Feversong (Fever #9)(38)

I felt it losing control of my body, experienced its rage, overheard its frantic thoughts.

I feel the same as I did after regaining consciousness the day it killed the Gray Woman, only worse, hurting everywhere, and desperately tired. I wonder, in years past, when I slept, did the Book slip out to play? Did I sleepwalk in my youth without ever knowing it? I wish I could ask Mom and Dad. Will the Book think that’s what it did, if it regains awareness to find itself in a different location, clean, wearing different clothes?

I sigh. I have no idea what’s going on or how long I have. I must make good use of the time. The only other time I lost control, I blacked out and was completely unaware of time passing. This time, I was aware, but locked away. It would be foolish to conclude that I’ve regained permanent control. I can’t take anything for granted where the Book is concerned.

The last memory I have of my actions is the Sinsar Dubh taking possession of me as I screamed at Jada to run. I pray she heeded me and ran fast and far enough. If I sacrificed everything to save her only to end up killing her—

I can’t even finish that thought.

Barrons. Surely he would have come after me—it. Is he dead? Did I kill him? Again? What did the Book do with its freedom? Surely, it has goals, objectives. But what? Considering that I’ve carried this thing around inside me all my life, I don’t really know much about it other than it was prone to puerile taunts and threats to K’Vruck the world. But what does it really want? No doubt, beneath its glib, maniacal behavior lies a sharply focused, brilliant mind.

I force myself to breathe slowly, deeply, trying to sort through my thoughts, but Mallucé’s scent permeates the closet with the noxious odor of his cologne and a whiff of decay that clings to his attire, and suddenly I can’t get out of there fast enough. The mere scent of him is throwing me back to time spent in a hellish grotto beneath the Burren, and I need to be fully in the here and now.

I leverage myself up using hatboxes and a small trunk for support, stagger from the closet and stumble out into the bedroom, where I sink down against the wall, draw my legs up to my chest, wrap my arms around them and rest my head on my knees.

Life used to be so simple. When we’re young, it feels like grand adventures await us around every corner. We’re strong, resilient, undamaged. We think our soul mate is headed our way, we’ll marry, have babies, and be loved. I bought into that. I thought I’d raise my children with Alina, take shopping excursions to Atlanta, attend PTA meetings, and enjoy family holidays. Spend lazy summer afternoons listening to the music of the gently creaking porch swing beneath slow-paddling fans, sipping a magnolia-drenched breeze and sweet tea, watching my children grow up in a mostly decent, normal world.

Maybe for some people it works that way.

But that was never my destiny.

I think I got twenty-two blissful, trauma-free years only because the rest of it was going to suck so massively. I mean, really, my godawful life was foretold over a thousand years ago by Moreena Bean, a half-mad washerwoman who prophesied that one of the Lane sisters would die young and the other would wish she was dead (yup, feeling that right now), and the younger they were both killed, the better off the world would be. If that’s not destiny, what is?

But wait…the prophetic washerwoman had also said there were many stones to be tossed into the great loch of the universe, many possibles. And Kat had said we were only at the beginning of Mad Morry’s predictions. Which implies, despite the dire nature of our current problems, the Earth is going to survive and go on for some time. Humanity is going to make it.

I just need to figure out what my part in ensuring that is.

Am I supposed to kill myself? Is my current age young enough? And on that note, is my sister still really alive? If so, is that why everything went wrong—because neither of us died?

I strip the idea of suicide of all emotion and weigh it as nothing more than an intellectual option. Will it remove all potential threat I present to the world?

If it would terminate the existence of the Sinsar Dubh, then unequivocally—yes.

I don’t want to die.

A sudden familiar tension grips my body. I stare through the dimly lit room at the door.

Jericho Barrons.

He’s alive. I didn’t kill him.

And he’s here.

The door opens and time seems to suspend and spin out in slow motion. I feel like I haven’t seen him in a hundred years, perhaps because I was afraid I would never see him again. The Book had control of me for fifteen hours, and since I know it takes him longer than that to return from wherever he’s reborn, that means I didn’t kill him. Thank heavens. He gets beyond irate when I do, as if somehow it’s a personal insult.

He’s wearing black leather pants and a white shirt, cuffs rolled up, revealing strong forearms and a thick sliver Celtic cuff. His beautiful face is inscrutable as ever. I use the word “beautiful” but to the rest of the world he’s not. The casual observer finds him disturbingly carnal, animal, unsettlingly predatory. The genetic stamp of Jericho Barrons’s face was tossed in the gene pool trashcan eons ago. His bone structure is sharp, primal, his brow prominent, and he can seem downright feral if you catch a glimpse of him when he thinks he’s unobserved. His eyes are so dark they’re nearly black, and when he’s angry, crimson sparks glitter within. His hair is midnight, slicked back. He has one of the most symmetrical faces I’ve ever seen. His body…well, I see the lithe grace and power of the beast in him even in his human form.