Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning Page B

monster that had killed my sister.
    I
was
the monster that had killed his brother.
    Â 
    When I came out of the bathroom, I glanced around, relieved to find no customers had entered the store. I’d forgotten to slap one of the Back in five minutes signs that I’d made up yesterday to cover my bathroom breaks on the front door.
    I hurried now to turn over the sign. Once again I was closing early. Barrons was just going to have to deal with it. It wasn’t much early, and it wasn’t like he needed the money.
    As I flipped the placard, I made the mistake of glancing out the window.
    It was nearly dark, that time of day folks around these parts call “gloaming,” or twilight, when the day gently bruises into night.
    And I was unable to decide which was worse: Inspector Jayne sitting on a bench a few doors down to the right not even pretending to be reading the newspaper he held; the black-shrouded specter standing directly across the street, watching me from beneath the ashy shadows of a dimly flickering streetlamp; or Derek O’Bannion exiting a shop two doors down, turning left, and heading straight into the Dark Zone.
    Â 
    â€œWhere the
hell
have you been?” Barrons yanked open the cab door and pried me out with a hand around my upper arm. My feet left the ground for a moment.
    â€œDon’t start with me,” I growled. Shaking off his grip, I pushed past him. Inspector Jayne’s cab was just pulling up behind me. I wonder if he missed his family yet. I hoped he’d get tired of me soon and go home.
    â€œI’m getting you a cell phone, Ms. Lane,” he barked at my back. “You will carry it at all times, like the spear. You will do nothing without it. Need I remind you of all the things you won’t be doing without it?”
    I told him where he could put my as-yet-unpurchased cell phone—the sun didn’t shine there and I didn’t call it by a flower’s name—and stomped into the store.
    He stomped in after me. “Have you forgotten the dangers out there in the Dublin night, Ms. Lane? Shall we go for a little walk?” Once before when he’d thought I was being intractable he’d threatened to drag me into the Dark Zone at night. Tonight, I was too numb to care. Dead bolts rang out like bullets against steel as he slammed them home. “Have you forgotten your purpose here, Ms. Lane?”
    â€œHow could I?” I said bitterly. “Every time I try to, something worse happens.”
    I was halfway to the connecting doors when he caught me and spun me around. He gave me a furious once-over that seemed to get tangled up for a moment on the crystal dangling between my breasts. Or was it my breasts? “And there you are, dressed like a two-bit floozy, going out for a drink. What the fuck were you thinking?
Were
you thinking?”
    â€œTwo-bit floozy? Get with the times, Barrons. I don’t look like a two-bit anything. In fact, I’m positively overdressed by lots of people’s standards these days, and certainly wearing more than that stupid little black dress you made me wear when we—” I broke off; where I’d worn that skimpy halter dress was hitting too close to home right now. “And for the record,” I said stiffly, “I did
not
go out for a drink.”
    â€œDon’t lie to me, Ms. Lane. I smell it on you. And other things. Who was the man?” His dark, exotic face was cold. His nostrils flared and constricted like an animal scenting prey.
    Barrons has extraordinary senses. I’d not had even the tiniest sip of alcohol. “I said I didn’t have a drink,” I repeated. I’d had an awful night, one of the absolute worst of my life.
    â€œYou had something. What was it?” he demanded.
    â€œAn alcohol-laced kiss,” I said tightly. “Two, to be precise.” But only because I hadn’t moved fast enough to avoid the second one. I turned away, hating