Blood Winter

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  During this exchange, Powell had been swiveling his head back and forth at them, his mouth open. He finally closed it and paced away to the back door, which had three dead bolts and a steel-covered window. He marched back.

  “What the hell do you mean, a witch? Like pointy hat and flies on a broom?”

  “Giselle does not fly,” Alexander said. “Not on a broom or anything else. I have never seen her even wear a hat. Have you, Thor?”

  “Nope,” the other man said. “Heard she has a pair of ruby slippers somewhere, though. And some do call her the Wicked Witch of the West. Though not where she can hear them, of course.”

  “Not entirely true,” came a gravelly voice from the doorway leading back to the foyer. It was Liam. “Max introduced her to me as the Wicked Witch.”

  “Did she, now?” Alexander said, his gaze running over the other man.

  “Is Max really going to join the Last Standers?” Liam asked.

  Alexander nodded, and Liam frowned. Just then, Bambi pushed in from the other room.

  “If you are Liam,” Alexander said to the copper-haired man, “then you must be Bambi,” he said to the black-haired soldier.

  The other man looked startled and shook his head ruefully. “Tell me that is not going to stick forever.”

  “Probably not,” Thor drawled. “Most of us don’t live forever.”

  “That’s very comforting,” said Bambi. “The name is Radnor. Jack Radnor, if it matters.”

  Thor shook his head. “Can’t see that it does, Bambi.”

  “So what happens now?” Liam asked. “And how can we help?”

  “First we need to find Giselle,” Alexander said. “And we had better hurry. Max is walking into hell, and she will not last long.” Even as the words left his mouth, he wondered at the chill around his heart. She could very well die.

  Inwardly, he laughed. As if that was the first time or the second time or even the third. She was always walking the razor edge of life and death. She had nearly died three times in the last twelve hours alone. Maybe he had simply gotten used to it.

  Or something was very, very wrong with him.

  He needed to find Giselle.

  MAX DIDN’T BOTHER GOING IN SEARCH OF A new shirt. It would just waste time and strength, and she had to conserve all she had of both. Before going to eat, she’d tied the Amengohr amulet around her waist with a leather cord and tucked it inside her pants pocket. She wasn’t sure if her red visitor had noticed it or not, but there was no point in advertising it. The creature knew what she was, so it might be all that stood between her and a sunlit death.

  The creature’s words slithered through her mind, poisonous and festering: 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.

  She was sure the creature had Kyle and the kids. But what about Tris and Giselle? What about Tyler and Alexander and Thor? There were so many she cared about. She could not let this creature beat her. But it had all the power. More than Giselle. More than Max could hope to defeat.

  There had to be a way.

  In the end, there was only one place for Max to go next.

  She stepped through the abyss and landed on a hardwood floor inside a broad space. She fell awkwardly and rolled up into a crouch, sliding her gun from her waistband and swinging it back and forth.

  “You ruined my spell,” Giselle said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of a chalk ward circle. As Max turned to face her, she leaped to her feet. “What happened to you?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she bent and released the circle before coming to stand in front of Max.

  “What’s that on your chest and stomach?” She reached out her hand but didn’t touch, for which Max was grateful. The cuts on her stomach ached like they’d been carved with acid.

  “Benjamin Sterling isn’t working alone. He’s got himself a demon of some kind, or it’s got him. It said this mark was its seal and that it wanted me to come visit it.” Max glanced around again. “Where are we? Where is everybody?”

  “I sent them scouting. We’re going to use this place as a base until we find them. We can make a light-safe room in the basement. Oz is going to bring the Sunspears when it’s light. Come on. Let me get a better look at that,” Giselle said, pulling Max nearer to the candles. “Lie down.”

  Max did as ordered, feeling drained. Giselle picked up a candle and held it close. As usual, her hair was pulled back from her face. Shadows hollowed at her eyes and cheeks, giving her an austere look.

  Giselle frowned, her eyes becoming unfocused. She murmured some words and touched one of the designs with her finger. Fire flared up, scorching Max’s stomach. Giselle dropped the candle and skittered back on her hands and heels as the fire rose in a scarlet column nearly to the ceiling.

  The flames roared for nearly half a minute before they died away. Max couldn’t move, couldn’t roll over to try to douse them. Her body was paralyzed. All she could do was feel. In her mind, she thought she heard a triumphant chuckle.

  When the impromptu fire died and she could move again, Max sat up gingerly, looking down at herself. Her skin remained white and bloody. The flames had been illusion. Painful illusion.

  “Let’s not do that again soon,” she said to Giselle, breathing deeply.

  “I want to hear everything,” the witch said, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”

  She left through a door at the end of the empty hall. It was like a banquet hall or something, minus chairs, tables, or much of anything else besides air and floor. There was a fireplace at either end, one of which had a fire burning in it.

  A few minutes later, Giselle returned with a black men’s polo shirt and some jars of canned peaches.

  “We found these in a pantry in the basement. Whoever used to live here either forgot about them or didn’t get a chance to come back.”

  Max slid the shirt on. It was loose and baggy. “Where are we?” she asked, unscrewing a cap and prying off the lid seal with her knife. She drank the syrup and then stabbed the peaches with the blade. She went through all three at high speed. “Got more?”

  “Come on. Might as well take you to the stash. You can tell me everything you know.”

  “We’ll have to make it quick. I’ve got to go join the Last Standers or get captured by them before light.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ll fill you in. But I need all the calories I can get. This seal is costing me more than just blood. It’s eating up my energy.”

  They went through the door into a huge kitchen. It looked big enough to run a restaurant.

  “What is this place?”

  “Best as I can tell, it was a house. There are eight bedrooms upstairs and another two in the basement. That room you dropped into was probably the dining room, and of course, this is the kitchen.”

  “Who lived here, the Waltons?”

  “Who knows? The place can’t have been empty that long, but most of the furniture’s gone, except some stuff they didn’t seem to want anymore. And some clothes—that shirt you’re wearing, for one. Not a lot of dust, either, and no vandalism. How anybody would haul away as much stuff as must’ve filled this house without a half dozen U-Hauls, I don’t know. But I am pretty sure they left post-Change.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “We got attacked coming over the river and managed to steer off onto a side road. We meandered around, then I started scrying for Kyle. It led me in this direction. The snow was getting pretty deep, and we found this place. There’s a barn, so we parked inside. I sent the others off to see what they could find and was about to cast a larger scry when you so rudely interrupted me.”

  Grasping a candle, she opened a door leading into the basement. Along one side of the rectangular basement were the two bedrooms, and another large room filled the far end. It held a pool table and an air-hockey table. To the left was a utility room containing the heater, washing machines, and
two chest freezers. Next to it was an enormous room full of empty shelves. Giselle went right into a smaller storage room. This contained jars of pickles, fruit, meat, vegetables, jellies, dried beans, rice, flour, and dozens of other staples.

  “Were they expecting the apocalypse?” Max asked.

  Giselle shrugged. “Probably. There are a lot of end-of-the-world types living in Montana. Now, start talking. What’s going on?”

  Max told her everything that had happened. She left out as many details as she could, but it still took more than a half hour. Of course, eating slowed her down.

  “So Alexander and Thor are looking for Tris. Tyler’s looking for you. Gregory is at the compound. Is Judith with you?” Max set aside the jar of sweet pickles she’d just eaten and reached for a sack of raisins.

  “She’s back at Horngate with Magpie. We had an idea to try to channel the power of the Fury Seed through them to me. It may be too far. Tell me more about Alexander.”

  “What’s there to tell? Whatever he felt for me, he’s done with it. I might as well be a stranger, for all he seems to care.” Her throat hurt with suppressed emotion.

  “That’s odd,” Giselle said, her brows furrowing. She was sitting on the floor across from Max, leaning against the shelves. “In the space of a couple of minutes, he falls out of love with you? That’s really . . . strange. Unbelievable, even. I wonder if he had help with that.”

  Love? The word sliced deep. Max’s lungs hurt as she drew a shallow breath. “What do you mean, help?”

  “It’s possible he got himself hexed or cursed or bespelled. This might not have anything to do with him.”

  That rocked Max back. She hadn’t considered the possibility of magic. But then she remembered the way he’d looked into her eyes and the sudden shift, as if he’d made up his mind. That hadn’t been a spell.

  She cleared her throat. “Whatever. It’s not really important at the moment. I need to get going. With luck, I can get close enough to kill Sterling and maybe haul Kyle and the kids out through the abyss. But this creature is going to come after Horngate in full force. You need to collect everybody and get back to Horngate. If you can pull on the power of the Fury Seed, you might be able to hold it off.”

  “What if you can’t get them out?” Giselle leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “It’s a stupid plan. We can do better.”

  “Maybe, if we had time. But we don’t. This thing is killing me. Between that and the Amengohr amulet, I’ll be lucky to survive to tomorrow night.” Max scraped her hands through her hair and stared at Giselle. Her nemesis. Her witch. Her friend. “I’m all ears if you’ve got other ideas.”

  “I could go in with you.”

  Startled laughter exploded from Max. “You can’t be serious. That thing almost took you down inside your own wards. You only fended it off because I took your pain and you had the Fury Seed to draw on. On its home turf, it’ll eat you alive.”

  “Not if Judith and Magpie can channel the power of the Fury Seed to me.” Flickers of black magic shadowed her eyes. “Two of us are more likely to survive than you alone.”

  “No. You’ll just be walking into the same trap I am. I have to,” Max said, pointing down at her bleeding stomach. “You don’t.” She shook her head. “There’s no other way around this one. I’ll do all I can to weaken Sterling and his demon. You hit them hard with whatever you can. Kill them. No one will be safe until they’re dead.”

  Giselle stood and paced up and down, threads of black magic sliding over her skin. Finally, she stopped and nodded. “You’d better get out of here before the others show up. They won’t want to let you go, either.”

  They went up the stairs to the kitchen. Max turned toward the door and then stopped, turning around. Giselle was watching her, black magic wreathing around her, sparks flashing angrily. She looked like an avenging spirit.

  Max’s mouth opened. No words came. She closed her lips and gave an apologetic shrug. A moment later, she stepped out through the door into a world of white.

  Snow lay deep over everything. Feet of it. Her shirt started freezing up instantly, the blood-soaked material stiffening in the cold.

  Above her, dark, pointed shadows loomed out of the thick-falling flakes, signaling trees. Below, everything was hidden. She had some idea where they were. If Mansion Heights was east and north, and if there was a tree line on the slope above and behind her, then downslope were gentle swells of fields that dammed up at the edge of the city.

  She turned up toward the trees, where the snow was lighter, and started east.

  She had gone only a few feet when the snow turned scarlet before her. A shape detached itself. It was her creature, no more substantial than before. Snow fell through the red outlines of its body and wings.

  It bent forward and touched her stomach. Her shirt turned to ash and fell away.

  “That’s better,” it said smugly. “I do not wish you to cover yourself. Everybody must know you belong to me and only me.”

  “Fuck you,” Max said.

  The creature smiled. Demon. It had to be a demon, Max thought.

  “Is that an invitation?” A curl of smoke unwound from its ankle and feathered up Max’s pants leg. It burned like acid where it touched. She stepped back, but it only followed, the demon chuckling.

  “Don’t fight it. You asked, remember?”

  The smoke went higher until it slipped under her underwear. The feeling was agonizing. Max swiped her foot through the red tendril connecting them, but her boot merely passed through without affecting the torment in her crotch.

  The smoke found her entrance and thickened, pushing against her bluntly. Max stepped back, the snow making progress hard. The demon didn’t move, and the assault didn’t stop. The pain was intimate, excruciating.

  “Careful what you ask for,” it said, and a long red tongue slipped out of its mouth. “I will do with you what I want. You will be punished. You will scream, and you will beg for death. But if you are polite, perhaps it will end sooner rather than later.”

  The smoke thrust up inside her, hard. Max doubled over and dropped to her knees as pain radiated out through her gut. The smoke dissolved, leaving her flesh throbbing with the acid burns and the humiliation of having it inside her, raping her.

  “Did you get off, you fucking bastard?” she asked, clambering to her feet. “Is that what you are? A rapist?”

  Its expression turned vicious, and it flicked forward so that its face was less than an inch away from hers. “I am Justice,” it hissed. “You are condemned. You are nothing. You are meat. Do you understand? What I do to you, you deserve.”

  “That’s what all rapists say,” she spit. “And every single one of them is evil. You’re not Justice. You prey on the weak. You’re a flat-out coward.”

  The demon straightened, staring down at her. “You need a muzzle,” it said, then waved its hand.

  Fire stitched through Max’s lips. She tried to open them, but they were fastened shut. Panic struck her. It was primal. She gouged at her lips, trying to pry them apart, but they were sealed.

  “Don’t worry,” the demon said. “Eventually, I will allow you to scream. Never say I am without mercy.” It turned to look behind her at the building. “I have business.”

  He brushed past her. Red smoke spun around the farmhouse. The door opened, and Giselle came out. Her arms were fastened at her side. She walked stiffly, like a wood soldier whose knees won’t bend. She walked straight to the demon, never glancing away.

  Max leaped to her feet, her shouts bottling up in her mouth. She ran forward, planning to pick up Giselle and jump away, using the angel feather embedded in her palm. She never made it. The demon’s arm came up and smashed her in the chest. Pain exploded in her body, and she flew into the air. She crashed through the limbs of the trees before crumpling to the ground.

  Instantly, she was back on her feet. Blood ran down over her eyes, and she knuckled it away. Giselle was only a few feet from the demon now. Max launche
d herself again. This time, she was prepared for the demon’s move. Or she thought she was. She dodged around the reach of its arm and wings, but it suddenly turned into Stretch Armstrong and smashed her back again.

  This time, she lost consciousness. It last only a minute or two. Probably. When she crawled to her feet, the demon had its arm around Giselle. She stood within its grasp, not fighting.

  “You care for her,” it said, running a red finger down Giselle’s cheek. “Good. Another soul will die for your sins. It is not yet enough, but the balance grows more even. You may tell her good-bye if you wish.”

  Suddenly Max could speak. “I swear I will kill you,” she rasped.

  “You will try. You will fail.” With that, it spread its wings and leaped into the air, the doll-like Giselle clasped under one arm. “I will be waiting,” it said, hovering for a moment before it winged away toward Mansion Heights.

  Max stared after it, fury and frustration choking her. Slowly, she sank to her knees, watching as the demon grew smaller. What the hell was she going to do now? There didn’t seem to be any way out of the hole she was in. It just kept getting deeper.

  ALEXANDER AND THOR POLISHED OFF ALL OF the stew Powell had made. The man grumbled but did not protest. Clearly, he just wanted them out of his house. The fact that his visitors had not threatened him or his children made him more cooperative. That and their shared animosity toward the Last Standers.

  Suddenly, Thor froze, dropping the glass of water he had been drinking. The glass shattered.

  “Oh, fucking hell,” he muttered as he sagged back against the wall, his hands clamping over his head.

  “What is it? What is wrong?” Alexander demanded.

  “Shit shit shit shit,” Thor muttered, rocking forward.

  “What’s happening to him?” Doris said, fingers digging hard into the couch. Everyone had gathered back in the living-room area.

  “Shhh,” Tris told her. “Leave him be. This is magic.”

  Geoff had leaped forward to grip Thor’s elbow and was pulling him toward a chair. “C’mon. Sit down before you fall down.”