Bloodfever

“No.”

“Where?”

“Scotland.”

“You don’t sound Scottish.”

“You don’t sound Irish. Yet here you are, policing Ireland. But then the English have been trying to cram their laws down their neighbors’ throats for centuries, haven’t they, Inspector?”

O’Duffy had an eye tic. I hadn’t noticed it before. “How long have you been in Dublin?”

“A few years. You?”

“I’m the one asking the questions.”

“Only because I’m standing here letting you.”

“I can take you down to the station. Would you prefer that?”

“Try.” The one word dared the Garda to try, by fair means or foul. The accompanying smile guaranteed failure. I wondered what he’d do if the inspector attempted it. My inscrutable host seems to possess a bottomless bag of tricks.

O’Duffy held Barrons’ gaze longer than I expected him to. I wanted to tell him there was no shame in looking away. Barrons has something the rest of us don’t have. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it all the time, especially when we’re standing close. Beneath the expensive clothes, unplaceable accent, and cultured veneer, there’s something that never crawled all the way out of the swamp. It didn’t want to. It likes it there.

The inspector apparently deemed an exchange of information the wisest, or maybe just the easiest course. “I’ve been in Dublin since I was twelve. When my father died, my mother remarried an Irishman. There’s a man over at Chester’s says he knows you, Mr. Barrons. Name’s Ryodan. Ring a bell?”

“Ms. Lane, go upstairs,” Barrons said, instantly, softly.

“I’m perfectly fine here.” Who was Ryodan and what didn’t Barrons want me to know?

“Up. Stairs. Now.”

I scowled. I didn’t have to look at O’Duffy to know he was regarding me with acute interest—and pity. He was thinking Barrons was the name of the flight of stairs I’d fallen down. I hate pity. Sympathy isn’t quite as bad. Sympathy says, I know how it feels, doesn’t it just suck? Pity means they think you’re defeated.

“He doesn’t beat me,” I said irritably. “I’d kill him if he did.”

“She would. She has a temper. Stubborn, too. But we’re working on that, aren’t we, Ms. Lane?” Barrons turned his wolf smile on me, and jerked his head up toward the ceiling.

Someday I’m going to push Jericho Barrons as far as I can and see what happens. But I’m going to wait a while, until I’m stronger. Until I’m pretty sure I’ve got a trump card.

I may have been forced into this war, but I’m learning to choose my battles.

I didn’t see Barrons for the rest of the day.

A dutiful soldier, I retreated to the ditches as ordered and hunkered down there. In those ditches, I had an epiphany. People treat you as badly as you let them treat you.

Key word there: let.

Some people are exceptions, mostly parents, best friends, and spouses, though in my bartending job at The Brickyard, I’ve seen married people do worse things to each other in public than I’d do in private to someone I couldn’t stand. Bottom line is most of the world will push you as far as you let them. Barrons might have sent me to my room, but I’m the idiot that went. What was I afraid of? That he’d hurt me, kill me? Hardly. He’d saved my life last week. He needed me. Why had I let him intimidate me?

I was disgusted with myself. I was still behaving like MacKayla Lane, part-time bartender, part-time sun-worshipper, and full-time glamour girl. My recent brush with death had made it clear that chick wasn’t going to survive over here, a statement emphatically punctuated by ten unpolished, broken fingernails. Unfortunately, by the time I had my epiphany and stormed back downstairs, Barrons and the inspector were gone.

Worsening my already foul mood, the woman who runs the bookstore and carries a major torch for Barrons had arrived. Stunning, voluptuous, in her early fifties, Fiona doesn’t like me at all. I suspect if she knew Barrons kissed me last week she’d like me even less. I was nearly unconscious when he did it, but I remember. It’s been impossible to forget.

When she looked up from the numbers she was punching in on her cell phone, I decided maybe she did know. Her eyes were venomous, her mouth a moue fanned by delicate wrinkles. With each quick, shallow inhalation, her lacy blouse trembled over her full bosom, as if she’d just dashed somewhere in a great hurry, or was suffering great distress. “What was Jericho doing here today?” she asked in a pinched tone. “It’s Sunday. He’s not supposed to be here on Sunday. I can’t imagine any reason for him to stop by.” She scanned me from head to toe, looking, I think, for signs of a recent tryst: tousled hair, perhaps a missed button on my blouse, or panties overlooked in the haste of dressing, left bunched in the leg of my jeans. I did that once. Alina saved me before Mom caught me.