A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book 4)
by A.W. Hartoin
Copyright 2016 A.W. Hartoin
Smashwords Edition
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Also By A.W. Hartoin
Young Adult fantasy
Flare-up (An Away From Whipplethorn Short)
A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)
Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)
A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)
A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)
Mercy Watts Mysteries
Novels
A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)
Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Two)
Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Three)
Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)
In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)
The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six) coming soon
Short stories
Coke with a Twist
Touch and Go
Nowhere Fast
Dry Spell
A Sin and a Shame
Paranormal
It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)
For Shaun
A great fan and a great friend.
Chapter One
THE EMPRESS WAS Austria and the empress was ill. Or so I was told everyday since I’d arrived in Vienna. Every fairy from the cardinal’s bookkeeper to the elf that delivered the firewood reminded me of the fact. Whenever they said it their faces puckered in worry and I wondered what in the world the empress had to do with me or with them. None of us were likely to meet her majesty. She was on the top and we were firmly on the bottom.
At least I was on the bottom. It was hard to escape that fact. I never expected to be where I was. Alone in Vienna, standing on a stone skull, covered in blisters and smelling like Frau Snigglebit’s Troublesome Troll Remover. I felt terrible and I smelled worse. Plus, I’d failed to remove any of the trolls that were covering St. Catherine’s altar, which was a big part of my job. I, also, never expected to have a job.
I dipped each of my buckets into the holy water that filled the skull font and set them on the wing that sprouted from the side of it. I closed my eyes and arched my aching back. Ten little claws cut into my shoulder and I jerked upright. Fidelé, the little gargoyle I’d acquired in Paris, hissed and then settled down on my shoulder like a parrot. I suppose Fidelé’s being there meant that I wasn’t alone, if you want to get technical about it, which I didn’t. Alone is relative and as far as I was concerned I was by myself in St. Stephen's Cathedral where I was employed as a maid of all work. It was even less glamorous than it sounded, but desperate times and all that. I certainly was desperate or I should say we were. I’d managed to escape Paris with three kids, a phalanx egg, two practically useless adults, and a couple of obese dragons. Did I mention that I was alone?
I sat down next to my buckets and allowed myself a moment to admire the cathedral. It was so glorious it made my chest hurt and fill with gratitude. St. Stephen's had saved us. I was sure of it. It’d taken nearly a month to make our way from Paris to Vienna. Avoiding the French revolutionaries and loyalists searching our first train had caused us to get off in a tiny village. We made our way from there. Village to village, hiding. If we hadn’t had the Moroccan Spice dragons stealing food for us, we would’ve starved. But we made it to Vienna, only to realize winter was coming and living in Vienna’s Stadtpark under a purple petunia plant wasn’t going to do it. I had to get a job because I was the only one who could. I heard a rumor about a position in St. Stephen's for a maid. It was the first lucky break we’d gotten and I took it. Yes, the cathedral saved us. I’d tried to think about that instead of the blisters and the fact that our parents weren’t there and we didn’t know if they were still in Paris or even alive. Most of the time I’d rather have thought about the blisters instead of them.
A soft hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to see my friend, Lonica, looking down at me. She was smiling, although it was hard to tell. The paint on her face concealed much. Lonica was a willow dryad, the first I’d ever met. Like the dryads I’d known before coming to Vienna, Lonica’s skin and clothing were painted to resemble her tree, the weeping willow, so her skin appeared white and like it was about to peel off. Long pendulous branches with little green leaves flowed off her head and down all the way to her ankles. It was quite a length of hair because, like all dryads, Lonica was very tall.
“Do you see who…” Lonica turned her head and I lost sight of her lips and thus her words. I’d had a hard time in Vienna. Being mostly deaf was bad enough, but the Austrian fairies rarely stayed still, making lip reading a challenge, even when they were speaking English.
I tapped her shoulder. “What was that?
Her head turned and her branches swung wide, smacking against my head. “I must apologize, Mattie. I forgot.”
The name Mattie continued to surprise me. My name like everything about my life had changed. I was no longer Matilda Grace Whipplethorn, but Mattie Van Winkle, a girl who was nobody and nothing special. The one thing I couldn’t change was my hearing and Lonica was the only one in Vienna who had noticed I was deaf. Fairies can be amazingly dense.
“Look there.” She pointed out into the cathedral’s golden glow. The sun was going down and chandeliers were lit, making the creamy stone pillars and arched ceiling panels appear warm and almost cozy, despite the cathedral’s immense size. I’d been in the Louvre and Notre Dame, but nothing affected me like St. Stephen's beauty. It was something special, something unique, like me. It made me forget how bad things were and remember how far we’d come. We were still alive. Mom and Dad would make it to Vienna and find us. St. Stephen's made me believe that.
Lonica tapped me again. “There he is. Returned at last.”
I followed her finger and finally spotted who she was talking about. A fairy and his entourage were flying up the nave in a V-formation towards the ornate stone pulpit.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” whispered Lonica as if the fairy could hear her. Even my sister, Iris, with her amazing Whipplethorn ears couldn’t have heard her at that distance.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Archduke Franz-Joseph. He was in Italy asking His Holiness for help dealing with the French rebels. He must be here to talk to the cardinal.” She clasped her hands together and sighed.
The archduke was impressive in his three-piece suit of silk, and his white wings tinged with blue, but he flew through St. Stephen's magnificence like he was in a common butcher shop, not stopping a wingbeat to admire the glow or notice the fairies who’d stopped to stare. The cathedral was always filled with tourists, fairy and human alike. Of course the humans didn’t notice the archduke or any of the fairies hovering around their heads. A fact that made me feel a tiny bit bitter. I’d been seen. It was a great feat for a fairy to be seen by a human and I’d managed it quite a few times, but not in Vienna. I couldn’t get a human to so much as blink in my direction. If I had, we’d probably have known where Mom, Dad and the rest of our friends were. I could’ve gotten the human to call Tess or Judd, the y
oung humans who were seers. They would know where our family was. At least I hoped they would. I hoped they were okay, too. Tess and Judd had been caught up in our battle to escape Paris and had been attacked by rebels. Fairies were able to kill humans and the fate of Tess and Judd wasn’t any more certain than my parents.
“Maybe we can go down and meet him,” said Lonica, straightening her stained apron. Lonica was the cook’s assistant and she was always covered in flour and flecks of sauces.
I shook my head. “I seriously doubt it.”
Just as the archduke landed on the checkered floor, and a dwarf emerged from under the stairs leading to the pulpit. The cardinal’s master secretary stayed for a moment beside the pulpit’s sculptor, Anton Pilgram’s self-portrait. The servants’ entrance to the cardinal’s apartments was beside Anton’s stone neck. The master secretary’s expression was stern and unwelcoming, normal for a Mannheim dwarf, but he hesitated before he climbed down to bow before the archduke.
“He doesn’t look pleased to see him,” I said.
“The master secretary isn’t pleased to see anyone,” said Lonica. “I suppose you’re right we’d better get back to work. Did you get rid of the klitzeklein trolls on St. Catherine’s altar?”
I groaned. “No. I sprayed and sprayed them, but they won’t leave.”
“Did you try Frau Snigglebit’s Troublesome Troll remover?”
I held up my hand and she sniffed, making a face. “Maybe something else will work.”
“I’m going to have to throw them out by hand and they bite,” I said, showing her the tiny teeth marks on my wrist.
Lonica made another face. “That’s not all you’re going to have to throw out.”
I turned and saw my next job creeping down the wall behind the skull font. About three dozen gargoyles were hissing at me. Fidelé hissed back, his claws biting into my shoulder. Fidelé was a gargoyle, but he was nothing like the ones that infested St. Stephen's. He looked a bit like a dragon but with bat-like ears and a horn on his snout. The gargoyles in St. Stephen's were more like scaly dogs and were feral.
“Do you think the master secretary has noticed?” asked Lonica.
“What that gargoyles are following me around?”
“No. That there’s a lot more of them since you got here.”
“I hope not. I need this job.”
Lonica crossed her slender arms. “I wish I knew why.”
“Why does anyone need a job?” I said, avoiding her frank gaze.
“You’re not the average maid,” she said, lowering her voice if I went by head position. “That much I know.”
I laughed, but I’m sure it came out weak and false. “What do you know?”
“You’re not eighteen for one and where are your parents for another.”
“I told you we got separated in Paris during the riots. They’ll get here when they can.”
“You’ve been working here for two months. How long does it take to get on a train? What about the rest of your family? You’ve got a spriggan and dragons. Nobody has dragons. They’re practically untamable.”
“Apparently not,” I said. “Iris tamed them just fine. They’re not family, more like…pets.”
Lonica snorted. “Pets? I don’t believe that. And then there’s Penny and Della. If they’re your aunts, I’m a noggle-fisted troll.”
“I always thought there was a little troll in you.”
Lonica stomped her foot, not much of a display of frustration. If I could’ve revealed my true identity, I’d have shown her some frustration. My fire would’ve filled the nave with such brilliance, they’d be talking about it for two centuries. But I couldn’t. The rebels in Paris knew of my existence and worse, so did the horen. I dreaded the moment when I saw another horen with their cat’s eyes and claws. Their stunning beauty made them all the worse and I’d had enough of their venom to last two lifetimes. The horen considered me some sort of rival and they’d already killed my friend Gerald’s parents to get to me. I couldn’t risk the family I still had. I’d leave them before I did that.
“Mattie, please. You can trust me.”
“I trust you. There’s just nothing to tell,” I lied. There was so much to tell I’d have worn out her ears.
I picked up my buckets and spread my wings, momentarily surprised by the lack of glow on the stone wall. Since we’d come to Vienna I’d disguised myself with a couple of handy spells I’d found in Ibn Vermillion’s book. My wings were now dull with no Whipplethorn glow at all. I wasn’t sure what bothered me the most, my wings or my hair. My black hair that usually reached my waist was chin-length and platinum blond. It seemed a good idea to disguise myself, but a huge part of me wanted to scream out and be known for what I really was, a kindler.
Lonica sneered at the hissing gargoyles and hopped off the side of the font. A second later, I saw her dashing across the nave toward the pulpit, going for a meeting after all. The master secretary wouldn’t be happy if she got near the archduke but, like she said, he was rarely happy about anything.
A rush of wind brushed my new blond hair in my face and the holy water font trembled under my feet as Percy, one of the Moroccan spice dragons, landed on the font. Miss Penrose was on his back with a worried frown on her face. She used her wings, now pale blue, to steady herself, but she lurched to the side as Percy spun around and stuck his fat purple tongue out toward the holy water.
“Stop!” I yelled.
Percy froze, his stank dragon breath making ripples in the water.
“This water is for everyone,” I said. “Nobody wants to drink dragon spit.”
Percy tucked his head under his leathery wing and Miss Penrose shook a finger at me. “You hurt his feelings.”
Oh, please. I didn’t hurt his feelings. Dragons had feelings, but they weren’t easy to injure. Dragons were difficult, and prickly. A lot like the miniature trolls I’d been trying to get rid of all day. They also liked to bite.
“Say you’re sorry, Matil…Mattie,” said Miss Penrose, catching herself just in time.
I’m sorry, you fire-breathing pain in my wings.
“I’m sorry, Percy.”
Percy peeked out at me and his pupil contracted.
“And you’re a good dragon that never ever drools in the holy water.”
Percy’s head popped back out and he began preening as if he would never have dreamt of drinking right out of the font.
Miss Penrose’s expression didn’t soften after my apology, but changed to something more akin to dread. She didn’t look good, pale and wan, but she always looked that way. Her new brown hair accentuated her almost translucent skin, but that couldn’t be helped. I’d been able to cure her congestive heart failure, but she took forever to recover and was brilliant at catching absolutely every illness that came her way. She was just getting over a bout of bristletail bronchitis. It took me two weeks to get rid of the spines on her rump. If she was sick again, I quit.
I was so afraid to ask, but I said, “What’s wrong?’
“She can’t stop it anymore,” said Miss Penrose.
A little chill went down my arms. “It’s certain this time?”
Oh please say no. Please.
Miss Penrose pursed her lips and couldn’t seem to make herself say the words I dreaded her saying. We’d kept the commander’s egg hidden for months. It had tried to hatch on the train from Paris, but Iris had talked the baby out of it. I hadn’t thought that was possible, but Iris, with her great gift of love, had talked and talked and the baby had stayed in the shell for her. We’d originally thought we would be home in the States quickly, but that hadn’t happened. So Iris had kept talking because in Austria the phalanx were considered traitors to the realm for their support of the revolution in France. What was I supposed to do with a baby phalanx? Those little weirdo warriors were strange to the extreme with their razor-sharp shells and appetite for flies. Weird and yuck.
Miss Penrose leaned over Percy’s long skinny neck and said, “I belie
ve so. The egg will hatch now, whether we want it to or not.”
Chapter Two
I DARTED ACROSS the nave, doing my best not to splash any tourists, human or otherwise, with my buckets. Miss Penrose had gone back to the servants’ quarters, but I had to deliver the evening water. My job was very necessary, so I gritted my teeth and got on with it. Iris would conceal my new problem until I got there.
The archduke and his entourage were gone. So was the master secretary. I landed on Anton Pilgram’s nose, took a breath, and then flew into the servants’ entrance, landing on the stone floor carved with initials. Everyone who had served a cardinal of Austria carved their initials into the servants’ hall floor. Mine were not there. I refused to carve initials that weren’t mine.
I jogged through the winding hall lit with dozens of foxfire fungus behind St. Jerome’s stone face. The empty amulet that once contained horen antidote thumped against my breastbone, reminding me of Daiki. Because he had brought me the antidote, I’d survived Paris and my ankle that had once been so painful was left with only a slight limp. Daiki’s whereabouts were a mystery like the rest of my family, but the amulet made me think of him daily. I tried not to think of what he would’ve said about my chamber pot scrubbing. He was a warrior and I was sure it would’ve been beneath his dignity. Nothing was beneath mine. I’d learned that pretty quick. Still, dignity’s a small price to pay for food, shelter, and all that other stuff that I’d never thought about before escaping Paris. We were lucky to live in the cathedral with its frigid air and soaring beauty. In a strange way it felt good to be on the inside of operations. I got to go where the tourists didn’t and there was something to be said for that.
No one got to see the cardinal’s residence, for instance. It was inside of the four saints carved on the pulpit. The residence included not only the cardinal’s apartment, but those of his senior advisors. There was the master secretary and the five secretaries under him as well as the cardinal’s valet.
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 1
