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  Then I will sink within and torment the mouse in my house, the pathetic, fragile, morally castrated MacKayla who has already been so undone by weakness that she’s withdrawn into a catatonic, fetal ball inside me.

  And all it took to reduce her to such a state was allowing her to see herself torture and kill, get a small taste of the delights in which her body had been indulging. I should have permitted her to watch all along. I giggle and burst into another song as I skip down the corridor. “B-B-Baby you ain’t seen nothing yet! Here’s something you’re NEVER gonna forget BABY.”

  Such as when I force her to watch her own hand feeding starry runes to the black holes, exponentially expanding their growth, destroying her planet in a matter of mere days, instead of the months it might currently take.

  WAKE THE FUCK UP. THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE WORLDS.

  I will rule all of them.

  I will be feared, revered, obeyed, got-it-made in the motherfucking shade.

  Fragile MacKayla, so easily broken. She gets attached to things: people, places, even pieces of clothing, as if it fucking matters what she wears, where she lives. As if any of the people around her are actually real. No one is real but me. They are things, not alive. Not like I am.

  I’m disappointed she buckled so soon. I’d indulged myself in additional festivities en route to the White Mansion, the results of which, sadly, she didn’t get to see. I’d wanted her to watch the splendid feats I’d done with her hands but she’d been GONE, so near to DEAD I’ve begun to wonder if I’ll even get the chance to torture her more.

  I’ll revive her. She can’t escape me. That’s a certainty in my world: we will ALWAYS be together. I will always have my sad little horse to break and repair, break and repair.

  She will watch me K’Vruck her world and everything in it. Brilliance such as mine demands an audience. I won’t be cheated of my chance to watch her do what she does best—BLEEDBLEEDBLEED—and revel in being ME not It as It spews emotion all over the place. I won’t be deprived of the opportunity to see It realize, fully understand, how clever, powerful, and brilliant I am. One of those priceless, perfect moments I gather like luminous pearls where, in the horrified comprehension in It’s gaze I know It KNOWS It helped orchestrate It’s own destruction. That’s the moment I crave, desire, lust for, when my toys realize THEY are to BLAME for their own fucking fate. I wonder if anyone drank my poisoned water at the abbey and bled out, ruing that I wasn’t there at the moment they realized what they’d done to themselves. They didn’t HAVE to take a drink. They CHOSE to. I am not to blame. THEY KILLED THEMSELVES. But there will be endless opportunities for such rich experiences soon.

  When I kick open the door to the boudoir, I draw up, surprised into a moment of near-immobility.

  Triumph saturates my being.

  Again I’m vindicated by the universe.

  Chance favors the prepared mind. The universe adores the bold, fearless conqueror and seeks to aid him.

  No need to summon the queen.

  She’s already here.

  I leap into the room, drag the princess in behind me, slam the door, and exclaim brightly, “SH-BOOM!”

  AOIBHEAL

  “It’s mad,” Aoibheal said softly, staring through the shadowy, translucent Silver at the thing that had just burst into the concubine’s boudoir, shouting nonsense. “Utterly and completely mad.”

  “Awk! Maaaaad!” the T’murra agreed.

  She swept at the bird with her hand, urging it, “Fly now, young one! Go! I’ll not see you harmed, too.”

  “Ack! Fly now!” It pecked at her cheek sharply, as if urging her into action.

  “I can’t,” Aoibheal said. She was trapped. Was this the fate the king intended for her? Had he decided to terminate her existence in such a cruel, ironic fashion because she’d forced him to face what he’d refused to believe for eons—that his lover had left him by choice? “Go!” She shooed it again. “It feeds on death and destruction. I’ll not give it more of what it wants.”

  Still the T’murra kept its talons dug deep into her cloak.

  “Get off me!” She smacked lightly at its feathery belly with her hand.

  “Ack!” It gave her a look of seeming reproach and lifted off, echoing in a loud squawk, “Give it what it wants!”

  The T’murra soared up to the safety of the starry night sky, shrieking the random selection of words over and over again. Even as peaceful Zara, she’d sometimes longed to muzzle her talkative companions’ lovely beaks.

  Steeling herself, she turned to face her would-be executioner.

  MacKayla O’Connor, the young child whom she’d so often visited in dreams, was now a grown woman, her jeans crusted with blood and entrails, her hair a wild mass of tangled clumps, the look in her eyes completely and utterly insane.

  Black irises had obliterated green and, as the Fae queen stared through the shadowy Silver at her, she felt a pale regret. She’d manipulated the O’Connor as she herself had been manipulated. As the Fae king had tinkered with the mortal Zara, so too had the Fae queen tinkered with the mortal Mac.

  But regret changed nothing, pale or vivid. The Sinsar Dubh was in full possession of what had once been human, but the golden glow of the O’Connor’s soul was already fading. No soul would survive long, possessed by such evil as what faced her now, with but one goal: to kill her and seize the True Magic of her race.

  No. Not her race.

  The race she despised.

  The race that would soon become extinct without the Song of Making.

  And good riddance to it.

  The Book would no doubt then seek her elixir, become immortal, thus ensuring the final death of the O’Connor’s soul. She would become every bit as much a monster as the one that possessed her.

  Aoibheal narrowed her eyes. She felt the proximity of the others, those who sought to stop the Sinsar Dubh. She felt, too, the presence of the legendary four stones carved from the cliffs of the Unseelie prison, etched with powerful spells, capable of holding the Sinsar Dubh in a state of suspended animation.

  The day was not yet lost.

  Her lips twisted in an imperious sneer.

  He was coming, too!

  The one from whom she’d begged her favor; the one who’d lied and, with the offer of a glass of wine to toast her freedom, had stolen her memory then dragged her off to live for hundreds of thousands of years among her enemy. Masquerading as ally at her side. Controlling her, shaping her. Taking what he wanted until what he wanted was nothing less than everything she had, at which point he’d tried to kill her.

  Cruce was with them.

  “Ack!” The T’murra squawked loudly from above, echoing bits of her earlier words again. “Give it what it wants!”

  Aoibheal cocked her head and glanced up sharply, as the T’murra’s words abruptly seemed no longer quite so random.

  MAC

  This is how it feels to be the Sinsar Dubh.

  Only better. I lack even its shallow frustration and glee.

  There’s nothing left of emotion nor any desire for it.

  I’m perfection of aim, purpose without self.

  I’m arrow to goal without ego.

  I expand effortlessly into my body to evict the parasite that thinks to take from me what is mine.

  I apprehend the small, dark stain of it as if from a great distance.

  How dare it walk within my walls?

  This is my kingdom.

  SINSAR DUBH

  I lunge for the mirror, dropping the princess, leaving her behind. Cocooned like Cruce and the Highlander, she presents no threat to me, can’t contend for the True Magic. I am eager to taste my deserved victory and will visit her and my other toys soon, with ample time to savor their suffering. I realize now that the universe was once again favoring me, not working against me as I’d thought, when it permitted Jada to take my spear. Overeager from long incarceration, I would have rashly killed all three. Now I can draw out their tor—

  STOP.
r />   My feet skid to a halt on the black marble floor so abruptly I nearly topple face-forward. I try to lunge again but remain rooted where I am.

  I cock my head without resisting further, pondering the oddity of just having forced myself to stop. Do I now possess in human form the equivalent of a gut instinct? Did it sense some peril to me I’ve failed to take into account?

  I assess the Fae queen, her shadowy outline beyond the Silver. I hold the spear in my hand. There is no peril to me here.

  I lunge forward again.

  STOP.

  My foot returns to the floor, mere paces from my goal. I’m so close I could reach out and touch the Silver.

  The voice was mine.

  But it wasn’t mine.

  Who, then? Is there some other entity inside me that has been cleverly concealed from me all this time? The voice didn’t belong to the sniveling MacKayla. It is fetal, catatonic within me. It crumbled when I let It watch a single one of the glorious murders we’ve committed. It imploded beneath an onslaught of the illusions of guilt, complicity, regret. What the fuck is regret? I’ve never fathomed that muddy mix of emotion. It could never speak with such a voice.

  This was a voice of power.

  Who is it? WHAT IS IT?

  DESIRE, PURPOSE, AND COMMITMENT TO THE PATH I CHOOSE TO WALK, MacKayla says in a voice just like mine.

  I’d be rendered immobile if I weren’t already.

  What has It done?

  HOW has It done it?

  My mind whirls, dances, and skids across bits and pieces of the facts of MacKayla’s existence I have tirelessly gathered over the years. I know this puny creature! I know Its limits, Its weakness. I know what It is capable of. AND NOT.

  Ahhhhh. I would narrow my eyes and smile if I were in control of our vessel but, at the moment, It holds me motionless.

  It has not tried to move my body. Has not tried to back me away. It can’t. No more than It can sustain this emotionless state of temporary power It has achieved. It’s an amateur, a rank pretender, aspiring to a throne it can never hold.

  I giggle. “I’m flattered, really, but get over yourself, MacKayla.” It felt dead to me because It had IMITATED me. It did something I’d not thought possible for one born so flawed. Shed emotion like a skin It could doff and don at will.

  Did MacKayla study me as I studied her?

  No matter.

  I AM THE REAL THING.

  It is not.

  I do what I’ve done so many times before, reach for Its subconscious and feed It vivid images to manipulate and distract. Exploit that oh-so-exploitable part of It. I show It what It did to Christian, to Cruce, and wait for It to shatter.

  IRRELEVANT, is Its toneless reply.

  Incensed, I flood It with graphic details of the moment I ripped Margery’s still beating heart from her breast.

  DISTRACTION, It says without inflection.

  I feel my right foot draw up from the floor then move BACKWARD as It dares to try to move me AWAY from my goal, so near, so near!

  Behind me, the boudoir door crashes open, and I hear shouts of “Place the stones! Quickly!” Then Barrons roars, “Cruce, you fucking bastard, do it or die!” Snarls fill the air and I hear a scuffle.

  I’m filled with fury, apprehending MacKayla’s plan. It doesn’t have to sustain Its emotionless state forever, just long enough to hold me motionless and permit them to contain us. It would see itself locked away with me forever simply to prevent me from achieving my rightful place in this world! How unfair! How positively PETULANT It is!

  I play my trump card.

  I slam graphic images into Its brain: finding Jo and offering her the poisoned water.

  Grabbing her by the shoulder, smashing its fist into her face again and again. Shattering bones. Exploding brain. Kicking and pulping organs.

  Sinking to the ground.

  EATING Jo SLOWLY and with great GUSTO.

  YES, YES, I tell It, YOU ARE CORRECT, THAT IS WHAT WAS IN YOUR TEETH. BITS OF JO WERE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM. YOU ATE YOUR FRIEND. YOU KILLED HER, AND I MADE MY EYES GREEN FOR HER SO SHE DIED BELIEVING IT WAS YOU.

  I feel It then.

  The weakness I’ve come to know and cherish in my lovely bird in the cage. The surface of Its false facade cracks and emotion begins to seep in. It is so easy to break, so simple to control. I can never be broken in such fashion. I am superior.

  Before they have time to place the final two stones, I recover control of my body and leap into the Silver.

  As we pass through the gelatinous membrane, I realize, with utter incredulity, that I am being SCRAPED from MY limbs, MY eyes.

  The bitch has somehow taken control BACK!

  Then we’re through, mere inches from the queen, and MacKayla yanks me up short, a strike of a spear away from my goal.

  All I require is control of my hand to kill the bitch queen and take what is mine.

  I stare with bottomless hunger at Aoibheal from behind eyes I can’t influence, unable to affect so much as a finger. Again I assault MacKayla with images, this time of the woman I impaled on a spiked fence en route to the bookstore. The young, handsome man I left with nothing between his legs, bleeding in the street. The child I stabbed through the eye with my spear then twirled in the air as if on a skewer before tossing it into a crumpled heap.

  It’s the last one that gets It.

  It falters. I seize control of my hand, raise the spear and—

  IT FREEZES ME AGAIN!

  “I’m not dying for them,” the queen sneers contemptuously. “They’re not my people. They never were. You want the power of the Fae race? Fine. Take it.”

  Aoibheal slams her palms into my chest.

  MAC

  But my eyes were green, I think dispassionately as the queen’s hands slam into my chest. Didn’t she notice?

  Or perhaps she didn’t care, unwilling to take the chance I might lack the stamina to see my battle through.

  Ancient power rushes into me, penetrating my sternum, burrowing deep, and I feel as if my body is being filled with dense brilliance. It gushes into me, in an endless flood.

  Too much, too much, I can’t possibly hold it!

  Then the queen is shoving me backward, into the mirror, back to the concubine’s side of the boudoir as she issues an imperious command through the Silver to Barrons: “She will be immobile for several minutes while she absorbs the True Magic. You must contain her. Now!”

  I’d tell Barrons it’s not necessary because I’m in control, but I can’t affect my vocal cords, my mouth. Nor can the Sinsar Dubh. We’re both in a state of suspension, immobilized by the transference of the queen’s blinding, stupefying power. It feels as if five tons of concrete just got dumped into a quart jar. I’m not Fae. How is this even possible? Will it destroy me? Tear us apart? Is that her point, her purpose?

  I remain at the ready—the composed, untouchable thing I’ve become—to defeat the Sinsar Dubh for good, the moment the power transfer is done.

  Assuming we survive.

  The Book tried its best to restore emotion to me and nearly succeeded.

  But failed.

  I’m beyond emotion now. I bear no guilt, no sins. I know neither right nor wrong. There is only aim and purity of purpose, the path I’ve chosen to walk.

  Distantly, I hear Cruce roar furiously, “Why would you give it to a human? I was here! I am the worthy successor yet you gave it to her.”

  Aoibheal says, “I know everything now, Cruce—you who were once my treasured friend. My memory is restored. You betrayed me. You promised to return me to my world and let me die.”

  “I gave you everything! I gave you immortality—”

  “I never wanted it,” she snarls. “You knew that!”

  “But to give it to a human?” he sneers. “Can she even carry it?”

  “This one can,” Aoibheal says, and I hear something in her voice and realize she did notice that my eyes were green. She knew it was me, not the Book. And did it anyway. Why?
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  “You took everything from me,” she says to Cruce. “But even that was not enough for you. In time, I might have chosen to pass my power to you as I faded, risk a patriarchal rule. I saw your strength. Even, at times, your wisdom. But you tried to steal it from me.”

  “For the good of our kind!”

  “Your kind,” she says with an icy laugh, “not mine, and your kind is beyond hope now. The moment the Earth dies—thanks to yet another of the king’s reckless acts of creation—the entire race of the Tuatha De Danann will expire; each and every one of you. Think no longer of yourself as immortal. You have mere months at best.”

  “We will leave this planet,” Cruce hisses.

  “Run as far as you want. It will do you no good. I bound the seat of our race’s power to the Earth.”

  Cruce inhales sharply. Then says disbelievingly, “What the fuck were you thinking? Planets die! You know that!”

  She laughs mirthlessly. “And now, so will the Fae. The instant the Earth does.”

  I can do nothing to arrest the velocity with which Aoibheal shoved me into the Silver. After what seemed several long moments of passing through it, I explode from the sticky membrane, go flying backward through the air, and crash violently to the floor.

  My head snaps back and smacks marble with such force I see stars.

  Then darkness claims me and I see no more.

  When I regain consciousness, I’m in a chair, in the middle of the concubine’s boudoir, unable to move.

  My eyes are open, and beyond twinkling diamonds suspended on air I see the cocooned body of the Unseelie princess, the thunderous-faced Cruce, being forcibly restrained by stony-eyed Fade and Lor, ashen-faced Jada, eyes enormous and full of grief, and beyond her the residue of the concubine, reclining on her plush white bed.

  Barrons. My beautiful Barrons stands in front of me, dark gaze glittering with crimson flecks, mouth drawn back in a silent snarl.

  The shimmering blue-black containment field of stone connecting to stone stretches between us from floor to ceiling, vanishing around my sides where I see no more of it but know my prison is complete. And as I suspected, it renders both the Book and me fully inert while leaving both of us fully cognizant.