I was getting complacent. And that turns into sloppy if you’re not careful. Bored, too. It’s not much fun always being the best and fastest. A little competition keeps you on your toes, makes you try harder, live larger.
I’m all about that: living large.
I want to go out in a blaze of glory while I’m young. I don’t want to break piece by piece, lose my mind and die wrinkly and old. Given the current state of our world, I’m not sure any of us have to worry about that anymore.
Top on my list of dudes to beat are Jericho Barrons and his men. Like me, they’re superfast and superstrong. Much as I hate to admit it—they’re faster. But I’m working on it.
Barrons can pluck me right out of thin air (dude, why isn’t it thick air? The things people say!) while I’m freeze-framing, which is what I call the way I get around. I start at point A, lock down a mental snapshot of everything around me, hit the gas, and in a blink I’m at point B. It’s only got a couple of downsides. One, I’m constantly bruised from running into things at top speed because some of the things I lock down on my mental grid aren’t stationary, like people and animals and Fae. Two, freeze-framing requires a ton of food for fuel. I have to eat constantly. It’s a pain in the butt collecting and carrying that much food. If I don’t eat enough, I get limp and wobbly. It’s pathetic. I’m a gas tank that’s either full or empty. There’s no half tank with me. You know those movies where folks wear rounds of ammo on their body? I wear protein bars and Snickers.
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At least once a night I whiz over to Chester’s, Dublin’s underground hot spot for partying and scoring whatever your fantasy is and angling for a shot at immortality, owned and operated by Barrons’s go-to dude Ryodan, and I start killing every Fae hanging around outside it. It usually takes all of five seconds for his men to show up, but I can do a lot in five seconds.
Chester’s is a safe-zone. Killing Fae is prohibited there, no matter what they do. And they do some sick stuff.
Killing humans, however, isn’t prohibited at Chester’s. That’s a major issue with me, so I keep giving Ryodan grief and I’m not about to stop.
One of these nights I’m going to be faster than him, faster than all of them.
Then I’m going to slay every Fae in Chester’s.
Second on my list of competition are the Fae I hunt. Some of them can teleport. They call it “sifting. ” I don’t understand the physics of it. I just know it’s faster than freeze-framing. Which would worry me more if I didn’t have the Sword of Light, one of two weapons that can exterminate their immortal asses, so they leave me alone for the most part. She-who-isn’t-getting-named has the other weapon, the Spear.
My stomach hurts again. As I peel open a protein bar, I decide to start thinking of her as “That Person,” abbreviated to TP. Then maybe my mind will slide over thoughts of “TP” without hitching and kicking me in the stomach.
Last are the Unseelie princes. There used to be four. Cruce is out of the picture for now. Two are at large, in Dublin, no longer under the Lord Master’s rule, which makes them way more dangerous than they used to be. They’ve begun fighting with each other and are striking out on their own. There’s major trouble coming from those two. Not only can they sift, just looking at them makes you weep blood. And if you have sex with them … well don’t! Enough said. Already cults are forming around them. Sheep are always looking for a new shepherd when the terrain gets rocky.
I don’t test myself against the princes. I keep my distance. I sleep with my sword in my hand. I shower with it. I never let anyone else touch it. I love my sword. It’s my best friend.
I killed the other Unseelie prince. I’m the only person who ever has. Dani Mega O’Malley slayed an Unseelie prince! Gotta love it. Only problem is, now the two that are left have a wicked hate-on for me. I’m hoping they’ll be too busy fighting with each other to come after me.
My life consists mainly of watching my city. Keeping tabs on all that’s changing. I love knowing the details, spreading the important news around. I don’t know what Dublin would do without me.
I run a newspaper called The Dani Daily that I put out three times a week. Sometimes I’ll do a special edition if something big comes up. I collect messages at what’s left of the General Post Office, from folks who are having problems with tough-to-kill Fae. I like to swoop in and save the day! I take my beat seriously, like Inspector Jayne and the Guardians who patrol the streets at night. Dublin needs me. I’m not about to let her down.
I just published my first book, Dani Does Dublin: the ABCs of the AWC. Dancer helps me print and distribute it. The reviews have been great. Only problem is, whenever I learn new stuff, which is like constantly, I have to put out a revised edition. I’m on the fifth already.
Some of the folks I help are real basket cases, afraid of their own shadow. I can tell just by looking at them they won’t survive long. It makes me sad but I do all I can.
I decide to pop over to the General Post Office now, see if anybody left notes for me.
I polish off my protein bar in two gulps and pocket the wrapper. Don’t know why I can’t bring myself to litter, considering the streets are covered with debris from the riot the night Dublin fell, but adding to it feels wrong.
I narrow my eyes, look down the street far as I can see, plot each obstacle on my mental grid until it all snaps into place: abandoned cars with open doors just waiting to slam me if I’m off by an inch, streetlamps ripped from the pavement with chunks of concrete attached at the base and strips of metal sticking out that are going to kill my shins if I’m not careful, tables flung through pub windows blocking the sidewalks. You get the idea.
I take a deep breath and give in, set that sidhe-seer place in my head free and slide into a different way of being. Ro used to try to get me to explain it to her, like maybe she could figure out how to do it if she tried hard enough. The best I can come up with is this: it’s like picking your whole self up mentally and shoving it sideways, till suddenly you’re … just something else. I shift Danigears, I guess. The rush is megaintense and, well … I can’t imagine life without it because there’s no such thing as life without it.
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I do it now, shift hard and fast, and then I’m whole and free and perfect. Wind in my hair! Freeze-framing! Can’t even feel my feet, because I got wings on them! I scrunch up my face in concentration and push harder, faster, every nanosecond is going to count if I’m going to beat—
I slam into a wall.
Where the feck did that come from?
How could I have missed it on my grid?
My whole face is numb and I can’t see. The impact snaps me out of freeze-framing and sends me into a blind stumble. When I finally get my balance, I’m still not able to focus. I hit the wall so hard it temporarily blinded me. My face is going to be black and blue for days, eyes swollen to slits. How embarrassing! I hate walking around with all my mistakes on my face, right there for anybody to see!
I waste precious seconds trying to recover and all I can think is: good thing it was a wall, not an enemy. I’m a sitting duck right now and it’s my own fault. I know better than to lead with my head when I’m freeze-framing. You can kill yourself that way. The body can take a much harder impact than the face. You’ll drive your nose up into your brain, if you’re not careful.
“Sloppy, Mega,” I mutter. I still can’t see. I wipe my bloody nose on my sleeve and reach out to feel what I hit.
“That’s my dick,” Ryodan says.
I snatch my hand away. “Gah!” I choke out. I can feel my face again—because, like, it’s going up in flames. What kind of universe makes me reach out at exactly that fecking level to feel what I think is a wall and puts my hand on a penis?
Then I remember this is Ryodan and scowl. “You did that on purpose!” I accuse. “You saw my hand go out and you stepped right into it!”
&
nbsp; “I’d do that why, kid?”
Ryodan has the most infuriating way of asking questions without the proper inflection at the end. His voice doesn’t rise at all. I don’t know why it annoys me so much. It just does. “To embarrass me and make me feel stupid! Always angling for the advantage, aren’t you?” Ryodan makes me totally crazy. I can’t stand him!
“Sloppy is an understatement,” Ryodan says. “I could have killed you. Pull your head out, kid. Watch where you’re going. ”
My vision is finally starting to clear. “I. Was. Watching,” I say pissily. “You stepped into my way. ”
I look up at him. Dude is tall. The only streetlamp that works is smack behind his head, casting his face in shadow, but that’s the way he likes it. I swear he stages every place he goes in order to keep the light at his back for some reason. He’s wearing that faint half smile he usually has on, as if he’s perpetually amused by us lesser mortals.
“I am not a lesser mortal,” I say testily.
“Didn’t say you were. In fact, it’s precisely because you’re not lesser that you’re on my radar. ”
“Well, get me off it. ”
“Can’t. ”
I get a sinking feeling. Not too long ago Ryodan tracked me down where I was hanging out up on top of my favorite water tower and told me he had a job for me. I refused, of course. Since then I’ve been telling myself he filled whatever vacancy he had with someone else.
I don’t want to fall in with Ryodan and his men. I get the feeling you don’t ever get to fall back out. You just keep falling.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me from snooping around Chester’s. You have to know your competition, know what they’re up to. Dude wants something from me, I want to know what. Last week I found a back way into his club that I bet nobody but me and his men know about. I think they thought it was so well hidden they didn’t need to bother protecting it. Did I ever see some things! My face gets hot again, remembering.
“I’ve been waiting for you to report for work, Dani. You must have encountered a problem I don’t know about. ”
Report for work, my ass. I don’t answer to anyone. The way he says that last part makes it sound like he’s been keeping major tabs on me and knows every problem I have and don’t have. “I’ll say this one more time. Never going to happen. ”
“You don’t understand. I’m not giving you a choice. ”
“You don’t understand. I’m taking it. You’re not the boss of me. ”
“You better hope I am, kid, because you’re a risk in my city. And there are only two ways I deal with uncontrolled variables. One of them is to offer you a job. ”
The look he gives me makes it clear I don’t want to know what the second option is. I wipe more blood from my nose and puff myself up. “Thought it was Barrons’s city,” I say.
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He ignores my jibe. “A risk I won’t take. You’re too fast, too strong, and too stupid. ”
“There’s nothing stupid about me. I am fast and strong, though. ” I preen. “Best of the best. Dani Mega O’Malley. That’s what they call me. The Mega. Nobody’s got nothing on me. ”
“Sure they do. Wisdom. Common sense. The ability to differentiate between a battle worth fighting and the posturing of adolescent hormones. ”
Gah! I don’t posture! I don’t have to! I’m the real thing, one hundred percent superhero! Ryodan knows just how to get under my skin but I’m not giving him the satisfaction of showing it. “Hormones don’t interfere with my thought processes,” I say coolly. “And as fecking if my ‘adolescent hormones’ are any different than yours. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. ” After my clandestine visit last week, I know a thing or two about Ryodan.
“You’re human. Hormones will undermine you at every turn. And you’re way too young to know shit about me. ”
“I’m not too young to know anything. I know you and the other dudes are all sex all the time. I saw those women you keep—” I clamp my mouth shut.
“You saw. ”
“Nothing. Didn’t see nothing. ” I don’t slip often. At least I didn’t used to. But things are weird lately. My mood changes like a chameleon in a kaleidoscope. I get touchy and end up saying things I shouldn’t. Especially when someone keeps calling me “kid” and ordering me around. I’m unpredictable, even to myself. It bites.
“You’ve been on level four. ” His eyes are scary. Then again, this is Ryodan. His eyes are scary a lot.
“What’s level four?” I say innocently, but he’s not buying it for a minute. Level four is like something out of a porn movie. I know. I was watching a lot of them until recently, until somebody who doesn’t give one little tiny ounce of crap about me read me the riot act, like TP cared. It’s stupid to think just because somebody yells at you like they worry about how you’re growing up and who you’re becoming that they care about you.
He smiles. I hate it when he smiles. “Kid, you’re flirting with death. ”
“You’ll have to catch me first. ”
We both know it’s empty bravado. He can.
He locks gazes with me. I refuse to look away even though it feels like he’s sifting through my retinal records, reviewing everything I’ve seen. Long seconds pass. I notch up my chin, shove a hand in my jeans pocket and cock my hip. Jaunty, flippant, bored, my body says. ’Case he’s not getting the message from the look on my face.
“I felt a breeze in the private part of my club last week,” he says finally. “Somebody passing by fast. I thought it had to be Fade not wanting to be seen for some reason, but it wasn’t. It was you. Not cool, Dani. Way not cool. Am I speaking your language well enough to penetrate that rock-hard, suicidal, adolescent head of yours. ”
I roll my eyes. “Gah, old dude, please don’t try to talk like me. My ears’ll fall off!” I flash him a cocky, hundred-megawatt grin. “It’s not my fault you can’t focus on me when I pass. And what’s with all this adolescent bunk? I know how old I am. You the one needs reminding? Is that why you keep throwing it at me like some kind of insult? It isn’t, you know. Fourteen is on top of the world. ”
The next thing I know he’s in my space, swallowing it up. Barely leaving me room to be. I’m not about to stick around for it.
I freeze-frame around him.
Or I try to.
I crash, full frontal into him, smacking my forehead on his chin. Not hard either. Freeze-framing into him should have split my head again, not tickled like a stumble.
I slam it into Mega-reverse.
I succeed in backpedaling a pansy foot or two. I don’t even make it out of arm’s reach.
What the feck?
I’m so discombobulated by failure that I just stand there like an idiot. Until this precise moment, I wasn’t even sure I knew how to spell the F-word, much less do it. Fail, with a big fat F. Me.
He grabs my shoulders and starts pulling me to him. I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing but I’m not getting anywhere near close to Ryodan. I explode into a Dani-grenade, all fists and teeth, and ten kinds of you-don’t-want-to-hold-me-when-the-pin-is-out.
At least I try to.
I noodle off one limp punch before I stop myself so I won’t telegraph any more catastrophic news to a dude that doesn’t miss a trick and won’t hesitate to use any weakness against me.
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What the feck is wrong with me?
Did slamming into him do something to me? Like break me?
Superspeed—gone.
Superstrength—gone.
I’m as weak as a Joe and … ew! Stuck in Ryodan’s arms. Close. Like we’re about to slow dance, or get all kissy.
“Dude, you like me or something? Get off me!”
He looks down at me. I can see the mind working behind his eyes. I don’t like Ryodan’s mind working when he’s looking at me.
“Fight, kid. ”
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I tilt my nose up at a defiant angle, jut my jaw at my best “feck you” slant. “Maybe I don’t feel like it. You said there’s no point. You keep telling me how large and in-charge you are. ”
“Never stopped you before. ”
“Maybe I don’t want to break a nail,” I toss out all nonchalant-like, to cover up that I just tried fighting. And fleeing. And for the first time in, well—ever—I’m … norm—
The word sticks like a hard, spiky burr in the back of my throat. I can’t cough it up. I can’t swallow it.
It’s okay. I don’t need to be able to say it. It’s not true. It never will be.
I’ve never been that word. It’s not part of my reality. I probably just forgot to eat enough. I take a hasty mental tally of my fuel consumption over the past few hours: eleven protein bars, three cans of tuna, five cans black beans, seven Snickers. Okay, so my menu’s coming up a little light, but not enough to drain my gas tank. I step on the freeze-frame pedal again.
I still don’t move. Motionless is me. That and way freaked out.
He’s holding my hand, looking at my short nails that TP painted black the night she found out the truth about me. I don’t know why I haven’t taken it off yet. It chips like crazy in no time with all the fighting I do.
“You don’t have nails to break. Try again. ”
“Let go of my hand. ”
“Make me. ”
Before I can snap off a pithy, brilliant reply, my head is back, my spine is arched like a bow, and Ryodan’s face is in my neck.
He bites me.
The fecker bites me!
Right on the neck!
Fangs bracket my jugular. I feel them, sharp and deep, sinking into me. It hurts.
Ryodan does have fangs! I didn’t imagine what I thought I saw on the rooftop the other night when he was telling me he had a job for me!
“What the feck you doing? You a vamp or something? You turning me?” I’m horrified. I’m … intrigued. How much stronger might I get? Are vampires real? Fairies are. I suppose that flings the closet door wide open. Everything’s going to be springing out now. Does TP know about this? Is Barrons a vampire? What’s going on here? Dude, my world just got so much more interesting!
Suddenly I’m staggering for footing, resisting nothing and looking like a drunken pinwheel doing it. It pisses me off, Ryodan making me look clumsy in front of him. I wipe a smear of blood from my neck and glare at it. When was the last time somebody spilled my blood? Like never. Sure, I bang myself up. But nobody else does. Not anymore.