Iced Read online

I was right about it taking a contingent to handle the slaying, although Jayne would probably keep that many around the sword at all times just to protect it from me.

  As if that’s enough to protect it from me!

  Jayne’s got two dozen men with him, toting automatic weapons, draped in ammo. They’re standing inside the entrance at full alert, watching every move being made. I hate guns. Automatic weapons can dump a spray of bullets that’s nearly impossible for me to avoid.

  That’s why I need the distraction. I need most of them gone before I’m willing to freeze-frame in, smash into Jayne and weave a zigzag path out of there, making it as hard as possible for anyone to shoot me.

  Page 83

 

  I look up, scanning the rooftops around me. No snipers up there. If I were Jayne, I would have had at least six men up on the rooftops, watching for me. But that’s why I’m the Mega and he’s not.

  I glance back inside and see my sword. Used to be, Ro took it from me sometimes, when I was younger. But when all the shit started hitting the fan with Mac, I took it back and never let anyone touch it again. Once, in battle, I saw Mac toss her spear to Kat to use. Dude, she’s a bigger man than me. Ain’t never sharing my weapon. It’s my second skin. I can’t stand seeing someone else touching it, holding it, using it. It’s mine and he took it and he had no right to. I won’t feel like me again until I have it back.

  The screaming isn’t so bad right now because Jayne isn’t currently killing a Fae. But as I watch, his men bring a Rhino-boy up to the front of the warehouse near the dock and shove it to its stumpy knees on the floor in front of him.

  Jayne draws back his arm, swings my sword and neatly decapitates it.

  Not. I snicker.

  Like maybe in his dreams. I see what’s going to go wrong before it even does. “Holy webbed feet, it’s going to duck,” I mutter.

  The Rhino-boy twists and ducks at the last second and my sword gets lodged in one of its yellow tusks.

  I sigh. What does Jayne think their tusks are for besides blocking blows to their heads? Well, they use them for impaling, too, but mostly to protect their skulls and necks.

  The Rhino-boy is enraged. Squealing and grunting, it nearly breaks free. Somebody shoots it, then Jayne’s men wrestle it back down to the floor.

  He yanks the sword from its tusk and when it comes out he stumbles. Somewhere an Unseelie guffaws.

  Jayne regains his balance, raises his arm and swings again.

  I wince.

  Jayne is strong. But Unseelie are made of sinew and gristle and weird bony structure where you least expect to find it, and cutting their head off isn’t as easy as it looks like it should be.

  Now the sword is halfway through its thick neck and the Rhino-boy is gushing green goo, squealing like a stuck pig, flopping stumpy arms and legs, and hundreds of caged Unseelie start screaming again.

  Jayne saws at the thing’s head with the sword and I almost puke. His men don’t look any happier. The noise is deafening. Rhino-boys are emitting one continuous high-pitched squeal, tiny winged Fae (the ones that make you laugh yourself to death!) are chiming with fury and making dazzling light displays as they try to escape their iron pens, slithering multilegged Unseeliepedes writhe between their pen-mates, and the sound they make is like several tons of gravel dumped onto metal sheets, getting dragged across it. Gaunt, slender wraiths flicker in and out of solidity, emitting a high-pitched whine. The sound is so huge I feel the vibration of it in the concrete dock beneath my palms.

  Jayne finally manages to kill the Rhino-boy he’s hacking away at, and turns to one of his men for a towel to wipe away the goo and blood. He looks back at the cages, his expression bleak. I snicker mirthlessly. No doubt he’s got a new appreciation for the speedy services of moi! It isn’t easy walking into a warehouse full of condemned monsters and killing them all. But each one that gets back out on the streets will ultimately kill dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of humans, in its immortal existence. It’s what they do. It’s us or them.

  I check my cell phone. My timer’s counting down. I got seven minutes before Dancer sets off the charges. I would have gone for a single explosion but Dancer wanted multiple sites, the better to divide Jayne’s men and increase our odds of getting in and out smooth and easy.

  I stare at my sword. I’m fixated. I know it. I don’t care. There are worse things to be fixated with. Like, say, Jo with Ryodan. Duh. How fecked up is that?

  Jayne’s men have emptied a cage of all but the tiny, death-by-laughter Fae. Now they net the brilliant little harpies and toss the nets on the floor in front of Jayne. Dainty, pretty Fae scream and shake their fists as Jayne swings again and again. Making the scene even more macabre, the men in the immediate area, including the good inspector, laugh helplessly, many of them doubled over with mirth, until the last one is dead.

  The caged Unseelie roar and howl.

  Because I’m a sidhe-seer, I can sense Fae in my bones, in my marrow, in that strange hot/cold center of my brain other folks don’t have.

  Before the walls fell, when there were fewer of them in our world, my “spidey-sense” was a crystal clear beacon, warning me if one of them got too close to me long before it was close enough to be a threat. But ever since the walls fell, there are so many of them around me that my Fae-alarm is constantly going off, 24/7. Like every other sidhe-seer that wants to remain sane—or just get some much-needed sleep—I’ve learned to mute it. If you don’t figure out how to turn the volume down, you’ll go crazy. It’s not just an inner alarm saying, “Warning, a Fae is near. ” It rides tandem with a flash of pure rage, of prime directive to kill, kill, kill, and do it right now this very instant even if you have to use your bare hands to tear it apart. It’s not something you can suppress. It’s too strong. The older women at the abbey say it’s like having the worst, most bloodthirsty hot flash imaginable, a hormone surge of pure homicidal fury. I don’t want to live long enough to get hot flashes. Puberty is bad enough.

  Page 84

 

  My Fae-sensor is on full mute right now. And even with it completely shut down, I feel it: a very powerful Unseelie is close to me, too close for comfort.

  In order for it to be penetrating the barricade of silence I’ve erected around myself, its power has to be enormous. I nudge my volume up a hair, trying to figure out the who, what, and where. With so many Unseelie in the warehouse it takes me a few seconds to isolate the new arrival.

  There it is!

  I expand my awareness, taking its measure.

  Ancient. Deadly.

  Sex. Hunger. Rage. Hunger. Sex. Hunger. Rage. Hunger.

  I feel it but I can’t see it.

  The short hairs on the back of my neck are tiny needles in my skin.

  Suddenly a shadow moves in the gloomy, humid dawn and it’s there, on the other side of the dock, hair and eyes barely visible. We’re directly across from each other, no more than thirty feet of concrete between us.

  It’s not Christian this time. It’s one of the full-blood Unseelie princes. Then again, after finding the dead naked woman stuffed between his bed and the wall, I’m not sure that’s a meaningful distinction.

  I go as still as Christian’s dead woman.

  It’s not looking at me. It’s watching Jayne. It appears to be completely unaware of me. I consider slinking down out of sight and cowering on my knees, focus hard on trying not to see all those graphic sex pictures on the inside walls of my skull like I’m seeing now.

  Hunger. Need. Sex.

  But I can’t slink down because I don’t dare take my eyes off it. I’m too dangerous to let a prince capture me, turn me Pri-ya and control me! That’s the argument I should have made to Ryodan! Without my sword the princes can take me hostage, turn me into one of their mindless sex-crazed slaves and use me as a weapon against him. I bet he’d have listened if I’d said that, but I didn’t think of it because I wa
s too pissed off.

  I scan the edge of the dock but I see just the one prince. Where is the other? Holding my head perfectly still, slanting only my eyes, I peer down at my timer. I’ve got over four minutes before our first explosion goes off.

  How did it find me so fast? Well, it hasn’t found me yet, but apparently it knew where to look. Did we pass more Rhino-boys without realizing it, and they phoned my whereabouts in?

  I stare, holding my breath, trying to decide if I should drop to my knees now or just try to continue not breathing or moving. I watch it while it watches Jayne, who’s killing another Unseelie, and all the sudden I get this total epiphany: it didn’t come here looking for me!

  It came for my sword.

  Now that I’m no longer the sword’s guardian, the princes actually have a chance to take it and destroy it. It can’t resist the opportunity to eliminate one of only two weapons that can kill Fae. It couldn’t take it from me because I’m the Mega, but it thinks it can steal it from Jayne because he doesn’t have any special powers. He’s just a man.

  Worst part is, it’s probably right. It probably can sift in and grab it before Jayne even knows what happened. It’s an Unseelie, which means it won’t actually be able to touch it because the Dark Fae can’t touch the Light Hallows and vice versa, but I’m willing to bet it’s got some kind of plan for that.

  I’m fast but I can’t beat a sifter. That’s the whole reason I need my sword back so bad. With all the sifters I’ve pissed off, I’m a walking dead girl without it.

  I envision the possible scenarios, starting with the worst first. I like to do it that way so I can end on the happy thought and aim for it.

  One: the Unseelie prince sifts in, and kills everyone. He has one of his Pri-ya chick groupies with him whose head is currently not visible because it’s somewhere lower doing something totally disgusting, and she picks up the sword, and he sifts out with her holding the booty.

  Two: the Unseelie prince spots me, sifts over and kills me.

  Three: the Unseelie prince spots me, sifts over, captures me and turns me Pri-ya. I refuse to follow that thought further. Bottom line: any version with the Unseelie prince spotting me ends badly.

  Four: I drop to my knees and hide. It never knows I’m here. Dancer’s bombs go off in quick succession. I freeze-frame in and take my sword while everyone is discombobulated. I kill the Unseelie prince in a dazzlingly display of dexterity and grace. Sonnets are composed about me.

  I grin. I like that one.

  I return my attention to the situation at hand and realize Reality—the impatient bitch—has made my decision for me. She does that a lot. You get busy planning your life, then it has the nerve to just go ahead and happen to you before you’re ready. Before you even get the chance to aim yourself right!

  Page 85

 

  It’s one of the bad scenarios.

  The Unseelie prince spotted me.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Your mind’s in disturbia, it’s like the darkness is light”

  The most scared I get is the most alive I ever feel.

  I should collapse into a puddle of terror but adrenaline shoves a broomstick up my spine.

  If the Unseelie prince gets within a few feet of me, I’ll collapse anyway whether I’ve got a supercharged backbone or not. Nobody’s immune to Fae royalty. Nobody’s got any protection against them. The Seelie royalty keep their deadly eroticism mostly muted around humans as a courtesy. The Unseelie revel in using it on us full force. The princes have already turned hundreds of women Pri-ya. Nobody knows what to do with them. Folks can’t decide whether to lock them up or mercy-kill them. Last I heard, they were keeping them locked up in what used to be a psych ward.

  My superpowers are useless against the princes. All that sex and need and hunger wipes your mind clean of everything but lust that you’re willing to die for. I saw Mac at her worst, when she was Pri-ya. She’s the only person anybody knows of that’s ever been brought back from the mentally shattered condition. It’s one thing to have your body caged. I can’t think of anything worse than losing your mind. I glance in at Jayne, desperate for my sword. He’s currently using it to hack another Unseelie to death in front of a screaming, snarling, roaring audience. Without Dancer’s diversion there’s no way I’ll make it past all those Guardians and guns. I glance at my watch. Still three and a half minutes to go!

  “Hey, dude, what’s up?” I say all nonchalant-like to the Unseelie prince, while I pull the pin out of one of the grenades Dancer altered, months ago, to cause a blinding, delayed explosion. I use them as Shade-grenades, tucked into a ball of immortal flesh. While we were at his digs earlier, I stuffed my pockets with all kinds of things. I cram a candy bar in my mouth with my other hand and say, “Check this out. It came off the sword before Jayne took it. What do you think it is?”

  I lob it high, straight over the dock. The prince does exactly what I was pretty sure it would do: catches it. A human would recognize what I threw, but I’m betting it won’t. Whether or not it does, its reaction isn’t at all what I expected. I figured worst-case scenario, it would pitch it over its shoulder.

  The fecker tosses it right back at me!

  Like an idiot, I catch it, too. I think there are two kinds of people in life: those you can throw something at that will instinctively duck and bat it away and those that will instinctively grab it. I’ve always been a grabber. I’ll take offense over defense any day. I rubberneck in freeze-frame and assess my situation: Jayne is clueless that we’re here because he can’t hear us over the racket the caged monsters are making. The grenade in my hand is going to explode in five, four, three—

  “No, you take it,” I say, and lob it high, right back at the prince.

  He catches it, closes a hand around it, and I see a flash of light in his fist. Then he opens his hand and black dust falls to the ground. If I could make out its expression, it might have just given me a total smirk.

  Well, feck me. What is it made of? Galvanized steel?

  Suddenly I know where the second prince is because the temperature in the space behind me just dropped forty or so degrees. The hairs on the back of my neck frost and I shiver.

  I lunge into reverse freeze-frame but it blocks me and I slam back into its icy, powerful body.

  Feck feck feck! I slam it into forward. It’s there before me. I twist and duck but crash into it sideways. We do this whiz/block thing about ten more times, with me cramming candy bars in my mouth. We’re moving like an orchestrated dance. It seems to read my body’s smallest cues, anticipate my moves. The thing is wicked fast! All I can make out is a tangle of long black hair and the brilliant flash of kaleidoscopic tattoos rushing beneath its dark skin.

  I drop low and roll past it, then spring up to flee, but it grabs me from behind and yanks me back into it. I can’t stop shivering. I have to get away. It makes a sound against my ear that I heard a lot of Ryodan’s men making on level four when they were all having sex, low and rough and strained. I hear myself making a noise I didn’t even know I knew how to make.

  I turn into a Dani-grenade, fighting with all I’ve got. It ain’t happening to me like this!

  I punch, I kick, I bite. It doesn’t fight back. It bands its arms around me from behind and keeps me pulled back hard against its body, waiting for my fury to turn into something else.

  And it does.

  Page 86

  I’m losing myself!

  I can feel my mind slipping away!

  I’m changing into something I don’t want to be and I can’t stop it! Is this what Mac went through? How did she stand it? Three princes at once, then Cruce, too!

  I don’t want this! It isn’t supposed to be like this! I’m supposed to lose my virginity in some awesome, superspectacular, sensational way. Not like this!

  But everything inside me is going gooey like rich, warm, velvety chocolate fondue that’s so thick and sweet and
scrumptious that I want to swim in it, let it cover my head, take me down deep into a place where I don’t have to think anymore and I don’t have to fight anymore and I can just be without always having to struggle to stay on top and protect myself and win all the time.

  I want to get naked here in the street. I want to do it every which way, standing up and lying down, doggy style and reverse cowgirl. Long black hair is tangling around my neck, sliding like hot silk. It’s arms around me feel like the best slow dance I ever imagined, not that I imagine wussy things like slow dancing with Dancer or anything but I’m having a hard time breathing right, it’s getting all shallow and caught in my throat.

  It makes a sound like dark wind chimes caught in a storm, beautiful and brittle. The haunting melody scrapes across my nerve endings, turning each one into a tiny mass of orgasmic tissue.

  I’m lost. I press back against it. It’s hard where I’m soft and pretty much perfect in every way.

  “Och, Dani my darling, you’re not giving me a single reason to wait for you to grow up. You’re giving me a thousand reasons not to. ”

  It’s Christian! I’m so glad it’s him, not one of the other princes! I turn around in his arms and tip my head back. “Hi, Christian!” I beam at him. He’s hotter than the other princes. I’m glad I got him. I’ll take the others, too, but I want him first. “I want to grow up. Now. Hurry. ”

  “Not. Like. This. ”

  I reach up and pull Christian’s head down for kisses but he knocks my hands away. It makes me mad. I grab him again. He shoves me and I stumble.

  He slaps me then. Hard, across the face. My ears ring from the violence of his blow. I wet my lips and give him a look. Pain isn’t what I need. I need him to ease my pain. I might be a virgin but my body knows how to move, what to do. It’s kind of embarrassing, but at the same time I like it. Sex is powerful. It makes all your cells feel hyperalive. How didn’t I know that? I want to explore it. I want to learn it inside and out like everything else I do. I feel amazing! Like I’m about to learn stuff I got no idea about and it’s going to change me forever. When this is done, I’ll be a woman. Not a child anymore. I’m fascinated by the idea.

  I’m not ready for it!

  I’m racing toward it, can’t get there fast enough.