Bleeding? Clumsy? Slow? Who am I?
“I know your taste now, kid. I know your scent like I know my own. You will never be able to pass me again without me knowing it’s you. And if I ever catch you on the lower levels of Chester’s … or anywhere in my club for that matter …”
I jerk my glare from my hand to his face.
He smiles at me. There’s blood on his teeth.
Fact: it’s just wrong to be smiled at by someone who has your blood on his teeth. It offends to the bone. Where were his fangs? Did he have fangs? Natural or cosmetic implants? You never know with folks these days. They didn’t retract with a smoothly audible snick like on TV or I would have heard it. I have superhearing. Well, sometimes I do. Like when I also have superspeed and superstrength. Which used to be all the time. Until exactly now.
“… don’t let me …”
His gaze does that unnerving flickery thing it does sometimes. I think it’s because he looks me up and down so quick that I can’t focus on his eyes changing directions, I just see a kind of ocular shiver. I wonder if I can do it, too, superspeed a single part of me, like maybe tap a finger hyperfast. I need to practice. Assuming I can superspeed again at all. What the feck is wrong with me? Did I stall? How could I stall? I don’t stall!
“… unless you’re working for me and there at my direction. That’s the deal. ” He’s cold. Ice cold. And I know without him even saying what the second option is: die. Work for me or die. It pisses me off big-time.
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“Are you giving me an ultimatum? Because that is so not cool. ” I don’t emote disdain. I become disdain. I flash him number seventeen of my thirty-five Looks of Death. Grown-ups! They see a teenager with a little more stuff going on than they know what to do with, so they try to lock them down, box them up, make them feel bad just for being what they are. Like I can even help it. Dancer’s right, adults are afraid of the kids they’re raising.
“If growing up means turning out like you,” I say, “I’m never doing it. I know who I am and I like it. I’m not changing for anybody. ”
“One day, kid, you’ll be willing to mortgage your fucking soul for somebody. ”
“I don’t think you should say ‘fucking’ around me. In case you forgot, I’m only fourteen. And news flash, dude, I’ve got no soul. There aren’t any banks. And there isn’t any currency. Ergo. Never. Going. To. Happen. ”
“I’m not sure you could be any more full of yourself. ”
I cut him a smug look. “I’m willing to try. ”
Ryodan laughs. The instant he does, I flash back to what I saw on level four the other night. He was laughing then, too. The look on the woman’s face and the noise she was making when he did that thing he was doing— Gah! Old dude! Gross! What’s wrong with me?
He’s looking at me hard.
It makes me want to blink out of existence.
Ryodan looks at people different than anybody else I know. Like he has X-ray vision or something and knows exactly what’s happening inside people’s skulls.
“No mystery there, kid. If you live long enough, you do know what they’re thinking,” he says. “Humans are predictable, cut from patterns. Few evolve beyond them. ”
Huh? He did not just answer my thought. No fecking way.
“I know your secret, Dani. ”
“Got no secrets. ”
“Despite all the swaggering you do, you don’t want anybody to see you. Not really see you. Invisa-girl. That’s who you want to be. I wonder why. ”
I flip him off with both hands and freeze-frame with everything I’ve got.
It works this time! Fecking-A, it’s good to be me! Wind in my hair! Mega on the move! Leaps tall buildings in a single bound!
Well, maybe that last part’s a little exaggeration, but still …
Zoooooooom! I freeze-frame through the streets of Dublin. When I slam into the next wall, it knocks me out cold.
TWO
“Ice ice baby”
Since I sleep like the dead, I come to hard. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve fallen asleep or been knocked out. I’m always broody at first because I can’t shake off slumber as fast as most folks. My dreams get tangled up with the real world and it takes a while for them to melt away, like icicles dripping off gutters in the morning sun.
Not this time.
I come up from unconsciousness like a live wire: flat on my back one second, the next on all fours, then I’ve got my sword at Ryodan’s throat.
He knocks it away. It flies out of my hand and crashes into the wall of his office.
I lunge after it and crash into the wall myself, but who cares? My sword’s in my hand again. I spine up to the wall, blade straight out in front of me, never taking my eyes off him, waiting for him to try to take it from me again. It’s going through his heart if he does.
“We can do this all day if you like,” he says.
“You knocked me out,” I say through clenched teeth. I’m spitting mad, my face is throbbing and my teeth hurt. It’s a wonder I have any left.
“Correction. I got in your way. You knocked yourself out. I told you to watch where you’re going. ”
“You’re faster than me. That means you’re supposed to yield right of way. ”
“Like we’re cars. Cute. I don’t yield. Ever. ” He hooks a foot around a chair and kicks it toward me. “Sit. ”
“Feck you. ”
“I’m stronger than you, faster than you, and lack the human emotion that drives you. That makes me your worst nightmare. Sit. Or I’ll make you sit. ”
“I can think of a couple worse,” I mutter.
“You want to play games. I don’t think you’ll like mine. ”
I think it over. I’m worried because of earlier, when I stalled. What if it happens again and he figures it out? I’m double worried because he knocked me out cold, mid freeze-frame. It’s obvious I can’t escape if he doesn’t want to let me go. I’m in Chester’s, on his turf, with all his men in the vicinity. Even if Barrons is around, he’s not going to help me. I’m pretty sure TP has him hating me now.
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I take stock of the room. I’ve never been in his office before. LED screens serve as cove moldings, lining the entire perimeter of the ceiling, flashing from one zone to the next. From here Ryodan watches everything. I’m in the guts of his club.
“How’d I get here?” There’s one possible answer. I’m just trying to buy more time to orient myself. Gingerly I touch my nose, feel the tip. It’s alarmingly bulbous and squishy.
“I carried you. ”
It makes me so mad I almost can’t breathe. He knocked me out, picked me up like a sack of potatoes, toted me through the streets of Dublin and hauled me through the middle of all the skeevy folks and fairies that hang at Chester’s, probably with everybody staring at me and smirking. I haven’t been helpless for a long time.
Fact: he could do it again if he felt like it. Over and over. This dude standing in front of me could chain me down worse than anything my mom or Ro ever did to me.
I decide the wisest thing is to humor him until he lets me leave. Then I’ll eat everything I can get my hands on, test myself, make sure I’m working right, hole up somewhere safe and lie low for a while. I’ll spend my time in hiding, working on getting faster and stronger, so I never have to put up with a moment like this again. I thought these kinds of days were gone for good.
I sit.
He doesn’t look all smug like I would have. He gives me … like a look of approval or something.
“Don’t need your approval,” I say irritably. “Don’t need anybody’s. ”
“Stay that way. ”
I scowl at him. I don’t get Ryodan at all. “Why am I here? Why’d you bring me to Chester’s? Get to the point. I got stuff to do. Busy schedule, you know. I’m in demand. ”
I look around
. The office is made of solid glass, walls, ceiling, and floor. Nobody can see in, but you can see out. It’s freaky walking on a glass floor. Like the bottom’s dropping out of your world with every step you take. Even sitting, you feel a kind of vertigo.
I look down. There are acres of dance floor beneath me. The club has multiple tiers, maybe a hundred subclubs on split levels, each with its own theme. Seelie, Unseelie, and humans hang together and strike who knows what kind of deals. Here in post-wall Dublin, anything you want can be had at Chester’s, for a price. For a second I forget he’s there, fascinated by watching it all between my high-top sneakers. I could sit here for days, study stuff, get smarter. Itemize every caste of Fae, spread the word around the city, what they are, how they can be defeated, or at least escaped from or restrained until I can get there to kill them with my sword. That’s a big part of the reason I’ve been so determined to get inside Chester’s. How can I protect my city if I can’t warn everyone about all its dangers? I got a job to do. I need all the intel I can get.
There’s a Seelie male on the dance floor, blond and beautiful like V’lane was before he dropped his glamour and revealed himself as an Unseelie. In the next subclub over is a lower caste of dark Fae that I’ve never seen before, shiny wet and segmented, with— Ew! The many segments are coming apart and scurrying off into a hundred different directions like roaches! I hate roaches. They begin to disappear up people’s pants legs. I pick my feet up off the floor and sit cross-legged on the chair.
“You watch everything. ”
It’s not a question so I don’t answer. I look at him, fold my arms and wait.
There’s that smile again.
I poke out my lower lip defiantly. “What am I? Like a walking joke to you? Why do you always smile when you look at me?”
“You’ll figure it out. ” He moves to his desk, opens a drawer, pulls out a sheet of paper and hands it to me. “Complete and sign this. ”
I take it and look at it. It’s a job application. I give him a look. “Dude. Post-apocalyptic world. Who does job applications anymore?”
“I do. ”
I squint at it, then him. “What are you paying me?” I angle.
“Dude. Post-apocalyptic world. Who does money anymore. ”
I snicker. First sign of any sense of humor he’s shown. Then I remember where I am and why. I wad it up and throw it at him. It bounces off his chest.
“You’re wasting time, kid. The sooner you do what I tell you, the sooner you can get out of here. ” He goes to his desk, gets another and hands it to me with a pen.
I relax. He plans to let me leave. Maybe even soon.
I skim the application. It has the usual blanks: name, address, date of birth, education, prior job history, places for signature and date. Fanciest application I’ve ever seen, with the name CHESTER’S worked into an ornate border that frames the page.
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Everybody clings to something when the world melts down. I suppose Ryodan likes having his business details all squared up, no matter the chaos at his door. It’s not like it’ll kill me to fill out the stupid thing, agree to do whatever he wants, then get the feck out of here and go into deep hiding. I sigh. Hiding. Me. I pine for the days when I was the only superhero in town.
“If I fill this out, you’ll let me leave?”
He inclines his head.
“But I have to do some kind of job for you?”
He inclines his head again.
“If I do that job, are we through? For good? Just one job, right?” I have to make this convincing or he’ll figure out I plan to disappear.
Once more he gives me that imperial nod that’s hardly a nod, like he’s stooping to acknowledge my puny existence.
I don’t ask him what the job is because I have no intention of ever doing it. I’m never going to be anyone’s solution to folks’ problems again. I crossed lines for Ro. Big lines. Deep lines. She’s dead. I’m free. Life starts now. I study him. He’s perfect stillness, with the light behind his face as usual, features in shadow.
Cats get still like him. Before they pounce.
Something’s going on here, bigger than I’m seeing.
My face hurts. My eyes are puffy and the left one’s trying to swell shut. “You got any ice?” I need to buy time to figure out what’s going on. Plus, if he leaves for ice I can snoop through his office.
He gives me a look I’ve seen men do before, especially to women: chin down, looking up from beneath his brows, with a faintly mocking smile. There’s something in that look I don’t get but the challenge is unmistakable. “Come here,” he says. “I’ll heal you. ” He’s sitting behind his desk, watching me. Still, so still. It’s like he’s not even breathing.
I look at him. I don’t know what to make of him. Part of me wants to get up, go around that desk and find out what he’s talking about. “You could do that? Make my bruises and cuts go away?” I’m always beat up and my muscles are constantly strained from overuse. Sometimes I burn through my shoes and scrape the skin right off my feet. It gets old.
“I can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life. ”
“How?”
“There are some secrets, Dani O’Malley, that you learn only by participating. ”
I consider that. “So. You got any ice?”
He laughs and presses a button on his desk. “Fade. Ice. Now. ”
“Gotcha, boss. ”
A few minutes later I’m sitting with an ice pack on half my face, squinting around it to fill out Ryodan’s stupid application. I’m almost done and ready to sign when I get the strangest feeling in my hand, the one holding the page.
It’s my left hand, my sword hand, the one that turned black a little while ago, the night I stabbed a Hunter through the heart and killed it. Or rather, the night I thought I killed a Hunter. Truth is, I’m not actually sure I did but I’m not about to print a retraction. The public needs to believe in certain things. When I went back to take pictures of it for The Dani Daily to show folks it was gone, completely. Not a trace remained. Not a single drop of black blood anywhere. Barrons says they can’t be killed. After the incident I thought I was going to lose my hand. My veins turned black and my whole hand went cold as a block of ice. I had to wear a glove for days. Told the sidhe-sheep I got poison sumac. Rare around these parts but there used to be some. Don’t know if the Shades ate it all. Wonder if they did, if they got itchy bellies inside.
Now it’s all tingly and weird. I study it, wondering what might go wrong with me next. Maybe stabbing the Hunter did something to me. Maybe that’s why I stalled. Maybe there are worse things on the horizon.
That is so not me! Optimism is me. Tomorrow’s my day. You never know what grand adventures wait around the next corner!
“Kid, you going to sit there all day daydreaming, or sign the fucking thing. ”
That’s when I see it. I’m so stunned my mouth opens, and hangs there catching flies for a minute.
I almost signed it!
He must have been sitting over there, laughing his butt off inside, congratulating himself.
My head snaps up. “So, what exactly does the spell in the border of this thing do?” I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen a lot of spells. Ro was a pro at them. Some really nasty ones. Now that I’m seeing it, I can’t believe I missed it. Cleverly tucked into the ornate black border are shimmering shapes and symbols, slithering, in constant motion. One of them is trying to crawl off the page and onto my lap.
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I wad it up and throw it at him. “Nice try. Not. ”
“Ah, well. It was possible you would sign. It was the simplest solution. ”
He’s completely unperturbed. I wonder, does anything shake him up, make him lose his cool, get hot about something, scream and yell? I can’t see it. I think Ryodan glides through life in the same cooll
y amused mood all the time. “What would it have done to me if I’d signed it?” I ask. Curiosity. I have it in spades. Mom swore it was going to be the death of me. Something’s got to be. There are worse things.
“Some secrets—”
“Yeah, yeah, blah blah, participating and all that bunk. Got it. ”
“Good. ”
“Didn’t want to know anyway. ”
“Yes you did. You can’t stand not knowing things. ”
“So, what now?” We’re at an impasse, him and me. I suspect his “application” was really a contract. A binding contract, the kind that knits up your soul and tucks it in someone else’s pocket. I heard of them but never believed they were real. If anybody had a way to sew up a soul in a business deal, it would be Ryodan. Jericho Barrons is an animal. Pure lawless beast. Not so Ryodan. Dude’s a machine.
“Congratulations, kid,” he says. “You passed my first test. You may just get the job yet. ”
I sigh. “This is going to be a long day, isn’t it? You serve lunch around here? And I’m going to need more ice. ”
A door I didn’t even know was there in the glass wall of his office opens, revealing a glass elevator.
Chester’s is way bigger than I thought. As we ride the elevator down, I’m riveted by the view.
And a little worried.
That he’s letting me see so much means that whether I signed his stupid application or not, he thinks he has me buttoned up.
Ryodan’s glass office isn’t the only place he can watch things. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and, dude, I do mean iceberg, as in megatons of stuff hidden beneath the surface. The central club part of Chester’s—the interior half, a dozen levels the public sees—is barely a tenth of it. That main part where everybody hangs out and dances and makes deals with the devil is constructed inside a much larger structure. Ryodan and his dudes live behind the walls of that club in what’s beginning to look like a vast underground city, from where I am. All the walls are two-way glass. They can go to any level, by elevator or catwalk, and watch anything that’s happening at any time. Serious thought went into designing this place. There’s no way they built it all since the walls fell last Halloween. I wonder how long it’s all been here, beneath the polished, glitzy, glamorous Chester’s that used to exist, hot spot for movie stars and models and the überrich. I wonder if, like our abbey, their underground world has been beneath a changing exterior for millennia.
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