Figured. More non-answers where Barrons was concerned.

I reared back, straddling him, and punched him in the jaw as hard as I could. He started to speak and I punched him again. I wished I’d eaten Unseelie. I was going to go eat ten of them tonight then come back here and finish him off, the hell with answers.

“How dare you saunter in here and force me to give you answers when you’ve never given me a single one?” I hissed. I punched him in the stomach, hard. He didn’t even wince. I punched him again. Nothing.

“You stand there all tan and glowing and wonder why I use Voice on you?” he bellowed. “Where the hell do you get off? You’ve been with V’lane again. How many slaps in the face do you think I’m going to take, Ms. Lane?” He grabbed my fist and held it when I tried to punch him again. I swung at him with the other. He caught that, too. “I warned you not to play us against each other.”

“I’m not playing you! I’m trying to survive. And I don’t slap you when I go off with V’lane!” I tried to yank my fists from his hands. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’m trying to get answers, and since you won’t give me any, you can’t blame me for going somewhere else.”

“So, the man who doesn’t get laid at home has the right to go off and cheat?”

“Huh?”

“Which word didn’t you understand?” he sneered.

“You’re the one who’s crippled by illogic. This isn’t home, it never will be, and nobody’s getting laid!” I practically shouted.

“You think I don’t know that?” He shifted his body beneath me, making me painfully aware of something. Two somethings, in fact, one of which was how far up my short skirt was. The other wasn’t my problem. I wriggled, to shimmy my hem down, but his expression perished the thought. When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying.

Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.

“Let go of my hands.”

“Make me,” he taunted. “Voice me, Ms. Lane. Come on, little girl, show me some power.”

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.

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.

It was 7:20 when I hit the pavement. The sun wouldn’t rise until 7:52 A.M. It would set at 6:26; I’ve become a bit obsessed with the precise timing of natural light, and keep a chart of it on my wall, next to the map where I track Unseelie hot spots and Book activity. I stayed to the lights as much as I could, moving from the pool cast by one streetlamp to the next, a flashlight in each hand, my spear heavy and comforting in my shoulder harness. My MacHalo was for deep night work only. If the people passing by thought it was bizarre that I was carrying lit flashlights, I didn’t care. I was staying alive. They could smirk all they wanted. A few of them did.

As I hurried down the street, I pictured myself three months ago, compared it to what I looked like now, and laughed. The businessman hurrying along next to me glanced over. He met my eyes, jerked a little, and stepped up his pace, leaving me behind.