Blood Winter

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  He did not wait for a reply but launched himself down the hill. Even with Sterling gone, he did not know how nine Shadowblades were going to stop a war. Each side had at least a couple of thousand people and a lot of weaponry. It was going to take a miracle, and he was fresh out.

  THE WORLD WAS WHITE. THERE WAS NO DEPTH to it. No shadows, no shapes. Just misty whiteness. Everything, that is, besides the red angel and Max. He was looking around him in patent disbelief. She watched him, part of her wanting to gloat at his defeat, the other part of her wondering just how she was going to get out of the place.

  “You’ve been here before,” she said, and her voice sounded washed-out and gray.

  “Unfortunately,” Shoftiel answered with a grimace. “I spent five hundred years here.”

  “Looks like you’ve got another five hundred to look forward to.”

  “Yes. Thanks for that.”

  “Nothing you didn’t deserve.”

  “I did believe you were enslaving and harvesting my brothers.”

  “Well, that makes all your torture and murder all right, then,” Max snapped. She looked down at herself. She was still naked from the waist up. Her right arm was smeared with his blood. His sigil on her stomach and chest was gone. “I stopped bleeding.”

  “My hold on you broke when you stabbed me. That was clever, by the way. Painful but clever.”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to get out of here,” she asked.

  “No. Otherwise, I would not have waited five hundred years for the curse of the blood-and-bone blade to wear off.”

  “Of course, you could be lying. You probably are.”

  “I could be. I could want your delightful company for the next five centuries.”

  “No thanks.” Max stretched and turned. “I think I’ll have a look around.”

  “I will accompany you.”

  Max scowled. “I don’t want your company.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Are you planning to try to kill me again, Daffy? Finish the job?”

  “I would, but no one can die in the Mistlands.”

  “That’s too bad. You could use a little killing.” She started away and stopped when he fell in beside her. “What’s your damage?”

  He frowned. “My damage?”

  “Why are you following me? We’ve established that you hate me and want to kill me. That pretty much means we’re not going to be besties. So shove off.”

  “Afraid not. I’m not ready to say good-bye just yet, and once you disappear into the mists, chances are we will not see each other again.”

  “How big is this place?”

  “Who knows? There are no landmarks, nothing to measure by. You can walk forever, but who knows if you go in a straight line? It does tend to get monotonous. I once flew for what I believe was four days. I got nowhere.”

  At that point, it occurred to Max that she might be able to escape through the abyss. Gathering herself, she dropped into her fortress, and—nothing.

  “No exit that way, I’m afraid,” Shoftiel said, almost sympathetically. “I must have tried that a thousand times my first day and at least once every day after.”

  “What about food? Water?” Max was trying very hard not to sound as panicky as she was beginning to feel.

  “Don’t need them.”

  They wandered together through the endless mist. She was glad of Shoftiel’s company, despite herself, and despite the insanity of strolling half-naked with the asshole who’d spent most of the last couple of days trying to kill her. The monotony was suffocating. Max bent to touch the ground. It was soft, like velvet, and slightly moist. There were no rocks, no trees, no landmarks of any kind.

  She couldn’t stay there. There had to be a way out.

  “I take it your magic doesn’t work?”

  He shook his head. “I’m toothless in this realm.”

  Max put her head down, thinking. Maybe she should clack her heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Too bad she didn’t have a pair of magic ruby slippers.

  There had to be a way. She paced a circle around Shoftiel, then another and another. Around and around she went. He watched with a disdainful smirk. Clearly, he thought that if he hadn’t figured a way out in five hundred years, she wasn’t going to, either.

  What did you do when you were in a prison with no doors, no walls, no locks? But of course, there was a lock. The inability to leave. That was the lock.

  Max stopped. She was a walking key. No lock could hold her. All she had to do was figure out how to leave.

  And then she knew. There were no doors because the realm itself was a door. And if she was the key . . .

  She grinned at Shoftiel. “Time for me to go home. Enjoy your stay. I look forward to never seeing you again.”

  With that, she closed her eyes and fell backward. In her mind, she pictured herself falling through the mist and out of it.

  Falling, falling, falling, falling.

  She bounced on hard-packed dirt, and her eyes popped open. She half expected to see Shoftiel laughing down at her. But he and the mist were gone.

  ALEXANDER FLUNG HIMSELF HEADLONG DOWN the hill. The snow had turned to a glop of slush, ice, and mud. It was not until he had reached the top of Mansion Heights that he realized he had left Gregory up at the temple. Just then, a streak of fire erupted along the base of the hill in the field between the bottom of the Heights and the nearest neighborhood. It ran from right to left and grew into a wall of flame, separating the two motley armies.

  Xaphan.

  The flames rose more than forty feet in the air and showed no sign of diminishing. Effective, Alexander thought. Now to figure out how to contain Sterling and his minions before this thing turned into a massacre.

  Both sides were well armed, but he had no doubts that the Last Standers had stockpiled ammunition. They had the high ground, bunkers, and Sterling. Not to mention a T-shaped killing field. The attackers would have to cross the open field along the bottom of the Heights where Xaphan’s walls burned, then they would filter up the center in a long wash between the houses. The Last Standers would be able to pick off their enemies with little risk to themselves.

  His senses spread wide and picked up on the Blades. They had infiltrated the Heights and were working their way inward toward Sterling’s stronghold. Alexander could see the witch’s spirit flame. It was dark pink with overlays of blue and yellow. The angels were circling above. There was no one who could not see the brilliant spread of Tutresiel’s silver wings and his sword. He was limned in white light. Xaphan’s wings trailed fire, and flames crackled around his body in lurid contrast to Tutresiel.

  As the Last Standers caught sight of them, they emerged from their bunkers and houses, pointing upward, their faces a mixture of awe, fear, and joy. Alexander slipped in among them. Jody silently slid up beside him. Then, one by one, the other Blades sifted out of the crowd. Only Tyler, Oak, and Thor were absent. Alexander pulled them off to the side of one of the big barns. “Go look in the bunkers and the houses,” he whispered. “Look for explosives. This is not the kind of group that will go quietly when they lose. They will have a backup plan. I am guessing it will be scorched earth.”

  “What do we do when we find them?” Ivy asked, her hazel eyes sharp and intense.

  “See what Gregory can do to defuse them. Flint, better go fetch him. He is still up at the temple.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Nami. She looked like she wanted to rip something apart. Or someone.

  Alexander could not blame her. He felt the same. Max. He had no words to encompass the ache he felt for her. “I am going to see about Sterling. Oh, hell,” he said as the wall of fire collapsed suddenly. “That is not good.”

  He backed away from the barn house and leaped up to the top of the roof. From there, he leaped across to another and then another. The Last Standers were thick below him, crowding into the
spaces between the houses as they followed the angels.

  The smell of torched dirt and an earthy wetness rose on the breeze. The flame wall had melted masses of snow in both directions, and now water ran in muddy deluges down the side of the hill, filling the wash at the center of the Heights with a tumbling torrent. The roofs of the buildings were slick with ice and snow, and Alexander skidded to his knees more than once, clinging to the eaves to keep from sliding entirely off.

  Finally, he came to a grand house at the end of a dead-end street. It was brightly lit with witchlight. Behind it was a broad, flat apron of land that overlooked Missoula. Sterling stood at the center, surrounded by a half dozen men and women.

  He was wearing robes of pure white. In one hand, he held an ornate gold cross that was big enough to choke a horse. In the other, he held a Bible. He was watching the two angels circle above him. Unlike his followers, he looked more angry than anything else.

  “Come down and face me, dogs of Satan!” he called. “In the name of God, I demand it!”

  He held up the cross, and a beam of gold light shot out of it. It nailed Xaphan in the chest. The angel folded inward with a jerk and jetted back through the air.

  “Feel the wrath of the Almighty! Scum of the world, you and your master—Satan—will know the power of the Lord. I am the Hand of God. Bow down at His feet!”

  With that, he unleashed another bolt of magic, this time at Tutresiel. The angel dodged it, and a moment later, Xaphan recovered.

  Both angels attacked. Xaphan cast a spear of fire at Sterling, who batted it away with the hand holding the Bible. His body was encased in a gold shield, and the burning lance drove into the ground. Next, Tutresiel dove, his sword singing in the air. He brought it down on Sterling’s shield. The cult leader thrust upward with the Bible, flinging Tutresiel back. He was very strong.

  At that moment, the group surrounding Sterling moved in closer to him. They set their hands on his shoulders and back, bending their heads and chanting prayers. The smell of magic increased, and the gold light surrounding him brightened, turning brassy and hard. It had no effect on the men and women pouring magic into him. He had a coven, and they were giving him their magic. It poured into him.

  More of his minions crowded in. They set their hands on one another, making a chain of prayer and power. Alexander gaped. The intensity of Sterling’s power grew by the moment. He was a blood witch, drawing his power from blood and death, joy, pain—all the emotions of humanity. He had surrounded himself with thousands of people whose sole desire was to charge him with strength and energy. They were flooding him with all the fervor of their faith, hopes, and dreams. It was a potent cocktail.

  Alexander scowled. There was no good way to combat that power. Even slaughtering the Last Standers wouldn’t help. The magic that came from spilling blood was even stronger. Sterling would just gorge on the magic.

  He started as Tyler, Oak, and Thor leaped up onto the roof beside him.

  “The people down below are getting curious. They are starting to move up,” Thor said.

  “It’s not every day people get to see an angel,” Oak said.

  “If they had any sense, they’d be running for the hills,” Tyler said.

  “Train wrecks and plane crashes,” Alexander said. “Everybody has to get a look.”

  “Might be the last thing they do, if this keeps up,” Tyler said as Sterling unleashed several quick bolts of magic at the hovering angels. They dodged, but the shock wave from the magic sent them spinning. They caught themselves, maintaining a more healthy distance.

  “Neither one of them is at full strength,” Alexander said. “They’ve used a lot of energy since they woke up. I do not know if they can handle this bastard.” And if Shoftiel returned, they would need the two angels to hold him at bay.

  “Got any bright ideas?” Thor asked.

  “A bullet to the back of his head would work well enough,” Oak suggested.

  “If his shield allowed it,” Alexander agreed.

  “I’ll go find out,” the Blade said, and dropped down off the roof. Finding a rifle among the many-armed minions was not going to be a hardship.

  Five minutes later, Oak clambered back up onto the roof. He carried a .30–06 rifle slung over his back. It was a standard hunting rifle for the area. Oak paused to check the weapon, making sure it was loaded.

  “Are you any good with that?” Tyler asked.

  “I can hit a squirrel in the eye at a thousand yards,” he said. “Hope it’s sighted in,” he said, kneeling at the edge of the roof. He wrapped the strap around his forearm and raised the rifle, peering down it.

  He squeezed the trigger. The rifle crack echoed over the valley. Oak shot the bolt and pulled it back, the cartridge flying out. He aimed and shot again, then lifted the gun, shaking his head.

  “No good.”

  Suddenly, a hail of bullets launched up at the roof. The four Blades dove flat as bullets whistled past. It seemed that every single one of Sterling’s minions was taking potshots at them.

  A flaming ball smashed into the building. The place exploded, and the four Blades went flying in the air. Alexander’s clothes ignited, and pieces of wood and metal debris pierced him all over. He bounced off the edge of another roof and plummeted to the mud on the other side. Hands grabbed him, dragging him onto pavement. A couple dozen guns pointed down at him.

  “Who is it?” someone asked.

  “Don’t know. But shit, he looks like a pincushion. Who can survive that?”

  “He’s a devil,” a woman said. “A demon. Benjamin said they were out to destroy us. Kill him.”

  “No,” another woman objected. “Take him to Benjamin. Demons don’t die like us. Let Benjamin lay hands on him and banish him back to hell.”

  There were all-around agreements to that, and suddenly, Alexander’s hands and feet were grasped, and they were carrying him. He held his head up to keep it from bouncing along the road.

  They cried out for the crowd ahead to make way. A path opened up, and he quickly found himself dropped onto the ground in front of Sterling. The witch looked down at him, his blue eyes shining like jewels. He pointed the cross down at Alexander.

  “What manner of demon are you, foul thing?”

  Alexander sat up slowly. The fires on his clothes had gone out, thanks to the mud he had fallen into. He pulled an inch-wide splinter out of his side and tossed it aside, then yanked several more from his arms and legs. He was lucky he had not been stabbed in the heart.

  “I am not a demon,” he said, staring up at the witch. “And you are no prophet of God. You are nothing more than a witch. The same kind you stuck on poles on the hill.”

  “Blasphemer!” shouted the Last Standers. “Devil scum!”

  Sterling lifted a hand, all the while staring down at Alexander. “My Lord is slow to anger and great in power. He will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is the whirlwind and the storm. He rebukes the sea and dries it up. He makes the rivers run dry. The mountains quake before Him, and the hills melt away. Who can withstand His fierce indignation? Who can endure His righteous anger? His wrath will pour out on this world and drive Satan and his minions back to hell.”

  He lifted both hands into the air. “Lord in heaven above, visit your wrath and justice on this creature of darkness! Send him back to the netherworld with your fallen children. My Lord, your glory is great, your strength immeasurable, your mercy wondrous. These creatures must not be allowed to destroy your children, those for whom you sacrificed your only Son. Bring your light and shatter the darkness of evil. Save us, oh, Lord!”

  The performance was stunning. He clearly believed every word. His face was a study of passion and ecstasy. Alexander tensed, certain that Sterling was going to strike him down with one of his bolts of magic. Instead, hell broke loose.

  Gunfire rained down on them. People screamed and jostled to get away. Bodies fell and were trampled under panicked feet. Alexander lunged for Sterling. He was shocked whe
n his arms went through the barrier surrounding him, and he drove the cultist to the ground. His skin blistered, and magic raked him.

  Sterling smashed at him with the cross, and it was as if Alexander had been jabbed with the hot end of a power line. His hair stood on end, and his body sizzled. He convulsed, his body bouncing and contorting violently, as Sterling continued to unleash power into him.

  Someone shouted, and the barrage of magic stopped. Alexander’s body continued to shake and twitch. He tried to sit up and slumped to the ground. He tried again, rolling onto his stomach and shoving himself onto his hands and knees. It was all he could do to hold himself up.

  He lifted his head, searching for Sterling. His mouth fell open. The witch lay spread-eagle on the ground. Above him stood Max. The first thing he noticed was that she was wearing a red blouse that was several sizes too big. Then he took in the rifle in her hand. She’d clubbed Sterling over the head with it.

  She looked at Alexander. “You okay?”

  He stared at her, drinking her in. “I love you.”

  She blinked, then shook her head. “You got hit hard. Stay here. I’m going to go help.” She disappeared.

  Alexander slowly pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, trying to put together the pieces of the scene before him, his head whirling all the while. She was alive. Max was alive! Gunshots continued to pop all around him. He glanced up. Tutresiel and Xaphan were diving down, trying to drive a wedge between the two small armies. Uphill, an explosion sent a burst of flames boiling up into the night. Another followed, then another. Then none.

  He reached out with his senses, getting a feel of the battlefield. But he homed in on Tyler. The other Blade’s spirit flame was flickering gray. He was sliding into death.

  Alexander ran.

  He found Tyler lying unconscious on a mound of firewood. Like Alexander, he’d been burned, and bits of wood and debris pierced him. But the real problem was that he’d been impaled on a branch attached to a chunk of firewood. It punched through the middle of his chest. His head and arms hung down, and blood puddled on the ground below him.