I no longer look so pretty. In fact, I look positively wretched.

On my hands and knees in a puddle that smells of beer and urine, I’m iced to the bone. My hair is in a tangle, my amethyst hair clip bobs against my nose, and I’m crying. I push the hair from my face with a filthy hand and watch the tableau playing out in front of me with wide, horrified eyes.

I remember that moment. Who I was. What I wasn’t. I capture it in freeze-frame. There are so many things I would say to her.

Head up, Mac. Brace yourself. A storm is coming. Don’t you hear the thunderclap of sharp hooves on the wind? Can’t you feel the soul-numbing frost? Don’t you smell spice and blood on the breeze?

Run, I would tell her. Hide.

But I wouldn’t listen to me.

On my knees, watching that. thing. do what it’s doing, I’m in the stranglehold of a killing undertow.

Reluctantly, I merge with the memory, slip into her skin.

Chapter 1

The pain, God, the pain! It’s going to splinter my skull!

I clutch my head with wet, stinking hands, determined to hold it together until the inevitable occurs—I pass out.

Nothing compares to the agony the Sinsar Dubh causes me. Each time I get close to it, the same thing happens. I’m immobilized by pain that escalates until I lose consciousness.

Barrons says it’s because the Dark Book and I are point and counterpoint. That it’s so evil, and I’m so good, that it repels me violently. His theory is to “dilute” me somehow, make me a little evil so I can get close to it. I don’t see how making me evil so I can get close enough to pick up an evil book is a good thing. I think I’d probably do evil things with it.