Winter Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  “We have more pressing matters than the surrender of our secrets,” Erik said quickly.

  Ginger recalled that he was the leader of the Pyr. “Do you all have roles?”

  “No,” Niall said, then shrugged. “Or perhaps we don’t all know of our destiny as yet.”

  “Some of us have affinities for specific elements,” Donovan said. “Rafferty has a strong bond with the earth.”

  “While Niall has a connection with air, and thus the wind,” Quinn contributed.

  “Quinn, as the Smith, has the closest bond with fire,” Erik said.

  “While Erik’s connection with air gives him the gift of foresight,” Donovan contributed.

  Ginger sat down, feeling a bit overwhelmed. “What about Delaney?”

  Erik exhaled and frowned. “That’s why we’re here,” he said quietly, and Ginger knew they were just as worried about him as she was. “Sloane is the Apothecary of our kind, and he has tried to heal Delaney since he was compelled to ingest the Elixir.”

  “The firestorm is part of it,” Sloane said. “Delaney made the first big step in his recovery when he was drawn to Donovan’s firestorm.”

  Alex cleared her throat and folded her arms across her chest. “Donovan’s firestorm?” There was a twinkle in her eyes, though, and Ginger understood that this group knew one another well.

  Delaney was lucky to have such a group of friends.

  “Alex and Donovan’s firestorm,” Sloane clarified, and Donovan chuckled. “And I think Delaney has a chance for a complete recovery because his own firestorm has come.”

  “But?” Ginger asked, hearing the implied qualification. She perched on the lip of a kitchen chair that seemed to have been left vacant just for her. Niall slid a mug of coffee onto the table beside Ginger and she spared him a smile of gratitude.

  They were welcoming her to their company, each in their own way, and she appreciated their thoughtfulness.

  “Ginger is some kind of cook,” Thorolf said.

  “Later,” Niall chided, and went to make another pot of coffee.

  “Well, she is.”

  “Thanks,” Ginger said, smiling at Thorolf.

  “Best spaghetti sauce ever,” he said with approval.

  Erik cleared his throat, managing to sound stern. Thorolf flushed and became quiet.

  “There’s a piece of the puzzle missing,” Sloane said, and Ginger knew what it was.

  She gave him the verse Rafferty had written down and his eyes lit with excitement. He passed it around to the Pyr, each reading it in turn. There was tangible excitement in the room.

  “Something changed,” Ginger said. “He promised me that he’d try to come back from destroying the Elixir, and something changed.”

  “What?” Sara asked, leaning closer.

  “The shadows in his eyes. They were gone.”

  “But what of the red in his nails?” Erik asked.

  Ginger was uncertain what he meant.

  “He showed me last night,” Erik said. “His scales were turning red. And he was cold, so cold.”

  “Oh!” Ginger said, remembering Magnus’s tale.

  “Magnus said Cinnabar had turned all red when he went to find him. He also said he made Cinnabar be the source of the Elixir, and that Cinnabar was fading.”

  “What else?” Sloane asked.

  “He said Cinnabar had to be replaced, and I had the sense that he was planning for the replacement to be Delaney.”

  “But he wasn’t counting on the firestorm,” Sloane said with satisfaction. He opened the book. “This is an old treatise,” he said. “It was in code, the kind of letter code that people have always used to hide their secrets. I’ve broken the code, but the meaning is still pretty elusive. What you said about Delaney shooting blanks made me wonder whether it’s about the Elixir.”

  “Why?” Ginger asked.

  “Where is Delaney, anyway?”

  “I thought he was in the barn, with you,” Erik said, blinking in surprise.

  “Ginger thought he came back into the house,” Niall said.

  Ginger had her bad feeling again. “It’s been at least an hour since I’ve seen him,” she said, knowing what that meant.

  She dug into her pocket as the Pyr exchanged looks.

  “He wouldn’t have,” Eileen said, but her words lacked conviction.

  “Delaney left me this,” Ginger said, pulling the silver chain from her pocket. “I think he’s gone to the Elixir.”

  “Why would he give you that?” Sara asked.

  “I asked him to promise to try to come back.” Ginger shrugged. “I think he means he’s going to try to keep his promise to me, just as he’s trying to keep his promise to his mom.”

  She felt the ripple of panic slide through the company of Pyr.

  Erik immediately began to delegate. “We need to find Rafferty and we need to help Delaney. Quinn and Donovan, I want you—”

  Before he could say more, there was a shout from the other side of the room.

  “No!” the auburn-haired toddler cried with surprising volume. “No, no, no!” He was pointing at the counter and backing away. “No!”

  A garnet red salamander appeared over the lip of the sink, its tongue flicking. Ginger was amazed. It must have come up the drain, although that made little sense. The toddler shouted in fear, and both Ginger and Alex moved toward the boy.

  Neither managed to take two steps before Donovan intervened.

  Chapter 19

  The sanctuary was silent. There was no fresh scent of Slayer at all.

  Still, Delaney was wary. He knew Magnus could disguise his scent and he wouldn’t have been surprised if others had learned the trick.

  He waited.

  He listened.

  He strained his senses, but was certain he was alone.

  Delaney didn’t imagine that situation would last. He seized one bag of fertilizer, ignoring the cold that permeated his body, and descended into the sanctuary.

  It was silent and dark, only the red light of the Elixir itself illuminating the cavern. Delaney paused, certain that the light was more faint than it had been the day before.

  More pink than red.

  Did the Elixir have an expiry date of its own? He didn’t know, and didn’t have time to find out.

  Reasoning that his stash of fertilizer would be less likely to draw attention once it was within the cavern, he climbed up the rocky incline to the entrance again.

  Again and again and again, he brought a bag of fertilizer into the cavern. He was panting from the exertion and soaked with sweat, but he didn’t dare to rest. Each trip to the creek side revealed that the sky was an increment darker. Delaney didn’t doubt that evening would bring visitors to the Elixir.

  That pervasive cold left his hands shaking and his teeth chattering. He didn’t let it stop him.

  If anything, Delaney worked more quickly, aware of the press of time. His solitude in the sanctuary couldn’t last and he had to make this opportunity count.

  He wished he had help, because the work would have gone more quickly, but he knew he couldn’t have condemned his fellow Pyr to this job.

  It was his responsibility.

  When there were only half a dozen bags left, Delaney was so exhausted that he was dizzy. He eyed the narrow opening and had an idea. He pushed the tarp into the opening, loaded those remaining bags onto it, then let the underground river carry the weight to the bottom. He scurried after it himself.

  Two bags slipped from the wet tarp and fell to one side, but Delaney lugged them to the bottom as well. He piled the bags on the tarp again and hauled them to the first opening. He was soaked with perspiration and so cold, but he had to get all of this to the inner sanctuary.

  He’d pile it around the vial that held Cinnabar, then ignite it with his dragonfire. The cave would probably collapse and it was likely that he’d be challenged in the last minutes. Delaney didn’t expect to stroll out of the sanctuary.

  It took precious tim
e to move the fertilizer, time that Delaney resented bitterly. The tarp with its burden wouldn’t fit through the portals between chambers and he had to carry each bag individually through the gap. Then he piled the bags on the tarp again and pulled the entire load to the next portal.

  The outer chambers weren’t large enough that he could take flight and use the strength of his dragon form to get the task done more quickly.

  The minutes ticked by with alarming speed. He was certain every minute noise was the sound of Magnus and the Slayers arriving to intercept him, to stop his efforts. He feared he’d get this close to success and fail.

  The sanctuary itself was filled with a sickly pink light, one that Delaney found troubling. The Elixir seemed to move with agitation—because it sensed his intent or because something else was changing?

  Delaney didn’t know and he didn’t want to know.

  That baleful eye appeared more frequently against the crystal and Delaney had the sense that Cinnabar was watching him. The eye never blinked, though, and he was sure he was too tired to think straight. If he got through this alive, he’d hole up with Ginger, make love, and sleep for a week.

  That was motivating enough to give him new strength.

  Still, Delaney was exhausted when he finally had the fertilizer stacked around the vial of rock crystal. He stood back and eyed the arrangement, checking for gaps, and his whole body shook.

  The cold had seized him in an icy grasp. It didn’t help that his clothes had gotten wet on the descent into the cavern. He looked down at his hands, noting that his skin was much redder than normal. It was odd—he would have expected it to be pale. His fingertips could have been frozen, but to his surprise, his nails weren’t blue.

  They were tinged crimson.

  “Perfect timing,” a man said, and Delaney spun to find Magnus leaning in the last doorway. He was in human form, his smile as untrustworthy as ever. He was tossing a grayish stone in one hand.

  Delaney was wary. “You came to watch the show?”

  “I came to clean up the details.” Magnus strolled into the sanctuary, so calm that Delaney grew more suspicious. Didn’t the Slayer see the fertilizer? Didn’t he understand what Delaney intended to do?

  Delaney stepped back, working his way toward the fertilizer he intended to ignite.

  Magnus didn’t intervene. “I feel it’s only fair to explain everything to you,” he said with a cool smile. His gaze flicked to the Elixir, then back to Delaney. “Even though I’m not certain how capable you’ll be of thinking about your situation.”

  Delaney decided to keep Magnus talking. “What situation would that be?”

  “Haven’t you guessed? Cinnabar is moving past his ‘best before’ date. That’s why the Elixir is turning pink. It’s losing its potency, as he ceases to be a useful source.”

  “So you need another source,” Delaney said. “Ginger thought you meant for it to be me.”

  “You would be ideal,” Magnus said. “After all, you’ve been prepared for the responsibility.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Magnus smiled. “What do you think happened to you in my academy?”

  Bitterness nearly choked Delaney. “You forced the Elixir into me.”

  Magnus wagged a finger at him. “That was only the first part of it. I chose you for this task then, and I made the necessary preparations.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I needed a Pyr with blood that ran red. You sufficed as none of the Slayers would. I needed a Pyr exposed to mercury at consistent levels. Repeat doses of the Elixir took care of that.”

  “Even though it turned my blood black.”

  Magnus waved one hand. “A temporary setback. Sigmund believed a firestorm would clarifly your blood, and he was right. Finally, I needed a Pyr with pure quicksilver in his veins.”

  Delaney was horrified. “That’s what you injected into me.”

  Magnus’s smile broadened. “It was Sigmund’s experiment, and a pity he didn’t survive to follow up and compile his results. Did you have nightmares? That was his suspicion and you had several within the academy before we released you. Such an interesting notion, but one that we have no further time to explore.”

  “What does time matter?”

  “The Elixir is tied to a family of eclipses called a Saros cycle. It grows in potency and diminishes along with the cycle begun when it was created. It took me centuries to figure this out as the records are somewhat elusive—or should I say deceptive—in their explanations.”

  Magnus strolled into the chamber, waxing eloquent in his explanation, clearly delighted to have an audience. Delaney folded his arms across his chest and let the Slayer talk, welcoming the chance to catch his breath before their inevitable fight. “An eclipse can only occur when there is a full moon for a lunar eclipse or a new moon for a solar eclipse, as the moon, sun, and earth must line up for the eclipse to occur.”

  “The Pyr are only affected by lunar eclipses,” Delaney said.

  “Indeed. So the moon must be full for there to be a lunar eclipse. In order for the eclipse to be visible from the earth, the moon and sun must be near one of the moon’s nodes; otherwise the shadow isn’t visible to the earth.”

  “All right.”

  “Finally, the difference in distance between the moon and the earth determines the totality of the eclipse. At perigee, when they are closest together, the moon’s shadow can form a total eclipse. At apogee, when they are farthest apart, the eclipse will be only partial or annual.”

  “And that follows a regular routine.”

  “Yes!” Magnus could have been a teacher, proud of his student’s perception. Delaney wondered whether there was a gold star in this for him. “All of these are regular cycles: one full moon to the next is a synodic month, which is about twenty-nine and a half days. The sun takes about three hundred forty-six days to travel through all the signs of the zodiac, moving from north node to south and back.” Magnus smiled. “I do enjoy that being called a draconic year.”

  “But less than a solar year.”

  “Because the moon moves backward through the zodiac. An illusion but one that informs the calculation. Eclipses are all about the perception of the sky from our specific vantage point.”

  “And the cycle of the moon?”

  “Roughly twenty-seven days from perigee to perigee. Which means the entire cycle repeats roughly every eighteen years—6585.322 days, to be precise, which is called a Saros cycle. Any eclipse will occur again, with very similar geometry, in 6585.322 days. All of the eclipses within a family sharing the same geometry are called a Saros cycle.” Magnus cleared his throat. “Despite their many frailties, humans figured this out thousands of years ago and have predicted eclipses with great accuracy since the time of the Babylonians.”

  Magnus strolled closer. “The Saros cycle governs the effectiveness of the Elixir—it waxes and wanes, like the moon each month. I understood when I put the final fatal dose of quicksilver in Cinnabar’s veins that it was necessary to create a batch of Elixir at the start of a Saros cycle. Of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Cinnabar formed the Elixir in May, of the year 747.” Magnus smiled. “Allowing for adjustments in the Julian calendar. Of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “That was the beginning of Saros series 110, a cycle of seventy-two eclipses.” He held up two fingers. “Just two left, one in July of this year and one in July of 2027.”

  “Then Cinnabar will be useless.”

  Magnus sighed. “His effectiveness is already fading quickly, which is why I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”

  “Is there another Saros cycle beginning?”

  “How clever you are! The next begins in May 2013, Saros cycle 150, so you see there is a period of overlap.” Magnus chuckled. “A window of opportunity, as it were. If I find a recruit by that first eclipse, I will have Elixir through the year 3275.”

  “You were prepared to wait.�
��

  Magnus glanced toward the vial and its pinkish contents. “Yes, but I’m persuaded that sooner is better. You’ve been quite accommodating, I must say.”

  “You did hypnotize me to destroy the Elixir.”

  “It makes it so much more convenient to harvest you, if you are right at the source, so to speak.” Magnus stepped closer, his eyes gleaming. He tucked that stone into his pocket again, and Delaney wondered what it was. “It was very obliging of you to comply with my scheme. And now, let’s secure the future supply of the Elixir, shall we?”

  But Delaney wasn’t complying.

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” he said, and shifted shape with lightning speed.

  Magnus’s eyes flashed and he followed suit, roaring as he took his jade and gold form. He was splendid, bigger than ever, and more robust than ever. His wounds of the day before had healed completely and his eyes shone with pride as Delaney surveyed him in surprise.

  “Oh, it still works,” he hissed, then laughed.

  Delaney wasn’t daunted. He took flight and charged.

  The leader of the Slayers laughed in triumph at the sight of him. “Look at you!” Magnus crowed. “Halfway to becoming the source already!”

  Delaney glanced down to find his scales tinged red, as if they had been dipped in blood. Terror made his flight falter. He was changing color—just as Ginger had said that Magnus had told of Cinnabar changing color. The quicksilver in his veins was changing his metabolism.

  Could the change Magnus had inflicted upon him be reversed?

  Delaney intended to find out. He wasn’t down yet, and he certainly wasn’t trapped in a vial. He raised his claws and attacked Magnus, intent on teaching the ancient Slayer a few things before he died.

  The fight erupted in Ginger’s kitchen with startling speed. One minute Donovan was stepping between Alex and Nick, and the next moment, there was a ferocious lapis lazuli and silver dragon in his place, breathing fire at the small red lizard.

  The dragon snatched up the boy and flung him toward his mother. Alex caught Nick and retreated behind the Pyr, holding her son close. Eileen held Zoë tightly and Sara tugged her son into her arms, the three women retreating behind Sloane and Thorolf. Niall pulled Ginger back, shoving her roughly behind him.