Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever Series) (32 page)

“You think it had a goal.”

“There was … I don’t know … 
purpose
to what it was doing. I could feel it. Some Fae feel simple when I focus on them with my
sidhe
-seer sense. They’re dumb, acting on instinct, capable of random destruction. Then there are things like Papa Roach, that Fae that breaks down into little parts,” I remind him, in case he missed that especially scintillating edition of my
Dani Daily
. “Papa feels … structured. It has plans. So does the Ice Monster. But there’s a big difference between Papa and the Ice Monster. Papa has a beady little mind. This thing is … vast in construct and purpose.”

“Motive.”

I sigh. “No clue. Just that it had one.”

“No idea why it chose that place, or why it ices things.”

“None,” I say. “It didn’t even touch anything, as far as I could see. It just kind of hovered above it all. Unless the fog is like its fingers or something and it sucks folks’ life force up with it and inadvertently ices them in the process. No way around it, I need more time with it. Got to feel it out longer.”

Jayne starts cursing and says nobody is going to be spending more time with it because it’s too dangerous, and even Lor looks disturbed by the idea of another encounter with the Iceman. Which reminds me …

“Why were
you
afraid?” I say. “I didn’t think anything scared you dudes.”

Lor gives me a cool look, like I didn’t see what I saw, and says, “What are you talking about, kid? Only thing I was worried about was how pissed Boss was going to be if the thing killed you.”

Bull. I know these dudes. They don’t care about anything but themselves and he was freaked, which means it was a threat to him somehow. I want to know how. I want to know what Ryodan’s Kryptonite is. I know a few universals like: he who can destroy a thing controls it. Not that I get off on destroying things but when you get backed against a wall, coming out with both guns blazing is pretty much your only choice. I want enough power to void a contract, enough to quit my job, permanent-like. I’m ready for retirement. I want enough leverage to get Jo out of the kiddie subclub, assuming she ever wants to leave.

She will. The day he chooses someone else.

In my estimation that won’t be long at all.

Half an hour later I’m outside Chester’s, skidding holes in the rain-slicked pavement, pacing in hyperspeed, munching power bars to keep myself juiced. I’m waiting for Ryodan to get done with whatever the feck business he said he had to take care of that couldn’t wait, so we can get on with our investigation. He told me to sit tight inside the club, but me hanging around inside Chester’s without my sword ain’t real likely and he should know better than to expect it.

Then again, without my sword I’m not straying far either. I hate waiting for backup but I want it. The Unseelie princes freaked me out. I got a major thought brewing about them, an
idea I despise but have to consider for its end result. Right now I’m keeping it back-burnered where it can’t burn me too much.

I got so many other thoughts exploding inside my head that I expect a few are poking out my ears. One second I’m so excited to be living in these times I almost can’t stand it, the next I’m a nervous wreck because my people are out here in these streets and they don’t have any clue we got a big scary Ice Monster turning parts of our world into a deep freezer! I got to get the word out fast, but what do I tell them? If you see a shimmery spot in the air—run? That’s assuming they even
notice
the shimmery spot before they’re iced!

Trouble is, I know folks. You can tell them to run all you want but there aren’t a lot of people that will, until they believe they’re in major danger—which is usually too late. They gape like cows, and if you don’t know it, cows gape a lot. There used to be a big herd out by the abbey where I tested my speed and navigating abilities after Ro took me in and I was drunk on my new freedom. The cow pasture was a great place to practice freeze-framing on a dime because (a) cows move and are unpredictable, therefore hard to map like the real world, and (b) if I hit a cow it usually hurt me more than the cow. I had a riveted bovine audience the entire time. They’d chew their cud and swing their big heads back and forth, watching me like I was cow TV. If all I had to do was chew regurgitated food and watch other cows all day, I’d be riveted by me, too. Heck, that bored, I’d be enraptured by a fly battle on a cow pie.

But back to folks, shimmery spots aren’t terrifying enough to make them flee. And there are some folks, like the see-you-in-Faery chicks that hang at Chester’s 24/7, sporting new Papa Roach bugged-sized waistlines, trading sex, competing with each other to see who can eat enough Unseelie to turn immortal and get to hang with the Fae first, that would deliberately linger if they saw
a shimmery spot, just because it was, like, pretty. Gah, some chicks should be shot. Put out of everyone else’s reproduction pool.

I need a couple of pictures to put in my daily, to show peeps the gruesome finality of what the Ice Monster does. I need to get over by Dublin Castle, shoot a few frames. Then I need to get to
TDD
headquarters and fire up the presses! I love printing my dailies. I got double the reason to get one out fast now. After seeing the Unseelie Princes WANTED posters, folks are no doubt worrying their butts off about me! I need to reassure them, let them know I’m still on the job.

“You must be Dani!”

I turn.

And pop up on my heel and keep turning. I’d turn all the way to bum-feck-China if I could. I spin in a full rotation so she’s at my back again and stand there, trying to compose myself. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want her to see my face. I didn’t expect this. Wasn’t ready for it. Feck, I’ll never be ready for this. It’s one thing to know she’s out there somewhere, along with Mac. It’s another thing to have to face her.

Feck, feck, feck.

I paste on a mask, turn around and begin the pretending game.

“And you’re Rainey Lane,” I say. Same beautiful blond hair as her daughters, even though they were both adopted. Same pretty demeanor: classy feminine Deep South. She’s walking around in chilly, gloomy-ass late afternoon Dublin, dressed like somebody’s going to care she’s color-coordinated and accessorized. I guess Jack Lane does. Unlike most married folks I’ve seen—not that I’ve seen a lot—they seem to be crazy about each other. I saw them in Alina’s photo albums. I saw them in Mac’s. I’ve seen pictures of this woman holding her daughters when they were small. I’ve pored over photos of her beaming at their sides when they were grown.

Like she’s beaming at me now.

Like she doesn’t know I killed her daughter. I guess she doesn’t. I guess the last time Mac talked to her was before she found out it was me that took Alina to that alley to die.

For a second I get this stupid vision of how she’d be looking at me right now if she knew, and it kicks the breath right out of my lungs and leaves me standing there dumb. I have to clamp down all my insides so I don’t puke. She’d hate me, despise me, stare at me like I was the most disgusting, horrible thing on the face of the Earth. She’d probably try to claw my face off.

Instead of this … this … mom-love-bullshit thing glowing in her eyes like I’m her daughter’s best friend or something, not her other daughter’s murderer. I thought Mac was the worst thing I’d have to face one day on these streets.

I’m smothered in a hug before I can dodge it, which shows how discombobulated I am. On a good day I can dodge raindrops! I forget myself for a sec, because she’s got soft mom arms and hair and a neck you want to cling to. Worries melt on mom bosoms. She smells good. I’m enveloped in a cloud that’s part perfume, part something she baked lingering on her clothes, and part some indefinable thing I think are mother-hormones that a woman’s skin doesn’t smell like until she’s raised babies. It all combines to make one of the best scents in the world.

After my mom was dead and Ro took me to the abbey, I used to whiz by the house every couple days. I’d go into Mom’s bedroom to smell her on her pillow. She had a yellow pillowcase embroidered with little ducks along the edges like my favorite pajamas. One day the smell was just gone. Every vestige of it vanished without a trace. Not one tiny little sniff left for my supersniffer. That’s the day I knew she was never coming back.

“Get off me!” I eject myself violently from her embrace and back away, scowling at her.

She beams like one of Ryodan’s supercharged flashlights.

“And stop beaming at me! You don’t even know me!”

“Mac told me so much about you that I feel like I do.”

“Well that’s just stupid on your part.”

“I read the latest
Dani Daily
. Jack and I hadn’t heard of those bugs. You’ve been doing a wonderful job keeping everyone informed. I bet that’s a lot of work for you.”

“So?” I say suspiciously. I hear a “but” coming.

“But you really don’t need to anymore, honey. You can relax and let the adults take over.”

“Yeah, right. Weren’t adults in charge when the walls fell? And haven’t they been in charge since? Doing a real bang-up job, aren’t you all?”

She laughs, and the sound is music to my ears. Mom laughter. Melts me like nothing else can. Guess because I heard it so rarely from my own. I think I made my mom laugh three times. All before I “transported” for the first time. Maybe it happened once or twice after that. I tried. I’d memorize funny things I saw on TV while she was gone. I’d watch musicals, learn cheery songs. Nothing I did was right. Rainey Lane is looking at me with more approval than my mom ever did.

“Go. Away. No, wait. Don’t. You can’t be out here alone. I’ll find somebody to take you back wherever you go. What are you doing walking around Dublin alone? Don’t you know nothing? There’s all kinds of monsters in the streets! It’s going to be dark soon!” Somebody needs to knock some sense into her.

“Aren’t you the sweetest, to worry about me? But you don’t need to. Jack’s just around the corner, parking, honey. There’s too much debris in the streets to park any closer. I keep telling Mr. Ryodan he needs to clean up outside his club but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet. I suppose we may have to help him out with that. He’s a busy man, you know, a lot on his plate.”

“Crime
is
time-consuming, isn’t it?”

She laughs and I get my first suspicion she might just be totally clueless. “Aren’t you funny? Mr. Ryodan a criminal. That nice man.” She shakes her head, smiling like I’m just the funniest thing. Yep, clueless. “Dani, honey, I’ve been hoping to run into you. Mac has been, too. Why don’t you come have dinner with us tomorrow night?”

Yeah, right. Skewered Dani on the menu, served up with a side of veggies. Not. Would all three of them take turns beating me to death, once Mac ratted me out?

“There are some people I’d love for you to meet. There’s a wonderful new organization in the city that’s been doing fabulous things, bringing about some real changes.”

I shoot a big, melodramatic, beleaguered look at the heavens, then back at her. “You can’t be talking about WeCare. Please tell me you’re not talking about WeCare.”

“Why, yes, I am. You’ve heard of us!” She’s beaming again.

“Us? Gah! Please tell me you’re not part of them! You can’t be part of them! Do you know they hate me?”

“No we don’t. WeCare doesn’t hate anyone. We’re all about rebuilding and helping. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“We.” She’s slaying me. Is Mac part of them, too? “Dude, like, maybe the way they copied my paper, took over my posts, and printed all kinds of lies about me.”

“I happen to know for a fact that top individuals at WeCare are eager to meet you. They think as much of you as Mac does.”

Gee, great, so they want me dead, too. Top individuals. Lovely. They can get in line behind Christian. Who’s behind the Unseelie princes.

“They think you could be a tremendous asset. I think so, too.”

I give her a look. “You might want to recheck your facts. I
think you’re missing a few. Folks in charge of organizations don’t consider me an asset. Never have, never will.” I hate organizations. Folks got to be free, able to breathe, and make up their own minds about stuff, not be fed a party line. Ritual numbs the brain. Repetition is grass for sheep.

“Mrs. Lane, so nice to see you again,” Ryodan says, and I almost fall over. Not only didn’t I hear him approach us, he’s being polite. Ryodan is never polite.

I squinch up my face, studying him. “Dude, you feeling okay?”

“Never better.”

“Why are you, like, pretending to be nice?”

“Mr. Ryodan is always nice. He was a lovely host while we stayed at Chester’s.”

“You didn’t
stay
at Chester’s, you were
hostages
.” What is wrong with everyone that they can’t see things for what they are?

“He and his men were keeping us safe, Dani. The
Sinsar Dubh
was targeting people Mac loved.”

“Was the door to your room locked? Dude, that makes you a hostage,” I say.

“Our door was never locked.”

Huh? “Yeah, but did you even know how to get out? He’s got those tricky panels.”

“Mr. Ryodan showed Jack and me both how to operate the doors.”

Huh? “Yeah, but there were guards outside. Keeping you in.”

“For our protection. We were free to come and go. We chose to stay. The city was dangerous when the Book was loose. Jack and I are very grateful for Mr. Ryodan’s help during those difficult times.”

I scowl at Ryodan, who’s wearing a smug-ass smile. He probably worked some kind of spell on them, like the kind of thing he
did to me in the Hummer when he forced me to take the candy bar from him by muttering strange words. He makes people puppets. Empty-headed slaves. Not me.

“Do you know he’s forcing me to work for him by holding Jo hostage?” I tell Rainey. She needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

“You mean that lovely young waitress? I’ve seen the way she looks at him. She’s crazy about him,” Rainey says.

And that pisses me off even more. Mac’s mom can tell Jo’s stupid crazy about this psychopath just by looking at her? Gah! Just gah! On top of it all, said psychopath has Rainey so fooled there’s no point in even talking to her anymore! Not that lack of a point would shut me up. “Do you know he has private clubs under Chester’s where—”