Now it’s all tingly and weird. I study it, wondering what might go wrong with me next. Maybe stabbing the Hunter did something to me. Maybe that’s why I stalled. Maybe there are worse things on the horizon.
That is so not me! Optimism is me. Tomorrow’s my day. You never know what grand adventures wait around the next corner!
“Kid, you going to sit there all day daydreaming, or sign the fucking thing.”
That’s when I see it. I’m so stunned my mouth opens, and hangs there catching flies for a minute.
I almost signed it!
He must have been sitting over there, laughing his butt off inside, congratulating himself.
My head snaps up. “So, what exactly does the spell in the border of this thing do?” I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen a lot of spells. Ro was a pro at them. Some really nasty ones. Now that I’m seeing it, I can’t believe I missed it. Cleverly tucked into the ornate black border are shimmering shapes and symbols, slithering, in constant motion. One of them is trying to crawl off the page and onto my lap.
I wad it up and throw it at him. “Nice try. Not.”
“Ah, well. It was possible you would sign. It was the simplest solution.”
He’s completely unperturbed. I wonder, does anything shake him up, make him lose his cool, get hot about something, scream and yell? I can’t see it. I think Ryodan glides through life in the same coolly amused mood all the time. “What would it have done to me if I’d signed it?” I ask. Curiosity. I have it in spades. Mom swore it was going to be the death of me. Something’s got to be. There are worse things.
“Some secrets—”
“Yeah, yeah, blah blah, participating and all that bunk. Got it.”
“Good.”
“Didn’t want to know anyway.”
“Yes you did. You can’t stand not knowing things.”
“So, what now?” We’re at an impasse, him and me. I suspect his “application” was really a contract. A binding contract, the kind that knits up your soul and tucks it in someone else’s pocket. I heard of them but never believed they were real. If anybody had a way to sew up a soul in a business deal, it would be Ryodan. Jericho Barrons is an animal. Pure lawless beast. Not so Ryodan. Dude’s a machine.
“Congratulations, kid,” he says. “You passed my first test. You may just get the job yet.”
I sigh. “This is going to be a long day, isn’t it? You serve lunch around here? And I’m going to need more ice.”
A door I didn’t even know was there in the glass wall of his office opens, revealing a glass elevator.
Chester’s is way bigger than I thought. As we ride the elevator down, I’m riveted by the view.
And a little worried.
That he’s letting me see so much means that whether I signed his stupid application or not, he thinks he has me buttoned up.
Ryodan’s glass office isn’t the only place he can watch things. It’s the tip of the iceberg, and, dude, I do mean iceberg, as in megatons of stuff hidden beneath the surface. The central club part of Chester’s—the interior half, a dozen levels the public sees—is barely a tenth of it. That main part where everybody hangs out and dances and makes deals with the devil is constructed inside a much larger structure. Ryodan and his dudes live behind the walls of that club in what’s beginning to look like a vast underground city, from where I am. All the walls are two-way glass. They can go to any level, by elevator or catwalk, and watch anything that’s happening at any time. Serious thought went into designing this place. There’s no way they built it all since the walls fell last Halloween. I wonder how long it’s all been here, beneath the polished, glitzy, glamorous Chester’s that used to exist, hot spot for movie stars and models and the überrich. I wonder if, like our abbey, their underground world has been beneath a changing exterior for millennia.
I couldn’t be more impressed. It’s so brilliant I’m jealous. This is snooping elevated to a whole new techno-nerd level of expertise.
“Like what you see, kid.”
I pick at my cuticles, pretending to be bored.
The elevator stops and the doors swish open. I figure we must be at least half a mile beneath Dublin.
First thing that hits me is the cold. I pull my coat tighter but it doesn’t do a lot of good. Love the look of leather. Hate the insulation of it.
Second thing that hits me is the quiet. In most parts of Chester’s you can hear faint strains of some kind of music or conversation, 24/7. At least some kind of white noise. This level is still as death.
Third thing is how dark it is.
Ryodan is waiting for me outside the elevator.
“Can you actually see out there?” Does he have another superpower on me? I see good in the dark, but not in pitch-black.
He nods.
I hate Ryodan. “Well, I can’t. So, turn on some fecking lights. Besides, Shades much?”
“They don’t bother me.”
The Shades don’t bother him. Shades eat everything. They don’t discriminate. “Bully for you. They bother me. Lights. Pronto.”
“The lights aren’t working down here.”
Before I can dig one out, he removes a flashlight from his pocket and hands it to me. Coolest one I ever seen, shaped like a bullet. It’s tiny, sleek, silver, and when I turn it on lights up the hallway beyond the elevator like the sun came out.
“Dude,” I say reverently, “you got the best toys.”
“Off the elevator, kid. We’ve got work to do.”
I follow him, my breath frosting the air.
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. Th
ey 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.
“No thermometer can take it,” he says by my ear, and I realize he’s freeze-framing, too. He’s right beside me. “Don’t touch anything. It’s too cold to risk.”
I circle a Fae guard at top speed. Around and around, looking for clues. If the Unseelie King did this, why would he choose here? Why ice his own guards?
“Is this the only cl-club that g-got iced?” I stutter with cold.
“Yes.”
“Wh-When?” I stamp my foot in hyperspeed, pissed that I’m stuttering. Doesn’t matter that it’s from the cold, it makes me sound pansy. Next thing you know, I’ll lisp.
“Eight days ago.”
A few days after Ryodan cornered me on my water tower. I cock my head. I just heard a sound in a completely frozen room. I whiz back to where I was when I heard it and go in tight circles, listening hard.
Silence.
“D-Did you hear th-th-that?” I manage to spit out. My face is going numb and it’s getting harder to move my lips. I circle a human woman, frozen mid-coitus. It’s not hoar frost that turned her white. She’s covered with hard rime, the kind of ice that builds up on a cold foggy night. Over it all is a layer of clear ice a good inch thick.
“Yes.” Ryodan flashes past me. Waril
y, we circle the room on opposite ends, watching everything real careful-like.
It’s hard to listen good when you got so much wind in your ears from moving like we do. Ryodan and I have been practically shouting at each other the whole time we’ve been talking. “Like a high-p-p-pitched whine,” I say. I’m not going to be able to stay in the room much longer. There it was again! Where was it coming from? I whiz though the subclub faster and faster. Ryodan and I do figure eights between the frozen figurines, trying to isolate it.
“You f-feel that?” I ask. Something’s happening … I feel a vibration, like the floor has the tremors, like everything is … changing.
“Fuck!” Ryodan explodes. Then his hands are on my waist, and he’s tossing me over his shoulder like that stupid sack of potatoes again, and moving faster than I’ve ever managed to move in my whole life.
That’s when they begin to pop, going off like firecrackers. Fae and humans explode, filling the air with icy, flesh-colored shrapnel.
One after the next, they blow violently, and with each new explosion, the next one blows harder. The furniture is popping now, too. Sofas erupt into icy splinters of wood and rock-hard chunks of stuffing. Racks get blasted into smithereens of metal shards. It sounds like a thousand machine guns going off.
A pair of knives whiz by, chased by a dozen ice picks.
I bury my nose in Ryodan’s back. My face has taken enough of a beating for the day. I’m not in the mood for anything sharp in it. Something slams me in the back of my head and I wrap my arms around my skull. I hate being over his shoulder but he’s faster than me. I tense, pelleted by chunks, waiting for one of those nasty-looking blades or picks to sink into me.
Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever Series) Page 4
