writer gets a gift: a tale complete from beginning to end, wrapped up in a box, tied with a pretty bow, deposited on the doorstep of his or her subconscious. All that is required is a willingness to open the door, unwrap the box, release the world within and do your best to transcribe that world into word.

  When the Fever series arrived on my doorstep I was shocked to find so much Thanatos in my Eros. I’d been writing romance novels for years, and had enjoyed every minute I’d spent with my Highlanders and the women who stole their hearts.

  The world that came in the Fever box wasn’t pretty like my romance novels. There were monsters in every corner, people dying, everyone was keeping secrets, all the characters were too flawed to be heroic, and there was no traditional romance to be found. The protagonist was a virtual-Barbie with little ambition or interest in the world around her, and about as far from my personality type as the sun from the moon.

  I sorted through the box, hunting for the elements I recognized as the trademarks of my writing, wondering if the Fed-Ex Story Idea Guy had gotten the addresses mixed up again. He does that from time to time. Every now and then he seems to think it’s funny to drop one of Stephen King’s boxes on my porch. Things move around under the cardboard, and the noises they make come from the dark night of the soul. The few times I’ve been suckered into opening one of those misplaced gifts, I’ve duct-taped the box securely, propped a chair under my doorknob, and refused to go out on my stoop again until it was gone.

  “There are only two themes worth writing or reading about” writer F. Gonzalez-Crussi says, “love and death, Eros and Thanatos.”

  When I was thirteen I had two reading experiences that changed my life and shaped the writer I would become. I picked up Harlan Ellison’s Deathbird Stories from the library of the Catholic Academy I was attending–the irony is apparent if you’ve read the book–and one of my aunts gave my mother a box of romance novels.

  Eros and Thanatos. Love and Death.

  Both came in the Fever box left on my doorstep, in a more fascinating blend then anything I’d tried to write before.

  As my imperfect protagonist walked me through the craic-filled, historic Temple Bar District of Dublin and introduced me to her world, I was riveted by the tale of an ordinary, flawed young woman thrust into an extraordinary, terrifying dark world where the heroes and villains looked startlingly alike.

  I followed her into the Dark Zones–parts of our cities taken over by deadly Shades that no longer appear on any of our maps, although you might stumble into one around the next corner if you’re not careful; deep into underground labyrinthine caverns where monsters of the worst sort dwell–the kind that lie within us all; and eventually into the most treacherous place known to Man–Faery, with its irresistible illusions, lethal seductions and killing lies.

  I couldn’t close the box. Which was probably a good thing–there was no return address on the package, and I haven’t seen the Fed-Ex Story Guy since. I don’t think he’ll be coming around again until I’m done.

  Sometimes you don’t get a choice. A story shows up on your doorstep and stalks you until you tell it. You do your best and hope the passion you feel for it brings it to life in your reader’s mind as vividly and thrillingly as it exists in your own.

  Welcome to Mac’s World–and Stay to the Lights!

  Karen

  BLOODFEVER

  A Delacorte Press Book / November 2007

  Published by

  Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2007 by Karen Marie Moning

  Excerpt from Faefever copyright 2010 by Karen Marie Moning, LLC.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Moning, Karen Marie.

  Bloodfever / Karen Marie Moning.

  p. cm.

  1. Americans—Ireland—Fiction. 2. Magicians—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Ireland—Fiction. 5. Fairies—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.0527B58 2007

  813'.6—dc22

  2007022369

  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-440-33722-5

  v3.0_r2

  CONTENTS

  Master - Table of Contents

  Bloodfever

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Maps

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Glossary from Mac’s Journal

  Pronunciation Guide

  Dedication

  Dear Reader:

  At the back of Bloodfever you will find a detailed glossary of names, items, and pronunciations.

  Some entries contain small spoilers. Read at your own risk.

  For additional information about the Fever series and the world of the Fae, visit www.sidhe-seersinc.com or www.karenmoning.com.

  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

  And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

  And in short, I was afraid.

  —T. S. Eliot/The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  Prologue

  All of us have our little problems and insecurities. I’m no different. Back in high school when I used to feel insecure about something, I would console myself with two thoughts: I’m pretty, and my parents love me. Between those two, I could survive anything.

  Since then I’ve come to understand how little the former matters, and how bitterly the latter can be tested. What’s left then? Nothing about our appearance or who loves or hates us. Nothing about our brainpower—which, like beauty, is an unearned gift of genetics—nor even anything about what we say.

  It’s our actions that define us. What we choose. What we resist. What we’re willing to die for.

  My name is MacKayla Lane. I think. Some say my last name is really O’Connor. That’s another of my insecurities right now: who I am. Although, at the moment, I’m in no hurry to find out. What I am is disturbing enough.

  I’m from Ashford, Georgia. I think. Lately I’ve realized I have some tricky memories I can’t quite sort through.

  I’m in Ireland. When my sister, Alina, was found dead in a trash-filled alley on Dublin’s north side, the local police closed her case in record time, so I flew over to see what I could do about getting justice.

  Okay, so maybe I’m not that pure.

  What I really came over for was revenge. And now, after everything I’ve seen, I want it twice as bad.

 
I used to think my sister and I were just two nice southern girls who would get married in a few years, have babies, and settle down to a life of sipping sweet tea on a porch swing under the shade of waxy-blossomed magnolias, raising our children together near Mom and Dad and each other.

  Then I discovered Alina and I descend not from good, wholesome southern stock but from an ancient Celtic bloodline of powerful sidhe-seers, people who can see the Fae, a terrifying race of otherworldly beings that have lived secretly among us for thousands of years, cloaked in illusions and lies. Governed loosely by a queen, and even more loosely by a Compact few support and many ignore, they have preyed on humans for millennia.

  Supposedly I’m one of the most powerful sidhe-seers ever born. Not only can I see the Fae, I can sense their sacred relics that hold the deadliest and most powerful of their magic.

  I can find them.

  I can use them.

  I’ve already found the mythic Spear of Luin, one of only two weapons capable of killing an immortal Fae. I’m also a Null—a person who can temporarily freeze a Fae and cancel out its power with the mere touch of my hands. It helps me kick butt when I need to, and lately, every time I turn around, I need to.

  My world began falling apart with the death of my sister, and hasn’t stopped since. And it’s not just my world that’s in trouble; it’s your world, too.

  The walls between Man and Faery are coming down.

  I don’t know why or how. I only know they are. I know it in my sidhe-seer blood. On a dark Fae wind, I taste the metallic tang of a bloody and terrible war coming. In the distant air, I hear the thunderclap of sharp-bladed hooves as Fae stallions circle impatiently, ready to charge down on us in the ancient, forbidden Wild Hunt.

  I know who killed my sister. I’ve stared into the murderous eyes of the one who seduced, used, and destroyed her. Not quite Fae, not quite human, he calls himself the Lord Master, and he’s been opening portals between realms, bringing Unseelie through to our world.

  The Fae consist of two adversarial courts with their own Royal Houses and unique castes: the Light or Seelie Court, and the Dark or Unseelie Court. Don’t let the light and dark stuff deceive you: they’re both deadly. Scary thing is the Seelie considered their darker brethren, the Unseelie, so abominable that they imprisoned them themselves a few hundred eons ago. When one Fae fears another Fae, you know you’ve got problems.

  Now the Lord Master is freeing the darkest, most dangerous of our enemies, turning them loose on our world, and teaching them to infiltrate our society. When these monsters walk down our streets, you see only the “glamour” they throw: the illusion of a beautiful human woman, man, or child.

  I see what they really are.

  I have no doubt I would have ended up every bit as dead as my sister shortly after I arrived in Dublin, if I’d not stumbled into a bookstore owned by the enigmatic Jericho Barrons. I have no idea who or what he is, or what he’s after, but he knows more about what I am and what’s going on out there than anyone else I’ve met, and I need that knowledge.

  When I had no place to turn, Jericho Barrons took me in, taught me, opened my eyes, and helped me survive. Granted, he didn’t do it nicely, but I’m no longer quite so picky about how I survive, as long as I do.

  Because it was safer than my cheap room at the inn, I moved into his bookstore. It’s well protected against most of my enemies with wards and assorted nasty tricks, and stands bastion at the edge of what I call a Dark Zone: a neighborhood that has been taken over by Shades, amorphous Unseelie that thrive in darkness and feed off humans.

  Barrons and I have formed an uneasy alliance based on mutual need: We both want the Sinsar Dubh—a million-year-old book of the blackest magic imaginable, allegedly scribed by the Unseelie King himself, that holds the key to power over both the worlds of Fae and Man.

  I want it because it was Alina’s dying request that I find it, and I suspect it holds the key to saving our world.

  He wants it because he says he collects books. Right.

  Everyone else I’ve encountered is after it, too. The hunt is dangerous, the stakes enormous.

  Because the Sinsar Dubh is a Fae relic, I can sense it when it’s near. Barrons can’t. But he knows where to look for it, and I don’t. So now we’re partners in crime who don’t trust each other one bit.

  Nothing in my sheltered, pampered life prepared me for the past few weeks. Gone is my long blond hair, chopped short for the sake of anonymity and dyed dark. Gone are my pretty pastel outfits, replaced by drab colors that don’t show blood. I’ve learned to cuss, steal, lie, and kill. I’ve been assaulted by a death-by-sex Fae and made to strip, not once but twice, in public. I discovered that I was adopted. I nearly died.

  With Barrons at my side, I’ve robbed a mobster and his henchmen and led them to their deaths. I’ve fought and killed dozens of Unseelie. I battled the vampire Mallucé in a bloody showdown with the Lord Master himself.

  In one short month I’ve managed to piss off virtually every being with magical power in this city. Half of those I’ve encountered want me dead; the other half want to use me to find the deadly, coveted Sinsar Dubh.

  I could run home, I suppose. Try to forget. Try to hide.

  Then I think of Alina, and how she died.

  Her face swims up in my mind—a face I knew as well as my own; she was more than my sister, she was my best friend—and I can almost hear her saying: Right, Junior—and risk leading a monster like Mallucé, a death-by-sex Fae, or some other Unseelie back to Ashford? Take a chance that some of the Shades might cop a ride in your luggage and devour the charming, idyllic streets of our childhood, one burnt-out streetlamp at a time? When you see the Dark Zone that used to be our home, how will you feel, Mac?

  Before her voice even begins to fade, I know that I’m here until this is over.

  Until either they’re dead or I am.

  Alina’s death will be avenged.

  ONE

  “You’re a difficult woman to find, Ms. Lane,” said Inspector O’Duffy as I opened the diamond-paned front door of Barrons Books and Baubles.

  The stately old-world bookstore was my home away from home, whether I liked it or not, and despite the sumptuous furnishings, priceless rugs, and endless selection of top-rate reading material, I didn’t. The comfiest cage is still a cage.

  He glanced at me sharply when I stepped around the door, into full view, noting my splinted arm and fingers, the stitches in my lip, and the fading purple and yellow bruises that began around my right eye and extended to the base of my jaw. Though he raised a brow, he made no comment.

  The weather outside was awful, and so long as the door was open, I was too close to it. It had been raining for days, a relentless, depressing torrent that needled me with sharp wind-driven droplets even where I stood, tucked beneath the shelter of the column-flanked archway of the bookstore’s grand entry. At eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, it was so overcast and dark that the streetlamps were still on. Despite their sullen yellow glares, I could barely see the outlines of the shops across the street through the thick, soupy fog.

  I backed up to let the inspector enter. Gusts of chilly air stepped in on his heels.

  I closed the door and returned to the conversation area near the fire where I’d been wrapped in an afghan on the sofa, reading. My borrowed bedroom is on the top floor, but when the bookstore is closed on weekends I make the first floor, with its cozy reading nooks and enameled fireplaces, my personal parlor. My taste in reading material has become a bit eccentric of late. Acutely aware of O’Duffy on my heels, I surreptitiously toed a few of the more bizarre titles I’d been perusing beneath a handsome curio cabinet. The Wee People: Fairy Tale or Fact? was chased by Vampires for Dummies and Divine Power: A History of Holy Relics.

  “Dreadful weather,” he observed, stepping to the hearth and warming his hands before the softly hissing gas flames.

  I agreed with perhaps more enthusiasm than the fact warranted, but the endless deluge outsi
de was getting to me. A few more days of this and I was going to start building an ark. I’d heard it rained a lot in Ireland, but “constantly” was a smidge more than a lot, in my book. Transplanted against my will, a homesick, reluctant tourist, I’d made the mistake of checking the weather back home in Ashford this morning. It was a sultry, blue-skied ninety-six degrees in Georgia—just another perfect, blossom-drenched, sunny day in the Deep South. In a few hours my girlfriends would be heading up to one of our favorite lakes where they would soak up the sun, scope out datable guys, and flip through the latest fashion magazines.

  Here in Dublin it was a whopping fifty degrees and so darned wet it felt like half that.

  No sun. No datable guys. And my only fashion concern was making sure my clothes were baggy enough to accommodate weapons concealed beneath them. Even in the relative security of the bookstore, I was carrying two flashlights, a pair of scissors, and a lethal, foot-long spearhead, tip neatly cased in a ball of foil. I’d scattered dozens more flashlights and assorted items that might second as arsenal throughout the four-story bookstore. I’d also secreted a few crosses and bottles of holy water in various nooks. Barrons would laugh at me if he knew.

  You might wonder if I’m expecting an army from Hell.

  I am.

  “How did you find me?” I asked the inspector. When I’d last spoken to the Garda a week ago, he’d pressed for a way to reach me. I’d given him my old address at the Clarin House where I boarded for a short time when I first arrived. I don’t know why. I guess I just don’t trust anyone. Not even the police. Over here the good guys and the bad guys all look the same. Just ask my dead sister Alina, victim of one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen—the Lord Master—who also happens to be one of the most evil.