A dutiful soldier, I retreated to the ditches as ordered and hunkered down there. In those ditches, I had an epiphany. People treat you as badly as you let them treat you.
Karen Marie MoningI’d gazed into the abyss and the abyss had gazed back, just like Daddy always said it would: You want to know about life, Mac? It’s simple. Keep watching rainbows, baby. Keep looking at the sky. You find what you look for. If you go hunting good in the world, you’ll find it. If you go hunting evil . . . well, don’t.
Karen Marie MoningYou can’t change an unpleasant reality if you won’t acknowledge it, Mac. You can only control what you’re willing to face. Truth hurts. But lies can kill.
Karen Marie MoningThey’re called shortcuts for a reason. The shorter they are, the more they usually cut. Nothing is without price.
Karen Marie MoningI contemplate the notion that maybe regrets are a process of accumulation of time, as unavoidable as a closet full of clothes and more bags of them in the attic. Is accumulated baggage what makes people get old? If so, they need to clean out their fecking attics, send the stuff to consignment shops and remember how to walk around naked like kids, little bellies sticking out, always ready for a good laugh.
Karen Marie Moningthis is chesters mac.i gave her what she wanted.i give them all what they want.i'm not responsible for how fucking soulless their wants are.
RYODAN- BURNED
Careful, sidhe-seer. I have chosen to spare you. Do not press your luck.”
I locked my jaw, pushed myself up, and lit another match, studying my enemies in the flickering light. Both would devour me. Just in different ways. If forced to choose, I’d take death-by-Shade.
“Why have you chosen to spare me?”
“I want us to be . . . what is your word? Friends.”
“Psychotic rapists don’t have friends.”
“I was unaware you were psychotic rapist or I would not have offered.
I’d like to see some identification,” growled the inspector.
I fully expected Barrons to toss O’Duffy from the shop on his ear. He had no legal compulsion to comply and Barrons doesn’t suffer fools lightly. In fact, he doesn’t suffer them at all, except me, and that’s only because he needs me to help him find the Sinsar Dubh. Not that I’m a fool. If I’ve been guilty of anything, it’s having the blithely sunny disposition of someone who enjoyed a happy childhood, loving parents, and long summers of lazy-paddling ceiling fans and small-town drama in the Deep South which-while it’s great—doesn’t do a thing to prepare you for live beyond that.
Barrons gave the inspector a wolfish smile. “Certainly.” He removed a wallet from the inner pocket of his suit. He held it out but didn’t let go. “And yours, Inspector.”
O’Duffy’s jaw tightened but he complied.
As the men swapped identifications, I sidled closer to O’Duffy so I could peer into Barrons’ wallet.
Would wonders never cease? Just like a real person, he had a driver’s license. Hair: black. Eyes: brown. Height: 6’3”. Weight: 245. His birthday—was he kidding?—Halloween. He was thirty-one years old and his middle initial was Z. I doubted he was an organ donor.
“You’ve a box in Galway as your address, Mr. Barrons. Is that where you were born?”
I’d once asked Barrons about his lineage, he’d told me Pict and Basque. Galway was in Ireland, a few hours west of Dublin.
“No.”
“Where?”
“Scotland.”
“You don’t sound Scottish.”
“You don’t sound Irish. Yet here you are, policing Ireland. But then the English have been trying to cram their laws down their neighbors’ throats for centuries, haven’t they, Inspector?”
O’Duffy had an eye tic. I hadn’t noticed it before. “How long have you been in Dublin?”
“A few years. You?”
“I’m the one asking the questions.”
“Only because I’m standing here letting you.”
“I can take you down to the station. Would you prefer that?”
“Try.” The one word dared the Garda to try, by fair means or foul. The accompanying smile guaranteed failure. I wondered what he’d do if the inspector attempted it. My inscrutable host seems to possess a bottomless bag of tricks.
O’Duffy held Barrons’ gaze longer than I expected him to. I wanted to tell him there was no shame in looking away. Barrons has something the rest of us don’t have. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it all the time, especially when we’re standing close. Beneath the expensive clothes, unplaceable accent, and cultural veneer, there’s something that never crawled all the way out of the swamp. It didn’t want to. It likes it there.
If, when he disappeared through his portal, he went to Faery, time moves differently there.”
“That’s what V’lane said.” I emptied the cash drawer, counted the bills into stacks, then began punching in numbers on an adding machine. The store wasn’t computerized, which made bookkeeping a real pain in the neck.
He gave me a look. “The two of you are getting downright chatty, aren’t you, Miss Lane? When did you last see him? What else did he tell you?”
“I’m asking the questions tonight.” One day I was going to write a book: How to Dictate to a Dictator and Evade an Evader, subtitled How to Handle Jericho Barrons.
He snorted. “If an illusion of control comforts you, Ms. Lane, by all means, cling to it.”
“Jackass.” I gave him a look modeled on his own.
He laughed, and I stared, then blinked and looked away. I finished rubber-banding the cash, put it in a leather pouch, and punched the final numbers in, running the day’s total. For a moment there he hadn’t looked dark, forbidding, and cold, but dark, forbidding, and . . . warm. In fact, when he’d laughed he’d looked . . . well . . . kind of hot.
I grimaced. Obviously I’d eaten something bad for lunch.
Who were you fighting when I called you?”
“Ryodan.”
“Why?”
“For talking to about me to people he shouldn’t be talking to.”
“Who’s Ryodan?”
“The man I was fighting.”
I took a detour around the dead end. “Did you kill the inspector?”
“If I were the type of person to kill O’Duffy, I would also be the type of person to lie about it.”
“So, did you, or didn’t you?”
“The answer would be ‘no’ in either in either case. You ask absurd questions. Listen to your gut, Ms. Lane. It may save your life one day.”
“I heard there are no male sidhe-seers.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Around.”
“And which one of those are you in doubt about, Ms. Lane?”
“Which one of what?”
“Whether I see the Fae, or whether I’m a man. I believe I’ve laid your mind to rest on the former; shall I relieve it on the latter?” He reached for his belt.
“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re a leftie, Barrons.”
“Touche, Ms. Lane,” he murmured.
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