Iced

“Why did you laugh right before you lost consciousness.”

“Death’s an adventure. I lived big. Rigor mortis makes your face stick. So, who knew how to thaw me?”

“Death’s an insult.”

“At least an affront,” I agree. “Think my sword’s unfrozen yet? Maybe we should go check.”

“You’re too young to laugh when you’re dying. And no. I don’t think your sword is unfrozen. Focus.”

“Ain’t too young for nothing.”

“In some societies that would be true. Different places. Different times. You’d be old enough to be a wife and mother.”

“That’s a horrible thought. So, Dancer saved me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s how I know. Maybe we could use hair dryers to melt the ice around my sword.”

“You need to get rid of him. He’s a liability. Forget about the fucking sword. I’m taking care of it.”

I whirl on him, fists at my waist. “He’s an asset! He’s my best friend! You don’t know nothing about Dancer!”

“ ‘Nothing’ is the key word there. Because that’s what he is. Nothing. He’s just human.”

“Bull-crikey, Dancer’s the Shit!”

“He wears glasses. I bet that works out real well for him in battle. No, wait, he doesn’t battle. Never will. Too fragile. One poke with a sharp stick and his guts would spill all over the street. Sayonara, human.”

“His guts aren’t spilling anywhere. He’s supersmart and … and … and he’s super, supersmart—”

“What the fuck kind of name is Dancer, anyway.”

“—and he can build anything. He made my Shade-grenades and he made me this net of lights that charges just off me moving, and it totally outperforms the MacHalo! Besides, all Batman had was a cool costume and the best toys and the smartest ideas, and everybody knows he’s the greatest superhero of all time! Besides, I’m just human, too.”

All the sudden Ryodan’s standing one inch away from me, hand under my chin, holding my face up to his. “You’ll never be just anything. A tsunami can never be ‘just’ a wave.”

“Get off my chin.”

“I like that about you. Waves are banal. Tsunamis reshape the Earth. Under the right circumstances, even entire civilizations.”

I blink.

“You’re going to be one hell of a woman one day, Dani.”

I never knew my jaw was flexible enough to hit the pavement. My arms aren’t even long enough to pick it back up. Catch flies in it, my butt, you could drive a truck in my mouth right now. Did Ryodan just, like, compliment me? Has hell frozen over? Are birds flying backward? It makes me so uncomfortable in my own skin, I feel like skinning myself. A three-quarter moon is behind his head, and his face is all shadows. “Fecking-A, dude, I know that. Everybody knows that. I’m the Mega. As in, short for ‘Alpha and O.’ ” I shrug him off me and push past him.

He laughs. “You might have to fight somebody else for that title.”

“Get a move on,” I say crossly. I’m so behind on work I can’t stand it. “You only got me for a limited time tonight. I need to get a Daily out. Folks need to know about the Iceman.” I lock down my grid and slip into freeze-frame.

“You’re going to get the boy killed one day, Dani,” Ryodan says behind me.

“Rot in purgatory, dude. Batman never dies. Dancer won’t either.”

When we arrive at the church, I roll my eyes.

Five Seelie are standing in front of the demolished cathedral, amid rubble, shredded hymn books with pages everywhere like they rained down from heaven, chunks of organ, and miscellaneous debris. “Think my sword’s unfrozen yet?” I say, making a fist around the empty space where my sword hilt should be. I see sifting Fae, and all I can think of is how I don’t have my sword. ’Course, I have that thought pretty much every other second anyway.

“Kid, you’re a broken record.”

“Well, it might be.”

The Seelie are talking, and although they know we’re here, they completely ignore us. I ignore them, too. Despite them being so beautiful I have to pry my eyeballs off their faces. I’m not making the same mistake I made with V’lane. Getting sucked in by how gorgeous they are. Thinking they’re any different than the Unseelie. Just because they’re gold and velvet and iridescent-eyed and hunky. Christian’s hunky too. He keeps dead women by his bed.

I’m feeling major juice coming from at least one of them but they’re muting it. That worries me. Fae don’t mute themselves unless they’re up to no good, trying to pretend to be something they’re not to make us less worried when we should be really, really worried. “Fecking Fae. I wish they’d all just go away.”

“Then what would we do for excitement.”

I snicker. He’s got a point. I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the scene, planning to get my ziplock out next, skirt the fairies and go to work.

All the sudden there’s a disturbance in the air in front of me. It takes a sec for the dust to settle in my brain. One of the Fae just tried to sift over to me to do who-knows-what. Ryodan beat it to its destination and they collided. The Fae looks like a pissed cat, eyes narrowed, spine twitching, iridescent eyes flashing fire. I’ve seen this one in Chester’s. He has a taste for human women and the stupid sheep are nuts about him, with his tight leather pants and open shirts and sleek golden hair and skin.