She Dies at the End (November Snow Book 1)

by A. M. Manay

  The younger man fell to ash, his justice denied. In the next moment, one of the strongest flyers swooped down low to snatch his master out of danger. Luka clung to his back as they soared into the air above the fray.

  Greg directed his fire at them, fire they managed to evade until the remaining flyers coalesced around Luka, providing a shield and receiving instructions from their master. Greg began picking them off one at a time. Luka and his companion began evasive maneuvers while the rest of the aerial force dove to the ground, huddling in the darkness outside the fortress, sheltering against the walls where the fighters on top of the roof were unable to reach.

  Ilyn turned his attention to his wayward son, pulling him down out of the air. Hazel killed the flyer with one well-placed arrow, and Ilyn flung Luka against the ground, pinning him there. Pine, November, and Carlos cautiously left their hiding place to witness the confrontation. They stood by Hector, now again in human form, his leg bleeding and eyes wild. Carlos took his hand. They were the only wolves remaining.

  The bodies of their fellow prisoners lay scattered on the roof, the only visible evidence of the night’s violence as the ash that remained of their tormentors blew away. One was still breathing, a woman, mortally wounded.

  November went to her, knelt, and took her hand, trying to use her white dress to staunch the bleeding. The woman smiled at the fruitless gesture as she breathed her last. November sat back on her heels and looked down at the blood on her hands. It seemed pointless: all of this death, ever her shadow, ever attached to her heels.

  Luka was friendless on the roof of what had once been his secret sanctuary. His people were nearly all dead: blowing ash, spent arrows, dead wolves, and brass shells were the only signs that they had ever existed.

  Yet Luka laughed at the victors. “You have won the day, Father, but I will win the war. You’ve burned this crop, but I have other fields to harvest, and I can always sow another.” He looked at November almost mischievously. It made her stomach turn. “I shall have her, too, mark my words. I have hunted her for 500 years. I will hunt her for another 500 if I have to. I warn you: do not change her. I have taken precautions.”

  “I should have staked you before you rose,” Ilyn said with disgust, barely hearing his son’s words. “Only my love for Marisha protected you. She would despise what you have become.”

  Ilyn lifted a bow and notched the arrow. As he drew the bow, the hiding flyers reappeared, shooting through the air at breathtaking speed, one weaponless flyer taking aim at each of November’s rescuers. Luka’s last remaining soldiers crashed into each of November’s friends, knocking them to the ground in a blur of tangled limbs.

  In Ilyn’s moment of distraction, he lost his mental grip on his son, and one of Luka’s men pulled his master once again to the safety of the sky. Pine struggled to shield November. Luka’s last man grabbed them both, dropping Pine as he hauled November high into the air. Ilyn quickly dispatched his attacker, as did William, Savita, Hazel, and Greg. From the air, November saw the resulting flashes of light and swirling ash.

  November screamed in fear as they rose higher and higher, until her friends on the roof looked like insects. Between the thinness of the air and her mortal terror, the girl struggled for breath. She screamed again as she and her assailant suddenly fell several dozen feet. She looked at the vampire and saw that he was bleeding in half a dozen places, failing to heal, his eyes starting to glaze over. He was not long for this world. It was all he could do to stay up in the air with the silver poison sapping his life.

  Luka and his flying partner circled them as Luka assessed the situation. The undignified piggyback ride would have been funny in any other context. It was evident to Luka that the vampire carrying November would not get very far. “Alas, it seems we must part for a time. Don’t worry, kitten. I’m sure dear old dad will catch you. A la prochaine . . .” he said with an awful smile. And with that, he and his man took off into the night. An instant later, November’s vampire captor died his second death, sending her plummeting toward the ground.

  Ilyn did indeed catch her, of course, before she could even scream again. He gently halted her fall and lowered her slowly back down to the roof until she alighted in his arms. She shook like a leaf, her lips pressed together so tightly that they nearly disappeared. She could scarcely register what was happening around her. All her energy went into breathing and not falling utterly apart.

  Hector required some persuading to come along with vampires and fairies, but he had little choice. He would not have gotten very far on his injured leg, and they were truly in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, he was the only one of the group who had been seriously wounded. He hated to leave the bodies of his companions, but there was nowhere to bury them and no time to waste. In the end, he settled for cremation, and Pine helped him quickly arrange the remains and set them alight.

  They all scrambled into Luka’s abandoned helicopter. As the helicopter took off, with William and Pine at the controls, November struggled to control her fear, Ilyn’s reassuring presence notwithstanding. Carlos, also frightened, took her hand and held it tight, which helped her to be brave for his sake. Quarters were close in the helicopter cabin, and between that and the deafening noise, November was desperate for the flight to be over even as it had just barely begun.

  They rose into the air and began to fly away, leaving Luka’s no-longer-secret stronghold behind them. The smoke from the hastily arranged funeral rose in spirals into the starry sky as the helicopter disappeared into the darkness. The take-off had frightened November anew, but she was grateful to escape the smell of burning flesh. The floodlights from the fortress were visible for a long way, a strange beacon in the middle of the empty desert.

  Just as November began to relax, one of Luka’s injured flyers made one last effort to stop them. He appeared unsteadily beside the helicopter, bleeding light in several places. He reached out, grabbed a handhold by the door, and aimed a pistol at Ilyn. His hand was surprisingly steady even as the rest of him trembled with the effort. November and Carlos screamed in unison as William and Pine turned the helicopter sharply, trying to shake off the attacker. Hazel threw a knife which found its home in the fairy’s throat. He screamed, dropped his weapon and clutched at his neck, then plummeted to earth.

  Gradually, November calmed down, and her teeth began chattering more with cold than with fear. Ilyn wrapped her up in a blanket, and she closed her eyes to rest for a bit, Carlos’s hand still in hers. They flew for over an hour before alighting near a beat-up VW bus with a unique paint job. As they climbed down from the chopper and walked over to the vehicle, November shook her head, bemused in spite of the night's toll. “What?” Ilyn demanded, feigning offense.

  “Just doesn’t seem like your style,” she replied, managing a little smile.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” he said, helping walk over the uneven ground to the vehicle. “We’re trying to blend in.” There she found Zinnia and Ben waiting nervously. Zinnia immediately folded November into a tight hug, murmuring her relief that her friend was safe. Ben hung back, unsure how to behave surrounded by so many people he had betrayed before turning coat again to help them in the end. When Zinnia pulled back, November gasped. Her friend looked just terrible.

  “What’s wrong?” November exclaimed.

  Zinnia’s face contorted as she struggled to swallow her tears. “My mother . . . she . . .”

  “Died in the hotel,” November whispered, suddenly seeing it in a flash. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry,” she cried, enfolding her friend once again in her arms.

  “She just kept going back in to save more humans, and I tried to tell her it was too dangerous, and –.”

  Zinnia began to sob. November held her until she regained her composure. The fairy’s tears left an electric blue stain on the shoulder of her white dress. Zinnia finally calmed down enough to look around and notice the strangers. Her nostrils flared warily at the scent of wolf.

  “He
ctor and Carlos,” November explained. “Unfortunately, they’ve enjoyed far too much of Luka’s hospitality.”

  “Any enemy of Luka is a friend of mine, I guess,” she said after an uncertain pause, nodding at the pair in welcome. She caught sight of Hector’s leg and winced. “I can fix that in the morning if you want.” Hector seemed shocked at her offer, as did Hazel, who now that they were out of the helicopter was keeping her distance from the werewolves. Zinnia knelt down in front of Carlos. “Hi,” she said, holding up one hand to wave. “I’m Zinnia.” The boy turned his head shyly away, hiding his face against November’s leg.

  “Come,” William said with gentle firmness. He placed a hand on Zinnia’s shoulder. He was the closest thing to family she had left, November supposed. “We must get moving.” He got behind the wheel, and everyone scrambled aboard. To Hector’s evident surprise, Pine helped the injured werewolf into a seat.

  Ben finally spoke up. “Did you get Luka?” Ilyn gave his head a quick shake. Ben dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “Where are we going?” November asked wearily.

  “Good question. We need to find somewhere to rest nearby, somewhere the vampires can go to ground. And we sure as hell don’t have any friends in Arizona,” Hazel replied, ever practical.

  “I do,” November replied. Everyone looked at her in surprise. “I have a friend here,” she explained. “From the carnival. His name is Neil; he sold funnel cakes. In the winter, he lives on his parent’s old farm, in the country, outside of someplace called Wilcox. He made me memorize his address and phone number in case I ever needed to run away from my mother during the off season.”

  “I remember him,” William said. “Seemed protective of you. Real suspicious of us when we started asking questions.”

  “I remember him, too,” Zinnia said. “He loved her, for sure.”

  “Well, aren’t you popular?” Hector commented wryly, looking up from examining his injured leg.

  “It wasn’t like that,” November protested. “I remind him of his kid that his wife took with her when she ran off.”

  “Regardless of the exact nature of his affection, it seems as good an option as any,” Ilyn said decisively.

  November gave Neil’s address to William, who programmed it into his phone and gave his verdict. “We’ll make it in plenty of time, the way I drive,” he grinned fiercely.

  “Do we warn him?” November asked. Everyone shook their heads.

  “Safer not to,” William replied.

  So, off they went. The seats in the modified Volkswagen lined the walls on the sides of the cabin. Carlos sat between Zinnia and November, with Ilyn, of course, on November’s other side. After a little while, Carlos looked up at Zinnia and said in a sweet little voice, “Did your mommy die?” November had never heard him speak before.

  “Yes, she did,” Zinnia answered sadly.

  “Mine did, too, when the bad vampires came,” he replied sympathetically before he clambered up unto her lap. “You’ll see her again in heaven,” he said confidently before curling up against the fairy’s chest and closing his eyes. Zinnia looked like she might cry again; then she wrapped her arms around the little boy, leaning her cheek against his filthy hair. She sang fairy songs to him softly until he fell asleep.

  “That’s the first I’ve heard him talk in months,” Hector said quietly once the boy began to snore.

  “He’s not your son, I take it?” Zinnia asked, stroking the little boy’s filthy hair as he slept.

  “No. There were two small packs in Arizona before Luka decided to finally wipe us out. As you know, we tend to keep to ourselves except for festival times. He was born into the other one. I didn’t meet him until Luka’s men threw him into the cell maybe six months ago, along with the only other survivor of the raid on his people. She didn’t last long.” Hector’s voice was filled with sadness and smoldering anger.

  “I’m surprised he didn’t drive you out years ago. He was always opposed to the peace,” Ilyn commented sympathetically.

  “We’ve been trying to flee for generations. Packs in neighboring states were disinclined to cede us any territory or allow us to join them,” Hector replied bitterly. “No pack leader wants an influx of strangers eroding his power base, and they especially don’t want extra alphas hanging around.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ilyn somberly replied. “As I am sorry for those you have lost.”

  There was a pause. “You are . . . not what I would have expected,” Hector said. “We tell our kids stories about ‘Ilyn the Scourge’ coming for bad little boys and girls when we want to scare them into behaving themselves.”

  “I’m growing mellow in my old age,” Ilyn answered. That comment provoked barks of laughter from Hazel and his kin, all except Savita. She stared solemnly at nothing, seemingly deaf to the conversation swirling around her. “Daughter, are you alright?” he asked quietly, reaching over to touch her hand. She looked up at him and simply shook her head. “I’m sorry you had to fight, dear one.” She nodded but said nothing. Greg looked at his mother, worried.

  “How soon do you think we need to worry about Luka coming for us?” Greg asked to break the heavy silence that followed.

  “He’ll need time to regroup, surely,” Hazel answered. “Though, I suppose he might send a few men on the off chance they’d do some damage.”

  “He’d have to come himself in order to find her through the blood bond,” Ilyn said, “Though I suppose he might just take some guesses as to where we might go. And he’d surely want to take care not to kill November. Now that they’ve exchanged blood, his obsession with her will only be stronger.”

  November was seized with anxiety. She was not ready to contemplate future threats. She was not ready to think about the danger her existence caused to strangers and friends alike. She certainly did not want to be reminded of how Luka had forced her to drink his blood or of how much of her own he had swallowed. The fact that she knew she must reek of him made her want to gag.

  Her companions continued their conversation, untroubled by the constant bumps and high speed. “We might be wise to avoid Las Vegas and Oakland for a few days, since that’s the first place he would look,” Hazel opined. “Then there’s the complication of your being recognized in Vegas when everyone thinks you’re dead, your grace.”

  “Georgia?" suggested Zinnia. "My betrothed is there. Not that I actually know him."

  "He might offer you sanctuary, if he still lives. Not sure about the rest of us, though," William replied.

  “Texas has also offered shelter,” William called from up front. "He hasn't forgotten November's help."

  “Too close,” Ilyn judged. “Luka has friends in Mexico.”

  “Maybe she should drink some more of your blood, Grandfather, or any of ours, really, and dilute the effects of Luka’s, make it harder for him to find her,” Greg suggested. “I wonder how much of his she had.”

  “Enough talk,” Savita said with a quiet authority. “You’re upsetting her.” These were the first words she’d uttered since the battle in which she had slain so many.

  Ilyn turned his attention to November and realized that his daughter was correct. November was shaking again with fear and worry, suffering silently. “I’m sorry, little one,” he said, cradling her head against his shoulder. “You’re only just out of danger and we’re already fighting the next battle.”

  “Why don’t you sleep a little? You’re so tired,” Zinnia suggested. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You don’t have to hold it together anymore.” She squeezed her friend’s hand.

  So, with their kind permission, she did just that. She wept silently into Ilyn’s shirt until it was soaked through, then she fell into the deepest of sleeps. She didn’t even wake up when they got to Neil’s farm.

  The farm had first belonged to his grandparents, who’d had ten children. They’d added rooms haphazardly as their family grew, giving the place a charmingly organic appearance. Consequently, the house was far too large f
or a single man, and the upkeep was a constant project for him. He kept the place nice and tidy, though, out of pride and a sense of obligation to his parents who’d left the property to him rather than his brother. The porch still had three rocking chairs in good repair, though Neil’s wife and daughter had been gone for years. The land was leased out to ranchers, mostly, as Neil had no knack for farming or livestock.

  Neil was a chronic insomniac and thus still awake when a mysterious vehicle made its way up his gravel drive at around four in the morning. He met his unexpected visitors at the door with suspicion in his eyes and a shotgun in his hands. His heart dropped and his expression turned to grief and worry when he saw November unconscious in Ilyn’s arms.

  “It’s alright, Neil, she’s just sleeping. But she’s been through rather a lot. She thought she might find a safe place to recover here. Was she wrong?” Ilyn said by way of greeting.

  “’Course not,” Neil replied after a wary moment, stepping aside to allow them entry. "Come in." His eyes narrowed as he examined the strange bunch. The hair stood up on the back of his neck as something within him warned that these were not ordinary people. “Jesus, man,” he exclaimed when he saw Hector’s leg. “You need a doctor.”

  “It’ll wait,” Hector assured him, limping along with Pine’s help, his arm around the fairy's neck. They seemed to have forged a bit of a bond. “Plus, doctors tend to call the cops for bullet wounds, in my experience,” he added with strangely cheerful honesty.

  Neil raised his eyebrows at that but was distracted by the next casualty of Luka’s evildoing. “What the hell happened to him?” Neil asked with alarm when Zinnia crossed his threshold with Carlos still wrapped around her neck and waist. In the bright light of Neil’s home, the child looked even more wretched.

  “I don’t know, but whatever it was,” Zinnia replied sadly, “it was bad.”