Now that she has my attention, she beams, and when Dani beams her whole face lights up. She bounces from foot to foot, burning off excited energy. “Where you been, Mac? I missed you! Dude—I mean, man,” she corrects hastily, with a gamine grin, before I can make good on a threat I made in what feels like another lifetime that I would call her by her full name if she ever “duded” me again. “You ain’t never gonna believe what’s been going on! I invented Shade-Busters, and the whole abbey’s been using ’em—even though they ain’t saying nothing about how brilliant I am, like I musta accidentally stumbled onto it or something, when those stupid sidhe-sheep never woulda in a gazillion years,” she mutters sourly. But then she brightens again. “And you’re never gonna believe it—even I can’t hardly—but I kicked a Hunter’s ass and killed the fecker!” She frowns and looks a little irritated. “Well, maybe Jayne helped some, but I’m the one that killed it. And, feckin’ A, you ain’t never gonna guess this one—dude!” She begins bouncing from foot to foot so quickly and agitatedly that she becomes a black leather smudge in the night. “The feckin’ Sinsar Dubh came to the abbey and it—”

Abruptly, she’s no longer bouncing but standing still, looking at me, mouth hanging open, but nothing’s coming out.

She stares past me, at me, then past me again. Her lips tighten and her eyes narrow. Her hand flashes inside her coat.

I can tell by the look on her face that it encounters emptiness where her sword should be. But she doesn’t back up, not Dani. She stands her ground. If I had anything left inside me, I’d smile. Thirteen and she’s got the heart of a lion.

“Something going on here I ain’t getting, Mac?” she says tightly. “I’m standing here, see, trying to think of a reason, any ol’ reason at all, you might be kissing that fecker, but I ain’t finding none.” She glares at me. “Thinking this is a little worse than me watching porn. Dude.”

Oh, yes, she’s upset. She just unapologetically “duded” me. I steel myself. “Lot going on here you ain’t getting,” I say coolly.

She searches my face, wondering if I’m playing double agent or something, undercover with the enemy. I need to convince her, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’m not. I need her to go away and stay away. I can’t afford a superspeedy supersleuth interfering with my plans.

I also don’t want her around long enough for Darroc to realize she could cause serious problems for us if she felt like it. Penalty-free zone or not, there’s no reality in which I could kill Dani or watch her be killed by anyone else. Family isn’t always born; sometimes it’s found.

She said the Book was at the abbey. I need to know when. Until I discover how Darroc plans to merge with the Sinsar Dubh and am certain I can do it myself, I’m not getting him anywhere near it. I’m going to play the same game with Darroc that I played with V’lane and Barrons—only now for a very different reason—called “Dodge the Dark Book.”

“Like what, Mac?” She props her fists at her waist. She’s so upset she’s vibrating, shivering so fast that her edges are getting blurry. “Prick tore down the walls, killed billions, wiped out Dublin, had you gang-raped—I’m the one that saved you, ’member? And now you’re sucking on”—she grimaces and shudders—“the feckin’ tongue of an Unseelie-eater! What the feck?”

I ignore all of it. “When was the Book at the abbey?” I don’t ask if people were hurt. The woman who is willing to ally herself with Darroc doesn’t care. Besides, I won’t let it happen in my new and improved version of the future.

“Gonna try this again, Mac. What the feck?” she fires.

I fire back, “Gonna try this again, Dani. When?”

She stares a long moment, then her jaw pokes out stubbornly and she crosses her skinny arms over her chest. She glares at Darroc, then back at me. “You Pri-ya or something again, Mac? Only without the being-naked-and-horny-all-the-time part? What’d he do to you?”

“Answer the question, Dani.”

She bristles. “Barrons know what’s going on? Think he needs to. Where’s Barrons?”

“Dead,” I say flatly.

Her slender body jerks and she stops vibrating. She had a major crush on Barrons. “No, he ain’t,” she protests. “Whatever he is ain’t killable. Least not easy.”

“Wasn’t easy,” I say. It took two of the people he trusted most in the world, a spear in the back, a gutting, and a slit throat. I wouldn’t call that easy.

She stares at me hard, searching my gaze.

I focus on dripping scorn.

She gets it and stiffens. “What happened?”

Darroc moves in behind me and slips his arms around my waist. I lean back into him.

“MacKayla killed him,” he says bluntly. “Now answer her question. When was the Book at the abbey? Is it still there?”

Dani sucks in a breath. She’s vibrating again. She won’t look at Darroc, only me. “This ain’t funny, Mac.”

I agree. It’s not. It’s hell. But it’s necessary. “He had it coming,” I lie coldly. “He betrayed me.”

She puffs up, fists at her waist. “Barrons ain’t the betraying kind. He never betrayed you! He wouldn’t do that!”

“Oh, grow up and pull your head out! You didn’t know shit about Barrons! You’re not old enough to know shit about anything!”

She goes still, brilliant green eyes narrowing. “I left the abbey, Mac,” she says finally. She gives a hollow laugh. “Think I kinda burned my bridges, ya know?” She searches my face. And I feel another blade in my heart. She burned them because of me. Because she believed that I was out there somewhere and we had each other.

I console myself with the thought that at least she won’t be rushing back to Rowena to tell her I’m sleeping with the enemy and I won’t have a pack of rabid sidhe-seers on my tail.

“Thought we were friends, Mac.”

I see in her eyes that all I have to do is say, “We are,” and she’ll find some way to deal with what she’s looking at right now. How dare she put so much faith in me? I never asked for it, never deserved it.

“You thought wrong. Now answer the question.” I’m the only one who never treated her like a child. She hates being called “kid” more than anything. “Kid,” I say. “Then get the hell out of here. Take your toys and go play somewhere else.”

Her brows climb her forehead and her mouth pulls down. “What did you just say?”

“I said, kid, answer my question and go away! We’re a little busy here, can’t you see?”

She’s bouncing from foot to foot again, a smudge of darkness in the dark. “Feckin’ grown-ups,” she bites out through clenched teeth. “All the feckin’ same. Feckin’ glad I feckin’ left the feckin’ abbey. You can just go to hell!” She shouts the last words, but they catch a little as they come out, like they get tangled up on a sob she’s forcing back down.

I don’t even see the blur of black move away. There’s a burst of light from her MacHalo as she flashes into motion like the Enterprise entering warp speed, then an empty alley.

I’m startled to realize that I think she’s just the tiniest bit faster. Is she eating Unseelie? I’m going to kick her ass all over Dublin if she’s eating Unseelie.

“Why didn’t you stop her, MacKayla? You could have exploited her trust in you to get information about the Book.”

I shrug. “Kid always got on my nerves. Let’s go hunt ourselves a sidhe-seer. If we can’t find one, Jayne’s men are bound to know what’s going on.”

I turn away from Barrons Books and Baubles toward what used to be the biggest Dark Zone in Dublin. It’s a wasteland now, not a single Shade left. When Darroc brought the walls crashing down on Halloween and Dublin went dark, the amorphous vampires escaped their prison of light and slithered on to greener pastures.

Hurting Dani took all my energy. I’m in no mood to walk past BB&B. I’d have to confront the obvious—that, like the man, the store is big, silent, and dead.