“Are we sure they can be killed?” the preacher breathed out from the opposite side, his face filled with sweat, his goatee crooked and hanging to his chin by just a thread. His frosted aggressor gave him no respite. He cartwheeled and tackled the golem with his shoulder, sending him rolling over the side of the hills.
Diamond scoffed. “That’s a damned good question, Turner. Wish you would’ve asked it before we agreed to join the party.”
The trapper took off the beard covering the lower half of his face, revealing the Chief’s square jaw. “Everything dies. One way or another.” He used it to tangle the frigid palm darting toward his neck. The Chief threw his golem off balance then countered with a series of forceful bashes of his tomahawk. The creature’s chest cracked enough for its edge to dig into its fleshy heart. The golem stirred and backed away with no control over any of its limbs, as someone who’s caught on fire. The Chief swept his sweaty brow and pointed to Turner Spade. “Look out!”
Turner’s golem climbed back up. Turner leaped away, but the creature snatched his ankle in the middle of his hop. It pulled him onto the ground with one harsh jerk down and kept him there, pressing his neck against the ground with his foot.
Diamond whistled to catch Will’s attention. “That moron’s in trouble.” She patted her empty belt. She looked around the snowy ground for her fallen dagger. When she couldn’t find it, she uprooted the blade inside the ice fiend in front of her and ran to her friend’s aid, ignoring the golem’s fast reinvigoration. Wild Card Will dismissed his own fight with a quick taunt and joined her on her race toward the hill’s edge.
“No! Stay focused, goddammit.” Tiberius tried to stop them, but Diamond and Will ran past him like a pair of greyhounds. The golems they left behind diverted their attention to the person closest to their reach: him. They approached from his left and right, forcing him to retreat toward the immobile golem that still carried his knife inside his chest like the stick of a banner without a flag.
From the corner of his eye, Tiberius saw Tuner Spade squirming on the ground, his face more ashen as the golem crushed it with the sole of its frosted foot. Diamond leaped toward the creature. It opened its hand and caught her by the throat. The golem kept her up in the air, pressing its icy fingers against her skin. She gasped and kicked the emptiness below. Will gripped his knife in both hands and pounced. The golem jerked its torso to the side without loosening its clutch on its victims. With a precisely timed headbutt, it sent him astray and rolling downhill.
The shadows of the two gleaming creatures crisscrossed over Tiberius as they closed in on him. He watched the sunlight bouncing off their frozen bodies. Diamantine sparkles dotted their faces, bringing an intermittent glint of life to their lifeless corneas. He saw beauty in Miss Gray’s creations. He felt awed as a witness to creation itself. For the first time, he understood why Iris called alchemy not magic, nor science, but art.
When the golems widened their arms, like a pair of old friends going for a hug, only one sudden and liberating thought crystalized in Tiberius’ mind: “There could be worse ways to go.”
26
Tiberius backtracked. He bumped into the immobile golem that still wore his knife in its chest. The creature cocked its head. It opened and closed its fist around his wrist. He winced at its burning touch, shaking his whole arm until it let go. The golem returned to its previous stillness. Its two glacial twins observed them at an arm’s length, spellbinding, sinister, and always hauntingly mute. Tiberius caught a whiff of their scent. It was faint but unmistakable: fresh blood.
The golem to his right sharpened its claws and swung his arm. A metal maw opened and closed over its head. The creature jerked his head left and right, wearing a bear trap on its crown like a pointy hat. The rusty teeth dug deeper into its dripping forehead with every shuddering motion. The Chief tied the trap’s chain around its neck. He circled the monsters while avoiding their attacks, crouched, and tangled their ankles with the remainder of the chain. Then he pulled, just once. The ice soldiers bounced on each other and fell.
The Chief handed Tiberius a hunting knife. “Now’s your chance. She’s unprotected. I won’t be able to hold them much longer. Go!”
Tiberius nodded. He darted across the hilltop, leaping over buried tombstones and mounds of snow. Miss Gray watched his race with wide, glimmering eyes. Without her soldiers around, she looked as defenseless as a little bird that has fallen from its nest.
“My children!” she screamed. “To me! To me!”
The golems turned to their mistress’ voice all at once. They ignored the ongoing fight and its fighters, as if everyone else but Miss Gray had dematerialized and flown away in the wind.
“To me!” she insisted.
The ice soldiers chased Tiberius across the frosted ground, but he sprinted the few feet between him and the old alchemist. He captured her before she could shout another command, her creatures still out of reach. Tiberius placed his knife under her wrinkled chin. A single droplet of blood flowered below its sharp blade. “Tell them to stand down.”
She scoffed. “You wouldn’t slice the throat of an unarmed woman.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” He jerked his head to Diamond, who watched them with fiery eyes while rubbing the purple fingermarks around her throat. “But I bet she would. Should we ask her?”
Diamond Graves winked at them with a devilish smile. Miss Gray raised both palms to the golems. They froze in place. Thin water rivulets poured from the cuts and stabs in their frigid flesh.
She sniffed the sheriff’s knife then tasted the blade with one slow, serpentine lick. “Beet juice and salt. Clever.”
“Is everybody all right?” Tiberius asked. “Spade?”
Turner dusted the snow off his clothes. He cracked his neck left and right. “All good, Sheriff.”
“Chief?”
“Good,” the Chief replied. A long gash had appeared along his bicep, but he didn’t seem to mind it much.
Diamond looked around. “Where’s Will?”
“Here,” a feeble voice responded. Wild Card Will limped uphill and joined his friends. “I’ve not been so bruised since I fell off that bronco back in ’78.”
Turner clapped his back. “And once again, he lives to tell the tale.”
Miss Gray chuckled. “Bravo, gentlemen. That was quite the performance. Costumes, make-up, and all.”
Diamond broke Turner’s actorly bow with a hard elbow to the ribs.
“I assume that potion you so brazenly flaunted isn’t Alma Mater after all,” the alchemist added.
Tiberius shrugged. “It sure is if by that you mean a mix of water, quicksilver, and metal scraps. Courtesy of Doc Tucker.”
She sighed. “Disappointing.”
He bobbed his head to the golems. White light stroked the motionless creatures as the sun ascended in the winter sky. They glittered like cut aquamarines, just as dazzling, mesmerizing, and lifeless. “How do you undo them?”
“You don’t,” she replied.
“You mean you won’t.”
“What’s the difference?”
Diamond groaned in exasperation. “This is goin’ nowhere, Tib. Kill her already.”
Miss Gray grinned and pushed her neck against the knife. “Do it, Sheriff. I wonder what would happen to my children without a mother to control them.”
Tiberius frowned. “Threats will do you no good, Miss. Undo them. Now.”
“No.” There was no anger in her voice, nor she felt the need to elevate it, yet her refusal seeped so much stoutness it seemed to stop time itself, rooting them all to the cemetery’s hill while she held the reins of the standoff.
Diamond threw her arms into the air, the blades of her twin knives catching the morning light. “For Pete’s sake… One has to do everything ’round here.”
She reached for the golem closest to her and stabbed it repeatedly on its chest, chipping layer after layer of ice, digging and cracking until the sharp tip of her dagger pierced it
s bleeding heart. The golem did not move but trembled in place, as if it stood on top of a running cart on a rocky path.
Miss Gray stirred in Tiberius’ grasp. “Stop! You’re hurting him!” She turned her face to the sheriff. Tears hung from the corner of her wrinkly eyes. “Please, Sheriff, tell her to stop. Please. I’ll do what you say.”
Tiberius could feel her muscles tensing and the primal rage building within her plea. “That’s enough, Diamond. It won’t help. Let him be.”
“Him?” Diamond Graves spat. “She’s getting to you, Tibbetts. I’ll be damned if I feel sorry for a statue, no matter how dollish.”
She kept stabbing the creature, swinging between the knife in her right hand and the one in her left with furious speed. Ice crystals rained on her clothes, her cheeks, her black hair. “This is for the Reverend.”
Turner Spade came behind her and held her wrist. “Give it a rest, D.”
She shook him off with a sour glower but relented. “You’re all mad.”
Tiberius took his knife away from Miss Gray’s neck but held both her thin wrists tightly behind her back. “Time to put your children to rest. I know you can.”
“Can’t we just leave town? They’re all I’ve got,” she answered. “Please.”
“No. Get it done.” He let her go. His allies rushed forward, apprehensively gripping their knives. Tiberius quieted them and made them keep some distance, all of it with just one of his solemn and silent, hickory gazes.
Miss Gray took short, slow steps toward the still golems. She stared at her creations. She hugged herself. “What will happen to me?”
“I’ll make sure you receive a fair judgment for your crimes. I can put together a popular jury, or we can call for a judge in the spring. Your call.”
She scoffed. “Anyone here would send me straight to the gallows. And I’d die in that damp cell before the snow melts. Either way, it’s a death sentence.”
“I’m giving you the chance to tell your story, and for people to hear it. That’s all I can do.”
She nodded. “Tell my story…” She veiled her face under the hood of her cape. “That’s all we amount to in the end, isn’t it? Stories.”
Miss Gray kneeled. She retreated inside her cape, transformed into a shapeless bulk of thick dark cloth. Only her hands showed under the hem of her cloak, so fragile and white they seemed to be part of the snow when she buried them into the frozen ground. She hummed.
“I think the lady has finally lost it. Completely, I mean,” Will shared with his companions, half-covering his mouth with the side of his hand to act a loud, theatrical whisper.
“Quiet,” Tiberius ordered. His ears focused on a distant sound that seemed to grow with the breathy hums of the old alchemist as she rocked herself on the snow. He felt the ground tremble. Everyone did.
“You folks have earthquakes around here too? Just when I thought this place couldn’t get any worse,” Turner stated, not without humor.
Tiberius gazed at the distant mountains, his gut tightening to the possibility of another avalanche. The high peaks seemed peaceful, unbothered. But the earth shook once again under his boots. He turned to the graveyard. He saw the glittering shape darting toward them, trampling the old crosses and tombstones as if they were standing dominos.
He uprooted Miss Gray from the cold soil and threw her over his shoulder. She didn’t resist, just quivered to her own arid and maddening cackle.
Tiberius exchanged a quick glance with the fearful eyes of his companions. “Time to go.”
Diamond pointed to the golems with her dagger. “What about the monsters?”
The speeding shape grew in size as it came closer to the hill.
“Free my children or die,” Miss Gray answered, then went back to her maniacal, screeching laughter.
Tiberius didn’t disagree. Or muster another word.
He was already running downhill and hoping the rest would follow.
27
Tiberius raced across the graveyard with his arm tight around Miss Gray’s waist. Her bony body kept on slipping over his shoulder as if her cloak were coated in oil. Her shrill laughter made his teeth grind like the screeching of a rusty nail on glass.
“Be quiet,” he commanded to deaf ears.
Diamond, Will, Turner, and the Chief scampered to his left and right, leaping over half-buried tombstones, dodging crosses and the claw-like branches of the barren trees. They all kept their eyes forward. He made the mistake of looking back. The giant beast stampeded behind them, so close now he could see its horrid head swaying from side to side: the unblinking, glassy eyes, the ferocious snout, and wide-open maw filled with sharp teeth, frozen in the midst of a booming growl. The skin of the ice bear twinkled like a crystal chandelier as it stood on its gargantuan rear legs and stomped the ground, sending a quake that rippled all the way to Tiberius’ boots. Tiberius almost bowed to the godliness of the frosted animal, overpowered by such wondrous embodiment of wild beauty and death.
“In there!” he shouted as he pointed to the stone church in the distance. “Move it!”
He sprinted to the tall door of the church just as Diamond and Turner pushed it open, followed by the Chief. Turner looked around. “Where’s Will?”
Their eyes moved to an open grave a few feet away. The ice bear circled the hole, pounding the edges and slashing the air with its paws. Diamond readied her twin knives. “Be right back.”
Tiberius blocked her way. “No. I’ll go.” He placed Miss Gray on the floor and beckoned the Chief. “Keep an eye on her.” Miss Gray walked into the church meekly. She wasn’t laughing any longer. He turned to Diamond and Turner Spade. “As soon as Will comes through, close the door and barricade yourselves inside.”
“What about you, Sheriff?”
“Just do as I say.”
He marched toward the bear. The icy beast ignored him. It kept its muzzle and fearsome maw pointed to the trapped man below its feet. Tiberius heard the horrified screams of Wild Card Will coming from the open grave like the cries of a mourning ghost. He felt the weight of the hunting knife in his hand. He threw it with less skill than Diamond—the blade altogether missed the target, but the handle scraped the top of the animal’s right ear, chipping its top. The silent animalistic golem turned its vitreous face to him.
“That’s right,” Tiberius whispered. “Here I am.” He pounded his chest. “Come get me.”
The beast cocked its head, as if shocked by the sheriff’s death wish. It abandoned its current hunt and barged in his direction. He guided it away from the door and around the churchyard. From the corner of his eye, he saw Will jumping out of the grave. Minutes later, the heavy doors of the church slammed shut.
Tiberius ran to the small garden between the church and Father Darley’s humble cottage. The priest’s flowerbeds, fragrant and vibrant with color in the spring, were desolate patches of white, the weathered bench under the cottonwood tree a shapeless mass of frost. None of the slate walkways that promenaded around the garden showed under the snow. Only two juniper shrubs hinted any sign of life in a place that otherwise looked like an extension of the graveyard.
He climbed the gnarly cottonwood in the center of the garden without even thinking. Its leafless branches extended left and right like the skeleton of a fan. They were treacherous and slippery. Their tips bounced and scratched the wall of the church as he made his way to the top, listening to the jingling of the icicles hanging from their bottom. The bear circled the tree trunk. It pawed it like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. The cottonwood shook with such force Tiberius hugged the bark as one would a long-lost lover. The beast ran up and headbutted the tree, pushing the trunk with his massive brow until the roots poked through the ground like the tentacles of a giant squid in the open sea. It would not relent until the cottonwood fell, and its prey with it.
“Hey Tib! Over here!” Tiberius glanced up to the only hollow on that side of the church. Diamond waved her arms. “Hope your balance is all right, caus
e you’ll have to follow that branch and jump the rest of the way.”
He shook his head. “Window’s too high. I’d never make it.”
Turner and Will peeked over her shoulder. “We’ll catch you.”
“How do I know you won’t let me fall so you and your friends can flee?”
She curved her lips. “Whom do you take us for? Just take the damned leap.” She signaled the men. “Ready, boys? We’ve done this before. Once. Remember Chattanooga?”
Wild Card Will sighed. “Chattanooga was a disaster. We almost broke our necks.”
“So let’s redeem ourselves. Showtime.”
Will jumped over the windowsill while Turner held on to his legs and lowered him down the stone wall. Diamond crawled over Will’s body. He grabbed her ankles and extended both arms, forming a hanging human chain. She turned her feline face to Tiberius and winked. “Now or never, chum.”
Tiberius glimpsed down. The ice beast had changed its tactic. It threw wild gashes to the base of the barren cottonwood, its claws the axe of a frenzied woodsman. The tree quivered. It creaked as loud as the spinning blades of an ancient windmill. He held his breath. He followed the branch to the edge of the wall as fast as his tentative steps would take him. And jumped.
As he free fell, eyes shut, he listened to Diamond’s brazen voice. “Go down, Spade. Down, dammit!”
“There’s no more down unless you want me to slip through the goddamned window!”
Tiberius felt the air blowing past his cheeks. He raised his arms, eyes still closed, and reached for the black unknown. He imagined he wasn’t falling but floating. Not down, but up. Up into the sky. Up where a body has no meaning. Where a mind’s only worry is to maintain its freedom to drift away. Up, always up…
A tight grip closed around his wrists. He squinted and saw a beaming, upside-down smile and two sparkling eyes.
“Got you.”
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Ice and Blood Page 14