High Voltage (Fever #10)(13)

None of it happened. Post-Song reality was one in which the rules only became clear by interacting with them, often with unpleasant consequences. Children were being born with unusual gifts—although I’d call some of them curses; objects didn’t always function quite like one had every rational reason to expect; doors didn’t consistently go where you thought they would; and mirrors were the most unreliable of all—even human ones.

Magic burned in the planet, more potent than ever, as if the ancient melody had penetrated deep into the Earth, crooning in dangerously random fashion “Awaken.” Everything had gotten more juice, even us sidhe-seers.

    The many new elements of unpredictability had changed my behavior. I traveled in the slipstream only for short distances now, under calculated circumstances. There was too much I needed to see, less I could take for granted, and I absorbed few details moving in a higher dimension.

I skirted a large vat to get a closer look at the Silver. Embedded in stained and crumbling brick, a narrow black opening rippled in the wall, three inches from the floor, stretching all the way up to decaying rafters. Something about the slender, dark aperture made my blood run a little colder.

A gust of stifling air belched from the shivering surface, reeking of wood smoke and—I cocked my head, sniffing—old copper, perhaps blood. Distantly, I heard a rhythmic chant, thousands of voices—perhaps tens of thousands—repeating something over and over in a nearly hypnotic cadence.

It wasn’t English. I didn’t recognize the language.

I eased warily closer, kicking through several inches of litter and broken bottles, sending a small horde of roaches skittering into shadowy corners of the room. All mirrors debut on my dangerous list; few of them work their way off it. I wasn’t even willing to put one in my bathroom until it underwent rigorous testing.

A person with normal hearing would have heard nothing coming from the dark glass, but I’m not normal. I catch the gentle whoosh of air displacement as people move; if I lay my ear to the earth, I hear countless insects wriggling and tunneling in the top layer of soil. I still couldn’t decipher the words but the indistinct chant was now threaded by thin, distant, bloodcurdling screams.

I narrowed my eyes, focusing my sidhe-seer gifts on the inky darkness as if I might penetrate the veil. Still, I saw nothing but a narrow stream of roaches, climbing the few inches of wall and vanishing into the glass. Too bad I didn’t have one of Dancer’s handy little wireless cameras to attach to one, see if I could get a glimpse at the other side. I wondered if they were normal Earth roaches, or part of the disgusting Papa Roach that used to hang at Chester’s. Unfortunately, they’re indistinguishable to me.

    I backpedaled from the wall and squirted up into the slipstream a half a second before the mirror exploded, spraying razor-sharp splinters of dark glass across the floor.

I’d felt it coming. A vibration on the other side, as if the blow of whatever implement or spell had struck it required a second or more to reach my side of the portal.

By the time I dropped down again and crunched across broken glass and still more roaches, the wall was just a wall, access to my prey gone.

It changed nothing. Four children had been driven into the streets to their certain death. For amusement. There aren’t many things I hold sacred. Kids are one of them.

I never forget. Never stop until I finish my job. The men’s faces were etched into my memory. Their time would come.

I stalked through the brewery, restless, unsatisfied. It was nearly dawn, that liminal time when night became day, villains vanished, and vengeance got shelved. I spend my day doing normal things like laundry, cleaning, checking in at the orphanage, modifying and monitoring my many obligations, dropping by the abbey to train Initiates and catch some time to read the latest translations. I derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing my part to make our world safer. Tonight I’d failed and it would be twelve long hours before I got to try again. As dangerous as night in Dublin was, day ran fairly smoothly, as if darkness and light had struck a compact of their own, apportioning order to the day and chaos to the night.

    I like the nights better. Carpe noctem not diem. My days drag. Night’s when I feel most alive.

I banged out the door and exploded into the wet, foggy morning, tucking my head against a hard drizzle.

As I was about to kick up into the slipstream, a sudden movement from above caught my attention. I paused and glanced up to watch something roughly the size of a playing card falling from the sky, end over end.

I have a theory about people. Actually, I have a lot of theories about people but this particular one goes: if someone throws something at you, you’re either a catcher or a ducker. I’ve never been a ducker. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s sometimes wiser to be.

Still, instincts being instinctual and all, I jumped and caught the object while it was a few feet above my head.

“Ow!” I exclaimed. The edges were sharp and cut the tips of my fingers as they closed around it. Cursing softly, I wiped the blood on my jeans before turning my attention to the card.

Four inches by three, about a quarter of an inch thick, it was fashioned of alternating strands of green and black metals, woven together in an intricate, repeating Celtic knot pattern. It was beautiful. I’m Irish to the bone and proud of it. I love my country, my heritage, the fierce resilience and pride of the Irish people. This was fine work, done in the old way, lovely but slightly rough, as if smelt and beaten by a blacksmith. I had no idea what it was or why it had fallen from the sky. Shrugging at yet another mystery, I turned the metal piece over.