I was amused to hear Ryodan had begun publishing a daily paper, Ryodan’s World News, a fact that chafed Jada enormously. When Enyo handed her Ryodan’s paper, she was even more rankled to find it well-written and informative.
“People rush out to get it every morning,” Enyo told her. “They pass it around like the latest YouTube video gone viral.”
Jada’s scowl deepened and I knew what she was thinking: The Dani Daily had been midlist at best, but Ryodan’s paper was a number one bestseller. She was only mildly mollified when I pointed out that becoming well-known in the media was probably Ryodan’s worst nightmare, without going into detail in front of Enyo about the whys.
Immortals survived eternity by hiding themselves, staying well out of the media, yet Ryodan had known that the world needed a strong, well-spoken leader to follow in times of pending catastrophe, and decided he was the only one that fit the bill.
Yep. King again.
I wondered how many other centuries and countries he’d taken over in times of crisis, and if he understood how lucky he was that Cyberspace was currently down. Like every other nine-day wonder, once we saved our world he might be able to melt quietly into the background without having to tolerate a Facebook fan page devoted to him, where people eagerly posted reports and photos of the latest Ryodan sighting. I couldn’t think of much else that would piss him off more. Well, I could think of a few things.
According to Enyo, Ryodan had mysteriously leveraged the leaders of the black market to provide free food and supplies to all the Guardians and armed guards throughout multiple countries, as well as taken over WeCare’s meeting houses, turning them into free soup kitchens, feeding anyone who came in hungry, turning no one away.
“He did not,” Jada snapped, sitting up straighter. “Sorry, Enyo, I was willing to go along with you right up until that one. Ryodan doesn’t give a bloody damn about the fate of the human race, and he would never divert his resources to feeding them.”
“It sure looks like he cares to me,” Enyo said hotly. “I’ve seen him out there in action, personally keeping tabs on every inch of this city and all its operations. I’m beginning to think the man never sleeps.”
I could assure Jada he didn’t. But I wasn’t about to.
She screwed up her face in a look of such utter disgust that for a moment all I could see was young Dani again, and I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling.
“Oh, why don’t you just bloody saint the man, then?” she growled. “Ryodan this, Ryodan that. Ryodan’s World News, my ass. Doesn’t he know you need a catchy title? A little alliteration, a lilt to roll along the lips?”
“Either that or just the latest news,” I said without thinking, then absorbed the look on Jada’s face and added hastily, “Not that yours wasn’t. It was. I loved your papers. They were endlessly entertaining and informative. The Dani Daily rocked, and that one Jada Journal I saw—”
“Oh, stow it, Mac,” she snapped. “His idiotic paper is…” She glanced down at it irritably, where it lay smoothed out on her lap. “Good,” she allowed tightly. “He reports the news in a calm, objective manner that instills confidence that someone knows what’s going on, and inspires hope. He has his finger on world events—not just what’s happening in Dublin like I did—and his frigging bullet points at the end of it, with lists of things for people to do each day, focuses them on tasks that keep them too busy to panic.” She sighed and muttered, “Fucker.”
That was it. I laughed. It felt like forever since I’d seen her looking like a disgruntled porcupine. Her passion and temper were rising to the surface again.
I agreed. His bulleted lists were a terrific idea, as was posting the paper early each morning before people woke up. No one greeted the day at a loss for what to do, which meant fewer people sitting around bitching, working themselves into a panic, spreading the mood, then the next thing you knew you had a riot forming. He kept them pointed at tasks, moving from one “to do” to the next, and as I’d learned myself a little over a year ago, lists were a damned effective way to manage messy emotions.
After a moment, Enyo continued, and I narrowed my eyes as I listened, beginning to wonder if this tough, battle-hardened sidhe-seer might not just have a bit of a crush on Ryodan. I glanced at Jada and knew by her expression that she was wondering the same thing.
Ryodan had divided the city into numbered districts, Enyo told us, with admiration blazing in her eyes, and each district’s paper had a different bulleted list at the end containing tasks specific to that small enclave of people. Once they arrived on the job, they were assigned to teams, where they began the day with a discussion of what they were going to accomplish and how it served their long-term goals and needs, were fed three squares while on the job, and finished the day with an inspiring wrap-up talk. Each site was run by a foreman who’d been hand-selected by Ryodan for his motivational and leadership skills.
“Okay,” Jada said acidly, kicking her legs over the back of the shattered Chesterfield she’d been perching on and stalking over the paint-stained floor to the door. “That’s all the rah-rah Ryodan crap I can take in one sitting. I need to get out there and see what’s going on with my own eyes.”
I was surprised she was just leaving without waiting for Enyo to take off so she could say, “Wow, Mac, you’re the Seelie Queen now, what’s up with that?” or something similar. But no one had seemed to want to stick around once we returned to Dublin. Cruce had instantly sifted out without a word, Barrons had tersely asked me to “please go to the bookstore and wait there until I get back, and yes, I did just say please, and no, not because you’re the bloody queen of the Faery but because I want you to do it and not argue,” before stalking off with Lor and Fade to find Ryodan. I’d tossed a mild “Okay” at his back, deciding he needed a breather. Finally being free of the evil clutches of the Sinsar Dubh was breather enough for me. I was ready to get invested in the next thing and forget about the last until I went back to destroy the Book for good.
As Jada banged out the door, I remembered my little bell was broken and made a mental note to procure a new one. Assuming I still had a door to attach it to, a building to hang said door on, and a planet for my bookstore to exist upon in a few months.
I tuned back in to the conversation Enyo was still carrying on, despite Jada leaving and my obvious distraction, just in time to hear her say, “So, all in all we lost two hundred and thirty-four of our women the night of the battle and another seventeen the morning after, but in recent weeks we’ve gained nearly twice those numbers from the influx into Dublin.” She added with satisfaction, “Word’s gotten around this is the place for sidhe-seers that are hungry to kick some Fae ass.”
I sat up straighter, kicking my feet over the side of the broken chair I’d dragged from a pile of debris I’d not yet had time to remove from the store. Another seventeen the morning after, she’d said—which for me had been earlier today.
The image the Book had fed me of Jo dying had taken place in the morning. I wet suddenly dry lips. “Do I know any of the sidhe-seers that were killed? Not that I know many on a first name basis, but there’s Kat and Cara, Shauna and Margery, and who else, let’s see, Josie and Jo…” I trailed off, looking at her expectantly.
Enyo said, “We thought we’d lost Kat but she turned up again just a few days ago. Not saying a word to any of us about where she’d been but acting and looking totally different.” She narrowed her eyes. “I, for one, would really like to know where the hell that woman was because I’d bet my eyeteeth she somehow managed to convince Ryodan or one of his men to train her. She wasn’t nearly so cool and strong before she disappeared.” Envy flashed across her beautiful, golden-skinned features. “Don’t know what those men are, but I’d sure like to. And I’d like to get my own stint of training in with one of them.”
“And the other sidhe-seers?” I gently nudged her back to the topic.
“Shauna’s alive, out at the abbey. Cara’s dead, as are Margery and Josie
. But the death I most want to avenge is Jo’s.”
My vocal cords were abruptly strung so tight they squeaked like an out of tune violin when I opened my mouth and tried to speak. I had to take several slow, deep breaths before I managed to get out a quiet, “What happened to her?”
Enyo’s nostrils flared, her gaze turning murderous. “None of us know for sure but I can tell you this much—it was a bad death.” She locked eyes with me and said with sudden, savage intensity, “I think about that, you know. In this world, the way things are, you’re a fool if you don’t. What’s a good death, what’s a bad one, and how you want to go when it’s your time. When it’s my time, I want to be doing something that matters, betters the world, and saves people’s lives. I want my death to mean something.” She lapsed into silence, staring off into space, scowling for a long moment, then said in a low, fierce voice, “Jo’s death didn’t mean a damned thing. It looked like an Unseelie stumbled on her while she was searching through the wreckage for food and water to bring us. Whatever did it also put rat poison in the water jugs she’d been collecting. We lost two more sidhe-seers before we figured out that bit of twisted nastiness. If I ever find the Unseelie that killed her, I’ll do to it what it did to her,” she said from between clenched teeth. “Every last fucking bit of it.”
I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly, carefully. I could change the subject right now. Never ask. Never know. “What did it do to her? I want to know the details,” I said in a voice that must have sounded as terrible to her as it sounded to me. She gave me a weird look, so I added hastily, “How can I help you get even with it if I don’t know what it did?”
She eyed me with new interest and nodded. “You carry the spear and I hear you’re a null. We might work well together.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded back.
Leaning forward, in a voice taut with rage, she told me every detail, interpreting my complete immobility and silence as an appropriate show of abject horror and like-minded rage.
When she finished, she pushed to her feet, bristling with restless energy, told me she was due back at the abbey and would catch up with me later, so we could get to work identifying the monster that had done such horrific things to Jo and go hunt it together.
As the door banged shut, I hung my head and, after a long, wheezing inhale during which so much pain exploded inside my chest that it locked me down from lungs to lips, I doubled over heaving in silent, suffocating convulsions, pounding the floor with my fist. Finally, just when I thought I might die, a sob ripped free from my throat with such force that it burned like fire and I began to cry.
No, I began to keen. No, I began to gnash my teeth and tear at my hair and wail like my Irish ancestors’ legendary banshee.
I knew what monster had killed Jo.
Me.
JADA
I was so irritated, I didn’t even think of accessing the slipstream.
I walked like a Joe, hands shoved deep in my pockets, scowling at the day, muttering beneath my breath, unaware of the passage of either scenery or time until I realized I was standing in the middle of the green at Trinity College.
I stopped walking and took stock of myself. I was feeling dangerously like Dani again. That was unacceptable. I had a world to save. And a personal mission I had to find time for.
The past twenty-four hours felt as surreal as if I’d been battling Silverside again. Although in Dublin thirty-five days had passed, for me it was a mere twenty-four hours, give or take a few, and those twenty-four hours had been jam-packed with crises, each carrying significant emotional currency.
The battle at the abbey. Watching my women die. The fire. Shazam and my meltdown. Ryodan burning himself. The Sweeper capturing us. Mac’s sacrifice. Dealing with the cuff and Cruce. Hacking off Ryodan’s head with my sword. Trying to predict the Sinsar Dubh’s moves. Mac regaining control over the Book, joining us in Ryodan’s office, then losing it again. The Sinsar Dubh grabbing me in that scant split second I’d still been processing Mac’s transformation, swiping the spear and nearly strangling me, the floor dropping out beneath us, falling, getting up and dashing into the White Mansion in a desperate bid to position the stones around her before she reached the queen.
Failing.
The queen passing the True Magic of her race into Mac and shoving her back through the mirror, so we could contain her while she was immobilized. The painful mixture of triumph and grief as I’d watched the blue-black wall flare into life, incarcerating my friend in a prison where I’d had no idea what hell she might suffer. We’d only just reconnected again.
I dropped down onto a bench, turned my face up to faint tendrils of sun that penetrated a dense cloud cover and just breathed.
I smiled faintly, remembering the moment Mac had stepped out of the prison, leaving the Sinsar Dubh behind.
Then I scowled, thinking about “Saint Ryodan.”
Then I got ahold of myself, emptied my mind of everything, centered myself with my breath, stood and performed a kata to reengage my energy. Abandoning myself to the fluid motion, I became nothing but a strong young body capable of fueling a stronger young mind. By the time I permitted myself to remember the past twenty-four hours again, they rolled off me like water from a duck.
I was calm, energized, and ready for the day.
My feet had taken me to the place I needed to be. They usually did. Some might say they hadn’t the night I’d run from Mac and leapt into the Hall of All Days, but I didn’t see things like that, as if there were clearly defined right and wrong turns in life. There was what I’d done. And what I was going to do.
Right now it was time to add my brainpower to the mental energy being harnessed at Trinity College, and amp it up a few hundred thousand kilowatts.
I found Dancer alone in a long, narrow laboratory in the physics building, beneath a bank of windows through which intermittent shafts of sunlight spilled.
He was peering into a microscope, oblivious to my presence, so I paused in the door, watching him.
I used to watch him a lot when we were young, wait until he was engrossed in a videogame or a movie, and stare unabashedly. I’d thought he had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I’d admired his hair, the way he sprawled like a cat soaking up sun, how he often smiled at an inner thought, sometimes laughed out loud.
His hair was a mass of dark tousled waves that told me he’d been thinking hard, running his hands through it incessantly. He had on tight, straight-legged faded jeans, black hiking boots, and a black tee-shirt with the words: I’M LIKE PI—REALLY LONG AND I GO ON FOREVER. There were two pencils stuck behind his left ear. I couldn’t see his right one but was willing to bet he had a couple stuck behind that one, too.
He stood, peering into the scope, and when he raised his hand to adjust it, the muscles in his shoulder bunched and smoothed out again. I narrowed my eyes, noticing how well-defined his arm was and that his skin was lightly tanned from stretching out in the sun on those rare days it shone. When did he develop that biceps? How did I miss how thick his forearms were, my geeky, hunky friend? When did his shoulders get so cut and how had I missed the swell of his traps? My gaze dropped in an objective inquiry to ascertain whether the rest of him matched. It did, and I was struck again by the notion that I’d simply not seen him when I was young. I’d found him attractive in a boy-genius way. I’d failed to notice he was a man.
“Hey,” I said, nipping that bud of thought before it blossomed further.
His head whipped up and he moved so fast he caught a beaker with his elbow and knocked it over. It tumbled from the counter, hit the floor and shattered before he could catch it.
He stared at me a long moment then said coolly, “So. You’re back. Again.”
I offered him a smile and said lightly, “Back like Jack. In like Flynn. Ready to brainstorm like—” I couldn’t think of a name that rhymed with brainstorm. “—Einstein on his best day?”
He didn’t smile back. He l
ooked tired and there were dark circles under his eyes.
Grabbing a nearby broom, he yanked the dustpan from the handle and began sweeping up the broken glass. Without taking his gaze from the floor, he said, “It’s been thirty-five days, four hours, and—” He looked at his watch. “—sixteen minutes since you were last seen alive, in case you were wondering. But I doubt you were. Time doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it means to some of us. That’s how long you were gone this time, as near as I was able to calculate. You were last spotted leaving Chester’s the night of August eighth.”
If the way he was beating the floor into submission with his broom was anything to gauge his mood by, he was seriously mad at me.
I considered the past twenty-four hours. I’d had a job to do. I’d done it. “I’m sorry,” I said simply. And I meant it. That day, so many years ago, when he’d gotten mad at me for disappearing into the Silvers with Christian, I’d gotten mad right back.
But I’d learned a few things since then. Such as, it’s pure hell when you care about someone and suddenly they’re gone and you don’t know if you’ll ever see them again.
I moved into the room and waited for him to stop assaulting the floor with a cleaning implement.
He kept at his angry sweeping for a few moments without saying a word then finally stopped and looked up at me. His gaze was guarded, remote.
“I mean it,” I said softly. “I’m sorry. Time really didn’t move the same way where I was. It was critical I go back into the White Mansion. For me, it was only twenty-four hours.”
“How long before you went into the Silvers did you know you had to go?”
He was asking if there’d been enough time that I might have left him a note or gotten a message to him somehow. “As long as it took me to freeze-frame directly from Chester’s to the White Mansion. Critical means ‘at an immediate point of crisis.’ ”