I got out, walked around to the back of the Range Rover, and stared at where I’d just been.

It took me about twenty seconds to figure out how to see it.

If I narrowed my eyes and slanted a look very casually sideways, like I was peeking, I could see the sliver of Fae reality—almost as if it were trying to hide, the better to ambush me—spiking through our own.

If human air was clear glass, Fae air was slightly thicker, slightly wavy, and slightly off-color.

I remembered Samhain night, watching from the belfry as Fae and human realms had competed for space in a world with no walls.

Apparently we’d lost a few of those battles.

It infuriated me. It was one more danger I had to watch out for. Dark Zones were bad enough. Now I had IFPs: Interdimensional Fairy Potholes screwing up my roads, lurking around, looking all innocuous and benign, waiting to blow out the tire or break the axle of the unwary traveler, stranding them in a no-man’s-land with alternate laws of physics, hostile life-forms, and no discernible rules of the road.

I got back into my Rover and slammed the door. I resumed driving, this time watching the terrain ahead much more closely.

What other surprises might this day bring?

I considered the shocks I’d already faced: Barrons doing … well, that thing he’d done in order to drag me back to reality; the discovery that I was immune to wards and the deadly sexual allure of Fae Princes; Shades taking over half of Ireland; Fae sky battles; and now IFPs.

I’d never have believed the most disconcerting shock of my day was yet to come.

I made one last stop about twenty miles from the abbey, where I got out and played with my new gun, taught myself to load and fire it.

It took me less time to get over my initial gee-what-if-I-drop-this-thing-and-blow-my-own-head-off? than I expected.

The gun felt good in my hands, solid and comforting, just like every weapon I’ve ever picked up. I think it’s somehow coded into my sidhe-seer DNA. We were born to protect, to fight. The blood knows. I suspect our bloodlines have been manipulated for a long time. Centuries, perhaps millennia.

I resumed driving toward the abbey, passing through dozens of wards. Rowena certainly was keeping her little flock busy, gadding about, etching protective runes and whatnot. I wondered what else she was keeping them so busy with that they didn’t have time to consider mutinying, which, in my opinion, they should have done years ago. Like, say, before they lost the Dark Book that this whole stupid war was about, because somebody sure must have fallen asleep on her watch to let that happen.

Oh, yes, I had a few bones to pick with the not-so-Grand Mistress.

I parked my Rover in front of the stone fortress of the abbey, got out, locked it—they were my supplies, and nobody was taking them—and marched to the door. I left my pack and MacHalo in the car but brought my gun. I was rather surprised the old woman wasn’t waiting out front, arms crossed, glasses perched on her nose, magnifying the intellect and ferocity in those sharp blue eyes, with a band of sidhe-seers gathered behind her, denying me entrance. We’ve never been on the best of terms, and I had no doubt that our relationship, if you could call it that, was worse now than it had been before.

Frankly, I didn’t give a damn.

The door was locked. I fired a quick burst of bullets at the handle with my favorite new toy and kicked it open.

The entry hall was empty. Could it be that no one was expecting me? I’d passed through all those wards, setting them off. I frowned. Or had I set them off?

If I could pass through wards now, was it possible I did it without tripping them? That certainly could come in handy. Still, I’d just let loose a round of automatic gunfire. Surely that had alerted someone.

When the attack came, it blasted me from nowhere, hit me like a brick wall, and I went sprawling on my ass for the third time that day. It was getting old. Something yanked at my gun and pummeled me like a speed boxer.

Then a face blurred into view and I gasped, and she gasped, then she stopped hitting me and grabbed me and hugged me so tight I thought my spine was going to snap.

“Mac!” Dani cried. “You’re back!”

I laughed and relaxed. I loved this kid. “Have I told you you’re the Shit, Dani?”

She rolled off me and bounded to her feet. “Nope. Never. I woulda remembered it. But you can say it again, if you want. And you can tell everybody else, too. I wouldn’t mind a bit.” Cat eyes gleamed in her gamine face.

“You’re the Shit, Dani.” I got up and slung my gun back over my shoulder. We stood and smiled for a moment, absorbed in being happy to see each other.

Then we spoke at the same time:

“You okay, Mac?”

“What happened to you, Dani?”

“You first.” She looked me up and down admiringly. “Dude, you look awesome. Love the coat. What you been doing? Weight training or something?”

I blushed. Then I rolled my eyes at myself. Toting automatic weapons and still blushing? I needed to get over that fast.

“Dude!” she said reverently. “With Barrons? You been having sex this whole time? S’that how he got you back from Nympho-land? I was so worried when you didn’t come back. Guess I shouldn’t a been. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Where’d he take you? I been hunting all over Dublin for you every chance I could duck under Ro’s radar. Which wasn’t often,” she said sourly, then immediately brightened. “You gotta tell me everything! Everything!”

I wrinkled my nose. “Where did this ‘dude’ thing come from?”

She preened. “Don’t I sound more like you? I been watching a lot of American movies. I been practicing.”

“I liked you better when every other word was a cussword. And I’m not telling you anything. Not today, not ever. All you need to know is, I’m okay now. I’m back.”

“You had sex with Barrons and you aren’t going to tell me one thing about it?” She looked incredulous. “Nothing? Not even one tiny little detail?”

Oh, God. She was so thirteen. What was I going to do with her? “Nothing. Ever.”

“You suck.”

I laughed. “Love you, too, Dani.”

She grinned. “I saved you.”

“Big-time. And I owe you big-time.”

“You can pay me back by telling me about sex.”

“If you’ve been watching so many movies, honey, you know more than enough.”