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Back to the poster … despite what I’m wearing and despite not having my sword, I was going to freeze-frame around the city and tear them all down.
Except WTFC didn’t post this paper.
Something worse did.
The flyer tacked on the lamppost is poster quality. Staring out from it, my face looks back at me in living color, full frontal and profile.
And I think: when did they take pictures of me? I study it, trying to remember the last time I wore that shirt. I think it was four or five days ago. There’s no mistaking who it is. Anybody would recognize me in a heartbeat. They were either really close to me and I somehow didn’t know it, which is inconceivable, or someone else took the pictures for them, or they had one heck of a good lens. I look pretty good. Well, except for the black eye and cut-up lip, but I hardly see those kinds of things on my face anymore. I’m used to the terrain, who notices trees in the forest? I squint. “Bugger. You kidding me?” There were guts in my hair whenever it was. I sigh. One day I’m going to have clean hair and no bruises. Right. And one day Ryodan will apologize for being such a total dickhead all the time.
The message is direct and to the point.
WANTED
Alive
If you are human immortality
is the reward
If you are fae you will rule
beside us
she no longer has the sword
she is defenseless
There’s info on where to bring me when I’m found.
To the Unseelie princes. The fecking feckers have taken out a hit on me. I always wanted everybody to know my face, but not this way!
“Defenseless, my ass. ” Oh, yeah, they’re pissed at me. And they aren’t too busy fighting each other to hunt me. Or to be keeping constant tabs on me.
I look down the street.
A poster flaps on every single lamppost left standing, as far as I can see. I imagine they wallpapered the city with them.
“Aw, feck it. ”
Then I brighten. Dude, I’m worth immortality and co-rule! They put a wicked high price on my head! ’Cause I’m, like, wicked dangerous!
I want to go hang with Dancer, enlist his help getting my sword back. It took me nearly an hour to shake Lor. Ryodan’s got him trailing me, making like my protective shadow. If I had my sword, Lor and me wouldn’t have to put up with each other. I finally managed to get him distracted with what he likes best: blonde with boobs.
I tear down the poster and ball it up. If these hadn’t been up, I would have already sped off into the morning, sword or no sword, taking my chances. This was a rude and unwanted wake-up call.
She no longer has the sword.
Gah, feckers! They just had to broadcast that, didn’t they? I guess Jayne is already using it, and word got back to the princes.
She is defenseless.
Did they have to underline that word, make it bigger than all the rest and red, too? I mean, what part of defenseless needs emphasizing? The word is bad enough! The whole bloody city is going to be gunning for me soon. Every big bad out there I ever beat up on, everyone I threatened or just irritated is about to learn I can no longer kill them. They already know I can’t outrun the sifters. But having the sword always tipped the balance in my favor. Kept them all from trying.
I feel exposed, standing in the street. Anything could sift in behind me, grab me, and the fight would be on. Would I win? What if there were a dozen of them? What if humans come for me in a small army? What if the princes themselves come?
Gah, I’m what-iffing! I don’t what-if! What-iffing is for grownups. They what-if themselves right into doing nothing, and die without ever living.
I turn around and look back at Chester’s.
Then I turn back around and look down the street.
In front of me, high odds of death. Behind me, a cage.
I hate cages. For most folks, they’re built from fear and they do it to themselves. Not me. Mine were forged of helplessness. Most kids’ are.
So this is what it comes down to: death or a cage.
I grin. Dude, I’m a superhero. No contest.
I flip the street both birds and slide sideways into freeze-framing, ripping down the posters as I go.
I go hunting for Dancer and find him hunting for me in, like, no time at all. It cracks me up because what are the odds we could go looking for each other in the hugeness that’s Dublin and actually find each other? But we always do. Like magnets.
When I see him, I grin. He’s walking down the street in the gray dawn, glowing like a star going supernova. I can’t look straight at him. I have to take quick looks at him from the corner of my eye. There’s a bubble of light around him so bright it’s blinding. He’s wearing sunglasses over his glasses and looks like some kind of glowing Mutant X guy with a superpower of his own, like say Super Brain.
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“Dude!” I say.
“Like it? Hold on, let me turn it down. ” He fiddles with something near his waist and the light dims to something closer to what my MacHalo throws off.
I check him out. His clothes are shiny. Shiny jeans, shiny shirt, even shiny ball cap. Clothes hang on his tall, lanky frame like something out of one of those glossy magazines, casual perfection. His hair’s getting long again. He’s going to ask me to cut it soon. I like those times. We take care of each other like two monkeys picking each other’s nits. Folks underestimate a good nit-pick. “New fashion statement?” I tease.
“Thinking about your wardrobe, Mega,” he says. “I was working on the spray for Papa Roach when all the sudden I got this idea for Shade protection. I need to spray your clothes with a reflective base, then I designed a harness of lights for you that runs off a battery system, and get this: it self-charges with motion!” He fiddles with a gizmo at his waist, wearing the rapt expression of a boy genius playing with electronics. All the sudden his head whips up and he grins and I just grin back because when Dancer grins like that all my worries disappear.
“Because of the way you move, it’ll never go out. I’ve been testing it and it stays charged off even my movements for days. I figure one good freeze-frame will juice it up for a week. That means when you go to Shade-town, you can sleep easy, wearing it. ”
I’m speechless. Dancer was thinking about me, pondering the ins and outs of my life, so he could make it better. He spent his time working on something, not to save Dublin, like the Papa Roach spray, but just me. I fiddle with the bracelet on my wrist. He gave me that, too. It weirded me out when he did because I was afraid he was going to get mushy on me but that was way back in the beginning of us hanging together when I didn’t know that Dancer never gets mushy. We don’t let that kind of stupid stuff get between us. Using some of your own time to make someone else’s life better is, like, the nicest thing you can do for anybody. I almost can’t stand it, it makes me so happy.
“You’re the Shit,” I tell him.
And this time he doesn’t say it right back at me, he says, “You think so?” like he wants to hear it again, so I say it again and his grin gets even bigger.
After a sec he notices the wad of posters I forgot I was holding.
He makes a sound of disgust. “Mega, I been tearing those things down for hours. I stumbled on one of the crews putting them up and followed them around, ripping them down. They’ve got a bunch of Rhino-boys hanging them. Is it true? Did somebody take your sword?” He looks me up and down, searching for it. He blinks like he just noticed me for the first time and I get so embarrassed it’s all I can do to not freeze-frame right out of there. I feel so stupid!
I forgot what I was wearing!
My jaw juts and I say, stiff-like, “It’s all they had that fit me. Ryodan made me change. I didn’t have nothing to do with this getup. I wouldn’ta picked it in a million years!”
Dancer’s looking at me like I?
??m an alien from outer space. I could just sink into the street, yank the concrete and trash over my head and hide. I hug my arms over my chest, cross my feet at the ankles and turn sideways a little, trying to make myself narrower so there won’t be so much of me to see.
“I know I look stupid, okay? It’s been a real sucky day for me and I got bigger problems on my mind than what I’m wearing so quit looking at me like I’m some kind of geek dressed up for Halloween, because I didn’t have a choice since Christian gave me his stupid pajamas and Ryodan said they smelled—”
“Christian gave you his pajamas and they smelled? Wait a minute, Christian wears pajamas?”
“I only needed his pjs because I woke up in his bed with only my bra and underwear on and all my clothes destroyed, otherwise I never would have worn them,” I clarify when I realize how weird the first part sounded.
“Well. That explains things. ”
I love that about Dancer. He always gets me without me having to go on and on telling how point A got to point B. “All I’m saying is this ain’t my fashion statement, so don’t hold it against me. ”
“S’cool, Mega. You look cool. ”
“I look stupid. ” I’m so mortified I could expire of mortification.
“You look older. Sixteen or seventeen. If you had on makeup you’d probably look eighteen. ”
I think I’m nonplussed. I’ve never been nonplussed before but I know the definition and I imagine this must be what it feels like. It’s not quite flummoxed, or bewildered. Words have subtle nuances. A year or two ago I might have been flabbergasted. This is a slightly different kind of stymied. Yes. I think it’s nonplussed. “Well,” I say, and smooth my skirt.
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Gah! Feck! What are my hands doing to me? I actually just smoothed my skirt! Am I turning into some kind of sissy? I don’t even wear skirts! But when Ryodan made me change the only thing they could find that fit me was the waitress uniform from the kiddie subclub and I was so pissed off about the posters, then so glad to see Dancer, that I totally forgot I was wearing a short skirt, snug blouse, and baby doll heels that suck to freeze-frame in, but I had more important things to do than dash into a store and switch shoes, like tear my face off every fecking lamppost in the city. Feet are feet sometimes; if they’re working that’s good enough.
“Who took your sword, Mega? And how did anybody even get it from you?”
My mood darkens instantly. I get so mad I get lockjaw and I can’t talk for a sec. “Jayne,” I finally grind out through my teeth. I rub my jaw muscles a sec and loosen my mouth back up. Superstrength sucks sometimes when it’s in every single muscle in your body. When you get a muscle cramp, it’s a big deal. It can go on for a good long while. “That fecker Jayne took it and left me for dead. I got hurt by one of those …” All Dancer knows about the iced scenes is what he saw the other night and it still hadn’t exploded by the time they got me out of there. At least I don’t think it had. It occurs to me I’m not sure. I need to ask somebody later. “I got hurt and Jayne took it while I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I went to Ryodan and told him we needed to go get my sword back and he refused. Said he liked me better without it. ”
“Dude!”
In a single word Dancer just gave me all the righteous indignation and pissed-offedness that the situation deserves. “I know, right?”
“What is he thinking? You’re the Mega. You don’t take Wolverine’s claws!”
“I know, right?”
“Dude,” he says again.
We look at each other commiserating, because grown-ups are so fecked up and we’re never going to turn out like them.
Then he grins. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go take it back. ”
Since the walls fell, Dublin feels a lot like a movie set to me.
It’s the quiet. The city is a ghost town with squatters hiding in the wreckage, rifles cocked. Sometimes I see whites of eyes gleaming at me through boarded-up windows. If they’re human, I try to talk to them. Not all of them are receptive. There are some real nuts out there, as creepy as some of the Unseelie.
Before the walls crashed, back when I used to pedal around the districts on my courier bike, back when the sidhe-seers were masquerading as an international messenger service run by Ro, the city was filled with a constant white noise. It was hard, even with my superhearing, to distinguish between the congestion of cars and buses, folks’ heels on pavers and cement, planes landing and taking off, boats docking in the bay. Cell phones drove me crazy. There were days when all I heard was a blur of text message alerts, e-mail alerts, rings, songs, games.
Still, as annoying as it could be, it was music to my ears, the complex chords of the city I love. Now there are only the flat notes of soldiers marching, monsters hunting, and the occasional plaintive trill of something dying.
Dancer and I race through the streets, telling each other jokes, laughing our heads off. Hanging with him is the only time I can totally forget myself.
We round a corner and belly up to a contingent of Rhino-boys.
When they see us, one of them grunts into a radio, “Got her, boss, she’s at Dame and Trinity. ”
I glance over my shoulder, lock everything down on my grid, grab Dancer, slide sideways and freeze-frame us out of there.
A short time later we’re skulking around outside Dublin Castle, quiet as two mice sneaking around the kitchen looking for cheese.
Dancer’s eyes are bright with excitement. I’d never freeze-framed him before. He said it was the coolest thing he’d ever done and wants to do it again. It used to make Mac almost puke when I did it to her.
After I hit a department store and changed into a cooler outfit of jeans, tennis shoes, and a new leather coat, we stopped in one of his digs I didn’t even know he had and got some explosives. Some of the best plans are the simplest, less room for error. He’s going to make me a distraction by blowing something up while I go in after my sword. I’ll grab it, grab him, and we’re gone. Then I’ll swagger into Chester’s tonight at eight and everybody will see you don’t mess with the Mega. Ryodan’ll see I don’t need him for nothing.
“You were right,” Dancer says, “the cages are crammed full of Unseelie waiting to be killed. ”
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I snicker. “Jayne didn’t know what he was getting into when he took my sword. I knew he didn’t have enough time to kill six days’ worth. Only way I can is I do it in hyperspeed. ”
Covered trucks are parked near the training green. We circle behind them. Fresh Unseelie bodies are piled in the back of one, still dripping. That means somebody is currently using my sword, and it’s nearby. My fingers curl, aching for it. I don’t know where Jayne disposes of the bodies. He has them trucked somewhere. I know his routine. I’ve been a part of it for a long time. His men patrol the streets, capture every Unseelie they can get their hands on and imprison them in iron holding cells in buildings behind Dublin Castle. The facilities are guarded, because several times in the past one Fae faction or another has hired humans to try to break somebody—or all of them—out.
Whenever the cages started getting full and I had free time I zoomed in, sliced and diced Unseelie, then loaded the bodies and trucked them out. It ran fast and efficient.
But only because I kill in superspeed. No slow-mo Joe can walk into a cage filled with Unseelie armed only with a single weapon, whether it’s the Sword of Light or not. He’d be torn to pieces while he was still stabbing his first Fae.
Now, Jayne is being forced to separate out each Unseelie, take it out of the cage, kill it, separate the next, kill it, and so on for days. He’ll need a full-time contingent to run it. It will take dozens of his men to replace me. And he was already short-handed.
“Mega, I know where the sword is,” Dancer says.
“Me, too. ”
When I slay Unseelie, I do it so fast that there’s not much
time for the Unseelie standing nearby to react. They die quickly. Most of them before they even know what’s happening.
But the way Jayne’s doing it, they have to be standing around, watching the others get slaughtered for hours, watching Death inch closer.
I hate Fae. But there’s something about knowing that they’re just standing there, locked up, watching their buddies die a few feet away, waiting to be killed, that makes me feel … queasy. It’s not like we owe them mercy—they don’t show us any—but I figure if you’re going to kill something you should do it quick and painless or you’re just as sick as whatever you’re killing.
I don’t need my sword back just for me. I need it back because I’m the best person to do this job. Jayne needs to pull his head out and see that. This is fecked up, this drawn-out protracted slaughter.
Dancer’s eyes aren’t shining anymore. He looks as somber as I feel. I decide I’ll make a show of good faith when I get my sword back.
I’ll stay and slay, and put everything out of its misery fast and clean.
Then me and Jayne are going to sit ourselves down and have a serious talk.
I look at Dancer and he nods.
We head for the screaming.
The corrugated steel dock doors are wide-open on the warehouse, making room enough for two semis to back in and unload if they wanted to. Seeing into the building where Jayne is killing all the Unseelie isn’t the hard part.
It’s not being seen if someone looks out that’s tricky.
The concrete dock is five feet high, and I’ve crept along it until I’m standing real close to the entrance, with just my eyes and hair sticking up above the side while I assess the scene and start building my mental grid. Even that small slice of me showing makes me feel too exposed. Having red hair is like wearing a neon sign sometimes. Dirty blond would blend with the background, mouse brown would merge nicely with the murky dawn, but my hair never fades into obscurity unless I’m backdropped by a crimson sky.
Dancer’s off somewhere up high, laying explosives. Times like these I wish I had a clone so I could do the cool stuff I’m doing plus hang with him. I love blowing up things. But my part of the job is to whiz in, grab my sword and blast us out of here.