Frost

by Manners, Harry

  Jack looked between them. “Before you? I thought you were…” he cleared his throat, “you know, immortal, or timeless or… something.” He looked at his hands.

  “To you, maybe,” Barry said, a wry smile in the corner of his mouth. “It’s pointless trying to explain. Imagine describing the Grand Canyon to an ant—no offence.”

  “None taken,” Jack said glibly.

  The Man in Purple waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t dwell on it. Take it as read that we’re just a rung up the ladder. We have beginnings, and ends, in knowledge and life. And we certainly have our faults.”

  “Speak for yerself.”

  The Man in Purple ignored him.. “The scrolls are all we have from a primordial time that might have been but one previous age in an endless chain that goes back forever. All we know is that we learned the Web’s ways from their writings, but even now there’s much yet to be interpreted, foretelling of happenings yet to pass, secrets that remain a mystery.”

  Barry turned to Jack with a withering look. “It’s real simple. These scrolls are weird as all hell, but they’re almost always right. And they drone on and on about these Beacons, and the Fall of All Where.”

  The Man in Purple tolerated Barry’s interruption with pursed lips, then raised his enormous brows and polished off the last of his tea, watching Jack as though a proprietor awaiting a customer’s judgement on his wares.

  Jack looked down at the table, hands tumbling and fidgeting, his mind turning over and over. A great slab of nebulous sludge sloshed around inside him, as though his veins had been infused with the burden of deep time and awful knowledge of those beside him.

  It’s too much for one person to take like this, over tea.

  His throat felt stopped up, as though an apple core had lodged there, the broiling nonsense incarnate.

  All the while they sat across from him and watched, exchanging minute glances, not urging, just watching.

  Eventually, Jack found himself laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Barry said, frowning.

  Jack grinned, though doing so made him feel all the more unstable. “It’s just that I don’t know any more now than I did before. So there’s Beacons and prophetic scrolls and other worlds. It still doesn’t tell me what I can do to help stop the monster running around out there.”

  “That’s why we’re here.” Barry motioned to Laurent’s. He rounded on the Man in Purple.

  The Man in Purple pressed his hands together, considering a moment. “There is something out there that has been locked up for a long, long time. And now it’s found a way out. Your people,” he nodded to the street, “are going to take its place in that prison, if we can’t stop it.”

  “You mean if I can’t stop it. And brilliant as I am, I’ve got no death wish,” Barry spat. “I didn’t sign up for this. Where’s my backup?”

  The Man in Purple shook his head. “The others are too far away, and they are fighting with all they have to keep more of Harper’s ilk at bay. Be thankful you only have one of them to handle.”

  The Man in Purple’s face, for just a moment, grew pale. “They’re fighting on every front right now. They hit Highcourt all at once.” A glimmer of something awful flickered through his radiant exterior. “If I had known it would hurt so much, when I took the oath, to watch… to watch my friends…” He shook himself. “Nowhere is safe. Believe me, you’re not alone in this fight.” He paused. “But they are so strong. We might lose. Lose big.”

  “Is Highcourt holding?”

  The Man in Purple said nothing.

  “Jesus.”

  “Hold him.”

  “He’s too strong for me.”

  “Maybe so.” Then, astonishingly, he turned to Jack. “But maybe not your companion.”

  A stunned silence followed.

  “Me?” Jack stammered.

  The Man in Purple smiled. “There’s a lot more than a compass rattling around in that head of yours.” He glanced sidelong at Barry. “He’s bright. It’s locked away deep, but he has it in him.”

  Barry stared hard at Jack, burning into the side of his head.

  The Man in Purple spread his hands. “It’s not fair—it’s not. But it was you, or nobody, Kaard.”

  “You should have told me I was getting into this,” Barry said.

  “Would you have come if I had?”

  “Yes!”

  They shared a look. The Man in Purple blinked with an apologetic grimace.

  Barry watched him for a long moment that seemed to stretch out like rubber, then snap back into place “Fine. That’ll have to do. Thanks for the tea.” He turned to Jack. “Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

  They stood, and Jack became aware once more of the sheer strangeness of the room, the murky undulation of space itself, everything turned a rosy hue, as though he viewed it through frosted glass. His legs twitched, urging him toward the door, eager to be gone from this place.

  The Man in Purple remained seated, and tapped a finger to his forehead in mock salute. “I may not be the shining knight in armour, but you’re wrong about me, Kaard,” he said. “We all have our parts to play and our own skills to bring to the fight.” His androgynous, ephemeral face grew dark and serious, and Jack caught a glimpse of something more ancient than any woodland or mountain or fossil in the ground. “This isn’t a fight you can win. There’s no tricking fate.” He locked his gaze fast on Jack. “And you, Mr Shannon, will forfeit your life, should you follow this path. People who help our kind… it seldom ends well for them.”

  Jack, rubber legged, could only stare back at him. “If I walk, we all die. Isn’t that right?”

  The Man in Purple’s mouth drew into a tight white line. “Good luck, Mr Shannon.” He turned once more to Barry. “I’m sorry, Kaard. I truly am.”

  “Sorry ain’t going to grow me a new head.” Barry grunted, bull like, and then pulled Jack along in his wake, heading away from the table.

  Jack recalled Barry’s dramatic pose just after he had arrived in Barnes & Noble.

  That feels like it could have been a hundred years ago…

  They didn’t have a hope in hell. He knew that now. That was what coming here had really been about; hitting home the reality of what they faced.

  “Make it up as we go along, then?” he said.

  “Mmhm.”

  “How often do things end up like this?”

  Barry smacked his lips and nodded. “Pretty much always.”

  “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

  They reached the doorway and Barry pulled it open. The tinkling bell above their heads didn’t sound pleasant now, but almost jeering, a spiteful farewell from some giggling pixie. Stale Manhattan air blew in across Jack’s face, but to him it seemed the purest air of a mountaintop gale, sharp and rejuvenating in contrast to the soupy atmosphere of Laurent’s. Burned out lights popped back to life in his head.

  He looked over his shoulder at the Man in Purple, still sat at the table. He gave Jack a cursory wave, nibbling on something round and doughy. A white chocolate cookie. Then a customer passed between them, shuffling by. When she had passed, the table was empty, the teapots gone, the cloth neat and fresh; no sign of the Man in Purple, save for a faint shower of falling snowflakes.

  12

  Harper slunk from his seat and made his way toward the back of the train. If people had been a little less blind to his presence, they might have frowned at his wicked leer of pleasure, brought on by an echo of pain and confusion that filled the air for one brilliant moment. The wino had thrown herself upon the tracks and exploded like a sack of tomatoes.

  The echo propagated along the tunnel and cut through him as loud and clear as a shriek in the night. Delicious, succulent pain. With it came a cascade of blurred images, snippets of a life torn to shreds in a single moment. As he passed from car to car, Harper chewed on them like jerky.

  A young girl running through a cornfield, sof
t and bouncy with youth, dressed in a scarlet poncho that made her look like Little Red Riding Hood. She had loved chasing the boys, then; they had screeched about cooties all summer long.

  The same boys who forced themselves on her on prom night. Flashes of a moonlit parking lot, the frayed back seat of a beat up Ford Pinto. Grunting shadows, the tinkle of a loosening belt, and all the while, her thrashing and kicking and screaming.

  The drinking. The endless parade of bottles, vodka and tequila, mostly. The ire of her family, the swell of shame at being labelled whore and slut. The long Greyhound ride east, and the years of bumming booze money since.

  Harper took it all, filling his veins with it, nourished by all that repressed shame and fear.

  The fiction of this world was something awful. The vampire myths had missed the truth of it. Come close, but no dice. Harper fed on people, to be sure, but nothing as crass and base as their mere blood; he fed on their very lives, the sum of their parts, their hopes and memories and secrets.

  Long ago, when his masters’ orders had seen him prowling the dark forests of a world backwards compared even to this one, they had called him Graknia. Soul Eater.

  That was close enough for him. Certainly better than vampire.

  Even their own nightmares are but pale shadows of what’s out there.

  Harper reached the back of the train, jostling with its rocking upon the tracks, and put his hand on the glass of the rear door. A thread of excitement shot through him: it was close.

  A quick glance over his shoulder told him that the car was almost empty. His only company was a head-bobbing East Indian, and a young woman snoring to high heaven under a newspaper.

  Satisfied, he held his palm flat against the door, head down in concentration, and waited until the moment came, his innards thrumming like a tuning fork.

  Harper peeled the back door open with a cursory flick of his wrist, rending steel and shattering glass so fast it came away like citrus pith, and stepped out. He landed on the tracks in a skittering series of bounces and came to rest amidst a shower of safety glass, brushing himself off, smoothing the creases in his jacket.

  Then he remembered his stained suit, and suppressed a growl.

  No matter, he told himself, there’ll be plenty lying around soon enough. I’ll have my pick among millions.

  His rage vanished with a poof, and he proceeded along the dark stinking subway tunnel, letting fly a reverberating cackle.

  13

  Jack yelped like a dog when he saw the guns.

  Half a dozen figures dressed head to foot in black leather stood by the pavement, astride Ducati motorcycles. Each had looped over their shoulder, or holstered at their side, an automatic rifle, sawn-off shotgun, or large-calibre pistol. Despite their reflective visors, there was no doubting the riders were staring, waiting.

  Their hands wavered close to their weapons’ grips, hovering, fingers dancing.

  Jack backed against Barry and looked over his shoulder.

  Laurent’s was gone, replaced by mossy brick wall. Only the trestle tables remained, though they now seemed made of glass, half there and half somewhere else. The man with the newspaper, still sat at the diaphanous seat under him, rifled the pages and gave a small old-man laugh. “Looks like they mean business, boys.”

  “Don’t run,” Barry muttered beside him.

  Jack had no plans to do anything of the sort. He was pretty sure the guns wouldn’t do squat to Barry except tear up his jacket some more, but what about Jack?

  I’d still bleed like a stuck pig, and die squealing like one, too.

  The closest of the riders dismounted with liquid grace, leather glinting in the afternoon light, and stepped onto the sidewalk.

  A long moment stretched out in which everybody remained motionless, just staring, and the bustling city itself seemed to grow still and watch, holding its breath.

  It’d be a real shame to die now, after all that mumbo jumbo—now that I might have a clue of what I have to do.

  He flinched when the lead rider lifted their bulbous helmet. Dirty blonde locks of hair tumbled free, showering down around an angular face, revealing a thin-lipped mouth, and green eyes that seemed to scintillate with intensity.

  The woman eyed Jack, then Barry, then Jack again. Her eyes narrowed a tad, as if she might jar them into fight or flight. When they didn’t move, she nodded to the other riders, and they relaxed back upon their cycles, dropping their hands to their sides. She cocked her head and took a breath, holding it, assessing them with an air of a parent deciding the fate of errant children caught out after dark. “Idiots,” she said at last.

  A beat passed. Barry clicked his tongue. “You know us! Good, that’s lovely. But we don’t know you. A bit unfair, don’t you think?” His tone was even, if a little sour.

  The woman cocked her head further to the side and squinted until her eyes were mere slits. “Did you really think you could save the day with an afternoon brawl in the street?”

  “Wasn’t part of the plan.” Barry pulled Jack’s hand from his shoulder and stepped forward. “Funny, I don’t usually have people pick me out of a crowd. I usually fade into the background, if you get my drift.”

  “Don’t play games, Kaard. Mr Purple warned me about you. We don’t have time for any shit,” the woman snapped, cutting across him.

  Barry’s face slackened.

  Despite it all, Jack bit down on a laugh.

  The other riders removed their helmets and looped them under their arms, eyeing Jack and Barry with the same measured expressions. One or two gave loose salutes, diluting their hostility a shade.

  Barry cleared his throat. Coming from him, it was the most uncomfortable sound in the world. “Fine, you’re in the loop. Let’s skip the song and dance. What do you want?”

  The woman took another step towards him, such that the two of them stared into one another’s eyes. Barry was a head taller and had at least a hundred pounds on her—not to mention him being an inter-dimensional quasi-immortal demigod. Yet in that moment, with her defiant chin angled skyward and her eyes glinting with a fire that crackled to the tune of Go fuck yourself, Jack would have put his money on the mystery woman.

  “The question is, what do you want?” she said. “You’re the ones who are new to the party. We’ve been following Harper for years.” She rounded on Jack. “I hope you know what you’re in for, kid. If you’re any kind of smart, you’ll take the chance and get out of here.”

  “I’m fine right here,” Jack said.

  “Take it from me, you’re better off getting as far away from here as you can.” She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, “For all the good it’ll do you, if we fail.”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  Her brows furrowed, and she looked from him to Barry. “What do you need the kid for?”

  Barry laid a hand on her shoulder. “Like I said, we don’t know you. There ain’t going to be any more questions from you until you answer a few of ours.”

  She turned that gaze on him again. “We don’t have time for a pissing contest.” She gripped his hand and pulled it from her shoulder, as though flicking away something slimy. Jack knew Barry let her move his paw, that if he had resisted then it would have been tantamount to her lifting Thor’s Hammer. “Touch me again, and I’ll scoop your eyes out of your head and shove them up your—”

  “Are we done?” Jack yelled.

  Scot-but-not and mystery woman glared at each other a moment longer, then she took a small step back. “He’s on the move. We haven’t much time. Come with us, or it’s game over.”

  “We’ll be fine without you,” Barry snapped.

  “You don’t get it. He set us on this path as much as he did you.” She pointed to the brick wall behind Jack, where Laurent’s had stood not a minute before. “He knew you’d need our help.”

  “That slippery son of a bitch,” Barry hissed over his shoulder. He met Jack’s eye. “Neut
rality, my shitty arse.”

  Jack shrugged. “I’m not complaining.”

  Barry scowled.

  The woman seemed nervous now, looking up and down the street. “We’re not alone in this. Harper has people too. His fingers are in everything. We’ve held them off until now, but this is the last play. You have to come with us.” She searched them both, her stance softening a touch. “Please, come with us, now.”

  Jack licked his lips. “You got a name?”

  Another measured pause. Jack felt himself being scanned down to the last hair by that cold, calculating gaze. “Kat.”

  He tried to say, “Nice to see a friendly face.” In the wake of her dragon-like stare, all that emerged from his mouth was a flaccid, “Goo… uh.”

  A glint of something that might have been tempered contempt lanced in Jack’s direction, and Kat grunted. “We better get off the street. You freaks might be invisible to most people, but we sure aren’t. People tend to notice a bunch of people screaming around New York, armed to the teeth.” She headed back to her cycle. “Climb on. We’re set up nearby.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Barry said

  “Not until we get our answers,” Jack said.

  She gave them both a withering stare. “You’ll get your answers. Now come on. We’re on the clock.” She nodded to the other riders, and they gunned their engines.

  “Tell me about it,” Jack muttered. He exchanged an uncertain glance with Barry, then they were heading for the motorcycle.

  Barry was so heavy he needed a cycle to himself, displacing its rider onto the back of one of his companion’s. Ungainly and disgruntled, Barry fingered the controls gingerly, but within the minute he was ready. “It’s just been a few millennia, that’s all,” he roared.

  Jack climbed on behind Kat. He half expected something stupid and cliché, like catching a whiff of rosy perfume from her hair, maybe a quiver in his chest. Instead, all he caught was a sharp, blue pain in his groin as he sat on himself.