“Come back already,” I muttered at the empty lot.

I missed him and the simple way he saw me, without any filters. I missed feeling the way I felt around him. He was gasoline to my fire, matches to my dynamite. He’d enjoyed my fire, my dynamite. And, whether I’d liked it or not—and most of the time I hadn’t—he’d kept me from blowing myself or too many others up with it.

Life wasn’t the same without him around. Although I love my city, my life, Dublin without the Nine, without Mac and Barrons, is a Big Top Circus without a single lion, tiger, or bear. Not even elephants. Just chimps, clowns, and sheep. Oodles and oodles of sheep. And snakes—those are the Fae. I used to like being the only superhero in town. I’m so over that.

Countless were the times I’d considered calling him on my cellphone.

Countless were the times I’d shoved it back in my pocket, accepting his absence for what it was: a desire to be somewhere else that was not with me. The man who’d launched my dragons didn’t care enough to call or text me a single time in over two years to see how I was doing.

Or if I was even still alive. Leaving was one thing. Never checking in was unforgivable.

“Rot in purgatory, Ryodan,” I growled as I put my bike in gear.

* * *

π

Shaz and I have code names for our many residences. I doubt I need them. I suspect he can find me anywhere, anytime he wants, and thinks it’s funny to humor me by pretending to read the notes I scrawl telling him where I am.

Before I’d left this morning, I’d scribbled the word “Sanctuary” across the bedroom wall in Sharpie. An enemy would have no idea what it meant. Shazam would know he’d find me in the penthouse flat that occupied the top floor of a building on the north side of the River Liffey. I prefer to live up high, with a clear view of my city below. On those rare occasions I’m not patrolling at night, I love to sit on the fire escape, beyond the tall arched windows that line the wall floor to ceiling, and watch the river slide by, the lights twinkling like fallen stars in the streets.

Sanctuary is a study in grays and blacks and whites, the most colorless of my abodes. I crave its Spartan elegance when something’s bothering me, eschewing the distracting brightness of the world to think surrounded by soothing monotones.

I dislike doing anything uniform or predictable that might allow an enemy to track me, yet a risky number of my residences are penthouses, as they afford tall windows and vaulted ceilings. I accept the liability in exchange for space, room to breathe, and a place to burn off restless energy. In Sanctuary’s enormous living room that’s void of all furniture, on a polished black floor that I can see my own reflection in, facing a wall of windows, with a line of fire burning behind glass at my back, on hard nights in my chronic town I dance like I once danced on another world, beneath three full moons, abandoned to a song only I can hear. I dance to get it all out, the emotion that builds up inside me. I dance until, exhausted, often weeping, I sleep.

My kitchen is a sleek modern affair of quartz, chrome, and black marble floors. Those floors spill throughout the entire flat, and are easy to mop blood from. Usually when I seek Sanctuary, I’m bleeding.

Tonight there was no blood, just an arm as black as my floors.

Shazam was sprawled fatly across the ivory island, occupying half of it, tearing flesh off the skull of—

“Is that a pig?” I said disbelievingly. “You ate an entire pig?” From the amount of blood staining the counters, dripping down the sides, and the size of the hooves he’d left uneaten, it was a full-grown pig, too.

Shrugging, he said nothing, only studied a distant space in the air and licked innocently at a paw, tail twitching with audible thumps against the quartz.

“Good grief. You might have at least saved me a flank of bacon,” I groused as I rummaged in the pantry for a can of coconut milk and a couple of protein shakes. My stomach was queasy but I needed energy. During our time together in the Silvers, Shazam had often hunted for me, and I’d hacked the flanks off more animals than I could count, filleted and roasted them over a fire. I might seem a bit barbaric to the rest of the world. The world seems barbaric to me.

I tossed back the coconut milk, followed by the protein shakes, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand then turned to find Shazam standing, back arched like a horseshoe, porcupine bristles ridging his spine, lips drawn back in a silent snarl as he stared down the long ebony-floored hallway that, after a right turn into a small foyer, led to the front door. Anytime he does that, a chill ices my spine. He’s never wrong. My Hel-Cat’s hearing and sense of smell is more acute than mine. It’s kept us alive on many occasions, both in Dublin and as we wandered hostile planets in the Silvers.

When he freezes, I freeze. And prepare.

Still, anything that might come through a door doesn’t worry me overmuch. The truly dangerous things don’t need doors.

Shazam tipped his regal shaggy head to look at me. Violet eyes lingered on my left arm, moved up to the shoulder, then to my face. Whiskers trembling, he whispered, “It’s changed again.”

“Is something at the door?” I whispered back.

“Yes. Are you all right, Yi-yi? Does it hurt?” he fretted.

I shook my head. Only the things I’d done with it hurt. My heart ached. A part of it would ache eternally for Bridget. I’d cut a good person’s life short. Some people try to pay for their mistakes by punishing themselves. I don’t. Not only doesn’t it undo the mistake you made, it turns you into a nonproductive liability, and makes everyone who has to put up with you miserable. The way I see it, if you screw up you have two choices: kill yourself or try harder.

His luminous eyes grew dewy. “Make the black skin go away. Tell it to leave. It’s hurting your heart, Yi-yi.”

I considered that, eyes darting back to the long hall leading to the door. Faint but there, a wet snuffling, a scraping against the threshold. I considered my arm, the terrible power it held. The sword I needed to protect. The world I’d chosen to guard. Assuming it were possible, would I do it? Turn my back on power I might use for good, if I could learn to control it?

I didn’t find what was happening to me a terrible thing. I found my lack of understanding and inability to control it the problem; one I intended to quickly remedy.

Shazam knows me well. I’m unguarded around my quixotic, unconditionally loving friend, my normally shuttered gaze open, expressive.

“Oh, Yi-yi,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes. “You wouldn’t unchoose it if you could. You want it.”

I did. I inclined my head and smiled faintly. He smiled back, albeit tearfully. It’s strange to see Shazam smile, thin lips peeling back from sharp fangs, curving up into his cheeks. It always reminds me of something but it’s proved an elusive memory.

A volley of thuds hit the front door and I heard it splinter with a thunderous crash.

Shazam vanished, leaving me alone to face it.

I rolled my eyes at the half-stripped bloody skull on the island. “Coward,” I muttered as I closed my fingers on the hilt of my sword and began to pad stealthily down the long hallway toward the door.

Demons dreaming, breathe in, breathe in, I’m coming back again

I’VE FACED MANY MONSTERS in my life, in Dublin and on countless worlds in the Silvers. I’ve battled on planets of endless night, and scorching desert worlds with multiple suns. I survived by detaching from everything I know, think, and feel and engaging fully in the fight. Some say I’ve done unspeakable things. I disagree. I’ve simply done things I don’t like to speak about and they wouldn’t like to hear.

I could hear it, down the hallway, around a corner, in the foyer near the guest bath (as if I ever had guests), but even without the labored panting of its breath that hitched infrequently on a chilling, snakelike rattle, or the ponderous impact against the floor of whatever appendages on which it prowled (from the sound, my intruder weighed a good four to five hundred pounds), I could feel it.

It had presence.

Massive, dark and hungry. Not Fae.

Staggering power. Familiar in some way, yet…not. I cocked my head and opened my senses, siphoning energy off that deep inner lake from which sidhe-seers draw power—those of us descended from the six ancient Irish Houses mutated eons ago by the addition of the Unseelie King’s blood—but the vast, dark expanse had nothing to offer me. No rune, ward, or gift of foresight to help me discern what lay ahead.

My hand itched relentlessly, as if allergic welts were sprouting beneath my skin. Gritting my teeth against the distraction, I began to pad forward again.

A grunt was followed by a long, guttural groan and a wet snuffle. There was a dull thump, as if my enemy had stumbled against the wall.