I used to think there were only six levels in Chester’s. Now I know there are at least twenty; I counted on the way down. The level we’re on holds three very different subclubs. I glimpse things through the open doors of clubs that no fourteen-year-old should see. But then, that’s been the story of my life.
The cold is getting worse the farther down the hall we go, as we make for a pair of tall doors. It slices through my long coat, cutting into my skin. I shiver and my teeth start to chatter.
Ryodan glances at me. “How cold can you get before you die.”
Blunt and to the point. That’s Ryodan for you. “Dunno. I’ll tell you when I think I’m pushing it.”
“But colder than most humans.”
As usual with him, it’s not a question, but I nod anyway. I can take more of everything than most humans.
Still, by the time we stop outside the pair of closed doors at the end of the hall, I’m hurting. I’ve been stamping my feet with every step for fifty yards. I begin to jog in place, to keep the blood from icing in my veins. My throat and lungs burn with each breath I take. I can feel the cold pressing at the other side of those doors like a presence. I look at Ryodan. His face is frosted. When he raises a brow, ice shatters and hits the floor.
I shake my head. “Can’t.” No way I’m going in there.
“I think you can.”
“Dude, I’m awesome. I’m even All That sometimes. But I have limits. Think my heart’s getting sludgy.”
Next thing I know his hand is on my chest like he’s feeling me up.
“Get off me!” I say, but he’s manacled his other hand around my wrist. I shake my head and slant my face away like I can’t even stand to look at him. I can’t stop him. Not with words or actions. I may as well let him do it, and get it over with.
“You’re strong enough.” He drops his hand.
“Am not.” It’s been a rough morning. Sometimes I like to test myself. Now isn’t one of them. Not after my earlier stutter.
“You’ll survive.”
I look up at him. Weird thing is, as mad as he makes me, as unpredictable as he is, I believe him. If Ryodan thinks I can take it, who am I to argue? Like he’s infallible or something. Figures I’d put more faith in the devil than any god.
“But you’ll have to do it at your top speed.”
“Do what?”
“You’ll see.” The double doors are tall and ornately carved. They look heavy. When he touches the knob and pushes the door open, his fingers are instantly encased in ice. When he takes his hand away, chunks of frozen skin are left on the handle. “Don’t stop once you’re in there. Not even for a second. Your heart will last only as long as you’re moving. Stop and you’re dead.”
He could figure all that out from a palm on my chest? “And I’m going to go in there why?” I can’t see a single reason to take such a risk. I like living. I like it a lot.
“Kid, Batman needs Robin.”
Dude. I go all soft and melty inside and swallow a dreamy sigh. Robin to his Batman! Superhero partners. There are lots of versions where Robin gets way stronger. He could have had me at hello if he’d said that first. “You don’t want me to work for you. You want a superhero partner. That’s a whole different story. Why didn’t you just say so?”
He steps into the room and I hate to admit it but I’m awed that he can do it. I couldn’t and I know it. The blast of killing cold coming through the open door makes me want to cry from the sheer pain of it, makes me want to turn and run the other way as fast as I can, but he just pushes forward into it. He doesn’t move fluid, as usual. It’s like he’s shoving himself into concrete, by sheer force of will. I wonder why he doesn’t go fast, the way he’s telling me to.
That he can do it at all provokes me. Am I going to be a chicken? Let myself be outdone? This is Ryodan. If I’m ever going to be able to beat him, I have to take risks.
“What am I looking for?” I say through chattering teeth, psyching myself up to freeze-frame. I really don’t want to go in there.
“Anything and everything. Absorb all details. Look for any clue. I need to know who did this to the patrons of my club. I guarantee protection. I deliver it. If word of this gets out …”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. It can’t get out. Chester’s has to be safe ground with no exceptions or he’ll lose business. And Ryodan isn’t one of those men who will ever tolerate losing anything that’s his, for any reason. “You want me to play detective for you.”
He looks back at me. His face is coated with ice. It cracks at the seam of his lips when he speaks. “Yes.”
I can’t help but ask. “Why me?”
“Because you see everything. You aren’t afraid to do what it takes and not breathe a word of it to anyone.”
“Talking like you know a thing or two about me.”
“I know everything about you.”
The chill I get from those quietly delivered words is almost worse than what’s coming out of the club. I know people. Ryodan doesn’t talk big. Doesn’t blow smoke up other people’s tushes or bluff. He can’t know everything. No fecking way he knows everything. “Quit talking. I need to concentrate if you want me to put both my superbody and my superbrain to work at the same time. That’s a whole lot of Mega-nitude.”
He laughs, I think. The sound is flat and tinkles like ice in his throat.
I shine my flashlight into the darkened club. A hundred or so humans are frozen, mid-gyration, mid-sex, mid-dying, mixed in with a caste of Unseelie I’ve only seen a time or two: the caste that served as the Lord Master’s imperial guard. The room is decorated in tribute to their rank, all red and black, with frosted red velvet drapes and ice-dusted black velvet chaises, red leather sofas and padded racks and lots of chains on every piece of furniture. Leather straps. Sharp blades. There are puddles of black ice on the floor. Human blood.
Torture. Murder. People slaughtered.
It sinks in and I just stare a second, trying to get a grip on my temper. “You let this happen. You let people be killed by those monsters!”
“They come here of their own volition. The line into my club last night wrapped around two city blocks.”
“They’re confused! Their whole world just melted down!”
“You sound like Mac. This isn’t new, kid. The weak have always been food for the strong.”
Her name is a kick in my stomach. “Yeah, well Mom taught me not to play with my food before I ate it. Dude, you’re a fecking psychopath.”
“Careful, Dani. You’ve got a glass house of your own.”
“I got no place like Chester’s.”
“It’s a famous quote.”
“Not too famous if I don’t know it.”
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Maybe you want to talk about your mother.”
I look away. I’ll pocket my stones for a little while. At least until I know for sure exactly what he knows about me.
I turn my attention back to the room and my tension melts away, replaced by an anticipatory thrill. I love mysteries. Way to test my brain! Dancer and me do logic puzzles. He beats me sometimes. Dancer’s the only person I’ve ever met that I think might be smarter than me. What’s with this place? What happened? “You got cameras in here?” I say.
“They stopped working while everything was still normal.”
As if anything was ever “normal” in this torture chamber. Now it’s even weirder.
Each person and Fae in the room is frozen solid, silent, white, iced figurines. Twin plumes of diamond-ice crystals extend from many of their nostrils; exhales frozen. Unlike Cruce, who is contained inside a solid block of ice, these folks look like they somehow got frozen right where they stood. I wonder if I pinged one of the Fae it would shatter.
“You think it was the Unseelie King did this?”
“No reason I can see,” Ryodan says. “He’s not the kind to waste time on small stuff. Hurry up, kid. Standing in here is no picnic.”
“Why are you?”
“I take nothing for granted.”
He means he thinks it’s possible one of them isn’t completely frozen. “You’re watching my back.”
“I watch all my employees’ backs.”
“Partner,” I correct, and I don’t even like that. I was flattered when he called me Robin to his Batman, but I’m over it already. This is who he is: someone who runs a place where humans get killed for the amusement of the Fae.
I save them. He damns them. That’s a gulf between us no bridge will ever span. I’ll look into this. But not for him. For humans. Sides have to be taken. I know which one I’m on.
I go all cool inside, thinking about how many folks in Dublin need a little help to survive, and just like that I’m perfect and on fire and free, and I slip sideways into freeze-framing like gliding into a dream.
Moving like I do makes seeing things a little difficult. That’s why I stood at the door, looking in so long, collecting observations from a distance. Even freeze-framing, the chill causes intense pain in every bone in my body. As I whiz past him I say, “What’s the temp in here?” planning to get the answer on my way back around.