The Red Winter

by Henry H. Neff

  How would Max respond to news of Ms. Richter’s death? Like David, Max had also fallen in and out of the Director’s favor. But they had been close—particularly in the weeks leading up to Prusias’s siege. Still, Max was in the Red Branch. He’d seen death aplenty. Best to simply tell him.

  David opened Max’s file, found the square of spypaper, and laid the Director’s decrypting glass upon it.

  No recent messages.

  That was odd. Anyone leading a DarkMatter operation was required to report every forty-eight hours. Frowning slightly, David reached for Cooper’s folder. The Agent’s latest message was not written in his hand, but Hazel’s.

  Gabrielle,

  Urgent: Workshop clones tracked Max to Shrope Hovel. We attempted diversion but were unsuccessful. The clones boasted they have a weapon that can kill him. Max was wounded. There was an explosion and we were knocked unconscious. I do not know if Max or Scathach survived.

  William and I are injured but proceeding across the Channel with Toby. William’s arms are broken, but I am mending them. He intends to complete his mission and has acquired a contact to help him do so. I will await further instructions from you.

  Sol Invictus,

  Hazel

  David’s weariness vanished. He called sharply for Jakob, who bustled into the cabin looking startled.

  “Yes?”

  “I have to do something,” said David. “I am not to be disturbed unless the fleet comes under attack.”

  “But what if Miss Awolowo—”

  David cut him off. “Not unless we’re under direct attack, Jakob. Understood? Place guards at the door.”

  The domovoi bowed. “Yes, Director.”

  When Jakob withdrew, David locked the door with a gesture. Another wave sent the furniture, boxes, cases, and papers to the corners, leaving an open space in the cabin’s center. As David stared at it, his pulse began to quicken.

  While only the most prudish scholars considered shadow walking “black magic,” all agreed it was dangerous. The feat involved sending one’s soul on a journey into Nether, the hazy borderlands between the world of the living and the dead. While shadow walking, one’s soul could travel vast distances in a short time. But there were daunting risks.

  For one, the place was a disorienting landscape in which it was easy to get lost or lose sight of the path that led back to one’s body. And one was not alone. There were other travelers in that vaporous murk, other spirits that glided past on errands of their own or had become lost eons past and gone mad in their fruitless wandering. And finally, Astaroth was known to shadow walk—it was how he often spoke with others without putting his physical form at risk. If David encountered the Demon in that realm, things might turn very grim indeed.

  David had not shadow walked since Walpurgisnacht. He had done so often enough in the months leading up to that fateful night, but never since. The act took a toll on his constitution and the experience always frightened him. Once he’d become severely disoriented and wandered for hours before regaining his bearings. More than once he’d glimpsed some monstrous silhouette drifting past in the gloom. He wasn’t certain which was more terrifying: eternal solitude or nightmarish company.

  But he was shadow walking tonight.

  Rowan’s Director needed to know if two Red Branch agents were alive. David Menlo needed to know if his friends needed his help. It was his fault the Atropos possessed a compass that enabled them to track Max.

  Gathering himself, David inscribed a magic circle and drew the ancient symbols that would enable his spirit to leave his body and slip into the Nether. When all was ready, he knelt within the circle, closed his eyes, and traced the seven letters of his truename.

  Wise visitors to Nether followed the same rules as schoolchildren: don’t stray, don’t dawdle, and don’t talk to strangers. David followed these rules religiously, but he never felt at ease in Nether. Everything about the realm was off. One’s surroundings and landmarks might have been familiar—for Nether overlapped the living world—but everything looked as if it were viewed through a pane of warped, smoky glass. There were no colors. Everything appeared in shades of gray—from charcoal skies to gunmetal seas to veils of pale mist that drifted in a perpetual sigh across the realm.

  In Nether, one’s senses often behaved in bizarre and unpredictable ways. The earth might tremble from a silent thunderclap while whispers might carry for miles. There were times one felt agreeably weightless and others when every step required Herculean effort. For visitors, the only predictable sensation was cold.

  Nether’s cold was unlike anything found in the living world. It had a clinging, viscous quality that felt as though one were wading through a pool of spectral oil. Nothing seemed to dampen or guard against it. Whenever David shadow walked, each step was a draining reminder that he was an outsider.

  Peculiar as it was, there were compelling reasons to visit. Some believed Nether harbored ancient and powerful artifacts. Others sought counsel or wisdom from its permanent residents. David’s reasons were more practical—Nether could serve as a shortcut, a means to travel far more swiftly than one could in the physical world. While shadow walking wasn’t instantaneous like teleportation, a skilled shadow walker might cover a mile with every dreamlike step. While in the Nether, David could not touch things in the living world, but he could manifest enough for others to see him as a ghostlike figure. In this form, he could converse with them or even possess the bodies of soulless creatures to perform basic tasks.

  Of course, such visits had risks. Most immediate was the danger to one’s physical being. Back aboard the flagship, David’s body was sitting in a trance, utterly helpless and vulnerable.

  David had not only left his body behind, but he also left behind much of his power. Just as light and sound behaved differently in this realm, so, too, did mystic energies. Within Nether, magic either failed or yielded unexpected, potentially dangerous results. But David never stayed to experiment, for that could lead to shadow walking’s greatest peril—the danger of becoming lost.

  For Nether was something of a spiritual tar pit, a plane brimming with lost souls and spirits that had stumbled in and never found their way out. One could hear them wailing in the mists, glimpse them groping through the twilit landscapes as they tried to find their way back to bodies that may have wasted away centuries ago. Unless they could possess another living body, they would be lost in Nether forever. Each was a cautionary tale to complete one’s task and get out.

  That was certainly David’s intention. Once he gained a sense of direction from the fleet’s orientation, he set off. The earth almost seemed to rotate beneath him as his spirit strode north over the gray sea. Above, the sky was a surreal, roiling canvas of mist and cloud. There were no stars. In Nether, one never glimpsed the sun, stars, or moon—its heavens were always overcast, a perpetual gray twilight without time or season.

  In the middle of the ocean, one encountered fewer spirits than one might on land or near old cities. Prusias’s capital was built on the ruins of ancient Rome. In Nether, that area was practically overrun with spirits—they crowded the lanes and hillsides, crying out to living passersby like hungry beggars in a marketplace. But here at sea, Nether was eerily quiet. There were some lost souls on the ocean, but they were rare—distant wisps that soon faded from view.

  In ten minutes, David had traveled a vast distance. He still had almost a thousand miles to go, but each step brought him a mile closer. He shivered with cold, but he was calmer than he expected—his mind was humming along in a state of controlled urgency. In ten or fifteen minutes he’d reach the Isle of Man and be able to help his friends.

  And then David saw the light.

  It came from behind, sweeping over him like a lighthouse beam. David turned and gasped.

  A storm was pursuing him.

  It was not a storm of rain or thunder, but something akin to a living eclipse, a writhing darkness wreathed in a nimbus of pale lightning. It raced toward him over t
he waves, gliding swiftly above the swells. Its size became apparent as it closed.

  Was it Yuga?

  The mere thought of that hurricane-sized demon sent David reeling in blind, almost frantic terror across the sea. Even as he fled, David knew it was folly. His pursuer was far too swift, his options far too few. In such a landscape, David was like a wounded rabbit limping across the plain. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It was only a matter of time before it drew the attention of something bigger, something swifter. Something hungry.

  The storm enveloped him, huge and overpowering. It crushed down upon him even as it lifted him up, spinning him about in a deafening roar. He was sent skittering across the waves like a skipped stone. Plucked up, he was whipped to and fro and sent tumbling again over the seas. David screamed, his voice echoing into the great gray twilight.

  Something screamed back.

  It screamed back with his voice. It screamed with other voices. More joined it, by twos and threes, tens and twenties, so that soon Nether itself seemed to be screaming in an unearthly, dissonant chorus. Again, terrifying forces plucked him up and shook him like a cat might shake a kitten.

  It’s toying with me.

  He was yanked upward, his spirit whipping about a funnel of churning, pluming darkness. David had never felt so tiny, so powerless. The idea of resistance, of fighting back seemed so preposterous that he simply shut down.

  Please.

  Instantly, the screaming stopped. Its echo faded as David’s spirit was set down gently upon the sea. Stunned, he floated above the gray swells in the midst of a swirling funnel. Slowly, the funnel collapsed upon itself, sinking into a boiling, frothing island of black pustules. Here and there huge tendrils formed, snaking out from the seething mass to hover before David as faces formed within them.

  “What would you like me to be?”

  “What would you like?”

  “Would you like to be me?”

  “What would you like?”

  The faces were male and female, young and old, angelic and fiendish. There were dozens of faces, hundreds of faces, smiling and intertwining, casually devouring one another only to be reborn a moment later. Again and again the questions were repeated. David shut his eyes and curled into a ball.

  The voices diminished. One by one, they fell away, mingling into one another and combining to form a single honeyed tenor.

  “What would you like me to be?”

  David opened his eyes and beheld Astaroth.

  The chimerical stew was gone. The being that hovered before David was slender and androgynous. Long, shining black hair framed an alabaster face that was fixed in a prim, solicitous smile. His robes were white and he shone with an inner radiance.

  “Do you prefer this?” inquired Astaroth, gesturing at his current form. “If not, I can go back. I can always go back.”

  “I prefer it,” croaked David.

  “Do you really?” pressed Astaroth playfully. “Your actions say otherwise. But I’m glad you ventured into the Nether. You’ve saved me the trouble of hunting for you elsewhere. Did my lesson take?”

  “What lesson?”

  Astaroth tutted. “I should have thought it was fairly evident. It shames me to be so crude, but nothing else seems to get through. Here is the lesson, David Menlo: I can destroy you the instant I choose. I can destroy Rowan the instant I choose. Prusias. Lilith. Any and all.”

  “So, why don’t you?”

  Astaroth leaned close, his eyes crinkled slits. “Because you’re children!” he laughed. “I’ve come to understand that. Children! I must discipline you with love and patience. Look at you! Even now, nations wage war while the earth freezes beneath their feet. Must I starve the world? Set Rowan adrift? Raise mountains to topple false idols? When will my foolish little children mind their loving parent?”

  As David listened, a profound horror overcame him. There was no correlation between the Demon’s words, his smile, and the dead black eyes.

  “May I speak?” he asked softly.

  “Of course,” replied Astaroth. “What would you like to say?”

  “I don’t know what you are,” David ventured. “I don’t know how old you are or even where you come from. But I do know you will never get what you want. You want desperately to be our Creator, but you’re not our Creator. You will never be our Creator.”

  “But I have the Book of Thoth.”

  “You do,” David acknowledged. “And so you must know that it’s just a tool. A gardener’s tool, but it did not create the garden. Tell me. Who created Thoth? Who created Nether and Fey and the Sidh? Who created Oblivion?”

  Astaroth’s smile grew dangerous, but David pressed on. “Lesser gods may rule these places, but they did not create them. You pretend we are your children, Astaroth, but you know that’s not true. You can force us to bend the knee, you can obliterate us, but to what purpose? It won’t make you God.”

  Astaroth stared at him with blank, ravenous eyes. “And what is God? Tell me that, David Menlo.”

  All David could do was offer a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “Does it frighten you not to know?”

  “It would frighten me more to think that God was something I could possibly define or understand.”

  Astaroth nodded, but his mind seemed a million miles away. And then his mouth twitched. The ensuing smile was so mechanical, so alien and contrived that David had to master every instinct to flee.

  “I want to stand before this God,” said Astaroth softly. “I want to know him, serve him, devour him. Is this possible, David Menlo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Astaroth did not speak for some time. The Demon merely stared ahead, his eyes dead black windows into some other world, some other universe. David hovered before him, unable to run but wilting from Nether’s debilitating cold. Despite his mixed blood and Bram’s heritage, David was mortal. A mortal’s spirit could not be parted long from its body. His wits were fading as his spirit began to drown in Nether’s cold. He could no longer mask his aura.

  With a blink, Astaroth seemed to notice him once again. “You’ve shed your cloak,” he muttered absently. “I see you clearly now. How Bram must have seethed at his daughter’s shame. Are you ashamed of what you are, David Menlo?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  Astaroth nodded and touched his own face, gingerly handling its edges as though it were a fragile mask. He cocked his head, studying David as though he were a butterfly twitching in a poisoned jar. “You’re dying. Dying here in Nether. Should I let you die, David?”

  “No,” David gasped. “I have to live.”

  Gliding forward, Astaroth cupped David’s face in his trembling hands. The grin grew manic as tears flowed freely down the Demon’s luminescent face.

  He’s coming unhinged.

  “ ‘I have to live,’ ” Astaroth repeated softly. “That is the most beautiful thing I’ve heard this age. I want you to live, David Menlo! I want you whole when I draw your God out of hiding. I want you whole when your God is devoured!”

  Astaroth kissed David’s forehead. Searing heat flooded into David’s body, driving off Nether’s cold as if he’d taken a tot of hot brandy.

  “Go,” whispered Astaroth, pointing north. “Complete your errand and save the Hound. After all, we mustn’t let her have him!”

  Releasing David, Astaroth strode away east across the Nether sea. In three strides, the Demon disappeared from view.

  David turned and ran.

  He continued on, fueled by panic and the fire Astaroth had kindled within him. His head was buzzing as a prickling sensation spread throughout his body. It radiated out from his head and heart, inching along until it made his hands and fingers twitch.

  His hands.

  David stopped and stared. In Nether, his form was spectral and translucent, but there was no mistaking what he now waved before his own face. Astaroth had restored his hand. There was no more stump, but a ghostly hand with a pale sc
ar about the wrist where the two had been rejoined.

  When David waved it, it responded. When he wiggled its fingers, they did just as he asked. He experienced an onslaught of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Joy. Disbelief. Suspicion. Gratitude. Among the many, gratitude was the most puzzling. Should David be grateful that Astaroth returned what he’d taken so violently? Had his hand been restored to his physical body or did it exist only in Nether?

  What a strange day. In the space of a few hours, he’d been transformed from a sorcerer with one hand into a Director with two. What would his grandfather say about all this? What would his grandfather say about this strange interview with Astaroth? What did the Demon mean about drawing God out of hiding and seeing him devoured? What did Astaroth mean when he said they mustn’t let “her” have Max? Who was “her”?

  What would an Oklahoma girl do?

  David almost laughed as the question entered, unbidden, in his mind. He supposed an Oklahoma girl would finish what she’d started. Much had changed, but Max and Scathach’s peril had not. Clearing his mind, David pressed on.

  He went first to Shrope Hovel, gliding silently over the countryside and the hags’ leaning house to find it dark and quiet. David entered the Hovel, slipping through a window where the hags had neglected to place protections. He walked silently through the house, glimpsing Bob sleeping in the attic and Bellagrog writing at her desk in the drawing room. Mum was in the root cellar, cutting vegetables and squeezing them into tins. She shivered as David drifted through her, sensing the secret passage that lay behind a mountain of potatoes.

  David glided swiftly down the secret passage. They’d undoubtedly made for a river, intending to take Ormenheid to the Isle of Man and seek the giant. Had they reached him?

  A step later, he emerged from the secret tunnel. Another two steps and he reached the river and surveyed the devastation. What trees remained had been blown over, twisted from the ground and stripped of their bark and branches. From above, the scene looked like scorched toothpicks had been scattered about a central point. It was a wonder anyone had survived.