“V’lane?” I said incredulously. But this didn’t stink of V’lane. V’lane did “seductive” when he sifted me. Not “disturbing” and “potentially lethal,” although those two phrases certainly did spring to mind when he was around.

Still, being sifted seemed to be the only possible explanation for how abruptly my surroundings had shifted.

A hummingbird glided by. It was the size of a small elephant. Its long, pointed beak was proportionate. In my world—not that many people know it: They mistakenly “ooh” and “ah” over the sweet, delicate little sugar-water drinkers—hummingbirds are carnivores. They accept the sugar water we offer them only in order to fuel their hunt for meat.

I was meat.

I jammed my foot down on the gas, skidding on the water, dodging trees, birds, and vines. I didn’t look behind me to see if anything was giving chase. I just drove.

Abruptly, I was back in Ireland, a dozen feet from slamming into a tree.

I pumped the brakes, skidded on dead grass, and stopped much too close to bark. I sat for a moment, gasping.

After seeing that freaky Fae sky battle, I’d thought I was ready for anything. I was wrong.

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.