Blood Winter

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  To Alexander’s amazement, Thor obeyed, collapsing into the chair, his head between his knees. He panted as if he couldn’t catch his breath.

  Finally, he collected himself enough to sit up. His gaze went immediately to Alexander.

  “Something’s happened to Giselle. I can feel her, but the bond hurts. Like acid eating through my skull.” He scowled. “Damn. I’m not fully bound to her. I can’t imagine what the others are feeling. It probably knocked them ass over teakettle.”

  “Can you tell what has happened? She is still alive?” Alexander asked.

  Thor nodded. “The bond would break if she was dead. But something’s happened.”

  Alexander rubbed at his forehead. There was a dull ache there. It had been coming on for a few hours. “We need to get Gregory,” he said.

  “And do what?”

  Alexander tried his spirit sense. It was still patchy but clear enough that he could make things out. He pushed outward. He found Gregory’s spirit flame, green with cream streaks. He pushed further. He ran across other Blades. They were scattered through the city, although now they seemed to be moving south. One by one, he ticked them off. Tyler, Nami, Oak, Flint, Steel, Ivy, Jody—

  No Max.

  He pushed further. And found her.

  Her spirit flame was a rich mix of orange and blue, like a hot fire. Except that now it flickered unsteadily, and there was a tattered quality to it.

  She was hurt.

  The ache in his head intensified. He shook himself. “I know where Max is,” he said. “We will get Gregory and meet her.” Alexander looked at Liam and Bambi. “You will stay and guard everyone?”

  He did not wait for an answer but headed out the door. Thor flanked him, asking no more questions. They had not gone more than a dozen yards when a demand spiked through Alexander. It was Max, summoning her Blades. It stopped him cold.

  Thor jerked around like he was yanked on a string. Alexander caught his arm. “We have to get Gregory first,” he said. Something had happened to Giselle. Now Max was summoning them, and her spirit flame was damaged. Whatever was going on, they would need Gregory. He was sure of it.

  “Let’s go,” Thor said, not arguing.

  As one, they turned and began bounding through the deep snow. Suddenly, Alexander veered, turning west, away from the compound.

  “What are you doing?” Thor demanded.

  “Flint and Steel are just ahead.”

  The twins were ruddy-faced and crusted with snow. Both were wiry, with short blond hair, blue eyes, and a knack for always knowing where the other was.

  Alexander barely stopped. “Tell Max we found Tris. We are bringing Gregory.”

  He and Thor resumed their trek to the compound. Once there, Alexander pounded on the gate.

  “Who’s there?” A voice demanded.

  Alexander’s teeth ground together. “I am Alexander. I am here for the witch.”

  No one answered. Frustration mounted. Alexander punched the heavy steel door, making a deep dent the shape of his fist.

  “Let us in, or I swear I will tear your legs off!”

  Still nothing but murmurs and shuffling feet. The snow muffled everything beyond his ability to hear it.

  “They say you catch more flies with sugar,” Thor said, finally catching up.

  Alexander growled deep in his throat. “I will remember that the next time I am catching flies.” He stood back, looking up. The top was invisible in the snow. It was about twenty feet high, if he recalled correctly. He could jump that.

  “I am going in,” he said, and crouched. Just then, he heard a jangle of chains and the clank of metal on metal. Then a chain ladder dropped.

  “Come up. Gate won’t open. Too much snow.” It was Kara.

  Alexander did not wait for a second invitation. He leaped up, grasping a crossbar on the ladder and pulling himself up hand over hand. He tugged himself over the top. Thor followed a moment later. The people on top fell back along the decking. Two roused Blades were enough to make some people piss their pants.

  “We need Gregory,” Alexander told Kara.

  “He’s in my shack,” she said, reading their urgency and not asking questions.

  The compounders had dug out a system of paths throughout the little city. They were fast filling up again, and Alexander brushed past a number of men and women shoveling.

  Protective domes rose here and there where Gregory had worked his magic. Snow pillowed on top, and ice slicked the sides where the heat within had melted the snow. Alexander hoped to hell that the witch had not exhausted himself to uselessness.

  Alexander threaded his way through the snow maze to Kara’s house. Within the dome, it was warm and moist as the heat from her woodstove melted the snow on the ground. Inside Kara’s shack, Gregory sprawled across the bed. His coat, shirt, pants, and socks hung by the fire to dry. Alexander shook his shoulder.

  “Wake up.”

  The witch blinked, slowly registering his visitors. He sat up. “What’s going on? What time is it?”

  “It is about two hours to dawn. We have to go.”

  Gregory rose and pulled on his clothing. He glanced up and flushed when Kara walked in, then turned back to lacing up his boots. He yawned and shook his head to clear the muzziness. “What’s going on?”

  “Something happened to Giselle. Max summoned the Blades.”

  The witch froze, looking up. “Something happened to Giselle?” he repeated hoarsely. “She’s not . . . dead?”

  Giselle was the heart of Horngate. If she died, the anneau—the magical heart of the covenstead—would unwind. Alexander was not all that sure what that meant, but it was clear that Gregory feared it.

  “No,” Thor answered. “I can still feel her. But she’s not good.”

  “Can we help?” Kara asked quietly.

  Alexander considered her. “You are welcome to come join our fight.”

  “Where?”

  “South. I am not sure where, but just outside the city.”

  She nodded. “Mansion Heights. Sterling has built himself a temple there.”

  “We plan to attack at nightfall,” he said, although he had no idea if that was true. “We have got to go now.”

  He shouldered his way out of the shack. Gregory, Thor, and Kara followed. He strode quickly, too fast for Gregory, who was hampered by the snow and exhaustion. Alexander spun around and wordlessly tossed the witch over his shoulder.

  “Hey!” Gregory yelped. “Put me down!”

  “No.”

  Alexander found the wall and a set of steps leading upward. He took them five at a time. “I need a rope,” he told Kara, setting Gregory back on his feet.

  “This way,” Kara said, leading them along the decking. They passed several guards hunched over barrels full of burning wood. The snow was doing everything it could to douse the flames.

  Kara stopped near the gate and shoved the snow off the top of a steel box. Inside were tools and several coils of rope. She pulled one out and handed it to Alexander.

  “Thanks,” he forced himself to say. Then he tied one end, casting the rest over the side.

  He motioned for Thor to go first. The blond Blade grabbed the rope and swung over the side, lowering himself.

  “Your turn,” Alexander told Gregory. “Piggyback.”

  The witch scowled. “The caveman routine is already getting old,” he said.

  Alexander smiled. “But faster.” He turned and squatted down to allow Gregory to hop on his back. The witch hesitated, then jumped. Alexander caught him easily, hoisting him higher. “Put your arms around my neck. Tighter. Tighter. You are not going to choke me. Better. Do not let go.”

  Following Thor, he grabbed the rope and leaped over the side, dangling with one hand as he got himself turned to face the wall. Gregory made no sound, but his heart pounded furiously. Alexander lowered them hand over hand. Thor grabbed Gregory and lifted him away at the bottom.

  “The snow is deep,” the witch said in surpr
ise. It came halfway up his chest.

  “And getting deeper every second,” Thor said.

  “I can’t walk in this.”

  “Which is why we will carry you,” Alexander said, dropping down beside them.

  “Piggyback? There has to be another way.”

  “We are open to suggestions. But make it fast. We are in a hurry.”

  “Snowmobiles.”

  Thor slapped his pockets. “I’m fresh out.”

  “Someone has to have them around here.”

  “If they do, they are buried under several feet of snow or tucked into a garage somewhere,” Thor said. “We don’t have time to look.”

  Gregory’s lips pinched together, then he gave in. “Fine. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Sure,” Thor replied, glancing at the thick snow still falling. “Maybe it will let up soon.”

  “And pigs might fly,” Alexander said. “Jump on,” he told Gregory, and when the witch was firmly situated, they started off again.

  They went about a quarter of a mile before they had to give up. Gregory could not maintain his hold. Alexander’s jumps were too violent.

  “What about a sled of some kind?” Thor asked. “We could make one with some rope and a sheet of plywood or some siding off a house and pull him behind us.”

  They were in an older neighborhood not far from Brooks Street. Or so he thought. It was hard to tell. The houses here were largely deserted, although a few had smoke coming from the chimneys. They chose the closest one, a Craftsman bungalow with a front porch and thick brick pillars. The door was locked but broke easily when Alexander kicked it in.

  Inside, the house was cold. The rooms were a mixture of order and chaos, as if the owners had abandoned the place quickly. The furniture was mostly in place, but the cupboards and cabinets were open, the contents scattered across the floor. It appeared that the owners had taken what they wanted and left the rest.

  “See if you can find something in here we can use,” Alexander told the other two. “I will check the garage.”

  He went through the kitchen and out into the attached garage. There were no vehicles inside. Golf clubs, bats, skis, and other sports equipment filled the vertical cupboards in the front, along with garden tools. A lawn mower was parked off to the side with several bicycles. Lawn chemicals and blocks of toilet paper and paper towels lined the shelves above.

  Alexander’s eye caught on the overhead rack. On it were two kayaks and a canoe. He leaped up and grabbed the rack, pulling a kayak down with his other hand. It clattered to the floor. He dug through the rack of tools and equipment on the workbench just outside the door and found a roll of heavy twine. It would do.

  He hauled the kayak into the house. Thor looked up from the kitchen table. He had turned it over and was taking the pedestal base off it. Seeing Alexander, he leaped to his feet.

  “That’ll do it,” he said, straightening up. “I’ll get Gregory.”

  “Meet me out front,” Alexander said.

  Once outside, he unrolled about fifty feet of the twine, then repeated that, doubling it over several times until he had eight strands. By the time he did, Thor and Gregory joined him.

  The witch had found a stocking cap and some heavy gloves. Alexander stopped what he was doing and looked at him. “You can spell your clothes to keep them dry and warm, can you not?”

  Gregory grimaced and nodded. Alexander knew the other man did not like wasting magic on himself.

  “Do it,” he said. He wanted Gregory to conserve his magic as much as possible, but he did not want him to get sick or be too frozen to move.

  He and Thor tied the hank of twine to the T-bar at the front of the kayak. Then they made knots down the length of it about eighteen inches apart to hold the strands together. Then they tied lasso loops at the ends and put them over their heads and across their chests.

  Gregory tried to crawl into the kayak, but the snow was too soft and deep, and he could not get himself high enough. The light craft kept turning over. Finally, Thor held it in place while Alexander hoisted Gregory inside.

  A moment later, the two Blades launched themselves through the snow again. The kayak bounced and whisked behind them, but it remained upright.

  The cool calm of the earlier night was giving way to foreboding. Horngate was Alexander’s home now, and if Giselle had been taken, they were in serious trouble.

  Beyul! He needed the Grim now. Horngate needed him. Alexander did not know what had happened to Giselle or how badly Max was hurt, but the Last Standers had Kyle, and one tired Triangle-level witch and a handful of Shadowblades weren’t going to be able to do much. Beyul did not answer.

  They came to the southern edge of town, where a small gulf of open fields was bracketed by housing developments. Max’s summons tugged on them. They followed. Both Blades had grown tired and needed calories. Powell’s stew had not been nearly enough to replenish them.

  “Where the hell is she?” Thor muttered as they climbed up a long hill.

  “Not far,” Alexander said.

  The farmhouse appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly, it was in front of them, looming out of the snow. Someone had entered recently. There were several trails leading up the steps. Alexander already knew who was inside. Their spirit flames told him.

  He did not wait for Thor to help Gregory out of the kayak. He flipped the twine rope over his head and went to the door. He yanked it open and strode inside.

  Some of the Blades were upstairs. He could hear clomping about, dragging furniture. A twin mattress bounced over the upstairs railing and landed at his feet. He stepped across it. His prey was ahead.

  He went through a pair of pocket doors into a broad living room. It, too, was empty, except for some candles. Max had spilled blood there. On the other side of the room was a doorway into a kitchen. Max was there, talking to Tyler. He was bare-chested. She was wearing his shirt. It was yellow, and blood soaked the front of it. For a moment, Alexander’s entire focus narrowed until that blood was all he could see. The smell of it was coppery, Uncanny, pungent. The pain in his head throbbed harder.

  Both Tyler and Max had looked up when Alexander entered. He tore his gaze from the blood, looking at Max’s face. Her expression was shuttered and distant. Pain and other emotions made tight brackets around her mouth and nose.

  After a moment, Max spoke. “Good you’re here, Slick. I wanted to tell you good-bye.”

  I HAVE A PLAN,” MAX SAID, HAVING GATHERED ALL OF the Shadowblades and Gregory.

  She explained all she knew about the creature that had attacked her. “I’m going to go do what it told me to do. I’ll put on the Amengohr amulet and surrender myself. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a chance to grab the creature and take it into the abyss. I hope that breaks the spell on Giselle, and she can deal with Sterling. The rest of you will help her. Without his demon creature, I’m hoping Sterling is just an ordinary witch.”

  “That’s a lot of hoping,” Thor said sourly.

  “Where will you be?” Tyler demanded. He had taken a knife out and was carving gouges into the wall. Better than in her flesh, she supposed.

  “I hope to be alive, but I figure I’ll be useless about then.”

  “Explain,” Alexander said. He had been listening silently. His expression was bland, almost indifferent.

  “My plan is to take the fucker into the abyss and dump its ass there,” she said. “If I can get ahold of it, I can drag it through. Then I’ll come back out. But with the drain of this mark on my chest, the amulet, and actually going into the abyss, I figure I’ll pretty much be wasted once I get out.”

  “What if the abyss doesn’t hold him?” asked Tyler, voicing the fear she hadn’t wanted to contemplate.

  “I don’t know,” she said. If the demon could walk the abyss the way she could—which was a talent more than just rare—then there was no place that could hold it.

  Or was there?

  An idea sparked in her mind. There was one place she knew of design
ed to trap someone with just that talent. If it still existed. The only trouble was, if she took the demon there, she’d be caught, too. The last time she’d got stuck in that prison, Spike had rescued her. But Spike was gone, and she didn’t know if the Calopus was ever coming back. And if she did, it might not be before Max died of thirst and hunger.

  She looked at her Blades, one by one. Should she tell them? Her gaze settled on Alexander.

  “There is one place,” she said slowly. “It was designed to capture a demigod with the ability to walk through the abyss. I could take the bastard there.”

  Silence descended, smothering sound. Five seconds. Ten.

  “Correct me if I am wrong,” Alexander said, “but is that not where you were trapped? Where you could not move, even to blink? Spike had to save you, or you would still be there.”

  “That’s the place.” She nodded. It didn’t escape her that he didn’t sound particularly upset by the notion. Her gaze flicked to Tyler. He turned away so she couldn’t see his face. His muscles roped beneath his skin as he spun the knife in his fingers. He hadn’t found a shirt to replace the one he’d given her. She looked back at Alexander. He was staring at the wall. She had no idea what he was thinking.

  “I don’t see a choice,” she said finally. “If I don’t go after the demon, we’re all dead. If I have to pull it into that trap to stop him—if the trap even still exists—then I’m stranded. Spike can find me, if she comes back. If not . . .” She shrugged.

  “Everybody else still lives. It’s a price I’m willing to pay. It’s a price I have to pay, and you know it. This is not me being impulsive and stupid. I just don’t see any other way.” She was talking mostly to Tyler, but the others shifted uneasily, their Blades rumbling with helplessness and anger.

  She was their Prime. She didn’t need their agreement or permission. And yet she wanted it. If they didn’t give it, she’d still have to go. Unless someone came up with a better plan. But if Giselle hadn’t been able to stop the creature, then Gregory wasn’t going to have a snowball’s chance in hell. The creature would slaughter her Blades with magic, long before they ever got close enough to even try to touch it. She couldn’t let that happen. It wanted her. It wanted to torture her. Which meant she could get close enough to pull it into the abyss. There really was no other choice.