Looking at Ryodan is like staring the devil in the face. It’s obvious what he’s felt the most — nothing. Ruthless. Cold dude.

“I won’t ever hurt you unless you make me, Dani.”

“You being the one who gets to decide what constitutes the definition of ‘make.’ Big fat lot of wiggle room in there.”

“I don’t need wiggle room.”

“Because you annihilate.”

“Another of those fancy words.”

“Dude. What did you just do to me?”

“Gave you what you needed but were too stubborn to take.” He closes my fingers around the candy bar with his. I can’t shake him off fast enough. “Eat, Dani.”

He drops me back into my seat, puts the Humvee in gear again and takes off.

I munch the candy bar despite the sour taste in my mouth, thinking how I used to be invisible.

“Superheroes are never invisible,” he says. “They’re just deluded.”

Turning my head toward the buildings flashing by, I screw up my face and stick out my tongue.

He laughs. “Sideview mirror, kid. And careful. Your face’ll stick like that.”

I head out into the streets with boxes of freshly printed dailies (I love the smell of new ink!) in a battered grocery cart the minute my time is my own again. I can run with a cart and slap my papers up on poles faster than I can do it on my crotch rocket. My bike’s for pleasure, for pure downtime, when I got nothing else weighing down on me, like always saving the world. I don’t get to ride it much.

Ryodan’s reminder that I’m to report to work every single night at eight P.M. on the dot is still ringing in my ears, making me nuts. What the feck can he possibly have to torture me with every night? Is he icing these stupid scenarios himself just for an excuse to mess with me?

I head west and begin my usual route. It’s a little after midnight. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple hours, then I’ll start hunting for Dancer again. I’m getting a little worried about him. Most times he goes somewhere else without telling me, he’s only gone a few days. I don’t know all his haunts any more than he knows all mine but I’ll keep checking those I do.

I’ve got certain posts and poles and benches that folks frequent, like regular newspaper stands, waiting for my latest updates. Folks have probably been a little worried with my paper being late and all. I’ve got important info to share tonight.

I glance down at my rag, proud of it. The ink is crisp and clean, and it looks real professional.

May 21, 1 AWC

New Unseelie Caste!

Update your DDD Manual!

BROUGHT TO YOU EXCLUSIVELY BY TDD YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR THE LATEST NEWS IN & AROUND DUBLIN!

Dudes, I discovered a brand new kind of Unseelie hanging at Chester’s!

Calling this one Papa Roach, and I don’t mean the band! Take notes: it’s three to four feet tall, with a shiny brownish-purplish segmented body, six arms, two legs, and the smallest head you ever saw, like the size of a walnut, with little fish-egg eyes. It can break down into segments that are the size of roaches that crawl inside your clothes, and get under your skin — LITERALLY!

If you see this thing coming, run like heck because I haven’t figured out a way to kill it yet. You want to carry a can of hair spray or fill a spray bottle with gas and always have some matches on you (I got a blowtorch myself). That way if you get cornered, you can spray them and set them on fire. It doesn’t kill them but it sure keeps them busy while you run.

I’ll keep you posted, Dublin!

Dani out!

I don’t tell them the worst part is what Jo told me this morning — that some of the waitresses at Chester’s encourage the bugs to get under their skin. I don’t want to give them any ideas. This Unseelie has a specialty: it feeds on human fat. Presto — tiny waist! Hello bug — goodbye cellulite! Don’t like those dimpled thighs? Bug up. The walls haven’t been down long enough for folks to get dystopian-thin, and with the amped-up sexuality of so much Fae royalty walking around dangling the promise of potential immortality, the focus on fashion and beauty has never been more extreme.

Jo told me that a couple of the waitresses are real proud to have one. It’s becoming a status symbol or something, like hair extensions or boob jobs. Jo said the waitresses claim they don’t kill humans, they just eat their fat, and they can hardly feel them in their skin at all.

I think that’s bull. I think they hitch a ride because they’re getting more from humans than fat. I think they experience everything their “host” experiences: pleasure, pain, whatever. The Unseelie are bugging us and we let them. They invade our bodies and gather intel from the inside, then report back to Papa, who probably reports back to the Unseelie princes, the better to prey on us. What do these idiot waitresses think? That the bug will eventually return to its own body and leave them all pretty and thin, no harm no foul?

Dude, it’s an Unseelie! There’s always a catch.

I zip around the corner to my first pole, grocery cart rattling.

When I see one of my papers from last week still hanging up, gleaming pinkish-white in the rosy moonlight, it surprises me. Folks always take them down, and take them home, wherever that is. Darn few get left behind.

As I get closer, I realize it’s not my paper.

What the feck? What’s on my pole? Folks know to leave me notes at the General Post Office.

I slip into fast-mo, get nose-to-nose with it.

I’m so flabbergasted my jaw about hits the pavement.

May 20, 1 AWC

YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR CREDIBLE NEWS IN AND AROUND NEW DUBLIN BROUGHT TO YOU BY WECARE WE BRING YOU ALL THE NEWS THAT MATTERS.

WE WILL HELP YOU SURVIVE!

WECARE

“Gah, dudes! Plagiarize much?” I pluck the offending matter from my pole and almost drop the thing, my eyeballs are so freaked out. “The Dublin Daily not The Dani Daily? Like, maybe they could have an original thought? Holy mimicking monkeys, they aped my intro! Hardly even changed any fecking words!”

I scan it, quick-like.

Don’t be fooled by IMITATION dailies. The Dublin Daily is the ONLY daily you’ll ever need. We can help you TURN YOUR POWER AND WATER BACK ON!!!

Join us now!

Unlike IMITATION dailies, WeCARE delivers all the important news direct to your door, no matter how difficult your “door” is to reach.

DON’T subject yourself to terrible threats in the streets in order to read OVERINFLATED JUVENILE BOASTS that advise you to indulge in DANGEROUS fireworks and battles!

WeCARE will come to YOU.

WeCARE will fight your battles FOR YOU.

WeCARE will keep you safe and IN THE LIGHT.

Who cares about you? WE do.

WeCARE.

“Buh!” It’s all I can come up with. “Buh!” I say again. I can’t even stand to keep reading. I ball it up and crush it into a tiny hard wad. Finally I manage, “Imitation?” I’m so perturbed I can’t even cuss. I can barely talk. “Overinflated? Who’s writing this drivel?”

I been keeping Dublin safe and in the light since last October! Months of delivering food and supplies to folks too scared to leave their hidey-holes. Months of fighting monsters, of finding and collecting little kids that got orphaned on Halloween when their folks were out celebrating and never came home because they got devoured by Shades or some other Unseelie. Months of rounding up people and taking them to Inspector Jayne so they could learn to fight.

Nobody else ever bothered to step forward and help folks survive.