He skirts the ice sculpture’s perimeter and heads straight for the metal door in the ground. The ice ends some fifteen feet from it, about which I’m real glad because the back way in that I’m not supposed to know about is a long way from here. Takes a lot of underground navigating. And knowing him, since he heard I knew of it, he probably shut it down and had his men make him another one. But I’ll find that one, too. It’s like a game with me. Him trying to hide stuff just makes me more determined to find it.

I follow, happy he takes my word for things. Jo and Christian sure don’t. They’re behind me, peppering me with questions that Dancer isn’t answering either, I think because he’s still busy putting together all the ramifications of what we just figured out. Either that or he’s as obsessed as I am about getting every single thing in our general vicinity turned off ASAP.

I’m still missing a few facts that I don’t think I can gather since the scenes all blew up. Speculation may be all we got to work with. I know the Hoar Frost King likes ice cream but I don’t know what flavor. And I’m pretty sure he’s picky. Or else we’d all have been iced months ago.

I follow Ryodan to his office, where he cuts the power to the subclubs. With each tap of the computer screen, one more subclub dies and it’s all I can do not to hoot and holler, especially when the kiddie subclub goes dark and still.

Lights dim. Music stops.

People—the fecking sheep who should have pulled their heads out of their asses weeks ago and banded together to save our city—protest vociferously. Some just keep dancing like nothing ever happened, like they’re hearing music in their heads.

Others shrug and get back to practically doing the dirty on the dance floor, clothes half off, like everybody wants to see their Baby-Roach-slimmed butts!

“Can I talk to all the clubs at once?” I say. “You got some kind of PA system in here?”

He gives me a look that says: nice try, like I’d ever let you address my patrons en masse.

I snicker. He has a point. I could rant at these folks for hours. “You got to explain,” I say. “They need to understand what they’re up against. You got to tell them about the Hoar Frost King and that they can’t go outside and make noise or else they might die. And you got to tell them how the scenes explode, so if anybody leaves they don’t do nothing stupid with the frozen folks up there and get all cut up on shrapnel! And don’t forget to tell them that even in here they need to stay as quiet as they can and—”

Ryodan presses a button on his desk. “There will be no lights or music until further notice.” He releases the button.

“That’s it?” I say. Fecking good thing he ain’t writing the Ryodan Rag! Through the glass floor I watch folksrustle angrily. Many are drunk and don’t like this new development. They want their bread and circuses. That’s why they come here. “Boss, what the feck was that? Maybe you could, like, tell them not to leave or they’ll die?”

He presses the button again. “Don’t leave or you’ll die.”

There’s a pregnant hush then, like they all think he’s God or something, and folks and Fae stop everything they’re doing and sit down. Only after a long moment do they begin talking again.

“I think you should lock the doors,” Jo says. “Don’t let them out for their own good.”

“I’d prefer they leave. Less to draw it here.”

“If you want me to tell you what to do to keep this place safe,” I say, “you better keep them safe.”

“I thought you were disgusted by the people that come to my club.”

“They’re still people.”

He presses the button again. “If you go outside, you will be killed. If you make noise, you will be sent outside. Don’t piss me off.”

Just like that, Chester’s goes completely silent.

THIRTY-SEVEN

“The sound of silence”

I call my sidhe-seers to gather in the chapel beneath creaking eaves.

Our sanctum could once scarce contain the half of us. Seated now between marching rows of majestic ivory pillars, those who remain are swallowed in voluminous, echoing silence save the groaning of rafters and the hollow resonance of my footfalls as I walk the center aisle that leads to the sanctuary at the liturgical east of the church.

Dull, despairing eyes follow my progress. My girls occupy the front eleven pews in the nave. The ghosts of cherished friends fill the rest. It was a hard winter followed by the tease of stillborn spring.

Now this incessant snow!

I feel stronger in the chapel.

Here, the divine defies the devil at our door. Faith is an unquenchable flame in my heart. Although twice Cruce has followed me here, these hallowed floors remain inviolate. He has not been able to enter.

Reliquaries of polished ivory and gold, adorned with precious gems, attend the altar. More are sheltered at shrines where once candles flickered, until we were obliged to purloin them for other purposes. These urns and boxes hold sacrosanct bones and bits of cloth from saints canonized not by the Holy See but a more ancient church. I suffer no conflict that they reside beside acceptably venerated bones. Bones are bones and good people are good people. I beseech them all to watch over us in our time of need.

I enter the raised chancel in the sanctuary and approach the lectern. We have no power for the microphone but it is no longer necessary, as my voice will carry clearly to the few occupied front rows.