Bloodfever

He shrugged.

“Well, why aren’t we going to walk it?”

“It’s occupied, Ms. Lane. I doubt they would welcome us.”

“Monks?” I knew monasteries often had strict rules about permitting women on the grounds. “Or nuns?” They’d take one look at Barrons and decide the devil himself had come knocking. He not only looked dangerous, he emanated something that made even me feel like crossing myself sometimes, and I’m not religious. I see God in a sunrise, not in repetitious ritual. I went to a Catholic church once—sit, stand, kneel, kneel, stand, sit—and got so stressed out trying to anticipate how next to position myself that I’d missed most of what was being said.

He grunted noncommittally in that way that meant he was done answering my questions, so I might as well save my breath. I wondered what he thought we were going to accomplish with a mere drive-by at this mysterious abbey, considering how close I had to be to sense an OOP. That thought raised another very belated one—and I smacked myself in the forehead. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten until now. “Who came through the basement door that night in Wales, Barrons?” He hadn’t mentioned a thing about it.

From the immediate tension in his body I knew the memory was not a pleasant one. “More bloody thieves.”

“Are you kidding me? You mean besides us and whoever got the amulet? There were three of us after it that night?”

“Bloody damned convention.”

“Well, who were they? Someone else from the auction?”

“I have no bloody idea, Ms. Lane. Never seen them before. Never heard of them. As far as I knew, there weren’t any bloody Scots in the game. It’s as if they dropped from the bloody damned sky.” He paused then added darkly, “And they knew too bloody much for my liking.”

All those “bloodys” was a veritable cornucopia of emotion for Barrons. Whoever the thieves had been, whatever had transpired after V’lane had sifted me off to Faery, it had disturbed him profoundly. “Are you sure they aren’t the ones who stole it?”

“If they’d been responsible for the killings, it wouldn’t have been a massacre.”

“What do you mean?”

“Although one of the men was versed in the black arts, both were Druid-trained. Unless blood is required for a specific purpose, a Druid kills cleanly. Whoever, whatever killed the guards and staff that night did it with either the detached sadism of a pure sociopath, or immense rage.”

I stuck to the subject of the thieves to avoid the memory of those mutilated bodies. “There are Druids around today? I thought they died out a long time ago.”

“That’s what the world thinks about sidhe-seers, too,” he said dryly. “You need to lose your preconceptions.”

“How do you know one of them was into black magic?”

He shot me a sideways glance and I knew he was about to stop answering my questions. I was surprised he’d answered this many. “He was heavily tattooed. Black magic calls a price, Ms. Lane, that can be…diminished by working protection runes into the skin.”

I thought about that a moment and followed it to its logical conclusion. “Don’t you eventually run out of skin?”

“Precisely. Some payments can only be deferred, not denied. I warrant most tell themselves they’ll only do ‘one more small spell.’ It’s a drug, like any other.”

I eyed him, wondering what his elegant Italian suit and crisp white shirt might conceal. He had all the tattooing implements. What did Barrons look like without his clothes on? “Well, if these thieves weren’t at the auction,” I hurriedly dispelled that image, “how did they learn about it?”

“You think we stood around and chatted, Ms. Lane? You’d just vanished and I had no idea where you’d gone. We made short work of each other and moved on.”

Wondering what constituted “short work” in Barrons’ book, I glanced out the window. We were passing through the Temple Bar District. The increase in crime had yet to impact the craic-filled party zone. It was bustling as usual.

And teeming with Unseelie.

There was at least one for every twenty or so people. I hoped that meant they favored the tourist zone, not that all of Dublin was infested to a similar ratio. This was significantly more Unseelie than I’d seen a few days, no—a month ago—when I’d last walked these boisterous cobbled streets. “Oh, God, the Lord Master brought more of them through while I was gone, didn’t he? A lot more.”