Iced

She sighs and says, “That’s the only reason I haven’t stopped you.”

“You haven’t stopped us because you can’t!” I say heatedly. “You’re just one person and we’re all superheroes!”

“I won’t let it take my abbey, Dani. I won’t let these women be ripped from the only home they’ve ever known. Like you, I’m willing to risk a great deal for those things in which I believe.”

I watch her as she walks away and think she’s starting to worry me a little.

It’s nearly eight when our concert begins. We laid out sheets of plywood on the snow to hold the audio equipment and made a second platform a short distance away for the generators we’re using to power it all, then a third platform for the music source and so our tushes don’t get cold. We put that one far enough away that we don’t get iced when it shows up. We build a couple fires and stack wood nearby. My hair and clothes smell like outdoors and wood smoke, and for a sec it makes me feel like I’m on a family vacation or something. All these folks, including six that are fast enough—and I still don’t get to have a decent snowball fight!

Me and Ryodan, Christian, and Jo gather on the platform, ready to dart in and cut the tether when it comes.

“Jo shouldn’t be here,” I say. “She can’t freeze-frame.”

“I’m not leaving,” she says.

“Make her leave,” I say to Ryodan. “Unless you want to be responsible for getting her killed.”

“Ryodan won’t let anything happen to me,” she says.

I roll my eyes. “Dude,” I say to Ryodan. “Get her out of here.”

“She’s her own woman,” he says. “She can make up her own mind.”

Jo glows.

I just about puke. “Fine. It’s on your head.” Bugger it all. Now I’m going to have to watch out for Jo and worry about everything else, too.

Kat, the sidhe-seers, and a couple of Ryodan’s dudes are at the opposite end of the abbey, down by the lake, with fires burning, sitting in total silence. Conversation is forbidden. They’re to make no noise whatsoever.

I get a bad feeling looking at them. “You sure they should be so far away?” I ask Ryodan.

“We need to be split up so, worst-case scenario, we don’t all get iced.”

“Are we ready?” Dancer walks up and joins us on the platform.

“Get out of here, kid. You got no fucking superpower,” Ryodan says.

“Sure I do,” Dancer says easily. “I’m the one who saves her life when you guys would have killed her. Remember?”

“If Jo stays,” I say, cutting off my nose to spite my face, “Dancer stays.” Great. Now I got two people who can’t freeze-frame that I have to watch out for.

Dancer and me settle back against a couple of extra speakers we stacked up for something to lean against. “Crank it up,” I say. “Let’s get this party started.” I hand Dancer my iPod, loaded especially for tonight’s show. I got almost ten thousand songs on it! Motorhead to Mozart, Linkin Park and Liszt, Velvet Revolver to Wagner, Puscifer and Pavarotti and everything in between. I even got show tunes and cartoon soundtracks!

Ten minutes later Lor says, “What is this crap? Who let her load the iPod?”

“Nobody else brought one,” I say. “I chose awesome music.”

“Where the hell is Hendrix on this thing?” Lor takes it out of the sound dock and scrolls through it, looking pissed. “By whose definition is this music?”

Jo says, “Did you get any Muse? I love Muse.”

“If I’d known you all had such crappy taste in songs, I would have brought more earplugs,” I say. “Dissing my taste. Like Hendrix is even listenable. And Muse is something you do.”

“Well, Disturbed,” Jo says, “is something you are.”

“And Godsmacked is something you get,” Dancer says. “But hopefully not tonight.”

“Don’t you have any Mötley Crüe or Van Halen?” Lor says. “Maybe ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’?”

“How about some Flogging Molly,” Christian says. “Dani, my darling, how could you not like the ‘Devil’s Dance Floor’? And what about Zombie?”

“I got ‘Dragula’ and ‘Living Dead Girl,’ ” I say defensively.

“Bloody hell, ‘Living Dead Girl’ is one of my favorites!” Christian says, and grabs the iPod from Lor and starts scrolling to it.

I snatch it and hold it behind my back. “Don’t mess with my lineup. Nobody else thought to bring an iPod. That means I’m in charge.”

Ryodan takes the iPod from me so fast it’s there one sec, gone the next.

“Hey, give it back!”

He scrolls through the playlist. “What’s the deal with all the Linkin Park, for fuck’s sake.”

“Dudes, we need noise. Quit taking the iPod off the dock.” Dancer snatches the iPod from Ryodan and puts it back on the dock. “And Mega has a crush on Chester.”

“I do not!”

“Do too, Mega.”

“He’s like, old!”

“How old?” Christian says.

“Like at least thirty or something!”

Lor laughs. “Fucking ancient, ain’t it, kid?”

“Dude,” I agree. I like Lor.

“You got any Adele?” Jo says hopefully.

“Not a single song,” I say happily. “Got some Nicki Minaj, though.”

“Somebody kill me now,” Ryodan says and closes his eyes.

Four hours later I’m getting a headache.

Six hours later I am a headache, my butt hurts, and I’m low on candy bars.

Eight hours later I’m sick of Nicki Minaj.

Nine hours later I’d give darn near anything for five fecking minutes of silence.

Me, Christian, and Dancer been passing around a bottle of aspirin and it’s empty. I got earplugs in my pack but we can’t use them because we might miss something and screw up.

Across the drive, way down at the other end of the abbey, the sidhe-seers are wrapped in blankets. Dozing. Because, like, the music down there isn’t rattling the bone plates in their skull! I’m so jealous I could spit. Dejected, I eat another fecking candy bar. I hate candy bars.