Iced

Two: It’s not after life force because one of the scenes had no life forms and I seriously doubt a mouse would be enough.

  Three: Dirt, metal, and plastic are the only physical elements all the scenes had in common.

  I start mentally rebuilding every scene I visited, labeling and depositing them in one of the more readily accessible drawers in my brain’s filing cabinet, right next to where Dancer and me play chess sometimes without a board. It’s an important part of your brain to exercise if you want to stay sharp. Being smart is handy, but if you aren’t mentally agile, it doesn’t get you anywhere but stuck in your own fact-ruts.

  First up is the subclub. There were over a hundred humans and Fae engaged in various social and sexual activities. I visualize the room in detail, from the torture racks to the sofas, the sexual couplings to the band that was playing in the corner, the food that was on a table, the tapestries and mirrors on the walls. I look for something in the club that I can easily spot at every other scene. Maybe it’s hunting for a tapestry or a special mirror. It sounds stupid, but who can say what might draw a creature like that? Maybe it was cursed and it needs some hallowed Fae object to free itself. You never know with the Fae.

  Next up is the warehouse that got iced, populated only by Unseelie and filled with crates and boxes of guns. What was in this place that was also in the club? No tapestries or mirrors that I saw, but maybe there was one in a crate somewhere behind all the audio equipment and electronics.

  Then there were two underground pubs with the usual stuff: wood bar, bottles, drinks, stools, a huge mirror behind the bar, folks dancing, a few shooting pool in the corner of one place, playing darts in the other. The wood could have come from anywhere: the stools, the bar, the framed pictures on the walls, the floor. The plastic also could have come from anything: bottle toppers, chairs, plates, phones, the list goes on and on.

  The fitness center had three people in a building filled with treadmills and ellipticals and all kinds of weight machines and twenty or so of those milky-crystal meditation bowls. I guess the wood at that scene must have come from the framing of the building. I go back and begin mentally breaking down the structure of each scene, too, so I can add all that stuff into the mix.

  “This is impossible,” I mutter. It’s worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. I’m looking for a dozen needles in dozens of different haystacks that are no longer even there because they all exploded. It could be after a red Solo cup for all I know! Do they have red Solo cups in Morocco?

  I go through the rest of the scenes and realize I need more info on the ones that happened while I was gone in order to visualize them. Ryodan might have a kick-ass War Room but Dancer’s got lists already put together.

  Too bad I’m locked in.

  I look at the door. I don’t remember hearing Lor lock it. Lor likes to stir things up, keep them hopping.

  I freeze-frame over to it, test the knob and grin.

  “Dani, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jo says.

  “He said I couldn’t leave without one of his people. Listening to you talk, you and him are, like, peas in the Jo-pod. That makes you one of his people. Are you or aren’t you? ’Cause the way I figure it, if the dude’s banging you every day and doesn’t consider you one of his people, you’re not just getting screwed, you’re stupid. ” I hate manipulating Jo. When her heart’s involved, it’s way too easy. And her heart’s dangling off her sleeve where Ryodan’s concerned. “Dude, you been outside lately?” I push. We have to go now. It took me twenty minutes to find my way back to the main part of Chester’s from the War Room. I got a bad feeling Ryodan doesn’t plan to leave me alone in there too long, with all those computers. I wouldn’t. If I really was stuck in there, that’s what I’d be messing with right now, trying to hack into his systems. “The world is falling apart. Folks are dying! I just want to run a quick errand. That’s all. One tiny little errand. It won’t hardly take any time at all. ”

  “I’ll go ask him if it’s okay first. ”

  “You got any idea where he is? ’Cause I ain’t seen him in hours. Isn’t it morning? Did he come to the top of the stairs yet? Is he still summoning you that way for a quickie over his desk, or have you graduated to, like, getting banged in a bed and everything? What’s he got, some kind of progressive ranking system? If you last a whole week, you get to do it in a chair, and if you make it two—”

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  “Now you’re just being mean,” she says. “Stop it. ”

  “Just saying. I’d like to see you get some real romance, Jo. You deserve it. You’re the prettiest girl in here and everybody’d love to date you. Do you know he has steak and milk and bread and stuff? I had the best meal today. Does he feed you like that?”

  She tries to mask her surprise but doesn’t succeed. “Isn’t he still mad at you?”

  “Don’t look like it from where I’m sitting. ”

  “Steak?”

  I lick my lips, still tasting it. “Rib eye. ”

  “Milk?”

  “Dude. ” I nod. “Look, all I want to do is run by Dancer’s and get the lists. ”

  “He really gave you steak and milk today?”

  I’d laugh but it’s sad. We’re all so fecking hungry for a home-cooked meal. When spring started to green things up out at the abbey, the girls started talking about growing veggies again. All the produce was gone within a month of the walls falling. If you want to bake something, you have to run a generator to power the oven. Either that or have whatever the feck kind of setup Ryodan’s got here at Chester’s, and even then you can only bake stuff that doesn’t require butter or milk or eggs. Jo’s almost as upset that he gave me good food as she is about him not romancing her.

  “I’d call and ask Dancer to courier it over but, dude, no phones and no couriers. Can we just go? We’ll be back before anybody knows we’re gone. And if you and Ryodan really are a ‘thing,’ he ain’t going to give you any guff. He’s going to appreciate a woman with a little spine and independence!” Yeah, right. Ryodan despises spine and independence. He likes good little robots.

  “Did he give you anything else?”

  If I was having sex with somebody and they gave someone besides me awesome food, I’d be ten kinds of furious. The way I see it, intimacy should entitle you to privileges. If it don’t, it’s just skintimacy like on TV with folks always swapping partners and hurting each other. “Fresh strawberries and ice cream,” I lie.

  “Ice cream? Are you kidding me? What kind?”

  It’s sleeting when we get outside. Abandoned cars are shiny with a layer of ice. Skeletal trees shimmer like they’re crusted with diamonds. Snowdrifts are piling up. There’s a group of people outside Chester’s but it’s a somber, quiet crowd and I realize these ain’t partiers trying to get inside, these are folks looking to survive what’s coming. I guess all the partiers have already been let in. Wrapped in blankets, wearing hats, earmuffs, and gloves, these are folks that got no generators at home, and the weather has turned dangerously cold, sending them out into the streets to look for a source of heat before it’s too late.

  Jo and me look at the folks as we pass.

  “Let us in,” they say. “We just want to get warm. ”

  You can tell there’s heat in the club—and a lot of it—because the area above Chester’s is bare of accumulation. The pavement is an underinsulated roof, and the heat radiating up keeps melting the snow. Even that nominal sign of warmth is enough to keep folks standing around, hoping, waiting.

  There’s old people here, with nothing to trade for food or drink or the privilege of hanging at Chester’s. The big, brawny human bouncers Ryodan uses outside the club turn them back at the door, and a crowd has moved into the snow-free ruin of stone and wood that used to be the club aboveground. They got fires going in cans. They’ve gathered wood from surrounding buildings and piled it up. They look like they plan to stay a good long while. Like
until they get let in. They look too defeated to fight. A cluster has begun to sing “Amazing Grace. ” Before long fifty voices lift in song.

  “Maybe you could talk some sense into your ‘boyfriend’ and get him to let those folks inside,” I say.

  “I will,” she says. “Or we could bus them to the abbey. ”

  “What about WeCare? Don’t they fecking care? Aren’t they supposed to be giving away generators left and right?”

  “Even if they are,” Jo says, “some of these people are too old to get out and hunt down enough gas to keep one running. You’ve been gone for weeks. A lot changed in that time. The weather is all anybody talks about anymore. Making it through last winter wasn’t as hard because the stores were all still stocked and the nights were mild. But supplies have been wiped out. We didn’t expect winter in June. All the generators are gone. People are changing. They’re fighting each other to survive. We need a long warm summer to give us enough time to grow and stockpile food before winter comes again. We need to get out and hunt for supplies in other towns. ”

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  “They’re going to die, Jo. If we don’t stop the Hoar Frost King, we’re going to lose the other half of our world. ” I look back at the crowd huddled around the fire cans above Chester’s. A mom is helping her kids get closer to one of the barrels so they can rub their hands together over the flames. Old folks that look too frail to be hiking through this ice and snow watch the kids with weary eyes that have seen three-quarters of a century of change but never anything like what’s been happening since last Halloween. Men that look like they were office workers at desk jobs before the walls fell hold the perimeter, encircling the women, kids, and old folks. They’re all displaced now. No jobs. No paychecks. None of the rules they used to live by. They look exhausted. Desperate. It fecking slays me. They’ve moved on to a new song, another hymn. Folks need faith in times like these. You can’t give somebody faith. They either got it or they don’t. But you sure can try to give them hope.

  She gives me a bleak look. “If there was ever a time for you to dazzle us with your brilliance, it’s now. ”

  “I’m working on it. But I need stuff. Let’s go. We’ll make it back before anybody even knows we’re gone. ”

  We turn and begin walking down the street. I’m going to have to leave her aboveground. I’m not about to give away Dublin-down’s secrets. But I’ll take her as close as I can and leave her someplace sheltered. The snow crunches beneath my boots twice, as I sink through snow then ice, snow then ice. I hear Jo going through three layers because she weighs more than me. The sky is white with thick flakes swirling down in a dizzying display if you look up at them too long. They melt on my face, the only part of me exposed. We raided Chester’s coatroom before we left, bundling in layers, tugging on hats and mittens and boots. If this weather keeps up, we could end up with ten feet of ice and drifts in the next day or two and it will totally shut the city down. Folks that didn’t think to come out somewhere for warmth will freeze, snowed into their hidey-holes. If the sun doesn’t start shining soon, this stuff’ll never melt. It’ll just keep piling. Time is getting more critical with each passing day. I can’t believe I lost almost a whole month in the White Mansion with Christian! Speaking of which, I look around warily, checking all the rooftops, making sure the Hag isn’t sitting on one of them, knitting away, or worse, getting ready to swoop down on us. The crazy blood and guts bitch creeps me out. I shiver. “We need to freeze-frame, Jo. Take my hand. ”

  She gives me a look like I’m deranged. “There’s no way you’re doing that to me! Especially not on ice. Half your face is a bruise and the other half is recovering from one. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

  “That ain’t because I’m a sloppy freeze-framer. It’s because of stupid jerk-ass Ryodan. ”

  “Stupid jerk-ass Ryodan is going to break both your legs if you take one more step,” Ryodan says right behind us.

  I whirl on him. “Why are you always stalking me?”

  “You’re always making me. ”

  “How do you keep finding me?” Do I have a blinking beacon on my forehead that sends a signal straight to him every time I disobey an order? I refuse to believe since he bit me, he can track me wherever I go. That’s a suffocating thought. It’s wrong and unfair.

  “Get back inside. Now. ”

  “You didn’t find me in the White Mansion. ” A lightbulb goes off in my head. I been busy with other worries, or I’d have clued into it sooner. “You can’t track me in Faery!” That’s why he was so mad. I almost punch air I’m so happy. I have a safety zone. If I ever need to hide from him, Faery’s the place to go. “And you’re the one who’s always making me do stuff that makes me have to do other stuff that ain’t what you want me to do. It’s not my fault. I’m just reacting to you. ”

  “There’s your first mistake. Learn to act, kid. ”

  “I am acting. I’m trying to do something about our problems. ”

  “And you, Jo,” he says soft, “you should have known better. ”

  “Leave her out of this,” I say.

  “She helped you disobey me. ”

  “She did not. ’Cause, see, I didn’t disobey you. You said I could leave with one of ‘your people. ’ You’re boinking her every day, and if that doesn’t make her one of your people then you need to quit boinking her. Either she is or she ain’t, and you can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to have sex with folks then discount them. So. Is Jo one of your people? Or just another piece of booty in your endless lineup?”

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  “Dani, stop it,” Jo warns.

  “Feck no, I’m not stopping it. ” I’m so pissed, I’m vibrating. “He doesn’t deserve you and you deserve so much better!” It doesn’t help that behind Ryodan the fire-can folks have switched songs again and are now booming out a rousing rendition of “Hail Glorious St. Patrick,” clapping their hands and banging on cans with pieces of wood, getting all rambunctious. The louder they sing, the hotter my temper gets. “He’s always pushing everybody else around but nobody ever calls him out on the carpet. I say it’s way past time. Either you matter to him or you don’t, and he needs to say which one it is. I want to know which one it is. ”

  “She matters,” Ryodan says.

  Jo looks stunned.

  It pisses me off even more. She’s looking all dreamy-eyed and in love again. Anybody can see she ain’t his type. “You liar, she does not!”

  “Dani, stow it,” Jo says.

  I know him. I know how he tricked me. He’s splitting verbal hairs. Of course she matters. But he didn’t say “to me. ” She matters to the club, for mercenary reasons, because she’s a waitress. “Does she, like, matter to you emotionally? Do you love her?”

  “Dani, stop it right now!” Jo says, horrified. To Ryodan she says, “Don’t answer her. I’m sorry. Just ignore her. This is so embarrassing. ”

  “Answer me,” I say to Ryodan. The hymn folks are really rocking it now, dancing and swaying, and I’m almost having to yell to be heard. But that’s okay. I feel like yelling.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Ryodan growls over his shoulder, “can’t they go sing somewhere else. ”

  “They want in,” I say. “They’re going to die on your doorstep because you’re too much of a prick to save them. ”

  “The world is not my responsibility. ”

  “Obviously. ” I put twenty kinds of verbal condemnation in the single word.

  “She just wanted to find Dancer,” Jo says. “I think it’s important. Sometimes you have to trust her. ”

  “Do you love her?” I push.

  Jo groans likes she’s going to die of embarrassment. “Oh God, Dani, shut up!”

  I expect him to scoff at me, say something bullying, throw an insult back in my face, but he just says, “Define love. ”

  I stare straight into those clear, cool eyes.
There’s some kind of challenge there. I don’t get this dude. But the definition he wants is easy. I had a lot of time in a cage to think about it. I saw a TV show once that gave the perfect definition, and I say it to him now: “The active caring and concern for the health and well-being of another person’s body and heart. Active. Not passive. ” In a nutshell, you remember that person all the time. You never forget them. You factor their existence into yours every single hour of every single day. No matter what you’re doing. And you never leave them locked up somewhere to die.

  “Think about what that entails,” he says. “Providing food. Shelter. Protection from one’s enemies. A place to rest and heal. ”

  “You forgot about the heart part. But I didn’t expect anything else. ’Cause you ain’t got one. All you got are rules. Oh, and yeah, more rules. ”

  Jo says, “Dani, can we just—”

  Ryodan cuts her off. “Those rules keep people alive. ”

  Jo tries again. “Look, guys, I think—”

  “Those rules strangle folks who need to breathe,” I say, talking right over her. Nobody’s listening to her anyway.

  All the sudden he has me by the collar, hanging in the air, my feet dangling off the ground, our noses touching.

  “By your own definition,” he says, “you don’t love anyone either. An argument could be made that you only ever do one of three things to the people closest to you: make enemies of them, kill the people they love, or get them killed. Careful. You’re on thinner ice than you’ve ever been with me. ”

  “Because I’m asking if you love Jo?” I say coolly, like I’m not hanging helpless by my shirt. Like he didn’t just take a mean shot at me below the belt.

  “It’s not your business, Dani,” Jo says. “I can take care of my—”

  “Pull your head out of your ass and see the world,” Ryodan says.

  “I do see the world,” I say. “I see it better than most folks and you know it. Put me down. ”

  “—self just fine. ” Jo is sounding kind of pissed now, too.

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  “And for that very reason, you’re blinder than most,” Ryodan says.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Still dangling here, dude. ” I try to toe the ground by pointing my foot but I think I’m a few feet above it.