Maximus (Boys of Wynter Book 2)

by Tess Oliver

  One by one, the souls walked past with their heads drooped in shame and disappointment. I climbed out after them. It was payday and Steemer kept track of my fares for the week.

  I tied off the ferry and headed past Catch and his weary, downtrodden tourists. The gold coin he'd been tossing so excitedly arced in the air and landed at my feet. It spun around twice and fell flat against the worn wood planks.

  I leaned down to pick it up and stared at it on my palm. I recognized it instantly. Catch was lumbering toward me as I glanced up. I was so stunned to see the coin, I nearly spoke in my real voice. "Ca—Catch, where did you get this?"

  Catch's greedy fingers grabbed for the coin, leaving me with a light scratch on my palm. He quickly shoved it into his pocket. "A friend gave it to me. Steemer says it's really old, maybe a hundred plus years. And it's mine now because a friend gave it to me."

  "Yes, you said that and it belongs to my fath—to me. It belongs to me." I had to work hard not to speak up in my real voice. My father had carried the lucky coin in his ferryman's cloak, just as his father had done. It was the first coin my great-grandfather had earned on the ferry.

  "Nonsense. You'll need some kind of proof or verification that it belongs to you, a bill of sale perhaps?"

  "It's a hundred and fifty years old, how would I have a bill of sale?"

  The souls lining up for their journey began to howl and moan in despair. "I've got to go before Feenix hears these fools whining." Catch spun around and plodded away.

  He was right. If he didn't get the souls off the riverbank and to Vapour or Cashel, then he'd hear a raging earful from Feenix or worse, his rotten smelling brother, Paygon. I decided to let him finish his task while I went to pick up my pay.

  Steemer was sitting large and a few good pounds past jolly behind his table. "There's the ferryman." His voice boomed inside the tent. I'd heard my father talk about Steemer many times. He'd lost his leg to a wraith's sickle just a few months into his job as one of the Boys of Wynter. After years of training and exposure to all the secrets of the underworld, Feenix was loathe to let Steemer return to the mortal world. It turned out he was more than useful in accounting so he became the bookkeeper. And he knew everything there was to know about the inhabitants and the people who worked in the underworld. Everything except that the person hiding beneath Trex's veil was the twenty-three-year-old great-granddaughter of Trex. No one ever questioned how Trex had stayed ferryman for so many years. They just assumed he was some strange immortal who had been given the job of taking ferries across the River of Souls.

  "All counted and recorded. It was a good week for you, but I guess not so great for your passengers." Steemer's jowls jiggled with laughter as he handed me the leather satchel filled with the week's pay. When I'd decided to step into my dad's place, both to find out where the hell he was and to preserve the family business, I dreaded the idea of spending so much time in the underworld. Admittedly, it took a few weeks for me not to curl up in suffocating panic attacks in the thick, grimy atmosphere. It took even longer to get used to the hollow, bewildered stares of the souls as they looked up at me on the captain's helm. But oddly enough, once I got into the routine, I found it to be a low stress job with an impressive salary. My father was the first Trex not to have a son. He'd wanted one so badly he wouldn't allow my mother to come up with any girl's name. Of course, when the reality hit and he discovered he had a daughter instead of a son, he compromised and let my mother soften the name Richard to Rikki. I'd always worked on the trawler, but I'd never really thought about working on the ferry until I had no choice.

  Steemer had the pay counted out for Maximus and his pack mates, which meant they'd be coming to collect. "I'm just waiting for the Boys and then I'm cleaning up shop for the night." The fatter Steemer grew, the more his eyes disappeared into his cheeks. His brows bunched together over his deep set eyes. "Are you shrinking, ferryman? I could swear you look shorter."

  I swallowed and constricted my throat to produce the grating tone. "Just gettin' old. Bones are starting to fuse together at the joints." I lifted the satchel and nodded to him. It was the second time he'd asked me about my height. My dad wasn't tall for a man, but I was still a good five inches shorter. I had been wearing the thick soled work boots I wore on the trawler, and I'd piled my hair up on my head so the hood of the cloak stood up taller. Between my small height additions and the murky air surrounding the river, no one else seemed to notice. But Steemer always saw me standing over his table in a tent that was lit by oil lamps. Fortunately, he just didn't care enough to pursue the topic after I reminded him I was getting old. More than a century old, considering he thought the original Trex was still working the ferry.

  I walked out of Steemer's tent. The Boys would be off in an hour, and they'd be at the river waiting for a ride to pick up their pay. Barq, Maximus's gray stallion was not standing in the makeshift paddock Catch had built for the horses. That meant Maximus was hunting on horseback. I had only caught a glimpse of him as he rode through with the others. I was across the river at the time, but I was sure I could still see his brown eyes watching me through the clammy mist. I was more than a little nervous about seeing him again. And not just because he knew my secret. Just thinking about him put a wobble in my knees that I couldn't seem to stop.

  I walked over to the ferry and began to untie it from the cleat when I heard Catch's screechy voice. He dragged the knuckles of his hand across the ground as he pulled himself along toward the two dead blackened tree stumps that marked the entrance to Wynter.

  The portal that I took to reach the river skirted around the outside borders of Wynter so that I never had to step into the hideously uninviting landscape. I'd heard scary tales about how Wynter was so foul with wraith odors and underworld castoffs that spending an hour inside would drive a sane man to madness. Unless, of course, you were trained to navigate its horrors and dangers like the Boys of Wynter.

  But I was sure most of the tales were gross exaggerations. I needed to follow Catch. He had my dad's lucky coin, which meant he knew something or someone that could lead me to my father. It was my first real clue and the first sign that my dad was still nearby, somewhere in the underworld. The more I'd thought about the wraith that had grabbed my veil, the more I was sure that someone had sent it to the ferry. Whoever it was that had sent the wraith knew my dad was no longer on the ferry. They obviously wanted to unmask me and find out who had replaced him. Unfortunately, the wraith was long gone leaving me back at square one. It seemed I had no choice but to follow Catch into Wynter. I needed to find out who had given him the coin.

  Seven

  Rikki

  I was not more than ten steps into Wynter when my eyes began burning from the heat and bitter sulfur in the air. I knew there were flaming geysers and deep, sticky holes that could rip a limb off. I took each step with the caution of a person walking a tightrope stretched between two high rises. The last thing I needed was to get scalded or, worse, break off a leg.

  I lifted the veil and swept my hand through the thick air to clear the view, but all it did was kick up more of the hovering debris. My throat burned as if molten hot lava was being poured down it. My vision grew clouded by stinging tears, and each breath was painful. My foot slipped on a black, slimy spot. My heart slammed against my ribs, thinking I'd stepped into an oily, bottomless hole. Instinctively, I grabbed out to keep myself from falling, but there was nothing to grasp other than the putrid, viscous air.

  I jumped back, freeing my foot but wrenching my ankle painfully to the side. I stumbled back several steps and landed hard on my ass in the middle of a pile of sharp branches. I pulled out a shard that was jamming itself into the back of my thigh.

  As my heavy breaths cleared the mist in front of my face, I got a better view of the branch I was holding. It had a long set of bony fingers at the end of it. A scream lodged in my throat as I tossed away the skeletal arm. I pushed quickly to my feet, forgetting that I'd just sprained my ankle.

>   What a mess I'd made of things. I'd make one hell of a detective.

  I shoved the veil up and tucked it under the hood. It was hard enough to see without black fabric shielding my eyes. I glanced around looking for a way out. My dad was right. Wynter was not a place for a sane person. I decided to go back to the river and wait for Catch to emerge on his own.

  It was harder to balance when I could only stand solidly on one foot. I limped in the direction I thought I'd come from, but I found nothing except billowing liquid stench and black ooze. I was lost. In Wynter.

  A sound behind me should have made me take off in the opposite direction. Instead I turned toward it hoping it would be Catch or a goblin that I could pay off with a coin to show me the way out.

  It was like trying to looking through a vat of gray soup. Visibility was so poor, I could barely see the tip of my own nose. The haze left a rancid, sour taste in my throat that made me want to throw up. How the hell did they do it? How the hell did the Boys of Wynter spend hours upon hours in the dreadful place without losing their minds? I couldn't imagine the agonizing training they'd had to endure as young teenagers to harden them to such a place.

  I caught a flicker of movement from the side of my eye and moved toward it. I had no idea what I was moving toward, but I hoped it would be greedy enough to take a gold coin. I walked toward an outcropping of deep, dark rock that had flames flickering from every crack and crevice. Sweat dripped down the side of my temple, and my father's cumbersome cloak began to feel weighted with moisture.

  The notion of being lost forever in Wynter helped override the pain in my ankle. Through the bubbling and gurgling pits of sludge and gelatinous mist, I could hear my pulse pounding erratically in my head as I trudged on.

  I moved in the direction of the fleeting movement but saw nothing. It seemed I'd only imagined it. I spun back around hoping I could find my footprints in the soggy ground. I was staring down, focused on finding my path, when a sharp scream broke the atmosphere around me.

  I dropped into a protective ball and covered my ears. The sound was loud enough to crack off a piece of the flaming black rock over my head. The smoldering piece of rock rolled down and set fire to the bottom of the cloak. I had been knocked so senseless by the scream, a banshee's most dangerous weapon, that it took me a moment to realize that the flames licking at my face were coming from the cloak.

  I danced around frantically, patting out the flames. Suddenly the hood was wrenched from my head. A white hand yanked my hair so hard, I fell backward. The banshee grinned down at me as it pulled me along the oily ground by my hair. I reached back and tried to free myself from its long, cold fingers, but my efforts only made the banshee pull harder.

  I screamed as loud as I could and reached around for something to grab onto. It seemed everything in the damn place was only semi solid. With the exception of the bumpy ground beneath my ass, which was plenty hard. In my struggle to break free from the banshee's grasp, I hadn't noticed that two other screaming beasts dressed in frosty white garments had joined their friend.

  My body was being dragged over a hot, sticky substance that was penetrating the cloak. The muddy slop sizzled against my skin. One of the banshees swept down over me and pressed its face right up to mine. Its eyes were black, bottomless holes, and its slit of a mouth spewed foul breath. It floated along, hovering and keeping up with me as I hurtled along behind my hair.

  Terror and agony were not helping me out of my situation. I was being dragged farther into Wynter, and I was never going to find my way out. I needed to fight back against the banshees. It seemed that I was just a play toy, an entertaining way to pass the time. I was sure when they were through with me they'd toss me into a sludge hole or flaming geyser.

  I swung my arm through the air. My fist struck the hovering banshee right in its hideous mouth. It jolted back as if being yanked by some invisible leash, but it sprang back quickly. Its thin mouth formed a large oval and the creature released a scream that made it feel as if my head was splitting apart into a billion molecules. I pushed my hands over my ears. But even if I'd ripped them from my head, it wouldn't have stopped the noise or the feeling that my brain was breaking apart.

  The banshee that held my hair had finally tired of dragging me along the sticky ground. I curled my body into a fetal position, waiting for the pain in my head to stop. Coherent thoughts had stopped, and for a moment, I considered that death might be my easiest way out of the mess.

  As my head cleared, the grim thoughts disappeared too, and my survival instincts kicked back in. I stayed in a ball and rolled over so that my face and knees were beneath me. The syrupy mist that shrouded the ground clogged my nose. As I pulled a breath through my mouth, the taste and odor made my throat close up. I pushed to my knees, pulling my face away from the suffocating moisture. I coughed so hard it felt as if my lungs would shoot right out of my mouth.

  My eyes were shut tight, but I could sense that my three friends were still dancing in the air around my head, just waiting for me to make a move. I wasn't sure my head could withstand another scream. The last two had nearly drained every ounce of energy from me. Who needed a blade or a gun when you had a scream that could leave your opponent a withering, delirious shell. Somewhere in the back of my cloudy mind I remembered my dad telling me about banshees and how their screams dissipated in energy and decibels with each successive scream. He'd said the most dangerous ones were ones that had not screamed for months. He likened it to a snake being less poisonous right after it had released its venom. That nugget of knowledge hardly helped me though because there was a third banshee.

  I weighed every option. Could I outrun beings that were mostly vapor, had the advantage of flight and knew the terrain? And if I did run, which way should I go? I was even more lost now. My options were dismal.

  I shot to my feet and took off, but I got no more than ten feet before my hair was wrenched painfully back.

  "Damn you, you hair pulling monster!" I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and braced myself, deciding it was my hair or my life. I pummeled the banshee with my fists and pulled away hard, sure that I'd be bald at the end of my struggle.

  Then, without warning, it released my hair. I went flying forward a good five feet before landing hard on my knees. That was when I felt the ground vibrate beneath me. I kept my eyes shut in terror, certain a giant, thunderous monster had joined the banshees.

  The same terror forced me to open my eyes. I peered up through the mist. It was a giant all right. But not the giant of my nightmares. This was the giant of my dreams, my romantic, erotic fantasy dreams, to be exact.

  The spark and crack of a gunshot pushed me to my feet. The banshee that had taken such glee in pulling me around by my hair withered into a whimpering pile and melted into the sticky ground.

  Barq and Maximus circled the second banshee. It dashed from side to side. As it opened its mouth to scream, Maximus shot a bullet through the opening. The banshee flew through the air like a balloon releasing its gas. It crumpled to the ground like a dying bird and disappeared. I'd lost sight of the third banshee and decided it must have flown in fright.

  Maximus swung Barq around to face me. His eyes widened and he jumped off the horse's back. He reached up to his ears as he lumbered toward me. I stood frozen in confusion as he barreled my direction. Before I could think to move, he jammed something soft and pliable in each of my ears. Maximus covered his own ears with his hands and dropped to his knees in pain as a muffled sound, like the whistle on a kettle, floated up behind me. I spun around to see the third banshee hovering in the mist like a scrawny, beady eyed ghost. Its mouth was open from the scream, the scream I could barely hear.

  The banshee's black eyes rounded, and it twisted away like a tornado and took off. Maximus thundered past me and followed it. I couldn't hear the gunshot, but it lit the gray mist for a brief moment.

  Seconds later, Maximus stepped back through the haze. A sob of relief rolled off my lips. He stared at me as if he
was still trying to decide if I was real or an illusion. I decided to set his mind to rest. Or at least my feet made the decision.

  "Maximus." I walked straight into his arms.

  Eight

  Maximus

  I was still having a hell of a time believing that Rikki was pressed against me, crying and trembling with relief. She felt small and frail and all too real in my arms.

  She sucked in a long, shuddering breath and lifted her face to me.

  Tears streaked through the tarry grime on her cheeks. Her disguise, the cloak, hood and veil were plastered with gobs of sludge. Some of the faded fabric was still smoking after being singed by the burning embers that floated through the mist like fireflies.

  Rikki's smooth brows arched over her eyes as she reached up to her ears and pulled out the earplugs. She stared down at them on her palm. "These are incredible."

  "Flint invented them. They fit any ears. Even Barq is wearing some."

  She looked back at my horse. The stallion was busy pawing the ground in frustration because we had stopped to rest. When we were hunting, Barq stayed amped up and ready to run after any squirmy creature that crossed our path. Only this time, we hadn't happened upon a squirmy creature. Even clad in an oversized cloak and spotted from head to toe with slime, Rikki was a damn picture. She couldn't have looked more out of place in Wynter.

  "I need to get you out of here, Rikki. Then you can tell me just why the hell you were here in the first place."