Fever - Burned Part 45

Her back arches, head drops back, and the look on her face is- "Just as I suspected, everybody is having s.e.x but me," I mutter irritably.

I punch the screen off and hurry to the next one.

And stare blankly at the screen for a long, pained moment.

"No," I finally manage to say. "He would not come back here first. He would come to me."

But he wouldn't. And he didn't.

Barrons is back.

Standing in a room I can't place, a deep gash of a stone chamber. I think, Please tell me it's not the s.e.x club I've heard so many rumors about. Please tell me I'm enough.

Ryodan moves into view.

Where are they? What are they doing? Why didn't Barrons come to me, tell me he was back?

I watch the screen, never taking my eyes from it. Minutes creep by and nothing changes. They don't even appear to be talking. Just watching something.

I shake myself from my trance and punch the next b.u.t.ton.

The Rhino-boy club disappears, revealing another dimly lit stone room.

A shadow moves in the darkness.

What the h.e.l.l is down there?

What are they watching?

The thing separates from the shadows, stumbles toward the light, cringes and stumbles back again.

I suddenly can't find enough oxygen in Ryodan's office to breathe.

My hand flies to my mouth as I stare, staggered.

Dageus MacKeltar is not dead.

PEOPLE.

SIDHE-SEERS.

SIDHE-SEER (SHEE-SEER): A person on whom Fae magic doesn't work, capable of seeing past the illusions or "glamour" cast by the Fae to the true nature that lies beneath. Some can also see Tabh'rs, hidden portals between realms. Others can sense Seelie and Unseelie objects of power. Each sidhe-seer is different, with varying degrees of resistance to the Fae. Some are limited; some are advanced, with multiple "special powers." For thousands of years, the sidhe-seers protected humans from the Fae that slipped through on pagan feast days when the veils grew thin, to run the Wild Hunt and prey on humans.

MACKAYLA LANE (O'CONNOR): Main character, female, twenty-three, adopted daughter of Jack and Rainey Lane, biological daughter of Isla O'Connor. Blond hair, green eyes, had an idyllic, sheltered childhood in the Deep South. When her biological sister, Alina, was murdered and the Garda swiftly closed the case with no leads, Mac quit her job bartending and headed for Dublin to search for Alina's killer herself. Shortly after her arrival she met Jericho Barrons and began reluctantly working with him toward common goals. Among her many skills and talents, Mac can track objects of power created by the Fae, including the ancient, sentient, psychopathic book of magic known as the Sinsar Dubh. At the end of Shadowfever we learn that twenty years before, when the Sinsar Dubh escaped its prison beneath the abbey, it briefly possessed Mac's mother and imprinted a complete copy of itself in the unprotected fetus. Although Mac succeeds in reinterring the dangerous book, her victory is simultaneous with the discovery that there are two copies of it, she is one of them and she will never be free from the temptation to use her limitless, deadly power.

ALINA LANE (O'CONNOR): Female, deceased, older sister to MacKayla Lane. At twenty-four went to Dublin to study at Trinity College and discovered she was a sidhe-seer. Became lovers with the Lord Master, also known as Darroc, an ex-Fae stripped of his immortality by Queen Aoibheal for attempting to overthrow her reign. Alina was killed by Rowena, who magically forced Dani O'Malley to trap her in an alley with a pair of deadly Unseelie.

DANIELLE "THE MEGA" O'MALLEY: Main character. An enormously gifted, genetically mutated sidhe-seer with an extremely high IQ, super strength, speed, and sa.s.s. She was abused and manipulated by Rowena from a young age, molded into the old woman's personal a.s.sa.s.sin, and forced to kill Mac's sister, Alina. Despite the darkness and trauma of her childhood, Dani is eternally optimistic and determined to survive and have her fair share of life plus some. In Shadowfever, Mac discovers Dani killed her sister, and the two, once as close as sisters, are now bitterly estranged.

ROWENA O'REILLY: Grand Mistress of the sidhe-seer organization until her death in Shadowfever. Governed the six major Irish sidhe-seer bloodlines but rather than training them, controlled and diminished them. Fiercely power-hungry, manipulative, and narcissistic, she was seduced by the Sinsar Dubh into freeing it. She ate Fae flesh to enhance her strength and talent, and kept a lesser Fae locked beneath the abbey. Dabbling in dangerous black arts, she experimented on many of the sidhe-seers in her care, most notably Danielle O'Malley. In Shadowfever she is possessed by the Sinsar Dubh and used to seduce Mac with the illusion of parents she never had, in an effort to get her to turn over the only illusion amulet capable of deceiving even the Unseelie King. Mac sees through the seduction and kills Rowena.

ISLA O'CONNOR: Mac's biological mother. Twenty-some years ago Isla was the leader of the Haven, one of seven trusted advisors to the Grand Mistress in the sacred, innermost circle of sidhe-seers at Arlington Abbey. Rowena (the Grand Mistress) wanted her daughter, Kayleigh O'Reilly, to be the Haven leader, and was furious when the women selected Isla instead. Isla was the only member of the Haven who survived the night the Sinsar Dubh escaped its prison beneath the abbey. She was briefly possessed by the Dark Book but not turned into a lethal, s.a.d.i.s.tic killing machine. In the chaos at the abbey, Isla was stabbed and badly injured. Barrons tells Mac he visited Isla's grave five days after she left the abbey, that she was cremated. Barrons says he discovered Isla had only one daughter. He later tells Mac it is conceivable Isla could have been pregnant the one night he saw her and a child might have survived given proper premature birth care. He also says it is conceivable Isla didn't die, but lived to bear another child (Mac) and give her up. Barrons theorizes Isla was spared because the sentient evil of the Sinsar Dubh imprinted itself on her unprotected fetus, made a complete second copy of itself inside the unborn Mac and deliberately released her. It is believed Isla died after having Mac and arranging for her friend Tellie to have both her daughters smuggled from Ireland and adopted in the States, forbidden ever to return to Ireland.

AUGUSTA O'CLARE: Tellie Sullivan's grandmother. Barrons took Isla O'Connor to her house the night the Sinsar Dubh escaped its prison beneath Arlington Abbey over twenty years ago.

KAYLEIGH O'REILLY: Rowena's daughter, Nana's granddaughter, best friend of Isla O'Connor. She was killed twenty-some years ago, the night the Sinsar Dubh escaped the abbey.

NANA O'REILLY: Rowena's mother, Kayleigh's grandmother. Old woman living alone by the sea, p.r.o.ne to nodding off in the middle of a sentence. She despised Rowena, saw her for what she was and was at the abbey the night the Sinsar Dubh escaped more than twenty years ago. Though many have questioned her, none have ever gotten the full story of what happened that night.

KATARINA (KAT) MCLAUGHLIN (MCLOUGHLIN): Daughter of a notorious crime family in Dublin, her gift is extreme empathy. She feels the pain of the world, all the emotions people work so hard to hide. Considered useless and a complete failure by her family, she was sent to the abbey at a young age, where Rowena manipulated and belittled her until she became afraid of her strengths and impeded by fear. Levelheaded, highly compa.s.sionate, with serene gray eyes that mask her constant inner turmoil, she wants desperately to learn to be a good leader and help the other sidhe-seers. She turned her back on her family mafia business to pursue a more scrupulous life. When Rowena was killed, Kat was coerced into becoming the next Grand Mistress, a position she has felt completely unfit for. Although imprisoned beneath the abbey, Cruce is still able to project a glamour of himself, and in dreams he seduces Kat nightly, shaming her and making her feel unfit to rule, or be loved by her longtime sweetheart Sean O'Bannion. Kat has a genuinely pure heart and pure motives but lacks the strength, discipline, and belief in herself to lead.

JO BRENNAN: Midtwenties, pet.i.te, with delicate features and short, spiky dark hair, she descends from one of the six famous Irish bloodlines that can see the Fae (O'Connor, O'Reilly, Brennan, the McLaughlin or McLoughlin, O'Malley, and the Kennedy). Her special talent is eidetic or sticky memory for facts but unfortunately by her midtwenties she has so many facts in her head, she can rarely find the ones she needs. She has never been able to perfect a mental filing system. When Kat clandestinely dispatches her to get a job at Chester's so they can spy on the Nine, Jo allows herself to be coerced into taking a waitressing job at the nightclub by the immortal owner, Ryodan, and when he gives her his famous nod, inviting her to his bed, she's unable to resist even though she knows it's destined for an epic fail.

PATRONA O'CONNOR: Mac's biological grandmother. Little is known of her to date.

THE NINE.

Little is known about them. They are immortals who were long ago cursed to live forever and be reborn every time they die at precisely the same unknown geographic location. They have an alternate beast form that is savage, bloodthirsty, and atavistically superior. It is believed they were originally human from the planet Earth but that is unconfirmed. There were originally ten, counting Barrons's young son. The known names they currently go by are Jericho Barrons, Ryodan, Lor, Kasteo, Fade. In Burned we discover one is named Daku. There's a rumor that one of the Nine is a woman.

JERICHO BARRONS: Main character. One of a group of immortals who reside in Dublin, many of them at Chester's nightclub, and is their recognized leader, although Ryodan issues and enforces most of Barrons's orders. Six feet three inches tall, black hair, brown eyes, two hundred forty-five pounds, date of birth October 31, allegedly thirty-one years old, his middle initial is Z, which stands for Zigor, meaning either "the punished" or "the punisher" depending on dialect. He is adept in magic, a powerful warder, fluent in the druid art of Voice, an avid collector of antiquities and supercars. He despises words, believes in being judged by one's actions alone. No one knows how long the Nine have been alive, but references seem to indicate in excess of ten thousand years. If Barrons is killed, he is reborn at an unknown location precisely the same as he was the first time he died. Like all of the Nine, Barrons has an animal form, a skin he can don at will, or if pushed. Barrons had a son who was also immortal, but at some point in the distant past, shortly after Barrons and his men were cursed to become what they are, the child was brutally tortured and became a permanent, psychotic version of the beast. Barrons kept him caged below his garage while he searched for a way to free him, hence his quest to obtain the most powerful book of magic ever created, the Sinsar Dubh. He was seeking a way to end his son's suffering. In Shadowfever, Mac helps him lay his son to final rest by using the ancient Hunter, K'Vruck, to kill him.

RYODAN: Main character. Six feet four, two hundred thirty-five pounds, lean and cut, with silver eyes and dark hair nearly shaved at the sides, he has a taste for expensive clothing and toys. He has scars on his arms and a large, thick one that runs from his chest up to his jaw. Owner of Chester's and the brains behind the Nine's business empire, he manages the daily aspects of their existence. Each time the Nine have been visible in the past, he was king, ruler, pagan G.o.d, or dictator. Barrons is the silent command behind the Nine, Ryodan is the voice. Barrons is animalistic and primeval, Ryodan is urbane and professional. Highly s.e.xual, he likes s.e.x for breakfast and eats early and often.

LOR: Six feet two inches, two hundred twenty pounds, blond, green eyes, with strong Nordic features, he promotes himself as a caveman and likes it that way. Heavily muscled and scarred. Lor's life is a constant party. He loves music, hot blondes, and likes to chain his women to his bed so he can take his time with them, willing to play virtually any role in bed for sheer love of the sport. Long ago, however, he was called the Bonecrusher, feared and reviled throughout the Old World.

KASTEO: Tall, dark, scarred, and tattooed, with short, dark, nearly shaved hair, he hasn't spoken to anyone in a thousand years. There is a rumor floating around that others of the Nine killed the woman he loved.

FADE: Not much is known about him to date. During events in Shadowfever the Sinsar Dubh possessed him briefly and used him to kill Barrons and Ryodan then threaten Mac. Tall, heavily muscled, and scarred like the rest of the Nine.

FAE.

Also known as the Tuatha De Danann or Tuatha De (TUA day dhanna or Tua DAY). An advanced race of otherworldly creatures that possess enormous powers of magic and illusion. After war destroyed their own world, they colonized Earth, settling on the sh.o.r.es of Ireland in a cloud of fog and light. Originally the Fae were united and there were only the Seelie, but the Seelie King left the Queen and created his own court when she refused to use the Song of Making to grant his concubine immortality. He became the Unseelie King and created a dark, mirror image court of Fae castes. While the Seelie are golden, s.h.i.+ning, and beautiful, the Unseelie, with the exception of royalty, are dark-haired and -skinned, misshapen, hideous abominations with s.a.d.i.s.tic, insatiable desires. Both Seelie and Unseelie have four royal houses of princes and princesses that are s.e.xually addictive and highly lethal to humans.

UNSEELIE.

UNSEELIE KING: The most ancient of the Fae, no one knows where he came from or when he first appeared. The Seelie don't recall a time the king didn't exist and, despite the court's matriarchal nature, the king predates the queen and is the most complex and powerful of all the Fae-lacking a single enormous power that makes him the Seelie Queen's lesser: she alone can use the Song of Making, which can call new matter into being. The king can create only from matter that already exists, sculpting galaxies and universes, even on occasion arranging matter so that life springs from it. Countless worlds call him G.o.d. His view of the universe is so enormous and complicated by a vision that sees and weighs every detail, every possibility, that his vast intellect is virtually inaccessible. In order to communicate with humans he has to reduce himself into multiple human parts. When he walks in the mortal realm, he does so as one of these human "skins." He never wears the same skins twice after his involvement in a specific mortal episode is through.

DREAMY-EYED GUY: (aka DEG, see also Unseelie King) The Unseelie King is too enormous and complex to exist in human form unless he divides himself into multiple "skins." The Dreamy-Eyed Guy is one of the Unseelie King's many human forms and first appeared in Darkfever when Mac was searching a local museum for objects of power. Mac later encounters him at Trinity College in the Ancient Languages Department, where he works with Christian MacKeltar, and frequently thereafter when he takes a job bartending at Chester's after the walls fall. Enigma shrouded in mystery, he imparts cryptic bits of useful information. Mac doesn't know the DEG is a part of the Unseelie King until she and the others are reinterring the Sinsar Dubh beneath Arlington Abbey and all of the king's skins arrive to coalesce into a single ent.i.ty.

CONCUBINE: (originally human, now Fae, see also Aoibheal, Seelie Queen, Unseelie King, Cruce) The Unseelie King's mortal lover and unwitting cause of endless war and suffering. When the king fell in love with her, he asked the Seelie Queen to use the Song of Making to make her Fae and immortal, but the queen refused. Incensed, the Seelie King left Faery, established his own icy realm, and became the dark, forbidding Unseelie King. After building his concubine the magnificent s.h.i.+ning White Mansion inside the Silvers where she would never age so long as she didn't leave its labyrinthine walls, he vowed to re-create the Song of Making, and spent eons experimenting in his laboratory while his concubine waited. The Unseelie Court was the result of his efforts: dark, ravenous, and lethal, fas.h.i.+oned from an imperfect Song of Making. In Shadowfever, the king discovers his concubine isn't dead as he has believed for over half a million years. Unfortunately, the cup from the Cauldron of Forgetting that Cruce forced upon the concubine destroyed her mind and she doesn't retain a single memory of the king or their love. It is as if a complete stranger wears her skin.

CRUCE: (Unseelie, but has masqueraded for over half a million years as the Seelie Prince V'Lane) Powerful, sifting, lethally s.e.xual Fae. Believes himself to be the last and finest Unseelie Prince the king created. Cruce was given special privileges at the dark court, working beside his liege to perfect the Song of Making. He was the only Fae ever allowed to enter the White Mansion, so he might carry the king's experimental potions to the concubine while the king continued with his work. Over time, Cruce grew jealous of the king, coveted his concubine and kingdom, and plotted to take it from him. Cruce resented that the king kept his dark court secret from the Seelie Queen and wanted the dark and light courts to be joined into one, which he then planned to rule himself. He pet.i.tioned the king to go to the Seelie Court and present his "children" but the king refused, knowing the queen would only subject his imperfect creations to endless torture and humiliation. Angry that the king would not fight for them, Cruce went to the Seelie Queen himself and told her of the dark court. Incensed at the king's betrayal and quest for power that was matriarchal, the queen locked Cruce away in her bower and summoned the king. With the help of the illusion amulets Cruce and the king had created, Cruce wove the glamour that he was the Seelie Prince, V'lane. Furious to learn the king had disobeyed her, and jealous of his love for the concubine, the queen summoned Cruce (who was actually her own prince, V'lane) and killed him with the sword of light to show the king what she would do to all his abominations. Enraged, the king stormed the Seelie Court with his dark Fae and killed the queen. When he went home to his icy realm, grieving the loss of his trusted and much-loved prince Cruce, he found his concubine was also dead. She'd left him a note saying she'd killed herself to escape what he'd become. Unknown to the king, while he'd fought with the Seelie Queen, Cruce slipped back to the White Mansion and gave the concubine another "potion," which was actually a cup stolen from the Cauldron of Forgetting. After erasing her memory, he used the power of the three lesser illusion amulets to convince the king she was dead. He took her away and a.s.sumed the role of V'lane, in love with a mortal at the Seelie Court, biding time to usurp the rule of their race, both light and dark courts. As V'lane, he approached MacKayla Lane and was using her to locate the Sinsar Dubh. Once he had it, he planned to acquire all the Unseelie King's forbidden dark knowledge, finally kill the concubine who had become the current queen and, as the only vessel holding both the patriarchal and matriarchal power of their race, become the next, most powerful, Unseelie King ever to rule. At the end of Shadowfever, when the Sinsar Dubh is reinterred beneath the abbey, he reveals himself as Cruce and absorbs all the forbidden magic from the king's Dark Book. But before Cruce can kill the current queen and become the ruler of both light and dark courts, the Unseelie King imprisons him in a cage of ice beneath Arlington Abbey.

UNSEELIE PRINCES: Highly s.e.xual, insatiable, dark counterpart to the golden Seelie Princes. Long blue-black hair, leanly muscled dark-skinned bodies tattooed with brilliant complicated patterns that rush beneath their skin like kaleidoscopic storm clouds. They wear black torques like liquid darkness around their necks. They have the starved cruelty and arrogance of a human sociopath. There are four royal princes: Kiall, Rath, Cruce, and an unnamed prince slain by Danielle O'Malley in Dreamfever. In the way of Fae things, when one royal is killed, another becomes, and Christian MacKeltar is swiftly becoming the next Unseelie Prince.

UNSEELIE PRINCESSES: The princesses have not been heard of and were presumed dead until recent events brought to light that one or more were hidden away by the Unseelie King either in punishment or to contain a power he didn't want loose in the world. At least one of them was locked in the king's library inside the White Mansion until either Dani or Christian MacKeltar freed her. Highly s.e.xual, a powerful sifter, this princess is stunningly beautiful with long black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. In Burned we learn the Sweeper tinkered with the Unseelie Princess(es) and changed her (them) somehow. Unlike the Unseelie Princes who are p.r.o.ne to mindless savagery, the princess is quite rational about her desires, and logically focused on short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. It is unknown what her end goal is but, as with all Fae, it involves power.

ROYAL HUNTERS: A caste of Unseelie sifters, first introduced in The Immortal Highlander, this caste hunts for both the king and the queen, relentlessly tracking their prey. Tall, leathery skinned, with wings, they are feared by all Fae.

CRIMSON HAG: One of the Unseelie King's earliest creations, Dani O'Malley inadvertently freed this monster from a stoppered bottle at the king's fantastical library inside the White Mansion. Psychopathically driven to complete her unfinished, tattered gown of guts, she captures and kills anything in her path, using insectile, lancelike legs to slay her prey and disembowel them. She then perches nearby and knits their entrails into the ragged hem of her blood-red dress. They tend to rot as quickly as they're st.i.tched, necessitating an endless, futile hunt for more. Rumor is, the Hag once held two Unseelie Princes captive, killing them over and over for nearly one hundred thousand years before the Unseelie King stopped her. She reeks of the stench of rotting meat, has matted, blood-drenched hair, an ice white face with black eye sockets, a thin gash of a mouth, and crimson fangs. Her upper body is lovely and voluptuous, encased in a gruesome corset of bone and sinew. She prefers to abduct Unseelie Princes because they are immortal and afford an unending supply of guts, as they regenerate each time she kills them. In Iced, she kills Barrons and Ryodan then captures Christian MacKeltar (the latest Unseelie Prince) and carries him off.

FEAR DORCHA: One of the Unseelie King's earliest creations, this seven-foot-tall, gaunt Unseelie wears a dark pinstriped tailcoat suit that is at least a century out of date and has no face. Beneath an elegant, cobwebbed black top hat is a swirling black tornado with various bits of features that occasionally materialize. Like all the Unseelie, created imperfectly from an imperfect Song of Making, he is pathologically driven to achieve what he lacks-a face and ident.i.ty-by stealing faces and ident.i.ties from humans. The Fear Dorcha was once the Unseelie King's personal a.s.sa.s.sin and traveling companion during his liege's time of madness after the concubine's death. In Fever Moon, the Fear Dorcha is defeated by Mac when she steals his top hat, but it is unknown if the Dorcha is actually deceased.

h.o.a.r FROST KING (GH'LUK-RA D'J'HAI): (aka HFK) Villain introduced in Iced, responsible for turning Dublin into a frigid, arctic wasteland. This Unseelie is one of the most complex and powerful the king ever created, capable of opening holes in s.p.a.ce-time to travel, similar to the Seelie ability to sift but with catastrophic results for the matter it manipulates. The h.o.a.r Frost King is the only Unseelie aware of its fundamental imperfection on a quantum level, and like the king, was attempting to re-create the Song of Making to fix itself by collecting the necessary frequencies, physically removing them from the fabric of reality. Each place the h.o.a.r Frost King fed, it stripped necessary structure from the universe while regurgitating a minute ma.s.s of enormous density, like a cat vomiting cosmic bones after eating a quantum bird. Although the HFK was destroyed in Iced by Dani, Dancer, and Ryodan, the holes it left in the fabric of the human world can only be fixed with the Song of Making.

GRAY MAN: Tall, monstrous, leprous, capable of sifting, he feeds by stealing beauty from human women. He projects the glamour of a devastatingly attractive human man. He is lethal but prefers his victims left hideously disfigured and alive to suffer. In Darkfever, Barrons stabs and kills the Gray Man with Mac's spear.

GRAY WOMAN: The Gray Man's female counterpart, nine feet tall, she projects the glamour of a stunningly beautiful woman and lures human men to their death. Gaunt, emaciated to the point of starvation, her face is long and narrow. Her mouth consumes the entire lower half of her face. She has two rows of sharklike teeth but prefers to feed by caressing her victims, drawing their beauty and vitality out through open sores on her grotesque hands. If she wants to kill in a hurry, she clamps her hands onto human flesh, creating an unbreakable suction. Unlike the Gray Man, she usually quickly kills her victims. In Shadowfever, she breaks pattern and preys upon Dani, in retaliation against Mac and Barrons for killing the Gray Man, her lover. Mac makes an unholy pact with her to save Dani.

RHINO-BOYS: Ugly gray-skinned creatures that resemble rhinoceroses with b.u.mpy, protruding foreheads, barrel-like bodies, stumpy arms and legs, and lipless gashes of mouths with jutting underbites. Lower-caste Unseelie thugs dispatched primarily as watchdogs and security for high-ranking Fae.

PAPA ROACH: Made of thousands and thousands of roachlike creatures clambering up on top of one another to form a larger being. The individual bugs feed off human flesh, specifically fat. Consequently, post-wall, some women allow them to enter their bodies and live beneath their skin to keep them slim, a symbiotic liposuction. Papa Roach, the collective, is purplish-brown, about four feet tall with thick legs, a half-dozen arms, and a head the size of a walnut. It jiggles like gelatin when it moves as its countless individual parts s.h.i.+ft minutely to remain coalesced. It has a thin-lipped beaklike mouth and round, lidless eyes.

SHADES: One of the lowest castes, they started out barely sentient but have been evolving since they were freed from their Unseelie prison. They thrive in darkness, can't bear direct light, and hunt at night or in dark places. They steal life in the same manner the Gray Man steals beauty, draining their victims with vampiric swiftness, leaving behind a pile of clothing and a husk of dehydrated human matter. They consume every living thing in their path from the leaves on trees to the worms in the soil.

SEELIE.

AOIBHEAL, THE SEELIE QUEEN: (see also the Concubine) Fae queen, last in a long line of queens with an unusual empathy for humans. In Shadowfever, it is revealed the queen was once human herself, and is the Unseelie King's long-lost concubine and soul mate. Over half a million years ago, the Unseelie Prince Cruce drugged her with a cup stolen from the Cauldron of Forgetting, erased her memory and abducted her, staging it so the Unseelie King believed she was dead. Masquerading as the Seelie Prince V'lane, Cruce hid her in the one place he knew the king of the Unseelie would never go-the Seelie Court. Prolonged time in Faery transformed Aoibheal and she became what the king had desperately desired her to be: Fae and immortal. She is now the latest in a long line of Seelie Queens. Tragically, the original Seelie Queen was killed by the Unseelie King before she was able to pa.s.s on the Song of Making, the most powerful and beautiful of all Fae magic. Without it, the Seelie have changed.

DARROC, LORD MASTER: (Seelie turned human) Once Fae and trusted advisor to Aoibheal, he was set up by Cruce and banished from Faery for treason. At the Seelie Court, Adam Black (in the novel The Immortal Highlander) was given the choice to have Darroc killed or turned mortal as punishment for trying to free Unseelie and overthrow the queen. Adam chose to have him turned mortal, believing he would quickly die as a human, sparking the succession of events that culminates in Faefever when Darroc destroys the walls between the worlds of Man and Fae, setting the long-imprisoned Unseelie free. Once in the mortal realm, Darroc learned to eat Unseelie flesh to achieve power and caught wind of the Sinsar Dubh's existence in the mortal realm. When Alina Lane came to Dublin, Darroc discovered she was a sidhe-seer with many talents and, like her sister, Mac, could sense and track the Sinsar Dubh. He began by using her but fell in love with her. After Alina's death, Darroc learned of Mac and attempted to use her as well, applying various methods of coercion, including abducting her parents. Once Mac believed Barrons was dead, she teamed up with Darroc, determined to find the Sinsar Dubh herself and use it to bring Barrons back. Darroc was killed in Shadowfever by K'Vruck, allegedly at the direction of the Sinsar Dubh, when the Hunter popped his head like a grape.

SEELIE PRINCES: There were once four princes and four princesses of the royal Sidhe. The Seelie Princesses have not been seen for a long time and are presumed dead. V'lane was killed long ago, Velvet (not his real name) is recently deceased, R'jan currently aspires to be king, and Adam Black is now human. Highly s.e.xual, golden-haired (except for Adam who a.s.sumed a darker glamour), with iridescent eyes and golden skin, they are extremely powerful sifters, capable of sustaining nearly impenetrable glamour, and affect the climate with their pleasure or displeasure.

V'LANE: Seelie Prince, Queen of the Fae's high consort, extremely s.e.xual and erotic. The real V'lane was killed by his own queen when Cruce switched faces and places with him via glamour. Cruce has been masquerading as V'lane ever since, hiding in plain sight.

VELVET: Lesser royalty, cousin to R'jan. He was introduced in Shadowfever and killed by Ryodan in Iced.

DREE-LIA: Frequent consort of Velvet, was present when the Sinsar Dubh was reinterred beneath the abbey.

R'JAN: Seelie Prince who would be king. Tall, blond, with the velvety gold skin of a light Fae, he makes his debut in Iced when he announces his claim on the Fae throne.

ADAM BLACK: Immortal Prince of the D'Jai House and favored consort of the Seelie Queen, banished from Faery and made mortal as punishment for one of his countless interferences with the human realm. Has been called the sin siriche dubh or blackest Fae, however undeserved. Rumor holds Adam was not always Fae, although that has not been substantiated. In The Immortal Highlander, he is exiled among mortals, falls in love with Gabrielle O'Callaghan, a sidhe-seer from Cincinnati, Ohio, and chooses to remain human to stay with her. He refuses to get involved in the current war between Man and Fae, fed up with the endless manipulation, seduction, and drama. With Gabrielle, he has a highly gifted and unusual daughter to protect.

THE KELTAR.

An ancient bloodline of Highlanders chosen by Queen Aoibheal and trained in druidry to uphold the Compact between the races of Man and Fae. Brilliant, gifted in physics and engineering, they live near Inverness and guard a circle of standing stones called Ban Drochaid (the white bridge) that was used for time travel until the Keltar breached one of their many oaths to the Queen and she closed the circle of stones to other times and dimensions. Current Keltar druids: Christopher, Christian, Cian, Dageus, Drustan.

Druid: In pre-Christian Celtic society, a druid presided over divine wors.h.i.+p, legislative and judicial matters, philosophy, and education of elite youth to their order. Druids were believed to be privy to the secrets of the G.o.ds, including issues pertaining to the manipulation of physical matter, s.p.a.ce, and even time. The old Irish "Drui" means magician, wizard, diviner (Irish Myths and Legends).

CHRISTOPHER MACKELTAR: Modern-day laird of the Keltar clan, father of Christian MacKeltar.

CHRISTIAN MACKELTAR: (turned Unseelie Prince) Handsome Scotsman, dark hair, tall, muscular body and killer smile, he masqueraded as a student at Trinity College, working in the Ancient Languages Department, but was really stationed there by his uncles to keep an eye on Jericho Barrons. Trained as a druid by his clan, he partic.i.p.ated in a ritual at Ban Drochaid on Samhain meant to reinforce the walls between the worlds of Man and Fae. Unfortunately the ceremony went badly wrong, leaving Christian and Barrons trapped in the Silvers. When Mac later finds Christian in the Hall of All Days, she feeds him Unseelie flesh to save his life, unwittingly sparking the chain of events that begins to turn the s.e.xy Highlander into an Unseelie Prince. He loses himself for a time in madness, and fixates on the innocence of Dani O'Malley while losing his humanity. In Iced, he sacrifices himself to the Crimson Hag to distract her from killing the sidhe-seers, determined to spare Dani from having to choose between saving the abbey or the world. Currently staked to the side of a cliff above a h.e.l.lish grotto, being killed over and over again.

CIAN MACKELTAR: (Spell of the Highlander) Highlander from the twelfth century, traveled through time to present day, married to Jessica St. James. Cian was imprisoned for one thousand years in one of the Silvers by a vengeful sorcerer. Freed, he now lives with the other Keltar in current-day Scotland.

DAGEUS MACKELTAR: (The Dark Highlander) Keltar druid from the sixteenth century who traveled through time to present day, married to Chloe Zanders. He is inhabited by the souls of thirteen dead Draghar, ancient druids who used black sorcery. Long black hair nearly to his waist, dark skin, and gold eyes, he is the s.e.xiest and most s.e.xual of the Keltar.

DRUSTAN MACKELTAR: (Kiss of the Highlander) Twin brother of Dageus MacKeltar, also traveled through time to present day, married to Gwen Ca.s.sidy. Tall, dark, with long brown hair and silver eyes, he is the ultimate chivalrous knight and would sacrifice himself for the greater good if necessary.

HUMANS.

JACK AND RAINEY LANE: Mac and Alina's parents. In Darkfever Mac discovers they are not her biological parents. She and Alina were adopted and part of the custody agreement was a promise that the girls never be allowed to return to the country of their birth. Jack is a strapping, handsome man, an attorney with a strong sense of ethics. Rainey is a compa.s.sionate blond woman who was unable to bear children of her own. She's a steel magnolia, strong yet fragile.

DANCER: Six feet four inches, he has dark, wavy hair with gorgeous aqua eyes. Very mature, intellectually gifted seventeen-year-old who was home-schooled, and graduated from college with a double major in physics and engineering by sixteen. Fascinated by physics, he speaks multiple languages and traveled extensively with wealthy, humanitarian parents. His father is an amba.s.sador, his mother a doctor. He was alone in Dublin, considering Trinity College for grad school, when the walls between realms fell and has survived by his wits. He is an inventor and can often think circles around most people, including Dani. He seems unruffled by Barrons, Ryodan, and his men. Dani met Dancer near the end of Shadowfever (when he gave her a bracelet, first gift from a guy she liked) and they've been inseparable since. In Iced, Dancer made it clear he has feelings for her. Dancer is the only person Dani feels like she can be herself with: young, a little geeky, a lot brainy. Both he and Dani move around frequently, never staying in one place too long. They have many hideouts around the city, above- and belowground. Dani worries about him because he doesn't have any superpowers.

FIONA ASHETON: Beautiful woman in her early fifties who originally managed Barrons Books & Baubles, and was deeply in love (unrequited) with Jericho Barrons. Fiendishly jealous of Barrons's interest in MacKayla, she tried to kill Mac by letting Shades (lethal Unseelie) into the bookstore while she was sleeping. Barrons exiled her for it, and Fiona then became Derek O'Bannion's lover, began eating Unseelie, and was briefly possessed by the Sinsar Dubh, which skinned her from head to toe but left her alive. Due to the amount of Fae flesh Fiona had eaten, she could no longer be killed by human means and was trapped in a mutilated body, in constant agony. Eventually she begged Mac to use her Fae spear and end her suffering. Fiona died in the White Mansion when she flung herself through the ancient Silver used as a doorway between the concubine and the Unseelie King's bedchambers-which kills anyone who enters it except for the king and concubine-but not before trying to kill Mac one last time.

ROARK (ROCKY) O'BANNION: Black Irish Catholic mobster with Saudi ancestry and the compact, powerful body of a heavyweight champion boxer, which he is. Born in a Dublin controlled by two feuding Irish crime families-the Hallorans and O'Kierneys-Roark O'Bannion fought his way to the top in the ring, but it wasn't enough for the ambitious champ; he hungered for more. When Rocky was twenty-eight years old, the Halloran and O'Kierney linchpins were killed along with every son, grandson, and pregnant woman in their families. Twenty-seven people died that night, gunned down, blown up, poisoned, knifed, or strangled. Dublin had never seen anything like it. A group of flawlessly ch.o.r.eographed killers had closed in all over the city, at restaurants, homes, hotels, and clubs, and struck simultaneously. The next day, when a suddenly wealthy Rocky O'Bannion, champion boxer and many a young boy's idol, retired from the ring to take control of various businesses in and around Dublin previously run by the Hallorans and O'Kierneys, he was hailed by the working-cla.s.s poor as a hero, despite the fresh and obvious blood on his hands and the rough pack of ex-boxers and thugs he brought with him. O'Bannion is devoutly religious and collects sacred artifacts. Mac steals the Spear of Destiny (aka the Spear of Longinus that pierced Christ's side) from him to protect herself as it is one of two weapons that can kill the immortal Fae. Later, in Darkfever, Barrons kills...o...b..nnion to keep Mac safe from him and his henchmen, but it's not the end of the O'Bannions gunning for Mac.

DEREK O'BANNION: Rocky's younger brother, he begins snooping around Mac and the bookstore after Rocky is murdered, as his brother's car was found behind the bookstore. He becomes lovers with Fiona Asheton, is ultimately possessed by the Sinsar Dubh, and attacks Mac. He is killed by the Sinsar Dubh in Bloodfever.

SEAN O'BANNION: Rocky O'Bannion's cousin and Katarina McLaughlin's childhood sweetheart and adult lover. After the Hallorans and the O'Kierneys were killed by Rocky, the O'Bannions controlled the city for nearly a decade until the McLaughlins began usurping their turf. Both Sean and Kat despised the family business and refused to partic.i.p.ate. The two crime families sought to unite the business with a marriage between them, but when nearly all the McLaughlins were killed after the walls crashed, Katarina and Sean finally felt free. But chaos reigns in a world where humans struggle to obtain simple necessities, and Sean suddenly finds himself part of the black market, competing with Ryodan and the Fae to fairly distribute the supply of food and valuable resources. Kat is devastated to see him doing the wrong things for all the right reasons and it puts a serious strain on their relations.h.i.+p.