He stared straight ahead. “The churches’ve been packed for weeks. The crime hike is scaring people.” He was silent a moment. “So, how bad is it? Should I get my family out?”

“I would, if it were my family,” I said frankly.

“Where should I take them?”

I didn’t know what the rest of the world out there was like in terms of Unseelie, but the Sinsar Dubh was here, an evil centrifuge, distilling people to their darkest essences. “As far from Dublin as you can.”

He continued staring straight ahead in silence, until I began to fidget impatiently. I was getting a cramp in my leg. There was something else he wanted. I wished he’d hurry up and get to it before my foot went to sleep.

Finally, he said, “That night, that you . . . you know . . . I went back to the station and . . . saw the people that I work with.”

“You saw that some of the Garda are Unseelie, “ I said.

He nodded. “Now I can’t see them anymore but I know who they are. And I tell myself you did something to me, somehow, and it was all a hallucination.” He rubbed his face. “Then I see the reports coming in, and I watch what they do, or rather don’t do, like investigate a bloody damn thing, and I . . .”

When he trailed off, I waited.

“I think they killed O’Duffy to shut him up, and tried to make it look like a human did it. Two more Garda have been killed. They’d begun asking a lot of questions, and. . . .” He trailed off again.

The silence lengthened. Abruptly, he looked straight at me. His face was red, his eyes bright and hard. “I’d like to have tea with you again, Ms. Lane.”

I stared. That was the last thing I’d expected. Had I created an addict? “Why?” I said warily. Was he craving it like I was? Could he sense the tiny jars of wriggling flesh in my purse, yet to be deposited on the upper floors of the store? I could. I’d been feeling the dark pull of it beneath my arm all afternoon.

“I swore to uphold the peace in this city. And I will. But I can’t this way. I’m a sitting duck,” he said bitterly. “You were right, I didn’t know what was out there, but now I do. And I don’t sleep at night anymore, and I’m angry all the time, and I’m useless, and it’s more than my job to fight it, it’s who I am. It’s who Patty was, too, and that’s why he died. His death should mean something.”

“It could end up meaning your death,” I said softly.

“I’ll take that chance.”