Then Mac came and the streets got even cooler. There’s nothing like having a sidekick superhero to pal around with. Especially one that was part sister, part mom, and all best friend.

Now, like the rest of my city, Temple Bar is a mess. Abandoned cars, wrecked and stripped, are shoved up on the sidewalks, opening a tight lane down the middle of the street for traffic. There’s broken glass everywhere from shattered windows and streetlamps; you can hardly take a step that doesn’t crunch. Newspapers and trash and husks of what used to be people blow down the streets. On a gray, rainy day it can look real grim, if you don’t superimpose a bright future over it. Mac’s mom is heading up some kind of Green-up Program, and I hear her dad is working on a Cleanup Program, as well as hearing disputes and stuff, and one day Dublin’s going to be rocking and full of craic again.

I saunter past the bright red facade of the Temple Bar of the district and feel it before I even turn the corner. I stop instantly.

It’s like a breeze blowing down on me from a glacier.

I consider not turning the corner. I haven’t investigated one of these scenes alone. I could nudge Ryodan this way tonight and pretend we just found it. It’s not like they change too much between “recently iced” and “iced for a few days.” Besides, if I turn the corner and find kids dead, it’ll totally ruin my day.

Almost dying is fresh in my mind. If I’d been alone at the church last night … That’s a weird thought. I can’t imagine me dead. I look around, and up. As far as I can tell, I’m by myself. Christian can’t be spying on me all the time. So, like, if I leave, nobody will know I’m not always a superhero. If I stay and something bad happens to me, well, my heart could stop, and there’d be nobody around to save me.

“Wussy girl! Get your cool back!” I just disgusted myself. I don’t walk away and I don’t need backup. Never have. A superhero isn’t something you play at sometimes—it’s something you are. Full-time, all the time, every day.

I flip back my long coat, liking the crisp leathery sound it makes, draw my sword and turn the corner, ready for action. My sword frosts white and my fingers get stiff with an instant chill.

In the middle of the street is one of those fancy cars Mac likes so much, totally iced, glittering diamond-crusted in the sunlight. An iced arm is sticking out the open window on the driver’s side. A dude is hanging half out the passenger side, like he tried to climb out or something, mouth open on a scream, eyes closed, fist up in the air like he was trying to fight something off. No kids. That’s a relief. Looks like only two casualties this time. That’s another relief.

I study it, absorbing the details.

This scene’s not so cold. Brutal, but nothing like the church or the subclub at Chester’s.More like the laundry scene. I figure being outside, the frosted vignettes warm up faster. Piece of cake!

I take a couple of deep breaths, locking everything down on my mental grid, psyching myself up to freeze-frame in.

Just as I’ve nearly got it perfect, right exactly when I’ve almost got everything snapped into precise place and I’m preparing to shift gears smooth and easy, folks start shouting behind me and guns start going off.

Bullets can hurt me. I’m not that superhero. It spooks me and I startle into freeze-frame before I mean to. That’s even more dangerous than leading with your head!

I blast off wild, and try to get control of myself, but it’s hard to do once I’m moving so fast. I whirl dizzyingly like a drunken Tasmanian devil and smash into the side of the iced car.

It knocks me out of freeze-frame but either doesn’t catch me so much by surprise this time or the cold isn’t as deadly as it was in the church or a little of both, because I manage to shove myself right back up into freeze-frame almost as fast as I dropped down. I can’t get my feet under control, though, because I didn’t get off on the right foot to begin with, and I slam into the car again and this time the people inside it blow like supercharged grenades into a gazillion shards of ice and I get sprayed by icy pink shrapnel.

Diamond-hard splinters of frozen flesh pierce every inch of my exposed skin. A thick dagger of ice as big around as a hot dog punctures my jeans and sinks into my thigh, and another impales my shoulder.

I get knocked out of freeze-frame again and push myself back up, and when I do, the ice splinters shove deeper into my body from the pressure of how fast I’m moving and it hurts so fecking bad that I drop back down instantly without thinking. Reflexive, just trying to stop the pain.

I start to freeze to death.

I push back up.

Ow! Shit, shit, shit, it hurts!

Down, I’ll die.

Up, I’ll only wish I would.

I stay in freeze-frame, stumble into the stupid car again, bounce back, careen off another car, and give it everything I’ve got in a violent effort to get out of the cold zone. I can’t feel my hands. I can’t feel my feet. Feck, I can’t believe I did this! Who was yelling and why were they shooting?

I push, push, push with all my might!

I collapse facedown in the street. Ice daggers bite deep. But I don’t care. I’m out. I’m back around the corner where it’s warm enough to live. I made it. At least the hundreds of splinters in me will melt now. Either they’re already starting to or I’m bleeding a lot, because something warm and wet is trickling all over my skin.

I’m out of immediate mortal danger. I won’t freeze to death. Now I just have to worry about bleeding to death.