Blood Winter

by S. J. Coles

  “Gone.”

  “No siblings?”

  “No.”

  He tapped a fingernail on the glass. “And yet you don’t see the house as yours?”

  I looked around at the cluttered, cheaply-furnished kitchen, the drifts of magazines and papers, the piled engine parts, the dirty crockery. “Not really.”

  “It’s quite a place,” he said softly. “If you don’t like it, you could sell it.” I didn’t answer, just ran my finger around the rim of my glass. “I’m guessing this is where it gets complicated.”

  “I hate it,” I heard myself grating out. “I hate every stone of the damn place.”

  “But?”

  “How do you know there’s a ‘but’?”

  He shrugged. It made the shapeless jersey shift and reveal the smooth sweep of his collar bone. “You’re still here.”

  I put the glass down carefully on the table. “If I sell, it will prove him right.” I blinked at the wine. I felt gutted, hollow. I could no longer hear the wind over the rushing in my ears. I had never formed those words out loud to anyone, not even Meg. Not even to myself. No living being had enabled me to admit it before.

  I raised my eyes. He was watching me, those deep eyes, unknowable and impossibly beautiful, fixed on my face. It was as exquisite and painful as looking directly into the sun, but I refused to look away.

  When he spoke again, it was so quiet that his words were almost drowned in the groaning of the storm. “You can’t always escape your demons. But you can accept they’re real. They’ll have less power over you.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I whispered.

  “Doing what?”

  “Sitting here, like this. Drinking wine. Talking to me.”

  “Is it not allowed?”

  It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “After what’s happened?”

  “It feels…” he said softly after a long moment. “It feels like you can understand.”

  “Understand?” The word came out harsh but he didn’t react.

  “I don’t think you want to, but I think you can.”

  “Why?

  “You didn’t drink.”

  I searched myself, trying to find where I’d buried my fear. But it was gone, like a frost in a thaw, taking the remaining anger with it. It left a welling spring of guilt in its place. I could still hear Brody dying, but I was finding it harder to hear over the soft crackling of the fire and the warm silence in the kitchen.

  “You like old cars?” he said, breaking the spell. He was gazing around rather dreamily at the magazines.

  “Fixing them. Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged, looking away. “I’m good at it.”

  “It’s hard to be good at something you don’t enjoy.”

  I gazed into the flickering flames. “Taking something old…making it new again. Bringing it back to life.” I shrugged again. “I can lose myself in it.”

  “That sounds good.” His voice was soft. “You could do the same with the house, you know. Turn it into something new, something you’re proud of, instead of a monument to something you hated.” His eyes were heavy. In the fading firelight, he seemed impossibly young and unfathomably old all at once. “You’d feel better.”

  “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’d still be here.”

  “Only if you let him stay.”

  I didn’t answer. I felt raw, hot and cold all at once.

  “You’re an interesting man, Alec,” he said softly after another heavy silence.

  “How am I interesting?”

  “You’re different.” He stood.

  “Most people consider that a bad thing.”

  “All this time alone up here,” he said softly, like he was musing to himself. “I think it’s let you figure out who you really are. That normally takes more than one human lifetime.” He drifted past me, close enough to brush against my legs. I fought an urge to reach out for him that shocked me.

  “You don’t have to go.”

  He glanced back. “I think I should. You need to sleep.” He opened the door, letting in a gust of icy air that made the fire flicker, then closed it softly behind him. I sat for a long time watching the snow-blocked window gradually lighten to storm-cloud gray as dawn approached.

  I built up the fire and made myself go to bed. My belly was full. The wine slugged in my veins, fogging my head. I felt like the calm flat of a beach after a storm tide has retreated. I was asleep in minutes.

  It took a while for the dream to form.

  It started off with just a sense of warmth, of safety. Of being home. The warm air was filled with the smells of varnished wood and fresh linen. I became aware of dark-painted walls, a black marble fireplace with a blazing fire in the grate. The light flickered off the gold-framed paintings on the walls. More landscapes. Dad had liked landscapes. The bleaker the better. The drapes were thick russet-colored velvet and drawn over the balcony windows, blocking out the dark night. The firelight warmed the mahogany frame of a huge bed that dominated the room. The Glenroe master bed, loaded with coverlets and quilts, piled high with snow-white pillows, looked more inviting than it ever had in my lifetime.

  Some part of me knew this room in reality to be a damp and moldering mess, the bed stripped long ago, the fine wood dulled with mildew, the massive grate empty but for dust and debris from the unswept chimney. But in the dream it was more magnificent even than when Dad had been at the height of his career.

  Terje stood near the fire, his back to it so his face was in shadow. I could see the lean lines of his torso through the thin shirt he wore. Tight trousers hugged his slim, toned legs. He stood stiller than stone but I felt the heat of his gaze stronger than the flames. After a breathless minute, he stepped into the light. His mouth was open slightly, the lips soft, pale, enticing. The deep darkness of his eyes was lit with a slow flame. His fine hair hung about his face, one strand hanging over his eyes. He held out a hand to me.

  “What do you want?” I didn’t speak out loud, but he heard me.

  “What we both want.”

  “I don’t…” I looked around at the fire-lit room, the large, luxurious bed. My blood thundered. “I can’t.”

  “It’s okay.” He stepped up to me. “Come,” he added in a breathy whisper, running a hand over my chest, down my belly to my waistband. I took a shuddering breath. He took hold of my belt and pulled me to the bed. He pressed me into the soft covers and climbed on top of me. His shirt was open. I could see his collarbone, part of his shoulder, the pulse beating softly at the base of his neck. His hair hung about his face, looking softer than thistledown. He let me run a hand through it, his eyes growing hungry.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Don’t you want me?” he asked softly, leaning down.

  “You’re not human,” I rasped.

  “That’s why you like me,” he breathed in my ear, lips brushing flesh, and my whole body quivered.

  “You’re a killer…”

  He ran a hand down my side to my thigh. “You want me anyway.”

  “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “You don’t have to.” He smiled in a way I’d never seen him do in reality. It lit his cool, ageless face, making him suddenly warm flesh and hot impulse and thoroughly irresistible. I kissed him. The blood surged into my groin. I pressed against him, desperate for the feel of his lithe firmness, my body flaring when he ground his arousal against mine.

  I was brought short by the sharp taste of something metallic. Something cloying and coppery poured into my mouth. I choked and pushed him back. I wiped my mouth and my hand came away bloody. His face had changed. He grinned, showing teeth like razors. Blood dripped from his lips and down his chin, stained his fine, white shirt and ran in rivulets down the toned, white flesh of his chest and belly.

  I spat red onto the coverlet and scrambled back. He smiled again, but now his eyes were dead and black. I froze, register
ing something in the corner of my eye. I turned, stiffly, to look down at the floor. Firelight flickered over the twisted figure of Brody, lying bent and broken on the rich, blue hearthrug, a gaping wound in his neck oozing blood into a spreading puddle on the floor. His clothes were soaked red. His stricken eyes were turned toward me.

  I tried to get away but Terje clamped a hand stronger than iron onto my wrist. The bruised bone pulsed. I fought but he was too strong. His fingernails dug into my skin and his teeth sunk into my shoulder. I screamed.

  I sat up sweating, my throat raw with yelling. The room, lit by thin morning light, was cold, empty and silent, but I still felt the heat of the fire, the cool steel of his grip. I smelled copper, tasted blood in my mouth.

  I shoved the sweat-drenched covers away. I rushed to the hall cupboard, pulling out fleeces, gloves and overcoats. My chest was tight and my head spun. My breath misted in the frigid air but I was still sweating. I pulled on snow boots with trembling hands.

  The only sound in the main hall was the moaning wind in the rafters and my own panicked breathing. The cellar door was firmly shut. I rattled at the front door, tugged and pushed until my muscles burned. It still didn’t move. I rushed up the staircase, stumbling on the uneven treads, swearing when my foot went right through a decaying stair.

  I reached the first floor and broke into a run, kicking through the snow that had blown in through the empty windows. I checked each one, leaning out dangerously far, frantically searching for somewhere the snow was drifted deep enough for me to jump.

  I hesitated outside the master bedroom. Nausea uncurled in my belly. My whole body had gone stiff but I knew the balcony was my only shot. I took a breath, shouldered the door open and rushed to the window, not looking around at the rotting bedstead or down at the remains of the blue hearthrug. Glass from the broken windowpanes frosted the moldering carpet. I wrestled the catch open and staggered out onto the snow-laden balcony. The wind stole my breath. I couldn’t see the mountains, the glen or the outbuildings for the curtains of swirling white. The wind hammered against the sides of the house. It dug claws into the skin around my eyes. I fumbled through my pockets for snow goggles but realized, too late, that I’d left them behind.

  I stepped to where a drainpipe leaned drunkenly against the wall below. I glanced back, fighting myself, caught sight of the corner of the bedstead, shuddered and clambered over.

  I didn’t think. I could barely breathe. I just kept moving. I had to keep moving. I had to get away. The drainpipe groaned and lurched and I let go, dropping into the drifted snow. The cold enveloped me like shock. I scrambled to more solid ground, wrestling through shoulder-deep drifts. I couldn’t see more than three feet ahead. When the shadow of Glenroe had been swallowed by the storm, I was heading roughly north. I turned myself a little west.

  I told myself if I could just make it to the road, I would be okay. I could follow it to Clem’s cottage, the lodge, anywhere—anywhere but there with him. The killer. The murderer. The monster I so badly wanted to touch.

  I slogged on, heart thundering, breath heaving, desperate to leave the dream behind. The rational part of me told me to stop, to turn back, that this was suicide. I ignored it.

  The panic shifted when I started to slow and shuddering set into my limbs. My fingers and toes started to tingle. It hurt to breathe. I still hadn’t hit the road. I squinted around the snow-blasted wilderness and realized that I had no idea where I was. The dial of my compass blurred in and out of focus when I tried to read it. I knew I shouldn’t stop. I had to get to the road. I had to keep moving. But the exhaustion was sucking at me in draining waves. Everything hurt.

  Don’t sleep, I told myself fiercely, my split lips moving but no sound coming out. Don’t sleep.

  I staggered a few more paces before I sank to my knees. My body was beyond shivering. I gave up trying to stand, dragged myself to a crumbling section of drystone wall and curled myself into its lee. It was getting dark—or my vision was failing.

  Part of my mind was still fighting. The rest of it was dull, dark, and I welcomed the spreading nothingness. Finally, I thought, the pain would leave me.

  Everything that hurt fell away.

  Blackness.

  Time became unreal. Darkness cocooned me. Awareness came in waves then mercifully faded again. I caught glimpses of the paleness of moonlight on snow. I could hear the shuffling of limbs forcing a path through the frozen blanket. I could hear someone other than me breathing and feel arms stronger than iron around my body. I tried to protest, to fight, to take my own weight, but my body wouldn’t respond.

  The temperature changing made my skin tingle. I was lying on something soft. My wet clothes were stripped away, making my muscles convulse. My hands and feet pulsed painfully, my injured wrist screaming. I murmured protests and pushed at the hands on me, but they were strong, and I was weak and I could barely see or breathe.

  “Alec, you must eat.”

  A hot mug was being held close to my face. I smelled the richness of soup. The mug was held by a smooth, white hand. I knocked it away, hearing a crash, willing the blackness to return. Finally, I was allowed to collapse into the tangled bed clothes. The blackness rose, tempting me away, offering me an empty, quiet place where nothing hurt any more.

  “Alec…”

  I was racing away from all feeling, then became aware of a smell—a rich, heavy smell. Autumn fruit and syrup, bonfires and the best, darkest wines threaded through with sharpness of hot metal. It sent threads of sensitivity shooting through me. When it touched my tongue, sensation flooded my body.

  I couldn’t fight. I swallowed. Heat and pleasure rolled through my flesh like waves of a warm, tropical sea. My extremities throbbed just on the edge of pain. Every cell in my body seemed to be set alight. My nerves were wires sparking with electricity. My brain and groin pulsed with every beat of my suddenly-powerful heart.

  I blinked, my eyes watering, the rich smell filling my senses. Through a dizzying mist, I watched Terje rise from the edge of my bed, holding an empty tumbler. Thick residue, a red so dark it was almost black, stained the glass. He pulled his sleeve down to cover a small cut in his wrist, which was already healing.

  I searched for horror, for anger, for bitterness and fear. But my consciousness wavered and I faded into warmth and comfort and the feeling that every inch of my body was filled with light.

  “Sleep, Alec.”

  My eyes closed. I slept.

  Dreams came—senseless, formless but loaded with sensation, filled with heat and a burning need I’d never known, not even at the dawn of adolescence when my hand and my imagination had first opened a new and entrancing world to me.

  I woke with my heart racing, my skin on fire, my breath heaving. Every inch of me buzzed and begged to be touched. My pulse pounded in my neck, my chest, my groin. I was painfully hard. Even the feel of the sheets against my skin was overwhelming. I pushed them back.

  The air was warm. The stove in the next room was blazing. My skin prickled in the heat. I was in nothing but my underwear. I reached for myself, gasping at the contact, and I brought myself off in seconds. I groaned as I came, hot seed spilling into my hands as waves ran up my body like rays of an autumn sun. But when the blaze of the orgasm faded, I was left with simmering heat that had only been stoked by my climax.

  I closed my eyes and tried to visualize hands on me—David’s…or Brody’s. But my mind skidded away from thoughts of them both. Instead, it was a pale face with a fall of white-blond hair that rose before me. I saw burnished silver eyes, deeper than wells, ageless and heavy but filled to the brim with knowing, looking at me like they knew and understood me better than I did. I groped for the nightmare that had made me run or the memory of Brody being ripped apart that had dampened and confused my desires the day before. But the images wouldn’t form.

  All I could think of was Terje touching me. I grew agonizingly hard once again. I lay, panting, my blood thundering in my veins, staring at the ceiling
as I pumped my cock, but it wasn’t enough. I sat up. I was trembling, but not with cold. I moved through the kitchen in a sort of dream. The feel of the linoleum against my bare feet sent shivers through my over-sensitized skin.

  Pulling open the door to the main house let in a rush of frigid air. My skin quivered but the fire underneath it was stoked still hotter. I padded out into the dining room. I could smell the dust, smell the dead leaves on the floor, smell the very age of the darkened room like some kind of heady perfume. There was a low, warm light and the smell of a wood fire and good wine. It threaded through my flesh and pulled me forward. I drifted through the hall, past the stairs, feeling the drafts play against my skin like sighs. The hairs on my arms and legs stood up like a cool hand had been run over the skin. I swallowed thickly, blinking heavy eyes.

  I padded to the drawing room. The heat from a huge fire in the dusty grate wrapped itself around me like lambswool blankets. A sofa had been shifted close to the hearth, its dust sheet a heap on the floor. There was a silver candelabra bristling with points of golden light on a table, flickering as the heat from the fire battled with the cold of the room, making the air shimmer and sway.

  Terje sat in the pool of light and heat, a book open in one hand, a tumbler of wine in the other. I could smell it mixed with autumnal scent of his skin, the snow-fresh smell of his hair. The warm light played in the white strands and gilded his long eyelashes gold.

  He knew I was there but sat so still that it was like he was carved from marble. I knew the strength in those casually draped limbs. I knew the sharpness of the teeth hidden behind the slightly curved lips, the deep, bright red of the mouth. I remembered the way the muscles in his throat moved when he swallowed human blood. Just looking at him, I could tell he was dangerous, that he’d killed people, that he’d seen and done things I couldn’t even guess.

  And yet my breath caught. My groin throbbed. My mouth watered.

  He raised his eyes. My heart skittered about behind my ribs as his gaze met mine. I could tell he knew what I was feeling, that he was seeing into the deepest, darkest corners of my mind.

  I hovered by the sofa for an eternal moment that was filled with the smell of the fire and the sight of his face turned up to me. I sank to my knees. I could trace a hundred thoughts behind the heavy silver curtains of his eyes but wouldn’t ever be able to understand even one. I was shaking. I felt a fight in me, bitter and bloody, being lost.