She has found mention of the Nine in millennia-old annals, tracked them into present times through paintings and photographs. She has identified six of them by name, knows a seventh only by his long silver hair and dark burning eyes. She found a very old portrait of him in Romania that astounds. She knows two of them are half brothers, with different fathers, although the world would never guess it by looking. She knows the sorrow the one she will permit to live may feel, but her ledgers must be balanced. She has been unable to cement either face or name for the remaining two into the meticulous compartments of her memory. The single time she saw all nine of them in one place, one was hooded, the other’s face too heavily painted to see.

Knowledge is power.

Kasteo, Barrons, Fade, Ryodan, Lor, Daku.

She nearly smiles at the last name. He was once a gladiator for sheer love of the game, and in another century and land, an epic samurai. She anticipates their battle second most.

Their ways are as vile as the Fae, yet two of the six names she knows are not on her list. Two of them she will permit to live.

She hears and dismisses snatches of conversation as she passes.

“Who is she?”

“Never seen her before.”

“Fuck, the bitch is hot!”

“You don’t stand a chance, Bruegger. She’d tear you up.”

“And I’d die a happy man.”

“Think she’s Fae?”

“Dunno. She sure as hell moves like one.”

The Fae she has studied, as well, dissected and assimilated what she found useful. There are many of them on her list.

But she’s not Fae. She’s human.

She moves silently through the subclubs. In her wake, a man who was foolish enough to try to grab her ass as she passed clutches a broken and bloodied hand, and howls with drunken pain and fury.

This time she does smile.

No one touches her except in the clash of a battle she has chosen.

High above, behind the glass balustrade that shapes a perimeter walkway into an inner courtyard for the private upper levels, she spies the perfect worm for her hook and contemplates the anomaly: humans are not permitted up there. Only the Nine and their few chosen. Yet he is both human and up there. Unattended. Stripping and tossing his clothing over a chrome railing to a delighted crowd of women below.

He is nude then and she assesses him clinically. Yes, perfect.

As she approaches the glass staircase that provides access to the levels where the Nine are rumored to maintain their residences, in addition to the owner’s office, the electronic heart of the enormous club, she processes the second anomaly: the stairs are not guarded at the bottom by two of the Nine, a minor challenge for which she was prepared. Inconceivable, were it not fact.

She would escalate to high alert, but she lives there.

Silently, without questioning her luck—luck always favors the arrow that knows its goal—she ascends the stairs.

10

“There’s a she-wolf in disguise coming out, coming out”

MAC

It’s midnight, our meeting ended hours ago, and I’m alone in the bookstore. After Kat left with Sean, Ryodan said something to Barrons about cleaning up after the Hoar Frost King, which made no sense to me since the last of the ice melted weeks ago.

Barrons left to do whatever he does when he comes back with his heart beating, eyes brilliant, fury cooled. He won’t have sex with me if he’s hungry. I have my theories about why.

I once asked him what he ate and he said gently, None of your fucking business. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t signify. He is what he is. You take it or leave it, and I’m not leaving. The man isn’t vegan. He has a toothbrush. Life goes on.

After wasting hours poring over yet another tattered, disintegrating volume we brought out of the Silvers with a title that translates roughly as The Fae Obscene, I busy myself dusting and polishing shelves and counters, then check on the weapons I’ve hidden around the store. Anything to keep from thinking about this afternoon, and the terrible thing I’ve done. The terrible things I might continue to do unless I silence the Book forever. I consider going to see Inspector Jayne, learn the location of the O’Leary family, see what their needs are and fill them, but every time I begin to ponder it, I double over with guilt and grief, too sick to my stomach to move.

It’s been a while since I tended my cache. I miss my weapons, but I’m not willing to carry them. After today, I’d rather not carry the spear, but I won’t leave it lying around where someone else might find it, not even at the bookstore. Barrons despises the ancient Fae hallow because it could kill me. I like it for the same reason. A gun can kill you, too. You have to respect it.