Winter Rising: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Coldharbour Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Amos

  Needalineneedaline!

  I threw myself on the bed. Shit. My heart was pounding in my ears, my breathing erratic. I needed to calm down.

  “Why did you have to go and die?” I said aloud. “Why? You bastard. You fucked me over and left me alone with all this shit.” The tears came hot and fast. “I need you. I need you here. Just come back now. I’m clean, I’m better …” The sobs took over the words.

  I cried for an hour.

  Chapter 13

  When my tears had all dried up, there was a knock on the door. I was too used up to answer.

  “Jake?”

  It was Greg.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Can I come in, mate?”

  A wall of silence from me.

  He knocked again. “Are you actually in there? Am I standing here like a prat talking to no one?”

  That made me laugh, just a little. “Come in, Greg.”

  The door opened slowly, and he popped his head through the gap. “Hi.”

  I nodded at him.

  He stepped into the room, gently closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry we upset you.”

  “No, I’m sorry I lost it.” Tears were a good way of letting the pain out. I was an expert in it. I must have looked nice and puffy faced and red-eyed.

  “I don’t know how you’re still standing, mate. I really don’t. To lose your husband … how did you go on?”

  I sat up. “Vengeance. But sometimes I just wanted to die, throw revenge out the window and take the chance of following Michael to the other side.”

  He came over and sat on the bed next to me.

  “We had a complicated life. Who doesn’t, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we were working through stuff, all the drama and betrayal. I had a drug problem, and he cheated on me. We broke each other’s hearts when we should’ve filled them up. We made such a mess of everything. I made a mess of everything. Drugs … they take over and they rot, and that rot spreads. But I was gonna make it better. I wanted to move forward, to forget all of it, even the cheating. I could have, I really could have. But it’s never that easy.” I let out a sigh. “The last thing I said to him was that I hated him. We were arguing, I brought up the other guy again because I was in a state and needed a line of coke. It was killing me trying to be clean. I said some more awful things to him I won’t repeat, and then the white eye guy came up to him and stabbed him straight in the heart before I could say sorry, before anything could be rectified.”

  He cheated …

  “He would’ve known you didn’t mean it,” Greg said.

  He cheated and he was going to lea—

  “A part of me does,” I said. “A part of me doesn’t want to let any of it go. I’d married him, I’d chosen him, and I thought he’d done the same. I know I pushed him away with all my shit, but still, I … I feel so betrayed. Even now. And I hate myself for that. He died.”

  “I’m so sorry, mate.”

  “And I need him. God, I need him so much.”

  “That’s a really nice ring, Jake.”

  I looked down at it. “Yeah. It was our second wedding anniversary yesterday.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. So this whole situation with the white eye guy has messed me up. I don’t understand what Michael had to do with any of it.”

  “We’ll find out. I swear.”

  “You don’t need to swear anything. You don’t even know me. I could be a right prick. I have been.”

  “I have what you could call Prickdar.”

  “Prickdar?”

  “Yep. And you’re not setting it off.”

  Most people would sneer at me being a drug addict. Like my dad. “I’m clean.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Six months.”

  “Excellent. You keep at it.”

  “Thanks. I will.” I stretched my arms up. “Sorry, I’ve offloaded on you.”

  “You got to vent. All part of the bonding with your guardians.”

  “Is that what it is?”

  “That’s exactly what it is.”

  Greg had a comforting warmth about him. “So, you’ve gotta look after me, eh?”

  “I do, mate.”

  “So bloody weird.”

  “Thanks!”

  “Not you, this whole thing.”

  He snorted. “Never really stops being weird.” He lifted his vest. “See this?” He pointed at a scar on his six-pack. “Some clawed fucker nearly took my guts out. Ugly, black thing that looks like a cross between a slug and a crab. Nay’ll remember the name of it. Maybe we can go down there one day just so I can watch you kill it.”

  “That looks like it hurt,” I said.

  “It did. Thirty stitches and so many antibiotics to clear the infection. I was on my back for eight weeks.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Still, here I am, buffer than ever.” He chuckled. “Not gonna let that keep me down.”

  “I like your attitude.”

  “Not always an easy one to have, but I try.” He patted me on the back.

  “I don’t always lose my head like that,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Actually, I’m lying.”

  “You’ve survived some dark times, and now you’re taking all this like a pro. Who else would?”

  I rubbed my sore eyes. “I can’t deny what I’ve seen or shy away from it. Yeah, I’m processing it, but those beasts were real. They hurt and have hurt and will continue to do so. But now there’s a new card in the deck, and it’s just been well and truly drawn. I’m ready for this, but also scared as hell.”

  “Natural.”

  Kill … Feed …

  They came from deep inside me, whispers in the dark—feminine and creepy. It was the same voice I’d heard in the hospital say ‘active.’

  What was that?

  Kill … Feed …

  Yes. I wanted to kill. Take that golden jewel in my hands again and let it—

  “Jake?”

  I jerked up as if I’d been asleep.

  “You okay, mate? You spaced out a bit then.”

  “Yeah, fine. Sorry.”

  “Look, when you’re allowed out into the city, why don’t we make a point of doing a lad’s lunch? We can do Ruby’s. My treat.”

  His treat. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that this city was still a city, where you could do lunch, but it was being tricked in to thinking that the norm was still operating.

  “Who’s Ruby?”

  “Oh, mate, you just wait.”

  Chapter 14

  “Miss Jones wishes to know what your pleasure is regarding rooms,” Mr. Douglas said.

  I was sitting by the fire in the library, reading a huge tome about folklore, with another sitting beside me about Greek mythology—open at the section about Hecate. It was the fae stuff I’d been engrossed in.

  “Oh, um, I don’t know.” He’d made me jump.

  “Apologies for startling you, sir.”

  “No worries.” I put the book down in my lap. “I’m happy to stay where I am. I don’t want to cause any fuss.”

  “Are you sure you do not wish for something bigger, such as on the floor above you, sir?”

  Bigger than the room I already had? “Really, I’m fine there. As long as that’s fine.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Winter.”

  “You can call me Jake.”

  Mr. Douglas was practically glowing with professionalism. “If you do not mind, sir, I would feel more comfortable addressing you formally. Old habits do not die hard, I am afraid.”

  “No probs.”

  “Thank you, sir. Is there anything I can fetch for you? Some tea perhaps?”

  “I’m fine, cheers.”

  “Then I will leave you to your reading.” He bowed and left the room.

  I’d had that level of service before in the posh hotels I’d stayed in, but there was something distinctively old world about Mr. Douglas.


  Having a sip of my water, I got back to reading.

  The fae. They come from Faerie, a land of great beauty full of magic and danger. The fae were gorgeous (like Dean), seductive (like Dean’s voice) and deadly manipulators. Hopefully that didn’t mean Dean—though his power was all about mind-manipulation. Anyway, the way this book was written was as if it was all real, a proper historical text rather than a book about fairy tales. Well, I knew for a fact that it had to be real because here I was, having seen all I’d seen. Still kind of weird reading it, though.

  “Just another bit of confirmation,” I said aloud to myself.

  “What is, babe?” Naomi asked.

  I jumped again, my head snapping round to see her.

  She chuckled. “Sorry!”

  “That’s now you and Mr. Douglas. You two running a bet on who gets to make me go through the ceiling first?”

  “I’d win that hands down.”

  She was in a silk blue dressing gown, her blue hair freshly washed, carrying a Martini glass filled with turquoise liquid.

  “What you got there?” I asked.

  “Just a little nightcap, a secret cocktail.” She took a delicate sip. “Mind if I join you?”

  The drink was iridescent in the firelight. “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” She sat down in the chair Karla had occupied on my debut visit to the library. “I like it in here at night time. Calms me down, gives me a chance to think. Don’t you find that with libraries?”

  “Been a long time since I’ve been in one.”

  “When the kids are off school things can get loud, but generally they’re places of solitude. Can’t beat this one though, eh?” She gulped her drink. “Christ! Listen to me go on! I need to get out. Seriously, Jake, it’s been so long since I had a proper dance-fest. My moves are being wasted.” She threw back her cocktail.

  “Do you do nights out in Coldharbour?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Don’t get pissed, and be alert. One drink minimum, but dance to your heart’s content.”

  “Just one drink?”

  “It’s a killer.”

  I shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Not for a while now.”

  “Sorry.” She put the empty glass on the floor.

  “What for?”

  “Talking crap.”

  “You weren’t.”

  “Look,” she said, “whatever reasons you have for not drinking is your business. I’m just sorry I flaunted it in your face. It’s like eating a steak in front of a vegan.”

  “My, er …” Michael… “My husband … was a vegan, and I’m a carnivore. It was never a problem.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s good.” She gave it a minute. “We should go dancing one night.”

  “I’m getting so popular already. First Greg is taking me to lunch, now I have a dance partner.”

  “Oh, babe, you have no idea.”

  When was the last time I’d been in a nightclub? I wasn’t that bothered by the drinking and the posing. I loved to dance, that was my thing. Get the tunes on, and my body would do the rest.

  “You up for that?” she asked. “It will be allowed. As I said, I won’t be smashed out of my head, nor will the others. It’ll be fun up until a beast attack.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I know. That’s the world we live in.”

  “At least there’s time to party.”

  “I can see we’re gonna get on like a house on fire, babe.”

  Chapter 15

  Three days into my training, Karla came to my room just after I’d rinsed the sweat away in the shower.

  “Hello,” she said as I answered the door.

  “Hi. You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  The last time I’d seen her was at breakfast the previous day. She’d been absent this morning.

  “How was today’s training session?”

  “Not bad. They’re a sharp lot.”

  She smiled at that. “Indeed. Now, Jake, I would like to show you something if you will give me your time.”

  “’Course.”

  “Good.”

  “As you may have noticed, we seem rather thin on the ground for an operation sent here to fight.”

  “I didn’t really think about that.”

  “Well, there was once a time when there were many of us—very powerful witches and fae, even some vampires and more werewolves than what are left.”

  “Blimey.”

  “Indeed. Before we knew about you, a year and a half ago to be exact, the beasts were amassing a deadly army in their realm, ready to make an assault on us—led by Lilisian, the supreme beast I mentioned. We had spies in there, pixie scouts who are long dead.”

  “Pixies?”

  “Yes.”

  Karla cleared her throat. I let her speak.

  “The gates to their realm used to sit in at the city harbor, which is gone, completely destroyed in the incident. Anyway, the industrial quarter is best avoided. It would have undone all of our work. We fought back, building a bomb powered by magic that was carried into their realm. As the army drew near to the gates, the bomb went off, only for it to react in a way we didn’t expect.” She didn’t speak for the next minute, and I didn’t probe her. Once we were downstairs, she started talking again. “I say we, I wasn’t there. An army of supernatural creatures was there, made up of some of the best fighters and spell-casters who had kept such brilliant order in Coldharbour. The magic bomb reacted to the realm’s essence, destroying the army who would not die, of course, but find another shell. As for our side … it was a massacre by our own hand.”

  “Oh, no.”

  She sighed. “I lost dear friends, and Coldharbour lost its army. Now those that are left gather at the facility, guarding there, coming to our aid when we absolutely need them. Things haven’t been the same since with the beasts. No uprisings. They still attack and kill, but sufficient damage was done to their cause. At least we did manage to curse Lilisian. Yet it is only a matter of time, however, before an army will rise again. What then? We have you now, our last hope.”

  We cut across the main hallway to a doorway I hadn’t been through yet. It led down a corridor, walls blank and painted gray, to a gated lift. She pulled it open and stepped inside. I followed. There were three buttons in the car, one with an arrow for up and the other for down, while the other had an alarm bell on it. She pushed down.

  On the descent I asked, “I’m supposed to do the job of an army?”

  “The goddess would not send you to us for you to be wasted.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I have faith in you.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to put faith in me.” Though what choice did she have? I was the killing touch she couldn’t be, none of them could be.

  “You doubt yourself. If I didn’t have faith in you, Jake, I would not be here talking to you. My faith was destroyed when that bomb went off. Six months later, I saw you, and I saw the others, all of us a team. Even the death of Wendy, which I did not foresee, did not break my faith in you setting us free.”

  Wow, such bloody pressure. “Where are we going?”

  “I want to show you what lies behind the curtain,” she said.

  I folded my arms. The lift was slow. The deeper it went, the cooler it became.

  “I will fight,” I said. “I really will. Just that the mention of armies and me paints a picture of major hurdles, you know?”

  “As it would. I must say, I am continually impressed with how you have taken this.”

  “Taking the days as they’re thrown at me. What’s the point in being any other way when all the evidence you need is right in the palm of your hand? In my case, literally.”

  “Quite.”

  The lift came to a stop. Karla pulled the gate open once again and led the way through a tunnel of rocks and dampness, lit by real
fire torches sitting in sconces. All so medieval and creepy.

  Keeping with the theme, there was a wooden door at the end of the corridor with a metal ring as the handle.

  Karla paused before it. “This is heavily warded. I want you to be prepared for the experience. It isn’t pleasant, but it would be far worse if you were an enemy. These wards destroy any who come with threat in their heart. We are not a threat.” She waved her hand across the door.

  All around the door red and orange symbols came to life, symbols I couldn’t make head or tail of. They flared angrily, as bright as neon.

  “Come,” she said, taking a step forward.

  The symbols really went for it in the brightness stakes. I heard Karla gasp for breath right before she was sucked through.

  “Bloody hell.”

  With a deep breath, I approached the door. A force grabbed me, a crushing one—like a hug from an ogre. My skeleton was fit to crack, my eyes ready to burst in their sockets. The pressure was too much. Unpleasant weren’t the poxy word for it! Just when my body was about to be a pancake, I went straight through wood to swaying on my feet in a massive chamber.

  “Wow.” Even with a spinning head, it didn’t stop the word falling out.

  The chamber was a dome of rock, bigger than anything I’d ever seen, out of place being under the mansion. It was too bloody huge to be possible. But, as I kept seeing, there was magic afoot in this city at every turn. More torches blazed up high, the ceiling lost in shadow. Even if that kind of thing was the trick of light, it still didn’t account for the sheer football-stadium size of the place.

  In the center were eight figures, all sat cross-legged, chanting a spell—I guessed by the repeated mumbling.

  “Do not take another step,” Karla said. “You can watch from here.”

  The figures were all naked—four men and four women—and all completely bald, their heads bowed.

  “What’re they doing?” I asked.

  “Their chants keep the seal around this city up. Goblin, fae and witch, their magic constantly churning to keep anyone from coming in or out, joining with the technology.”