Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever Page 36

  “The door closes at midnight.” His lips brushed my ear and I shivered, which seemed to amuse him. “Anyone not inside by then doesn’t get in. There are always a couple of last-minute stragglers.”

  I glanced at his watch. There were three and a half minutes to go and still half a dozen seats to fill. During the next minute, five were taken, leaving one empty up front. Though I craned my neck, studying every face, Barrons stared straight ahead. You must be more than my OOP detector tonight, Ms. Lane, he’d told me on the plane, you must be my eyes and ears. I want you to analyze everyone, listen to everything. I want to know who betrays excitement over what item, who wins worriedly, who loses badly.

  Why? You always notice way more than me.

  Where we’re going tonight, noticing anyone other than yourself is considered a sign of uncertainty, weakness. You must notice for me.

  Who noticed for you in the past? Fiona?

  Barrons just ignores me when he doesn’t feel like answering.

  And so I was the green one, looking around. It wasn’t as bad as I expected because no one would look back at me. Some of their gazes flickered a little, as if they resented being studied when the nature of the game being played prevented them from returning the stare.

  I found it silly that they all dressed up so much just to come sit in metal chairs in a dusty bomb shelter, but with people this wealthy, money wasn’t something they had, it was who they were, and they would wear it to their graves.

  There were twenty-six men and eleven women. They ranged in age from early thirties all the way up to a white-haired man who was ninety-five if a day, in a wheelchair, accompanied by an oxygen tank and bodyguards. His sallow skin was so thin and translucent I could see the network of veins behind his face. He was sick with something that was eating him alive. He was the only one that looked directly back at me. He had scary eyes. I wondered what a man so close to death wanted so badly. I hope when I’m ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.

  Most of the conversation was about the inconvenience of their current location, the mud damage the short jaunt through the woods had done to their shoes, the dismal state of current political affairs, and the even more dismal weather. No one mentioned the items about to be auctioned, as if they couldn’t have cared less about what was up for grabs. The entire time they pretended not to be interested in anyone or anything around them, they snatched greedy little glimpses by fabricating actions to justify movement. Two women withdrew jeweled compacts and checked their lipstick, but it wasn’t their mouths they examined in those clever mirrors. Four people dropped various items from their laps for an excuse to move about and retrieve them. It was kind of funny in a sad way how many people dove for the goods, trying to use it as their own excuse.

  Seven people got up and tried to go to the bathroom. The armed henchmen declined their requests, but at least they got a good look around.

  I have never seen a more avaricious, paranoid assortment of people. Barrons didn’t fit in any more than I did. If I was a minnow and they were sharks, he was one of those yet undiscovered fish that lurk in the deepest, darkest reaches of the ocean where sunlight and man never go.

  A distinguished-looking gentleman with silver hair and a neatly trimmed beard entered the room and I thought for a moment he was the final attendee, but he headed straight for the podium. On the way there, he greeted many warmly and by name, with a clipped British accent and sparkling eyes.

  When he arrived at the podium, he welcomed us, recounted a short list of conditions to which we’d all agreed to abide by by the mere virtue of our presence, and said that any could leave now that so chose (I wondered darkly if they would be permitted to live if they did). He then detailed accepted methods of payment, and just as the auction was about to begin, a very famous man you would recognize—you see him on TV all the time—slipped into the final seat.

  The bidding opened with a Monet and grew more surreal to me from there. I learned that night that some of the finest art and artifacts in the world will never be seen by common man, but will continue to pass down through the ages via a hidden network of the uber-wealthy.

  I saw paintings the world didn’t know had been painted, artifacts I couldn’t believe had survived the ages, the hand-penned copy of a play that has never been and will never be performed, much to our disastrous loss. I learned there are people that will pay a fortune to possess something that is one of a kind, for the sheer pleasure of possessing it and having a handful of their peers envy them the possession.

  The bids were mind-boggling. A woman paid twenty-four million dollars for a painting the size of my hand. Another woman bought a brooch the size of a walnut for three point two million. The famous man bought the Klimt for eighty-nine million. There were jewels that had once belonged to queens, weapons owned by some of history’s most notorious villains, even an Italian estate on the block, complete with a private jet and classic car collection.

  Barrons acquired two ancient weapons and a journal written by a Grand Master of a secret society. I sat on my hands to keep myself from fidgeting and waited in breathless anticipation, as each treasure was unveiled, taking great pains not to move my head, which is considerably more difficult than it sounds. The urge to flip a curl of hair from my face that had escaped my sleek ’do became nearly debilitating. Until now I’d had no idea how frequently my body betrayed my thoughts until I repeatedly caught myself on the verge of shrugging, shaking, or nodding my head. It was no wonder Barrons read me so easily. It was not a comfortable night, but it was an unforgettable one. When the OOP was finally uncovered, I had no idea what it was, but Barrons knew—and he wanted it badly. I’ve learned to read him, too.

  It was a jeweled amulet the approximate size of my fist—I have small hands—fashioned of gold, silver, sapphires, and onyx, and according to the information sheet, several unidentifiable alloys and equally mysterious gems. The amulet’s lavish gilt casing housed an enormous translucent stone of unknown composition, and was suspended on a long, thick chain. It had a colorful history, dating farther back than it possibly could according to what we understood of Homo sapiens’ development, and had been crafted for the coveted concubine of a mythical king known as Cruz.

  Each auction participant was given a folder, detailing the item’s provenance, a chain of custody that had my eyes popping out of my head when I read it over Barrons’ shoulder. Every owner of the amulet down through time figured prominently in history or mythology—even I who’d slept through most of my history classes recognized them. Some had been heroically good, others epically bad. All had been immensely powerful.

  The auctioneer’s eyes twinkled as he spoke of the amulet and its “mystical” ability to grant its owners’ deepest desires.

  Is it good health you seek? he asked the wheezing, wheelchair bound man softly. Longevity? One of its owners, incidentally a Welshman like yourself, sir, was reputed to have lived for hundreds of years.

  Perhaps you have political aspirations, he offered the famous man. Would you like to guide your great nation? How about greater wealth?

  Could he get any wealthier? I wondered. If I were him, I’d go for better hair.

  Perhaps you seek a return of sexual desire and desirability? he crooned to the faded beauty with bitter grooves bracketing her mouth and smoldering embers for eyes. Your husband back? His new young wife … shall we say … receiving her comeuppance?

  Perhaps, he teased a man in the fourth row wearing the most haunted, hunted expression I’d ever seen, you’d like to vanquish all your enemies.

  Bidding exploded.

  The entire time Barrons sat motionless, staring straight ahead. I, on the other hand, rubbernecked shamelessly. My heart was pounding, and I didn’t even have anything vested in the situation.

  I kept waiting for Barrons to bid and grew increasingly alarmed when he didn’t. Cruz was obviously Cruce, the legendary creator of the Cuff V’lane had offered me. It was a Fae relic,
unbelievably powerful, and even if we weren’t going to use it ourselves, it shouldn’t be out there in the world. It was an OOP. Every sidhe-seer instinct in me wanted it withdrawn from the world of Man where it never should have been in the first place and in the wrong hands was capable of aiding great evil, as evidenced by a German dictator who’d once owned it.

  I leaned into him and pressed my mouth to his ear. “Say something,” I hissed. “Bid!”

  He closed his hand around mine and squeezed. Bone ground gently upon bone. I shut up.

  The bids reached astronomical proportions. There was no way Barrons had that kind of money.

  I couldn’t believe we were just going to let it go.

  The bidding narrowed down to five fervent contenders. Then two: the famous man and the dying one. When the bidding reached eight figures, the famous man laughed and let it go. I already have everything I want, he said, and I was pleasantly surprised to see he actually meant it. In a room of malcontent, covetous people, he genuinely was happy with his Klimt, and his life overall. He rose considerably in my estimation. I decided I liked his hair and admired that he didn’t care what anyone else thought of it. Good for him.

  An hour later, the auction was over. A few hours after that, via a private plane—you can hardly transport illegal goods on a public one—we were standing outside the bookstore, shortly before dawn. Exhausted, I’d slept through the flight, waking only when we’d landed, to find my mouth slightly ajar on a soft snore and Barrons watching me with amusement.

  I was pissed that he’d let the OOP go. I wanted to know the extent of the power it conferred. I wanted to know if it could have protected me even better than the Cuff V’lane was offering.

  “Why didn’t you at least bid on it?” I asked crossly, as he unlocked the front door.

  He followed me inside. “I purchase what I must to maintain a façade, to continue receiving invitations. Any acquisition made at such an auction is observed and recorded. I don’t like other people knowing what I have. I never buy the things I want.”

  “Well, that’s just stupid. How do you get them, then?” I narrowed my eyes. “I am not helping you steal that thing, Barrons.”

  He laughed. “You don’t want it? The auctioneer was incorrect, Ms. Lane. It’s not the Amulet of Cruce. The Unseelie King himself fashioned that trinket; it’s one of the four Unseelie Hallows.”

  A few months ago I’d never have believed in anything like the Hallows, but a few months ago I’d never have believed myself capable of killing, either.

  The Hallows were the Fae’s most sacred, powerful, and obsessively coveted relics. There were four Light or Seelie Hallows: the spear, the sword, the cauldron and the stone, and four Dark or Unseelie Hallows: the amulet, the box, the mirror, and the most terrible of them all, the Sinsar Dubh.

  “You saw who owned it in the past,” Barrons said. “Even if you don’t want it, can you abide a Dark Hallow out there, loose in the world?”

  “That’s not fair, using my sidhe-seer-ness against me to get me to commit a crime.”

  “Life isn’t fair, Ms. Lane. And you happen to be up to your ears in crimes. Get over it.”

  “What if we get caught? I could get arrested. I could end up in jail.” I wouldn’t survive prison. The drab uniforms, the lack of color, the rut of penitentiary existence would unravel me completely in a matter of weeks.

  “I’d break you out,” he said dryly.

  “Great. Then I’d be on the run.”

  “You already are, Ms. Lane. You have been ever since your sister died.” He turned and disappeared beyond the connecting doors.

  I stared after him. What didn’t Barrons know? I knew I’d been running since then, but how did he?

  After Alina was murdered, I’d started to feel invisible. My parents had stopped seeing me. With increasing frequency, I’d caught them watching me with a heartbreaking mixture of longing and pain, and I’d known it was Alina they were seeing in my face, my hair, my mannerisms. They were hunting for her in me, summoning her ghost.

  I’d stopped existing. I was no longer Mac.

  I was the one who’d lived.

  He was right. Justice and revenge had been only part of my motivation for leaving Ashford. I’d run from my grief, from their pain, from being a shadow of another person, better loved for bitterly lost, and Ireland hadn’t been nearly far enough.

  The worst of it was that now I was caught up in a deadly marathon, running for my life, desperate to stay one step ahead of all the monsters behind me, and there was no finish line in sight.

  NINE

  Speaking of the better loved for bitterly lost, I had one day left to clean out her apartment. By midnight all of Alina’s belongings had to be out, or the landlord had the right to set them to the curb. I’d packed the boxes up weeks ago. I just needed to drag them to the door, call a cab, and pay a little extra to have the cabbie help me load and transport them to the bookstore, where I could wrap them and ship them home.

  I couldn’t believe I’d so completely lost track of time, but I’d had monsters to fight, a police interrogation to deal with, a graveyard to search, my dad to send home, a mobster’s brother’s death to avert, a new job to learn, and an illegal auction to attend.

  It was a wonder I got anything done, really.

  And so Sunday afternoon, August 31, the last day of Alina’s lease, the day she should have been packed and waiting for a cab to take her to the airport and, finally, home to me and Georgia, and endless summer beach parties on the cusp of fall, found me propping a dripping umbrella at the top of her stairs and wiping my shoes on the rug outside her door. I stood there a few minutes, shuffling aimlessly, taking deep breaths, digging for my compact to remove the speck from my eye that was making them water.

  Alina’s apartment was above a pub in the Temple Bar District, not far from Trinity, where she’d been studying, at least for the first few months that she’d been here, when she’d still been going to class, before she’d begun looking stressed and losing weight and behaving secretively.

  I could understand how I’d forgotten about cleaning out her apartment, but now that I was standing outside it, I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about her journal. Alina was a diary addict. She couldn’t live without one. She’d been keeping one ever since she was a little girl. She’d never missed a day. I know; I used to snoop and read them and torment her with secrets she’d chosen to confide to some stupid book over me.

  During her tenure abroad, she’d confided the biggest secrets of her life to a stupid book over me, and I needed that book. Unless someone had beaten me to it and destroyed it, somewhere in Dublin was a record of everything that had happened to her since the day she’d set foot in this country. Alina was neurotically detailed. In those pages would be an account of all she’d seen and felt, where she’d gone and what she’d learned, how she’d discovered what she and I were, how the Lord Master had tricked her into falling for him, and—I hoped—a solid lead on the location of the Sinsar Dubh: who had it, who was transporting it, and for what mysterious reason. “I know what it is now,” she’d said in her final, frantic phone message, “and I know where—” The call had ended abruptly.

  I was certain Alina had been about to say she knew where it was. I hoped she’d written it down in her journal and hidden the journal somewhere she thought I, and only I, would figure out how to find it. I’d been finding them all our lives. Surely she’d left me a clue for how to find the most important one.

  I slid the key into the door, jiggled the handle trying to turn it—the lock was sticky—pushed open the door, and gaped at the girl standing inside, glaring at me and wielding a baseball bat.

  “Hand it over,” she demanded, holding out a hand and nodding at the key. “I heard you out there and I already called the police. How’d you get a key to my place?”

  I pocketed my key. “Who are you?”

  “I live here. Who are you?”

  “You don’t live here. My sister lives her
e. At least she does until midnight today.”

  “No way. I signed a lease three days ago and paid up front. You have a problem with that, talk to the landlord.”

  “Did you really call the police?”

  She assessed me coolly. “No. But I will if I have to.”

  That was a relief. I hadn’t seen Inspector Jayne yet today and was savoring the respite. All I needed was for him to show up and arrest me for breaking and entering, or some other trumped-up charge. I glanced past her. “Where’s my sister’s stuff?” I demanded. All my carefully packed boxes were gone. There was no fingerprint dust on the floor, no broken glass scattered about, no sliced and diced furniture, no shredded drapes. All of it was gone. The apartment was spotless and had been tastefully redecorated.

  “How should I know? The place was empty when I moved in.”

  “Who’s the landlord?” I was stunned. I’d been shut out. While I’d vacillated in indecision about whether or not to destroy the walls and floors in a thorough but damagingly expensive search for her journal, then been sidetracked by other things, I’d lost all my sister’s personal possessions!

  Someone was living in her apartment. It wasn’t fair—I had one more day!

  I would have continued to argue until the sun had gone down, the clock struck twelve, and the final bell finished chiming if the new tenant had said anything other than what she said next.

  “The guy downstairs at the bar handles things for him, but it’s probably the owner you’ll need to talk to.”

  “And who’s that?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never met him. Some guy named Barrons.”

  I felt like a rat in a maze and everyone else was human, wearing lab coats and standing outside my box, watching me run blindly up and down dead-end corridors, and laughing.

  I left the new tenant without another word. I stepped outside, into the alley behind the pub, backed myself into an alcoved, bricked-up door to avoid the drizzle, and rang up Barrons on the cell phone he’d left outside my door last night with three numbers programmed in.