Bloodfever

The entire United Kingdom, at about 94,000 square miles, is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon. The island of Ireland, both Northern and the Republic, is roughly the size of the state of Indiana.

At 8,000 square miles, Wales is tiny. To put Wales in perspective, Scotland has four times the land mass, and Texas is thirty-three times as big.

I know all of this because I looked it up. When my sister was killed and I was forced, wings untried, from my gently feathered nest in Ashford, Georgia, my eyes were opened in more ways than one. I took stock of myself and realized that among other things, I had no global awareness. I’ve been trying desperately to dispel my provinciality by teaching myself a bird’s-eye view of things. If knowledge is power, I want all of it I can get.

The flight from Dublin to Cardiff took a little over an hour. We landed in Rhoose, about ten minutes from the capital city, at eleven-fifteen. A chauffeur fell into step beside us and ushered us into a waiting silver Maybach 62. I have no idea where we went from there because I’d never been inside such a car, and was too busy examining the luxurious interior to notice much more than city lights whizzing by, and finally darkness beyond the panoramic glass roof. I reclined my seat to nearly horizontal. I tested the massage option. I stroked the soft leather and the gleaming wood. I watched the velocity with which we hurtled into the night on the ceiling instruments.

“When we arrive, you will take your seat and not move,” Barrons said for the fifth time. “Do not scratch your nose, fidget with your hair, rub your face, and no matter what I say to you, you must not nod. Speak to me, but softly. People will listen if they can. Be discreet.”

“Still as a cat, quiet as a mouse,” I replied, flipping through the movie selections for my personal flat-screen TV. The car was capable of what critics called a “blistering performance,” achieving 0–100 in five seconds. Barrons must be a serious collector for our hosts to have sent such a car after him.

I didn’t become aware of my surroundings again until Barrons was helping me from the car, tucking my arm through his. I liked my attire tonight better than anything he’d chosen for me in the past. I had on a black Chanel suit that was all business, sexy heels that weren’t, and fake diamonds at my ears, wrists, and throat. I’d sleeked my short dark curls with a leave-in conditioner and tucked it behind my ears. I looked like money and liked how it felt. Who wouldn’t? Up until now the most expensive outfit I’d ever worn was my prom dress. I always figured the next expensive dress I’d get to wear would be the one my daddy bought me for my wedding, and if life was good, about half a dozen more between that and my funeral. I certainly never would have wagered on haute couture and fancy cars and illegal auctions and men who wore silk shirts and Italian suits, with platinum and diamond cuff links.

When I finally glanced around, I was startled to find we were on a deserted country lane. Stiff men in stiffer suits herded us a short distance down a shadowy path through the woods, stopping us in front of an overgrown bank. I was perplexed until they parted the dense foliage, revealing a steel door in the side of an embankment. We were guided through it, down an endless, narrow flight of concrete stairs, through a long concrete tunnel lined with pipes and wires, and into a large rectangular room.

“We’re in a bomb shelter,” Barrons said against my ear, “nearly three stories beneath the ground.”

I don’t mind telling you it creeped me out more than a little, being so deep in the earth with only one way out, and that back the way we’d come, through a dozen heavily armed men. I’m not claustrophobic but I like the open sky around me, or at least the knowledge that it’s right on the other side of whatever walls I’m enclosed by. This felt like being buried alive. I think I’d rather die in a nuclear holocaust than live in a concrete box for twenty years.

“Lovely,” I murmured. “Is this kind of like your undergr—Ow!” Barrons’ boot was on my foot and if he gave it any more pressure, it’d be flat as a pancake.

“There are times and places for curiosity, Ms. Lane. This is not one of them. Here, anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Sorry,” I said and I really was. If he didn’t want these people to know he had an underground vault, I could understand that, and if I’d not been so discombobulated by my surroundings, I would have thought of that before I’d brought it up. “Get off my foot.”

He gave me a Barrons look that defies describing because he has several of them, and they speak volumes. “I’m alert, I swear,” I said crossly. I hate being a fish out of water, and not only was I flopping around on the beach, I was a minnow among sharks. “And I won’t say another word unless you speak to me, okay?”