“Rot in purgatory, dude. Batman never dies. Dancer won’t either. ”
When we arrive at the church, I roll my eyes.
Five Seelie are standing in front of the demolished cathedral, amid rubble, shredded hymn books with pages everywhere like they rained down from heaven, chunks of organ, and miscellaneous debris. “Think my sword’s unfrozen yet?” I say, making a fist around the empty space where my sword hilt should be. I see sifting Fae, and all I can think of is how I don’t have my sword. ’Course, I have that thought pretty much every other second anyway.
“Kid, you’re a broken record. ”
“Well, it might be. ”
The Seelie are talking, and although they know we’re here, they completely ignore us. I ignore them, too. Despite them being so beautiful I have to pry my eyeballs off their faces. I’m not making the same mistake I made with V’lane. Getting sucked in by how gorgeous they are. Thinking they’re any different than the Unseelie. Just because they’re gold and velvet and iridescent-eyed and hunky. Christian’s hunky too. He keeps dead women by his bed.
I’m feeling major juice coming from at least one of them but they’re muting it. That worries me. Fae don’t mute themselves unless they’re up to no good, trying to pretend to be something they’re not to make us less worried when we should be really, really worried. “Fecking Fae. I wish they’d all just go away. ”
“Then what would we do for excitement. ”
I snicker. He’s got a point. I pull out my phone and snap a picture of the scene, planning to get my ziplock out next, skirt the fairies and go to work.
All the sudden there’s a disturbance in the air in front of me. It takes a sec for the dust to settle in my brain. One of the Fae just tried to sift over to me to do who-knows-what. Ryodan beat it to its destination and they collided. The Fae looks like a pissed cat, eyes narrowed, spine twitching, iridescent eyes flashing fire. I’ve seen this one in Chester’s. He has a taste for human women and the stupid sheep are nuts about him, with his tight leather pants and open shirts and sleek golden hair and skin.
Ryodan’s standing between it and me, legs spread, arms folded. He’s a mountain. Nothing’s getting past him that he doesn’t want past him. It pisses me off I need him there. With my sword, no Fae would dare bum-rush me! I’m used to more respect than this. This bites.
The Fae says all stiff-like, “His highness does not permit his likeness to be captured in small human boxes. The runt will give me the box. ”
Runt? Moi? I’m at least five-foot-three with my tennis shoes on! “I’m not a runt. I’m young and still growing. And we call them cameras, dickhead. ”
“Whose highness,” Ryodan says.
“Ours. Yours. All he suffers to live. Give me the box or the runt dies. ”
“You just try,” I say. “Better fairies than you have. Worse ones, too. They all tasted delicious. With catsup. And mustard. And a side of onion rings. ”
“Should have left it at catsup,” Ryodan says. “Less is more sometimes, kid. ” To the Fae, he says, “Queen Aoibheal. ”
“Was never our true queen. She is gone. We have a new leader. Our sacred light, King R’jan. ”
“The Fae are matriarchal,” Ryodan says.
“Were. We have decided it is time for a new rule. If not for the flaws of a woman, so many of our race would not have died, and still be dying. If not for her idiocy, the abominations would not have been freed. She was not even Fae,” he sneers. “She began her life as one of you! The indignity of it, to have been ruled by a mortal masquerading—”
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“Enough, Velvet,” R’jan says. “We do not explain ourselves to humans. Kill the runt and bring me the box. ”
“I’m not a runt. ” My hand closes where my sword hilt used to be.
“Missing something, runt?” one of the courtiers standing with the new “king” says and they all laugh. Guess everybody has seen the fecking Wanted posters. I take a mental snapshot of its face and mark it for death. Someday, somewhere, fairy.
Velvet was just getting started airing his grievances. “She forced us to grant humans rights to which they were never entitled. No more. It is a new rule. A new age. We are no longer weakened by a weak queen. ”
“I said ‘enough,’ ” R’jan says. “If I must tell you again it will be the last thing you hear for ten thousand years. You will not enjoy where you pass them. ”
I give R’jan a conspiratorial wink. “You going to give him a ‘time out,’ dude?”
Velvet looks horrified. “If you are fool enough to address King R’jan, you will do it thus and in no other manner! ‘My King, Liege, Lord, and Master, your servant begs you grant it leave to speak. ’ ”
“Wow. Totally delusionary there. ”
“Good luck with that,” Ryodan says. “She doesn’t beg to speak, or do anything else. You can lock her up, down, and sideways and it’s never going to happen. ”
I beam at him. I had no idea he thought so highly of me.
Then he’s gone. So is Velvet.
I stand there a little uncertain because Ryodan didn’t telegraph a single intention before he and the Fae disappeared. I’m not even sure who took who. Or if one took off and the other chased. All I know is both of them are gone.
I shift from foot to foot, looking at R’jan and his remaining three cohorts, and he looks at me and I try to think of something to say. Best I come up with is: “So, why are you guys here, anyway?”
“Kill the runt,” R’jan says.
I yank out two candy bars and cram them in my mouth, wrapper and all, and give them a superstrength chew that makes the wrapper explode so I can swallow some chocolate and get a rush fast, because I’ve got no sword and who the feck knows where Ryodan went. I crunch, swallow, spit out the wrappers, and lock down my grid to freeze-frame when all the sudden Ryodan’s back.
He’s standing right in front of R’jan.
“In these streets,” he says so cool-like I almost expire from the sheer coolness of it, “I’m King, Liege, Lord, and Master. You are the ‘it. ’ ”
Then he dumps Velvet’s dead body at his feet.
TWENTY-SIX
“It’s the hard-knock life”
“You did me a favor. Velvet was an annoyance,” R’jan says. “He spoke too often and too much, saying little of consequence. ”
Ryodan looks at the King’s remaining courtiers and says, “I’ll do you three more ‘favors. ’ Just say the word. Wrong one or right one. Doesn’t matter to me. ”
The courtiers sneer at him. Uneasily. We might have postured for hours and never gotten to the position of strength Ryodan established with a single action. I’m learning from him. I’d never tell him that, though.
R’jan opens his mouth then closes it, not entirely sure Ryodan didn’t just say that he was going to kill the other three courtiers if he said even one more word. Smart dude. I’m not sure Ryodan didn’t mean that, too. How the feck did he kill Velvet? I study the Fae corpse but see no obvious wounds. No cuts or … wait a minute, is that a few drops of blood on his shirt? I sidle left for a better view but Ryodan moves like there’s a tether between us, conveniently blocking it. I got no doubts he left so I wouldn’t know. He’s so fecking secretive!
Does he have my sword somewhere? Did Mac loan him the spear? Never! Obviously he’s got some other weapon that kills Fae, and I want it. The prick. He’s been holding out on me big-time. When I lost my sword he could have given me whatever he just used. I’m so pissed I could spit. He knows how to kill Fae. No wonder he’s so fearless. He’s faster than me, stronger, and has a Fae-killing weapon. I pine for the days I was the biggest, baddest superhero in town!
Abruptly, I got graphic sex images in my brain! I’m hot and uncomfortable in my jeans. Bugger it all! R’jan is a prince, a death-by-sex Fae. He’s the one I sensed muting himself so as not to draw attention to his little entourage, but now t
hat the crap’s hitting the fan, he’s going to use any weapon at his disposal. I guess he figures to mess me up to get to Ryodan.
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But R’jan is staring at Ryodan like he expects it to be working on him. Huh? I thought they were hetero and their killer eroticism only worked on the opposite sex. I realize that was a stupid assumption. It’s just that I never saw the Unseelie princes around men and V’lane always kept it muted around humans. There’s no reason, whatever the mechanism, that it wouldn’t work on both genders.
“On your knees, human. ” R’jan tosses his golden mane imperiously. “You will crawl before your king. ”
Ryodan laughs. “Is that all you’ve got. ”
I hang back, listening, not about to get closer. It’s all I can do to not start stripping. Aw, bugger, I am! My coat’s on the ground and I’m pulling up my shirt! I make a sound of protest but it doesn’t come out like that at all.
“Turn it off,” Ryodan says without even looking at me. “You’re distressing Dani. No one distresses Dani but me. ”
“I said ‘kneel,’ ” R’jan says, like he can’t believe Ryodan is still standing there.
“And I said ‘fuck you. ’ Turn it off or die. ”
R’jan cuts it off so suddenly I’m shivering, cold and miserable, like I was just sunning by a pool then got an iceberg dropped on me.
“Why are you here,” Ryodan says.
R’jan says tightly, “What the fuck are you?”
Darn good question. I wonder it myself.
“If you answer me wrong one more time, your death. ” He kicks Velvet’s lifeless body.
R’jan grimaces. Unlike Unseelie, Seelie expressions make sense to me. They’re similar to ours, I guess because they’ve spent so much time preying on us. “Something is killing our people. ”
“I didn’t know you counted the Unseelie as yours. ”
“It has visited … places other than Dublin. It has killed Seelie, too. ”
“It’s been in Faery. ”
“Twice. How dare an abomination enter our realm? Never has an Unseelie been suffered in Faery!”
The temperature drops and I tense, searching for a shimmer in the air. It was already colder near the church than in the rest of Dublin, but now the pages of the hymnals scattered around the street glisten with a thin sheen of ice. I see Ryodan looking around, too. Snow starts to fall. I realize R’jan’s temper is doing it at the same time Ryodan does. I brush snow off my bare shoulders, then I jerk, embarrassed. I was so riveted by stuff happening that I didn’t realize I’m only wearing my bra. I scoop up my clothes and yank my shirt over my head. I hate Fae.
To R’jan, I say, “Cruce lived in Faery for hundreds of thousands of years and you guys never figured it out. There’s an Unseelie in Faery for you, sitting right next to your queen. Wait!” I snicker. “I forgot. She wasn’t your queen either. She was human. Dudes, stupid much?”
“I will speak with you,” R’jan says to Ryodan, “when you make the runt be silent. ”
I puff myself up, waiting for Ryodan’s defense.
“Be quiet, kid. ”
I deflate.
“You’re certain it’s Unseelie,” Ryodan says to R’jan.
“I said it was,” I say indignantly.
“Unequivocally. ”
“Like, I even used that exact word!”
“What is this ‘abomination?’ ” Ryodan says.
“We do not know. We have never needed to know about our foul brethren. ”
“Yet you’re worried enough about it that you’re here. In a dark Dublin street. The new king of the Seelie himself. ”
It seems to mollify R’jan to hear himself called the new king of the Seelie. He looks away and doesn’t say anything for a second. Then he shivers. “It brings final death to our kind. ”
“Like the spear and the sword,” I say.
“I told you to shut her up. ”
“Answer her. ”
“She cannot understand what it is to be Fae. ”
Ryodan doesn’t say a word. He takes one step forward and R’jan immediately takes one step back all smooth, like they’re doing a choreographed dance.
“One day, human—”
“You might want to rethink what you’re calling me. ”
“—I will crush you beneath my heel and—”
“Until that fictitious day, you will answer me when I speak. ” He steps over Velvet’s body, closing the distance between them.
R’jan steps back.
“How does ‘final death’ differ from what the sword does,” Ryodan says.
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“Your puny brains were not fashioned to grasp the greatness of being D’Anu. ”
Ryodan crosses his arms, waiting. Dude’s got some serious presence. I want to be like him when I grow up. “You’ll have no brain at all in three seconds. Two. ”
R’jan says tightly, “The spear and sword end immortal life. They sever the connection that binds our matter together and scatter it to the wind. ”
“Tell me something I don’t know. ”
“Even if we die, that of which we are fashioned is still out there, blowing. We feel all our kindred through all time, impressions in the fabric of the universe. We are individual yet a skein, vast and glorious. You cannot know what it is to belong to such an enormous, divine entity. This … this … thing … whatever it is, is pruning our tree. It does more than merely unbind our matter. It scatters nothing to the wind. Nothing. It is as if those it takes have never been. Its victims are … erased. You cannot begin to perceive how painful that is for us. Death, even by the sword and spear, leaves us connected. This abomination is amputating our race, limb by limb!”
The Ice Monster is stripping away Fae existence on the deepest level. There’s something to my “life force” theory!
“You have strong incentive to see it stopped. ”
I interpret R’jan’s expression as a royal “Duh. ”
“Which makes it worth a lot to you. ”
R’jan gives him an incredulous look. “You could not hope to terminate it nor do I barter with pigs and fools. ”
“I will terminate it. You will pay me handsomely for services rendered when and how I choose to invoice you. And, one day, you will kneel before me and swear your fealty. At Chester’s. Before an audience of Fae. ”
“We could do fireworks,” I say excitedly.
“Never,” R’jan says.
“I’m a patient man,” Ryodan says.
I think about that later, as we dig through the rubble, fill my ziplock and tuck it into my backpack. I munch a candy bar to make more room in my bag. “You’re not patient. You zero in on something and lock on like a missile. You’re the most pushy, manipulative person I know. And I knew Rowena. ”
“Patience and persistence aren’t mutually exclusive. You have no idea how patient I am. When I want something. ”
“What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?”
“All of the above. All the time. ”
“Greedy bugger. ”
“Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they’re born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There’s nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn’t Nature’s way. She’s an equal opportunity killer. We aren’t born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There’s no action you can make that doesn’t spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. ”
“Are we done here yet? I got a paper to get out. ” I roll my eyes when I say it so he
doesn’t see how much what he just said got to me. I think it might be the smartest thing I ever heard anyone say. “Hey, you think my sword’s—”
“For fuck’s sake no. ”
“Geez, dude. Just asking. ”
We stop by two more scenes in Dublin that got iced, first the fitness center, then one of the small underground pubs. It’s a gaping hole in the pavement, with chunks of concrete listing in at dangerous angles. There’s nobody around to cordon it off and make sure wandering kids don’t fall in. Fortunately there aren’t as many wandering kids as there were right after Halloween. We’ve gotten most of them off the streets. Some of them refused to come in, chose to go underground instead. Got to respect that. It sucks being taken pity on by someone else’s family, knowing you’re not really part of it. I wonder how wild they’ll be in a few years. I can’t wait to see what they become. I think in a few years they’ll make a heck of an army. Growing up alone makes you tough.
Until the walls fell, I never knew there were so many places beneath Dublin. I used to think there were only a few underground rivers, a couple of crypts like the ones at Christ Church and St. Patrick’s, and maybe the occasional cellar. Dublin keeps a lot of secrets. Since the walls came down, I’ve discovered all kinds of places down under. We Irish are a canny lot, we like multiple ways out of a tight spot. And why shouldn’t we? Look at how many folks have tried to be the boss of us, and for how long!
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I peer into the rubble-filled hole. “Dude, how am I going to get my ziplock?”
“Boss, we got a problem. ”
I glance over my shoulder. One of Ryodan’s men is standing there, looking pissed. It’s a dude I don’t often see. I’ve never heard anyone say his name. I think of him as Shadow because he glides into rooms barely disturbing the air. You almost overlook him, which is a feat considering he’s a foot and a half taller than me and got to be three hundred pounds. Watches everything like me. Doesn’t speak much, unlike me. Tall and muscled like the rest of them, scarred like the rest of them, hair like night and eyes like whiskey in a glass.
“Listening. ”
“Fucking half-breed Highlander took the sword. ”
“What?” I explode. “Christian took my sword? I told you and told you it was probably unfrozen! I kept saying that we needed to go check! What the feck is wrong with you dudes? Can’t you guard a measly little sword from a measly little half-human?”
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