High Voltage (Fever #10)(39)

The beast had draped his version of a well-worn quilt around me before he’d left.

I recognized the elaborate symbols and runes. They’re etched at thresholds of Barrons Books & Baubles and there isn’t a Faery in all existence that can cross them. Possibly not even Mac, unless he wove it with an exception for her, which would have required her blood as well.

    Did that mean my cruelly starved visitor was Jericho Barrons? And, if so, where did he go and why? What did he think, my flat was a convenient Stop N Go where he could pop in unannounced, get fed, then go tearing off without a word, thinking to appease me with the gift of a few wards?

Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for them. I’m incapable of working such formidable magic myself. Their presence made Sanctuary infinitely more valuable to me. I now had a flat with a room that was safe from the sifting Fae who could simply appear smack in the middle of any of my flats, if they felt so inclined.

But I didn’t want wards. I’d survived just fine without them for two years. I wanted answers.

I wanted my beast back.

I wanted to no longer be the only supercar revving my engine in Dublin. I wanted the entire primal fleet of growling, high-performance Lambos and Ferraris and big, black, badass military Humvees making thunder in the streets of my city.

Besides, I’d pretty much convinced myself the beast was Ryodan. Not from a wealth of empirical data, but an unshakable gut feeling. I’d thought he’d stay. I’d wake up and find him here. We’d catch up. Get mad at each other. It’d be like old times.

Not.

My bright, alert, true-north-pointing mood took a steep nosedive south. Fuming, I stalked into the bathroom, muttering beneath my breath. I’d lived two long years without a single glimpse of the Nine and when I finally got one of them back, he’d snuck off while I was sleeping. After everything I’d done for him.

I’m rarely—okay, never—a houseguest, but if I was, I’d offer both a hello and a goodbye. Especially if my host had saved my life.

    The Nine drive me batshit crazy.

Still, the beast might be floating around Dublin somewhere.

After brushing my teeth and scraping my tangled hair back into a messy ponytail—not about to brush it, time was of the essence—I tugged on black combat pants and stuffed the many zippered pockets and pouches with weapons, then tucked my Glock in my waistband. I fastened a belt around my waist that became three different weapons and hooked a choker at my neck that became a fourth. Slid on a cuff that concealed razors.

I pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and boots, gloved up, Duck-Taped my neck, slid my sword over my back, and headed for the kitchen to gulp down protein and fat while scanning my text messages.

As I hurried for the door I called out to Shazam, telling him to catch up with me ASAP, that I loved and missed him and would enormously appreciate his extraordinarily acute sense of smell that was so vastly superior to mine, and would he please join me on an adventure today? His recent, long absences were really worrying me.

Then, with thunder in my step that held belligerence I didn’t bother to conceal, I exploded into the fog-kissed Dublin morning, woman on a mission.

Hunt beast.

I prowled the streets, scanning my surroundings up, down, and sideways, sniffing the air, listening intently, while tallying my priorities for the day.

Rainey had texted while I was sleeping, letting me know she’d found a home, not only for Sara Brady and her siblings but two other orphaned families. No children were placed until I inspected their new homes myself. I won’t save innocents only to lose them to another’s corruption.

    In my teens, I’d have also prepped a Dani Daily about recent events, but Dublin had a paper again and, these days, I merely jotted notes, snapped photos, and left the info outside their offices down by the O’Connell Post Office. They’d proven reliable about printing the things I considered important so I stuck to my gracious noncompete. I didn’t get a byline but at least the news got out there.

Also on my list was book shopping. Since my bookstore of choice, with its kickass motto—You want it, we’ve got it, and if we don’t, we’ll find it—was MIA, I was going to have to patronize Bane’s Bibliotech & Bagels (seriously—copy much? Get your own original thought) with its concrete floors, stark fluorescent lights, dog-eared, smelly, secondhand, overpriced books, and even more overpriced café.

The euro still ruled, second to brute-force and black-market racketeering. Dublin had quickly relapsed into that elaborate conspiracy of pretending meaningless pieces of paper were worth something, which worked for me. I’d pilfered a pile of currency I found stashed in a storage room deep in Chester’s. One of ten storage rooms, crammed with currency from too many countries to count, much of it intriguingly ancient.

Though cell towers functioned reliably for the most part, the Internet was in sad shape, vast chunks of it missing. With so much of the human race gone, enormous areas of the planet lacked both the power and manpower to run things. Compounded by magic making things unpredictable, books once again commanded a premium.

I needed information about Ireland’s gods and goddesses. I’d never given them much of a thought. I preferred superheroes and had spent far more time poring over comics and graphic novels. Who was AOZ and what was his modus operandi for tripping people up with their own wishes?