Faefever f-3 Read online

  They can sift space.

  DOLMEN: A single-chamber megalithic tomb constructed of three or more upright stones supporting a large, flat horizontal capstone. Dolmens are common in Ireland, especially around the Burren and Connemara. The Lord Master used a dolmen in a ritual of dark magic to open a doorway between realms and bring Unseelie through.

  DRUID: In pre-Christian Celtic society, a Druid presided over divine worship, legislative and judicial matters, philosophy, and education of elite youth to their order. Druids were believed to be privy to the secrets of the gods, including issues pertaining to the manipulation of physical matter, space, and even time. The old Irish “Drui” means magician, wizard, diviner. (Irish Myths and Legends)

  Addendum to original entry: I saw both Jericho Barrons and the Lord Master use the Druid power of Voice, a way of speaking with many voices that cannot be disobeyed. Significance?

  Addendum: Christian MacKeltar descends from a long, ancient bloodline of Druids.

  FAE: (fay) See also Tuatha Dé Danaan. Divided into two courts, the Seelie or Light Court, and the Unseelie or Dark Court. Both courts have different castes of Fae, with the four Royal Houses occupying the highest caste of each. The Seelie Queen and her chosen consort rule the Light Court. The Unseelie King and his current concubine govern the Dark.

  FIONA: The woman who ran Barrons Books and Baubles before I took over. She was wildly in love with Barrons and tried to kill me by turning out all the lights one night and propping a window open to let the Shades in. Barrons fired her for it—gee, now that I think about it, getting fired for trying to kill me sure feels like underkill. She’s hooked up with Derek O’Bannion, and he’s got her eating Unseelie. I have a bad feeling that she and I aren’t done with each other.

  FOUR STONES, THE: Translucent blue-black stones covered with raised runelike lettering. The key to deciphering the ancient language and breaking the code of the Sinsar Dubh is hidden in these four mystical stones. An individual stone can be used to shed light on a small portion of the text, but only if the four are reassembled into one will the true text in its entirety be revealed. (Irish Myths and Legends)

  Addendum: Other texts say it is the “true nature” of the Sinsar Dubh that will be revealed.

  GLAMOUR: Illusion cast by the Fae to camouflage their true appearance. The more powerful the Fae, the more difficult it is to penetrate its disguise. Average humans see only what the Fae want them to see, and are subtly repelled from bumping into or brushing against it by a small perimeter of spatial distortion that is part of the Fae glamour.

  GRAY MAN, THE : Monstrously ugly, leprous Unseelie that feeds by stealing beauty from human women. Threat assessment: can kill, but prefers to leave its victim hideously disfigured, and alive to suffer.

  Addendum to original entry: Allegedly the only one of its kind, Barrons and I killed it.

  Addendum to original entry: It could sift space.

  GRIPPER: Dainty, diaphanous Unseelie that is surprisingly beautiful. Grippers look like the modern media’s representation of fairies—delicate, shimmering, nude beauties, with a cloud of gossamer hair, and lovely features, only they’re nearly the size of a human. I named them Grippers because they “grip” us. They can step inside a human’s skin and take them over. Once they’ve slipped inside a person, I can no longer sense them. I could be standing right next to a Gripper inside a person, and not even know it. For a while, I was afraid Barrons might be one. But I made him hold the spear.

  HALLOWS, THE: Eight ancient relics of immense power fashioned by the Fae: four light and four dark. The Light or Seelie Hallows are the stone, the spear, the sword, and the cauldron. The Dark or Unseelie Hallows are the amulet, the box, the mirror, and the book (Sinsar Dubh, or Dark Book). (A Definitive Guide to Artifacts, Authentic and Legendary)

  Addendum to original entry: I still don’t know anything about the stone or the box. Do they confer powers that could help me? Where are they? Correction to above definition, the mirror is actually the Silvers. See Sifting Silvers or Silvers. The Unseelie King made all the Dark Hallows. Who made the Light ones?

  Addendum to original entry: See the story of the Unseelie King and his mortal concubine, as V’lane told it to me. (p. 77 this journal.) The king created the Silvers for her to keep her ageless and give her realms to explore. He created the amulet so she could reshape reality. He gave her the box for her loneliness. What does it do? The Sinsar Dubh was an accident.

  HAVEN, THE: High council of sidhe-seers.

  Addendum to original entry: Once selected by popular vote, now chosen by the Grand Mistress for their loyalty to her and the cause. They were the only ones besides Rowena who knew what was being kept beneath the abbey. Some of them died and/or disappeared when the Book escaped twenty-some years ago. How did it happen? I’m twenty-two. Is it possible my mother was one of them?!!!

  IYCGM: Barrons gave me a cell phone with this number programmed in. It stands for If You Can’t Get Me. The mysterious Ryodan answers when I call.

  IYD: Another of Barrons’ preprogrammed numbers; stands for If You’re Dying.

  LORD MASTER: My sister’s betrayer and murderer! Fae but not Fae, leader of the Unseelie army, after the Sinsar Dubh. He was using Alina to hunt it like Barrons is using me to hunt OOPs.

  Addendum to original entry: He offered me a trade: Alina back for the Book. I think he really could do it.

  MACKELTAR, CHRISTIAN: Employed in the ancient languages department of Trinity. He knows what I am and knew my sister! Have no idea what his place in all this is, nor do I know his motives. Will find out more soon.

  Addendum to original entry: Christian comes from a clan that once served as high Druids to the Fae and have been upholding the human part of the Fae/Man Compact for thousands of years, performing rituals and paying tithes. He knew Alina only in passing. She’d come to ask him to translate a piece of text from the Sinsar Dubh.

  MALLUCÉ: Born John Johnstone, Jr. On the heels of his parents’ mysterious death, he inherited hundreds of millions of dollars, disappeared for a time, and resurfaced as the newly undead vampire Mallucé. Over the next decade, he amassed a worldwide cult following, and was recruited by the Lord Master for his money and connections. Pale, blond, citron-eyed, the vampire favors steampunk and Victorian Goth.

  MANY- MOUTHED THING, THE: Repulsive Unseelie with myriad leechlike mouths, dozens of eyes, and overdeveloped sex organs. Caste of Unseelie: unknown at this time. Threat assessment: unknown at this time but suspect kills in a manner I’d rather not think about.

  Addendum to original entry: Is still out there. I want this one dead.

  Addendum to original entry: Dani bagged the bastard!

  Could he sift space? Which ones can and can’t?

  NULL: A sidhe-seer with the power to freeze a Fae with the touch of his or her hands (e.g., me). While frozen, it is completely powerless. The higher and more powerful the caste of Fae, the shorter the length of time it stays frozen.

  O’BANNION, DEREK: Rocky’s brother and the Lord Master’s new recruit. He wants his brother’s spear back and he wants to kill me for killing his brother. I should have let him walk into the Dark Zone that day.

  Addendum to original entry: He’s eating Unseelie and has hooked up with Fiona, who’s also eating it!

  O’BANNION, ROCKY: Ex-boxer turned Irish mobster, and religious fanatic. He had the Spear of Destiny* in a collection hidden deep underground. Barrons and I broke in one night and stole it. His death was the first human blood on my hands. The night we robbed him, Barrons turned out all the exterior lights around the bookstore. When O’Bannion came after me with fifteen of his henchmen, the Shades devoured them right outside my bedroom window. I knew Barrons was going to do something. And if he’d asked me to choose between them or me, I’d have helped him turn the lights out. You never know what you’ll be willing to do to survive until you get backed into a corner and see what explodes out of you.

  OOP: Acronym for Object of Power, a Fae relic imbue
d with mystical properties. Some are Hallows, some aren’t.

  OOP DETECTOR: Me. A sidhe-seer with the special ability to sense OOPs. Alina was one, too, which is why the Lord Master used her.

  Addendum to original entry: Very rare. Certain bloodlines were bred for this trait. Rowena’s sidhe-seers say they’ve all died out.

  ORB OF D’JAI: No clue, but Barrons has it. He says it’s an OOP. I couldn’t sense it when I held it, but I couldn’t sense anything at that particular moment. Where did he get it and where did he put it? Is it in his mysterious vault? What does it do? How does he get into his vault, anyway? Where is the access to the three floors beneath his garage? Is there a tunnel that connects buildings? Must search.

  Addendum to original entry: Barrons gave it to me so I could give it to the sidhe-seers, to use in a ritual to reinforce the walls on Samhain.

  PATRONA: Mentioned by Rowena, I supposedly have “the look” of her. Was she an O’Connor? She was at one time the leader of the sidhe-seer Haven.

  PHI: Post Haste, Inc., a Dublin courier service that serves as a cover for the sidhe-seer coalition. It appears Rowena is in charge.

  Addendum: After the Book was lost, Rowena opened branches of this courier service all over the world, in an effort to track and reclaim it. It was very clever, really. She has bicycling couriers serving as her eyes and ears in hundreds of major cities. The abbey/sidhe-seers have a very wealthy benefactor who funnels funds through multiple corporations. I wonder who it is.

  PRI-YA: A human addicted to Fae sex.

  Addendum: God help me, I know.

  RHINO- BOYS: Ugly, gray-skinned Fae who resemble rhinoceroses with bumpy, protruding foreheads, barrellike bodies, stumpy arms and legs, lipless gashes of mouths, and jutting underbites. They are lower midlevel caste Unseelie thugs dispatched primarily as watchdogs for high-ranking Fae.

  Addendum to original entry: They taste horrible.

  Addendum to original entry: I don’t believe they can sift space. I saw them locked in cells in Mallucé’s grotto and chained up. It didn’t occur to me at the time how odd that was, then later I thought maybe Mallucé was somehow containing them with spells. But after Jayne made his comment about imprisoning Fae, I realized that not all Fae can sift and I’m starting to wonder if only the very powerful ones can. This could be an important tactical edge. Must explore.

  ROWENA: In charge to some degree of a coalition of sidhe-seers organized as couriers at Post Haste, Inc. Is she the Grand Mistress? They have a chapter house or retreat in an old abbey a few hours from Dublin, with a library I must get into.

  Addendum to original entry: She has never liked me. She’s playing judge, jury, and executioner where I’m concerned. She sent her girls after me to take my spear away! I will never let her have it. I’ve been to the abbey but only briefly. I suspect many of the answers I want can be found there, either in the forbidden libraries that only the Haven is permitted to enter, or in their memories. I need to figure out who the Haven members are, and get one of them to talk.

  ROYAL HUNTERS: A mid-level caste of Unseelie. Militantly sentient, they resemble the classic depiction of the devil, with cloven hooves, horns, long satyrlike faces, leathery wings, fiery orange eyes, and tails.Seven to ten feet tall, they are capable of extraordinary speed on both hoof and wing. Primary function: sidhe-seer exterminators. Threat as-sessment: kills.

  Addendum to original entry: Encountered one. Barrons doesn’t know everything. It was considerably larger than he’d led me to expect, with a thirty- to forty-foot wingspan and a degree of telepathic abilities. They are mercenary to the core and serve a master only so long as it benefits them. I’m not sure I believe they’re mid-level, and in fact, I’m not sure they’re entirely Fae. They fear my spear and I suspect are unwilling to die for any cause, which gives me a tactical edge.

  RYODAN: Associate of Barrons and IYCGM on my cell.

  Addendum: Top on my list of people to track down.

  SEELIE: The “light” or “fairer” court of the Tuatha Dé Danaan governed by the Seelie Queen, Aoibheal.

  Addendum: The Seelie cannot touch the Unseelie Hallows. The Unseelie cannot touch Seelie Hallows.

  Addendum: According to V’lane the true queen of the Fae is long dead, killed by the Unseelie King, and with her died the Song of Making. Aoibheal is a lesser royal who is one of many that has tried to lead The People since.

  SHADES: One of the lowest castes of Unseelie. Sentient but barely. They hunger—they feed. They cannot bear direct light and hunt only at night. They steal life in the manner the Gray Man steals beauty, draining their victims with vampiric swiftness, leaving behind a pile of clothing and a husk of dehydrated human matter. Threat assessment: kills.

  Addendum to original entry: I think they’re changing, evolving, learning.

  Addendum: I know it is! I swear it’s stalking me!

  Addendum: They’ve learned to work together and shape themselves into barriers.

  SHAMROCK: This slightly misshapen three-leaf clover is the ancient symbol of the sidhe-seers, who are charged with the mission to See, Serve, and Protect mankind from the Fae.

  SIDHE -SEER : (SHE-seer) A person Fae magic doesn’t work on, capable of seeing past the illusions or “glamour” cast by the Fae to the true nature that lies beneath. Some can also see Tabh’rs, hidden portals between realms. Others can sense Seelie and Unseelie objects of power. Each sidhe-seer is different, with varying degrees of resistance to the Fae. Some are limited, some are advanced with multiple “special powers.”

  Addendum to original entry: Some, like Dani, are superfast. There’s a place inside my head that isn’t. like the rest of me. Do we all have it? What is it? How did we get this way? Where do the bits of inexplicable knowledge that feel like memories come from? Is there such a thing as a genetic collective unconsciousness?

  SIFTING: Fae method of locomotion, occurs at speed of thought. (Seen this!)

  Addendum to original entry: Somehow V’lane sifted me without my awareness that he was even there. I don’t know if he was able to approach me “cloaked” somehow, then touched me at the last minute and I just didn’t realize it because it happened so fast, or if perhaps instead of moving me, he moved the realms around me. Can he do that? How powerful is V’lane? Could another Fae sift me without me having any advance warning? Unacceptably dangerous! Require more information.

  *SIFTING SILVERS OR SILVERS, THE: Unseelie or Dark Hallow, an elaborate maze of mirrors created by the Unseelie King once used as the primary method of Fae travel between realms, until Cruce cast the forbidden curse into the silvered corridors. Now no Fae dares enter the Silvers.

  Addendum to original entry: The Lord Master had many of these in his house in the Dark Zone and was using them to move in and out of Faery. If you destroy a Silver does it destroy what was in it? Does it leave an open entry/exit into a Fae realm like a wound in the fabric of our world? What exactly was the curse and who was Cruce?

  Addendum to original entry: Barrons has one and walks around in it!

  *SINSAR DUBH, THE: (she-suh-DOO): Unseelie or Dark Hallow belonging to the Tuatha Dé Danaan. Written in a language known only to the most ancient of their kind, it is said to hold the deadliest of all magic within its encrypted pages. Brought to Ireland by the Tuatha Dé during the invasions written of in the pseudo-history Leabhar Gabhåla, it was stolen along with the other Dark Hallows, and rumored to have found its way into the world of Man. Allegedly authored over a million years ago by the Dark King of the Unseelie. (A Definitive Guide to Artifacts; Authentic and Legendary)

  Addendum to original entry: I’ve seen it now. Words cannot contain a description of it. It is a book but it lives. It is aware.

  Addendum: The Beast. Enough said.

  *SPEAR OF LUISNE, THE: Seelie or Light Hallow (a.k.a. Spear of Luin, Spear of Longinus, Spear of Destiny, the Flaming Spear): The spear used to pierce Jesus Christ’s side at his crucifixion. Not of human origin, it is a Tuatha Dé Danaan Light Hallow, and o
ne of few items capable of killing a Fae—regardless of rank or power.

  Addendum to original note: It kills anything Fae and if something is only part Fae, it kills part of it, horribly.

  *SWORD OF LUGH, THE: Seelie or Light Hallow, also known as the Sword of Light, a Seelie Hallow capable of killing Fae, both Seelie and Unseelie. Currently, Rowena has it, and dispatches it to her sidhe-seers at PHI as she deems fit. Dani usually gets it.

  Addendum: Saw it. It’s beautiful!

  TABH’RS: (TAH-vr) Fae doorways or portals between realms, often hidden in everyday human objects.

  TUATHA DÉ DANAAN OR TUATHA DÉ: (TUA day dhanna or Tua DAY) (See Fae above) A highly advanced race that came to Earth from another world, comprising the Seelie and Unseelie.

  UNSEELIE: The “dark” or “fouler” court of the Tuatha Dé Danaan.According to Tuatha Dé Danaan legend, the Unseelie have been confined for hundreds of thousands of years in an inescapable prison. Inescapable, my ass.

  V’LANE: According to Rowena’s books, V’lane is a Seelie Prince, Court of the Light, member of the Queen’s High Council, and sometimes Consort. He is a death-by-sex Fae and has been trying to get me to work for him on behalf of Queen Aoibheal to locate the Sinsar Dubh.

  VOICE: A Druid art or skill that compels the person it’s being used on to precisely obey the letter of whatever command is issued. Both the Lord Master and Barrons have used this on me. It’s terrifying. It shuts down your will, and makes you a slave. You stare helplessly out from your own eyes and watch your body doing things your mind is screaming at you not to do. I’m trying to learn it. At least to be able to resist it, because otherwise I’ll never be able to get close enough to the Lord Master to kill him, and get vengeance for Alina.

  Pronunciation Guide

  AN GARDA SIOCH’NA: In Dublin, garda, or on garda shee-a-conna. Outside Dublin, gardee.

  AOIBHEAL: Ah-veel. (Not Irish Gaelic but an older language unique to the Fae.)