“That time?” he echoed softly. “You mean time to stop at one of the multiple convenience stores we just whizzed past so you can buy tampons? Is that what you’re telling me?”

I was going to throw up. It was too close. Saliva was pooling in my mouth. How far behind me was it? Two blocks? Less? “Yes,” I cried. “That’s it! But I use a special kind and they don’t carry it.”

“I can smell you, Ms. Lane,” he said, even more softly. “The only blood on you is from your veins, not your womb.”

My head whipped to the left and I stared at him. Okay, that was one of the more disturbing things he’d ever said to me. “Ahhh!” I cried, letting go of both the wheel and the gearshift to clutch my head. The Viper ran up on the sidewalk and took out two newspaper stands and a streetlamp before crashing to a stop against a fire hydrant.

And the blasted, idiotic Book was still coming. I began foaming at the mouth, wondering what would happen if it passed within a few feet of me. Would I die? Would my head really explode?

It stopped.

I collapsed against the steering wheel, gasping, grateful for the reprieve. My pain wasn’t decreasing but at least it was no longer increasing. I hoped the Book’s next victim would hurry along and tote it off in the other direction, fast. Hardly sidhe-seerlike, but I had problems.

Barrons kicked open the door, stalked to my side, and yanked me out. “Which way?” he snarled.

I would have fallen to my knees but he held me up. “I can’t,” I managed to say. “Please.”

“Which way?” he repeated.

I pointed.

“Which way?”

He’d Voiced me. I pointed the other way.

Grabbing a fistful of my hair, he took off, dragging me behind him. Closer, closer still. “You’re going . . . to. . . . kill . . . me,” I cried.

“You have no idea,” he growled.

“Please . . . stop!” I was stumbling, blind to everything but the pain.

He released me abruptly and I fell to my knees, gasping, crying. It hurt so bad. Shrieking in my head. Ice in my veins. Fire under my skin. Why? Why did the Book hurt me? Surely I was no longer that pure and good! I’d been lying to everyone. I’d killed a sidhe-seer—granted, it had been by accident, but it was still innocent blood on my hands, along with all of O’Bannion’s men. I’d been thinking lustful thoughts about men no sane woman would think lustful thoughts about. I’d been carving up other living creatures to eat to steal their . . .

Strength. That was what I needed. Unseelie strength and power; the darkness that was kith and kin to the Book, living inside me.

Where was my purse?