Ice and Blood

by Oliver Altair

“My town is dying,” he said.

  “Everything is. Let it die. Let it change. It’s the only way.”

  The blizzard raged around him, covering his skin in ice crystals.

  “Let it die. Let it change,” the snowflakes chorused.

  He couldn’t move, or didn’t want to. The snow stuck to his knees, his groin, the brittle hairs on his chest. It fell on his tired shoulders, on his face. It wetted his black hair.

  Soon he’d be forever buried. Like the miners. Like the carpenter and the trapper. And the baker. And his son.

  Buried and forgotten, maybe he’d find his peace.

  Let it die.

  Let it change.

  It’s the only way.

  An acrid scent tore Tiberius from the dream and brought him back to the reality of the gloomy bedroom, now dim with the golden light of an oil lamp. Doc Tucker swayed a small vial of smelling salts under his nose. “Welcome back. Jesse found you, out cold on the floor.”

  Tiberius sat up, shivering so hard the floorboards rattled under his legs. He patted the swollen back of his neck. His throat was parched, his lips cracked. His breath short and urgent. “Where’s Bennett Rowland?”

  “Hiding in my cellar. Ray Wilson is keeping watch.” Doc Tucker helped him stand up. He had cleaned and bandaged his injured ankle.

  “What about the father?”

  “Silas? I don’t know.”

  “That damned fool. I told him to go to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran to the woods and left his chap behind, the goddamned coward.”

  “What happened?”

  Outside, the street flickered with the gleam of the handful of torches that survived the fury of the blizzard. The endless, falling snow drowned the buildings and roads, turning the town into Miss Gray’s hunting grounds. She owned the winter. She would own them all.

  Tiberius massaged his sore neck. “Make sure no one is following you, then go back to your practice. Barricade your door and keep the Rowlands out of sight. I have to go.”

  He reached for the door. Doc Tucker blocked his path. “Not so fast. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “There’s no time.”

  The doctor steadied his position, a grave frown wrinkling his brow.

  “She killed them all, Doc. Albers, O’Leary, Reverend Conn. The Rowlands are next. And I’m afraid she’s so far gone she won’t stop there.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Gray.”

  “The old lady that came in Wilson’s stage?”

  “Yes. Can I go now?”

  Doc Tucker kept both his frown and his ground, blocking Tiberius. “No.”

  Tiberius closed his fists. He’d hate to punch his friend again. “I’ve no time for this.”

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  “That is the truth.”

  “All of it?”

  Tiberius quieted. Doc Tucker shook his head, marking his motion with a disappointed scoff. “It’s always the same with you, isn’t it, Tiberius? Secrets and half-truths. No matter the consequences or the pain they might cause.”

  He moved away from the doorframe and leaned on the wall, looking away. Tiberius put his hand on the doorknob and kept it there. He could just leave. But he stayed.

  The doctor broke a silence as thick as the one before a judge passes sentence. “You think by carrying secrets you protect us all. But the truth is you trust no one but yourself. You never have. Probably never will.”

  Tiberius wished to complain, but excuses clumped at the bottom of his throat, unable to break free.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened to my son,” Doc Tucker continued. “What angers me is that you kept everything from me. Everything. Still today, I don’t know what happened at the silver mine. Not entirely. I can only guess.”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.”

  Tiberius turned to the doctor, but gazed down. “I wish last fall never happened. Everything I thought I knew went straight to hell. Every morning, I wake up unsure if I lost my mind. I can’t drag anyone else into this madness.”

  “The world is dark and frightening and weird. You don’t protect people by blinding them from horror. You leave them defenseless when it knocks on their door.”

  Words clumped at the bottom of Tiberius’ throat, clawing their way out even if he pushed them back down. “Miss Gray is an alchemist, Doc.”

  Doc Tucker reacted to his revelation with a straight face, but his lips quivered. “I see.”

  “She’s as powerful as Maxwell and Iris, or more. And riddled with pain. Worse, she’s willing to sacrifice pretty much everything around her.”

  “But why?”

  Tiberius looked him in the eye. “Her only son got killed.”

  Doc Tucker flinched. He asked nothing else.

  “She offered me a deal, Doc. Bennett Rowland for the safety of our town. Do you remember that creature that attacked the kid in the tunnel? She calls it a golem. She has at least three more and can build a whole army without breaking a sweat. If she sets them loose, the snow in the streets will soon turn from white to red.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “We?”

  Doc Tucker shook his head, slowly, tiredly. He hinted a smile. “When will you learn? You cannot do everything alone, my friend.”

  Friend. How alien the word sounded. Not a word but the distant memory of a word. One that lacked its meaning until that moment, when the doctor reclaimed it for them both.

  Tiberius looked him in the eye for the first time in months. “Please. I need you to go back to the Rowlands now. You’re the only person I can trust to keep them safe.”

  “I will. But what about you?”

  “I need to give Miss Gray what she wants.”

  Doc Tucker stiffened. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Trust me.”

  Tiberius left the last word hanging and dashed out of the room. He dove headfirst into the whirling blizzard outside. His strides cut through mound after mound of snow. Every snowflake that landed on his neck made his skin sizzle, reminding him of the smooth and deadly touch of the golem. When he reached his porch, he took a moment to scout the street. He’d seen winter strike Souls Well before. He had watched the buildings joining into one shapeless white mass, and the sharp icicles growing down the edges of the roofs, and the frost blinding every window. Yet for the first time, he recognized nothing. Never had he ever felt such rampant desolation taking over his town. But he suspected it had always been there, winter, spring, summer, or fall, as much a part of Souls Well as the color of its buildings or the character of its people.

  Will, Turner, and Diamond sprang to their feet as soon as they saw him cross the threshold.

  “Well, look who’s back!” Diamond sneered. “You’ve no right to treat us like—”

  “Shut it.” Tiberius approached the cell. He took the key off his belt and swung it in front of the prisoner’s longing eyes. “I have an offer.”

  25

  Tiberius waited on top of the cemetery’s hill. The tails of his duster flapped in the wind like the wings of a bat. He kept his left hand in the pocket of his duster, his right, on the shoulder of his somber companion. The fiery light of sunrise spilled through the eastern mountains, bathing the crooked wooden crosses and tombstones in a coppery halo. The blizzard weakened as the sun ascended. The morning breeze stirred the snow dust on the ground. Silence reigned over the alabaster sea cloaking the old soil of the graveyard and the moldering corpses below.

  The sound of crunching snow reached his ears, faint as raindrops on a window at first, crisp as hooves on gravel as the creeping steps came closer. The motionless faces of the ice golems soon jutted from the opposite end of the hilltop, followed by their necks and shoulders, their gleaming torsos and legs. The golems marched in a tight military formation. Three of them advanced in sharp synchronicity, leaving one of their brothers slightly behind. The fourth wore a crack over his chest: a battl
e scar. Threads of solidified blood webbed around his heart. Tiberius expected a hint of vengeful recognition in those opaque eyes but found none. Their eternal lack of emotion made the golems all the more terrifying, as they embodied the fear of becoming numb to humanity itself.

  The golems halted, keeping a standoff distance like in a street gunfight. They moved close together, laced their arms, and formed an ice wall with their bodies. The wind whistled between the narrow, almost nonexistent, spaces between their interlocked limbs. The cold crawled over every inch of Tiberius’ skin, no matter if covered or exposed to the biting air.

  A hooded woman climbed the cemetery’s hill after them, her cane tapping the frozen ground like a metronome. Miss Gray stood behind the gelid shield of her soldiers, her shape blurred by their glassy, naked bodies.

  “Good morning, Sheriff,” she greeted.

  Tiberius cocked his chin. “Mornin’.”

  He kept quiet, letting the tension thrive in the dead-like stillness of the wintry sunrise. Miss Gray pulled back her hood. Her long braid coiled down her shoulder, shining like a silver snake. “I’m glad you came, Bennett.”

  Tiberius pressed the shoulder of his companion, who stood still and gazed down, face shadowed by the wide brim of the hat. “Afraid the kid’s not in a chatty mood.”

  She nodded. “Don’t be afraid, boy. Soon you’ll have new brothers. A mother. A whole family who will never turn its back on you. You’ll never feel pain again.” Miss Gray’s voice was equal parts honey and rattlesnake venom. “Would you walk him to me, Sheriff Tibbetts?”

  Tiberius shook his head. “Yeah, no thanks. I’m not going anywhere close to those things.”

  “Should my children…” She pronounced children with the same emphasis a scholar would use to correct the misuse of a term. “…come to you, then?”

  “How about the kid meets them midway? I stay here, you stay there. Everybody’s happy.”

  She laughed. The golems seemed to tremble to the sound of her laughter. “What ever made you so suspicious?”

  “I was born and raised in the West. My cards are on the table, Miss. I trust you’ll keep your word and let my town be.”

  “I give you my word. I hold no grudge against Souls Well, even if it’s become a haven for murderers.”

  More silence—thick, pasty. It made air itself harder to breathe.

  “So you know,” Tiberius said. “Bennett came here on his own accord. He’s willing to sacrifice himself for the wellbeing of his neighbors. That’s the kind of man you’re taking away from this world.”

  Miss Gray nodded gravely. “I respect his devotion to his town. I don’t doubt he’s better than his father ever was. Now, hand him over, Sheriff. It’s time he joined his new family.”

  Tiberius tapped the kid’s back. “Are you sure about this? If you want to turn back, there’s still time. I got you.” The boy shook his head. “All right. Go ahead, then.”

  Bennett started a languid march toward the center of the hilltop. The golems did the same, without diverting from a path that kept their mistress behind their protective blockade.

  Miss Gray beamed with power as he moved closer. “No one has ever appreciated you, isn’t that right, my dear? No one saw you for what you truly are. That’s no more, I give you my word.”

  The kid stopped, his gaze down, always down, like a monk in deep reflection. She raised her hand. The golems halted. “You have nothing to fear. Look at them: these are your brothers. Just a couple more steps. Hold their hand and everything will be all right. Forever.”

  Miss Gray indulged in the seduction as part of her vengeance. She savored corrupting an innocent, leading him willingly to his doom. Yet, Tiberius found himself unable to despise her, because her pain, the pain that had rotted and oozed inside her for years, made her no less human, if a twisted mirror of what family meant, of what love meant or had ceased to mean.

  “Come to us, my boy. Come to us,” she repeated in a singsong hiss. The kid took two short steps back-and-forth, staying within the shade of three tall mounds of snow.

  Tiberius spun his palms to the sky. He elevated his arms over his head, pushing the air as if it’d thickened. “Rise!”

  His shout boomed across the graveyard like a foghorn. He followed its echo with a deep, feral howl.

  Miss Gray frowned. “Whatever you’re doing, Sheriff, please stop.”

  He howled again, louder, more harrowingly.

  “Enough.” She waved her wrist. The golems turned their heads, awaiting her command. “Get the boy, my sons. And silence that madman.”

  The snow hillocks around the kid trembled. They disintegrated in white chunks and ice dust as three growling men emerged from their interior, stumbling forward. The first held a hammer in his right hand, a rusty saw in his left. Sawdust trailed behind his bloodied apron as he advanced.

  Tiberius smirked. “Calvary has arrived.”

  The second man wore a tattered black suit. His collar hung loose around his neck like a limp, white worm. A big bloodstain soaked the center of his shirt. He carried a bible under his armpit. Blood dripped between his grinding teeth, wetting his lips and his gray goatee.

  The third shed red tears that dripped into his bushy beard. His body was wrapped in muddy pelts. He swung a bear trap by its chain and squeezed the round blood mark across his chest. Tiberius howled one last time. The undead joined in a chorus of painful shrieks, roars, plaintive screeches—a hellish battalion of mournful beasts. They flanked the boy like a group of fearless corporals would their beloved general.

  The muscles on Miss Gray’s face tightened in a mask of confusion and fear. “What is this?”

  “I brought some friends back. And boy do they miss their hearts.” Tiberius grinned. “I’m mighty open to the occult, remember? You said it yourself.”

  Her dismissive chortle stuck to her throat. It came out like a gurgled croak. “Nonsense. You don’t have that kind of power.”

  “Damn right, I don’t.” He spun the vial in his hand. “But I have this.”

  She gasped, following the gray potion with her muddy green eyes. “Alma Mater. Impossible. Only a select few received a bottle.”

  “I know people in high places.”

  Miss Gray deepened his frown. “It makes no difference. You’ll all be just as dead soon enough.” She pointed in his direction with her cane, her arm shaking. “Kill them. And bring me the boy. Now.”

  The golems jittered in place.

  “Kill them,” she repeated.

  They took two erratic steps forward then stopped, their bodies quivering as if fighting a fever.

  “Your children seem awfully distracted, ma’am,” Tiberius snickered.

  The old lady grabbed her cane in both hands. She rooted it into the snow, using it to strengthen her pose, and closed her eyes. Her cloak swirled around her like a growing tornado.

  “What the hell’s she up to?” the kid whispered.

  “Get ready. You know what to do,” Tiberius replied.

  When Miss Gray blinked, the green in her irises seemed greener, more alive, like fresh moss covered in morning dew. Her face relaxed. Her sly smile returned. It radiated ten times as much danger as her previous glower. “Obey.”

  The ice golems reacted with a short delay. They charged toward their mistress’ enemies, their movements still unsure, clumsy even, but sharper, faster, and deadlier as they closed in. Tiberius’ party split. The sheriff remained at the center of the hilltop, while the rest spread out to the sides, keeping a distance from each other. They all readied the blades hidden in their sleeves. Their metal surfaces gleamed with a patina of slithering liquid and tiny, sparkling crystals.

  The golems broke their tight formation to reach them all at once. The dead preacher taunted a creature with a quick blow of his bible straight to its expressionless face. He guided it to the leftmost edge of the hill, avoiding the monster’s retaliation with a chain of flips and cartwheels. His wild capers infuriated the golem but always kept h
im one step too far from its icy grip. His dagger zipped through the air like an angry wasp. Two frozen fingers landed by the preacher’s old shoes, but the golem showed no reaction, nor did it relent its attacks.

  “Aim for the chest!” Tiberius shouted while dodging the claws of his own assailant. He stabbed the creature over and over, aiming for the same spot above the golem’s heart—an organ that floated within the ice, connected to nothing but pumping all the same. His knife left a dripping gash that widened and deepened with every successful strike and left a trail of a bittersweet scent.

  Tiberius leaped back, pointed his blade forward, and pounced upon the monster. He tackled the golem to the ground, using the weight of his own body to bury the steel into its frigid flesh. He rolled to the side. The creature shivered. It leaned on its elbows and pushed itself back upright, then waddled in small circles as if it’d become blind. It moved so slowly every twist of its body seemed part of a ceremonial dance, then it stopped altogether. The knife protruded from its chest like the sword in the stone.

  A few paces away from Tiberius, the kid shifted his weight from one leg to the other, paying no attention to the twinkling golem looming but a step away. The golem leaned in. It closed both arms in a lethal embrace. The kid ducked and somersaulted between its legs.

  “Didn’t your mama teach you to keep your hands to yourself?” Diamond Graves sneered. She’d lost the wide hat shadowing her face by the creature’s feet. Her black hair, now loose over her shoulders, waved in the wind like a cloud of deep smoke. Diamond threw a dagger. It cut the air like a gray comet and stuck into the golem’s back. Before it could turn, another knife flew from her hand. It hit the grip of the first, pushing it deeper. Its tip pierced the heart below. The golem jerked backward. Its motions became aimless, choppy.

  Miss Gray bellowed in anger. “Trickery! Kill them all!”

  The carpenter crouched. The claws of the golem grazed his scalp. “Good shot, D!” He stuck two long bodkins into the creature’s knees and rolled away.

  “Not good enough, Willy Boy. It ain’t dead yet,” she replied, circling her opponent. She kept her distance, even if the ice soldier seemed to weaken with every dragging step.