“But, he’s so big…” I drifted off, frowning.
“Can you imagine having splinters in your eyeballs?” Robin asked, cocking an eyebrow.
I winced.
“Exactly,” Robin said. “Shit. Cover your ears!”
I did as he asked, too surprised to bother asking why. Then I looked up, and realized what he’d seen: high above, Barb floated in mid-air, having snuck up behind Throm while he cradled his face. The Banshee drew a deep breath and screamed directly into Throm’s ear canal, the sound beyond cringeworthy even with my ears covered. The Ice Giant—blood running down his face and from one ear—bellowed and swatted at the air, but Barb was already gone.
Robin nudged me. “I think they’ve got things handled,” he said.
I nodded. “Aye, seems that way. Now it’s our turn,” I said. I scanned the building and saw Frost, still muttering as his blood spun in the air. I watched as one sliver of frozen blood flew at Lakota, piercing her side. There were already several poking out at different points on her body—more than half, I realized—riddled along her skin like acupuncture needles. In the chaos, I hadn’t even noticed. I had a feeling the ritual would be complete the moment the last needle struck, which meant we had to hurry.
And pray Frost was clean.
Because that’s how you pick up a nasty FTD—a Fae Transmitted Disease.
“Take Jeffries,” I insisted. “I’ve got Lakota.”
“That’s Lakota?” Robin said, frowning. “That’s a girl.”
“I know. We can sort that out later. Right now, I need to figure out how to get past Frost and get Lakota out of here,” I replied. “Whatever he’s tryin’ to do, I’d rather not wait to find out how it ends.”
Robin grunted, then eyed my manacled wrists. He reached out and flicked them. They fell open onto the floor with a clang. I rubbed at my raw skin. “T’anks,” I said.
“Don’t ever say I never did anything for you. Oh, and here,” Robin said, handing over a pistol. “I stole this off one of the guards from the garage. Seemed handy to have a pistol full of iron bullets.”
I cradled the gun like an infant and clutched it to my chest. “Oh, I could kiss ye,” I said.
“I mean…I won’t stop you,” Robin said, hopefully.
“Not ye! The pistol, ye idgit!” I hissed.
“Oh, right,” he replied, awkwardly fussing with his hat.
I leaned in and planted a quick peck on his cheek. “That’s for comin’ to save me. Now, go!” I shoved him back towards Jeffries, who remained unconscious, hanging limp from the ceiling. Robin blushed, but did as I asked, taking off towards the Agent. Which left me alone, with a single gun, to take on a legendary creature from folklore. I rose, tore a massive slit down one side of the dress using a sharp piece of metal, and took a deep breath.
Just another day at the office.
Chapter 36
Frost took the first bullet without flinching, completely oblivious to the sound of a pistol going off right beside him. I wasn’t that surprised; excluding a period much earlier in history when we’d fired musket balls made of iron, I doubted the Faeling had ever had cause to fear modern firearms.
But then the iron bullet went to work, and Frost realized it hadn’t been a run-of-the-mill bullet.
The second shot was a different story.
Frost dove away, already tearing at the bullet I’d put in his side. I supposed I could have put the gun against the bastard’s head and pulled the trigger, but part of me remembered Robin’s warning; if I killed him now, in cold blood, without the Chancery’s permission, I could be in real trouble. So, instead, I’d aimed to maim and slow. As I watched, his wounds frosted over, leaving gaping holes that oozed a ruby red, Slurpee-like substance.
I readjusted and fired once more, taking Frost in the calf. He dragged himself away, hissing in pain, giving me time to undo the strap pinning Lakota to the conveyor belt. I considered pulling the needles out but decided against it; I wasn’t medically qualified to pull foreign objects out of people. I slid over to Lakota’s face and patted her cheek. “Lakota! Wake up, we have to get—”
Frost tackled me before I could finish. I pumped two more shots into him as we fell before losing my grip on the gun. We hit the ground hard and the gun skittered away. Frost scrambled to get on top of me, surprisingly nimble and strong for a Faeling who’d been shot four times with iron bullets. I thrust my hips, bucking the Faeling, and rolled him off me. Frost snarled and flung a hand at me. A wave of ice shards spewed from between his fingers, crashing against my anti-magic field—or my cage as the window lady had called it—mere inches from my face.
Seeing that his magic had no effect, the Faeling’s expression became malicious. He rose, limping. “Let’s see if you can survive this!” Frost beckoned with one arm, and, before I had time to react, I felt a half-dozen needles pierce my back like hot pokers. Frost smiled, his perfect teeth gleaming, his eyes triumphant—lit up and dancing, as though posing for his candid.
Until Lakota put a bullet between them.
Too bad I didn’t have a camera.
Talk about a headshot.
Frost’s head jerked back, and I knew he was dead by the way his lifeless body toppled over. I turned to Lakota, prepared to get us the fuck out of here—we could deal with the Chancery’s repercussions later—when the needles in my back began to ache. And then to burn. I noticed Lakota had already pulled all the frozen shards out of her body—probably out of reflex. She stared down at Frost’s corpse in shock. I fell to my knees as the pain spiked, so intense it was practically unbearable.
It pulled me under.
It was dark out.
“Where am I?” I asked myself out loud, feeling like I was floating.
No, not floating. I was lying down in a snowbank, staring up at the night sky. The stars were brighter than I’d ever seen, and yet I could see nothing of the landscape around me—not even my breath, which had to be visible given the cold.
“They worshipped me once, you know,” Frost said, lying beside me.
“Fuck!” I scrambled away, my heart suddenly hammering in my chest.
“I didn’t ask them to,” Frost continued, ignoring my outburst. “But they begged me, pleaded with me. Asking me to leave their homes in peace. To take them, but never their loved ones. At first, I was indifferent. I was a creature of the cold, not the source of it. What did I care about their harvests? I arrived as I wished and left as I pleased.”
I scanned the sky and my immediate surroundings, trying to figure out how I’d ended up here—wherever here was. And what about Frost? I’d seen him die. Except, the icicles he’d formed using his own blood had been inside me…were we connected, somehow? Was he feeding off me, like a battery?
“Oh no,” Frost said, chuckling. “I’m dying, don’t worry. You’re just joining me on this leg of the journey, that’s all.”
“Where are we?” I asked, thrown by his confession.
“This is my home. Or it was. I merely thought it’d be nice to see it again, and poof, here I am. Well, here we are, I guess. I didn’t expect company. Although I would have liked to say goodbye to Throm,” Frost admitted sadly.
I frowned. This creature beside me sounded nothing like the Jack Frost I knew. If anything, he seemed remorseful. Pitiable.
If you were into that sort of thing.
“We all do what we are meant to do,” Frost said, as if responding to my thoughts. “That’s all I was saying. It’s only when we break away from our natures that we end up with regrets. See, I never once felt guilty for what I did to them. And that was the way of things, for a long, long time. But then things changed. They found ways to outsmart me. To hide. They found shelter, and coal, and iron. And I hated them for that, I think. Never before had I hated any creature. In Fae, we do not hate. Hate is too deep an emotion. At worst, we find others distasteful. Unpleasant, maybe. But you can’t hate creatures who always act in their own self-interest.”
“And Manling
s?” I asked, before I could help myself.
“Manlings,” Frost said, with a sigh. “Manlings were different. They heeded our lessons too well, I think. Once, they joined together, forged bonds. Out of necessity, mostly. But then we taught them to crave. To take. Many of my kind left after that, returning home with horror stories. I was one of the few who remained. I was angry, and so I became Jack the Ripper, in an attempt to forge a new legend for myself.”
I shuddered.
“Yes, I know,” Frost said. “It was foolish. And so, I left soon after killing that last Manling woman. I took out all my rage and hatred on her until there was nothing left in me but exhaustion. And then I went home.”
“Why d’ye come back, then, if ye knew it was a mistake? Why kill so many more?” I asked, desperately trying to understand how the Faeling I’d met—the Jack Frost who had tortured and murdered all those other people, the Faeling who’d captured and held me in chains—could be so changed.
“She commanded, and I obeyed,” Frost replied.
“She?” I asked.
Frost nodded. “The Winter Queen. She knows what’s coming. The Fae here have become too human, and the Old Gods have stepped away from the world. Of course, there’s one among you who could step forward to challenge the Fomorians, but—if he does—it’s likely he will doom my kind. The Manling Born in Fae has no love for us, you see. He would use us as cannon fodder to keep his own people safe.”
The Manling Born in Fae… That sounded awfully familiar, but for some reason I couldn’t place it. I shook my head, deciding to dwell on it later. “So, the Winter Queen sent you? But why? Why you?”
“To hunt down the source,” Frost explained. “The one calling the Fomorians to Boston. I’ve always been good at finding those who hope to stay hidden. But, once I got here, I realized that there was another way. That the Chancery was weak. Broken. And that all it would take was a nudge here and there to incite a revolution.”
I frowned, recalling Robin’s words from the day before; the Chancery was a powder keg, waiting to explode. But what would Frost hope to gain from pushing them to the edge?
“Did you know,” Frost continued, “the day we met, I whispered in Morgause’s ear, telling her that her son had been freed? I was the one who planted the idea in her head that The Green Knight was responsible.” Frost sighed, not sounding the least bit proud of himself. The opposite, in fact. “The truth is, I thought if I could take over—if I could rule—we might stand a chance of defeating the Fomorians. But, of course…now I realize I’d simply been in the human realm too long. Your kind and your abstracts. Pride. Ambition. I caught them like a disease. They’ve been eating away at me for a while now…” Frost drifted off, his voice weak and thready.
“Wait, what about the Fomorians? I still don’t know who or what they are,” I admitted. “Why are they so dangerous?”
A light emerged far away, as brilliant as a star, but glowing blue. It got closer, weaving back and forth as though scanning the horizon. I frowned, realizing I could make out Frost’s face. He was staring at the light, studying it as if recalling a memory from long ago. “We met them on the shore,” he said, finally. “I was young, then, and weak. But I remember the wars. How our greatest champions chased them into the sea. But it cost us, even then. And now our champions have all but disappeared. Clíodhna sleeps, Manannan mac Lir sails alone, the forges of the Trí Dée Dána are cold and empty, and Lugh is lost in a maze of his own making.”
What the hell was he talking about?
The beam of azure light spread, arcing towards us, as its source shifted back and forth. I felt something emanating from it, a malevolence I could hardly describe. “He has lost one eye, only to gain another,” Frost said. “They have returned to take what is theirs, and he is stronger than ever. I was a fool to think I could stop him.”
“Stop who?” I asked.
“Balor,” Jack whispered. The light swerved at the sound of his voice, locking onto us. I froze, trapped beneath it like an insect under a microscope. I remembered screaming as the world around me burned and turned to dust.
Then, nothing.
Then, more pain.
My wrist was on fire. I shook it loose, swearing, and saw a silver crow rushing towards an opening in the ceiling of the building where I’d been held captive. A wave of ice crashed against my field. I stared down at the chunks of ice at my feet in surprise.
“Let’s see if you can survive this!” Jack yelled. Again.
Acting purely on reflex, I flung myself to the side. Jack’s needles passed harmlessly by, crashing against the ground and splintering. Jack snarled and spun, but found Lakota—the gun I’d used to shoot Frost held in both hands—aiming for his face.
“Wait!” I called, distracting Lakota just enough that her shot went wild, clipping Jack’s shoulder instead. The Faeling spun and landed on his side, groaning.
“What did you do that for?” Lakota growled. She raised the pistol once more.
“Lakota, please,” I said, rising as quickly as my dress would allow. “Please, give me the gun. Ye don’t want to do this.” I edged forward.
“His soul is one of the most depraved I’ve ever seen,” Lakota said. “He kills mortals in the name of practicality. He thinks he’s noble,” she spat.
“I know,” I replied, gently. “But you’ll never forgive yourself if ye kill him like this. Come on, give me the gun,” I urged. Lakota frowned, but I could see the uncertainty in her eyes as she stared down at Frost. I slid my hands along the barrel and pried the gun from her grasp. She released it, and brought her arms up, covering herself, cheeks red.
I squeezed her shoulder, turned, and trained the gun at Frost.
“What are you doing?” Lakota asked, confused. “I thought you didn’t want him dead?”
“No,” I replied, “I simply didn’t want ye to be the one with that on your conscience.”
Lakota stared into my soul from inches away as I lined up my shot. “But you don’t even hate him. You…oh, God, you actually admire him. Why?”
“Would ye kill a tiger for bein’ a tiger?” I asked, ignoring her question.
“No, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I would. I wouldn’t blame the tiger, or anythin’. But ye can’t leave a man-eater alive, even if it’s only doin’ what it was born to do,” I replied. I squeezed the trigger as Jack turned back to look at me, his eyes full of hate and pain and fear. He fell over, eyes empty, blood spilling from the bullet wound in the center of his forehead. “Even if it was only doin’ it because it was terrified of somethin’ worse.”
Because we’re all afraid of something.
But not all of us rip mothers away from their children.
Chapter 37
The gun felt heavy. Heavier than it should have. I stared into the dead, electric blue eyes of a man who’d mutilated and murdered people, and I wasn’t sorry. Hell, I wasn’t anything. I felt numb, floating—the way I had looking up at the stars next to Jack, stuck somewhere between life and death. That’s how it felt to murder someone in cold blood, I realized—like your soul and body could no longer inhabit the same space.
“Thank you,” Lakota said, resting a hand on my gun arm, which was still raised and trembling. I glanced back at her, surprised, and finally lowered my gun. “You did the right thing,” she said emphatically as she gingerly took the gun from me, as if I might do something dumb with it. “Not the good thing. But the right thing. And that’s harder.”
Before I could reply, another voice whispered in my ear, full of malice, “Wrong. You’ve doomed us all.” I whirled around, only to find myself in a dark, cavernous room—the speaker nowhere in sight.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what now?” I cursed. I was disoriented, exhausted, my body in so much pain it hardly even registered anymore, and I was fucking sick and tired of being pulled into dreamscapes and different dimensions without warning.
“You should be used to it by now, child,”
a voice said, slithering across the cavern. I traced the sound back to a recess smothered in shadow. I approached, inching forward, my bare feet sliding across stone.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“Come see for yourself,” the voice replied. A faint blue light shone, little more than a glow, and I realized I was looking at—not a recess—but a room. A throne room carved into the rock. The throne itself, formed from massive sheets of ice, stood in the center, illuminated by tiny, glowing fish that swam within the ice.
The speaker—a woman, older, her eyes tired and her face lined, wearing a dark shawl that hid the rest of her body—stood beside the throne. There was something familiar about her face, I realized. The bend of her nose, perhaps, or the slight tilt of her eyes. Something I couldn’t quite place.
She held out her hand, revealing a block of ice. Inside it, something dark and amorphous lay, pulsing. I frowned and went a little closer, warily checking my surroundings—but no one else was there. “It is only the two of us,” she said, appeasingly. “The Winter Queen and the mortal who killed my son.” She reached over and slid her finger across the block of ice. It came up wet and dripping. The block was melting.
I stopped edging forward. The Winter Queen, one of the three powers who ruled over Fae alongside the Summer Queen and Oberon. And…Jack Frost’s mother. Suddenly, the resemblance was obvious. So, what was this, revenge? I glanced around the room, hoping to find some sort of weapon to defend myself, but all I saw were bare stone walls. I considered running, but I had no idea where I was, so there was little sense in that.
“I do not plan to kill you,” she said, catching my expression. “Once, perhaps, I would have done so. As punishment. But times have changed. I gambled, sending my son to your realm. And I lost.” She frowned. “We have lost much, of late. My sister and I are not what we once were.”
“Why are ye tellin’ me this?” I asked, suspiciously. It wasn’t like I was complaining, but in my experience the only time anyone went out of their way to talk to me about their problems, it was because they wanted something.
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