Hard Frost- Depths of Winter

by Thia Mackin

  Returning to the door, I frantically tried to bring someone to help. Every couple minutes, I alternated between checking on Jimmy and notifying our captors that we needed medical attention. No one came, though, and he worsened by the second. Whatever demon breed he was, he either didn’t have the Gift of self-healing or was too weakened from the captivity and starvation to use it.

  The first time his breathing stopped, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation brought him back. I kept moving—faster pace and less time between—back and forth between the door and the pallet. Call for the guards until my throat burned raw. Check Jimmy’s vitals with chilled, trembling fingers. Yell for help in a hoarse scream. Administer CPR while praying to the Goddess.

  The sun had set, and I quit beating on the door. The last time his heart stopped, I administered chest compressions until my arms no longer responded, provided mouth-to-mouth until my lungs spasmed. Nothing brought him back. So I covered his upper body with his blanket and moved to my corner. Knees to my chest, I hugged myself and watched the moon through the window.

  The Lykos wasn’t the first person I had killed. Jimmy wasn’t the first who’d passed on my watch. However, neither of them should have died in a stone cell where no one even knew their last names. This place reeked of evil.

  The next morning, someone hit the door twice. “Anyone alive in there?” he asked, sounding amused. “Away from the door!”

  I remained in the corner, arms pillowed on top of my knees and chin resting on them. No point answering. They hadn’t responded to me, after all. However, I raised my head to watch when the door opened and allowed four armed guards to enter. My eyes met the stoic, dark brown ones of the dark-complected man standing closest to me. His gun aimed in my direction, and he seemed to truly see me. However, another asked what had happened.

  “The lycanthrope hit him, and…” I gestured at the Lykos’s body, still propping up my friend’s legs. “Jimmy was bleeding internally. I tried to call for help. You all just let him bleed to death. You didn’t even try to help him.”

  “Must not have been any guards in this hall.” The voice was the same one who’d asked if anyone was alive. When he grabbed the lycanthrope’s legs, he snorted his laughter as he started pulling the corpse toward the hall. Another man picked Jimmy up in a fireman’s carry after checking for a pulse.

  I deliberately met the eyes of the quiet guard still watching me, intentionally not looking at the person who thought the deaths of two people were funny. The urge to imprint the asshole’s face in my memory in case we met later was strong. I reminded myself it would be more difficult to live with his amusement if I never found justice. The African American guard nodded to me as he backed out of the room, first to enter and last to leave.

  Hours later, he returned with one more guard and two people who may have been custodial workers. He forced me to stand in the corner with my hands behind my head as they removed everything from the room and fast mopped the stone floors. Then they replaced the old pallets with clean ones and placed a folded blanket on each. Once finished, he ordered everyone back to the door. Someone on the outside opened it to let them out, and they left with no hesitation.

  The guard, though, glanced over his shoulder and saw that we were alone. Quickly, he squatted and pulled two rolled bundles from inside the top of his boot. He tossed them both onto the pallet and backed away, again first in and last out. Pausing on the threshold, he nodded slightly at me. Then the door closed with a clang.

  I stayed in the corner for a long moment, confused, before moving to examine the two clean pairs of socks and a bar of soap.

  For the next couple days, everything seemed quiet in the camp. A bowl of food arrived three times a day like clockwork. After the past few weeks of rations, I couldn’t eat it all so I flushed the excess down the toilet to keep them from cutting the rations back. My nights, though, were haunted by dreams of Rankar searching frantically for me. Sometimes, I dreamt that he exited the same Gate I had and sat in the cell next to mine. Other times, nightmares that he hated me so much he forbade anyone from speaking my name ate away at me. Once, I relived our run across the desert from my birthday. I never wanted to wake from the freedom and openness.

  With no company and no hope of escape, time ceased to have meaning. Days ran together. Nights lasted an eternity. I half-dozed one evening when a chirping question formed in my head. ::???::

  My eyes shot open, and I glanced around the room. Empty. The room was warded too well to allow even a canny creature like a drakyn to Gate in. Apparently, hallucinations were next after nightmares.

  ::Miss you. Here you?::

  My hands caught the ledge of the window, and I pulled myself up to look out. “Here, Hypnos. I’m here!” My whisper sounded loud in the night.

  Suddenly, he appeared in front of me. ::!!!:: he exclaimed, his excitement enough to bring tears to my eyes.

  Godsdamnit, I would not cry. Not after everything else. But the sight of him reminded me of everything I had lost. “Hypnos, it’s dangerous here. You have to go.”

  ::Come home,:: he begged, keening sadly.

  I used my arm to hold my body weight up and reached a hand sideways through the bars, touching his head with a finger. “I wish I could, little man.” Concentrating, I projected the image of me stuck in a cage of bars and a Gate closing before I could enter.

  His elliptical pupils narrowed into slits, and his wings pumped ferociously. For a moment, Hypnos appeared to be a very small, incredibly angry dragon. Then his pupils returned to normal. ::Get bonded!::

  “NO!” I shouted, shuddering as long-unused muscles protested the exercise. As much as I wanted my freedom, that price was much too steep. I had every confidence that Rankar could evade capture with adequate warning of the layout and systems. However, Hypnos of all creatures couldn’t be trusted to give his bonded that much detail. He was as likely to just tell Rankar that he’d found me, to come see. “No,” I repeated in a kinder but no less firm voice. “Can you come inside?”

  For a second, the blue form withered in on itself. I petted his head. ::Too big. No Gate.::

  Who would have thought that a drakyn would ever be the nearest, dearest thing to me?

  Unexpectedly disappointed, I sent reassurance through our bond. “Hypnos, have you seen Pantheon?” I conjured the image of the blue roan and projected it.

  In reply, he sent me a mental snapshot of the gelding in a stall at Asez Holding. A salve coated the horse’s shoulder where the worst burn had been, so I knew the memory was post-fire.

  Sliding down as my arm numbed, I pulled my hand carefully through the bars. “Go home, Hypnos. Stay with Rankar. He needs you. I’ll be fine. I’ll be with you all again.” And in my next life, I won’t be so foolish as to leave.

  The look the drakyn gave me held so much emotion. The little guy didn’t believe me, but he touched his nose to the space between the bars in farewell. Then he Gated away.

  I cried until sunrise.

  Chapter 27

  Sometime in the nights that followed, the door opened without warning. A young woman was thrust into the room. Her wrists were still bound behind her with zip ties. Her dark eyes, despite the bright moon outside, appeared dim and hazy, and her short brown hair stood on end. She walked as though she had been drugged.

  Someone had ripped the neck of her shirt so wide it exposed her shoulder and part of her breast. She wore no pants. Tiny, scared, helpless. I knew with certainty she had been raped.

  Carefully, I approached her as she stood swaying in the middle of the room. “I’m Kinan. What is your name?” She didn’t respond, her eyes never even focusing on me. Stepping behind her, I easily snapped the zip ties. Her arms fell to her side. “Let’s tuck you in.”

  I floundered as she walked to the pallet and lay down with minimal encouragement, unsure how to help. She immediately curled into a fetal ball as I covered her with the blanket. However, when I tried to touch her shoulder, she jerked away. “Sorry,” I murmured. “Let me
know how I can help.”

  She drew into a tighter ball, but before I made it back to my side of the room, she sobbed like her soul was being ripped from her body. The next day, she didn’t rise from the pallet. Each time food was delivered, I took it to her. However, she never made an effort to eat.

  Once, I warned the food delivery guard that she wasn’t eating. However, I didn’t press the issue. The only freedom the woman had was to choose life or death, something that not all of us could do. I couldn’t fault her for being brave or cowardly enough to carry through with it. Not until I had to be in her shoes.

  I knew she had passed the night she didn’t cry. The next morning, I alerted the guard that brought breakfast. This time, the guards didn’t ask me what happened. Two of them collected the body quickly, efficiently. One of them flipped the pallet over, not bothering to change it out. Then the African American guard nodded solemnly at me as he backed out of the room. Less than five minutes in the cell, and they were gone.

  Initially, I had compared these internment camps to the prisons for Japanese Americans that popped up after Pearl Harbor. I realized now the paranormal “holding centers” were much more like POW and Nazi concentration camps. Here, in this place, they had to be carting the dead off in record numbers if I had lost three cellmates in such a short span.

  The next evening, shortly after sunset, a vampire entered my room. Beautiful, incredibly poised, and extremely well-spoken, she introduced herself as Alena Katarr and asked me if I minded terribly speaking with her. To my surprise, not having someone to talk to the past couple weeks had prepared me to make polite conversation.

  “I am Kinan.” After a moment, I hesitantly continued, “Do you have any news from the outside world?”

  “People disappear from the streets and from their homes, day and night. The witch trials of the twenty-first century, some call it. Much like then, the innocent and the guilty are taken together. Anyone protecting a presumed paranormal is imprisoned right beside them. However, the majority of the world sits back and watches. The United States is at the heart of this hunt.”

  The way she spoke flowed poetically, and I asked if English was her first language. She smiled at me like I was a curious child asking silly questions to which the answer was obvious. Honestly, I just wanted to know what dead languages she spoke but hadn’t wanted to presume her age. So I asked.

  Not once did she glance at the window as we held a conversation about the effects of the Enlightenment—what she told me they called the humans’ discovery of paranormals among them—in Latin. However, the closer to dawn we came, the faster my heart beat and the more anxiety filled me. “We can use the pallets to block the light from the windows. They barely make sitting on the floor more bearable as it is.”

  Her smile held such peace; I envied her. “I would not ask you to live without sunlight for me. Perhaps my next life will be somewhat less eventful.” Shortly before dawn, she grew pensive. Her responses came slower. “Thank you, Kinan, for speaking with me. If ever there is a memorial for those of us lost to this place, please put my name there for my husband to find.” She offered me her belt buckle, the only metal they’d left on her. “To carve our names in the walls.” Alena did not speak again during that final hour.

  For her, I cried. No matter how hard I concentrated, I could not force myself to watch her beauty eaten away by something as benign to me as a little touch of light. Her screams echoed through the room until I wanted to claw out my eardrums. Then, suddenly, it was over.

  I sat with my back to the door when they entered the next morning. I ignored them when they asked their questions, pretending they did not exist. Using the metal piece from her belt to carve her name into the wall so I wouldn’t forget it, I paused only a second before adding Jimmy’s. Finished, I sat back to wait for the next person they would thrust into my little stone world.

  A couple days later, the guards apparently discovered an overcrowding issue. The door opened, a Ferente female entered with a child, and the door closed. Then a blonde, human-looking male was pushed inside. Six more times, the process repeated, leaving me in the ten-by-ten room with an extremely volatile group of nine people.

  Four demons paced, making me more nervous by the minute. The young woman with the small child crouched in the corner and eyed the others in the same wary manner I did. A man standing by the door watched her with a protective calm. He was either her lover or guardian. Two men whispered close together in the center of the chaos, as though they didn’t notice the audience witnessing their scheming.

  Hours passed before everyone calmed down and found a space to lie. I offered my pallet to the woman and child, moving to the corner where I had better protection. My eyes tracked every person, watching the crowd for any beings ill-content to sleep alone. Then the man at the door made his way to the side of his ladylove; she welcomed him with a wan smile. Everyone else bedded down a distance from the person closest to them, leaving as much room as possible between themselves and the next.

  In the morning, only a few bowls of the oatmeal-like slop slid through the little window. I remained in the corner as everyone eyed each other, trying to decide who would go without food that day, or at least that meal. The guardian of the woman and child made his way forward, cautiously watching everyone else, and he took a single bowl for the three of them to share. Oddly enough, no one objected to his right. Then one of the two men who had spent the majority of their time in the cell conspiring spoke, “If no one objects, we two can share a bowl.” They took the silence as permission and retreated to the wall with their sludge.

  Three bowls remained for four people plus me. A woman and a man eyed each other up, and I wondered if they were going to fight for a full bowl. Surprisingly, they both acquiesced and shared. One of the remaining men picked up another bowl guiltily. He stared into the depths as though the oatmeal were speaking to him… or he saw something moving in its depths. After a long moment, he looked up. “You want some?”

  A second passed before I realized he addressed me. “No, thanks. However, the little boy might still be hungry. I’m sure he’d be happy with even a third of what you have there.”

  The stranger looked back down into the sour-smelling concoction before nodding and offering the kid a share of his meal. The guardian inclined his head at me, and I returned the gesture. The final prisoner took his full bowl and finished it in the corner. Luckily, the offering for lunch allowed everyone their own serving.

  The sky began turning shades of purple, and the guards came to collect the woman and child. The guardian smiled sadly as he watched them go, but he didn’t issue a protest. Instead, he stared like he imprinted their faces upon his memory.

  “How can you watch them go?” I murmured, not wanting anyone to hear.

  He shook his head. “I’m not, darling. I’m simply waiting for the soldiers to find a place for them before I go and join them. That’s the difference.” His reply confused me until he walked through the stone wall thirty minutes later. I started, not having seen anyone use their Gifts within the wards, much less a Gift like his.

  Not long after the sun set, they collected the other woman and the man who had offered to share breakfast with me. Then two more of the men were led out by a veritable contingent of guards. Another group handcuffed one of the two co-conspirators and led him off. Our number had dwindled to two, so I settled back on my pallet.

  “We have a plan,” the second schemer advised, barely ten minutes after his partner had gone. “I can break the wards on the windows, and my friend can melt the bars. Then we can Gate to freedom. We’ll be famous, and we won’t be here. If you can help us, you can come too.”

  I didn’t blink, trying to process whether this complete stranger had actually just offered to involve me in his jailbreak. Was he a plant, trying to figure out for certain whether I was a paranormal? Or was he just dumb enough to assume that I wasn’t a plant myself? Maybe he thought I could reunite him with his companion. No matter his re
asoning, though, he was mistaken. “I’m sorry. I’m not Gifted.”

  As untruths went, it wasn’t completely a lie. My Gift of Prophecy was not much help when it came to prison breaks, except to let me know it was going to fail miserably. A little niggling voice inside me urged me to warn him. “About the wards, they are sure to have sensitives monitoring whether or not people are pushing on them. Perhaps you should really reconsider that mode of escape.”

  He laughed at me, semi-hysterical. My lips tightened in anger, and I didn’t press the warning. Instead, I pulled my knees to my chest and closed my eyes. Within minutes, I fell into a light doze.

  Energy raised goosebumps on my skin, and my sleeping consciousness whispered that Rankar was coming to break me out. Something felt wrong, though, about his energy. Rankar conjured and manipulated fire. Why would his energy feel so waterlogged? Was something wrong with him?

  My eyes snapped open as the cell door slammed into the wall, and I lifted my head as the one of the guards unloaded a magazine into the other prisoner’s body. Instinctively, I raised my hands in an “I’m innocent” gesture. However, the trigger-happy guards still aimed at the conspirator. The African American guard from before calmly kept me in his sights.

  “Is this normal?” I asked him, hands still in the air. “I mean, this isn’t normal for civilized life, but is this normal for the rest of the cells? Or am I just a super unlucky roommate to get?”

  As the other guards removed the body and hosed down the floor, Mr. Stoic didn’t respond. Instead, he waited until everyone left before backing out of the cell and closing the door behind him. “Thanks for the reassurance!” I shouted, though I doubted he could hear me through the metal.

  Chapter 28

  The next two days found me pacing the confines of the cell, alone. I walked back and forth and back and forth along the wall. A couple times, I strode completely around the perimeter of the cell. Funny, I hadn’t noticed just how close the stones were to me on all four sides until I had nothing to distract me. Apparently, the openness of the desert had made more of an impression on me than I had originally assumed and had given me a dislike of closed spaces. The longer I paced, though, the more precisely I knew exactly how small my delightfully homey quarters were. Worse, I longed for the lover I had left behind. I worried for Pantheon, who had bonded to me and now had no one. At least Hypnos still had Thanatos and Rankar.