TWO
“Ice ice baby”
Since I sleep like the dead, I come to hard. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve fallen asleep or been knocked out. I’m always broody at first because I can’t shake off slumber as fast as most folks. My dreams get tangled up with the real world and it takes a while for them to melt away, like icicles dripping off gutters in the morning sun.
Not this time.
I come up from unconsciousness like a live wire: flat on my back one second, the next on all fours, then I’ve got my sword at Ryodan’s throat.
He knocks it away. It flies out of my hand and crashes into the wall of his office.
I lunge after it and crash into the wall myself, but who cares? My sword’s in my hand again. I spine up to the wall, blade straight out in front of me, never taking my eyes off him, waiting for him to try to take it from me again. It’s going through his heart if he does.
“We can do this all day if you like,” he says.
“You knocked me out,” I say through clenched teeth. I’m spitting mad, my face is throbbing and my teeth hurt. It’s a wonder I have any left.
“Correction. I got in your way. You knocked yourself out. I told you to watch where you’re going.”
“You’re faster than me. That means you’re supposed to yield right of way.”
“Like we’re cars. Cute. I don’t yield. Ever.” He hooks a foot around a chair and kicks it toward me. “Sit.”
“Feck you.”
“I’m stronger than you, faster than you, and lack the human emotion that drives you. That makes me your worst nightmare. Sit. Or I’ll make you sit.”
“I can think of a couple worse,” I mutter.
“You want to play games. I don’t think you’ll like mine.”
I think it over. I’m worried because of earlier, when I stalled. What if it happens again and he figures it out? I’m double worried because he knocked me out cold, mid freeze-frame. It’s obvious I can’t escape if he doesn’t want to let me go. I’m in Chester’s, on his turf, with all his men in the vicinity. Even if Barrons is around, he’s not going to help me. I’m pretty sure TP has him hating me now.
I take stock of the room. I’ve never been in his office before. LED screens serve as cove moldings, lining the entire perimeter of the ceiling, flashing from one zone to the next. From here Ryodan watches everything. I’m in the guts of his club.
“How’d I get here?” There’s one possible answer. I’m just trying to buy more time to orient myself. Gingerly I touch my nose, feel the tip. It’s alarmingly bulbous and squishy.
“I carried you.”
It makes me so mad I almost can’t breathe. He knocked me out, picked me up like a sack of potatoes, toted me through the streets of Dublin and hauled me through the middle of all the skeevy folks and fairies that hang at Chester’s, probably with everybody staring at me and smirking. I haven’t been helpless for a long time.
Fact: he could do it again if he felt like it. Over and over. This dude standing in front of me could chain me down worse than anything my mom or Ro ever did to me.
I decide the wisest thing is to humor him until he lets me leave. Then I’ll eat everything I can get my hands on, test myself, make sure I’m working right, hole up somewhere safe and lie low for a while. I’ll spend my time in hiding, working on getting faster and stronger, so I never have to put up with a moment like this again. I thought these kinds of days were gone for good.
I sit.
He doesn’t look all smug like I would have. He gives me … like a look of approval or something.
“Don’t need your approval,” I say irritably. “Don’t need anybody’s.”
“Stay that way.”
I scowl at him. I don’t get Ryodan at all. “Why am I here? Why’d you bring me to Chester’s? Get to the point. I got stuff to do. Busy schedule, you know. I’m in demand.”
I look around. The office is made of solid glass, walls, ceiling, and floor. Nobody can see in, but you can see out. It’s freaky walking on a glass floor. Like the bottom’s dropping out of your world with every step you take. Even sitting, you feel a kind of vertigo.
I look down. There are acres of dance floor beneath me. The club has multiple tiers, maybe a hundred subclubs on split levels, each with its own theme. Seelie, Unseelie, and humans hang together and strike who knows what kind of deals. Here in post-wall Dublin, anything you want can be had at Chester’s, for a price. For a second I forget he’s there, fascinated by watching it all between my high-top sneakers. I could sit here for days, study stuff, get smarter. Itemize every caste of Fae, spread the word around the city, what they are, how they can be defeated, or at least escaped from or restrained until I can get there to kill them with my sword. That’s a big part of the reason I’ve been so determined to get inside Chester’s. How can I protect my city if I can’t warn everyone about all its dangers? I got a job to do. I need all the intel I can get.
There’s a Seelie male on the dance floor, blond and beautiful like V’lane was before he dropped his glamour and revealed himself as an Unseelie. In the next subclub over is a lower caste of dark Fae that I’ve never seen before, shiny wet and segmented, with— Ew! The many segments are coming apart and scurrying off into a hundred different directions like roaches! I hate roaches. They begin to disappear up people’s pants legs. I pick my feet up off the floor and sit cross-legged on the chair.
“You watch everything.”
It’s not a question so I don’t answer. I look at him, fold my arms and wait.
There’s that smile again.
I poke out my lower lip defiantly. “What am I? Like a walking joke to you? Why do you always smile when you look at me?”
“You’ll figure it out.” He moves to his desk, opens a drawer, pulls out a sheet of paper and hands it to me. “Complete and sign this.”
I take it and look at it. It’s a job application. I give him a look. “Dude. Post-apocalyptic world. Who does job applications anymore?”
“I do.”
I squint at it, then him. “What are you paying me?” I angle.
“Dude. Post-apocalyptic world. Who does money anymore.”
I snicker. First sign of any sense of humor he’s shown. Then I remember where I am and why. I wad it up and throw it at him. It bounces off his chest.
“You’re wasting time, kid. The sooner you do what I tell you, the sooner you can get out of here.” He goes to his desk, gets another and hands it to me with a pen.
I relax. He plans to let me leave. Maybe even soon.
I skim the application. It has the usual blanks: name, address, date of birth, education, prior job history, places for signature and date. Fanciest application I’ve ever seen, with the name CHESTER’S worked into an ornate border that frames the page.
Everybody clings to something when the world melts down. I suppose Ryodan likes having his business details all squared up, no matter the chaos at his door. It’s not like it’ll kill me to fill out the stupid thing, agree to do whatever he wants, then get the feck out of here and go into deep hiding. I sigh. Hiding. Me. I pine for the days when I was the only superhero in town.
“If I fill this out, you’ll let me leave?”
He inclines his head.
“But I have to do some kind of job for you?”
He inclines his head again.
“If I do that job, are we through? For good? Just one job, right?” I have to make this convincing or he’ll figure out I plan to disappear.
Once more he gives me that imperial nod that’s hardly a nod, like he’s stooping to acknowledge my puny existence.
I don’t ask him what the job is because I have no intention of ever doing it. I’m never going to be anyone’s solution to folks’ problems again. I crossed lines for Ro. Big lines. Deep lines. She’s dead. I’m free. Life starts now. I study him. He’s perfect stillness, with the light behind his face as usual, features in shadow.
Cats get still like him. Before they pounce.
Something’s going on here, bigger than I’m seeing.
My face hurts. My eyes are puffy and the left one’s trying to swell shut. “You got any ice?” I need to buy time to figure out what’s going on. Plus, if he leaves for ice I can snoop through his office.
He gives me a look I’ve seen men do before, especially to women: chin down, looking up from beneath his brows, with a faintly mocking smile. There’s something in that look I don’t get but the challenge is unmistakable. “Come here,” he says. “I’ll heal you.” He’s sitting behind his desk, watching me. Still, so still. It’s like he’s not even breathing.
I look at him. I don’t know what to make of him. Part of me wants to get up, go around that desk and find out what he’s talking about. “You could do that? Make my bruises and cuts go away?” I’m always beat up and my muscles are constantly strained from overuse. Sometimes I burn through my shoes and scrape the skin right off my feet. It gets old.
“I can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life.”
“How?”
“There are some secrets, Dani O’Malley, that you learn only by participating.”
I consider that. “So. You got any ice?”
He laughs and presses a button on his desk. “Fade. Ice. Now.”
“Gotcha, boss.”