Blood Winter (Horngate Witches)

by Francis, Diana Pharaoh

  Alexander rubbed a hand across the top of his head, knocking away the snow that had accumulated. This conversation was getting old, and he had no good answers. “I told you I thought it could be a spell.”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “Maybe. But Gregory said himself he might not be able to detect it. You should be careful. If something changed how I feel about Max, it could affect me in other ways, too. Watch your back with me.”

  Thor stopped dead in the middle of the street and stared at him. “You are taking this awfully well. The Alexander I know would be pissed to find out he might be under a spell. He’d be chewing up the scenery looking for answers.”

  Alexander rubbed a hand over his head again. “I should be angry, I know. But right now, the sheer relief from all that torture is . . . amazing.”

  “Torture?” Thor repeated skeptically. “You’ve been happier than a fox in a henhouse since you’ve been with Max.”

  “Have I? There have certainly been some happy moments, but—” He shook his head. “The rest has been nothing but fear and worry and desperation.”

  “So? You aren’t willing to suffer a little bit for the love of your life? Your soul mate?”

  Alexander laughed. “You sound as naive as a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  Thor snarled. “That doesn’t make me wrong. And I notice you don’t deny you love her.”

  “Maybe I do. Or did. But if so, it is gone,” Alexander said. “Now, can we get back to work? We still have a ways to go, and the trail is buried under a couple feet of snow.”

  “Fine. But this isn’t over. I’m not going to watch my best friend throw away something this good without a fight. Women like Max only come along once in a lifetime.”

  Alexander merely shrugged and started off again. He felt whole and alive. Thor might think he had lost something important, but the truth was, he felt strong and focused in ways he had not for a long time, and he liked it.

  THEY PICKED UP THE TRAIL NOT FAR FROM WHERE HIGHWAY 93 crossed the river. The Suburban was turned sideways in the road. The windows were shattered, and the doors were riddled with bullet holes. Snow was piled on the seats and floorboards. There were no bodies or blood.

  “What the hell happened?” Thor asked, swiping his hand over the side of the truck to clear the snow. He examined the bullet holes.

  Alexander dug down to the front passenger tire. The rubber was shredded. The same on the driver’s side. “They were ambushed. Someone set up a spike strip, and they ran right over it.”

  “How did they know they were even coming?”

  “Probably did not matter. Anybody driving was worth going after. The question is, did our people get away, or were they taken?”

  Both Blades dug inside the truck to get a clear scent of the five people who had been inside. Tris, Doris Lydman, and Geoff Brewer were familiar. The last two—the ones Max had called Liam and Bambi—smelled like sweat, gun oil, and the outdoors.

  The truck had been torn apart, and everything possibly valuable had been taken. The glove compartment hung open. The seats had been shredded, and the backseat had been ripped out. Underneath it, the weapons locker was empty. It took someone from Horngate to open the wards, which meant that Tris and her companions were well armed. According to Max, Liam and Bambi would know what to do with the weapons. At least some of them. The magical items would likely confuse them. But at least they had taken everything.

  “So where did they go?” Alexander pondered aloud, turning to examine the terrain, although the thick snow made that nearly impossible. He was not that familiar with Missoula. Neither was Thor. They had only moved to Horngate a few months ago, and they had had little reason to come to Missoula during that time.

  He remembered that there was a Walmart just up on the right, and on the left was a country club with a golf course and some stores. Farther south behind the truck was a storage place. It perched right on the riverbank. Across Highway 93 from it was a residential area.

  He immediately discounted the latter. Anybody still living in the houses would not be interested in this kind of ambush. They would be loners just working on survival, and this had taken some organization. Just getting the spike strip would call for a police connection, not to mention the amount of guns and ammunition. Anyone living in that residential area would be saving their ammo to protect themselves and hunt food.

  But the other three places could house groups of people, particularly the Walmart. Most of the bullet holes were on that side of the truck, which could mean that was where the attackers had come from. Either way, the Horngate group would not have run into the hail of fire. Which meant they had headed for the storage unit, the country club, or the strip mall.

  The soldiers would have taken charge, which meant they would have likely headed out to the golf course and turned north. There was a better chance of losing pursuers that way.

  “I figure the golf course is the best bet,” Alexander told Thor.

  “Agreed. But finding them is going to be a bitch. I wish we had one of the Grims. I bet they could sniff out a mouse in a blizzard.”

  “Maybe we will get lucky. The question is, where is Giselle? She and the other Blades were coming in after Tris. They could not have missed seeing the truck. So what happened to them?”

  MAX ENTERED THE ANGEL VAULT. XAPHAN’S IRIDESCENT black wings continued to burn with blue and purple flames. They had scorched the rock slab he lay on, and little stalactites hung down around the edges where the heat had melted the stone. The sheet that had covered him was gone, and he was dusted with a layer of fine ash from its destruction. She touched his ankle. He felt warm. She touched Tutresiel. He did, too.

  She went to the top of the table by Xaphan’s head. His wings were folded around his sides, the feathers extending nearly to his heels. The tops of his wings curved up nearly as high as his head on either side.

  Max hesitated. Why was she doing this? It wasn’t like either of them could hear or would care what she said. She ought to be saying things to her Blades. But they weren’t there, and somehow she needed to talk to the angels.

  “So stop wasting time, already,” she muttered to herself. She leaned over Xaphan, and the flames from his wings heated her skin. Blisters bubbled on her cheek and forehead. She ignored them, leaning as close as she could to his ear.

  “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be half dead right now. I’m sorry. I owe you big-time, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to pay you back. If I don’t make it back, know that I’ll miss you.”

  She pressed a kiss to his forehead and straightened up. It wasn’t much. It didn’t begin to capture what she really wanted to say. But she needed to say it all the same.

  She went to stand beside Tutresiel. Her heart hurt looking at him. He was rude, capricious, acerbic, and sometimes vicious. He was also her friend. She didn’t know why. But somehow he had decided he liked her, and he didn’t like anybody. One thing was certain: he knew her. He understood her and didn’t get irritated because she was herself. Not like just about everyone else in her life. Especially Alexander. She had no doubt that that was why he’d given up on her. Too much hurt. But Tutresiel would never give up on her. And she wasn’t about to give up on him.

  She bent close to his ear, her hand splaying across the hard muscles of his too-cold chest.

  “Wake up, you bastard,” she whispered. And waited for a few seconds. Nothing. She hadn’t really thought anything would happen. But hope springs eternal and all that crap. Her hand curled into a ball on his chest.

  “I’m in some trouble again. Might not make it back. I know I don’t have to tell you to take care of yourself. I just wanted to tell you one last thing, Kitten. I know how much you hate hearing it, but I like you. I consider you a friend. I even trust you. Remember that, would you?”

  She shifted and brushed her lips against his, then straightened. “Well, you must be far gone, because if anything would make you open your mouth and tell me to shove it up my ass
, that would have done it.” Sadness coiled around her. She would miss him. She did miss him.

  Now for just one more thing. She closed her eyes and reached out for Spike. She could never tell if the Calopus could hear her or if Spike could just pluck thoughts from Max’s mind whenever she felt like it. It didn’t hurt to try to send a message.

  There were no words. Just the feelings she’d developed for the animal. Affection, joy, love, trust, loneliness. She missed the beast. They had formed a bond as close as she had with Tyler or Thor or Tutresiel. Even Niko.

  Max shook away the thought. It was time to go. She glanced once more at the angels. Will I ever see them again?

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that she might not be coming back. Maybe it was that everything seemed to be falling apart, crumbling away beneath her feet. Everyone she cared about seemed to be vanishing, and every time she grabbed for them, she ended up clawing through smoke.

  “Enough,” she told herself, the word echoing loudly in the small chamber. She was feeling sorry for herself. She needed to get her shit together and get going.

  She was just starting to drop into her fortress and step through the abyss when a curl of red smoke rose from the basin of milky water.

  It flowed through the air, sketching out a shape. First eyes, then a head with a nose and a mouth, then a body. Behind it formed wings in a parody of the two angels. Max’s body tightened with fury.

  “Show your face, Sterling,” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  The eyes were vacant-looking, lacking irises. They were merely the outer oval shape. Still, Max didn’t think for a second that the thing was blind.

  It darted forward, and Max leaped back. It stopped where she had been, its mouth smiling. It had no teeth or tongue.

  “I am Justice,” it said in a low, musical voice that sent prickles along Max’s skin.

  “Justice? For what? For who? You’re delusional, Sterling. You’re more evil than I could ever hope to be.”

  The face shifted into Benjamin Sterling’s, then melted back into the stick-figure look. It smiled, savage and pitiless.

  “I will make you pay. This den of witches, but most of all you. I know what you did. I came for you, for all of you. You will pay for your hubris.”

  Max frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Hubris? That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?”

  Sterling’s little doll gave a shrug, and the red lines of its body shivered and hardened again. “Call it what you like. Arrogance. Insolence. Impudence. You have committed your crime, and I will have justice.”

  “So what am I supposed to have done to you?”

  “You broke the law. You are not allowed.”

  The emphasis on “you” made Max wonder. This didn’t seem like Sterling. The words were wrong. He was more fire and brimstone. This seemed different. “You aren’t Sterling, are you?” she asked cautiously.

  “He is my puppet. Or perhaps I am his.” The creature smiled.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.” Its arm jetted out faster than her eye could follow. Red smoke wound around her, and pain cut into her stomach, between her breasts, and up to her neck. She felt blood soaking into her shirt, and bits of it fell to the floor in rags, the rest of the cloth hanging in shreds from her shoulders.

  She looked down at herself. A complex pattern had been carved on her skin. There were strange letters and symbols overlapping in what looked like an Egyptian cartouche, although the writing was nothing like Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was flowing and snaky and jagged and harsh. The design bled and did not heal.

  When the thing spoke again, it was only inches from her face. Max jerked her head up, forcing herself not to fall back.

  “That is my seal. When you come, they will know you, and you may pass without question. Do not take long, or I will kill the ones you seek.”

  “I’ll be coming,” Max said, finding her voice. “But you aren’t going to win.”

  The creature tipped its head. “And who will stop me?” It spread its red wings. “Not the angels,” it whispered, sweeping up into the air to hover over first Tutresiel and then Xaphan. “For you have laid them low, and even I cannot easily wake them.”

  It focused on her again, its body and wings pulling inward until all that was left was the face surrounded by a red nimbus of smoke. Its hatred boiled in the room.

  “Know this: when I am done, you and every spirit you care for will be destroyed. Their souls will be torn to shreds and scattered across worlds and time.” With that, the face collapsed. The air continued to resonate, and dust sifted down from the ceiling. The cloud of red smoke continued to hover, then started to expand. It smelled like Divine magic. But there was something not quite right about it, as if it was mixed with something else. Max frowned. She needed to know what that creature was.

  The smoke started to seethe and roil, like a bloody storm caught in a cauldron. It pushed outward until it swallowed the fountain, the angels, and Simon. Max stepped back against the door. It didn’t budge. The fucker had locked it somehow.

  The cloud was only a few feet away and closing fast on the walls. Before Max could even blink, it sprang outward, filling the entire vault. Something like a Taser blast zapped through her body. Every hair on her body stood on end, and she shook violently, her head snapping back and forth. But unlike a Taser blast, it didn’t stop, and Max was pretty sure it wouldn’t before she dropped dead.

  The only way out was the abyss. If she could concentrate enough to pull herself through.

  She dove down inside herself, focusing hard on the pain. She let it fill her, offering it no resistance. As the pain took her, her mind separated. It was a trick she’d learned at Giselle’s hands, during years of torture. Let the pain be. Accept it. Let your mind go wherever it has to in order to stay sane. Only Max didn’t let herself go too far. Once she could think, she dropped into the fortress like a stone off a cliff and pulled herself into the abyss.

  She collected herself inside the crystal darkness. Ribbons of magic glowed far away, and bursts of wild magic drifted in swarms and schools. She glanced again at the creature’s seal. It continued to bleed. She bit her lip. That wasn’t good. She was going to need a constant supply of calories to keep herself going if it didn’t stop. Adding the Amengohr amulet on top of that meant she would have precious little time to find Kyle and the kids.

  Not that the creature planned to let her. It had Kyle. Somehow it was tied up with Benjamin Sterling. Was it the power behind the throne? A demon that Sterling had harnessed? If so, what was Sterling? A sorcerer? He would have to be incredibly strong to control a demon as powerful as this creature. It had slipped through Horngate’s wards like they weren’t there. Several times. Giselle had barely been able to beat it off using the nearly unlimited power of the Fury Seed. And it had relit Xaphan’s wings. It was powerful, so Sterling had to be even more so. Unless Sterling was its puppet.

  Either way, how the hell was Max going to defeat the two of them together?

  The key was to figure out just what this creature thought she had done and then figure out how to appease it. Maybe she could persuade it to take its mood out on her and leave Horngate and the rest of her family alone.

  If she couldn’t figure out how to kill it first. Or disable it somehow.

  She grimaced. It would probably be easier to drink the ocean. All the same, it wasn’t like she had a choice. Or time to spare.

  Collecting herself, she picked her destination and stepped out of the abyss.

  THOR AND ALEXANDER TRUDGED SLOWLY IN A broad zigzagging pattern across the golf course. They had begun at the country-club parking lot, hoping that they would cross Tris’s trail. The snow was blinding, and the dips and hills of the course made for fifteen-foot snowdrifts, sometimes even deeper.

  They were having precious little luck. There simply was nothing to smell. Suddenly, Thor gave a shout. Alexander slogged through the
snow toward Thor’s voice. He dropped down into a sand trap, the snow coming up to his waist. He swore and pushed forward. Strong as he was, the soft snow was as close to quicksand as Montana could make, and the going was very slow. How had Tris and her companions made it? The snow wouldn’t have been quite as deep, but it would still have been treacherous.

  “Over here!” Thor called again, and Alexander closed the distance between them.

  The blond Blade was soaking wet, and snow clung to him like cotton candy. He stood in a copse where the snow was only knee-deep. His cheeks were flushed rosy, and he was smiling.

  “They blazed a trail for us. Tris must’ve figured someone would come bird-dogging her and didn’t want us getting lost.”

  Alexander caught the scent now. Blood. There was a patch of it on the tree about shoulder height. It was not much bigger than a quarter, as if someone had cut a finger and purposefully smeared it there.

  “Look for more,” he ordered.

  The two men found three more patches leading in a line. They pointed back toward Reserve Street.

  They hiked across the golf course, following the direction of the blood. In each copse they passed, they found another set of blood patches. There were two different donors. Alexander did not recognize either one. They had to be the soldiers, Liam and Bambi. At least they weren’t stupid.

  They crossed Post Siding Road into the other half of the golf course. The small company of Horngaters had angled east. They kept to the golf course, no doubt figuring it was safer than encountering the people who might be inhabiting the strip mall that ran beside it.

  “They can’t have gotten much farther,” Thor said. “There are five of them. Two are middle-aged women and one a middle-aged man. They can’t have passed here that long ago. They only had a few hours’ head start on us, and I know we covered that ground a hell of a lot faster than they could have.”

  Alexander nodded. He had come to the same conclusion. “I wish this damned snow would stop,” he said.