Dead of Winter

by Kresley Cole

  Crack, squelch, crack.

  "You doan know what you're talking about."

  I muttered, "Back here, guys. Falling farther behind you." I'd only made it about halfway through. Wait . . . Had the bodies beneath me just moved?

  No, no. Of course not.

  Aric kept at Jack. "You've made a life with Selena. Sharing meals, missions, victory celebrations. The king and queen of Fort Arcana, the hunter and his huntress."

  "Is this the kind of underhanded bullshit you been feeding Evangeline for months? You got into her head, sowing doubt about me?" Just past the line of exposed bodies, he slowed to a stop.

  Aric intoned, "I've told her a great many truths." He stopped as well, both turning to wait for me.

  "So after you mentally tortured her for the better part of a year, you abducted her. Then I'll bet you tortured her some more."

  Over the last couple of months, I'd blocked out how traumatic my capture had been. My gloved hands tightened on the reins. Or they would have--right now, they were numb. Yes, I'd wronged Aric. But that wasn't me anymore. Which meant I hadn't deserved to be tormented.

  Jack gazed from Aric to me and back. "On the heels of all that, you fill her head with your truths?" His eyes met mine and lingered. His brows drew together--as if with realization. "Now I understand what's goan on, me. Couldn't figure it out before." I thought a flash of pity crossed his expression--then came a hint of raw, blistering emotion.

  "Thrall us, mortal."

  Ignoring him, Jack addressed me, "I'll be scouting for a shelter to stop at for a spell, bebe. We'll ease our pace. Just hang in there a while longer."

  Huh? Jack's attitude had done a one-eighty. If I weren't so exhausted and freezing, I could make sense of this situation.

  The bodies roiled. No mistaking it now. "Uh, things might be shifting under me," I called. "And it feels--I don't know--kind of deeper in this spot." Like I was on a pile of them.

  "You're likely over a clogged culvert of some sort," Aric said. "Where the corpses circled a drain. Continue forward, Empress."

  "Yeah. Got it."

  The pile heaved upward, lifting me and my horse! "What's happening??"

  A more forceful heave. The spooked mare reared; my numb legs, hands . . . I couldn't keep my seat!

  I tumbled out of the saddle. Landed on my back. Atop gunky corpses. Oh God, oh God.

  The mare trotted a retreat, abandoning me in the carnage. No name for you!

  The mat of bodies kept roiling like a bounce house.

  "I've determined where the threat lies," Aric called. "Empress, it's beneath you."

  "What?"

  A hand shot up, snatching my ponytail.

  Just past my boots, two Bagger heads popped up.

  24

  "Bagmen!" I screamed.

  In a carefree tone, Aric answered, "Use your powers."

  I still hadn't recharged them! I gripped my ponytail and jerked back from the clenched hand. Caught fast. "Any time you two feel like helping me!"

  "The fuck you doing, Reaper?"

  Aric had intercepted Jack, riding in front of him. "As soon as she needs assistance, I'll be first into the fray."

  The pair of Baggers struggled to the surface, wedging their arms upward for leverage, their seeping, cream-colored eyes locked on my throat. They wriggled their slime-covered bodies free to their waists, like worms from a rotted apple.

  How much longer before more emerged?

  The skies chose that moment to open up, dumping buckets of rain. Blinking against water, spitting it, I cried, "Are you shitting me?"

  The trapped Baggers lunged for me with so much force, their torsos shot back in recoil. Another lunge freed them to their upper thighs, extending their reach--just as the pile heaved, sending my body rolling toward the pair.

  One caught my boot!

  "Your powers," Aric called.

  "I can't . . . seed anything in corpses!" I kicked against the creature's hold. "And poison doesn't . . . work on Bagmen!"

  But my claws were as sharp as razors.

  I twisted back and sliced the end of my ponytail off. The hand clutched the length like a prize.

  Free to move, I dove toward the Bagger holding my boot, aiming my claws for his throat. He tucked his chin, chomping down, narrowly missing my fingers.

  "Shit!"

  "Come now, sieva, that is not how you're meant to use your claws."

  "Ugh--you are such a dick!"

  "Vines would work better."

  Suddenly an arrow jutted from one Bagger's skull. Then the other. They slumped over. Jack must've fired right past Death's head!

  I scrambled to stand, tripping forward as the pile shuddered. A boil about to burst.

  Aric finally moved out of the way, allowing Jack to ride toward me.

  "Move your ass, bebe !" He offered his hand. When I managed to grab it, he hauled me into the saddle, spurring his horse. At my ear, he said, "A gem of a guy you got there, Evie."

  Once we'd made it to safety, Aric cast me a disappointed look. I was sick of guys giving me that expression!

  To Jack, he said, "Whereas you view her as merely a girl, I've been on the receiving end of her powers. I've seen her shake the earth with fury, decimating populations. I know her for the goddess she is." To me, he said, "I'll go clean up the mess you made."

  "Wh-what mess?"

  The boil burst.

  Baggers wailed as they rose, shucking body parts out of their way. They turned toward us, snarling for our blood, creamy eyes unblinking in the rain.

  Riding hands-free into the mob, Death drew both swords and attacked.

  I'd watched his punishing training sessions, but the cold lethality on display astonished even me. He moved so fast, I could barely see his swords.

  Just the results. In the rain, heads flew, bodies collapsed over each other, bone fragments and entrails spattered the air. Thanatos trampled some that hadn't completely risen.

  The clash lasted only minutes.

  When Death returned, magnificent in his rain-slicked armor, he lifted his visor to narrow his eyes at Jack. The grueling tension between them only mounted. "It felt good to ride in and save her, didn't it? Imagine how good she feels whenever she vanquishes her enemies--on her own."

  "Like a shadow, Evie," Jack muttered as we approached our potential pit stop. The rain had turned to fog, painting the small cinder-block house in an eerie light.

  He was tense, bow ready--because this might be a slavers' den.

  After three hours of passing one burned-out structure after another, I was so done in I'd rather face slavers than keep riding. The downpour earlier had soaked me through, and my teeth had chattered for miles.

  At least it'd rinsed Bagger funk and corpse gore off me, like a car wash.

  Jack had invited me to ride with him, but I'd said no. I doubted Death would approve. And Jack had confused me anyway. Why had his attitude toward me boomeranged?

  We climbed the front stairs, Aric trailing us. "I'm surprised you're amenable to stopping, mortal. With the clock and such. The Empress can ride with me, and we'll continue toward Selena."

  "Even if there was a snowball's chance in hell of Evie riding with you on that thing you call a horse," Jack said, "we're coming up on serious black-hat territory--which means our mounts need to be fresh."

  We'd pushed them all day. Not that Thanatos needed rest. Thanatos bench pressed three eighty and ate bricks for fun.

  "This place has been occupied recently." Aric drew one of his swords. "What makes you think the residents won't return?"

  "Wagon-wheel ruts lead away from the house. Deep ruts. The slavers took their wagon full of captives north to sell--to the serious black hats I just mentioned." Jack certainly knew his way around this part of the world. "They set out after the last rain. But if they return, we'll kill them. Unless the Reaper is afraid of mortal slavers?"

  "In my lifetimes, they've come in many different manifestations. Not once have I feared them."
/>   Jack tried the door. Locked. He kicked it in, and we crossed the threshold into a front sitting room. The interior reeked, like someone had forgotten to take the trash out (for a garbage truck that would never come again). Most of the furniture had been destroyed, likely for firewood.

  A line of shackles was bolted to studs in the wall. Definitely a den.

  "Fuckin' hate slavers," Jack grated. "Worse than Baggers."

  I stared at those cuffs. "When there was no water, slaves dug wells. So what's the appeal now?"

  "Salvage crews." Gaze alert, Jack checked a closet. "There are food stores if you know where to look--Prepper bunkers, government shelters, cargo ships that got beached, silos, rail cars. And sometimes bosses trade slaves for other goods."

  We entered a living room that smelled cleaner. There were a couple of lawn chairs, a plastic table, a stone fireplace.

  Jack faced Aric with a mean glint in his eyes. "Maybe Evie should be asking you about slavers, since you're the one who kidnapped her. Pretty much the same difference, non? I wonder how you kept her bound. You shackle her? A sixteen-year-old girl?"

  Instead of denying it or downplaying it, Aric said, "Absolutely." There was that startling honesty again. "And once she cut off her own thumb to free herself from her bonds, she called up an army of green and nearly destroyed us all."

  The mere memory of that day drained me. "Can we just not talk right now?"

  "Come on, Evie." With me in tow, Jack cleared two back bedrooms and a bathroom, ushering me into the latter. "Why doan you change?" he said, setting up his spare flashlight. "I'll find some dry wood and get a fire goan. Stay in here, and take your time." He obviously didn't want me to be alone with Aric.

  Dry wood? Was there such a thing anymore? "I can help."

  "Non, I got this."

  Guilt weighed on me. "You're the one who was injured."

  "I ain't unused to getting my clock cleaned, bebe." Because his mother's beaux had introduced him to violence early.

  When he helped me take off my bug-out bag and poncho, I asked, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

  He turned to go, but hesitated at the door. "See things clearer than before."

  I felt just the opposite.

  Once he left, I gripped the counter, fighting a wave of dizziness. Could I keep riding at this pace? My headache throbbed, my legs and arms trembling. I stared into the mirror. My skin was so pale, my eyes seeming too big for my face.

  In the reflection, I spied one of those shower squeegees behind me and felt a pang for the previous owners.

  What a waste of your limited time.

  Things could be worse. I could be dead like them. Though waterlogged and chilled, I remained free. No shackles circled my wrists, no Bagger bites marked my skin.

  I stripped and hung up today's clothes, then unzipped my bug-out bag. Inside, I had an ultra-small sleeping bag, energy bars, a canteen, bandages for Jack, and more clothes. I dug for another change.

  Banging sounded from somewhere else in the house. What was Jack doing?

  I'd just finished dressing when I heard him return to the living room. "So you're two thousand years older than she is?" he said to Aric. "There's robbing the cradle--and then there's this. She's a teenager, you fils de putain."

  "When I married her, I was younger than she was," Aric pointed out. "I can't control that I've endured this long. In any case, counting her various incarnations, she's lived on this earth for well over a century. She has memories of games when she was older, a woman grown."

  "The unwed girl in there is named Evie Greene. She went to Sterling High, and she grew up in cane country like me. And even if you had married her, you never consummated it, no." He could be just as snide as Aric. "Not like Evie and me did." Low blow, Jack.

  "I'm going to make you pay for that. In time."

  "Now I know why you tried to stop us that night. How'd that work out for you? All my life, folks been telling me I cheat death. Guess they were right."

  "The honor doesn't belong to the one she chose first for her bed," Aric bit out. "It belongs to the one she chooses to keep there."

  "And you think that's goan to be you? You're delusional in your old age, you."

  Hostility continued to seethe between them, along with a cutthroat rivalry.

  Now I was about to have to wade right into the middle of it. In a daze, I turned toward the door, nearly leaving my bag behind. Accustomed to the security at Aric's, I'd forgotten the first rule of survival out on the road.

  Jack had tried so hard to teach me. I'd thought he was just being cruel.

  And now I knew why he'd gotten angry whenever I'd been hungry. I would never forget the image of him as a little boy kicking that trap in frustration. . . .

  Back in the living room, a fire was going. Clever Jack had harvested boards from the building's walls.

  He sat at the hearth cleaning that crossbow, his own bug-out bag at his feet, his jacket drying nearby.

  Helmet in hand, Aric paced along a line of dirt-caked windows, casting glances outside. Tonight, he moved soundlessly in that armor. Sometimes his spurs clinked as he entered a room; other times silent. Maybe he adjusted his stride. "The mortal's handy, Empress. Your very own squire."

  Jack didn't rise to the bait, asking me, "You eat anything?"

  I sat beside the fire, dropping my bag. "Not yet." I stretched my hands to the warmth.

  Once my fingers thawed, I retrieved my canteen and dinner, a nutritious energy bar. Those bars gave me enough calories for an entire day, but the taste was so foul, I earned every one of them. I peeled the wrapper, knowing I'd need the energy to keep up with these two.

  Jack polished his bow's arrow cartridge with the tail of his shirt. "It's goan to get worse and worse on this route. I brought an extra bulletproof vest for you." Like the one he wore. "When we head out, I want you to try it."

  That vest would swallow me.

  Death scoffed, "She can take a hundred bullets to the heart and survive."

  "I bet you know just what can kill her--since you've offed her so many times in past lives."

  "I wouldn't say many. And she's tried for me just as often." Aric made a last round along the windows, then took a seat against the wall near the door. One arm rested over a bent knee.

  "How'd you murder a girl who can regenerate, you? Decapitate her?" If a guy has beheaded you on more than one occasion . . . "Did you do to her what you did to those Baggers earlier? Sounds like a match made in hell to me."

  Aric's fists clenched, the metal of his spiked gauntlets grinding. No doubt he wanted to drive those spikes into Jack's face. "Unlike you and the Archer, who have everything in common?" To me, Aric said, "I would advise you to ask the mortal if he's been with her in all these months, but then, he'd simply lie to you."

  Aric's words cut right to the heart of my problems with Jack: trust. Despite Jack's denial, I wondered again if something had transpired between him and Selena. She wanted him so much. . . .

  The bar tasted like cardboard. I struggled to chew it. If Jack had lied to me about her, I could never accept him.

  "You stirring the pot again, Reaper? Evie's the one I want. It'll always be that way."

  I glanced over at him with a question in my eyes. In a matter of hours, we'd gone from I can't look at you to this. Why the turnaround?

  "You had many women before the Empress." Aric took a whetstone from a pouch on his swordbelt. "You'll have them after her as well." He slid one sword free.

  That muscle ticked in Jack's jaw. "I found the one I'm goan to be with. It's her for me. Period. I'll protect her with my life."

  Aric ran that stone along his sword blade. Graaaate. "As will I."

  "Like you did with those Baggers? I wrote the book on toughening Evie up, but that was too much risk."

  Graaaate. "Arcana are superhuman--should our lessons be merely human in intensity? Or even humane for that matter? Those Bagmen had been washed away with those victims, buried alive among them for weeks,
perhaps months. They chose to rise today--because they finally had motivation. They tapped into the depths of their bloodthirsty natures for more strength. In battle, the Empress should do no less."

  "She can't do that if she's dead, no."

  "I'm right here," I cried. "Right--here. If you two are going to fight, then do it over something other than me." I folded up the remains of the bar, stowing it and the canteen. Dinner had officially concluded.

  Aric raised his brows. "Aside from you, I have no quarrel with the mortal. He's an uncouth drunkard who slaughters the English language every time he attempts it, but I probably wouldn't kill him just for that."

  "You keep talking about slaying me, Reaper. Let's go outside and see if you can."

  My impatience boiled over. "Just stop it--both of you! Get your heads in the game. We're out here to save someone's life."

  After a hesitation, Jack returned his attention to his bow, Aric to his sword.

  I asked Aric, "Can you call to Selena without the Lovers hearing?"

  "Of course."

  "Will you tell her we're coming for her? And ask her for any information that can help us?"

  "What makes you think she'll respond to Death?" Graaaate. "But for you, I'll try--because it seems I can deny you nothing." He paused, his gaze going distant for long moments. "She's ignoring me, letting my words drift over her thoughts. A feat not easily done. Someone taught her a great deal about focus."

  That extensive Archer training. Looking from Aric to Jack, I asked, "What's our plan?"

  "I'm curious as well." Aric turned to Jack. "How far are you willing to risk the Empress in this endeavor?"

  "If not for coo-yon's prediction, she'd still be back at the outpost."

  I shook my head. "I need to help. Jack, the Lovers want revenge against me. I was in an alliance with them in the last game, but I betrayed them. Horribly. Their line chronicles, so they know every detail."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I didn't know until they said something."

  He jerked his chin at Aric. "I bet he knew that history. Guess he couldn't find time in three months to warn you about a pair of psycho killers who're out for your blood."

  I had wondered the same.

  Graaaate. "After she earned my trust, I had only scant hours with her--because of your foolhardy capture. And actually that insults the Fool."

  I rubbed my temples. "Can we just talk about the plan, please?"

  Jack cast a last scowl at Aric, then shifted his attention to me. "I'm meeting some dissenters from Azey North tomorrow on the road. I'll work with whatever I learn, see if I can trust them. At worst, they can give me intel on Selena. At best, they'll help me take the twins and the general off guard. I'll kill those three, free Selena, and seize command."