High Voltage (Fever #10)(31)
I choke on it some days. It takes me to a dark place. At night I hunt with that darkness. But I know this fact: if Mac fails to gain the Light Court’s loyalty, they will come for my sword. It’s likely only a few weeks have passed in Faery. Likely they’re still playing nice with each other, feeling her out, trying to decide how much of the power the ancient queen passed her that she’s figured out how to use, and how far she’s willing to take it.
I know another fact, and holy hell I’d like to talk to Mac about it.
To govern a cruel race, one must be cruel.
I hope Barrons’s Rainbow Girl can be cruel. It comes easier to me, but we weren’t raised the same. Mac grew up drenched in love and approval, waltzing through rainbow-colored days.
Objectively, I entertain the possibility that if the Fae killed me, she’d learn to be cruel instantly. You have to consider all the cards you have to play when the fate of your world is at stake.
I spotted two of my three arsonists lurking in an alley on the north bank of the River Liffey as I headed for another of my northside flats to get more blood for the beast.
My body an adrenaline-infused weapon, I glided silently near, a shadow on their heels, swiftly revising my plan into one that would take out three birds, not two, with a single stone tonight: find out what they were up to; test my theory about my arm on one of them and, if it still blew him up through my clothing, take the other as food for the beast. If their deeds were as villainous as I suspected, I’d kill them anyway. No point in wasting blood.
I pegged the men as brothers, one a few inches taller than the other, moving with the same shambling gait, cut from identical genetic cloth with brown hair, the saggy, bloated skin of lifelong drinkers, mirror-image blunt features, and shifty, cunning eyes behind glasses. I know those eyes. They’re the eyes of frightened, small men who serve a dark master to stay alive, taking delight in the torment of others because each obscene task they perform is a way of convincing themselves they’re exempt: they chose to be predator not prey.
Was their master on the other side of that slim dark mirror? Might he be the “him” AOZ had threatened me with?
I’m not a predator. Nor am I prey. I’m the thing that crouches in the shadowy places between the two, native to no land but my own.
“We can’t go back empty-handed.” The shorter one sounded worried as he adjusted a slouchy, rolled beanie on his head.
I was an invisible wind on the salt-kissed breeze behind them, half into freeze-frame, but not in the slipstream. I’d spent a lot of time analyzing how Ryodan moved and had achieved a degree of his ability to melt into his surroundings. It took intense mental effort. I had to keep myself partially in an alternate way of moving, and partially not. It was like compressing myself to fit in a doorway, making myself no wider than a few inches, but occasionally part of me popped on one side or the other if I was startled by something or lost focus. I’d been getting better at it, though, working with Fallon, our young chameleon, determined to learn from her.
“Not tonight,” the other agreed with a curse. “He wants an even dozen. Told all of us to come back with no less. How the fuck are we supposed to manage that? We’re not bloody miracle workers! He’s got so many of us in this city, we’re stepping all over each other’s turf!”
I assessed them but discerned no sign of weapons. Perhaps they had a knife concealed somewhere, but most people didn’t walk these streets without a gun. I had a Glock tucked in my waistband, my PPQ in an inside hip holster on my right.
“Yah, it’s bullshit. My back still hurts from last night, and I swear I sprained my shoulder,” his companion complained. “Fuckin’ fat-ass people. Where do they even find enough food to be fat?”
His brother laughed, a thin, cruel sound, as he tipped a flask back and swigged. “No shit, right? Well, they don’t stay that way long.” He guffawed again but it died swiftly and he shuddered, shoving the flask and his hands deep into the pockets of his coat.
I narrowed my eyes, pondering that comment. They didn’t stay fat. Was it possible whoever they worked for had been holding the beast in my flat? But what was the point in starving people and/or animals to death?
“He needs to cut us some slack for it being so hard! They’re afraid now and not going out at night. We took too many. He’s gotta let us move again,” the shorter of the two complained.
“Never gonna happen, Alfie. Some bloody reason, he wants us here.”
“Fuckin’ bastard! How’s a man supposed to do his job with his hands tied?”
“Fuckin’ just like the world was before. Average guys like us is the ones doing all the hard work!”
It went on like that for a while, as I tailed them. Bitching about the world as if they were the good guys, badly abused by everyone, and how terrible it was they were being taken for granted and inconvenienced.
I swallowed the bile of irritation so many times I was about to vomit it when suddenly one of them whirled and I felt a tiny piercing pain in my left breast, just above my nipple.
I stiffened.
The poison hit my blood instantly.
Honey, I’ll rise up from the dead, I do it all the time
AT LEAST NOW I knew why they weren’t carrying.