Winter (Mist Riders Book 2)

by Stella Fitzsimons

I held out my hand to the door and slashed the blade across my wrist. Blood spurted from my veins like a fountain, drenching the wards and the door they guarded.

  For a moment, nothing. Then the wards flickered and hissed like oil in a hot skillet.

  Beams of color exploded in rainbows all over the room—reds, yellows, browns, blues, greens and oranges, in every shade ever imagined.

  A wispy ground mist climbed up the door, wrapping the wards gently. The wards expanded and contracted, again and again, every time losing some of their density.

  The mist whistled and swelled, licking up every-last morsel of color and energy contained in the wards.

  I glanced at Winter, stunned and exhilarated at the same time. I had heard some legends about the mist magic of the morning peoples, a.k.a. the mist riders, which could penetrate and conquer every type of supernatural force, and now I had been able to conjure it.

  So damn cool.

  I tried the handle on the door. It was locked. With an actual lock.

  “Do you have a spell for that?” I asked Winter.

  He chuckled, then took a running start to ram his shoulder into the door and break the lock.

  That works, too.

  It was pitch dark inside. A smell of old paper and brandy hit my nostrils as we took a few steps into the vault.

  “Ouch,” I yelped. Something sharp nipped at my right side.

  I rubbed my stinging flesh and heard the hurried shuffling of feet.

  Winter’s hand found mine.

  “What happened?”

  “Felt like something pinched me.”

  “Pinched you?”

  Winter flipped a switch. Orange light flooded the space around us.

  “Some small creature—” I started to say but then shut my mouth.

  A vast library stood before us. Floor after floor of ancient bookshelves spiraled upward as far as my eyes could see.

  Marble floors, silver and gold detailing, wrought-iron sculptures and spectacular painted walls that depicted natural settings took my breath away.

  Narrow passageways and staircases ran along the length and height of the library, connecting everything in an elaborate pattern.

  Every book, every story, every dissertation ever written must have found its place in that colossal underground construction.

  “I’ll disarm the fields protecting the shelves,” Winter said and walked off.

  I moved about the floor, light on my feet, mindful not to disturb anything, remembering the famous fire in Alexandria that had destroyed so many texts from the ancient world. All those texts might still be here in the many ancient libraries of the Sacred Vault.

  Something sparked and flickered on a nearby shelf like the dying wick of a candle. Pushing aside Volume I of Andalusian Dark Arts in the Middle Ages, I found an enchanted kaleidoscope flashing. I touched it—the shelf whirled about itself so fast that it blended with the wall behind it. When the spinning stopped, a door stood ajar where the bookshelf had been.

  After a moment of hesitation, I walked through the door, taking the sword with me. A draft of stagnant air came from the top of a rickety staircase.

  The door behind me rattled shut and vanished. The only way left was up.

  My heart pounded in my chest. An unconvincing voice in my head whispered that this could be the way to Emmet.

  I started climbing. At the top, I pressed my hand against the low ceiling to avoid hitting my head. I entered a large attic with hardwood flooring and a sloped wood ceiling. An oil lamp burned atop a table, old maps and star charts decorated the walls.

  A man’s broad back greeted me, bent over an open book on the table.

  He glanced at me over his shoulder and straightened his body. He was tall and sturdily built, with raven hair and a beard peppered with gray. Thick eyebrows covered his smoky eyes. He wore a whitecoat over a dark shirt and darker pants. A sword shone silver in his hand.

  “Welcome, witch. I’ve been waiting on you.”

  He charged me, eyes arrogant and cruel, sword poised to kill. I hit him with a ball of energy. He came to a halt. My magic fizzed and fell at his feet.

  Shit, only Immortals can neutralize magic like that.

  The blade in my hand turned green. The color of fear. “Feast on it,” I whispered to the sword as the Immortal came at me again.

  His blade thrust and I dodged. I spun quickly and our swords connected. Pain shot through my arm. My opponent had beastly strength. He leapt back and I charged. He waited for me only to slide away right before my blade found his flesh. The stranger grabbed my shoulder, forced me to face him and ran his blade clean through my stomach.

  My whole body erupted in pain as my flesh tore open.

  An Immortal swordsman versus me. Could I expect any better?

  The Immortal pulled me onto my feet by my hair.

  A stern voice boomed out. “Dimitri!”

  Winter snapped his fingers and a levitation force lifted the bloodthirsty Immortal off the floor, pinning him against the ceiling.

  Dimitri belly-laughed. “Brother, you brought the witchling. Good.”

  What’s he saying?

  Winter released him and Dimitri’s body plunged to the floor.

  “What is the meaning of this, Dimitri?” Winter asked. “You are not a witch hunter.”

  Dimitri rubbed his beard. “The Grand Magistrate foresaw that you would be instrumental in guiding the girl to the Sacred Vault. He assigned me the task of finding out what she is and why you have shown an interest.”

  “The Grand Magistrate set you on this course?” Winter said.

  Denial much, Winter?

  “Yeah, who else?” Dimitri said, put off. “I’ve just told you that.”

  “And this whole charade?” Winter asked.

  Dimitri nodded. “My masterstroke. Simply taking the girl wouldn’t shed as much light as watching how she’d fight through hellacious odds under your tutelage to save her wolf lover. We wanted to see her take a few blows. A test drive if you don’t mind the metaphor.”

  “No one’s driving me,” I hissed at the prick.

  He grinned. “She’s got spirit, brother, did you give her a bend yet?”

  I raised my hands which were already glowing purple.

  Dimitri laughed harder and stepped back in mock surrender.

  Winter pushed my hands down gently.

  “Take it easy with the jokes,” Winter threatened.

  “Forgive me, spirited wench,” Dimitri said as he bowed. “I do not live in your modern world.”

  Still offensive, you creep!

  Dimitri cleared his throat. “Our Wise Master wanted me to assure you, Chief Magistrate Winter, he only wants the young witch. You have nothing to fear from the Council. You played the part Düsternis foresaw to perfection. In fact, the old Seventh is more than grateful to you, boyo, for locating this freakish anomaly of a witch and leading her right to us.”

  Düsternis had sensed all along there was more to me than met the eye. The Grand Magistrate was nearly as powerful as a Divine. Winter’s cloaking of my etheric essence was ill conceived.

  There I go again, trusting a man.

  Winter raised his hands to shoulder height, palms up. A tremendous energy field shot out and ensnared Dimitri, thrusting him against the wall.

  The attic walls shook and hummed amidst the intense energy wave.

  Dimitri went pale. He struggled to speak, as Winter’s magic clamped onto his throat. “You can’t use Shadow force on a Magistrate of the Council.”

  Winter’s face went completely savage. “Yet, it’s happening.”

  “The Council and the Umbra Order will not stand for this. You will bear the consequences.”

  I cringed as the magistrate choked and clawed at his own throat as Winter increased the pressure. “And who will tell them?” he asked Dimitri, raising an eyebrow. “You?”

  Dimitri’s face burned with anger as it dawned on him. “You, a Chief Magistrate and Iron Warrior of the First Umb
ra Order, would kill a magistrate of the Seventh Council to keep this puny girl from your own Master? Does honor mean nothing to you?”

  Yes, he would. That was slowly dawning on me, too.

  A ghastly roar burst from Winter’s throat. Electricity buzzed over my skin, making me shudder. He launched a wave of energy that hit the back wall, demolishing it as if it were made of paper. Rocketing debris, dust and whole chunks of wall hit me everywhere. I coughed. The wound in my stomach throbbed with pain.

  Dimitri twisted his body—his muscles strained to fight off Winter’s hold on him in vain.

  Winter paced back and forth like a caged animal. He banged his free fist against the wall. I saw through his anguish. He didn’t want to do what he was about to do, but he saw no other choice.

  The words kept spinning in my head.

  He doesn’t want to kill him, but he will… for me.

  Dimitri grunted. “Do this and you’ll forfeit your very etheric essence.”

  Winter nodded, slowly. “I know.”

  “Winter,” I said, “we can find—"

  Suddenly, faster than I could finish my sentence, Winter stuck two fingers inside Dimitri’s eyes, blinding him. The magistrate’s face contorted. His body warped out of control. His screams shuddered me to my core.

  Dimitri’s life force and immortal essence spilled out of him like waves of steam and light, rippling across the room. The energy hit me like a ton of bricks, knocking me back onto the floor. Claws scratched my insides and nipped at my heart. I felt powerless, overrun by the colossal wave.

  If this is what shadows can do to other Immortals, why have I been so stupid as to hang out not with one but two of them?

  Winter shook, phosphorescent energy entering him from every pore. His skin became translucent as he absorbed the magistrate’s etheric essence, something I didn’t think possible.

  Dimitri’s body slid to the floor, lifeless.

  Winter grabbed Dimitri by the hair, lifting his head off the floor. His hand burst through Dimitri’s chest, snatching out the heart.

  Again, I had to fight not to vomit.

  Flames ignited around the heart, still in Winter’s hand, lighting it up.

  I was stunned and out of words, my sword at the other side of the room glowing with a bright, alarming green.

  Winter fell to his knees, wiped out.

  I had no idea what to tell him or if I should talk at all. The words fell out of my mouth in a daze. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Winter. That must have been hard.”

  His eyes had no life left in them as he hooked them on mine. “Hard? I killed Dimitri. I killed an old spirit and a friend. And why? For doing his job, for following orders.”

  He roared out that ghastly scream again. I covered my ears.

  It was excruciating just to climb to my feet. The room spun out of control, and I grabbed onto a reading table to keep from falling.

  Dragging my feet, I made my way to the staircase. In his fury, Winter had killed the one person who could tell us where they had Emmet and I just stood by, watching, saying too little, too late.

  Emmet must be somewhere in the vault. So be it. I’d find him myself.

  Winter opened his hand to toss a luminescent current of energy in my path to block my access to the staircase.

  “Stay,” he said.

  “I have to find Emmet,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Almost as important, I wanted to get away from Winter. Shadow Warriors scared the shit out of me. Way too hardcore. I fought against his energy, but I all I had left was pain.

  Boots on the staircase, moving fast as if leaping three steps at a time.

  Chaos. Even his jaw dropped when he spotted Dimitri’s remains.

  He glanced at me tenderly and poked at Winter’s field. “What deeds most dastardly have I laid mine two eyes upon?”

  The current hissed and faded away.

  Chaos stared at Dimitri’s lifeless body. For an instant, I saw a true curiosity in his expression, a feeling most rare for Immortals.

  “Tsk, tsk, I would have done it for you, old friend,” he told Winter. “We’d have less mess to clean.”

  Winter’s eyes were murderous. “What do you want?”

  Chaos shrugged. “You know, I did clean up more untidiness you left strewn throughout the corridors. In addition, I killed a bunch of unsightly creatures who would have become quite the gossips if left unattended to. Not a big whoop, but appreciation would be more warranted than vitriol.”

  I sat down, feeling weaker by the second.

  A troglodyte scuttled into the attic. Chaos twirled his finger snapping the troglodyte’s neck. “You see,” Chaos said casually, “I am nothing if not a team player handling all the ugly little details overlooked by others.”

  His smile did a one eighty when he saw I wasn’t moving on the floor.

  Chaos furrowed his brow. “Why is the girl not healing?”

  Winter’s eyes widened as he looked my way. Blood pooled beneath me—my stomach, where I’d been stabbed, ached like hell at the slightest touch.

  A jaw muscle twitched in Winter’s face. “I don’t know.”

  The two Shadows rushed to my side, kneeling down.

  What could they do? They caused wounds, not healed them.

  Winter grabbed my mutilated thermal shirt and ripped it off my body.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said, slurring the words.

  He ripped my leggings off, too, leaving me in my bra and panties, both saturated in my own blood.

  How embarrassing to be half-naked in front of the men who were the very bane of my existence. Maybe the gaping hole in my midsection would keep their eyes off the rest of my body.

  They’ve probably seen it all before, a few thousand times.

  “If I’m not healing,” I said. “does that mean I’ll die?”

  Winter’s face was at best ambivalent. “Think back,” he said. “Did anything strange happen since we entered the vault?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Seeing that everything is always strange since I met you two nightmares, it’s hard to choose.”

  “Try,” Winter implored.

  “Okay, well, I felt that sharp pinch in the dark.”

  Chaos’s hands were all over me, searching my ribcage. I tried to kick him but could barely lift my foot off the ground.

  He found something and with his thumb and forefinger quickly pinched it and me so damn hard. I doubled over in pain and tried to push his hand away.

  Winter grabbed my hands and forced me back down.

  “Assholes!” I moaned.

  Chaos extracted a thin, gold needle from my flesh.

  “Bonshek,” Winter said. “It slows cell regeneration down to a drip.”

  “Will I die?” I said.

  Chaos dropped the needle. “It wouldn’t have taken down someone as old as Winter or yours truly, but with you—”

  He stopped talking.

  This bonshek thingy must be very, very bad.

  “It’s very rare magic,” Winter said, “and probably what they aimed for all along. It’s why we were led to the vault.”

  “Idiots, will I die or not?”

  “You’ll live, as long as you stay with me,” Chaos said with a wink. “Look what already happened with this other one.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I don’t get it. They had to drag me all the way to Alaska to stick a needle in me?”

  “Bonshek only works in high magic zones, like Serenity Valley and the Vault,” Winter said. “Places that expand and carry magic on their own. Having you here was the only way to put you to the test.”

  “We can assume the council knows I can’t die.”

  Winter gave it some thought. “They couldn’t be sure.”

  “And now that my impetuous friend Frosty has vanquished poor Dimitri,” Chaos added, “they may remain in the dark, but their suspicion level will have reached code Orange.”

  “It’s fricking cold in here
,” I said. “My toes are like ice cubes.”

  “She may be worse than I thought,” Chaos said. “I’m afraid our little pumpkin will bleed out faster than she can heal.”

  The fuck?

  Winter flared his nostrils. “She’ll need Immortal blood,” he said, hooking onto Chaos’s mad eyes. “A lot of it.”

  Chaos frowned. “I didn’t sign on for this,” he said, pouting. He flexed his arm and tapped a bulging vein. “This blood is 100% immortal octane. I can’t just dispense it to anyone.”

  Winter drew out a dagger from his boot and slashed open Chaos’s arm.

  “Why him?” I protested, squirming. “I don’t want madman blood.”

  Chaos stretched his arm over my stomach, letting the blood spill into my stab wound. Every time his arm healed Winter had to reopen the vein.

  His blood warmed my shivering body. I closed my eyes, fading in and out for a while before I felt my magic spreading to my nerves like warm milk, releasing all tension. I could breathe again.

  When I regained full consciousness, the world had stop spinning. The bleeding gush had vanished and been replaced by pink, delicate skin.

  Now Winter slashed my wrist with his dagger, then did the same to Chaos. I watched our wrists bond through the exchange of our blood.

  My body fed hungrily on Chaos’s Immortal red cells.

  “Are we wrist vampires now?” I joked.

  “Good, her sense of humor is back,” Winter said.

  “That was a sense of humor?” Chaos said, perplexed.

  Winter grinned at me. “What passes for one.”

  Great. The two Immortal morons amused each other.

  I knew I was healed because I found them annoying again.

  I grabbed Winter’s hand. “You didn’t answer me. Why his blood? Why not you? Why not your blood, Winter?”

  “We used the strongest blood,” he said, wrapping me in his sweater.

  CHAPTER 22

  ____________________________________

  The door to the archives was unremarkable compared to the warded, massive wooden double doors of the greater library. A small, white door with a floral pattern around the frame and a brass handle.

  “Are the protective fields disarmed?” Chaos said.

  Winter nodded.

  Chaos opened the door with a flick of his wrist. We entered a rectangular room narrowed by the shelves that lined the walls all the way to the ceiling. The middle shelves were occupied with thick file folders, but the top and bottom shelves were all but empty.