Iced

I feel the ground with my palm. It’s freezing. There’s a chill that hasn’t dissipated. I wonder if it ever will. Might be kind of cool if it didn’t. You could clear the ground, build a house and never need air-conditioning. It’d suck in the winter, though.

I survey the scene. Where the warehouse used to be are piles of crumbled bricks and mortar and splintered framing, with twisted girders from steel racking everywhere, some bent, some poking straight up at the sky. Chunks of Unseelie flesh are plastered to pretty much every—

I smack myself in the forehead. “Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods, they’re not moving!” I exclaim.

There’s a choking noise over my head somewhere. “Etruscan snoods?”

I glow quietly inside. Some accomplishments mean more than others. I am officially the Shit. Now and forever. “Dude, watch your question marks. I just pried one out of you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Admit it, you lost your eternal fecking composure.”

“You have an obsession with a delusion about how I end my sentences. What the fuck are Etruscan snoods?”

“Dunno. It’s just another of Robin’s sayings. Like, ‘Holy strawberries, Batman, we’re in a jam!’ ”

“Strawberries.”

“Or, ‘Holy Kleenex, Batman, it was right under our nose and we blew it!’ ”

There’s another choking noise above my head. I could go on for hours.

“Check out this one, it’s one of my faves! ‘Holey rusted metal, Batman! The ground. It’s all metal. It’s full of holes. You know, holey.’ ” I snicker. Gotta love the dudes that wrote Batman. They had to sit around cracking themselves up all the time. “Or, ‘Holy crystal ball, Batman, how did you see that coming?’ ” I look up at him.

He’s staring at me like I have three heads.

The truth dawns on me. “Holy prostrate rugs, you lied! You’ve never even read Batman, have you? Like not one single issue. You never even watched an episode on TV! That was, like, your only redeeming quality and it wasn’t even true. You been pretending we’re superhero partners and you don’t even know the first thing about Robin!” No wonder Ryodan’s no fun to hang with. I’m so disgusted I can’t stand it!

I skirt my irritation and get back to the important stuff. “The Unseelie parts are motionless. Dead as the humans. Look at them. Unseelie don’t die. Nothing but my sword and Mac’s spear kill them that dead. Unseelie are immortal. You can slice and dice them with human weapons, and the pieces will flop around forever. These ain’t flopping. This thing is killing them dead. And we never even noticed.” Preconceptions. They trip you up every time. When something explodes, you expect to see dead things. Maybe there’s something to my idea it’s after folks’ life force. Kind of like the Shades, sucking them empty but instead of leaving husks, it leaves the whole shell of their bodies iced. “And notice something else: none of the pieces, human or Unseelie, are rotting. Why is that?”

“I’ll be damned.”

“I know, right?”

“And you didn’t notice this before.”

I glare at him. “You didn’t either. And I tried to recheck scenes twice but you made me sit in your office while you did paperwork. The third time I was thinking about rechecking a scene, I stumbled on a fresh one and almost got exploded myself.” I stand up and walk away to get a good bird’s-eye view of the destruction. I pull out the new phone I grabbed to replace the one I smashed and snap a couple pictures. “So,” I say crossly, “where to next?”

As we head for the church where I almost died, I realize Ryodan’s been keeping me so busy asking the questions he wants answered that I never get around to asking any questions I want answered. “So, what happened to me when I got frozen that night? When I came to, Dancer was there with you and Christian. Talk about unexpected. How’d Dancer get there? Who saved me?”

“I got you out of the church or you would have died right there on the floor.”

“You’re the one who took me into the church to begin with and didn’t warn me what would happen if I touched something. You’re why I almost died, dude. So, who saved me?”

“I had to take you out slow or you would have had afterdrop.”

“Yeah, but did Dancer tell you about afterdrop? ’Cause that sounds like something he would know.”

“Why did you laugh right before you lost consciousness.”

“Death’s an adventure. I lived big. Rigor mortis makes your face stick. So, who knew how to thaw me?”

“Death’s an insult.”

“At least an affront,” I agree. “Think my sword’s unfrozen yet? Maybe we should go check.”

“You’re too young to laugh when you’re dying. And no. I don’t think your sword is unfrozen. Focus.”

“Ain’t too young for nothing.”

“In some societies that would be true. Different places. Different times. You’d be old enough to be a wife and mother.”

“That’s a horrible thought. So, Dancer saved me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s how I know. Maybe we could use hair dryers to melt the ice around my sword.”

“You need to get rid of him. He’s a liability. Forget about the fucking sword. I’m taking care of it.”

I whirl on him, fists at my waist. “He’s an asset! He’s my best friend! You don’t know nothing about Dancer!”

“ ‘Nothing’ is the key word there. Because that’s what he is. Nothing. He’s just human.”

“Bull-crikey, Dancer’s the Shit!”

“He wears glasses. I bet that works out real well for him in battle. No, wait, he doesn’t battle. Never will. Too fragile. One poke with a sharp stick and his guts would spill all over the street. Sayonara, human.”

“His guts aren’t spilling anywhere. He’s supersmart and … and … and he’s super, supersmart—”

“What the fuck kind of name is Dancer, anyway.”

“—and he can build anything. He made my Shade-grenades and he made me this net of lights that charges just off me moving, and it totally outperforms the MacHalo! Besides, all Batman had was a cool costume and the best toys and the smartest ideas, and everybody knows he’s the greatest superhero of all time! Besides, I’m just human, too.”