He slammed on the brakes so abruptly that my seat belt cut into my breasts. If it had been a late-model car, I’d have been eating airbag. He reached across me and flung open my door. “If you really believe that, Ms. Lane, get out.”

I glanced out at the night. We were well past Temple Bar now, and into a mixed neighborhood of commercial and residential that was tightly buttoned up for the night. Even armed with my spear and flashlights, I had no desire to be walking around those dark, deserted streets by myself.

“Oh, don’t be so melodra—AHHHH!” I clutched my head with both hands as my skull was perforated by a thousand red hot ice picks.

The abbey was going to have to wait.

Bile exploded in the back of my throat. The alien part inside my head became a crematorium for my brain, the inferno spread to every cell in my body like someone was squirting me with gasoline, inside and out.

I could feel the skin on my body blistering, charring. I could smell myself burning.

Blessedly, blissfully, I passed out.

“It was the Sinsar Dubh again, wasn’t it?” Barrons demanded, the moment I opened my eyes.

I would have nodded but my head ached too much to risk it. “Y-Yes,” I whispered. Gingerly, I raised a hand to my face, felt my lips, my cheek, my hair. Contrary to what I’d expected, my skin was not covered with scabby blisters, and although my hair was short and the wrong color, at least it was still there. “Wh-Where are we?” It didn’t feel like a car seat beneath me.

“Back in the store. You didn’t regain consciousness this time, Ms. Lane. I assumed that meant the book was in our immediate vicinity, and unmoving, so I went hunting for it.” He paused. “I had to stop. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t killing you.”

“What do you mean?” Passing out was such a helpless thing. The world went on around you and you had no awareness of it.

“You were…twitching. Rather agitatedly.”

I stared. “What did you do? Toss me over your shoulder and tote me around like a divining rod while I was unconscious?”

“What did you expect me to do? The last time you encountered the Sinsar Dubh it made you pass out, but as soon as it moved away from you, you regained consciousness. It was only logical to conclude that if you weren’t coming around this time, it was because the book wasn’t moving away, which meant we were probably on top of the damned thing. I thought your physical distress might visibly intensify as we got closer, even if you were unconscious. It did, and I was forced to retreat. What the bloody hell good are you if you can sense it, but can’t stay conscious around it?”

“I’ve wondered the same thing myself. I didn’t choose this ability, any more than the stupid parameters accompanying it.” I shivered. Now that the fire inside me was gone, I felt chilled to the bone and my teeth began to chatter. The last time I’d had a near miss with the book I’d felt the same thing, iced tothe seat of my soul by the sheer evil of the thing.

He stepped to the fireplace, lit the gas flames, and returned with a blanket. I wrapped myself in it and gingerly sat up.

“Tell me what it feels like when it happens,” he demanded.

I looked at him. For all his solicitude with the fire and the blanket, he was cold, remote, seeing professionally to my needs. I wondered to what extent he’d allowed my “distress” to intensify before retreating. What a quandary it must have been for him to be so close to the Sinsar Dubh, yet afraid that using me to locate it would kill me—before he’d located it—effectively putting his OOP detector permanently out of commission, and losing his advantage in the game.

If he’d had any kind of guarantee of keeping me alive till that last terrible moment, would he have sacrificed me for the book?

I had little doubt on that score. There was violence in him tonight. I could feel it. I had no idea why he wanted it, but I did know this: The Dark Book was the end-all, be-all to Barrons. He was obsessed, and obsessed men are dangerous men. “You’ve never been so close to it before, have you?” I guessed.

“Not that I was aware of,” he said tightly. He whirled suddenly and punched the wall, a compact, careful blow—a controlled release of fury. Bits of plaster and lathing disintegrated around his fist, leaving it buried in the wall to the exterior brick. He leaned against it, breathing heavily. “You have no idea how long I’ve been hunting the cursed thing.”

I went very still. “Why don’t you tell me?” What might he say? Ten years?

Ten thousand?

His laughter was harsh, the brittle sound of chains being dragged across bones. “So, Ms. Lane?” he prompted. “What happens when you get close to it?”

I shook my head, and instantly regretted it. I was sick of Barrons’ evasions, but my headache was a hostile squatter occupying every inch of my head, breaking ground behind my eyes with a pointy-bladed shovel. I closed them. The day was coming when I was going to get my answers, one way or another. For now I’d give him his, in hopes that he might be able to shed light on the glaring problem of my inability to approach the book my sister had demanded that I find in her dying message.

“It hits me so suddenly and with such force that I don’t have time to think about it. All I know is one second I’m fine and the next I’m in such intense pain that I’d do anything to escape it. If it went on for very long and I didn’t pass out, Barrons, I think I’d beg you to kill me.” I opened my eyes. “But it’s more complex than that. It’s as if whatever I’m sensing is an utter anathema to everything I am. As if we’re point and counterpoint, each other’s antithesis. We can’t occupy the same space. Like we’re two magnets that repel, but it repels me with such force that it nearly crushes me.”