FOURTEEN
“Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door”
It turns out Ryodan didn’t have diddly-squat for me to do. There were no other iced scenes to visit so he made me hang around his office with him.
I wanted to go back out and examine the debris of the warehouse scene that exploded the other night, pick through it more thoroughly for clues (thinking I could move my hidey-holes at the same time), but he told me to study all the folks and Fae through the glass floor and see if I thought any of them might be responsible for what was happening.
I said, dude, you said you think it’s happening spontaneously, like some part of Faery is bleeding through. Now you want me checking out individuals like they might be doing it. Which one is it?
He said both and went back to his paperwork. I don’t think he feels the same sense of urgency I do, since it’s only been humans getting iced lately and none of them on his turf. If he doesn’t start showing me some investigative action, I’ll be forced to work on it on my own time, and I don’t know how to squeeze everything in, plus sleep every few days or so.
Mac left pretty quick. She seemed to get real nervous about what was happening with the ZEWs. That’s Zombie Eating Wraiths for short, because that’s what they look like. They had dirt and cobwebs on their cloaks, clues to where they hole up. I relaxed once she was gone. Then I got tense again having to watch Jo down there in the kiddie subclub, showing off so much leg to the Unseelie, and there’s no question they were liking it. I’d like to have legs like Jo some day, all curvy and smooth-skinned and pretty.
No bruises!
She kept looking up at Ryodan’s office with a weird look on her face, all longing-like, like she must have known I was up there. I didn’t know she missed me so much! It made me feel bad for not spending more time with her. Sometimes she’d look real hard at the stairs like she was hoping maybe I’d come down.
I watched, sword hand itching all the while, because there were so many things in the club preying on humans that needed killing. By dawn I was a seething knot of repressed, homicidal sidhe-seer thoughts, and not one bit wiser about who or what was behind the icings.
Two good things came from the hours I sat there till he finally let me leave. I learned about four new types of Unseelie and I composed my next Dani Daily. I plan to clean it up a little visually, make it even more professional-like before printing.
Now, sitting up on my favorite water tower perch, I read through my handwritten copy one more time, proofing it before I go to press.
The Dani Daily
May 24, 1 AWC
Brought to you exclusively by
DANI MEGA O’MALLEY aka
I Give a Rat’s Ass
and unlike IMITATION
newcomers
I always have been
YOUR ONLY CREDIBLE SOURCE FOR THE LATEST NEWS IN & AROUND DUBLIN!
Who’s been bringing you the facts about what’s what ever since the walls fell? Me.
Who searched you out and brought food and news to your hidey-holes when you were too afraid to leave them? Me. Who carried messages, hunted for missing family members, and brought them home to you if they were alive? Dani Mega O’Malley.
Who dug through the rubble for wallets and IDs, and gave you back their things so you could grieve? It wasn’t some fly-by-night organization that got most of their whole first paper’s “news” out of being snarky about me. That’s not news. That’s slander. I give you facts you can use.
Who’s been killing your enemies and teaching you how to fight for the past seven months? Who rounded up the children and took them to safety? Don’t forget what you know is true just because somebody else suddenly pops up, imitating MY paper, making crazy fecked-up claims. I haven’t seen any power or water running yet that isn’t generator-powered, and, folks, I can hook that up for you.
ICare
Always will, Dublin.
Dani out!
I don’t do rebuttals and I ain’t got no love letters in me, so this’ll have to do. Once I print and post it, I’m going to hole up and sleep like the dead for ten hours. Been up two or three days now. I always forget until I’m about to keel over.
I’ve been sitting on my water tower, looking down over the city, watching the sun come up. The air is clean like it never was before the walls fell. It’s foggy but not smoggy like it used to be. I love living in a harbor town. Once, when I was nine, I stowed away on a fishing boat. They couldn’t get rid of me until the end of the day because they needed the full day’s catch. They finally ended up letting me ride up front, wind in my hair, salt spray in my face. The docks have always fascinated me with big ships coming and going places, tales of adventure and excitement stuck to their hulls like barnacles! Now they just sit, dead in the water like so much else. I’ve got a cool hidey-hole on one of them. I decide I ain’t been there in a while and I’ll catch some z’s there later.
The sky is platinum, the sea slate, and the river Liffey is sliding down through the city, metallic. Fog spills silver lace over it all. Takes my fecking breath away!
I could admire it for hours but I got a job to do.
People got short memories. They get fear-blind and easily dazzled. Especially during times of war when the world starts looking so dark and gritty that shiny things start looking shinier. I got to keep reminding them of the things they know are true.
Me and Dublin, we’re peas in the Mega pod. This is my city and my paper and I don’t give up nothing that’s mine without a fight.
I’ve never lost a fight yet.
Well, only to that fecker Ryodan. And there’s no way he’s behind WeCare. He’s like, the antithesis of WeCare. He’s, like, We-Don’t-Fucking-Care all wrapped up with We’ll-Eat-You-for-Lunch, too.
There goes my mood again. That’s all it takes. One little thought about him. I have to go to “work” again tonight like some fecking slow-mo Joe, trudging along with the masses, and the unfairness of it all is now that the world has melted down, nobody has to go to work anymore. Except me.
I bristle, realizing I can’t go sleep like the dead once I get my rag up because I have to set an alarm. Me. I have to get up at a certain time!
I’ve never paid any attention to time. Dancer says I’ve enjoyed a luxury most people never have. He hates clocks and watches and everything that has to do with time. He says people already have too many lost days and that most folks live in the past or the future but never the present, always saying stuff like “I’m unhappy because ‘X’ happened to me yesterday, or I’ll be happy again when ‘Y’ happens to me tomorrow.” He says time is the ultimate villain. I don’t really get that but that’s probably because until this very frigging moment I never had to look at a clock for anything. I woke up when I felt like it. I went to sleep when I felt like it.
If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to squeeze in five whole hours of sleep before I have to go back to “work.”
I’m aghast at the horrificness of it all. Clock hands are ticking away my life at someone else’s direction.
It’s so wrong.
I wake up slow and careful, don’t even stretch. I lay still, feeling the boat rock gentle on the waves. I love sleeping on my ship. Got it booby-trapped to the nines. I got caught by one of them today, they’re so good! I don’t open my eyes because it takes me a while to get moving. Sometimes it can take me a half hour. That’s why I set my alarm for seven instead of seven-thirty.
My alarm.
Was that what just woke me?
I don’t remember turning it off.
I fumble for my cell phone. Signal might be dead but it still plays music and games. And has a stupid alarm clock.
I encounter an obstacle between me and my phone that feels like—
“Aiy-eeeeeeee!” I make a sound I didn’t know I could make, part gasp, part shriek, and shoot straight up in bed, eyes flying open. What just came out of my mouth is so girly it makes me cringe so I grab my sword and swing it.
He knocks it out of my hand and it clatters across the floor.
I can’t even say anything for a sex. I mean sec.
This is like my worst nightmare ever in the whole world! This is worse than all the ZEWs coming after me plus the devil and all the Unseelie princes, too!
Ryodan is in bed next to me!
Sitting there, cool as you please! We’re in bed together! He’s giving me that faint smile and mocking stare. Guess he was watching me sleep. Did I snore? Was I flopped flat on my back with my mouth hanging open? I have no idea how long he’s been here! How’d he get in? How the heck did he get past all my booby traps? Obviously I’m going to have to come up with some new ones!
I try to push him off the bed. It’s like trying to budge a mountain. I hit him. Like a girl. Not even using my superpowers. Assuming I have them at the moment, the fickle fecking things. What good is it to be a superhero if you only are some of the time and you never get to know when?
He catches my fist and holds it.
I can’t get my fist out of his hand. “Dude, give me some space here! I need room when I wake up! I can’t breathe! Move!”
He laughs and I want to crawl under the covers and burrow deep and hide and pretend this is just a really bad nightmare and it’ll be over soon.
“Get off my bed!”
When he lets me go and stands, the mattress rises four inches on his side. I can’t believe I didn’t feel him sit down. Yes I can. I sleep hard.
“You’re late for work, kid.”
“What time is it?” I glance wildly around for my cell phone. I’m so sleep-discombobulated I can barely function. I spot it on the end table next to the bed. It’s smashed into a gazillion pieces. “You broke my cell phone!”
“It was smashed when I got here. You must have done it when the alarm went off.”
“It’s not like it’s my fault,” I say crossly, shoving my hair out of my face with both hands. “I’ve never had to use an alarm before.”
“Am I giving you shit.”
“You’re like, here!”
“That’s because you’re late for work, kid. Get dressed.”
Clothes hit me in the chest.
I realize I have on my favorite pjs. They’re flannel and have ducks on them. Maybe he didn’t notice. I can’t stand it. This is my place. It’s supposed to be private.
“Captain’s quarters. Pretty plush. Get moving. We’ve got things to do.” He walks to the door and heads for the deck.
“Nice pjs, kid.”