Iced

by Karen Marie Moning

  “That Unseelie called Jo a bitch,” I say. Clearly, the Unseelie deserves to die.

  “Boss says if you kill a Fae in his protected area, the waitress dies in front of you, real slow,” Lor says. “Then we kill you. We’ll never remind you of this again. We’ll never intervene again. It’s on your head, kid. Control your temper or you’ll kill her. You. We’re merely the weapon by which she’ll die. And we’re inventive as fuck when it comes to slow killing. ”

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  Jo’s eyes are huge. She sees their faces. Knows how moody I am.

  I sigh and let go of my sword. “Wow, dude, I’ve never heard you string so many complete sentences all together in, like, ever. You’re downright loquacious tonight. ” Brute force is Lor’s usual way of dealing with things. His idea of seduction is capture-and-abduct. You don’t want to catch this dude’s eye. You end up in his bed whether you want to or not. I give him a baleful glare. He’s telling me to control myself, and the only way I see to do that inside Chester’s is maybe beat myself over the head with a riot baton a few times and knock myself out.

  “Bitch, I said where the fuck is my drink?”

  Temper nearly pops my skull. My brain empties. My sword hand swells, full of blood and eagerness.

  Jo gives me a look and turns away.

  Then she goes to play fetch and deliver to an Unseelie. Who isn’t respecting her. I’m never going to survive this.

  But she has to. So I have to.

  I turn away, shoulder through the dudes, making sure to pop Lor a good one with an elbow as I go.

  He snarls.

  I bat my lashes at him.

  He says, “Kid, you need to grow your ass up in a hurry. ”

  “Funny. I think everybody else needs to grow their ass down. ”

  “Like a horse, honey, somebody’s going to break you. ”

  “Never. Going. To. Happen. ”

  I’m bored off my gourd, sitting in Ryodan’s office. I thought we were going to go out investigating, hunt for clues about what’s icing these places. So far the only commonality I see is Ryodan. Both places that got iced were his, like someone’s targeting him and the dregs of the society I protect: Fae and Fae-loving humans. It occurs to me if enough of his places get iced, and word gets around, folks will start avoiding Chester’s. The club could die from lack of patrons. “One can always hope,” I say pissily. Ryodan doesn’t even acknowledge that I’ve spoken. I shift in my chair and glare at the top of his head.

  He’s doing paperwork.

  He’s been doing paperwork for over an hour. What kind of paperwork can possibly need to be done in this kind of fecked-up world?

  He didn’t say anything when I walked in, so I didn’t say anything.

  We’ve been sitting here in total silence for one hour, seven minutes, and thirty-two seconds.

  I tap a pen on the edge of his desk.

  I’m not about to say the first word.

  “So, why the feck am I here again?” I say.

  “Because I told you to be,” he says, without raising his head from whatever stupid thing he’s working on.

  “Are you going to make me do your filing next? Am I Robin to your Batman, or some stupid temp assistant here to help you sharpen pencils? Don’t we have better things to do, like solve a mystery? Do you want more of your places to get iced? We just hanging around waiting for it to happen?”

  “Robin and a stupid temp assistant would have been on time. ”

  I sit up straight from my bored slump, tapping faster. “That’s what this is all about? You’re punishing me because I was late?”

  “Bright girl. Stop tapping that pen. You’re driving me bugfuck. ”

  I tap faster. He’s driving me bugfuck, too. “So, like if I’m on time next time, I won’t have to sit here and watch you do stupid stuff I can’t believe you even do?”

  Half the pen—the part not in my fist—is suddenly plastic powder. I blink at it.

  I didn’t see him move, he crushed the pen so fast. Now I see little crumbles of blue plastic on the blade of his hand, ink smeared on the paper he’s working on. I sit up even straighter. I have a lot to compete with if I’m ever going to be as fast as him.

  “I do what I do, Dani, because the mundane makes the world go around. Whoever controls the daily grind controls everyone else’s reality. ”

  “That’s why you’re stealing all the food?”

  “Ah, that’s why you had your crate-smashing fit. No. I hoard weapons. Someone else is stockpiling food. That’s too mundane even for me. I arm the swarm, feed the greed. Someone else is getting ready to starve them. ”

  I give him an admiring look in spite of myself. “You know it’s been going on. ” He’s known for longer than I have.

  “Someone started clearing the stores a while back. Where’ve you been?”

  “Like, chained in somebody’s dungeon. Dude, can we please go do something before I die of boredom? We got a mystery to solve!”

  He looks at me. How did I ever think his face was impassive? It says whole sentences.

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  I roll my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. ”

  He inclines his head, waiting.

  “You’re actually going to make me say it?”

  He folds his arms over his chest.

  I nearly choke on my tongue trying to get it out. But I’ll do anything to not have to sit in this office all night. Watching the Unseelie between my high-tops is getting old. I’ve taken mental notes out the wazoo. My young body needs to see some action. There’s a live wire inside me, sizzling beneath my skin. If I don’t discharge, I’ll die. Bring on the night! There’s stuff happening out there and I’m stuck in here!

  “I’ll. Be. On. Time. Next time. ”

  “Good. Next time you won’t have to sit in my office all night. ”

  I shoot up from the chair. “Awesome, let’s go!”

  He pushes me back down. “But tonight you screwed up. So, tonight you do. ”

  Seven hours later it occurs to me that Lor might be right. I might be breakable. Seven hours of boredom and I’m a puddle of willingness, ready to do virtually anything guaranteed to result in a change of scenery. Chains I can deal with. Boredom, no way. My brain gets ahead of my feet and I don’t like to think about where I’m going. I just go.

  At six A. M. on the dot Ryodan looks up and says, “Tonight at eight, Dani. ”

  I glare murder at him and head for the door. It doesn’t open. I glare at it. A whole night wasted. More seconds ticking by as I wait for my jailer to set me free.

  There aren’t many crimes in my book. Not many sins either.

  But top on both of those lists is killing time. Have fun with it, make something cool, play video games, work hard if you feel like it, but do something. Killed time is an abortion, life that never gets lived, gone, just gone. A cage and a collar killed way too much of mine.

  Just when I’m about to blow, he does something and the door retracts into the smooth glass wall.

  As I storm out I hear him say, “You wasted my time, Dani. I wasted yours. ”

  I whirl on him, fists at my waist. “That’s bullshit! It wasn’t even proportionate!”

  “It rarely will be. ”

  “Thirty little fecking minutes cost me nine and a half hours?”

  “The way you treat me is the way I will treat you. Since I’m bigger and older, I imagine it will always be worse. ”

  “Oh, now you get all proportionate. If you’re going to be as much of a dickhead as you are big and old, dude, that’s some serious dickheadedness. That’s not fair. You can’t be totally disproportionate one minute and then all quid pro quo the next. ”

  “I can be anything I want. ”

  “Oh, whose fecking comic book is this?” I explode. “That’s my line. ”

  He laughs and his face changes. All t
he sudden he doesn’t look so old. He looks happy. Free. Totally different. I see lines around his eyes from laughing that I never noticed before. My mind flashes straight back to level four and I see him behind that woman again and he groans like he did that night, then he laughs, and I feel almost sick to my stomach remembering. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I wish I’d never fecking gone down to level four! I stand there and gape at him.

  The door slides shut in my face.

  “You’re early. ”

  I give him a mutinous look. Of course he thinks my being early is about him. It’s not. Mac was at Chester’s last night at eight. I think she’s hunting me. Since I can’t be late to avoid her, I have to be early. “Watch broke. Thought I was on time. ”

  “You don’t wear a watch. ”

  “See? I knew I had a problem. I’ll just dash out and get one. Be back tomorrow. On time. ” Jewelry gets caught on things in battle. The only concession I make is a bracelet Dancer gave me that I wear snug on my arm. Besides, without him around, giving orders, I might actually some make progress in the investigation.

  “Don’t even think about it. ”

  I drop into a chair in his office, dangle a leg over the side. “What are we doing tonight?” I say just like him. No inflection at the end.

  “Ah, Dani, if only you took instruction in all things so well. ”

  “You’d be bored. ”

  “So would you. There are three other iced places in Dublin. ”

  “Three!” I sit up straight in my chair. “Are they all yours?”

  “Local places. Unrelated to me in any way. ”

  Bugger, there goes my theory about him being the target, along with my hope that Chester’s might die a slow death. “Casualties?”

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  “About fifty between the three. ”

  “Humans or Fae?”

  “Humans. ”

  “All humans?”

  He nods.

  I let out a low whistle. Fifty more people dead. The human race just keeps getting hammered with blow after blow. “Then why do you care? It didn’t happen on your turf. Nothing of yours was damaged or destroyed. ”

  “I have other reasons for wanting it stopped. ”

  “Like what? You move fast like me. You can outrun anything. You can steal more stuff to replace what got iced. So what’s the deal?” What motives does a dude like him have?

  “The walls between our realms were destroyed on Halloween. Since then things have changed. Human laws of physics are no longer laws, they’re wishful thinking. It’s possible parts of Faery are manifesting spontaneously, bleeding through into our reality. It’s possible it’s happening randomly, instantly, and without warning. I didn’t see surprise on anyone’s face at either of my properties. Put the big picture together, even for people who can move like you and me. ”

  I snap up straight to full attention, both feet on the floor, not liking that at all. “You mean if it happened in the place I was standing, I’d be alive one second, dead the next. I wouldn’t even know it. I’d just be gone!” My hands fist. I’m so freaked I want to fight something right now.

  “Exactly. Instant death. No warning. No awareness. I don’t know about you, but that offends the fuck out of me. ”

  No blaze of glory, no epic battle! I’d die a totally meaningless death. Worse, I wouldn’t even get to experience it. How much would that suck, to go through my whole life waiting to die, and then not even know it happened? I think Death is like the final stage of a video game. And if what Ryodan is saying is true, and I get iced, I’ll never reach that final stage. I’ll get wiped right out of existence on the second-to-last level. I want to play that last level when it’s time. I want to taste it all, even the dying.

  I’m suddenly one hundred and ten percent invested in solving this mystery. Fifty more folks dead coupled with the possibility of a completely meaningless death is powerful motivation. You don’t get a big write-up in the history books unless you go out in a big way. I crunch thoughts and regurgitate them. “Well, first of all, the humans in your subclub were a little preoccupied with things like getting tortured and dying so it’s understandable if they didn’t notice that they were about to die in some other unexpected and surprising way, and second, I can’t say for certain what surprise looks like on an Unseelie’s face but I got a great idea: I’ll go downstairs and kill a few right now and we’ll collect some empirical data. ” I don’t bother to mention I already hunted and killed half a dozen different kinds this morning after I left but I still couldn’t decide what their expressions meant. Their faces just don’t work like ours.

  When he doesn’t bother to dignify my dig with a response, I say, “Three new places?” What if the “bleeding through” starts to speed up? There could be dozens of iced spots soon. Assuming that’s what’s happening, how the feck are we going to stop it?

  “All iced last night within a few hours of each other. Two of them have already exploded. ”

  I shoot to my feet. “Dude, we got to get to the third, before it goes, too!”

  TWELVE

  “Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long”

  I slo-mo Joe it across Halfpenny Bridge.

  We didn’t learn a single new thing at the latest ice sculpture. Like the others, it blew shortly after we arrived. I freeze-framed out of there through flesh-colored shrapnel I pretended wasn’t parts of fingers and faces I’d failed to save.

  The new places that got iced have nothing in common that I can see. There were two of those small underground pubs that’ve been springing up all over the city, and a fitness center where three people were frozen doing yoga in the middle of a bunch of crystal bowls. How weird is that? People doing yoga in times like these!

  So far I’ve got an underground club at Chester’s, a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, two inner-city small pubs, and a fitness center. Humans, Unseelie, and Imperial guards all at some places but not others, so whatever’s happening doesn’t appear to be targeting a certain person like Ryodan or group of victims. It’s looking more like a random, spontaneous event with each scene I see.

  I’m trudging, which I don’t usually do, because I’m thinking hard and when I’m thinking hard plus freeze-framing I run into things a lot. My bruises are fading and sometimes I try to be my normal-colored self for like a whole day. I’m too wired for sleep. I get like that sometimes and can’t do anything about it but ride it out. I need something to do or I’m going to drive myself nuts.

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  I find Dancer in his favorite corner penthouse on the south side of the river Liffey. The two outer walls are solid floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the streets. When I get there, he’s stretched out on a rug in the sunshine with his shirt off, eyes closed, glasses on the floor beside him.

  Dancer’s going to be a big guy one day, if he ever gains weight. Last time we measured ourselves, he was fourteen inches taller than me, lanky and lean. He forgets to eat. His hair is dark with some wave and he never cuts it until it gets in his way, then he asks me to trim it. It’s soft. I like it to his chin as it is now, falling away from his face. When he wears his glasses, which is pretty much every minute he’s awake because he’s so nearsighted (he hates them and before the walls fell he was going to get Lasik), he looks like a hunky geek. I’d never tell him that! I like his hands. His feet are ginormous! His eyes aren’t green or blue, they’re aqua, like they’re Fae-brushed. He’s got better eyelashes than me.

  When I see him I don’t say, “Dude where you been, I was starting to worry,” because me and Dancer don’t do that to each other. He survived the walls going down all by himself. So did I. And I don’t say, “What happened the night Ryodan showed up and took me, where’d you disappear to?” It doesn’t matter. We’re here now. It’s like somehow we know in our guts that it’ll never be too long, the other is always going to walk through the
door one day, eventually.

  He props up on an elbow when the door closes. He knows it’s me because I had to disarm ten booby traps before I got to the door. Nobody else could make it through one of his gauntlets without tripping some alarm. Well, except for Ryodan, who seems to be the exception to every fecking rule.

  My heart squinches a little when I look at him. I never had siblings but I think he’s like a brother to me. I can never wait to see him again, tell him all the ideas I’ve been thinking, the things I’ve seen, and get his take on it all. Sometimes when we see each other we can’t stop talking for hours and hours and we get so excited we start to stumble over our words trying to say it all so fast. I consider telling him about the iced scenes and the mystery I’m looking into but I don’t want Dancer to be any bigger on Ryodan’s radar than he already is. That Ryodan even knows he exists makes me nuts. I want Dancer safe. And I know him. If he got the tiniest hint of a big mystery like this, he’d start poking into all kinds of places that could get him killed. It doesn’t matter how über-impressed I am with how smart he is. Ryodan’s worse than walls falling or the world melting down. You don’t survive if he doesn’t want you to.

  “Mega, I’ve been thinking—”

  “Stop the presses! Do I need to put out a special edition of The Dani Daily?”

  “Might. ”

  He grins and I grin back. Dancer thinking has stellar results. You wouldn’t believe the bombs he can build. We blow up things sometimes just for fun. You know, things that need to be blown up anyway like places where a lot of Shades used to hide that maybe they would return to one day like birds along a migration route, if it was still there.

  “You got me wondering about Papa Roach’s babies,” he says.

  “Yeah?” I stretch out in the sun next to him, prop up on an elbow, too, facing him. I love being able to see his eyes without his glasses in the way. It’s a rare treat.

  “Do you know how long they can stay separate from a body, either Papa or human?”

  “Dunno. Dancer, I finally found Scream 4. Want to watch it tonight?”

  “Watched it last night,” he says absently, running a hand through his hair, making it stand up funny in a totally hot way, and I can tell by the way his eyes are unfocused that he’s lost in thought and not aware of stuff around him. He gets that way a lot.