I pushed open the back door and scanned the alley, left and right.
It took me a few moments to spot it. Nearly two-thirds of it was gone and what remained—the head, shoulders, and stump of a torso—had been tossed into an overflowing Dumpster. Like the mangled Fae in the graveyard, it was in obvious agony.
I hurried down the stairs, scrambled up the small mountain of trash, and crouched over it. “What did this to you?” I demanded. No mercy killing this time. I wanted information in exchange.
It opened its mouth, made a wordless, whimpering sound, and I turned away. In addition to having no hands or arms left, it had no tongue. Whatever had stopped short of devouring it meant for it to suffer, and had left it unable to speak or communicate in any way.
I removed the spear from the holster I’d rigged beneath my jacket this morning, and stabbed it. It died with a rank gust of icy breath.
When I clambered back down the pile of refuse, Dani was waiting for me, wide-eyed. “You have the spear,” she said reverently. “And what an awesome holster! It’s so compact I could carry it around all the time, everywhere. I could kill them twenty-four/seven! Are you superfast?” she demanded. “If not, I should probably have that spear.” She reached for it.
I put it behind my back. “Kid, you try to touch my spear, I’ll do worse things to you than you’ve ever seen done.” I had no idea what I was talking about, but I suspected if anyone tried to take the spear from me, that savage Mac inside, the one that hated pink and hadn’t particularly minded watching the Rhino-boy flail in eternal pain, might do something we’d both regret. Well, at least one of us would regret. I was becoming too complicated for my own peace of mind. Would Dani try to take it with her superspeed? Would I find something in that hot, alien place in my skull to fight her with?
“I’m not a kid. When are you fecking grown-ups going to see that?” Dani snapped, turning away.
“When you stop acting like one. Why did you come here?”
“You’re in trouble,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Rowena wants to see you.”
Turned out PHI was not the twenty-third letter in the Greek alphabet but Post Haste, Inc. Courier Services, and Dani a delivery girl, explaining the uniform and bike.
It was two in the afternoon on Thursday, when I hung my Closed Early placard on the bookstore door and locked up. “Shouldn’t you be in school, Dani?”
“I’m home-schooled. Most of us are.”
“What does your mom think about you running around killing Fae?” I couldn’t imagine the mother of any young child being okay with it. But I guess when there’s a war on and you’re born a soldier, there’s not much choice.
“She’s dead,” she said nonchalantly. “Died six years ago.”
I didn’t say I was sorry. I didn’t mouth any of the platitudes people resort to in times of grief. They don’t help. In fact, they chafe. I commiserated on her level. “It fecking sucks, doesn’t it?” I said vehemently.
She flashed me a look of surprise and the nonchalance melted. “Yeah, it does. I hate it.”
“What happened?”
Her rosebud mouth twisted. “One of them got her. One day I’ll find out which one, and kill the fecker.”
Sisters in vengeance. I touched her shoulder and smiled. She looked startled, unaccustomed to sympathy. Six years ago, Dani would have been seven or eight. “I didn’t know they’d been around that long,” I said, meaning the Unseelie. “I thought they’d only recently been freed.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t an Un that got her.”
“But I thought the…other ones”—I spoke vaguely, mindful of the wind—“didn’t kill us because of the…you know.”
“Compact? That’s a bloody crock. They never stopped killing us. Well, maybe some of them did, but most of them didn’t.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence, with Dani pushing her bike. She wasn’t comfortable talking on the streets. We skirted Temple Bar and crossed the River Liffey.
PHI Courier Services occupied a three-story building painted the same light green of Dani’s pants, trimmed in cherry, adorned by tall, arched windows. The sign above the entry sported the same emblem emblazoned on her shirt, but the shamrock looked misshapen, out of proportion. Something about the sign perplexed me. If I’d happened down this street on my own and seen it, I’d have walked straight into the building without hesitation, gripped by an irresistible compulsion.