Winter Kiss

by Deborah Cooke

  A moment later, he knew that nothing could have awakened Thorolf. The tall Pyr hadn’t even stirred.

  He wasn’t much of a watchman.

  The night was cold, the overcast sky as dark as pewter. The snow fell in a relentless rhythm, its volume on the ground increasing steadily. It glittered in the bit of light from the house, making Ginger’s fields look as if they were sown with diamonds. It was a cruel beauty, though, one that Delaney was certain had already claimed a number of lives locally.

  It reminded him all too well of his nightmare.

  He took a breath of the cold air, feeling it pierce his lungs with cold, and knew he had to destroy the Elixir. He had an inkling of a plan and would have stepped off the porch to begin it, but he caught a sudden scent of Pyr.

  He winced in recognition of the scent, even before he saw Erik’s ebony and pewter figure whirling out of the sky.

  He had asked Erik to watch over Ginger.

  The leader of the Pyr had asked Delaney to wait for him.

  He might have bolted, putting his own plan into action first, but he realized Erik hadn’t come alone. Eileen was clasped against his chest, her hair shining copper against Erik’s dark scales.

  Delaney frowned, wondering that Eileen would have come without their daughter. Then he saw the bundle she held closely in her arms. Delaney was shocked.

  They had brought Zoë.

  They had brought their child, the Pyr reputed to be the next Wyvern, a child key to the Pyr’s survival and triumph. They had brought their precious firstborn into Delaney’s presence and had done so willingly.

  Knowing the risk.

  They knew that Delaney had exiled himself because he had barely been able to resist Magnus’s subliminal command to harvest the children of the Pyr, that he had nearly assaulted both Sara and Alex a year ago while they were pregnant.

  And yet Erik and Eileen came to his firestorm, with their own child, a child more important to the Pyr than any other.

  Delaney was so humbled by their trust that he couldn’t bring himself to move. He watched Erik land, a hard lump in his own throat. The snow stirred and swirled as Erik shifted in the last moment before his feet touched the ground.

  “Smooth flight, smooth landing,” Eileen said, touching her lips to Erik’s cheek with an affection that Delaney found touching. “Despite adverse climactic conditions. I’ll fly this carrier again.”

  “How is she?” Erik asked, his words tight.

  “Bundled in tight and sound asleep.” Delaney watched Eileen smile as she unfurled layers of scarves and blankets, letting Erik assure himself as to the welfare of their child.

  They’d brought the Wyvern into Delaney’s presence. Seeing didn’t help Delaney believe it.

  The leader of the Pyr was tall and lean, his hair dark and his temples touched with silver. He wore a black leather jacket and dark jeans. His sweater was thick with intricate cables, knit of a black wool flicked with many colors. Eileen was dressed all in black as well, her silver jewelry shining in contrast to her dark sweater, jacket, and skirt. She had a knitted hood over her shoulders, one that extended into a scarf that she had wrapped securely around the baby. All Delaney could see of Zoë was the top of her head, which was capped with a bright pink hat that looked like a knitted slice of watermelon.

  Erik arched a brow at Eileen’s comment, then fixed his gaze upon Delaney. “Did you wait or did I catch you in time?”

  Delaney flushed and indicated the kitchen door.“Ginger’s asleep,” he said, not answering Erik’s question.

  “And the firestorm?”

  “Still burns,” Delaney had to admit, knowing that Erik would disapprove. “Even though I tried to sate it.”

  Erik snorted. “Sloane will have ideas about that.”

  “Have you tried again?” Eileen asked, her eyes bright as she climbed the steps to the porch. These two had a talent for identifying the very core of an issue, and for being unafraid to ask after it.

  Delaney gritted his teeth. “She refuses to raise a child alone. I promised not to tempt her to break her word.”

  “I like her already,” Eileen said with satisfaction, heading into the kitchen. “I’ll guess that she buys good coffee.”

  “She’s a chef.”

  “Better and better.”

  Erik seemed to be stifling a smile. “Rafferty said you might have to decide to live.”

  “It’s impossible,” Delaney began with impatience, but the leader of the Pyr laid a paternal hand on his shoulder.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Erik said. “Come inside and wait for Sloane. We’ll find a solution together.” Erik frowned at Delaney. “You’re too cold.”

  Delaney swallowed and decided he could meet Erik’s trust with some of his own. He pulled his hands from his pockets and spread out his fingers, knowing that Erik would notice the tinge of red on his cuticles. It seemed to be brighter than it had been just hours before.

  Erik’s eyes glittered as he looked, then he studied Delaney’s face. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. Ginger said that Magnus intends to replace Cinnabar in the Elixir, as the source of the Elixir. She thinks he’s chosen me.”

  Erik’s tone became stern. “Why would you plan to go directly to the sanctuary to make Magnus’s disgusting scheme easier for him?” He didn’t wait for an answer, his eyes flashing. “I think not. Inside. Now. We have to talk.”

  “But . . .”

  Erik glared at him. “Defy me in this and you will surely regret it.”

  Delaney knew when he had lost an argument. He passed the leader of the Pyr and headed back into Ginger’s kitchen, resigned to the need to wait for Sloane and his counsel.

  As much as he appreciated the aid of the Pyr and their resolve to save him, he didn’t have to like it. He didn’t trust how it eroded his conviction to do what needed doing.

  Although it had been Ginger who had made the first breach.

  Ginger, who was just entering the kitchen, and whose presence sent a stabbing shaft of sunlight through his heart. She smiled at him, then shrugged.

  “I guess I should get used to finding strangers in my kitchen,” she said, heading for the coffeepot.

  Eileen put her diaper bag on the table loudly enough to awaken Thorolf. Zoë stirred, then began to cry.

  “Move,” Eileen told Thorolf, her disapproval of his pose clear. The tall Pyr scurried to sit up straight and brush off the chair where his boots had been. “Count yourself lucky you’re not in our lair,” she said as she unwrapped her many layers of cloth.

  Eileen adjusted Zoë’s position and the baby began to purse her lips hungrily in anticipation. Eileen caught her breath as the baby latched on to one nipple and began to suck, then she glared at Thorolf again. “Nobody puts their shoes on my furniture and lives to tell about it.” She cast a scarf over her shoulder, cloaking the baby’s feeding from view, and sighed as she sank into a chair.

  Thorolf flushed crimson. Erik stifled a chuckle, then turned to Ginger. “I am Erik Sorensson, leader of the Pyr,” he said, offering his hand to Ginger. “And this is my partner, Eileen Grosvenor.”

  “Not mate?” Ginger asked with an arch of her brow. She reached for the coffeepot, pointedly not taking Erik’s hand.

  He smiled “Also my mate, but more importantly, my partner and better half.”

  “You’re staying together then.”

  “For the duration,” Erik said.

  “Children need a stable home,” Eileen interjected.

  Ginger smiled as she shook Erik’s hand and Delaney didn’t miss the glance she cast his way. “I thought you Pyr just left women pregnant and went on with your lives.”

  It was Erik then who gave Delaney the stern look. “There are those among us who subscribe to that view, but the more enlightened Pyr see the merit of a permanent relationship.”

  “We won’t say who persuades them of that merit,” Eileen said with a smile, and the two women exchanged a glance.

&
nbsp; “More of your friends?” Ginger asked Delaney, and he nodded agreement.

  “I particularly like these ones,” she said, and went to fill the coffeepot with water. Once the coffee was on, Ginger went to Eileen and cooed over the baby, who kicked and gurgled. They were all so convinced that Delaney could have all of this, that this could be his future, that he knew he had to set them straight.

  Immediately.

  Before every last crumb of his determination was eroded to nothing.

  He pulled out a chair and sat astride it, knowing his manner was even more intense than usual. For once, he didn’t care if anyone could guess his thoughts, or the strength of his feelings. His words came with a force that surprised him. He needed to tell this story, and he needed to tell it now.

  “Let me tell you a story,” he said, his voice so low and purposeful that he immediately snared every eye in the kitchen. He deliberately echoed the beginning Ginger had used the night before and saw the glimmer of recognition in her eyes. “It’s a story of the past shaping the future, of reality determining possibilities. It might even be a story of destiny.”

  He saw trepidation dawn in Ginger’s eyes, but he kept talking. This might well be the story that turned her against him forever.

  Maybe that was why he suddenly had to tell it.

  Rafferty hesitated in the parking lot of the Serpent Mound park.

  He had sniffed and he had listened. Even though there was no evidence of a Slayer in the vicinity, Rafferty doubted he was alone. He climbed to the earth mound itself, following its sinuous curve. It was heavy going, the snow as high as his hips, but he liked the shape of the effigy.

  He cleared the snow with his hands from the egg beyond the snake’s mouth. He sat there, savoring the contact with the earth, opening his thoughts to Gaia. The snow fell all around him, surrounding him with white and silence, and he felt a welcome serenity.

  It wasn’t long before he heard the uproar within the earth. It wasn’t long before he sensed the foul contamination of the Elixir, far beneath the sacred egg where he sat.

  It wasn’t long before he found the motion in the earth that was Magnus, emanating malice. He felt the consolidation of mercury, he sensed the despair of Cinnabar, and he knew what he had to do. He looked at the ring he had worn for the past year, studied the black and the white entwined together. He recalled Sophie’s ability to manifest in other locations, as well as her talent for taking other forms. He knew Slayers could master those tricks, knew that somehow the Elixir gave them the power to appropriate the Wyvern’s traditional gifts.

  Rafferty had never tasted the Elixir and he never would. But he dared to believe that Sophie would help him. He stared into the black and white whirled together, glass and anthracite entwined so completely that they could never be separated. He stared and he let his mind slide, and he refused to believe that anything was impossible.

  Then he wished to be where Magnus was, and he wished to be in salamander form.

  Rafferty got half of what he requested.

  He found himself deep in the earth, with no clear sense of how he had gotten there. He was in his human form, but was amazed to have had any luck with his wish at all.

  He was in a cavern with a high ceiling. The massive red vial of the Elixir filled the far wall of the cavern, and it emanated a pulsing red light that reminded him of the light in Magnus’s dark academy.

  It was paler though, more pink, and the pulse was slower. It snared Rafferty’s eye, its cloudy contents swirling as if they would reveal Cinnabar to him.

  “How nice of you to join us,” Magnus said.

  Rafferty spun to find the ancient Slayer leaning in the only doorway, still in human form. Magnus smiled. He was looking particularly hale and smug, which told Rafferty all he needed to know about his situation.

  He took a step back.

  Magnus’s smile broadened. “It’s so satisfying to have circles come to a close in their own fashion, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you and I were once such friends, such comrades in arms, so to speak. And that union waxed and waned in its own time.”

  Rafferty folded his arms across his chest. “Did it? I thought it ended when you decided to become a killer.”

  Magnus’s smile turned colder. “I have never changed, not in all these many eons. Perhaps what changed was your perceptiveness.”

  “Or my usefulness.”

  Magnus was dismissive. “Believe what you need to. I acted in my own best interest and had you been clever, you would have joined ranks with me.”

  “You never told me about the Elixir. You never offered me that chance to join ranks.”

  Magnus chuckled. “Well, one can’t share all of one’s hidden strengths. Would you care for a sip now?”

  Rafferty scoffed. “Now that its potency is fading? Why would I bother? I’ll live past 2027 without it.”

  Magnus caught his breath, then nodded slowly. “So, you know.”

  “So, I know.”

  The two stared at each other across the space, animosity tingeing the air between them.

  “Where are your minions?” Rafferty asked.

  Magnus chuckled. “Doing what they’ve been told to do. For once.”

  “For the moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that your perch is precarious. They all aspire to take your place.”

  “And none of them will manage to do so.” Magnus’s confidence was complete. “You are not the only one who knows a mere fraction of my plan.”

  “But I am the one who will defy you,” Rafferty said. He reached into his pocket and did what he should have done centuries before.

  He tossed his challenge coin at Magnus.

  The ancient Slayer’s smile flashed as he snatched the gold coin out of the air. It was an English coin, showing St. George spearing the dragon on one side and a sun with emanating rays on the other. Rafferty thought of it as a Pyr in human form giving a Slayer the fate he deserved. Magnus studied it and smiled.

  He flicked his own coin so quickly that Rafferty had to lunge to catch it. It was a Roman coin, which didn’t surprise Rafferty at all. It appeared to be silver, but Rafferty could sense the resonance of brass within its core. The silver was simply a wash on the surface.

  “How appropriate that it’s been made to look more valuable than it is,” he said.

  “It’s a follis,” Magnus said haughtily.

  Rafferty laughed. “A money bag,” he said, recalling the slang term for the coin. “It’s doubly apt then.” He pocketed the coin, accepting the challenge just as Magnus shifted shape.

  The Slayer lunged toward Rafferty with a roar, his jade and gold form gleaming with power. Rafferty shifted shape then and dove for Magnus, talons extended. The two of them locked claws in the traditional battle pose.

  “To the death,” Magnus said, as if there were any doubt about it.

  “To the death,” Rafferty agreed. “It’s past due.” Then he struck Magnus hard with his tail.

  Delaney stared at the tabletop, well aware that the others were watching him closely, and focused on telling the story he had to share.

  He was surprised to hear himself start the same way Ginger had, when she’d told him of her past the night before.

  But maybe that was fitting.

  “Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived with his mother. His mother seldom talked about the boy’s father, and when she did, her anger spilled forth unchecked. The toxin of her bitterness could stain the air of their small home for weeks afterward, and so the boy learned not to ask questions.” Delaney heard the cadence of Ireland in his own voice, an echo of his mother’s speech that had long faded from his own.

  The accent was comforting in its familiarity.

  “And so it was that they were content, if poor and often hungry. The mother worked when she could get what she called honest work, helping in bakeries and shops. She was pretty and had a certain cha
rm, but would periodically plunge into a despair so dark that she couldn’t even be roused from bed. On those occasions, she invariably lost whatever position she had, and when she recovered from her despair, she would begin her search for employment again.”

  Delaney sighed and frowned, pulling the silver cross from inside his T-shirt. The chain was long enough that he could see it himself, and he turned it in the light, running his thumb across the worked silver. “In those dark times, she recited her prayers repeatedly and always told the boy afterward that it had been God who had carried her through the darkness. The boy knew that his presence had no power over his mother’s demons, that she essentially forgot about him in her misery. He did his best to earn a few coins for firewood or gruel when she fell ill, ensuring his own survival when his mother was suffering. He became accustomed to taking care of himself from an early age, and so, perhaps, it was easier for him when the change came.”

  Delaney pursed his lips, well aware of Ginger’s assessing gaze locked upon him. “The boy, unbeknownst to himself, was Pyr, the product of a second mating between a Pyr and his destined mate. In her dark moods, his mother spoke of having been seduced by the Devil, but the boy thought little of this reference. He also had no knowledge of his older brother, for his mother never spoke of Donovan. He had ceased to exist for her when he showed signs of carrying the same taint as his father. If the boy had known that, the upheaval in their small home when his own change occurred might not have surprised him.”

  Delaney turned his hand, still amazed by the power of his body. “It began with his thumbnail. He had a bad dream and awakened in a cold sweat, only to discover that his left thumbnail had become a dragon’s talon. He was terrified by this, but the nail reverted to its normal shape. He was certain that he had imagined the incident, or that it had been part of his nightmare.”

  “It was only the beginning of his nightmare,” Erik suggested, and Delaney nodded rueful agreement.

  “The same thing happened again, when a neighbor’s son made a disparaging remark about the boy’s mother. They scuffled and fought in the street, as boys will do, the taunts rousing the ire of this mother’s son. The fight halted suddenly, the neighbor’s son fleeing the fight. After that, they called the boy Dragon Eyes.”