“You do realize it will require impeccable timing. You have to draw it to a precise location, cut the tether holding the IFP, and hope the Ice Monster gets trapped in the few seconds it’s in our dimension. And whoever cuts that tether might get iced.”
“Dude, a few secs are all we need! Most of us can freeze-frame and Christian can sift. We’re darned fast! We’re setting up practically on top of the IFP. The instant the Hoar Frost King appears, we cut the tether, and both sound stage and Ice Monster get swallowed.”
Her gaze spans the fifteen yards between the sound stage and the perimeter wall of what used to be Ro’s chambers but are now hers. “And so does the abbey.”
“We’re going to retether it before that happens!”
“Again, that’s going to require impeccable timing.”
“Again, dude, we all freeze-frame. ’Sides, I heard the IFP wasn’t moving all that fast. Ryodan says as long as he’s got thirty seconds and gets it done before it enters the abbey, it’s a no-brainer.”
“And if it reaches the abbey?”
“It won’t.”
“If it does?” she presses.
“Look, we got at least a minute before it hits the abbey wall. We ain’t going to let it take the abbey.” I’m not about to tell her that Ryodan said if it entered the abbey he’d be unable to ward it off until it came out the other side. Something about a containment spell only working if you completely enclose on all four sides the object you want contained.
“One minute,” Kat says quietly. “Do you realize if it destroys this place, we will lose everything our order has spent millennia gathering? All our books and sacred objects, our history, our home. Do you see the grass and flowers growing up against the wall? Do you realize if the IFP breaches the abbey, it may very well melt Cruce’s prison and set him free? The Sinsar Dubh will be loose in our world, walking around in the body of an Unseelie prince!”
“Look, Kat, I ain’t saying it’s a perfect plan. But if you don’t have any better ideas, get out of the way and let us do our job.” I look around at the swells of snow, the iced trees, the piles of crusted drifts. “How much longer do you think we’ll survive like this?”
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!