Iced
Page 139
Right now I got a ton of stuff to do, and getting around in all this snow is tedious. I cant freeze-frame for long because I have to keep dropping down and replot my mental grid. There are too many drifts and piles of ice that werent there yesterday. Every time I drop down I just about freeze my fingers and toes off. Its night, a wicked breeze is blowing in off the ocean, and I swear its twenty below with the windchill.
I snap my grid into place, whiz a quarter of a block, stop, re-plan. Freeze-frame forty feet, turn the corner on a slide, smash into a drift, roll, and remap while sliding some more. I slam into the side of a building and my breath frosts the air in a sharp white gasp. I curse and rub my side. Im going to be one big bruise tomorrow.
First up on my list of things to do is get a new Dani Daily out there before We-dont-really-fecking-Care does and totally skews the news. Folks need to know all the scoop: that the villain icing peeps is dead, they can start making noise again, the snow is going to melt, and even though it dont look like it right now, summer is going to come. They need to know I got my sword back and aint defenseless anymore. Im back on my beat 24/7, watching over things and hunting the Crimson Hag, whos going to bite the dust as soon as I can figure how to kill her and get Christian back.
Tomorrow Ill cruise around Dublin slow-mo Joe style, listening for survivors over the crunch of snow and taking them in for food and shelter, which means Ryodan is about to get a lot more folks at Chesters. Our city just keeps getting hammered with walls falling and riots happening, food getting stolen and stockpiled, and now thiskilling winter in spring. Im thinking we better get used to things never being predictable again. I suspect well lose a lot more folks before the tide starts to turn. Change is hard for most people. Not me. I love re-creating myself. Change means you get to choose again. Become something new. Unless youre dead like Alina. Then you never get to choose again. Thats why Im going to make Ryodan give me whatever secret hes got so I can live forever.
I ease back down into slow-mo to skirt a mound of ice-crusted snow. Im standing there, starting to get all broody again thinking about all the ghosts I see in these streets sometimes, when I feel the tip of something sharp and pointy in my back.
Drop your sword, Dani, Mac says, real soft-like behind me.
Yeah, right. Like Im actually falling for this. I snicker. Me and my overactive imagination. Like Mac would actually be able to sneak up behind me without my superhearing tipping me off. Like she would ever walk around at night with no MacHalo on. I got mine on and I know exactly how bright it is. If she was standing behind me, wed be making double the light Im throwing.
I freeze-frame.
Or try to.
Nothing happens. Just like those two times with Ryodan when all the sudden I just didnt have any juice. No gas in the tank, no engine in the train.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard and try again.
Still standing there.
Still feeling the tip of a spear in my back.
I said drop your fucking sword, Mac says.
I snap my grid into place, whiz a quarter of a block, stop, re-plan. Freeze-frame forty feet, turn the corner on a slide, smash into a drift, roll, and remap while sliding some more. I slam into the side of a building and my breath frosts the air in a sharp white gasp. I curse and rub my side. Im going to be one big bruise tomorrow.
First up on my list of things to do is get a new Dani Daily out there before We-dont-really-fecking-Care does and totally skews the news. Folks need to know all the scoop: that the villain icing peeps is dead, they can start making noise again, the snow is going to melt, and even though it dont look like it right now, summer is going to come. They need to know I got my sword back and aint defenseless anymore. Im back on my beat 24/7, watching over things and hunting the Crimson Hag, whos going to bite the dust as soon as I can figure how to kill her and get Christian back.
Tomorrow Ill cruise around Dublin slow-mo Joe style, listening for survivors over the crunch of snow and taking them in for food and shelter, which means Ryodan is about to get a lot more folks at Chesters. Our city just keeps getting hammered with walls falling and riots happening, food getting stolen and stockpiled, and now thiskilling winter in spring. Im thinking we better get used to things never being predictable again. I suspect well lose a lot more folks before the tide starts to turn. Change is hard for most people. Not me. I love re-creating myself. Change means you get to choose again. Become something new. Unless youre dead like Alina. Then you never get to choose again. Thats why Im going to make Ryodan give me whatever secret hes got so I can live forever.
I ease back down into slow-mo to skirt a mound of ice-crusted snow. Im standing there, starting to get all broody again thinking about all the ghosts I see in these streets sometimes, when I feel the tip of something sharp and pointy in my back.
Drop your sword, Dani, Mac says, real soft-like behind me.
Yeah, right. Like Im actually falling for this. I snicker. Me and my overactive imagination. Like Mac would actually be able to sneak up behind me without my superhearing tipping me off. Like she would ever walk around at night with no MacHalo on. I got mine on and I know exactly how bright it is. If she was standing behind me, wed be making double the light Im throwing.
I freeze-frame.
Or try to.
Nothing happens. Just like those two times with Ryodan when all the sudden I just didnt have any juice. No gas in the tank, no engine in the train.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard and try again.
Still standing there.
Still feeling the tip of a spear in my back.
I said drop your fucking sword, Mac says.
