Colder than Ice

  Colder Than Ice

  Jane Galaxy

  Eventide Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Also by Jane Galaxy

  Chapter One

  “So, should I make this out to ‘Morganna’?”

  As the young woman in the purple cape, wedge-heeled boots, and long blonde fishtail braid grinned, her friend (dressed as Red Rogue) nudged their shoulders together so they both broke into high-pitched giggles.

  From the other side of the convention booth table, Sophie couldn’t help but smile back. Passionate fans made all her hard work worthwhile—especially the ones who dressed up as her characters. It made the long hours and travel to these events not just bearable, but fun and exciting. People who wanted to talk to her—and not just click the heart on a tweet, or give her a thumbs-up on Facebook—but people who wanted to see her in person, to get the writer of the award-winning Imperium reboot to sign their comics. That was the fun part.

  “You totally should,” said the Red Rogue cosplayer. She turned to Sophie. “Definitely write that.”

  “Amanda!” cried the Morganna quietly. Her outfit really was dead-on, right down to the swirl texture on the epaulettes. Sophie would have to text Demetrius to let him know that his work definitely wasn’t going unnoticed. She knew some people were really strict about costume authenticity, but she liked to see different types of cosplays, from ones clearly handmade with an abundance of love, to the imaginative creations that mixed genres and even characters sometimes.

  She readied the trusty Sharpie she was currently using—the third one she was on since Phoenix Fan Fusion began two days before—and signed her name across the cover of Imperium: Dark Magic just above her byline, on the bit of white space created by Morganna herself standing steadfast and powerful in the wake of a bright white supernova.

  Sophie Markes.

  Finishing her autograph with a little flourish, Sophie looked up to see the Morganna cosplayer leaning over her signing table.

  “It’s McKenna,” she said.

  To McKenna, Sophie wrote. Who has the white-hot strength of a thousand stars.

  The two women moved further down the aisle of comic book creators, still chatting excitedly while flipping through the pages, leaving Sophie to sit back in her chair for the first time since the convention had opened that morning. She finally had a chance to check her texts—

  Nerds still keeping you company? her best friend Ashley had written. She was bored now that school was out for the summer and she was done coaching volleyball for a few months, and had made a point of texting Sophie every few hours over the course of this trip. Sophie made a mental note to video call Ashley later that night when she had some time alone.

  Across the aisle, a small group of guys broke into raucous laughter. Jake Dever, the creator of the Sin Girl graphic novels, leaned back in his chair and guffawed. Since they’d been neighbors for the weekend, Sophie had watched a parade of fanboys go up to Jack and make the same joke:

  “Skin Girl! She could fuck her way out of my Death Dimension any time.”

  —And every time, Jack laughed the same loud, distinctive laugh, like it was the first time he’d heard the funniest line of his life. Sophie tried not to roll her eyes, and couldn’t wait to talk to Ashley later. At least she’d only have to put up with Dever and his fanboys through the end of today.

  One of the guys over at the Sin Girl table must’ve noticed the huge Dark Magic banner behind Sophie, because he wandered over and was rifling through a stack of the last entry in the limited-run series. She could feel the muscles in her legs start to tense up, like a fight was brewing.

  Chill, Soph, not every guy here is an asshole. Maybe he’ll be fine.

  “Have you read the new series?” Sophie asked him, standing as she spoke. More than once someone had mistaken her for an assistant there to just run the cash register. “They’ll be releasing the complete version all together—”

  “Morganna, huh?” the guy said, and she felt a thin wire of irritation that had started low wind itself up through her veins. “I had some of the old comics from back in the day.” He peered up at the image of the intergalactic sorceress on the banner, wearing her full body armor. “Oh, I guess that’s her new outfit, huh?”

  It wasn’t the first time Sophie had heard about it—in person or online. But it was almost always men who dropped it into her lap. Oh… she’s got clothes on for once.

  Sophie ignored the remark and waited, mentally kicking herself for not being able to come up with a witty jab. It was a line to walk, being polite to people who were potential customers and standing up for herself against the constant little bites. Online, it was much simpler to think up a good comeback that would spark a hundred retweets. She sank back onto the chair.

  “Yeah, the real comics…” the guy was still reminiscing. “Something I found in a thrift store or something, but man,” he exhaled a breath that bordered on a shrill whistle. “Damn, those pages definitely saw some action, like, definitely got a workout. Curled edges…” She knew what was coming next, and shifted in the plastic folding chair. He was barely even talking to her now. “Pages stuck together.” He chuckled and met Sophie’s eyes, totally unfazed by her flat and direct gaze. “You don’t have any of those, do you?”

  “Breton!” one of his friends called from the table across the aisle, and waved him over.

  “Bet I could find them on eBay,” Breton said to no one in particular as he wandered back over to his friends.

  Sophie slumped back into the folding chair with a huff.

  There were fans like McKenna, and then there were… Bretons. Sophie didn’t want experiences like that one to color her opinion of comics fans, but sometimes it was tough. That wasn’t even the worst fan interaction she’d ever had. Not even the worst treatment from a guy. It was hard to deny that even though the industry’s demographics had shifted, comics on the whole were still dominated by men—male creators, male fans, and male critics. Male desires, male fantasies. Breton was a prime example: it was douchecanoes all the way down.

  She took a deep breath, and felt somehow guilty that she needed even that. Maybe he’d inspire a good villain in the next series.

  Another young man strolled up to her table, and Sophie had to work hard to smile, trying not to be suspicious of him. It was too much, but if he noticed, he didn’t say anything. Instead, the man turned to look behind him to someone Sophie couldn’t see over the table and said,

  “It’s okay, Skyler, you can come on over.”

  Sophie stood and immediately it was the best thing she’d seen all day—all weekend. Maybe at any convention she’d ever been to.

  A young girl, maybe seven or eight years old, was taking shy, delicate steps toward the table, chewing on her lip. When Skyler saw Sophie, she hid behind her dad’s legs and peeked out.

  She was dressed as the Steel Knight.

  And not just the Steel Knight, but a ballerina princess version of the character. Complete with a royal blue netted tutu, leggings and ballet slipper shoes that had been painted to look like the squar
e toes of the Knight’s famous carbon exoskeleton, and a crown—a plastic tiara crown, oh my God—painted and dressed up with jewels to replicate the flashing spotlights at the top of the load-bearing suit that Dirk Masterson had made while on the run from the government. She even had on a little backpack that looked just like the the power converter.

  Skyler looked at Sophie, and Sophie smiled back.

  And then Skyler burst into tears and buried her face in the back of her dad’s knee.

  “Honey!” he cried, turning to give her a hug. “Sorry,” he said to Sophie, “Morganna is her biggest hero, she’s just overwhelmed to see it all in person.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” said Sophie in a gentle voice, her heart going out to the little girl. “Hi, Skyler. It’s okay, I did the same thing the first time I met the Card One Comics CEO.”

  “I read the issues first, and then share them with her when I think she can handle them,” Skyler’s dad said, running one hand reassuringly over the little girl’s head. He looked up and spoke to Sophie. “We’ve read most of them before bed every night for the past year. She likes that Morganna can levitate and throw epic punches at the bad guys.”

  “That’s my favorite part about Morganna’s powers too,” said Sophie. They chatted a bit more about how the characters were developed, and finally Skyler felt brave enough to lift her head and look at Sophie head-on.

  “You know, I have an extra Morganna keychain from another convention I was just at,” she told the little girl. “I think someone who’s dedicated enough to read the comics every night deserves that, what do you think?”

  It was a pretty cool keychain—the last one. Sophie had managed to set one aside for herself out of the limited box run. But Skyler perked up so quickly that she knew it was worth it to offer it to what was probably her youngest fan.

  Skyler and her dad went off to find the main convention stage with plenty of thank yous and waves goodbye.

  And just like that, the day was brighter.

  At the motel later that night, Sophie flopped back onto the bed, bouncing a few times, and held her phone up to her nose. It had been a long, long weekend, but it was worth it. She’d definitely need rest before hitting the road tomorrow.

  Tomorrow.

  The comic festival circuit had distracted her for so many days straight that Sophie had hardly had a chance to think about what would happen after, what would happen in the next week and the months beyond.

  Hey! A text from her Card One publicist, Katrina. So how’d it go?

  Sophie looked up at the motel room ceiling. She’d sold almost every issue she’d brought, Katrina had gotten her a great booth location and new banner, and there’d been plenty of buzz since Card One’s film production wing had announced the movie version of Imperium: Dark Magic was in the works.

  But there were guys like Breton, on the other hand. She always circled back around to people like him—and there was always more than one.

  Fine, she typed.

  And erased it. Then again, there were people like McKenna and Skyler.

  Great! She typed. And erased it again.

  The banner was a really nice touch–thanks so much for getting that out.

  Awesome, Katrina replied. Have a wonderful time in LA! We’re rooting for you!

  Sophie thought about flipping the TV on, but her phone buzzed again. She looked down to find a text from Demetrius.

  howd it go you sell any prints for me

  All the posters, and the artist cards were goooone in a hot second, she typed. There was a Morganna cosplayer who got your swirl design on the shoulders perfectly. She carved them into foam by hand

  Sophie sent along the picture she’d taken of herself pointing to the epaulettes on McKenna’s costume, mouth open in delight while the young woman flexed. Demetrius responded with a string of emojis that included stars, some kind of ball exploding open with confetti, and heart-eyed cats. He was the powerhouse behind the Imperium artwork—lines, colors, and shading. The artist did it all, after Sophie finished writing the script for each page.

  nice nice niiiiiice good luck on the movie, Demetrius wrote. make sure I still have a job after this por favor

  She snorted and took a minute to find a face with a dollar bill sticking out instead of its tongue to send.

  The phone lit up and began buzzing, Ashley’s photo filling the screen. Sophie tapped on the green circle, not bothering to sit up. She grinned at the familiar face.

  “Hey, gorgeous. Did the convention go alright?”

  Ashley’s voice was good to hear.

  “Oh, the usual,” Sophie replied. “I did have the cutest little girl come up to my table, though.”

  It looked like Ashley was lying on the huge dark brown leather couch in her great room back in Omaha. The triplets were definitely down for the night, and her husband Greg was probably at the gym. Ash ran her family the way she coached her varsity volleyball team—like a horde of efficient warriors.

  “So are you all ready for the long drive tomorrow?”

  This time Sophie did sit up and leaned back against the pillows.

  “I guess it’s just been in the back of my head for the past few days, and now that it’s finally here...”

  Ashley lifted one eyebrow. She kept hers sculpted and blocky, like Marilyn Monroe, and just like everything she did, it always worked to her advantage. Somehow it made her even more authoritative—not that she needed any help. Being a nearly seven-foot-tall blonde power lifter and volleyball coach was enough to get most people’s jaws to drop just from seeing her in a grocery store aisle.

  “You’re not backing out on this, are you?”

  “What?!” Sophie immediately cried. “Of course not!”

  She’d have to be absolutely out of her mind to abandon any part of this job, dream job, of writing comic books. It had taken one hell of a leap of faith—including quitting a reliable but soul-sucking gig as a front desk admin—to get the job as writer for the Imperium reboot. She wanted this. She needed this. The part where Sophie was driving to Los Angeles to be a script consultant for the upcoming movie seemed more like an intense hallucination. She was still waiting for Katrina or somebody from Card One to text her and say they were just kidding, of course she wasn’t about to go work on the movie version of her comic book.

  In five years she’d gone from office assistant to an award-winning author who would have a movie credit. This was it, this was the huge leap forward she’d been working her ass off for for so long. She’d suffered for her art since… well, for a while now, and her block lists on social media were long, but it was all finally coming together. No way was she releasing her death grip on this career.

  “Is your stuff still in your car?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Her best friend didn’t say anything, just pointedly looked into the camera for a moment.

  “Oh my God, Ash, it’s fine, it’ll be fine. I parked right next to the door and everything’s tucked away. No one would want what I brought anyway.”

  “If you say so.” But Ash sounded a bit skeptical—for all her goddess-level athleticism, she was such a Midwestern mom, worrying about Sophie’s few boxes of personal items tucked under a blanket in the back of the compact SUV she’d had since college. If the criminal element of Phoenix, Arizona wanted her stuff, Sophie just hoped they didn’t break any windows trying to get to her ten-year-old pilled-out cardigans and half-used bottle of drugstore hand cream.

  “Oh, I was meaning to tell you,” Sophie said. “They wrote back to me about the script. Apparently the studios are skittish after last summer’s hacking incident, so they aren’t sending any pages out, email or hard copy. It’s all hush-hush and in-house, so I won’t even know the plot until I get there and they clear me for it.”

  “Well, hopefully it’s as awesome as your stories were.”

  Sophie felt a mixture of pride and gratitude bloom in her chest. Ashley was the one person that could make her feel like she was on the right pat
h forward. Imperium was the first comic book Ash had ever picked up, and she had diligently studied them all, trying hard to understand her best friend’s passion for the genre. That was what Sophie liked the best about Ash—even if she didn’t become a comic book reader, she still made an effort to care.

  Well, that and the fact that Ash looked more like Morganna in person than anyone alive. Maybe even the actress they’d chosen , Joanna Hart. Thinking about the casting notices that had been popping up in the news made Sophie’s stomach flip slightly. She was about to become coworkers with some of the biggest up-and-comers in Hollywood. Famous people. Beautiful famous people.

  “I better let you sleep,” Ash was saying.

  “Alright, goodnight. Love you, Ash.”

  “You too, babe.”

  Sophie took her hair out of its messy top knot and was about to undress for the shower when another notification lit up on her phone. It wasn’t Ashley with some last-minute message, but a badge telling her that a Twitter mutual had a post that was doing well. She slid her thumb across the screen to view it.

  My pride, my greatest achievement in adult life is definitely the number of retweets on this old post comparing Tristan Eccleston on the red carpet to vintage automobiles. Behold, in all its glory.

  Tristan Eccleston.

  One of her new coworkers.

  He was a darling of… well, everything and everyone, it seemed like. Since he’d been cast as Morganna’s brother Lucius, Sophie had spent some time looking into him. Wunderkind of the British theater scene, only son of an acting dynasty that dated back centuries, he had a legendary charm that could infatuate even the iciest drama critic or interviewer. Not that he’d ever met anyone who didn’t like him, from the way articles absolutely gushed over him.