I kick a can down the alley and send it flying into a wall, and I do mean into it. It flattens and gets impacted in the brick, and I crack up. Someday somebody is going to see it and be like, dude, what happened here? I leave clues about me all over the city, bending sculptures and broken streetlamps into twisty D’s for Dani and Dude and Dangerous, leaving my calling card for folks to see. It’s my Bat Signal, letting the world know somebody is out there, watching, caring.
I got a whole day stretching ahead of me and almost can’t believe it! It feels like old times. I think about what to do with myself. Stupid as it is, I resent working on the ice mystery during the day because Ryodan’s taking such a big chunk of my time every night. But I don’t have the luxury of being stupid when folks’ lives are at stake. It sure would be nice if I could get Dancer’s superbrain in on it!
Trouble is, I should also head out to the abbey for a checkup. It’s been a while since I was out there and sidhe-sheep can get in trouble faster than I can waggle my ass and say baa. I got a worried feeling about them I ain’t been able to shake.
Then there’s Inspector Jayne. I’m pretty sure I’m due for a cage-cleaning session.
I mosey through Temple Bar, taking my time, drinking my city in, trying to decide how to prioritize my day. Kind of reveling in the simple fact that the choice is mine for a change! I used to love this part of town before the walls fell, so much cool stuff happening every night with tourists and pubs and new Fae to spy on and kill. I found out what it was like to live in these streets after mom died. No collar, no cage. Just a crazy old witch I learned to keep a little afraid of me all the time.
Then Mac came and the streets got even cooler. There’s nothing like having a sidekick superhero to pal around with. Especially one that was part sister, part mom, and all best friend.
Now, like the rest of my city, Temple Bar is a mess. Abandoned cars, wrecked and stripped, are shoved up on the sidewalks, opening a tight lane down the middle of the street for traffic. There’s broken glass everywhere from shattered windows and streetlamps; you can hardly take a step that doesn’t crunch. Newspapers and trash and husks of what used to be people blow down the streets. On a gray, rainy day it can look real grim, if you don’t superimpose a bright future over it. Mac’s mom is heading up some kind of Green-up Program, and I hear her dad is working on a Cleanup Program, as well as hearing disputes and stuff, and one day Dublin’s going to be rocking and full of craic again.
I saunter past the bright red facade of the Temple Bar of the district and feel it before I even turn the corner. I stop instantly.
It’s like a breeze blowing down on me from a glacier.
I consider not turning the corner. I haven’t investigated one of these scenes alone. I could nudge Ryodan this way tonight and pretend we just found it. It’s not like they change too much between “recently iced” and “iced for a few days. ” Besides, if I turn the corner and find kids dead, it’ll totally ruin my day.
Almost dying is fresh in my mind. If I’d been alone at the church last night … That’s a weird thought. I can’t imagine me dead. I look around, and up. As far as I can tell, I’m by myself. Christian can’t be spying on me all the time. So, like, if I leave, nobody will know I’m not always a superhero. If I stay and something bad happens to me, well, my heart could stop, and there’d be nobody around to save me.
“Wussy girl! Get your cool back!” I just disgusted myself. I don’t walk away and I don’t need backup. Never have. A superhero isn’t something you play at sometimes—it’s something you are. Full-time, all the time, every day.
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I flip back my long coat, liking the crisp leathery sound it makes, draw my sword and turn the corner, ready for action. My sword frosts white and my fingers get stiff with an instant chill.
In the middle of the street is one of those fancy cars Mac likes so much, totally iced, glittering diamond-crusted in the sunlight. An iced arm is sticking out the open window on the driver’s side. A dude is hanging half out the passenger side, like he tried to climb out or something, mouth open on a scream, eyes closed, fist up in the air like he was trying to fight something off. No kids. That’s a relief. Looks like only two casualties this time. That’s another relief.
I study it, absorbing the details.
This scene’s not so cold. Brutal, but nothing like the church or the subclub at Chester’s. More like the laundry scene. I figure being outside, the frosted vignettes warm up faster. Piece of cake!
I take a couple of deep breaths, locking everything down on my mental grid, psyching myself up to freeze-frame in.
Just as I’ve nearly got it perfect, right exactly when I’ve almost got everything snapped into precise place and I’m preparing to shift gears smooth and easy, folks start shouting behind me and guns start going off.
Bullets can hurt me. I’m not that superhero. It spooks me and I startle into freeze-frame before I mean to. That’s even more dangerous than leading with your head!
I blast off wild, and try to get control of myself, but it’s hard to do once I’m moving so fast. I whirl dizzyingly like a drunken Tasmanian devil and smash into the side of the iced car.
It knocks me out of freeze-frame but either doesn’t catch me so much by surprise this time or the cold isn’t as deadly as it was in the church or a little of both, because I manage to shove myself right back up into freeze-frame almost as fast as I dropped down. I can’t get my feet under control, though, because I didn’t get off on the right foot to begin with, and I slam into the car again and this time the people inside it blow like supercharged grenades into a gazillion shards of ice and I get sprayed by icy pink shrapnel.
Diamond-hard splinters of frozen flesh pierce every inch of my exposed skin. A thick dagger of ice as big around as a hot dog punctures my jeans and sinks into my thigh, and another impales my shoulder.
I get knocked out of freeze-frame again and push myself back up, and when I do, the ice splinters shove deeper into my body from the pressure of how fast I’m moving and it hurts so fecking bad that I drop back down instantly without thinking. Reflexive, just trying to stop the pain.
I start to freeze to death.
I push back up.
Ow! Shit, shit, shit, it hurts!
Down, I’ll die.
Up, I’ll only wish I would.
I stay in freeze-frame, stumble into the stupid car again, bounce back, careen off another car, and give it everything I’ve got in a violent effort to get out of the cold zone. I can’t feel my hands. I can’t feel my feet. Feck, I can’t believe I did this! Who was yelling and why were they shooting?
I push, push, push with all my might!
I collapse facedown in the street. Ice daggers bite deep. But I don’t care. I’m out. I’m back around the corner where it’s warm enough to live. I made it. At least the hundreds of splinters in me will melt now. Either they’re already starting to or I’m bleeding a lot, because something warm and wet is trickling all over my skin.
I’m out of immediate mortal danger. I won’t freeze to death. Now I just have to worry about bleeding to death.
It takes me three tries to manage to roll over on my back, and by the time I get there I’m panting worse than I do when I’ve freeze-framed for an hour, and shaking like a leaf. There’s blood in my eyes. I try to blink it away. Dude, that was a grand debacle! How embarrassing! Glad nobody saw it!
I assess my situation without moving. I’m severely cut up. My skin burns where I can feel myself. The biggest threats to my survival are the holes in my thigh and shoulder, or what will be holes when the ice finishes melting. I’ll need to get them bandaged fast. The problem is, I can’t feel my hands. I close my eyes, trying to focus on moving my fingers. Nothing happens.
“Ah, Dani. ”
I look up to see Inspector Jayne bending over me. I’ve never been gladder to see him in my whole life.
“You’ve certainly done it now, haven’t you?”
“C-C-Candy b-b-bar,” I manage.
He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“In m-m-m-my p-puh …” I trail off. I don’t even have the energy to say pocket. I give him a longing, starving look and I know he gets the picture.
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He looks across me. I realize I’m surrounded by Guardians. Good, they can carry me to Chester’s and help me get patched up!
“Have you got it?” Jayne says.
“Got it, Captain. ”
I go ice cold in a way that has nothing to do with cars or frozen people. I try to lunge to my feet but succeed only in flopping on the pavement like a beached fish. “D-D-Don’t you d-d-d-d-dare—”
“It’s been six days, Dani. ”
Six days? How long did I sleep at Chester’s?
“You should have come. If you’d kept your word, I might have continued trying to put up with it. But I won’t allow the fate of our city to rest in whimsical hands. The sword is ours now, for the good of Dublin. We take far more of them off the streets than you do. In time you’ll understand it always should have been this way. ”
“Y-Y-You—”
“Don’t try to take it back. Your first warning is your final one. I won’t treat you like a child if you do. ”
“K-K-Kill y-you!” I explode. I still can’t feel my hands or feet but I feel my head. It’s about to explode. He has no right. It’s my sword!
“Don’t make it war, Dani. You won’t win. ”
I try to tell him he better kill me right here and now because there’s no way they can keep my sword from me. I’ll take it back the second I’m on my feet again. There’s no place on Earth, feck, there’s no place in all of heaven or hell that they’ll ever be safe from me again! But I’m too light-headed to talk. Dizzy. My vision’s getting weird.
“She’s awful bloody, Captain. She gonna live?”
“She’s tough,” Jayne says.
“Maybe we should do something. ”
“We can’t help her, not even a little, or she’ll be able to take it back. ”
I flop on the pavement, unable to do a thing to stop them. I’m vulnerable, completely at his mercy.
And he’s not having any.
I won’t have any for him when the time comes.
He’s leaving me here, to live or die on my own. I’ll never forgive. I’ll never forget.
They walk away. Just like that they leave me in the middle of a dirty street like a dog that got hit by a car, bleeding and helpless and alone. Dead if another car comes along. I’ll remember that, too, when I see him again. Dude, they could have at least moved me to the sidewalk, balled up a shirt or something for a pillow beneath my head.
Something really bad happens to me then. Worse even than everything that’s already happened to me in the past few days.
I feel woozy and strange and all the sudden it’s like I’m outside of my body, watching me. But the me lying in the street has long blond hair and is looking up at the redheaded me with tears in her eyes and telling me she can’t die yet because she’s got people to protect. She’s got a sister named Mac back home in Georgia and she just left her a message, and if she dies, Mac will come over to hunt her killer because she’s stubborn and idealistic, and she’ll die, too. But I don’t seem to be able to feel anything about what’s happening, and none of it seems real, so I walk away just like Jayne did.
My stomach heaves and I puke my guts out right there in the middle of the street. I can’t even get on my hands and knees to do it. Lying on my back, I get sick all over myself. Not the blond-haired me that’s the ghost of Alina, but the real, red-haired Dani that’s really lying in the street wondering if she’s going to bite it this time. And if there’s something wet on my face that isn’t blood or vomit … Nah. Ain’t.
Eventually I get the feeling back in my hands and feet. I guess they thaw. I fumble for a candy bar. I curl in a ball in the street and eat every candy bar I’ve got and plot revenge.
Don’t make it war, he said, and I won’t.
I don’t have to.
He already did.
EIGHTEEN
“I can be your hero, baby”
I find her stumbling through the streets, bleeding to death. If not for all that hair, I might not have recognized her. She’s covered with blood, it’s on her clothes, matted in her curls, crusted on her face. Her long coat is flayed and hangs in tatters from her shoulders. It looks like she went through a dicer.
I don’t see her sword anywhere. I look around, nothing shiny in the streets but her.
I roar and she clamps her arms around her head and falls to her knees, and I remember how much noise I’m capable of making and kick myself. I deafened a human woman I recently had sex with. I broke her arm, too. I didn’t mean to. I can’t get used to what’s happening to me. Try living your whole life one way then abruptly being something else. It’s not easy to remember what you are every single bloody fucking second.
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Except enraged. That, I’m aware of all the time. It never diminishes, never stops. The blackouts where I lose chunks of time are getting more frequent, lasting longer.
She topples in the street. I throw myself from the roof, land on the balls of my feet, and gather her in my arms. Where was I when she needed me? Fucking another faceless woman. Trying to defuse the constant lust.
She feels so slight against my chest.
I’m not surprised to feel myself trembling. I’m touching my goddess.
“Och, lass, what’ve you done to yourself now?” I push hair from her face. There’s so much blood that I can’t see what’s causing it. How is she even walking? It makes me crazy that she’s in this city, without a guardian or consort, always getting into trouble. I want to lock her up somewhere I can keep her safe forever. Someplace white and shining and beautiful, where nothing ever goes wrong.
Her brain has more muscles than her body, and less sense. Her passion for life pushes her limbs further than they were meant to go. She’s going to burn herself to ash if she doesn’t find someone or something that takes her all the way down to ground zero and recharges her. She needs to crash as hard as she lives or she’ll die young. I can’t stand the thought of her dying. If I knew how, I would make her Fae so she would never die. Doesn’t matter that I hate being it myself, or that she would, too. Immortality is immortality.
I run with her, careful to move easy. I take her where I’ve pictured her a thousand times but knew better. I still know better. I’m doing it anyway.
Just one time before I turn into the villain of this piece, just one time before I become the fourth and final Unseelie prince, I want to be her Highlander. And her hero.
She’ll remember, when there’s nothing else left of me worth remembering.
I can’t wait till I grow up enough that I stop having superhero growing pains. Waking up confused and cross all the time sucks. My hair is in my face and it makes me so mad for a sec that I almost tear it out at the scalp, trying to get it out of my eyes, and it’s matted, then my bracelet gets stuck in it and there’s something crusty—“Ew,” I say irritably, then somebody else has their hands in my hair, trying to gently disentangle my wrist from my hair.
Who? What? Where?
I’m always doing a mental check when I first wake up, trying to remember what happened before I fell asleep so I can connect to where I am and how I got there. When I first got run of the abbey (dude, like a million times bigger than my cage with Mom!) I was constantly knocking myself out because I couldn’t get over how far and fast I was able to run and giddiness made me a freeze-framing train wreck. I’m never real sure when I first wake up if I went to sleep or just managed to brain myself unconscious again. Then that fecker Ryodan knocked me out, too, and now I have to add that in to my worries when I wake.
&
nbsp; Memory slams me upside the head. I get so mad I yank my bracelet off my head along with a good chunk of hair, and feel frantically for my sword even though I know it’s not at my hip or anywhere else.
A man curses. My eardrums vibrate painfully and my head feels like it might split.
I open my eyes. “Christian, mute it!” I shove my hair out of my face and look up. I’m lying in bed and he’s sitting next to me, looking down at me. Something’s different. He doesn’t look quite so scary. I take that back. Yes, he does, but either I’m getting better at reading his expressions or he’s getting better at making them, because there’s like an ounce of remorse in his iridescent eyes. Dude. His eyes are full Fae now! They weren’t last time I saw him.
“Sorry, lass. But I almost had the bracelet free. You tore some of your hair out. You might have waited a second longer. ” He picks up the thatch of hair I yanked out at the root and flattens it straight between his fingers. Curl springs back instantly. “Stubborn as the head it came from,” he murmurs. Then he does the weirdest thing. He puts it in his pocket. Maybe the dude collects hair. I got bigger worries on my mind.
“He took my sword! The fecker actually took my sword!” I can’t believe it. I have no way to kill my enemies. I could hunt them all day long—and do a great big fat nothing with them when I catch them. It makes me so nuts I can’t stand it. I try to push up from the bed but my legs aren’t a hundred percent.
“Who took your sword?”
“Inspector Jayne. I’m going to kill him. ”
“HE DID THIS TO YOU?”
I get an instant migraine, flop down, cover my head with my arms and burrow beneath the pillows.
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He sighs so loud I still hear it, even with my ears covered.
“Sorry, lass. Did he?”
I’m not taking my hands from my ears. I think about telling him yes so he’ll go after Jayne for me, but I don’t like to lie unless the payoff is huge. Lies are horny little buggers, they breed like rabbits and bound around just as insanely and then you have to try to keep track of them. “I got cut up myself but it’s his fault. He startled me and I freeze-framed too soon. ” Speaking of cuts, I don’t feel as bad as I did and I don’t seem to be bleeding anymore.
“You want help killing him?”
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