Выбрать главу

He shook me, hard. “You have no business looking forward to pink cakes. That’s not your world anymore. Your world is hunting the Book and staying alive. They’re mutually exclusive, you bloody fool.”

“No, they’re not! It’s only if I eat pink cakes that I can hunt the Book! You’re right—we’re not the same. I can’t walk through the Dark Zone at night. I don’t scare all the other monsters away. I need rainbows. You don’t. I get that now. No birthdays for Barrons. I’ll pen that in right next to Don’t wait on him and Don’t expect him to save you unless there’s something in it for him. You’re a jackass. There’s a constant for you. I won’t forget it.”

His grip on my throat relaxed. “Good.”

“Fine,” I said, though I don’t really know why. I think I just wanted the last word.

We stared at each other.

He was so close, his body electric, his expression savage.

I moistened my lips. His gaze fixed on them. I think I stopped breathing.

He jerked so sharply away that his long dark coat sliced air, and turned his back to me. “Was that an invitation, Ms. Lane?”

“If it was?” I asked, astonishing myself. What did I think I was doing?

“I don’t do hypotheticals. Little girl.”

I looked at his back. He didn’t move. I thought of things to say. I said none of them.

He vanished through the connecting door.

“Hey,” I shouted after him, “I need a car to drive!” There was no answer.

A large chunk of cake dropped from the ceiling and splatted on the floor.

It was mostly intact, just a little goopy.

Sighing, I got a fork and scraped it onto a plate.

It was noon the next day when I got out of bed, cleared my monster alarm from in front of my door, and opened it.

Waiting outside for me was a thermos of coffee, a bag of doughnuts, a set of car keys, and a note. I unscrewed the thermos top, sipped the coffee, and unfolded the note.

Ms. Lane,

I would prefer you join me in Scotland this evening, but if you insist on helping the old witch, here are keys, as you requested. I moved it for you. It’s the red one, parked in front of the door. Call if you change your mind. I can send a plane as late as 4:00.

CJ

It took me a moment to figure out the initials. Constant Jackass. I smiled. “Apology accepted, Barrons, if it’s the Ferrari.”

It was.

Chapter 16

Liminal” is a fascinating word. Times can be liminaclass="underline" Twilight is the transition from day to night; midnight is the crack between one day and the next; equinoxes and solstices and New Year’s Day are all thresholds.

Liminal can also be a state of consciousness: for example, those moments between waking and sleeping, also known as threshold consciousness, or hypnagogia, a state during which a person might think herself fully alert, but is actually actively engaged in dreaming. This is the time that a lot of people report a convulsive jerk, or a feeling of physically falling.

Places can be liminaclass="underline" airports with people constantly coming and going, but never staying. People, too, can be liminaclass="underline" Teens, like Dani, are temporarily stuck between child and adult. Fictional characters are often Liminal Beings, archetypes that straddle two worlds, marking or guarding thresholds, or are physically divided by two states of existence.

Between-ness is a defining characteristic of liminal. Limbo is another. Liminal is neither here nor there but exists between one moment and the next, poised in that pause where what’s passing hasn’t yet become what’s becoming. Liminal is a magical time, a dangerous time, fraught with possibility. and peril.

Halloween seemed to drag on forever. Ironic, considering I had slept until noon. I had four measly hours to kill until four o’clock, when I would leave the city to head for the abbey, yet it stretched interminably.

I called Dani as soon as I got up. She was excited that I was coming, and told me the ritual was scheduled to begin at six-fifteen.

“So, what is it? A lot of chanting and weirdness?” I asked.

She laughed and said, pretty much so. Invocations had to be recited and tithes paid before the Orb could be opened and its Fae essence released to fortify the walls. I asked what kind of tithes, and she got a little cagey. I wondered if Rowena planned to use my blood or something. I wouldn’t put it past her.

I called Christian and he said all was a go. His uncles had begun the Druid rites at dawn, although Barrons wouldn’t be joining them until later in the day.

I called Dad, and we talked for a long time about cars and my job and the usual light stuff that makes up our conversations lately. I hate that Barrons Voiced him into a worry-free stupor, and I’m grateful for it. If Dad had said one halfway deep or insightful thing to me today, I might have burst into tears and told him all my problems. This is the man who kissed every bump or bruise I ever had, even the imaginary ones when I was little, and just wanted a Princess Jasmine Band-Aid and to be cuddled and cooed at, sitting on his lap.

After a while, I asked for Mom. There was a long pause, and I was afraid she wouldn’t come to the phone—then she did, and I can’t describe the joy I felt at hearing her voice for the first time in months!

Though she chose her words with uncharacteristic tentativeness, she was coherent, clearheaded, and obviously not drugged. Dad said she still tired very easily so I kept the conversation short and sweet, telling her nothing but happy news: My job was fabulous, I had a great employer, I’d gotten a raise, I was hoping to start my own bookstore when I came home, I was making concrete plans to finish college and get a degree in business, and no, I couldn’t make Thanksgiving but yes, I would try as hard as I could to get home for Christmas.

Necessary lies. I understand them now. I could almost feel Alina, standing behind me, nodding her head, as I boosted our mother’s spirits. Every time the phone had rung for me in Ashford, Georgia, and my sister had made me laugh and feel loved and safe, she’d been standing in Dublin, wondering if she’d be alive tomorrow.

After I hung up, I dug into the doughnuts and punched up a random playlist on my iPod. “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” came up first, followed by “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” I turned it off.

I don’t know what I did until three. I think I passed a great deal of time sitting and staring into the fire. Liminal sucks. You can’t grasp it with your hands and shape it. You can’t make midnight come faster, or grow up sooner, or avoid the in-betweens. You can only hang in there, and get through them.

I showered, put on makeup, and sleeked my hair back into a short ponytail. I tugged on black jeans, a T-shirt, a sweater, boots, and a jacket. I grabbed my backpack and stuffed my MacHalo in. I was going to be out late. I holstered my spear in my shoulder harness, tucked in two of Barrons’ short, sheathed knives I’d pilfered from an upstairs display case into my waistband, and loaded myself with diced Rhino-boy, jars in my jacket pockets, plastic Baggies in my boots. I strapped my Velcro bands with the Click-It lights around my ankles and wrists. I even slipped a vial of holy water into the front pocket of my jeans. In this town, you never know what’s coming. As they say back home, I was loaded for bear. All kinds.

I went downstairs, glanced out the window, and did a double take, wondering if I’d lost track of time. It had been clear and light in the cold wintry way of early November, when I’d gone upstairs. Now, at three forty-five, it was nearly dark outside. A storm had blown in while I’d been blow-drying my hair. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind was kicking up, and it looked like we might get a real ripper any time.