I didn’t take it personally. I was sure we made a strange pair—me, bundled up like some kind of accident between a Russian babushka and a Goth supermodel, and him, grumpily cryptic and ridiculously underdressed.
I looked to Sebastian for an answer to her question, but he stared out at the graying sky. I had to snap him out of this. He was being downright antisocial and rude.
“If you’re headed to town,” I tried hopefully, and when she didn’t deny it, I added, “Anywhere close to State Street would do us.”
She nodded, her eyes on the black strip of asphalt. Wind threw streaks of powdery snow across the road where it slithered like snakes, twisting and turning before merging with the drifts on the opposite side. “You kids off on a date?”
“His birthday.”
She nodded as if considering something. I braced myself for a Christmas comment or joke. Finally, she simply said dryly, “Nice day for it.”
Thunder rolled outside, strangely synchronous with her tone.
Sebastian roused himself from his brood enough to inquire, “Was there supposed to be a storm coming in?”
“Oh yeah,” said the driver, in a pitch-perfect Minnesotan accent. “National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning.”
“This just gets better and better,” Sebastian grumbled.
I gave him a punch in the arm, as if to say, “Be nice!”
“I feel terrible,” I said. “I should really have introduced myself. I’m Garnet Lacey, and my delightful companion here is my boyfriend, Sebastian Von Traum.”
She nodded her greeting. “Fonn Hyrokkin.” In the flash of a passing car’s headlight, something sparkled in her eyes like ice.
Hyrokkin sounded a lot like the Finnish surnames I’d grown up with in northern Minnesota, but something about the way she said it, as though it were more of a title, made me pause.
I looked with my magical vision, but it was too dark to get a good read of her aura. Auras are like halos of refracted light around a person or an object, and they can’t be seen without some kind of illumination. I’ve found artificial fluorescents work best, but light of some kind is an absolute must. The glow of the dashboard just wasn’t cutting it.
Despite my growing unease about our driver, we fell into a silence.
You can’t live in the upper Midwest without having to deal with quietness. I grew up in Minnesota, so I should be used to it: but I’m a chronic chatterer. I even commit the cardinal sin of enticing strangers into conversation in elevators. When I can’t talk, I tap my toes and drum my fingers. It was strange, but one of the things I like about my adoptive state of Wisconsin is that people around here seem to be much more willing to engage in copious amounts of small talk. Just my luck, the one Norwegian in all of Wisconsin would have to pick us up.
I glanced at Sebastian for support as my feet started their nervousness dance. He just glumly watched the darkness roll past the window.
Pulling at the fingers of my gloves, I looked back at Fonn. She stared resolutely ahead. Our shoulders touched when the truck bounced over uneven patches in the road, and each time they did I would have sworn I could smell dog more sharply. I told myself that maybe her golden retriever liked to nap on her coat. I mean, I was sure some of my clothes smelled of cat. Barney snoozed in my dresser drawer any time I accidentally left it open. Anyway, why should that make me so nervous? As someone who kept a pet, I tended to see animal ownership as a positive personality trait. The people who didn’t have animals when they could always seemed a little suspect. So what bothered me? Was it that the dog wasn’t anywhere in sight?
I listened to the sound of the engine growling as we continued to bump along the deserted county road. I wanted to ask Fonn about the dog I could smell but couldn’t think of a polite way to bring it up. “Say, I notice your truck stinks of wet pooch. So what kind is it, and where is it anyway?! Oh, that’s actually your body odor? My bad,” seemed just a little bit tactless.
On the side of the road, Christmas lights festooned a one-story ranch whose lawn was littered with illuminated and motorized reindeer, elves, snowmen, and a glow-in-the-dark plastic crèche. Three pairs of eyes turned to watch the extravaganza disappear behind us, but, in true Midwestern fashion, we kept our own counsel.
Lightning flashed across the sky. Snow sprinkled the windshield.
“What the heck?” I said, looking at tiny kernels of snow that the wiper brushed away. “It’s far too cold to snow.” I might have failed winter safety, but I knew that there were temperatures at which snow couldn’t form. It was simply not possible.
Something very strange was happening outside. Something unnatural.
“Storm,” Fonn whispered reverently. “It’s going to be a big one.”
Deep in my belly, Lilith grumbled.
Sharing a body with the Goddess Lilith meant that sometimes She felt free to editorialize. The snarl surprised me, however. It struck me as threatened…or even territorial. Though I knew it wasn’t audible to anyone else, I put my hand over my stomach.
I glanced over at Sebastian to see if he registered Lilith’s complaint. Thanks to a blood-bonding spell, Sebastian could sense Lilith’s moods.
He inspected Fonn with sudden interest. I followed his gaze to see what it was about her that suddenly fascinated him and concerned Lilith. In the bluish glow of the dashboard lights, her facial features were sharp, yet broad, and her skin stretched tightly across high cheekbones. She had a certain regalness about her, but nothing I hadn’t seen in countless faces of the farmers in Finlayson, Minnesota, where I grew up.
The only thing that struck me as particularly odd was the faint hint of a smile. She stared out at the wind and snow like something about it tickled her fancy…or made her proud. Yeah, that was it. She was staring at the growing storm like a mother would watch a baby taking its first steps.
Creepy.
Sebastian and I shared a look that said, Something here isn’t right. After all the silence, I was grateful to be communicating with Sebastian again, even if it was only about the bizarreness of our situation. He flashed me a crooked smile which seemed to say, Isn’t this just our luck? I nodded in quiet agreement.
Wind pushed against the truck hard enough to cause us to coast slightly toward the center line. Fonn corrected for it with a twinkle in her eye.
So, my first thought was that Fonn was some kind of demented storm chaser, except that Lilith rarely gave me the nudge when people were just plain odd. If She did, I’d be getting poked a lot, given the type I tended to attract. No, there had to be something supernatural going on here, but what?
If Fonn wasn’t a deranged meteorologist, what else could she be? Severe weather made her ecstatic, she was out on a cold night alone, and her truck smelled like dog. Seemed to me it was time to play twenty questions. Yet how to interrogate her without raising suspicion? “So, Fonn,” I said, trying to affect the vaguely disinterested conversation style of a church basement social gathering. “You from around here?”
“Nope.”
Argh! Foiled by a yes-no question and a wily yet taciturn respondent.
“Where are you from?” Sebastian asked, picking up the dropped ball.
“Came over from the Old Country.”
“Me, too,” Sebastian said. “I was born in Austria. You?”
“Norway.”
Okay, we had something on her. Not that it helped much. I looked to Sebastian, but he just shrugged. He didn’t have a clue what sort of magical being she might be, either.
The wind howled around the truck. Sheets of snow spattered against the windows. That was another oddity. The snow had changed from tiny ice pellets into large, fluffy flakes. The temperature must have shifted dramatically. It was just plain strange to see that kind of snow transformation so quickly. Normally, you saw one kind of flake or another, or if they changed at all, it was gradual, like over the course of several hours. Not minutes.
This storm challenged all my well-honed Midwestern senses. It was seriously freak
ing me out. Somehow Fonn was behind it, I was certain.
So, okay, maybe Fonn wielded some kind of weather magic. Did I know any Old Norse otherworldly beings in charge of snow? To be honest, the only Norwegian female baddie I could think of was a Valkyrie, and somehow I sensed that wasn’t right. It seemed to me that you had to die in battle to meet one of those—oh, and you should probably also be a Viking. Unless something really weird had happened without my knowledge, neither Sebastian nor I fit that particular bill. Well, okay, Sebastian was dead. And he had died in a battle, like the Crusades or against the Huns or something, but that was a long time ago and he definitely wasn’t Norse.
Fonn turned the truck onto a major thoroughfare. The snow became a blur of fast-falling, large flakes. Despite the wider, well-traveled road, all I could see ahead of us was a vague sense of the center line and ice crystals glistening in the headlights. The truck barreled ahead confidently, but I snaked a hand over to Sebastian’s and squeezed tightly.
Lilith rippled across my abdomen—a warning.
Okay, so Fonn was crazy magical, but what was Lilith saying? Was Fonn dangerous, too? How?
Despite the Ford’s heater going full blast, I felt an icy breeze on the back of my neck. My muscles tensed involuntarily. I snuggled a bit closer to Sebastian, who seemed to be feeling the chill also. The arm he wrapped around my shoulder shuddered slightly.
“Cold?” I asked him.
“Yeah,” he said, raising his shoulders as if to ward off a wind. “Just now.”
“The storm is picking up,” Fonn said, as if that explained why the temperature suddenly affected my undead vampire lover. “We might need to find shelter,” she added, using her gloved hand to turn the wipers up a notch. They beat furiously against the glass.
“We’ve got to be getting closer to town,” I muttered to myself. Sebastian’s farm was no more than ten minutes from the edges of Madison’s suburbs. It seemed like we’d been driving twice that long, especially given that when we’d broken down we were almost halfway to the edge of town.
“I may have missed a turnoff,” Fonn said. “Visibility sucks. I think I might have gotten turned around. We’re a bit lost.”
We’re not lost, I thought. We’re being taken somewhere. Madison wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. Okay, sure, it was the capital city of Wisconsin, but there weren’t that many roads that led in and out of it. Provided you stayed pointed in the same direction, getting lost was actually kind of difficult. Fonn knew where we were, I was sure of it, especially when I noticed that slight, malicious smile twitched across her lips again. I was just about to call her on it when Sebastian piped up.
“A bit lost? Isn’t that like being a little pregnant?” Sebastian asked, though his question was clearly rhetorical and sarcastic. “Lost. That’s fantastic.”
I rolled my eyes and shrugged out from under his arm. “This is not your curse,” I said with a long-suffering sigh.
“Are you kidding me?” Sebastian snapped out of his funk long enough to let out a rant. “We’re stuck in an ice storm with the creature from the black lagoon, and you don’t think it’s because my parents are sinners and I practiced the dark arts on the holy days?”
“No, I don’t. You’re suffering because your parents had sex on a night they weren’t supposed to? Do you even realize how insane that sounds?” I asked, giving him the she-can-hear-you glare.
“I’m from Norway,” Fonn added, sounding only a little put out. I started to giggle at the absurdity of her correction, when she continued, “And I’m not a ‘creature’; I’m a demon.”
“Oh, well,” Sebastian said dryly. “That makes things much better.”
I gave Sebastian a little nudge to say Go ahead, idiot, poke the demon.
The wipers smeared ice and slush uselessly across the windshield. We were surrounded in whiteness. The storm had become a full-on blizzard.
Pulling off to the side, Fonn slowed to a stop. “We need to wait this out.”
“Yeah, great,” Sebastian muttered.
Even though she’d identified herself as a demon, I still figured a little common courtesy could go a long way. “Thanks for picking us up,” I said, staring out into the shifting white. “We’d be dead otherwise.”
Fonn smiled.
Lilith tightened the muscles in my abdomen.
The chill crept along my spine again, like fingers of frost.
“Jesus, it’s cold in here,” Sebastian said, reaching for the heater.
Sebastian huddled near the vent, hugging himself for warmth. I looked at Fonn and the gleam in her eye.
Fonn pushed a button on her dash, and suddenly the cabin was filled with the droning voice of some announcer on Wisconsin Public Radio talking about the stock market and Bulgarian politics or some other esoteric subject. I didn’t really listen. I was too busy freaking out. Sebastian looked miserable. He shivered pathetically. I ran my hand along the back of his neck lightly to comfort him. His skin felt cold.
Cold? That wasn’t right. Yeah, okay, he was a vampire, and most vampires have cold skin. Not my boy. His magic made him hot-blooded. I pulled my fingers away in surprise.
“Sebastian,” I said. “You’re cold.”
“Damn right. I’m freezing.” He rubbed his arms in the classic style, trying to get some heat from the friction.
Wind rattled the windows of the truck. Everywhere was white on night, and where the headlights beamed, it reminded me a bit of the image of hyperspace from Star Wars. Sebastian shouldn’t be cold; this storm shouldn’t be so strong, so soon.
“You’re sucking the life from us to make this storm, aren’t you?” I demanded of Fonn, who sat smugly watching the snow pile up on the windshield.
Midshiver, Sebastian glanced up at Fonn. “Hey, I don’t have any life,” he pointed out.
“Energy,” Fonn interjected. “And, if I may say so, you’re both loaded.”
That would explain why Lilith didn’t like Fonn much. An energysnarfing demon would probably consider a goddess an all-you-can-eat-buffet.
“That’s fan-fucking-tastic,” Sebastian said. “Happy birthday to me.”
A knock on the driver’s side window made everybody jump, even Fonn. She powered-down the window, letting in an arctic blast of wind and snow. I noticed the faint flash of blue lights behind us and the reflective paint at the tip of a snowplow’s blade.
“Everyone all right in here?” a male voice asked. I had the impression of a mustache underneath the fake fur of a parka hood wrapped tightly around his head.
Fonn eyed the newcomer in a way that could only be described as hungry.
“We could use some help,” Fonn said, her voice abruptly shifting to that of a feeble older woman’s. Fonn was going to eat this unsuspecting stranger, too! I suddenly realized she’d been out trolling for victims and anyone would do. Of course, she’d lucked out and got a goddess-toting Witch and her supernatural vampire boyfriend. Good day for Fonn; bad day for us.
Lilith pushed against my stomach, like a snake uncoiling. But before I could react, Sebastian spoke up.
“Actually, we’re fine. Just waiting out the storm a bit.” Sebastian’s voice was liquid glamour. For a moment, I swore the cab of the truck smelled faintly of cinnamon toast and hot cocoa—very comforting smells, very homey. In fact, even I was feeling pretty safe and a little bit sleepy.
The snowplow driver nodded, completely duped by vampire charm. “Yeah, this weather sure is a doozie. You take care now.”
He disappeared into the snow, and I let out my breath when I heard the plow’s engine spring to life behind us.
Fonn did not look happy with either of us.
The temperature inside the cab dropped ten degrees. I could see my breath come out in white puffs. Sebastian took in a ragged breath at the same time, as if he also felt the shift. The snowy wind coming through the open window tossed Fonn’s curls about wildly. Her eyes flashed a stormy gray. Wind howled around the truck like a wolf.
Heat leeched from me in waves. I could see steam lifting from my body, rising to curl around Fonn like smoke. Fonn’s expression was pure triumph. She was going to suck the heat from us and make the mother of all blizzards.
So I kicked her.
I’m not usually a big proponent of violence, but I found her self-satisfied grin too annoying to bear.
I’d like to pretend that after my swift kick to the shin Fonn crumpled over in abject pain and suffering, we overpowered her, and that was the end of things, but in reality she gave me a do-that-again-and-I-will-squash-you-like-a-bug frown and continued stealing our life force.
Undaunted, I kicked her again. Harder. With both feet this time.
I must have gotten the angle just right, because she fell backward onto the door latch. Unexpectedly, the door swung open, causing her to lose her balance. She flailed around gracelessly for a second, groping for something to hold on to. Finding nothing, Fonn fell with a whump out of the cab.
I slid into her seat and shut the door.
“Go!” shouted Sebastian, despite the fact that the only thing I could see out of the window was white, white, and more white. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t,” I explained. “You saw what she was like with the snowplow driver. She’ll just find another person to suck.” Rolling up the window, I cranked up the heater a notch.
“Garnet,” Sebastian said, “she’s clearly some kind of elemental. We’re not going to be able to stop her. I’m not even sure Lilith could. Forces of nature are just that…. Part of the natural order of things. You can’t just wipe out the one in charge of winter.”
Why not? Couldn’t I just back the truck up and run over her a few times? Bump-bump, no more winter! I mean, come on, in Wisconsin winter generally sucks. Here in America’s Dairyland it was cold and miserable for nearly half the year. Sure, the first snowstorm with those fluffy, storybook flakes was beautiful, but it took less than a week for all the snow to get dirty from exhaust and other urban detritus.
But I supposed Sebastian had a point. Global warming was already a problem. If we stopped having winter altogether, we’d probably ruin some endangered ecological niche. Walleye population would explode from a lack of ice fishing. There’d be no annual mosquito die-off and they’d take over the world. So not cool, as it were.
Many Bloody Returns Page 28