Hours later I went downstairs, moving woodenly, aching in every limb, head hurting, eyes swollen, nose stuffed solid.

Jada still wasn’t stirring, although twice in the past hour she’d opened her eyes. Both times she’d become aware of me and closed them instantly, either slipping back into unconsciousness or just plain shutting me out.

The bookstore was surprisingly quiet, and I ducked my head into the study to see how Ryodan was doing. He was alone, draped in shimmering cloth etched with glowing symbols, slumbering deeply.

I checked the front of the store, but it was empty so I poked my head out the back to see where everyone was. In the distance, down the alley to the right, I heard voices. I cocked my head, listening.

Barrons talking softly with someone.

I stepped out into the faint bruise of dawn, thinking that in just a few hours I was supposed to meet Alina and I wasn’t sure I was up to it. My heart was pulped. Dani was all I could think about. I was loath to leave her side for an hour or more, for any reason. I certainly couldn’t invite Alina here. Last thing I wanted was Jada being affected in any way by her presence.

I hurried down the alley and turned the corner but no one was there.

I kept walking, absently following the sound of Barrons’s voice, wondering why everyone had left the store. As I turned the next corner, I heard a dry chittering and glanced up.

The sky above me was thick with black-robed wraiths, gliding, soaring, rustling. Thanks to the Hunter, I now knew they were the Sweeper’s minions. And whatever the mysterious entity was, it was right, I was certainly broken. My heart was in pieces.

There were hundreds of them. I tipped back my head. Even more perched on the rooftops on both sides of the street. I glanced back at BB&B, barely able to make out the roof of the building, and was stunned to see that it, too, was completely covered in ghoulish carrion. I’d been so lost in thought that I hadn’t even looked up as I’d stepped out. They must have been perching up there in silence.

They weren’t silent now. Their chittering grew, became a sort of metallic screeching I’d never heard before as they looked from me to one another and back to me again.

“Well, shit,” I muttered as a lightbulb went off in my head. They could see me. And I knew why. “That damned cuff.”

I’d left it on the table near Jada. When he’d tried to sell me on it, V’lane told me the cuff of Cruce afforded protection against Fae and “assorted nasties.” Apparently my wraiths fell into the latter category. It made sense, when I thought about it. Ryodan said my ghouls had once stalked the king. I could see Cruce not wanting any skulking, spying creatures near him, and working to perfect a spell to prevent them from being able to find him. That explained why once I’d become visible again, they hadn’t instantly become my second skin. Jada had given me the cuff while I was cloaked by the Sinsar Dubh.

Now they were back. Great.

And something was still trying to decide if it wanted to “fix me.” Bloody great. Good luck with that.

I started to move forward, hesitated a moment, feeling that odd finger of a chill at my spine again, and glanced back at BB&B.

I decided to wait for Barrons to get back. It made me uneasy how quickly they found me once I’d taken off the cuff. I remembered them flying over the city, searching. Although they’d never appeared to present any real threat to me, had even slept on the same bed with me in Chester’s without ever doing anything to me, who knew when the rules might change in this crazy-ass world?

Maybe the Sweeper had made up its mind, I thought darkly. I didn’t like that thought.

I spun briskly to head back for the safety of the bookstore.

That’s when they dropped from the sky like great, smelly, black, suffocating straitjackets and took me down.

35

“If I only had a heart…”

I regained consciousness to find myself staring straight up at the ceiling of a dimly lit industrial warehouse.

I could tell what it was by the vast metal beams and girders and pulleys used to move supplies. I guessed I was somewhere in the Dark Zone, flown up and out by the gaunt wraiths that were far more formidable than I’d ever imagined.

When they’d descended from above, their assault was instantaneous, almost as if they’d sifted, expanding their leathery cloaks, smothering me. I hadn’t even managed to lift a finger before my hands were immobilized.

My spear and guns, useless. I hadn’t been able to get to anything, not even my cellphone. Then again, from what I’d seen, Barrons’s tattoos hadn’t been finished and IYD wouldn’t have done me any good.

One moment they’d been in the sky, the next my arms were tightly straitjacketed to my sides, my legs bound. Their smelly, leathery cloaks had covered even my head and I wasn’t able to breathe. I thought I was dying. The horrible thing about being suffocated is you don’t know if you’re going to wake up or not.

I’d decided in my last, fleeting moment of consciousness that the way the Sweeper had decided to “fix” me was apparently to kill me; a sentiment I might not have entirely disagreed with at various points in my life.

But not now. Jada needed me. Oh, she didn’t know that and probably wouldn’t agree with it, but she did. The Sweeper could try to kill me later. Now was not a good time. I wasn’t staying here to get “fixed.”

I leapt up.

Er, rather, my brain gave the command for my body to leap up.

Nothing happened.

Manacles rattled. Slightly. My wrists and ankles burned. I groaned. I’d practically broken my neck trying to stand. I was strong. My restraints were stronger.