Little girl, my ass. “You know I can’t. And that makes what you did to me tonight even more unforgivable. You might as well have raped me. In fact, that’s exactly what you did!”

He rolled hard and fast, and I was on my back beneath him, with my hands pinned above my head, the weight of his body crushing me to the floor, his face inches from mine. He was breathing harder than the exertion merited.

“Make no mistake, Ms. Lane, I didn’t rape you. You can lie there on your pretty little P.C. ass and claim with your idealistic little P.C. arguments that any violation of your will is rape and that I’m a big, bad bastard, and I’ll tell you that you’re full of shit, and you’ve obviously never been raped. Rape is much, much worse. Rape isn’t something you walk away from. You crawl.”

He was off me and on his feet, stalking out the door before I’d even managed to catch enough breath to reply.

PART TWO

The Darkest Hour

Nightfall.
“What a strange word.
‘Night’ I get.
But ‘fall’ is a gentle word.
Autumn leaves fall, swirling with languid grace
To carpet the earth with their dying blaze.
Tears fall, like liquid diamonds
Shimmering softly, before they melt away.
Night doesn’t fall here.
It comes slamming down.”

—Mac’s journal

TEN

I slept fitfully and dreamed of the sad woman again.

She was trying to tell me something but an icy wind kept stealing her words each time she opened her mouth. Laughter rippled on the chilling breeze, and I thought I recognized it, but I couldn’t lift the name from my mind. The harder I tried, the more frightened and confused I became. Then V’lane was there, and Barrons too, with men I’d never seen before, and suddenly Christian appeared, and Barrons moved toward him, with murder in his eyes.

I woke up, iced to the bone, and in a state of alarm.

My subconscious had put something together that hadn’t penetrated my conscious mind: Today was Thursday, Christian was returning from Scotland, and Barrons was onto him, because of me.

I had no idea what Barrons might do to him, and didn’t want to find out. The lie-detecting Keltar was no match for . . . whatever my employer was. Teeth chattering, I grabbed my cell off the night table, and called the ALD. The dreamy-eyed boy answered, and told me Christian wasn’t due in until afternoon. I asked for an apartment, home, or cell number, and he said the personnel files were locked up in the department head’s office. She was gone for a long holiday weekend, and wouldn’t be back until Monday.

I left an urgent message for Christian to call me the instant he walked in.

I was about to tug the covers up, snuggle down, and try to shiver myself warm, when my phone rang.

It was Dani.

“She almost caught me, Mac!” she said breathlessly. “She didn’t leave PHI at all yesterday. She slept in her office, and I was up all fecking night, waiting for a chance to get in. Then a few minutes ago she finally went downstairs, for breakfast, I thought, and I slipped in but I couldn’t find the book you wanted. There was another one in her desk, so I took pictures of it, but I didn’t get many because she came right back, and I had to go out the fecking window and I tore my uniform and banged myself up something wicked. I couldn’t get what you asked for but I tried, and I got something else. That counts, doesn’t it? Will you still meet up with us?”

“Are you okay?”

She snorted. “I kill monsters, Mac. I fell out of a stupid window.”

I smiled. “Where are you?” I could hear horns honking in the background, the sounds of the city waking up.

“Not far from you.” She told me. I knew the intersection.

I glanced at the window. It was still dark out. I hated her being out there in the dark, regardless of her superspeed, and I doubted she had the sword. “There’s a church across the street.” It was brilliantly lit. “I’ll meet you in front of it in ten minutes.”

“But the rest of ’em aren’t here!”

“I’m just coming for my camera. Can you get the girls together this afternoon?”

“I can try. Kat says you have to pick a place where the other . . . couriers . . . won’t see us.”

I named several cafés, all of which she nixed as too risky. We finally settled on a below-street pub, aptly named The Underground, that offered darts and pool tables, but no windows.

I hung up, brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, tugged on jeans, and zipped a fleece-lined jacket over my PJ top, then jammed a ball cap on my head. My blond roots were showing. I made a mental note to stop in a drugstore on the way back and grab a couple boxes of color. It was depressing enough that I had to have dark hair. I wasn’t going to cheese it up with a sloppy dye job.