Winter (Mist Riders Book 2)

by Stella Fitzsimons

  The double doors of the Palacio swung open. Winter rushed out taking fire from every direction. Bullets cut through him, blasting him back against the door.

  I scurried to him, staying low. The assault rifles opened fire again. My ears rang. Breaking glass and splintering wood stabbed into my flesh like hot pins, then a bullet exploded into the center of my back. Any resistance shield would have been useless against such an assault.

  I went down. My spine crumbled, my insides burned, I gasped for air, but instead of air my lungs drowned in blood.

  Winter stumbled to his feet and raised his hands defiantly. A new round of thunderous shots tracked Winter when the bullets froze in midair, inches from Winter’s extended palms, as if stopped by an invisible barrier. The bullets dropped harmlessly to the ground.

  I struggled to draw air into my lungs. Everything hurt at once. I reached out and grabbed onto Winter’s blood-stained pants.

  He removed my hand with a firm grip and sprinted down the gravel road after the shooters. Within seconds, he vanished from view.

  I tried to get onto my feet but found it impossible to move. I was losing blood too fast. My healing process was compromised. I stayed still, bringing every spark of energy to the bullet holes.

  From a distance came the blood-curdling sound of brutal impact, then silence. Total silence. Not even the birds chirped.

  I was fading away when I saw Winter’s legs marching back toward me. He had healed completely whereas I moaned through thin breaths, trying to expel bullets from my wounds.

  He was far ahead of me in the immortality game. How many centuries would it take me to get there?

  “You are stronger than you know,” he said softly, almost lovingly.

  “It hurts,” I said between sobs.

  “I know. We all feel that pain. Learn to accept it.”

  A few bullets fell out and my body started to swell in healing power.

  “What the fuck was that?” I asked, wiping tears from my eyes.

  “A welcoming party,” he said. “They clearly don’t want us to see inside.”

  “Are they the freaks who took Emmet?”

  “Don’t think so.” He used a handkerchief to wipe blood from my face.

  “Why don’t you think so? What don’t I know?”

  “We know there’s at least one Immortal involved. They wouldn’t have sent men with guns to try to stop us.”

  “Unless the Immortal has a chaotic sense of humor,” I said. “Get it? Chaotic… see what I did there?”

  He nodded, almost sympathetically, at my wordplay.

  “I’m even funnier when I have more blood,” I said, still delirious from blood loss and his gentle pampering.

  “Even funnier?”

  “Stop being a mean man,” I said. “You have to admit, our boy Chaos is kind of a fan of the failed mission for sake of annoyance concept.”

  He considered my eyes for a long while. “Those were ghost guards. They are neither human nor supernatural. They were created specifically to guard Eternal archives and vaults. Normal magic is useless against them because they didn’t derive from the magic world. They weren’t here for us, Luna. They protect what’s inside and I have yet to discover what that might be.”

  “Perhaps a pot of gold?” I said. “Or, maybe, some lucky charms.”

  “Good,” he said. “You’re replacing blood. That was a bit funnier.”

  “You don’t know funny,” I said. “But why this place? It’s no one’s first choice for anything. It’s an eternal dump at best.”

  “It did come as a surprise to find them guarding an abandoned taxidermy museum of all places,” he said. “I guess being the last place was the point.”

  “So, we’re screwed,” I said. “Our presence here will soon reach the ears of the Immortal Magistrate Courts and beyond.”

  He looked away into the distance. “It only reached about fifty feet in that direction. They have been rendered silent.”

  “Oh,” I said. What else could I say?

  He rose and walked to the door. He glanced back. “It’s now or never.”

  I forced myself up. I inhaled the putrid air. I took my sweater out of my backpack. It had somehow made it through with only one bullet hole in it.

  “How about never? I mean, that’s the Eternals’ turf?” I said, pulling the sweater on over my head.

  “The whole world’s their turf,” he said, fastening his gaze on me. “But, hey, if you want to forget about saving the smug wolf, we can stop now.”

  I was just saying. Sheesh. I knew we were going in.

  With a grunt I followed him into the Palacio. Two standing Egyptian mummies and four human skulls on spikes decorated the anteroom which opened onto a large hall. We were greeted by grim-looking sculpted busts on pedestals, most likely representations of Eternals and Divines. To the left, a row of glass cases sported various small creatures of the Deep Down in odd poses, several of them extinct.

  Off to the right, embalmed animals of unnatural size stared menacingly at the void—grizzly bears, lions, wolves, tigers, hyenas…

  I swallowed hard. These weren’t animals per se, they were shapeshifters captured in their beastly forms while trying to escape.

  We walked through a low doorway and came into a dark room. Winter snapped his fingers. Supple light filled the space, framing objects in the room with sharp contours.

  The collection of medical equipment and devices, including imaging machines, surgical instruments, infusion pumps, monitors and an operating table with a real body lying on it, shook me.

  The body was pale and dry as if drained of all its blood. A surgical incision cut across the front from the throat down to the navel. The skin had been peeled to the side, revealing bones and a deep cavity where the gut should have been. In fact, the entire torso was empty of organs.

  Winter opened a freezer door in the back of the room. Bodies in various stages of decomposition rolled out. There were monsters with two heads, others with tentacles on their backs, and still more with long sharp claws.

  There was a troglodyte and more humanoid variants, and there was a woman that looked, well, human. A gray dress covered her emaciated body and her eyes were left wide open. I placed my palm on her face to close her eyes when I sensed raw, elemental energy twist my insides.

  The dead woman had been a lunar witch.

  “It’s appalling,” Winter said. “They’ve been conducting experiments.”

  Rage fueled my magic, forcing it to rise. My aura quaked about me. Glass tubes cracked. The floor trembled. I clenched my fists to prevent a dangerous escalation that would burst out and take down the building.

  “Relax,” Winter said. “We don’t know what lurks inside these walls.”

  I could still hear energy roaring in my head. “Is this why they want Emmet? And me? For their sick experiments?”

  He ignored me and motioned to a door in the back.

  It was a basic office. A moldy odor hit our nostrils. Winter opened a window, disturbing the dust particles on the desk and file cabinets.

  “What is the actual reason we’re here?” I asked. “You never said.”

  “A notation in the database. There were to be a number of shapeshifters transported to the Palacio before being transferred to an unknown jurisdiction.” He dusted the desk with his right hand.

  “Transferred by whom?”

  “That’s also unknown.”

  “Unknown seems to be our only lead.”

  “Stop whining and look for clues.”

  “Is mold a clue?”

  “Look for anything that connects in any way to the wolf boy.”

  I glanced about the room. There were filing cabinets on two walls. We split up the cabinets to search. I opened a top drawer. I stroked the backs of the tan folders inside and pulled one out. I leafed through pages of sketches and diagrams that meant nothing to me. Looking for something when you didn’t have even the foggiest idea of what you’re looking for was difficult.


  Winter started on the other side, opening drawers in rapid succession, dumping their contents on the floor.

  I heaved a sigh. “Our fingerprints will be all over this shit.”

  “Your fingerprints are the last thing you should be worried about.”

  He had a point. My etheric field was the real beacon for our enemies.

  I copied him, yanking drawers open and rushing through the contents until I came upon a file with E.G. printed on its tab.

  Sweat glistened on my fingers as I opened the file. Emmet’s passport photo was clipped onto a page with text written underneath in what I assumed were letters of the Greek alphabet.

  “Winter,” I said, handing him the text. “I have no idea what it says.”

  He fixed me with a knowing stare. “That’s because it’s ancient Greek.”

  “Please, tell me you can read ancient Greek.”

  His eyes sparked. “Let’s just say that Aristotle and I enjoyed more than a few drunken symposiums.”

  “Aristotle was your drinking buddy?”

  He grinned, then turned serious.

  “What is it?”

  “According to this, a group of shifters were moved to a holding facility outside Whitehorse, Yukon.”

  “In Canada?” I said. “Why do I sense there’s more to that?”

  Winter hesitated. “The Fifth Council meets in Whitehorse next week. It’s our only Canadian Magistrate Court.”

  “The Fifth Council?”

  “The council that monitors human activity and online trending to ensure that basics never even begin to form the idea that we exist.”

  “It looks like they’ve graduated to kidnapping,” I suggested.

  “Or that’s what someone wants us to think,” he said. “Either way, there’s only one way to find out.”

  “We go to northern Canada.”

  “I will fly to Whitehorse. Alone,” he said.

  “That’s probably exactly what they want.”

  He considered my words. “I’ll bring Kirsi as backup.”

  “Why is it always Kirsi?”

  My question revealed something to him. “Luna, do you really think she was chosen randomly as your guard?” He spoke slowly as if to a child. “I chose her because she is one of the few I can trust. She’s also a friend.”

  “A friend? Is that Winter speak for yet another conquest?”

  “Must you revert to jealousy every time like a schoolgirl? Although it may be flattering, it is not dignified.”

  “Jealous of you?” I said. “Dream on, dude. I’m worried about possible complications if you two have a moment and then have a fall out. I wouldn’t want a lover’s quarrel to ruin our mission. Emmet’s life is at stake.”

  Bringing Emmet up might have been a mistake. The only reason Winter was willing to help at all was because he wanted me to owe him, or because he maybe thought he owed me, or because of some grand manipulation he was planning. His motivation didn’t matter. What mattered was that we save Emmet and derail the diabolical Immortal conspiracy.

  “No need to worry. We’re both adults.”

  Did he mean unlike me? “Kirsi needs a vacation. I’m going.”

  He grinned. “As you wish.”

  Now it all made sense. He knew I would offer. Of course, he did. That was the entire reason why Kirsi was involved at all and I had walked straight into it yet again. Winter had maneuvered me like a chess piece, so I’d volunteer to be his sidekick, the very thing I had vowed never to do.

  CHAPTER 13

  ____________________________________

  Heavy clouds obscured the night sky, cloaking the half moon. Strong gusts bent tree branches as falling leaves whizzed by in a frenzy. I pushed the apartment door open with my boot and flipped the light switch. I’d been so restless since I got back to San Diego I needed to apply my nervous energy to some manual task, or I’d lose my mind.

  If it were up to me, I’d have flown straight to Whitehorse after Tijuana, but Winter had to use some nuance with the Seventh Council to cover for his absence before taking off again. Apparently, it was a time for the Immortal councils to be in session and his absence was conspicuous.

  I slid out of my jacket and carefully sat on my ruined sofa. It’d take inhuman effort to order my place, but it was better than being trapped at Winter’s condo, sulking. Faion had decided to return to his dorm room. I made him promise to call right away if he noticed a single unusual thing.

  I decided to start with my most cherished possession—my books. I got down on my knees and collected the least damaged hardcovers first, stacking them in even piles.

  Someone whistled outside my window. I stopped working to listen, then returned to my task. Another, louder whistle stopped me cold.

  I slid open the window to look outside. I was on the second floor. The ground below was clear, a row of green shrubs swaying in the wind.

  In the apartment windows across the street dim lights glowed.

  Chaos swung forth right in front of my face like a nightmarish shadow. His fingers somehow clawed onto the window frame. He grinned.

  I shrieked and backed away, shocked to my core.

  Chaos leapt through the window and landed on the gutted sofa.

  My throat went dry. It was the first time I saw him indoors. He looked huge in my cramped lodging—not only tall, but powerful. His hulking arms and thick neck felt primitive and virile. His eyelashes were long and his gaze piercing. His hair was darker than I remembered, and his black jeans and black trench coat created a slick impression like he was a movie hitman.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” he said, running his fingers back through his long hair. “Edgy décor… has a Bohemian dope fiend vibe.”

  My heartbeat jackhammered, but I did not run. “Yeah, well, my interior decorator was a real douchebag.”

  Chaos laughed in approval. He had a giddy, barely masculine laugh.

  “There was a more elegant time when college girls dared not use such vulgar dictums,” he said.

  “Only a man would view such patriarchal times as elegant,” I said, ready to drop some truth on this brutish relic of a man.

  He stopped laughing and studied me. “There is an unusual aura that rises from you when your temper rises. Curious.”

  “I am a woman, not an object of curiosity.”

  “You are a woman,” he said. “Indeed, as well as many other things.”

  “So, did you bring the proof we talked about? Or were you too busy with the usual tasks of hijacking women’s minds, kidnapping supernatural creatures and cutting up their bodies for pointless experiments?”

  He moved closer. “What sickly fascinations have rooted in your mind?”

  I backed away, giving myself room to maneuver if I had to fight.

  “Isn’t that your thing? Messing with lives out of deranged boredom?”

  Keeping my cool was excruciatingly difficult. His eyes bored holes in my brain, short-circuiting my thought process. If I brought up Emmet, he’d for sure deny the whole thing and I’d be out of moves. The best strategy was to let things play out.

  He circled me. I shuffled to the right to stand near the kitchen, so I would not find myself cornered or pressed up against a wall with no escape.

  Chaos glanced about the place, intrigued. “What happened here?”

  So, we’re playing a game of pretend. Great.

  “A failed tryst of some sort?” he probed. “Jealousy broke out during a ménage à trois?”

  “Madman,” I said.

  Wicked glee shaped his grin. “What are you hiding, pumpkin?”

  I raised my right fist to his chin. Energy sizzled between my knuckles.

  “A nice high-voltage treat. Want a to try a little zap?”

  Amused, he flashed perfect white teeth. “No foreplay, Luna. I am here to solve a riddle, the one you won’t share.”

  “I have no riddles for you,” I said, “but I do have a question. It’s bothered me since we spo
ke. Why didn’t you just come and talk to me once you learned what I was? Why orchestrate the metamorphic night?”

  He shrugged. “It was a question of scale. I needed an illustration of your capabilities. And you needed to understand exactly who and what I am before we talked. That way I would have your undivided attention.”

  “In other words, you’re even crazier than I thought.”

  He tapped a finger so hard against his skull I could hear it. “Think about it, moon kitten, you would never have believed a word I said if I had not proved Magistrate Winter’s deceit.”

  “Did you do that? I don’t think you proved anything.”

  He vanished within a puff of purple smoke. When he reappeared, he was standing inches from me. I tried to step away, but he was too quick. He grabbed my wrists and pulled me closer. I fought but he gripped tighter.

  An arm folded around my waist, his other hand interlocked fingers with mine, and away we went, spinning and twisting in a painful, bizarre, old-fashioned sort of dance.

  “Let yourself go, Luna Mae,” he said. “You’re as brittle and stiff as a dried-up old lady. You must live a little while you live forever.”

  We kept spinning me, his eyes hooked onto mine, and I gave up trying to control anything. I let him lead, curious as to where this was going, and soon enough we were waltzing to a phantom tune, kicking aside debris and broken glass with our dancing feet.

  The lunatic smelled good. I detected lavender and clove. His dark hair fell to his shoulders—vitality shone through his eyes.

  After a while, he loosened his hold and I pushed him away.

  “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, jellybean,” he said, pouting. “Dance with me more before the day is lost.”

  I planted my hands on my waist. “No.”

  He reached out his hand and I slapped it away.

  “What part of no don’t you understand?”

  His mouth bent into an impish smirk. “A word of such finality means nothing to those of us who shall never end.”

  I walked away, snarling under my breath. I felt his gaze on my backside and turned around. I caught his eyes on me for a fraction of a second before he looked away.