“V’lane?” I said with soft urgency. I conjured a light wind to buffet my fluffy clouds on the ceiling. “Are you there? Anywhere? I could really use some help right about now.” For the next little while—I had no concept of time down here—I invoked the death-by-sex Fae fervently. I promised him things I knew I’d regret. I’d regret dying more.

It was no use.

Wherever he was, he wasn’t listening.

What in the world had happened to Mallucé? What had he meant when he’d said parts of him were Fae? How could parts of a person—or vampire in this case—be Fae? My understanding was either you were Fae or you weren’t. Could Fae and human reproduce and would the resulting offspring be half-Fae?

But that wasn’t the read I was getting off Mallucé. Each time I’d encountered him, I’d focused directly on him, trying to get a sense of what he was. It had always been confused, and now it was even more so. However he’d become part Fae, he’d not been born to it. It was something he’d become. But how? Was it like vampirism? Did they bite you? Have sex with you? What?

My clouds were gone. Maintaining illusion was hard work, and between the pain of my wrist and the aftereffects of whatever drugs he’d given me to keep me unconscious while transporting me from Dublin to the Burren, I had little energy left. I was starving. I was cold and I was terrified.

I rolled over on my side and stared out of my cell.

I was imprisoned at one end of a long oval stone cavern lit by torches on the walls. At the other end a single metal door was hinged into the wall.

In the center of the cavern was a low stone slab that resembled a sacrificial altar more than anything else. There were knives, bottles, and chains on it. Three opulent, brocaded, Victorian-style chairs were drawn up around it. Mallucé had brought the tatters of his Goth past with him into the earth.

The walls of the damp cavern were lined with other cells or grottos; some so narrow and small that they were barely more than barred boxes in stone that a person might be stuffed into, others large enough to hold a dozen men. My cell was sandwiched between cells on both sides, with bars separating us, but they were empty. In a few of the cells across the way, occasionally something moved. I called out to other occupants but nothing replied. Had Mallucé created this place, or was I in some ancient dungeon, remnant of a more barbaric time, buried so deep in the earth it had been forgotten?

Clouds. I rolled over and painted them on the ceiling again. I was shaking. Phrases like “deep in the earth” just weren’t working for me. I had a few friends who were spelunkers. I’d always thought they were nuts. Why go to the ground any sooner than we have to?

I added a sun and a dazzlingly white seashore to my illusion, I dressed myself in pink. I painted my sister into the picture.

Eventually I slept.

I knew he was in the cavern with me the moment I awakened.

Fae but not Fae: I could feel him there: a dark cancer, a wrongness.

My head ached from sleeping on a pillow of stone. My wrist pain had eased from the torture of screaming nerves, to flesh and blood pain, which was more bearable. I was so hungry I was almost too weak to move. Did he plan to starve me? I’d heard it took something like three days to dehydrate. How long did I have to go? I had no sense of time in this place. Would hours feel like days? Would days feel like months? How long had I been unconscious? How long had I slept? From how hungry I was, I knew at least a day had passed, perhaps two. I have a high metabolism and need to eat frequently. Assuming he fed and watered me, what would I be like after a week down here? A month?

I rolled over gingerly. There was bread and a small pail of water inside my cell. I fell on them like an animal.

As I tore off chunks of dry, crusty bread and stuffed them in my mouth, I watched Mallucé through the bars. His back was to me. His hood was down. The back of his hairless, swollen head looked gangrenous. Froths of lace rimmed his neck and black-gloved wrists where his robe fell away. Even decaying, he was still dressing in the height of Goth. He was seated at the low stone slab and if I wasn’t mistaken, he was eating something, too, making disgusting noises while he did it. I saw the flash of silver slicing, the sound of blade against stone, crunching sounds. I wondered what decaying vampires dined upon. According to the authors of Vampires for Dummies, they didn’t eat. They drank blood. His body and the chairs blocked my view of the slab.

I finished the bread too quickly, resulting in a hard, sour lump of dough in my stomach. Despite raging thirst, I sipped the water carefully. There was no bathroom in my cell from Hell. Ironic, the humiliations that occur to us in the midst of significantly larger problems, as if being killed by one’s enemy isn’t quite as terrible as being forced to urinate in front of him.

Where was Barrons? What had he done when I’d not shown up at the bookstore that night? Gone hunting for me? Was he still out there looking? Had Mallucé and the Hunters captured him, too? I refused to believe that. I needed hope. Surely if Mallucé had gotten Barrons, he’d be bragging about it, would have imprisoned him somewhere I could see him. Was he back at the bookstore, furious with me, thinking I’d gone off with V’lane again and would turn up next month, bikini-clad and suntanned?

Where was the cuff?

Why, oh, why hadn’t I let him tattoo me? What was my problem? He could have branded me between the cheeks of my petunia for all I cared, if it’d get me out of here! What had I been thinking? I was such an idiot!

A cuff can be removed, Ms. Lane; a tattoo can’t.

I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Question was would I survive it?

“Where’s my spear?” I asked Mallucé. If it was here, perhaps the cuff was, too.

“Not your spear, bitch,” the vampire said, raising an arm, bringing another bite to his mouth. I caught a glimpse of his hand; he was wearing shiny, stiff black gloves. I wondered if his hands had begun to rot and he wore gloves to contain their shape. He chewed a moment. “You were never worthy of it. I’ve put word out that I have it. Whoever restores me gets it.”

“Do you really think you can be restored?” He looked like something that had been resurrected from a grave. I couldn’t see such damage being undone.

He didn’t answer me, but I felt his anger; it chilled the room.

“If you were the Lord Master’s right hand, why doesn’t he heal you? He leads the Unseelie. He must be very powerful,” I fished.