The Red Winter

by Henry H. Neff

  “I don’t know,” said Max. “Prusias is very strong. There was a time when he made me feel helpless, but I was younger then. I don’t think he fears me, but he does fear this.” Max nodded at the Morrígan’s blade atop his spear haft. “If we find him, he’ll assume we’ve come to kill him. He doesn’t know we intend to take him captive. And Prusias is different from other demons—he’s much more human. Maybe that’s something we can exploit.”

  “How so?” asked Hazel.

  “I’ve seen demons commit ahülmm,” Max reflected. “I watched Mad’raast end his own life rather than risk dishonor. I can’t imagine Prusias doing anything like that—he finds life endlessly intriguing. I don’t think he’ll risk his own destruction if there’s an alternative. If we can corner him, bluff him into thinking I mean to end his existence, he might surrender.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” said Hazel.

  “Then I kill him.”

  “But the Director—” said Hazel, ever mindful of protocol.

  “Will have to change his plans,” finished Max. “I’m not risking your lives so Prusias can keep his.”

  Three beeps sounded from the control panel where a light was flashing red. A message scrolled across the display screen, accompanied by a calm, computerized voice speaking German. Varga translated.

  “It’s an emergency broadcast,” he reported. “Workshop’s in lockdown. All nonsecurity personnel are ordered to their quarters until further notice. Compliance may result in pardons. Noncompliance may result in arrest and termination.”

  Hazel raised an eyebrow. “A revolt?”

  “Sounds like it,” said Cooper. “If the entire Workshop’s on lockdown and they’re threatening to terminate people, it isn’t small.”

  Madam Petra chewed her lip. “My God,” she whispered. “If the Workshop’s in revolt, what will Prusias’s people do to the hostages?” Rising, she lurched at the acceleration throttle. Cooper intercepted her.

  “But my daughter,” she gasped. “We have to hurry!”

  “Think,” said Cooper calmly. “Someone’s trying to reassert control, nip a situation before it escalates. For Prusias’s henchmen to sacrifice hostages at this stage would only make things worse. Katarina’s not in immediate danger. Do you understand?”

  Nodding slowly, she stepped back and stared ahead at the tunnel. “How much farther?”

  “Ninety-six minutes,” said Varga, tapping a map screen.

  “Listen,” said Cooper, surveying them. “We don’t know what’ll be waiting for us when we arrive. Riots. Troops. We just don’t know. We’ll let the passengers off first and see what happens. Once we get off, follow my lead. Until then, try to get some rest.”

  With that, the Agent proceeded to methodically examine his gear and weapons. Each boot, buckle, strap, and sheath was tested to ensure they didn’t fail him at a critical moment. The rest followed his example. As Max knelt to check the dagger strapped to his boot, he felt a hand touch his shoulder.

  “Where’s your brooch?” Scathach hissed.

  Max tapped his right boot. “I put it away before the fighting.”

  Scathach’s brow furrowed. “Let me see it.”

  He retrieved it, polishing the ivory so the Celtic sun gleamed. When he stood, Scathach plucked it from his hand and began fastening it to his baldric. “You know who made this,” she whispered pointedly. “And you know its purpose. Wear it near your heart. Always.”

  Max didn’t argue. Scathach was profoundly superstitious, particularly when it came to anything from the Sidh. She might have been exiled, but she remained touchingly loyal to the realm, its rulers, and its customs. Satisfied that the brooch was back in its proper place, she sat in the cramped compartment’s entry. Max sat beside her, closing his eyes and trying to get some sleep. Even thirty minutes would be a godsend. To help him nod off, he focused on the compartment’s subtle vibrations, the steady humming of the mechanicals …

  Cooper’s voice jolted him awake.

  “We’re here.”

  Opening his eyes, Max rose to see the bewitched engineer was pulling back the throttle as they rounded a curve and headed toward a vast terminal lit by artificial daylight. A dozen trains were sitting idle on its tracks. Two were on fire; Max could make out the small figures of Spindlefingers crawling about the smoking cars. Aside from the busy goblins, the terminal appeared to be empty.

  Cooper turned to Agent Varga. “Do you see anything, Peter? Any hidden surprises?”

  Varga was leaning on his cane, looking out the windshield with a look of immense concentration. He shook his head. “I see nothing.”

  They watched in silence as the engineer slowed the train to a halt. The smell of burning plastic and fuel filled the car. Hazel leaned close to the engineer.

  “Thank you for the ride,” she murmured. “When we have gone, you will awake and see to your colleague. Now you will open the doors so the passengers can depart.”

  The man nodded, reaching absently for a button. There was a buzzing sound and Max saw the first of many passengers hurry off the train, making for large glass doors that were cracked and riddled with bullet holes. No security intercepted them. When the last stragglers disappeared, Cooper looked at Varga.

  “Any sense of where Prusias might be?”

  “He’s here,” said Varga quietly. “I’m sure of that. But I can’t see where. I’m not getting specific clues to his location.”

  “We make for the nearest control room,” said Cooper, studying a handheld device. “There’s one five levels up.”

  Filing out of the driver’s car, the group stepped off the train and onto a platform hazy with smoke. Max could hear the fires now along with the sounds of breaking glass and goblins gleefully looting the burning trains. A hand suddenly seized his arm.

  “Come with me,” pleaded Madam Petra. “The dormitories. That’s where Katarina will be. I know the way!”

  Cooper yanked her hand away. “We have other business.”

  The smuggler glared at him before breaking away, running down the platform and out the terminal. Once she was out of sight, Cooper turned to Toby the finch. “Follow her. She might lead us to Prusias.”

  “If she does, how will I find you again?” asked the smee.

  Rubbing her forefinger and thumb together, Hazel kneeled next to Toby and touched his finch’s wing. A faint green thread appeared before fading from view. “This is a pixie tether,” she explained. “Only you can see it. You can follow it back to me.”

  “Can I use it now?” squeaked Toby anxiously.

  “Be brave,” said Hazel gently. “Today, we must all be heroes.”

  “Very good,” sighed Toby. “But if I don’t come back, I expect you to write my memoirs. Tallyho!” Puffing out his chest, the finch became a housefly that buzzed once around their heads before zooming off.

  Max and the others pressed on. They walked with swift purpose, stepping through the bullet-riddled doors to find a vast, empty atrium. The room pulsed with red emergency lights. Ahead were several pod tubes. The nearest was half melted and appeared unusable. Several bodies lay at its base, charred beyond recognition. Overhead, a toneless female voice droned from hidden loudspeakers.

  “Welcome to the Frankfurt Workshop. Have a productive day.”

  Reaching up, Max unsheathed the gae bolga and attached the scabbard to his baldric. The blade hummed, as though tasting the air and liking what it found. Varga promptly stepped away from it. Ahead, Hazel inspected an undamaged pod tube and waved a hand before its sensor. Moments later, a pod arrived, rising like a silver bubble to hover before them. Once aboard, Cooper entered their destination on the pod’s control panel.

  “There’s a control room on S-Five,” he explained. “Its operators might know the location of Prusias’s bunker. If they don’t, we’ll access its surveillance cameras to search the Workshop. One way or another, we’ll find him.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence. Scathach turned about, studying the pod, the
magnetic tube, and the flashing emergency lights at every level. To someone who had lived many centuries earlier, it must have seemed utterly alien. “People really live down here?” she said, amazed. “Humans?”

  Varga nodded. “Some have never been to the surface.”

  The Sidh maiden grimaced. “I couldn’t stand it. Give me blue skies. A place where I can feel the wind and hear the sea.”

  “They probably have those things,” said Varga, smiling. “It’s just artificial. And you visited the Raszna. Arcanum’s deep underground, is it not?”

  “It felt nothing like this,” said Scathach uneasily. “This feels like a tomb of metal and machinery.”

  With frictionless ease, the pod slowed and stopped at the desired floor. Stepping out, the group followed Cooper down the dim, red-pulsing corridors. Announcements continued to drone, but Max could also hear faint shouts and the report of automatic weapons. Now and again, the floor shivered with tremors that made the lights flicker.

  They were not the first to reach the control room. Its smoldering door stood open. Looking within, Max saw that its operators had been slain. Three bodies were heaped upon the floor; two more were sprawled across broken instrument panels. The room’s many monitors had been shattered; computers were a hissing tangle of severed wires and circuit boards.

  “I can’t believe the engineers would do this to one another,” said Hazel, breathing through a handkerchief.

  Her husband turned one of the bodies over and shook his head. The man had not been shot, but cleaved from shoulder to sternum. “This was malakhim.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Scathach.

  Cooper nodded at the door. Near the door’s handle, a crude symbol had been traced into the metal as though it were soft clay. It looked like a sword or inverted cross set within a circle. “They left their mark.”

  The malakhim were Prusias’s honor guard, fallen spirits who wore black robes and obsidian masks. The fiends never spoke; their masks betrayed no emotion when carrying out their master’s will. They were silent sentinels and killers, indifferent to threats, pleas, or bribery.

  “Well,” said Varga, “if malakhim are here, then Prusias is, too.”

  “Why would he send them after these people?” asked Hazel.

  “I’m not sure,” said Cooper, closing the dead man’s eyes. “Maybe he doesn’t want anyone in the control rooms to see what he’s doing. Let’s get moving. This room’s useless.”

  Hurrying back to the tube, they summoned another pod, which soon had them hurtling up toward another control room Cooper had located on his device. Ten seconds later, Max saw a familiar sight—the soaring, open spaces that housed living redwoods near the Workshop’s main gate. As they continued ascending, Max saw that the entire area was swarming with activity as groups of engineers were exchanging fire, using upended tables as barricades while others fled for cover behind the towering trees. Dozens of bodies lay amid the wreckage. A lone figure caught Max’s eye—a man fleeing several determined pursuers. He zigzagged through the chaos, stumbling and staggering as his pursuers closed the gap. His pursuers were noticeably smaller, perhaps even children …

  Max smacked the glass. “Stop! We need to go down there.”

  “Why?” said Cooper.

  Max pointed down. “That’s Jesper Rasmussen.”

  Hazel peered down. “Dear Lord. Are those the haglings?”

  Max nodded. “Rasmussen might know where Prusias is. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll know how to use the Workshop’s systems better than we can.”

  Cooper hit a button. Instantly, they began a swift, smooth descent. Crack! A stray bullet struck the surrounding tube, cracking its glass as they set down.

  “Hazel, take care of the engineers,” said Cooper impatiently. “I don’t need another bullet.”

  “I’ll go,” said Max, squeezing past Varga.

  “No,” said Cooper. “We need you for Prusias. No unnecessary risks until we find him.”

  “But—”

  “That’s a direct order,” said Cooper tersely. As the pod door slid open, he darted out, running with Amplified speed toward the fleeing engineer.

  “Solas!” hissed Hazel, spreading her fingers. A blinding flash of light filled the vast hall, triggering shouts of dismay. Furrowing her brow, she extended an arm at the distant combatants, spread her fingers, and then made a tight fist. Weapons flew from their grasp, skittering and tumbling over the floor as though drawn by a powerful magnet.

  Meanwhile, Cooper had Dr. Rasmussen slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain as he ran back toward the pod. The engineer was shrieking incoherently, twisting about to keep an eye on his determined assailants. The haglings had not given up the chase. They raced after their quarry, clutching cleavers and hatchets, topknots bobbing as they bellowed haggish invective.

  Despite their fury, the haglings’ speed was no match for Cooper’s. The Agent slipped back within the pod, dumping Rasmussen on the floor. The haglings halted as the pod began to rise, their beady eyes following its ascent. Slamming down her cleaver, Callastrophe Shrope shook her fist as the pod disappeared through a hole in the artificial sky.

  Rasmussen gasped for air. “They were waiting for me! Waiting near my door when the order came to return to quarters.” His dignity forgotten, the man rolled onto his back and clapped a hand over his eyes. “I’ve been a nervous wreck ever since that hag disappeared from the museum. I knew those monsters were behind it. I … I told my colleagues, but they only laughed at me. And then to discover the creatures lurking—grinning!—behind my ficus!” The engineer moaned.

  Max nudged him with his boot. “That’s the second time we’ve saved you from the Shropes. You might say thank you.”

  The thin, totally hairless Dr. Rasmussen paused. Removing his hand, his eyes traveled clockwise about the pod, registering each Rowan face with mounting humiliation. Scrambling to his feet, he straightened his uniform. “What on earth are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Cooper jabbed a finger in his chest. “Looking for Prusias. You’re going to help us.”

  “Nonsense,” scoffed Rasmussen. “He isn’t here! He’s defending his city.”

  Cooper’s voice became ominously quiet. “No, mate. He’s here. Every snake has its hidey-hole and this is his. Where is it?”

  Rasmussen sniffed. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  Cooper stopped the pod just before it passed through the roof. “Lie again, and it’s back to the hags.” His finger hovered over the control pad.

  “No!” cried Rasmussen. “Truly, I don’t know! I heard whispers of a project, but it was classified and I have less access than I used to. Dr. Tressel was in charge.”

  “Where’s Tressel?”

  “In her quarters, most likely,” said Rasmussen. “Unless she’s joined the insurrectionists. A revolt’s under way. Some of our best people have been killed.”

  “Ours too,” said Cooper tightly. “Which is why you’re going to come with us to Dr. Tressel’s quarters.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  “Level Twenty, Pod Bank C,” sighed Rasmussen, nodding at the control panel.

  Cooper input the destination and the pod zoomed up the tube, banked sharply, and accelerated sideways until it reached another tube and shot upward. Other pods raced past like passing subway cars, some empty and bullet-riddled, others packed with men and women wearing body armor. They stared at Max and the rest. One woman appeared to shout and raise a fist in a gesture that might have meant solidarity or defiance.

  “What is going on?” asked Varga. “Who is in revolt?”

  “Dr. Kim’s people,” replied Rasmussen. “He runs mechanical engineering. Some never wanted to serve Prusias and disapproved of certain projects, particularly those involving genetics. But leadership has been too frightened to say no to anything the king asks of them—it’s virtual suicide. When it got out that Rowan had broken through Prusias’s gates, Kim’s followers saw their chance. Th
ey raided the armory and are trying to take over key locations. A surprising number have joined them.”

  “Where do you stand, Dr. Rasmussen?” asked Hazel pointedly.

  The man gave a weary, almost despondent laugh. “Honestly, I don’t even know. I sympathize with what Kim’s trying to do, but if Prusias stays in power, the consequences to those who took part in the rebellion will be unimaginable. Have you heard about the king’s Grand Inquisitor?”

  The pod slowed as they reached Level 20. Smoke greeted them as the door opened, a greasy black haze as though oil was burning. With Cooper gripping Rasmussen’s wrist, the group followed the scientist down several corridors as shouts and bursts of gunfire sounded in the distance. When they reached a pair of double doors at the end of a hallway, Dr. Rasmussen rang its bell and knocked sharply.

  When no one answered, Max sheared through the door’s locks with the gae bolga. As the doors opened, the group slipped inside to find a large suite with several well-appointed rooms, but no Dr. Tressel. Cooper showed his handheld device to Dr. Rasmussen.

  “Any way this can track down her current location?”

  The scientist shook his head. “You’d need a control room for that information.”

  “Where’s the nearest?” asked Cooper.

  “This floor. By Pod Bank A.”

  The group hurried out of Dr. Tressel’s apartment, plunging through the smoke as Rasmussen and Cooper led them toward a main corridor. They followed it several hundred yards before turning down a side hallway. Cooper paused as gunfire sounded, a short burst from somewhere close. There were shouts, a strangled cry, and the sound of retreating footsteps.

  Cooper crept forward, motioning for the others to follow at a distance. Kris in hand, he crouched and sprang upward, clinging to the ceiling like a gangling spider that scuttled swiftly around the corner. Max and the others followed, pressing close to the walls.

  Peering around a corner, Max saw three malakhim wearing hooded black robes and obsidian masks. The fiends had no idea Cooper was directly above them. They paid no heed to the engineer dying at their feet. The trio’s attention was fixed upon the reinforced door identical to that of the gutted control room they’d seen earlier. From within, Max could hear panicked pleas in German for the malakhim to let them be. While two of the spirits waited with their heavy swords, the third traced their unholy sigil upon the door. Metal groaned as the door began to glow orange and smoke. Within the room, the engineers began to scream.