Cold Spell

by Jackson Pearce

  “You alone out here, miss?” the man says, his voice a hiss that somehow pours in through the closed window. I swallow. Go, go, go—I slam my foot down on the accelerator.

  The tires spin uselessly, kicking up snow. I hear laughter from the men behind me, my lungs are shrinking, too small for my body. Every story Grandma Dalia ever told me about beasts is rushing through me, along with a feeling of certainty that this, this is how I’ll die. I swallow.

  The man at the window chuckles under his breath, a dark and raspy sound.

  And then I can’t stop screaming.

  His eyes yellow, becoming smaller. His shoulders hunch over, and I hear a sound like celery stalks snapping—his bones are shifting, lengthening. With a resounding crack, his face juts out and becomes a muzzle. The noise is happening all around me—they’re all changing. Sticky and wet-looking fur bursts through their skin; their fingers bleed as nails thicken into claws. They breathe out long clouds in the cold, and they’re smiling—smiling—wickedly through mouths that are human, human lips, human skin breaking, tearing apart and bleeding.

  My foot is pounding on the gas, the brake, anything, please, please, please, please. One of the beasts with a still-human arm reaches forward, punches at the back window of the car. It shatters, and the others howl hungrily.

  Lights. Something moves; something flashes. I hear tires squealing on gravel, and then, before I can figure out what direction the noise is coming from, I’m jolted forward as the back of the car gets clipped. I bounce, hit the steering wheel. I recover, turn around, and see a sleek red car sliding on the ice just behind me. The beasts are huddled a few dozen yards ahead of it—it’s hit one of them.

  I press my foot down on the accelerator again, and now that the car has been knocked around a little, it finds traction. I zip backward, unprepared for the speed; the rear of the station wagon crashes into the front end of the sports car. I cringe, throw it into drive, look in the rearview mirror.

  Eyes meet mine—gray eyes, eyes that aren’t a costume. Eyes on a real man. He looks out the window, toward the beasts. Something is happening—the monster lying on the ground, the one he hit, twists to one side. Darkness starts to rush across its body, as if it’s being tied down by black ropes. More and more and more of them, and then suddenly the ropes are skittering away, shadows on the ground, and the monster is gone.

  The others turn toward our cars.

  The man in the sports car jumps out. I lunge over the passenger side, unlock the door as he jumps over his own hood, slides across mine, and grabs for the door handle. He yanks the door open, leaps inside, and slams it behind him.

  The beasts run at us, grabbing for my car with claws and hands and something in between, broken nails and bloody fingertips. They slam against the already broken back window, clearing it of glass, hands are on my hair, my coat sleeve, pulling at me—

  “Floor it!” the other driver roars. I bring my foot down, throw the car into drive, and skid around in a circle. They’re chasing us; one monster is still holding on to the back window, bracing himself as we fly away from the rest area toward the interstate. I slap the wheel to the right; it shakes the monster off and he falls away, his yellow eyes raging at me as we break out of the trees and onto the main road.

  The other driver is panting, looking over his shoulder, shaken and sick-looking, though he doesn’t seem as close to screaming as I am. My knuckles are white on the wheel, my eyes wide. I’m going to throw up, but I’m afraid to stop—I grab the window knob, roll it down, and lean my head out to empty the contents of my stomach onto the moving road.

  “Better?” the man asks.

  “Not really,” I gasp, cringing at the taste in my mouth.

  “You’ll be fine. We got away. What’s your name?” He extends a hand and, when I’m too flustered to take it, rests it on my shoulder for a moment in an exceedingly awkward way.

  “Ginny,” I say. “Ginny Andersen.”

  He nods, closes his eyes, and rests his head on the back of the seat. “Werewolf attacks aside, good to meet you. I’m Lucas Reynolds.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We creep along the interstate, our eyes mostly glued to the car’s mirrors, certain one of the beasts is running up behind us. Lucas turns on the radio, spinning the dial back and forth until the little orange line finds a station not entirely obscured by static.

  “… an additional six to eight inches are expected overnight. Temperatures are expected to drop below zero tonight, meaning roads will likely be impassable tomorrow. Be careful, Nashville, and stay home if at all possible. Stay tuned for more on the storm; we’ll be bringing you updates on school and business closings every hour, or you can check our website for the most up-to-date information.”

  I inhale, looking at Lucas. “I have a question.”

  “Go for it,” he says. Without his coat on, he’s much less imposing—he’s rail thin, and I’m pretty sure I could take him in a fight.

  “The things in the woods—”

  “Werewolves,” he says. “Just call them what they are. You’ll feel less crazy if you say the word aloud.”

  “Werewolves,” I say, and he’s wrong—I just feel crazier, talking about werewolves in a stolen car, in a blizzard, with a stranger. “You know about them?”

  “More than I care to. Though I can’t figure out why they’re here right now. They’re not usually around in the winter. Strange that there were so many…”

  “Do you know about the Snow Queen, too, then?”

  Lucas frowns, shakes his head. “Never heard of a Snow Queen. What’s that?”

  I lunge into the backseat, pull the cookbook out, and drop it in Lucas’s lap. He opens it tentatively. “Flip… keep flipping… that page. There.” I’ve stopped him on the pages about the beasts. Lucas looks at them, mouth parting a little as he flips the pages, past spells, warnings, and descriptions of monsters.

  “Whoa,” he says when he gets to the map. “Is this all of the Fenris packs?”

  “The what?”

  “The werewolves,” he says absently. “That’s what this is! I wonder if it’s accurate. I know the Arrow pack is out of Atlanta now, and I think Sparrow is gone altogether. Is this yours?” he asks, motioning to the cookbook.

  “No. It’s my friend’s grandmother’s. And there was this girl, who is actually the Snow Queen, and she ran off with my friend—well, I guess… my boyfriend, sort of….”

  “A girl ran off with your boyfriend and you think she’s a magical creature?” Lucas asks warily.

  “Not like that,” I say. “There’s more to it. She changed him, out of nowhere. Overnight, even. And right before his grandmother—the lady who made this book—right before she died, she warned him about a girl. And her picture is in that book.”

  Lucas looks entirely unconvinced, but he sighs. “And she’s the Snow Queen. Huh. I don’t know. Maybe I could call my brothers and ask. Silas hunts the Fenris—the werewolves—with his fiancée; maybe they’ve heard of her….” He drums his fingers on the seat for a moment, then points to an exit for someplace called Belle Meade. “Go ahead and get off here.” I obey, turning the car and inching up the exit ramp, following the tire marks of the cars that went before me.

  “Is that what you were doing out there? Hunting them?” I ask.

  “Ha,” Lucas answers. “Do I look like a hunter?” He motions to his slight frame, chuckling. “I was out getting microwave popcorn when I saw one, so I started tracking them. Making sure they weren’t headed toward town, or to my house. And… turn again here,” he says, motioning to a drive ahead.

  “Wait… here?”

  “Yep.”

  My hesitation is due to the neighborhood’s entrance: a brick drive, framed by huge gates and a white guardhouse. It’s the sort of place my mother would have sighed at wistfully, perhaps making a comment about how the residents probably don’t appreciate their good fortune. Lucas chuckles as a guard rushes out when he sees the station wagon coming—I can’t
exactly blame him. The car doesn’t fit into a neighborhood like this any better than I do. Lucas waves from the passenger seat; the guard looks perplexed but opens the giant metal gates to let us pass.

  Houses sit perched on hills, so big they could swallow my entire apartment building. The snow makes them look like they belong on holiday cards; they glow from the inside out in a way the places on Andern Street never could. Lucas guides me along, telling me when to turn. The houses change again—they grow larger, until the lots they’re set on are so vast the houses loom like castles in the distance. Finally—

  “Here,” Lucas says. “This is ours.”

  It looks like something that belongs in the European countryside, cream-colored and sitting high on a hill. The magnolias that drip with snow along the drive make it hard to see for a moment, but I keep my eyes trained on the spot where it was; when we clear the trees, I can see the balconies on the second story with elaborate iron railings, and arched windows with snow piled along the sills like icing.

  “What do you do?” I ask, amazed. We cross over a stone bridge; the road turns from brick to smooth cobblestone.

  “It’s not me,” Lucas says. “It’s my wife.”

  I immediately think of those men I’ve seen on TV, the ones who date older, richer women. I wouldn’t have pegged Lucas for one, but I suspect he is when we pull up to the house and it has a half dozen garages.

  “Come on,” he says as he opens his door. “Speaking of my wife, she’ll definitely want to meet you.”

  I park, grab my things, and climb out of the car. I gaze up at the mansion in wonder before tromping through the snow after Lucas, feeling dwarfed next to it, as if I’m a doll beside a human-sized building. Lucas leads me through the front doors, into a foyer with an enormously high ceiling. Mirrors on either side reflect my soggy complexion a million times back at one another, and everything is gold. Not actually gold, but the gold highlights and cream-colored travertine make the entire room look bathed in warmth, the exact opposite of the world outside.

  “This way,” Lucas says, looking a little bemused at my expression. He leads me through a formal dining room that must have twenty chairs at the table, sitting on top of a rug that looks old, but I suspect cost more than the station wagon when it was new.

  We finally stop in a kitchen full of stainless steel appliances and sleek, shiny countertops. Lucas rustles under the counter before emerging with a first-aid kit.

  It’s warm in here; I take my coat off, becoming increasingly aware of how shabby I look next to all the glossiness. I lean over the kitchen counter while Lucas dabs at the dried blood under his nose with a wet paper towel, then lifts the edge of his shirt to wipe off another cut.

  “So, what does your wife do?” I ask when the silence becomes too powerful.

  “She inherits money, mostly,” he says. “She’s excellent at it. You should consider it as a career option.”

  “Seriously?” I ask. “That’s it?”

  “She was also Miss Tennessee,” he says. I raise my eyebrows without meaning to. “I get that a lot,” he says, waving at my expression. “I don’t look like the guy who ends up with the beauty queen. Believe me, I know.”

  “Then how did you?” I ask.

  Lucas smiles. “I just ended up with her, and she happens to be a beauty queen.”

  I nod, the answer’s sweet simplicity making my heart spark a little.

  “So, look—I need to soften her to the idea that I attacked a Fenris and wrecked her car doing it. So—”

  “Which car?” a female voice says. Lucas wilts in front of me; I whip my head around to the speaker.

  Lucas’s wife doesn’t look like a beauty queen, mainly because she’s pretty. Really, genuinely pretty—I’m certain of it, because she’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt and, as best I can tell, doesn’t have any makeup on. Yet she still glows, not in the disconcerting way that Mora did, but in a way that makes me simultaneously judge and adore her. She pads across the kitchen, socks on her feet, and tugs the corner of Lucas’s shirt up, revealing the cut he’d just finished tending to.

  “The Audi,” he says, trying to hide the wound.

  “And you hit a Fenris with it? In this weather? I thought they were only in this area in the summer.”

  “So did I,” he says as she frowns and wraps her arm around him. She looks ridiculously curvy next to him, like she’s drawn in circles and he’s drawn in sticks.

  “But you’re okay,” she says, and he nods against her, his face ruffling her hair. The way they talk to each other softens the glossiness of the room—makes the space feel less like a castle and more like a home.

  “This is Ginny Andersen,” he says, motioning to me when she pulls away. “Ginny, this is my wife, Ella.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Ginny,” Ella says in a practiced but kind way. There’s something a little guarded about Ella—something that makes her look as if she’s giving an interview, the former Miss Tennessee shining through.

  “Come on,” Lucas says, walking over to the kitchen table. He and Ella drop into chairs; I stay at the counter, watching. “Have a seat,” he says, motioning to the one beside him. “Tell her what you told me. About the book and… I don’t know. Just tell us what you know.”

  I move to take the chair, trying not to think about Grandma Dalia and how she never offered me one, how she tried so hard to keep me locked out, a stranger. And yet here are actual strangers, inviting me in… it makes me blush.

  I take a deep breath and start talking. I avoid their eyes, thinking instead about Kai, trying to let words fall from my mouth the way they do when I talk to him—after all, half-truths and nerves won’t help me now. So I tell them everything. About Grandma Dalia, about her warnings, about her fear of the snow. I tell them about Mora and look down when I tell them about Kai, how he changed overnight into a cruel stranger, how he vanished. Then I open the book, skip to the pages about the beasts and show them the sketches of fangs and eyes and claws. Then I reassemble the magazine clippings to form Mora’s face.

  When I’m finished, Lucas and Ella are staring—but not with the same guarded disbelief the cop and my mother had. Lucas and Ella simply look scared—which, I realize, is what I wanted all along. If they’re scared, it means I’m right to be. The wind and snow howl at the glass doors leading from the kitchen to the snow-covered deck, threatening us. Ella stares at the clippings, reaches forward, and pushes some of them closer together.

  “I’ve never heard of a Snow Queen,” Lucas tells her. “I don’t even understand how she’s the queen of the Fenris if she’s some sort of winter… entity? I never see them even in late September, much less on the rare occasion there’s snow on the ground. And if she’s their queen, is she a Fenris herself?”

  “Grandma Dalia always said she was queen, but I don’t know if she is one. She didn’t look like the ones we just saw,” I say. “They look like they’re wearing a human costume, sort of. But she looked… she looked normal.”

  “And, just to make sure I’m clear—you think this girl might be the queen of hungry, soulless werewolves, so you decided to chase her down. Do you have a death wish?” Lucas asks, then shakes his head. “Do your parents know you’re doing this?”

  “Wow, Lucas,” Ella says, looking up, eyes widening. “High school me would have punched you for saying that. What are you, ninety?”

  “Well…” Lucas says, looking down. “I’ve seen what they can do. You’ve seen what they can do.”

  “True,” Ella admits, voice wavering, and a new concern grips me—what if they call the police on me? I can’t go home, not now. “But,” Ella continues, “can you imagine someone trying to convince me to stop looking for them?” I’m about to ask why Ella was looking for Fenris when Lucas answers.

  “I did try to convince you to stop. In fact, I think we got in a yelling match at the opera hall.”

  “Then you know how the conversation with Ginny will go—wait. The opera hall?” She looks down at t
he collage of Mora’s face, and her jaw drops. “I know her.”

  “What?” Lucas asks, like he doesn’t believe it. He leans in and stares at the clippings.

  “I know her,” Ella says again, then turns and bolts from the room. It’s only a few moments before she returns, moving so fast she slides into the kitchen. She slams a framed photo down on top of the cookbook.

  It’s a magazine page. Ella and Lucas standing side by side—her a few inches taller than him. Then a boy I don’t recognize, wearing eyeliner and theater makeup, with hair so blond it’s nearly white. Beside him—

  “That’s her,” Ella says. “Right?”

  “Mora,” I say, nodding. “Yes. That’s her.”

  Ella taps the face of the theater boy. “And that’s Larson Davies. He was an opera singer we were supporting.”

  “Supporting?” I asked.

  “I like to take care of people,” Ella said, shrugging. “He was great, going to be huge. And then he disappeared a few winters ago, during an ice storm—with her. I didn’t know her all that well. He ditched the apartment we were paying for, and we never heard from him again. Kind of figured he was a run-of-the-mill asshole, and we just missed it somehow.”

  “She took him,” I say, my heart speeding up. “Just like Kai. Kai is a violinist.”

  “What is she doing, starting a boy band?” Lucas says.

  “I don’t know,” I answer, voice a little shrill. “I just tried to follow the snowstorm, and it led me here. So I think they’re somewhere in Nashville, or close to it, or maybe they’ve just left. I have to find them. I have to find him.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lucas says, and he sounds larger than his body. “I can track her. With a face like that, it’ll be easy.”

  Ella puts a hand on my shoulder, gentle but strong. “How long has he been gone?”