Dead of Winter

by Kresley Cole

  Really getting sick of hearing that.

  "They'll make over the world in their image, populating it with carnates. Eventually my children will control everyone on the face of the earth. They'll win game after game, never dying!"

  "No. They won't," Aric said. "Because we're on our way to introduce them to death. But I'll be sure to update your chronicles for you."

  Face twisted, Milo sneered, "You've seen how my children love their innocent victims. Imagine what they have planned for the treacherous Empress, who tortured them."

  My last nerve said, "He's on me!" I glanced around for a gag.

  Milo turned to Jack. "They'll love her far worse than they did your pretty sister, Clotile. The little French beggar."

  Jack lunged for Milo; before he could reach the man, Death had used his speed to yank the fiend up, shoving him toward the door.

  "You'll pay, Empress!" Milo screamed over his shoulder. "The creature loses its tail but retains its life. You'll see! We are retribution!"

  Jack stared after the man, his jaw clenched, his chest heaving.

  "You okay?" I asked quietly.

  He dragged his gaze from the doorway to me. "I will be." He inhaled deeply. "Tomorrow, I will be."

  I parted my lips to ask him if he'd ever tell me what happened to Clotile--and to him--but he turned from me, heading to his bag, to that bottle.

  He cracked it open and took a long slug, the wrath in his eyes easing a bit.

  When Aric returned alone moments later, I said, "What'd you do with Milo?"

  "Tied him beside Thanatos. In proximity to sharpened hooves." He shook out his dampened hair. "I guarantee nothing."

  "We could've gagged him."

  "This is Milo's first night out in the cold since the Flash. I'd like him to experience it." In a wry tone, Aric added, "Plus, he was setting off your rose scent, which makes it impossible for me to relax."

  So now we were going to joke about our clashes in the past? Too soon?

  When he headed for the chronicles, I asked him, "How long will it take to translate them?"

  "I've read some already." Book in hand, he crossed to sit beside me. "They know that your powers are collaborative, that a world without green or sun weakens you."

  I gazed out at the night. Endless night. Maybe I couldn't fully invoke the red witch, even if I wanted to.

  With that bottle in hand, Jack sat on my other side, offering a drink.

  To hell with it. Down she goes. Burn. Gasp. I handed Death the bottle.

  Jack grimaced. "Am I goan to die drinking after the Reaper?"

  "Sadly"--Aric took a deep pull--"no." With a gauntleted hand, he passed the whiskey back to Jack.

  In some small way, it was a measure of trust that Jack drank after Death. And of course, the competitive Cajun had to tip the bottle up longer than Aric had.

  "Milo's right, though." Jack handed me the whiskey. "It'll be damn hard to open that bunker. I've got munitions, but a blast door is designed to withstand them. Unless we can wedge the explosive into the metal, it woan work."

  "Why not?" I asked over the rim of the bottle.

  "It's like throwing a stick of dynamite at a bowling ball. It'll just bounce off. But if you jam the stick into the ball? Boom."

  "Maybe the twins will answer tomorrow." All day we'd hailed them by radio and through Aric. Not a blip in response. "They might face us." Though I hoped they actually gave a damn about their father, I doubted it all the same. We'd even dangled the bait of their chronicles. Still, nothing.

  "Ouais, peut-etre." Yeah, could be. Jack's expression told me he didn't have high hopes either.

  I asked both of them, "If we've overridden all the rules to the twins' 'game,' why don't we call up the rest of the Arcana to help us?"

  Aric surprised me by setting the chronicles away. He was choosing whiskey around a camp fire over study and contemplation? "Because the Fool's rules still apply, Empress. He said the three of us must ride to save Selena."

  Strange, I'd forgotten I'd been in fate's crosshairs.

  Jack turned to Death. "I like that Spartan story, me. Is it true?"

  "That's how I heard it back then."

  Back then. Back in the day. He'd been alive.

  Jack's sense of curiosity was still vibrant in him, forcing him to ask, "What's it like to live for thousands of years?"

  Staring straight into the flames, Aric said, "Immortality is the utterest hell."

  His words hurt me like a blow to the body. To the heart.

  "Are there any others out there?" Jack asked.

  "Not that I've ever met."

  The bottle made another round. I couldn't believe the two had been talking this long--without fighting. I was hesitant to say anything, didn't want to spook them.

  Aric asked him, "How did you come by your talent for reading people?" Though Aric possessed so many gifts, did he wish for that ability? For all these years, he'd been an observer of mortals, but rarely a participant in their interactions.

  Jack's gaze clouded. "Necessite." Deep draw. Pass bottle. "That story true about your armor?"

  Under my lashes, I gazed from one to the other. They were lowering their guards a bit.

  "Very true. I thought I'd been maddened, suffering from hallucinations, until I found the crypt."

  "So . . . gods are real?"

  Aric nodded. "That's how the game came about. They grew bored."

  When he didn't elaborate, I had to speak up. "And? What happened after boredom set in?"

  "You wish to hear the origin story?"

  "Uh, yes." I passed him the bottle.

  "Very well." He drank, handing it to Jack, starting another round. "A goddess of magic devised a contest to the death for select mortals. She invited deities of other realms to send a representative from their most prestigious house, all youths. Each one bore their god's emblem upon his or her right hand."

  My heart raced . . . I had been one of those youths.

  "These players would fight inside Tar Ro, a sacred realm as large as a thousand kingdoms, harvesting their victims' emblems; only the player who'd collected them all would leave Tar Ro alive. Naturally, the gods cheated, gifting their own representative with superhuman abilities, making them more than mortal. Secret abilities. That's why we're called Arcana."

  "Hail Tar Ro," I murmured. "The High Priestess told me that."

  "An old-fashioned greeting. She's quite knowledgeable about the games. Very respectful of the old ways."

  Probably not who I should be talking to about ending the game. "Why did the gods give us a call?"

  "Shortage of heralds?" Arcana humor.

  "Saw your hand earlier," Jack said. "You've taken out four cards in this game?"

  Death had, but he'd hated doing it. I cast about for a change of subject.

  "Four," Aric said, that single word imbued with weariness.

  Keen Jack observed, "A Grim Reaper who's sick of reaping?"

  Aric schooled his features. "Ending cannibals and slavers is sport. But they're different from most Arcana. All things being equal, I'd rather not."

  Jack seemed to be mulling this over as he passed the bottle to me. "You believe this game can be ended?"

  "I've failed in the past to do so. But that doesn't mean it's not possible." Then Aric told me alone, --I'm particularly invested in believing that.--

  Because he wanted to take me back to his isolated castle of lost time. Have kids with me. Live a long life, but not a never-ending one. In answer, I handed Aric the bottle.

  After seeing the misery out in the world--the spreading plague, the cannibals, the hobbled women and shackled girls--could I abandon everything?

  Our situation was becoming larger than the game. We hunted the Lovers, not only because they'd taken Selena, but also because they'd rained down so much terror on innocent people.

  After all my evil in past lives, shouldn't I atone in this one?

  "Some cards will have to be destroyed regardless of the game." Aric
's free hand clenched. Was he thinking about the Emperor? "They will never come to heel. Just as the Lovers refuse to."

  "We woan have to worry about those two much longer." Jack absently rubbed his bandage.

  "You shouldn't wear their mark, mortal."

  Jack scowled. "Ain't like I got a choice, me."

  "Burn it with something else. Another shape."

  After a moment's hesitation--as Jack clearly weighed and approved of this suggestion--he said, "Why you care, anyway?"

  Aric drank deep. "If you knew what the Lovers truly want to do to the Empress, you'd ache to annihilate every last vestige of them."

  35

  I stood on a rise, overlooking the plague valley. Matthew was beside me.

  The last thing I remembered was crawling into my sleeping bag after the whiskey had hit me like a two-by-four to the face. Now my friend was here with me. "I've missed you. Are you feeling better?" How much was this vision taking out of him?

  "Better." He didn't appear as pale. He wore a heavy coat, open over a space camp T-shirt.

  "I'm so relieved to hear that, sweetheart. Why would you bring us here?"

  "Power is your burden."

  I surveyed all the bodies. "I felt the weight of it when I killed these people."

  "Obstacles multiply."

  "Which ones?" A breeze soughed over the valley. "Bagmen, slavers, militia, or cannibals?"

  He held up the fingers of one hand. "There are now five. The miners watch us. Plotting."

  "But miners are the same as cannibals, right?"

  He shuffled his boots with irritation. "Miners, Empress."

  "Okay, okay." I rubbed his arm. "Are you and Finn being safe?"

  His brows drew together as he gazed out. "Smite and fall, mad and struck."

  I looked with him, like we were viewing a sunset, a beautiful vista. Not plague and death. "You've told me those words before."

  "So much for you to learn, Empress. Beware the inactivated card."

  One Arcana's powers lay dormant--until he or she killed another player. "Who is it?"

  "Don't ask, if you ever want to know."

  Naturally, I started to ask, but he cut me off. "Do you believe I see far?" He peered down at me. "Do you believe I see an unbroken line that stretches on through eternity? Centuries ago, I told an Empress that a future incarnation of hers would live in a world of ash where nothing grew. She never believed me."

  I could imagine Phyta or the May Queen surveying verdant fields and crops, doubting the Fool.

  "Now I tell you that dark days are ahead. Will you believe me?"

  "I will. I do. Please tell me what will happen. How dark?"

  "Darkest. Power is your burden; knowing is mine." His expression turned pleading, his soft brown eyes imploring. "Never hate me."

  I raised my hands, cradling his face. "Even when I was so mad at you, I never hated you."

  "Remember. Matthew knows best." He sounded like his mom--when she'd tried to drown him: Mother knows best, son.

  I dropped my hands. "It scares me when you say that."

  "Do you know what you really want? I see it. I feel it. Think, Empress. See far."

  I was trying! "Help me, then. I'm ready. Help me see far!"

  "All is not as it seems. What would you sacrifice? What would you endure?"

  "To end the game?"

  His voice grew thick as he said, "Things will happen beyond your wildest imaginings."

  "Good things?"

  His eyes watered. "Good, bad, good, bad, good, good, bad, bad, good-bye. You are my friend."

  "Wait!"

  But he was gone, leaving me there, in the company of corpses.

  I exhaled, gazing out--

  My heart lurched; a girl lay among them. She was on her front, swords jutting up from her savaged back. Ten of them.

  She turned her head, and it was me, crying blood. . . .

  I woke from that disturbing vision--to find just as disturbing a sight.

  Jack was shirtless, kneeling before the fire, about to press his red-hot bowie knife over the wound on his chest.

  Sitting nearby, Aric looked on, as if this was cool or something.

  I shot upright. "What are you doing??"

  "Prend-le aise, bebe." Take it easy? Was Jack buzzed? That bottle lay empty beside him. "I'd rather a knife mark than the twins' brand. Can't stand to see it, me. To feel it."

  I turned to Aric. "And you think this is a good idea?"

  "Your squire entertains." His accent was thick, his words slurred.

  Jack flipped him off with his free hand. "Reap. This."

  I gaped. They'd gotten drunk together.

  Aric shrugged, telling me, "I'd do the same at the earliest opportunity."

  I would never, never understand males. These two despised each other. They sniped at each other. Yet they'd worked together.

  Then I thought of Selena. Maybe I didn't understand females either.

  Because she and I had done the same.

  Jack inhaled, holding his breath. His bravery burned as bright as the metal inching closer.

  Closer. The fiery red reflected off his sweat-dampened skin, off the beads of his rosary. Closer.

  When Aric jerked his chin, Jack pressed the blade down.

  Contact. The knife seared his chest. His flesh sizzled, his breath leaving him in a rush.

  Jack's head fell back, muscles straining as he silently took the pain.

  Years seemed to pass before the blade cooled. He lowered his head, and his glinting eyes met mine. "They got no hold on me."

  36

  DAY 378 A.F.

  "That is a serious goddamned door," Jack said at the entrance to the bunker.

  Aric pounded an armored fist against the damp metal. "Must be three or four feet thick."

  Across sheer mountain passes and through winding canyons, Aric had tracked Selena's call, leading us directly here. A couple of hours ago, I'd begun hearing her as well: Behold the Bringer of Doubt. The Lovers' call had sounded too. Their real one.

  I regarded the mountain enveloping the Shrine. The peak was wreathed in fog, the rock scorched. "Will the explosives work?"

  Jack cast a glance at Milo, gagged and tied some distance away. "Non. Door's even thicker than I expected. We need some way to worm our way into the metal."

  "So what do we do now?" I scouted, searching for an opening, a weakness of some kind--as climbing ivy would. "We can't get in, and we can't get them to answer us." They'd ignored today's attempts.

  Suddenly Aric went motionless.

  "What's wrong?"

  He put his forefinger over his lips and cocked his helmeted head. "The Archer's call just went silent."

  My stomach dropped. I couldn't hear her either! "Is she . . . ?"

  "I sense she lives still."

  "You told me a call could go silent short of death--how?" My glyphs began to glow. "Why?"

  Aric's expression was grave. "When an Arcana enters a catatonic state."

  Jack swore under his breath.

  "I don't understand." My gaze darted from one to the other. "She's been with the twins for days. What would bring this about now?"

  "She must have reached the tipping point," Aric said.

  "Or faced a new horror." Jack stabbed his fingers through his hair. "My mind nearly flipped when I saw that crank."

  "So basically her brain is breaking? Oh, screw this! We have to get inside now."

  "I'll try the explosives." Jack marched to his horse, retrieving those munitions: a detonation kit and several blocks of plastic explosives.

  While he rigged the door, I paced. Aric looked lost in thought.

  Minutes later, Jack held up his detonator. "Doan get your hopes up. These explosives couldn't bust open even a foot-thick door."

  "Then I'll seed vines." I'd wanted to use my powers to help anyone in need. This was Selena. "They'll burrow. Or I'll sand this mountain down with thorns. Somehow we will get in!" I raised my hands to puncture my pal
ms.

  "Wait, Empress," Aric said quietly. "I can get us past the door."

  Jack looked like he was about to roll his eyes. But then he said, "For true?"

  Aric nodded. "I can blow it with something very old. And very strong."

  "Then do it!" I clasped his gauntleted hand. "As Selena would say, smash and grab! Let's bring her home."

  "Let's? As in let us?" Death peeled his hand away "You don't understand. You were never to be risked in this endeavor. Never. We wouldn't be facing mere Bagmen or mortals, and you still haven't learned to invoke the red witch fully."

  Jack scowled at me. "You told him about the red witch?"

  I breezed past that, facing both of them. "There could be more danger out here. An army of carnates could be lying in wait around the mountain. Besides, the twins don't want to kill me right away. So as long as I'm near, you'll be safer. Not to mention that we have their father. Maybe they'll be protective of him."

  "Oh, ouais, we'll just use you as a human shield." Jack raised his brows. "Not having it."

  "We've come this far, and we will save her. Aric, you're going to blow the door, and Jack, I'm coming with. If you two try to leave me behind, then you better shackle me."

  "We would be walking eight icons into their lair," Aric grated. "They will be ruthless."

  I pleaded with my eyes, telling him, Selena's being punished for things I did. You know better than anyone what I was like back then. If we don't save her, I won't be able to live with myself.

  When he still wouldn't relent, I raised my hands again, claws extended. "How much blood do you think it'll take to bore a hole through a mountain?"

  He muttered something in Latvian.

  "I know that look." Jack shook his head ruefully. "Doan worry; she'll give you your balls back as soon as she's done getting her way."

  I lowered my hands and squared my shoulders. "Getting my way--or leading the way?"

  Jack raised his own hands in surrender. "Lead on, peekon."

  To Aric, I said, "What are you packing?"

  "It seems I can deny you nothing." With another foreign phrase, he crossed to Thanatos, took a small cloth bundle out of his saddlebag, then returned.

  Jack's curiosity was blazing. My own as well.

  Aric gingerly unfolded the edges of the black material (because of course it was black). His eyes sparked as he revealed . . . a shimmering silver baton.

  I gasped. "That's one of Joules's!" Engraved metal gleamed. "How did you get it?"

  "I caught it from the Tower, long before he was Joules." In a dry tone, Aric said, "He shouldn't have minded, since he threw it away."

  I found my lips curling. "Why didn't it explode in your hand? You could have lost your entire arm!"