by Jim Butcher
The captain whirled on Carlos and unleashed a wave of dark energy the size of a riding lawn mower. The Warden dropped his sword, slid his back foot along the floor, and tensed into a crouch. His arms swept up in smooth, graceful symmetry and intercepted the energy, gathering it like some kind of enormous soap bubble.
It was a water-magic spell, Carlos’s specialty. He rolled his arms in a wide circle, took a pair of pirouetting steps, and swept his arms out toward the captain, sending the dark spell roaring back at him. It hit the captain like a small truck, hurtling him off the stage and halfway down the sanctuary.
“Come on, kids,” Carlos shouted. He recovered his sword and almost contemptuously deflected an incoming blast of cultist magic with it. “I’m taking you home!”
The little Miksani didn’t have to be told twice. They got up, the larger children helping the smaller ones, and began hurrying awkwardly toward the escape route Carlos had created on the way in. He shielded them, backing step by deliberate step, calling up a shield of energy with his left hand, intercepting blasts of energy with it, or swatting them wide with his Warden’s blade.
In a few seconds, he’d be out of the room, along with the Miksani children, leaving me with nothing but cultists. I tensed and began to gather my energy.
And then Clint’s reddened, work-roughened, clammy-cold hand shot into the confessional and seized my throat. It caught me off guard, and the sudden pain as his fingers tightened and he shut off my air supply was indescribable. He lifted me and, without hesitating for a second, began to slam me left and right, against the walls of the confessional, each impact horribly heavy, with no more passion than a man beating the dust from a rug.
My head hit hardwood several times, stunning me. My knees went all loose and watery, and suddenly the Rave and the Boom Box were gone. The next thing I knew, I was being dragged by the neck toward the altar. Clint walked up onto it and threw me down on my back on the holy table. I blinked my eyes, trying to get them to focus, and realized that the cult was gathered all around me, a circle of tentacle-mouthed faces and dead eyes.
Carlos and the kids were gone.
Good.
“It isn’t a mortal,” Clint said, somehow speaking through the tentacles, albeit in a creepy, inhuman tone. “See? It’s different. It doesn’t belong here.”
“Yes,” the captain said.
“Kill it. It cost us our sacrifice.”
“No,” the captain said. “You are new to the mortal world. This creature’s blood is more powerful than generations of the Miksani and their spawn.” The tentacles thrashed more and more excitedly. “We can drain her and drain her. Blood more powerful than any we have spilled to pave the way for the Sleeper. Our Lord shall arise!” The captain’s eyes met mine and there was nothing behind them, no soul, nothing even remotely human. “And he shall hunger. Perhaps …”
“Perhaps you should think about this,” I said. I think my sibilants had gone slushy. “Walk right now. Leave this island and don’t come back. It’s the only chance you have to survive.”
“What is survival next to the ascendance of our Lord?” the captain asked. “Bow to Him. Give yourself of your own will.”
“You don’t know who I am, do you, squid-for-brains?” I asked.
“Bow, child. For when He comes, His rage will be a perfect, hideous storm. He will drag you down to his prison and entomb you there. Forever silent. Forever in darkness. Forever in terrible cold.”
“I am Lady Molly of Winter,” I said in a silken voice.
The thrashing tentacles went abruptly still for a second. Then the captain started to shout something.
Before he could, I unleashed power from the heart of Winter into the cathedral, unrestrained, undirected, unshaped, and untamable. It rushed through me, flowed through me, both frozen agony and a pleasure more intense than any orgasm.
Ice exploded out from me in swords and spears, in scythes and daggers and pikes. In an instant, crystalline blades and points, a forest of them, slammed into being, expanding with blinding speed. Ice filled the cathedral, and whatever was in its way, living or otherwise, was pierced and slashed and shredded and then crushed against the sanctuary’s stone walls with the force of a locomotive.
It was over in less than a second. Then there was only silence, broken here and there by the crackle and groan of perfectly clear ice. I could clearly see the cult through it. Broken, torn to pieces, crushed, their blood a brilliant scarlet as it melted whatever ice it touched—only to freeze into ruby crystals a moment later.
It took the captain, impaled against the cathedral ceiling, almost a minute to die.
And while he did, I lay on the holy table, laughing uncontrollably.
THE ICE PARTED for me, opening a corridor perhaps half an inch wider than my shoulders and the same distance higher than my head. I walked out slowly, dreamily, feeling deliciously detached from everything. I had to step over a hand on the way out. It twitched in flickering little autonomic spasms. I noted idly that it probably should have bothered me more than it did.
Outside, I found Carlos and the Miksani children. They were staring at me in silence. The sleet made the only sound. Few lights glowed in windows. Unalaska was battened down against the storm, and other than us, not a creature was stirring.
I closed my eyes, lifted my face to the storm, and murmured, “Burn it down.”
Carlos stepped past me without a word. I felt the stirrings of power as he focused his will into fire so hot that the air hissed and sizzled and spat as he brought it forth. A moment later, warmth glowed behind me, and the crackle and mutter of rising flames began.
As we walked away, one wall was already covered in a five-foot curtain of flame. By the time we got the children back to the fish market, the cathedral was a beacon that spread an eerie glow through the sleet and spray. A few lights had come on, and I could see dark figures and a couple of emergency vehicles near the pyre, but there would be no saving the place. It was set a bit apart from the rest of Unalaska, in any case. It would burn alone.
Cormorants had begun to circle us, their cries odd and muted in the dark, and the children looked up with uncertain smiles. When we reached the market and went in, Aluki and Nauja were waiting for us. Nauja let out a cry and rushed forward to embrace the smallest girl, a child who cried out, “Mama!” and threw her arms around the Miksani woman’s neck.
Cormorants winged in from out of the night through the open door, assuming human form with effortless grace as they landed. Glad voices were raised around the children, and more parents were reunited with their lost little ones. There were more hugs and laughter and happy tears.
That, I thought, should probably make me feel more than it does as well.
Carlos watched it with a big, warm grin on his face. He shook some hands and nodded pleasantly and was hugged and clapped on the shoulder. As I watched him, I felt something finally. I was admiring his scars, the memory of his skill, his courage, and I had an absolutely soul-deep need to run my fingers over him.
No one came within five feet of me—at least, not until Aluki crossed the room from the bier where her husband still lay, and faced me.
“I assume you wish the tribute now,” she said in a low voice.
I felt dark, bright eyes all over the room, focusing on me.
“I need rest and food,” I said. “I will return when the storm breaks, if that is acceptable.”
Aluki blinked and her head rocked back. “It … Yes. Of course, Lady Molly. Thank you for that.”
I gave her a nod and turned toward the door. Just before leaving, I looked over my shoulder and asked, “Carlos? Are you coming with?”
“Ah,” he said, and his smile changed several shades. “Why … why, yes, I am.”
BY THE TIME we reached Carlos’s hotel, the storm was raging.
And the weather had gotten worse, too.
Neither of us spoke as we reached his room, and he opened the door for me. It was a nice hotel, far nicer than I wou
ld have expected in such isolation. I walked in, dropping my coat to the floor behind me. It hit the ground with the squelching sound of wet cloth and crackles of thin ice breaking. Layers of shirts joined it as I kept walking into the room, until I was down to skin.
I felt his eyes on me the whole way. Then I turned slowly and smiled at him.
His expression was caught somewhere between awe and hunger. His dark eyes glittered brightly.
“You’re soaked and frozen,” I said quietly. “Get out of those clothes.”
He nodded slowly and walked toward me. His cloak and coat and shirts joined mine. Carlos Ramirez had the muscles of a gymnast, and his body was marked here and there with scars. Strength. Prowess. I approved.
He stopped in front of me, down to his own jeans. Then he kept walking toward me until our bodies met, and he pressed me gently down to the bed behind us. My eyes closed as I let out a little groan when I felt the heat of his skin against my chest, and I flung myself into the kiss that came next like the world was about to vanish into a nuclear apocalypse.
The sudden explosion of desire that radiated out from him felt like sinking into a steaming-hot bath, and I reveled in it, my own ardor rising. My hands slid over his chest and shoulders, reached around to his back. He was all tight muscle, heat, and pure passion. His mouth wandered to my throat, then to my shoulders and breasts, and I let out groans of need, encouraging him.
Molly, said the voice of my better reason.
His mouth left me for a second as he pulled off my boots. I arched up to help him remove my jeans, and heard him kicking off his own. With an impatient growl, I sat up and ripped at his belt.
Molly, said reason again. Hello?
I flung the belt across the room, to tell reason to shut up, and tore at his jeans. I had never wanted anything so badly in my life as I wanted Carlos naked and pressed against me.
This isn’t you, said reason.
I pushed his jeans down past his hips. God, he was beautiful. I took his hand and leaned back on the bed, drawing him with me. “Now,” I said. My voice came out thick and husky. “No more waiting. Now.”
He let out a groan as he kissed me again, and I felt him start to touch and then—
And then I was sitting on the floor of the shower, shuddering, hot water pouring down around me.
Wait.
What?
What the hell?
I looked down at the water. The drain stopper was down, and it was seven or eight inches deep.
And pink.
Oh, God.
I looked at my hands. My nails … my nails looked longer. Harder.
And there was red under them.
What had just happened?
I stood up and left the shower, dripping wet, not bothering to stop for a towel. I hurried back out of the bathroom and stopped in the doorway, shocked.
The room had been wrecked. The mattress was against the far wall—and the door. It had been torn in half. The lamps were out, and the slice of light from the bathroom lights provided the only illumination in a stark column. What I could see of the furniture had been trashed. Part of the bed frame was broken.
And Carlos …
He lay on the floor, covered in blood. One of his legs was broken, the pointy bits of his shattered shin thrusting out from the skin. His face was swelling up beneath the blood, his eyes puffed closed. He was covered in claw marks, rakes that oozed blood. He lay at a strange angle, twitching in pain, one hand clutching with blind instinct at his back.
His injured back. His weakness.
I stared down at my hands in utter horror, at the blood beneath my nails.
I had done this.
I had used his weakness against him.
“Mab,” I breathed. I started choking and sobbing. “Mab! Mab!”
Mab can appear in a thunderclap if she wants to. This entrance was much less dramatic. A light in the far corner of the room clicked on and revealed the Queen of Winter, seated calmly in the chair in the corner. She regarded me with distant, opalescent eyes and lifted a single eyebrow.
“What happened?” I asked. “What happened?”
Mab regarded Carlos with a calm countenance. “What will happen every time you attempt to be with a man,” she replied.
I stared at her. “What?”
“Three Queens of Summer; three Queens of Winter,” she said, that alien gaze returning to me. “Maiden, mother, and crone. You are the maiden, Lady Molly. And for you to be otherwise, to become a mother, would be to destroy the mantle of power you wear. The mantle protected itself—as it must.”
“What?”
She tilted her head and stared at me. “It is all within Winter Law. I suggest you spend a few hours each day meditating on it in the future. In time you will gain an adequate understanding of your limits.”
“How could you do this?” I demanded. The tears on my cheeks felt like streaks of hot wax. “How could you do this?”
“I did not,” Mab said calmly. “You did.”
“Dammit, you know what I mean!”
“You have been gifted with great and terrible power, young lady,” Mab said in an arch tone. “Did you really think you could simply go about your life as if you were a mortal girl?”
“You could have warned me!”
“When I tried, you had no inclination to listen. Only to jest.”
“You bitch,” I said, shaking my head. “You could have told me. You horrible bitch.” I turned to go back into the bathroom, to get towels and go to Carlos’s aid.
When I turned, Mab was right behind me, and her nose all but pressed against mine. Her eyes were flickering through shades of color and bright with cold anger. Her voice came out in a velvet murmur more terrifying than any enraged shriek. “What did you say to me?”
I flinched back, suddenly filled with fear.
I couldn’t meet her eyes.
I didn’t speak.
After a moment, some of the tension went out of her. “Yes,” she said, her voice calm again. “I could have told you. I elected to teach you. I trust this has made a significant first impression.”
“I have to help him,” I said. “Please step aside.”
“That will not be necessary,” Mab said. “He will not be in danger of dying for some hours. I have already dispatched word to the White Council. Their healers will arrive momentarily to care for him. You will leave at once.”
“I can’t just leave him like this,” I said.
“That is exactly what you can do,” Mab said. Her voice softened by a tiny fraction of a degree. “You are no longer what you were, child. You must adapt to your new world. If you do not, you will cause terrible suffering—not least of all to yourself.” She tilted her head, as if listening, and said, “The storm is breaking. You have your duty.”
I clenched my jaw and said, “I can’t just leave him there alone.”
Mab blinked once, as if digesting my words. “Why not?”
“Because … because it’s not what decent people do.”
“What has that to do with either of us?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I am not going to be like that.”
Mab pursed her lips and exhaled slowly through her nose. “Stubborn. Like our Knight.”
“Damned right I am,” I said.
I’m not sure you can micro-roll your eyes. But Mab can. “Very well. I will sit with him until the wizards arrive.”
I turned to regard Carlos’s broken form lying on the floor. Then I hurried into enough clothes to be decent. I knelt over him and kissed his forehead. He made a soft moaning sound that tore something inside my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I kissed his head again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what would happen. I’m sorry.”
“Time waits for no one, Lady Molly,” Mab said. She had crossed the room to stand across from me over poor Carlos. “Not even the Queens of Faerie. Collect the tribute.”
I gave him a last kiss on the forehead and rose t
o leave. But I paused at the door to consider, to consult Winter Law.
I had never really considered what the tribute was. But it was there in the law. I turned slowly and stared at Mab in horror.
“Their children,” I whispered. “You want me to take their children.”
“Yes.”
“Their children,” I said. “You can’t.”
“I won’t. You will.”
I shook my head. “But …”
“Lady Molly,” Mab said gently. “Consider the Outer Gates.”
I did.
Winter Law showed me a vivid image. An endless war fought at the far borders of reality. A war against the pitiless alien menace known simply as the Outsiders. A war fought by millions of Fae, to prevent the Outsiders from invading and destroying reality itself. A war so long and bitter that bones of the fallen were the topography of the landscape. It was why the Winter Court existed in the first place, why we were so aggressive, so savage, so filled with lust and the need to create more of our kind.
“You’re filling me with a hunger I can never feed,” I whispered.
“We cannot expect our people to bear a burden that we do not,” Mab replied, her tone level, implacable. “You will learn to endure it.”
“You want me to take children,” I hissed.
“I am fighting a war,” Mab said simply. “Fighting a war requires soldiers.”
“But they’re children. Children like my little brothers and sisters. And you want me to carry them away.”
“Of course. It is the ideal time to learn, to be trained until they come into their strength and are ready to do battle,” Mab said. “It is the only way to prepare them for what is to come. The only way to give them a chance to survive the duties I require of them.”
“How long?” I asked through clenched teeth. “How long will they be gone?”
“Until they are no longer needed,” Mab said.
“Until they’re killed, you mean,” I said. “They’re never going back home.”
“Your outrage is irrelevant,” Mab said. Her voice was flat, calm, filled with undeniable logic. “I have condemned millions of the children of Winter to a life of violence and death in battle, because it must be done. If we fail in our duty, there will be no home to which they can return. There will be no mortal world, safe and whole for your brothers and sisters.”