Dead Of Winter (The Beautiful Dead Book 2)

by Daryl Banner

  Enough thinking. I launch at him like a snake, my fingers going straight for his Eye—but Grim is just as keen and he deflects my action, having anticipated it, and I’m suddenly caught in his arms, my back to his chest, and I stare ahead at John.

  “Let her go,” John growls, gripping his sword with both hands now. Where is his Warlock stone?

  “Winter, please,” Grim whispers into my ear with the ease of a lover’s kiss. “Don’t trade forever for just now …”

  John’s teeth are clattering—I hear them across the room like the applause of skeletons. I’ve never seen him so afraid.

  “Give me your Eye,” I bargain with Grim, “and you can have me.”

  “Lie,” he hisses into my ear.

  His squeezes my body, twisting me in tighter to his own, so tight I hear two snaps in my ribs and another near my hip. Grim could break me. Grim could break me and then what?

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “We don’t hurt,” he hisses, getting angrier. “At least, not in the way that a fool with a heart can see.” His voice is turning dark and full of malice. His hands and body have become stone. Even the green wisps of fire have turned black in the corners of my vision. “You lie to me again, I end you both.”

  I’m losing this. I’m losing Grim and John is all the way across the room.

  “Why are you lying to me, Winter? After all we’ve been through? Why?” Something loud and thick cuts into the underside of the floor. Then again, twice as loud. Is Grim directing his Burning Army to attack the treehouse? Are they throwing axes at us? “Why, Winter?”

  “Calm down,” I beg him. Two arrows zip through the window and strike the ceiling. “Stop, please!” Another arrow soars in like a lightning bolt, narrowly missing John as he parries backward. “GRIM!”

  “Isn’t that what every dying man says on his deathbed, every dying woman on hers? Stop it, they beg. Stop it … But you cannot, will not, will never stop it,” he growls, like a promise. “Death cannot be stopped!”

  “You win,” I tell him, staring at my Human. Another chop of a throwing axe is heard from under the floor, and I see the evidence of a still-waging war beneath my feet, glowing through the floorboards. “You have taken all of my peace. You have destroyed almost everyone I know. If you give me your Eye, then I’ll—”

  “Give me yours,” he growls back, his grip tightening worse. I swear I can feel the heat of his anger against my dead cheek. “Give me yours and I’ll let your Human live long enough to run for his pointless life.”

  “I’m not running,” declares John stubbornly.

  I’m turning desperate. “Run, John. You have to.”

  “You know what’s remarkable about fire?” Grim’s face shifts. I feel his eyes grilling the Human across the room. “Humans can’t bathe in it the way we can. Hey, Winter. Want to see a magic trick?” Grim’s mouth comes close to my ear, and the next words are only meant for me: “You wanted him alive, you can have him alive. Let’s see how brave your John is while his heart still beats.”

  Suddenly, Grim’s black flames take root in the wood of the treehouse, and what was once a furious illusion is now a terrifying and deadly reality.

  “RUN!!” I scream to John, even as the flames hungrily eat the weakened floor and the groaning walls faster than anything natural. “GET OUT OF HERE!! RUN!!”

  John turns to run, and the floor splits from under him. As his foot drops heavily downward, pulling the rest of him with it, he throws out his arms and barely catches a floorboard by his fingertips, knuckles bleeding white. He clings to it for his life as the black flames spiral down the throat of the room, hungry and vile.

  “JOHN!!”

  I shout, mad as Malory herself, wrestling violently against Grim until I find myself broken free. Whether he let me go or I actually got out of his powerful grip, I won’t ever know.

  At once, I’m at the floor where John dangles by his fingers, the war hundreds of feet below him with the dying Garden and the hellfire.

  I shout: “Grab my hand!!”

  He clutches my wrist desperately, pulling, reaching further up to gain purchase on my arm. I cling to the loosening floorboards so that I don’t fall myself, the black flames at my back.

  “Don’t you let go!” I beg him.

  Grim screams tauntingly at my back: “Still you run to him! Dare I stop the fire? It will burn forever, Winter! It will burn and it will burn and it will burrrrrrrn!”

  I feel my own flames within. The flame of every candle I’ve ever watched in awe. The moment in the meadow. The nights Grim and I had. The offering of his hand at the cliffs on my very first day as an Undead. The smile he gave me that would’ve made me blush, had I any blood in my veins. I bid all of those wonderful, dear moments an unkind farewell as I let them burn.

  “John,” I breathe, slowly pulling him up.

  “I’m slipping. Winter, Winter …”

  His arm can’t reach, he slips off my right arm, drops a foot, then clings to the only part of me he has a hold of, my hand.

  My left hand.

  “No, no,” I breathe, reaching out now with my right, but he’s too far. It’s so tragic, this inadequate, fragile-yet-enduring body of mine with parts so immortal and parts so very temporary … Immortal as a memory. Immortal as love. Temporary as a memory. Temporary as love.

  He’s slipping. Or my trusty left hand is breaking off once more. The flames close in around us. There comes a time when you have to make a choice. You go to prom or you stay home. You cross the frozen lake or you don’t. The world is burning and the black flames eat away my only means of escape. There is only one way left.

  “John,” I whisper to his eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes meet mine, trusting me with his life.

  So I make a decision.

  I leap out of the hole in the floor with him.

  The world somersaults and I cling to John as we plummet. I hold him as strong as a heartbeat. I hold him as tight as the bond between metals to forge steel.

  The world spins and spins until gravity embraces us and he is above me and I am below, embracing him, as it should be. I plan to break his fall.

  Dropping through the air, for one blissful moment, there is no war, there is no crashing steel or blazing fire, and there is no life or death.

  There is only John.

  And then we land.

  I keep my arms wrapped tight around him. I don’t let go. The world has become silence all around us and I hold him close, so close … It’s like another night spent in calm, unbroken peace. I won’t open my eyes either. I feel the song in his body and I let it gently play to me, his gentle drum. He’s playing the song gentler than usual.

  “John.”

  He can’t respond. His arms hang limp on either side of me, the full weight of his body pressing into mine.

  “John, can you hear me?”

  My eyes are still closed, but I know there is nothing around us. The war has somehow ended. I run a hand up and down John’s back soothingly, my embrace with him never breaking. I feel his song so faintly, I almost wonder if some magical force is pulling us apart.

  But he’s right here, right on top of me. We’re holding each other tight. Nothing is pulling us apart.

  “John?”

  I open my eyes. The side of his face is leaned into mine, his ear by my lips. I kiss his ear. “John,” I murmur quietly, too quietly. “John, talk … talk to me.”

  “W … W-Win … ter.”

  He doesn’t move. He doesn’t lift a finger. He doesn’t flinch an arm. I try his name again, whispering it into his ear several times. His song is still going, the song in his chest, isn’t it?

  I squeeze him and gently turn him over. He slides softly into the grass, which is still somehow green.

  His eyes are half-open. His lips parted.

  I crouch over his body, my hand on his chest. I am ignoring the circle of burning Dead that stand around me like candles, watching stonily, emptily, and I speak to the only perso
n in the world who exists: “John …?”

  His brown eyes flinch. He struggles to open them. They reel for a short, desperate moment, then he finds me as if through a haze. Does he really see me?

  His lips part further and he says, “W … W-Winter …”

  “I’m here, John.” My hand never leaves his chest. I bring my face close to his. My lips touch his cheek. My lips touch his forehead, touch his eyes. “I’m here.”

  His mouth flinches. I wonder if he’s trying to smile.

  I look out, suddenly desperate. The faces of all the Burning Undead stare down at us, each of them appearing more sad than the next. It’s a hundred mirrors of Grim, who I notice has descended from the sky, where the treehouse no longer burns. He watches us and the fury glows in his eyes.

  “He needs help,” I say, unsure who I’m talking to. Is Doctor Collin among his army? “Collin? Please, Grim, release him, release all of them. Doctor? DOCTOR!” My eyes are searching, but there are so many faces, so many people Grim has stolen from the world.

  “W-Winter …”

  I turn back to him, the Human in my arms. I press my hand into his chest, my favorite song stirring through my little fingers. But beneath that song, I feel his struggling lungs, and I know his breath is short. I knew it when we landed; I’d hoped to break his fall, but the fall broke him anyway. “Don’t move, John. I’m getting help.”

  “Y-You … w-w-were always …” He has to suck in a horrible lungful of breath for every word. “Y-You w-were always … always the … r-reason.” His eyes are happy.

  “Don’t do this.” I’m gritting my teeth. I can’t hold him for fear of breaking him. For all I know, I’m the one that broke him. I’m the one responsible. “Don’t say goodbye. John, stop it.” I spin my head around. “COLLIN! Please!”

  My furious eyes beseech Grim. He is the only person who can release the doctor to me to save John’s life, and all he does is glare, the fire raging in his green eye. For a second, he nearly looks victorious. “Winter,” he says. “Let him go, and walk with me into eternity. Together, we—”

  And then his face changes.

  His lips are parted for the next word that never comes.

  I’m waiting for him to finish. I’m waiting for him to send me Collin. I’m waiting for anything, but Grim is suddenly frozen in place. All the passion has vanished from his face in an instant. What’s happened?

  “G-Grim?”

  He looks at me right then. Something changed. He saw something. Maybe he saw many things. Memories. A rush of a billion memories of a Life he once had. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? Is that the face of a person who just had their Dreaming Death? Or am I so desperate to believe in anything … simply to get Grim to cooperate?

  “Help me, Grim. Please.”

  Suddenly, his flames vanish. The Grim who stands before me is not the man who let us fall. The eye in his face has just become dull as another rock in the riverbed.

  “Grim,” I beg of him again. “Release them. PLEASE! Please, if you ever loved me, please!” My voice breaks. I’m hysterical. “GIVE ME MY JOHN BACK!”

  Grim flinches. He peers down at John, his green eye heavy and horrible. Then he turns his back at once and runs away, disappearing through the crowd in a rush.

  A moment later, their flames vanish too.

  The Anima seems to flicker in their eyes. Awareness stirs within them. They stare at one another, bewildered, as if waking from a long, long dream.

  “COLLIN!” I cry out, desperate for help. “PLEASE! DOCTOR COLLIN! PLEASE!” I turn to John, looking into his eyes. “Stay with me. Please, John. Don’t you dare leave me all alone in this horrible place. Stay right here.”

  He parts his lips, chapped and red, and whispers, “I’ll always … always be …” A single tear fills his eye, escapes, plays down the side of his face. More tears swell in the other, and his browns are gleaming and bright. “W-With you …” he finishes.

  I kiss him. I can’t feel the drum in his chest anymore. It has to still be there, it must be, but it’s so, so faint … I can hardly feel his breath. “John …” I already know.

  I already know.

  I already know but I refuse to accept it. I call out with a broken voice for the doctor, my eyes glued to the only person I will ever love. The doctor’s been found and he’s pushing through the crowd to join us, but I already know. The song is gone and I know. Ashes from the ghosts of things that Grim’s fire has eaten float in the air like a gentle snowfall.

  My hand is in his hand, though his fingers may never move again. Play my favorite song, John. Please. Just one more time. Just one more stupid time.

  With his last tendrils of life, John watches me, those tiny tears gently, patiently slipping from his glassy eyes … and he almost appears happy. His lips form a smile while the doctor examines him … and John’s soft and loving gaze never lets me go.

  Oh, what I wouldn’t give for another stupid squeeze of his hand. What I wouldn’t give for one more laugh, or even a playful scowl. What I wouldn’t give for just one more night in the woods, gripping each other tight.

  Still holding my hand, John takes his last breath, then gently sighs.

  C H A P T E R – T W E N T Y

  D E A D O F W I N T E R

  Hours pass.

  I’m holding his hand still.

  He’ll never leave me and I’ll never leave him.

  Marigold whispered something to me a while ago and I didn’t even hear it.

  Collin had said something earlier about broken spines and bones, but all I feel is a strange dead peace within me. It’s such a bizarre, indescribable lightlessness. I think I’ve only felt it one other time: my very first day as an Undead, when I had no attachments to this world or the last, when there was nothing to gain or to lose, when even my First Life was gone—the very thing that proved I ever existed.

  John may never leave me, but suddenly I’m as light as nothing. I’m not alive, and I’m not even dead, I’m just nothing. The air could take me away if I let it.

  Helena comes up from behind and hugs me with a strange, awkward clutch. They sewed her back together. Many of them are getting sewed back together, now that the Green One’s released them and there is no more threat. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.

  I’m holding his hand and he’ll never leave me.

  Grim destroyed everything and then he ran away. Grim didn’t even have the decency to stay around long enough to Raise John from his lifelessness. Not that I’d even trust him close enough to John’s body to try.

  “I can try,” the little Human Megan tells me. I haven’t looked away from John’s beautiful face, still haven’t. Not even a glance. I don’t know what condition Garden is in. I don’t even know who’s still alive, who’s turned Undead, whether the twins made it, or Gunner, or whether the bugs still fly and flutter and crawl everywhere. The entire world is John’s parted lips and his broad shoulders and his hand in mine. I can’t even bring myself to move.

  It’s impressive, isn’t it. The way time passes when you’re one of the Dead. I will stay here with John for the rest of my eternity.

  However long that lasts.

  “I … I can try,” repeats Megan. Reluctantly, as if afraid I might bite, she moves her hand over John’s chest. I don’t watch her face, but I can see her little fingers hovering an inch over his body, searching, searching, searching.

  It’s gone, Megan. Your search will be fruitless.

  “I feel something,” she murmurs, though her voice is doubtful, uncertain. Her hand glides toward his face, and when her fingers move near his eyes, I suddenly find myself grabbing her hand. “Ouch. Winter!”

  I don’t say anything. I’ve just grabbed her little fingers because I couldn’t stand for them to get in the way of my staring at John’s beautiful face.

  I don’t want anything in the way.

  “Winter, you’re hurting me!”

  I release her fingers, gently returning to John�
�s, letting him have both my hands again. If they bury him, I’ll find a way to destroy my own Anima and turn to dust with him.

  You did this to yourself.

  Megan’s voice is so small when she says, “I’m … I’m sorry.” Her chin begins to quiver. She sniffles loudly once, then twice. “I’m sorry. I was just …”

  I don’t watch her as she runs away. She knew John too. Longer than I have. I wish there still existed a thing in me called sympathy. I guess it died with John.

  The Chief turned Undead, but I already knew that. I don’t know who came to my side to inform me. He was scared as a boy, and he kept asking what happened. They all are asking, because none of them know who they are. Now even the Chief won’t remember his own real name, not until some Waking Dream finds him. If the Dreams even exist anymore; Grim was adamant about burning them too. The Chief just keeps asking, “Who am I?”

  Gunner is still alive, but he has horrible wounds that Collin is looking at. The twins are with the baby in a cottage, where she’d been watched over the whole time by Margie. The four of them survived, and the baby was named Laura, and really, what other name would it have?

  I learn the baby’s father intercepted a throwing knife meant for John. He intercepted it with his abdomen and the only person who witnessed this act of heroic sacrifice was Ray, who never bothered to meet me. The baby’s father crept to the side of a tree where he died in peace.

  Maybe Gill’s final thought was reuniting with Laura.

  When the twins come to my side, neither of them say a thing. They are mercifully without words, and neither of them touch me. Rake sits by the tree nearest us while Robin kneels by John’s other side. Mother nature has dusted John’s body with flakes of ash from things that burned. A blanket, tucking him in for a good night’s sleep.

  John.

  What I wouldn’t give …

  I find myself thinking about all of the months we spent together before we figured out how much we loved each other. All those months we wasted arguing and giving one another scathing glances and attitude. All that time we could have spent …