Blood Before Sunrise

you?”

“Damn right, I am. I know you’ve laid some sort of magic on me too. Because if I were in my right mind right now, you’d be dead.”

“You’re probably right,” Fallon said, popping a grape into his mouth. “But you’re not in your right mind, are you?”

Thoughts swirled in my head, which suddenly felt too heavy for my shoulders to support. “I am going to kill you, Fallon. And I’m going to enjoy doing it.”

He laughed again, a half-crazed sort of bark. “We’ll see about that.”

I tried not to look at Delilah, who for all her treachery had gotten the shitty end of this deal. Well, I hoped revenge was sweet in the afterlife, because she sure as hell hadn’t savored any part of it in this world. Fallon seemed oblivious to our dead breakfast guest, paying more attention to his food, all the while caressing the broken hourglass.

My arms were lead weights at my side as I struggled to push against the table, desperate to get away from him. Inch by inch, I moved my chair, the effort seeming insurmountable. And all the while, Fallon paid me no attention, closing his eyes as he enjoyed every bite of his breakfast. Only when I managed to move my chair enough to give myself room to stand did he look at me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I said. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not at all,” he said. “As long as you behave.”

Though I didn’t have the strength of will to do it, I wanted nothing more than to gouge his eyes out with the plastic fork in my hand. Maybe splashing a little cold water on my face would shock me out of the lethargy Fallon’s presence imposed. Or better yet, I hoped there was a window that hadn’t been reinforced by magic that I could use to get the hell out of here.

I’m not sure how I made it to the bathroom. One second I was standing by the table, and the next I stood in front of the sink, studying my reflection in the large rectangular mirror. I’d come in here looking for something…a window. How long had I been standing here, staring at the emerald pendulum dangling from my neck, resting just above the swell of my breasts? “Iskosia,” I whispered, wondering how I knew that word. I stroked the gem lightly with my finger.

Water streamed from the sink, though I couldn’t remember turning it on. I looked back to the mirror, now clouded with steam. I hadn’t moved an inch, had I? I’d wanted a little cold water on my face. Not hot. Fumbling with the knobs, I waited for the water to cool and filled my palms, splashing water over my face and neck. Lukewarm rivulets ran down my shirt and into my bra. Not cold enough. I was still much too groggy. All I wanted was to curl up in bed…

I fought to form a coherent thought, to keep myself in the present. Water dripped from my nose to the tile floor. Suddenly, a rough white hotel towel passed against my cheeks.

“Darian,” Fallon said, “I can’t have you a mindless shell. Your idle threats of violence wear on my patience. Others may enjoy that smart mouth of yours, but I do not. If you promise to be a good girl and behave, I will allow you some presence of mind. Agreed?”

Fallon. But that wasn’t his real name. Delilah had said as much. Clarity returned by small degrees, and I ticked off important facts in my head, securing them like mental sticky notes. The Man from The Ring. He’d killed Delilah and tricked me into stealing something for him. I closed my eyes to better concentrate while he dried my face. Time. I’d stolen time for him. And the emerald…I touched the stone at my neck. The emerald was the key to O Anel, the Faerie Realm. I was going to kill him.

But not unless I played his game. “I promise to behave,” I said. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

He pressed a palm against my cheek, and already my mind felt clearer. I remembered most of what had happened since we’d left Seattle; only bits and pieces were missing-black holes in my memory. “How long have we been here?” I asked. The last thing I remembered, Delilah-the thought cut off in my mind, but slowly came back to me in pieces. He’d killed Delilah. Yes, I was sure of it. “We checked into this hotel, this morning…”

Fallon tossed the towel into the sink. “We’re leaving. Right now. I have business to attend to, and I’m not going to wait any longer for you to come around. We have an accord now, right? You cooperate, I won’t turn your mind against you. I want the other half of my hourglass, and you’re going to get it for me.”

Sure, you keep telling yourself that. The fog continued to lift, allowing me a clearer train of thought. Tyler was no doubt out of his mind with worry. But I couldn’t think about Tyler or how I’d make amends with him for all that I’d done. Not until I cleaned house here. Though I had reason to hope I’d be rid of Fallon soon, Raif had activated the GPS in my cell so he could track me. The battery had died when we’d pulled in to the hotel, but Raif couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours behind us. Why hadn’t he showed? My only option was to stall Fallon and to keep him rooted to our hotel room until Raif found me.

“I told you, I don’t know how to get there.” I’d made my tone complacent, a trick I’d learned from years of abuse at my human husband’s hand. “I’m sorry; I don’t want you to be angry with me. But I don’t know how to help you.”

With a sneer, the puppet master ushered me back to the bed. The room reeked of death, so much stronger to my preternatural senses. Delilah’s body had been removed, though the chair where she’d died and the carpet below were still stained with her blood. I fought a wave of nausea as I wondered about how, when, and where he’d managed to dispose of her body, and I shuddered. Fallon turned me around to face him and placed his hands on my shoulders, urging me to sit. He went to his knees in front of me, and my pulse picked up double time. Leaning in, he caressed the emerald resting just above the swell of my breasts, and my body went rigid.

His cold laughter filled me with dread. “No need for you to worry, Darian, I’ve no interest in you beyond the bauble around your neck,” he said. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

By small degrees, my body relaxed, though I didn’t outwardly show my complete and utter relief. I didn’t want to insult him and give him cause to lay down the “mojo” as Tyler would have called it. Thinking of Tyler again sent a jolt of bitter pain through my body and soul. I missed him so much. “Why were you banished from your home, Fallon?” Delilah had told me he’d been thrown out of O Anel. Maybe if I knew why, I could use the information to my advantage.

“It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. That was so long ago. What’s important is that we’re going there, you and I. And you will help me right the world.”

I should have known you just can’t reason with the criminally insane. And have no doubt, Fallon was as unhinged as one could get. “But you still haven’t told me how you think I’m going to get us there.”

“Iskosia. You have the key. The Oracle said you’ve been there.” He placed his hands on my knees and leaned in close. The wild glint in his eyes flashed silver. “What did it look like?”

The urge to spill my guts overwhelmed me. “Green. Nothing but endless green. Knolls and valleys and rolling hills covered with trees for as far as I could see.”

Fallon’s eyes drifted shut, and a smile curved his lips. “I miss it. Being surrounded by living, growing things. The world here is crowded, polluted, covered with hard, unyielding surfaces. It’s even worse than it was two hundred years ago. Once-blue shining waters now glisten with the sheen of spilled fuel. Refuse litters the forests. Humanity did that. There is no place for green in their self-centered lives. Humans are indeed rats. Their numbers have exploded in the centuries I’ve been gone.”

So apparently Fallon hadn’t been hanging out in Connecticut the past couple of centuries, but I didn’t have time to ponder this piece of the puzzle. “Where is O Anel?” The island of the Enphigmale had existed in another place, so to speak. Another time. But the concept escaped me. “Is it here? On this planet?”

“You think with the narrow mind of the mundane,” Fallon said, caressing my cheek as if in sympathy. “O Anel exists behind the veil, Darian. It is here, all around us, though we cannot see it. You smell a hint of it on the wind, just before a rain, or see a glimpse as the sun breaks over the horizon. It is a beautiful and sometimes lonely place, but it doesn’t have to be. I am going to change that. I will make it an Eden. And we will never have cause to hide again.”

He stood in one fluid, unnatural motion and spun in a half circle, turning his back to me. “Get ready. We’re leaving.”

I stared out of the hotel room window; a large, dingy rectangle speckled with what looked to be mud obscured my view. Not that there was anything to look at. Freeway, parking lots, the strip mall-not exactly a five-star