Карен Монинг: Iced

Right now I got a ton of stuff to do, and getting around in all this snow is tedious. I can’t 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 weren’t there yesterday. Every time I drop down I just about freeze my fingers and toes off. It’s night, a wicked breeze is blowing in off the ocean, and I swear it’s 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. I’m 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-don’t-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 don’t look like it right now, summer is going to come. They need to know I got my sword back and ain’t defenseless anymore. I’m back on my beat 24/7, watching over things and hunting the Crimson Hag, who’s going to bite the dust as soon as I can figure how to kill her and get Christian back.

Tomorrow I’ll 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 Chester’s. Our city just keeps getting hammered with walls falling and riots happening, food getting stolen and stockpiled, and now this killing winter in spring. I’m thinking we better get used to things never being predictable again. I suspect we’ll 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 you’re dead like Alina. Then you never get to choose again. That’s why I’m going to make Ryodan give me whatever secret he’s got so I can live forever.

I ease back down into slow-mo to skirt a mound of ice-crusted snow. I’m 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 I’m 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, we’d be making double the light I’m throwing.

I freeze-frame.

Or try to.

Nothing happens. Just like those two times with Ryodan when all the sudden I just didn’t 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.

For Alex, my hero

BY KAREN MARIE MONING

THE DANI O’MALLEY TRILOGY

Iced

THE FEVER SERIES

Darkfever

Bloodfever

Faefever

Dreamfever

Shadowfever

GRAPHIC NOVEL

Fever Moon

NOVELLA

Into the Dreaming

THE HIGHLANDER SERIES

Beyond the Highland Mist

To Tame a Highland Warrior

The Highlander’s Touch

Kiss of the Highlander

The Dark Highlander

The Immortal Highlander

Spell of the Highlander

KAREN MARIE MONING is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Fever series, featuring MacKayla Lane, and the award-winning Highlander series. She has a bachelor’s degree in society and law from Purdue University and is currently working on the next novel featuring Dani O’Malley.