Burned - Moning Karen Marie - Страница 39

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“Ghosts,” I say, “of all the Unseelie I killed. They haunt me.” I’ve found it usually shuts people up. He doesn’t look at all surprised, but then why would he? His ghosts haunt him from the inside.

“Where’s the bastard that runs this club?”

“Around somewhere. Are you here because you’ve located Christian?” I ask hopefully.

“Nay. We’ve tried summoning the queen repeatedly to request her aid, but she’s no’ responding to any of our rituals.”

I wonder if buried in their countless records and annals they have a summoning spell for the king. Although I don’t appear to currently need it, I file the thought away for future reference, aware that asking such a question might only open a new can of worms, and turn more pairs of intensely penetrating Keltar eyes my way than I’d like.

“Now that the Compact is broken, we’ve no influence over the Fae world. Christian’s gone, without trace. The only thing of which we’re certain is he’s no’ in Ireland anymore. We’ve fair torn the country apart searching.”

“Can’t you try tracking the Crimson Hag instead?”

“We’ve naught of her to use in such a spell. We’d need flesh, bone, a gut from her gown might serve.”

“No recent sightings?”

“The Unseelie Princes claim she tried to capture them shortly after she took Christian, but they’ve since joined forces, and she’s no’ been seen again.” He rubs a stubble-shadowed jaw. “It happened differently than I foresaw,” he says heavily. “I was watching for the wrong signs.”

I’m about to ask what he’s talking about when Ryodan takes a stool beside him. “Keltar. Hear you’re looking for me.”

Translation: he was sitting upstairs in his office, watching his endless cameras, eavesdropping. I’m surprised he came down. Appears he has enough respect for the Highlander to do more than he does for most: acknowledge his presence and appear as requested. Interesting.

Dageus says just as coolly, “Hear you met with a Seelie Prince, had negotiations. You will be summoning him for us now.”

Ryodan cuts him an amused look. “Will I.”

“Aye.”

“Think again.”

“What do you want with R’jan?” I ask Dageus.

“He’s a sifter and is currently in control of all Seelie. I want him to dispatch other sifters to hunt the Hag for us.”

“Couldn’t you send some of your men as well?” I say to Ryodan quickly. “If Christian hadn’t distracted the Hag and she’d kept killing that night, who knows what might have happened. We owe him, Ryodan. All of us. We can’t just leave him out there, being killed over and over again.”

“It’s keeping her busy and out of my fucking hair,” Ryodan says.

I should have known better than to try an emotional entreaty with him. I employ reason in my next attempt. “If we don’t save him from the Hag, he’ll be more problematic to you, to all of us, should he eventually escape. He was sane enough to sacrifice himself. That sanity won’t last long in her hands.”

Ryodan shrugs. “We put him down if he returns. No different than any other Unseelie Prince. If he’s not useful, he’s disposable.”

“No other Unseelie Prince would have sacrificed himself,” I snap.

“He is Keltar, and that is all the difference necessary,” Dageus says. “In exchange for your aid, we’ll help you reclaim the abbey from those who’ve taken over.” He drops the bomb quietly.

“What?” I practically shout. “Someone has taken over the abbey?” I look at Ryodan and my hands curl into fists. He knew! And said nothing to me. “When did you find out about this?” I demand. “And why didn’t you tell me? You do remember what’s under there, right?”

“I’ll handle it when the others return. And don’t say that again in here.”

I grit my jaw. I can’t believe I just said it. Here of all places. No, I didn’t spell out what was beneath the abbey but I said enough that a curious eavesdropper might decide to go looking.

Dageus says, “Three have already met their deaths. No doubt more will be finding graves the longer you delay.”

Not if I have anything to say about it, and I could write a dissertation. I strip the apron from my waist and begin closing my bar down. I shiver, dreading the answer to my next question. All good coups begin with the deposing of the current leader. “Is Kat okay?”

“I’m sure she is. She’s a survivor,” Ryodan says.

I glare at him. He’s never said anything that nice about me.

Dageus finishes his drink and slides it back for another. “I doona ken the names of the slain. During battle for possession of the grounds, a sidhe-seer escaped. We found her stumbling, badly injured, along the road toward Dublin. Drustan took her to the hospital at Dublin Castle. Your Inspector Jayne said he will commit the aid of his Guardians but only if the sidhe-seers turn over either the spear or sword to his troops. Permanently.”

I slap lids on the condiments and shove them in the fridge. Not a chance in hell. “What happened, Ryodan? You were supposed to place more powerful wards around the grounds. That was part of our negotiations.”

“My men have been busy, in case you’ve forgotten. Besides, you asked us to place more wards against Fae. Not humans.”

“Humans took control?” This just keeps getting worse. “Who?”

“The new sidhe-seers say it’s their home now.”

I narrow my eyes and snarl. Sidhe-seers came into our town and took our home? I promised Kat we wouldn’t let this happen. I promised her we would protect the abbey. We’re the home team. Nobody takes our stadium. “How many are there? What weapons do they have? How did they take the abbey? Didn’t Kat put up a fight?”

Dageus says, “If your Kat who was with us that night is in charge now, that may explain things. The woman we found said their headmistress has been missing for nigh a week, and someone inside their own group, Margery, invited the new sidhe-seers in.”

Nearly a week? That means she disappeared the day after our meeting! “Have you seen her?” I ask Ryodan.

“What do you think, she comes to visit me,” he says. “This is Katarina we’re talking about.”

“Bar’s closed,” I snap at a guy about to sit down.

He looks at Ryodan and Dageus. “They’re sitting here.”

“I said it’s closed.”

“Pour me a drink, bitch. It’s a free fucking world.” He drops a leg over the stool.

Ryodan smashes a fist out sideways, squarely into the guy’s face without even looking, while saying, “Assuming I arrange this meeting, the Keltar will aid in regaining control of the abbey regardless of the outcome.” The guy flies backward off the bar stool and crashes to the floor.

“Unlike you, we are men of our word. Unlike you,” Dageus growls, “we are men. As in human.”

“Humans break.” Ryodan doesn’t say it, doesn’t have to, it hangs in the air: We don’t.

The guy Ryodan punched picks himself up, gives us looks like we’re all crazy, and backs away into the crowd.

I tell Dageus, “The meeting with R’jan happens after we free the abbey.”

“It happens before or no’ at all,” Dageus says flatly.

“More sidhe-seers could die!” I say heatedly.

“Aye. Once. Christian is being butchered o’er and o’er again every day.” The Highlander’s brogue thickens. “Who kens it — perhaps he’s died a hundred times so far. Have you any idea what that can do to a man?”

I shiver. Yes. It sounds too similar to the hell Barrons’s son suffered. Regenerating only to be killed each time he was reborn. It turned the small boy into an animal, drove the child deep into madness from which there was no return. What is the same fate doing to Christian, even as we speak, who was highly unstable to begin with? He certainly hasn’t had an easy time of it since I arrived in Dublin: catapulted unarmed into the Silvers for years by a botched ritual, fed Unseelie by myself, locked in a desperate battle for control over what he’s becoming, and now held captive by a monster that rips out his guts every time he heals.

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