I know. Thats what makes me wonder if its drawing it somehow. Im not saying its coming to iron because it likes it. Maybe its trying to destroy the iron by icing it. Maybe one of the Fae summoned it to destroy the only means we have of imprisoning them. Maybe trying to understand something that can open a multidimensional portal, sail across the sky, open another portal and vanish, is as much an exercise in futility as trying to divine the motives of God.
You believe in God?
Dude. Only God could have created physics.
I snicker. Or Pop-Tarts.
He grins. See. There you are. Proof of the divine. All in the chocolate smudge around your mouth.
I got chocolate on my face?
Kind of hard to see with all those ziplock lines but yeah.
I sigh. Someday Im going to be around Dancer with no guts in my hair, no weird clothes on, no black eyes or blood, and no food on my face. He probably wont recognize me. But what about those two places in Faery? I say.
What about them?
Theres no way theres iron in Faery.
Assumption. Potentially erroneous. The walls came down. Everything got fractured and Faery has been bleeding through to our world. Maybe parts of our world are bleeding through to Faery, and there are railroad ties or bells in those parts. We need samples from Faery.
And how the feck are we going to get those? Why dont we just try to lure it with iron and see what happens?
Thats plan B. Lets try to get samples first and Ill keep analyzing this stuff. Theres something Im missing. I can feel it in my gut. I need more time with the evidence. Besides, even if we got it to come, what would we do with it then? We need to know what draws it and how to stop it. You get the samples. Ill work on the rest. If theres no iron in Faery, we know were back at square one without having to round up tons of iron and find a place to stack it all up where nobody will get hurt.
I push up and head for the door.
As Im leaving, he says, Dont go to Faery yourself, Mega. Make a sifter do it for you. We cant lose another month. I got a bad feeling about these iced places.
Cause they keep exploding?
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. No. Like theres something worse about them. A lot worse. I cant explain. Its just a hunch.
I know Dancer. When he gets a hunch, what that really means is his subconscious is seeing something he hasnt wrapped his conscious brain around yet. Every time hes ever told me he had a hunch, hes worked his way around an epiphany. I trust him like I never trusted anybody. Ifhe wants samples and more time, hes got it.
I head up and out into the Dublin night. A light snow is falling. The moon has a blood red ring.
Theres one sure place to find a sifting Fae. Conveniently, its also the third place we need a sample from. With luck, Ill be back here in a few hours with the final three ziplocks to complete our evidence chain.
My luck aint been so good lately.
THIRTY-THREE
Whos your daddy?
Chesters. Feckin-A, I hate this place even more than I used to. The line outside tonight is nuts. Its zero degrees in Dublin, snows begun to fall in earnest, theres a killer wind kicking up and still five blocks of folks are shivering outside, bundled in layers of clothing, huddled together waiting to get in.
I blast past them in fast-mo, skidding on an icy spot, whiz around one of Ryodans human bouncers whos got his hands too full controlling the crowd to stop me, jump the ladder down to the main entrance and explode through tall black doors into the club.
Its rocking tonight same as always: music thumping, lights flashing, folks partying up a storm. We got something icing our city, killing innocents everywhere, turning it into an arctic zone in June, and this is what folks are doing about it. Dancing, laughing, getting drunk, getting laid, acting like the walls didnt fall, the world didnt lose half the human race, and nothings changed.
I stand on the platform inside the door that overlooks it all for a sec, scowling, blowing on my hands, trying to warm them up. I need gloves. And a scarf and earmuffs. The scowl doesnt last long because I get distracted from being pissed by the song thats playing. Its one of my oldie faves from a few decades back, heavy on bass, and its so loud it vibrates the soles of my combat boots, all the way up my legs and into my belly. My bones rumble with resonance. I love music because its so fecking brilliant. Music is math, and math is the structure of everything and pretty much perfect. Before everything got so crazy, Dancer was teaching me stuff about math that dazzled me.
My scowl comes back.
Jos in the kiddie subclub, dressed all sexy, laughing at something some skanky waitress said, moving sleek and pretty with the music as she goes from table to table, chatting up the customers and occasionally looking around, like shes keeping an eye on things in general, or watching for someone. Shes still got those highlights and sparkly boobs. Ill be real glad when that stuffs gone and shes the Jo I know again.
Im going to make her quit tonight. We dont owe a dead man anything, and if the other dudes think to try to enforce our contracts, well, were walking out anyway and they can just try.
You believe in God?
Dude. Only God could have created physics.
I snicker. Or Pop-Tarts.
He grins. See. There you are. Proof of the divine. All in the chocolate smudge around your mouth.
I got chocolate on my face?
Kind of hard to see with all those ziplock lines but yeah.
I sigh. Someday Im going to be around Dancer with no guts in my hair, no weird clothes on, no black eyes or blood, and no food on my face. He probably wont recognize me. But what about those two places in Faery? I say.
What about them?
Theres no way theres iron in Faery.
Assumption. Potentially erroneous. The walls came down. Everything got fractured and Faery has been bleeding through to our world. Maybe parts of our world are bleeding through to Faery, and there are railroad ties or bells in those parts. We need samples from Faery.
And how the feck are we going to get those? Why dont we just try to lure it with iron and see what happens?
Thats plan B. Lets try to get samples first and Ill keep analyzing this stuff. Theres something Im missing. I can feel it in my gut. I need more time with the evidence. Besides, even if we got it to come, what would we do with it then? We need to know what draws it and how to stop it. You get the samples. Ill work on the rest. If theres no iron in Faery, we know were back at square one without having to round up tons of iron and find a place to stack it all up where nobody will get hurt.
I push up and head for the door.
As Im leaving, he says, Dont go to Faery yourself, Mega. Make a sifter do it for you. We cant lose another month. I got a bad feeling about these iced places.
Cause they keep exploding?
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. No. Like theres something worse about them. A lot worse. I cant explain. Its just a hunch.
I know Dancer. When he gets a hunch, what that really means is his subconscious is seeing something he hasnt wrapped his conscious brain around yet. Every time hes ever told me he had a hunch, hes worked his way around an epiphany. I trust him like I never trusted anybody. Ifhe wants samples and more time, hes got it.
I head up and out into the Dublin night. A light snow is falling. The moon has a blood red ring.
Theres one sure place to find a sifting Fae. Conveniently, its also the third place we need a sample from. With luck, Ill be back here in a few hours with the final three ziplocks to complete our evidence chain.
My luck aint been so good lately.
THIRTY-THREE
Whos your daddy?
Chesters. Feckin-A, I hate this place even more than I used to. The line outside tonight is nuts. Its zero degrees in Dublin, snows begun to fall in earnest, theres a killer wind kicking up and still five blocks of folks are shivering outside, bundled in layers of clothing, huddled together waiting to get in.
I blast past them in fast-mo, skidding on an icy spot, whiz around one of Ryodans human bouncers whos got his hands too full controlling the crowd to stop me, jump the ladder down to the main entrance and explode through tall black doors into the club.
Its rocking tonight same as always: music thumping, lights flashing, folks partying up a storm. We got something icing our city, killing innocents everywhere, turning it into an arctic zone in June, and this is what folks are doing about it. Dancing, laughing, getting drunk, getting laid, acting like the walls didnt fall, the world didnt lose half the human race, and nothings changed.
I stand on the platform inside the door that overlooks it all for a sec, scowling, blowing on my hands, trying to warm them up. I need gloves. And a scarf and earmuffs. The scowl doesnt last long because I get distracted from being pissed by the song thats playing. Its one of my oldie faves from a few decades back, heavy on bass, and its so loud it vibrates the soles of my combat boots, all the way up my legs and into my belly. My bones rumble with resonance. I love music because its so fecking brilliant. Music is math, and math is the structure of everything and pretty much perfect. Before everything got so crazy, Dancer was teaching me stuff about math that dazzled me.
My scowl comes back.
Jos in the kiddie subclub, dressed all sexy, laughing at something some skanky waitress said, moving sleek and pretty with the music as she goes from table to table, chatting up the customers and occasionally looking around, like shes keeping an eye on things in general, or watching for someone. Shes still got those highlights and sparkly boobs. Ill be real glad when that stuffs gone and shes the Jo I know again.
Im going to make her quit tonight. We dont owe a dead man anything, and if the other dudes think to try to enforce our contracts, well, were walking out anyway and they can just try.
