Blood Winter (38 page)

T
HE DAY PASSED AGONIZINGLY SLOWLY. ALEXANDER
lost track of Max inside the haze of magic surrounding the cult compound. He paced the length of the basement, the pain in his head unrelenting.

Tyler watched him, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the basement steps. He pinwheeled his knives in his hands, his eyes hooded. He paused every now and again to cut a slice across his palm and watch it heal up. Alexander should have told him not to waste his energy, but Tyler needed an outlet for his boiling emotions. It was that or go chasing after Max in the sun. Cutting was less fatal.

Thor squatted against the wall, his gaze turned inward. His hands clenched and unclenched, as if he wanted to strangle someone.

Gregory had fallen into a hard sleep, and the other Blades snatched what rest they could. Oak sat on the steps above Tyler, watching Alexander pace.

“Waiting sucks,” Nami announced in the silence of the afternoon.

“Amen,” Tyler said softly. He set his hands on his knees and looked up at the ceiling, then sighed and looked back down again. “She’s got to be okay,” he said to no on in particular. “She has to.”

No one answered. She
did not
actually have to be okay, and that was the problem.

Alexander shied from the thought. It made his head hurt. Max was resilient, smart, stubborn, and strong. She could take care of herself.

The question was, would she?

As dusk began to fall, he roused Gregory and ordered everybody to eat all they could from the pantry shelves. Finally, they opened the door and spilled out of the farmhouse. The snow had stopped falling at last. Alexander closed his eyes, pushing his senses outward.

“Holy Mother of fuck,” he said slowly, using one of Max’s favorite sayings.

“What?” Tyler said.

“Tutresiel and Xaphan are awake,” Alexander said, then broke into a run, heading for a knob of ground well above Mansion Heights. Tyler and Thor fell in beside him. Behind them, the others strung out. Steel and Flint trailed farther behind, having loaded Gregory into his kayak sled.

“Awake?” Thor echoed. He shook his head. “Awake?” he repeated again. “What the hell are they doing here? How did they know?”

“I could not say. But I am absolutely sure it is them.” He could not mistake their spirit flames—silver fire. “There is also a witch I do not recognize. Probably Sterling. Giselle, Kyle—oh, damn. They have got Tris, Geoff Brewer, Doris Lydman, Liam, and Bambi. How did they get caught?”

“Are they alive? What about Max?” Tyler said.

“They are alive. No Max.”

A crowd of people circled the area where the angels and the witches had collected. There were several thousand of them. Max was not among them.

“That means she made it into the abyss,” Tyler said, his voice denying any other possibility.

Alexander did not answer. A shaft of fire burned through his head. His left eye felt as if it was going to pop out of his skull, and his chest felt as if it was going to explode.

“You don’t see any sign of that demon she was talking about, do you?” asked Tyler.

“No.” Alexander leaped through the snow. Why was she not back yet? Depositing the demon should not take so long. Unless she had been forced to take him into the trap. He shied from the thought, the pain in his head spiking.

A gleaming building rose up on a knoll. It was still more than a mile away. The place was lit up like a gaudy Las Vegas casino.

Suddenly, an angel rose in the air. His wings glinted silver. Tutresiel. He streaked through the darkness, heading straight for the group of Shadowblades. He dropped down in front of Alexander, landing in the deep snow. He held his sword. It lit the night with a beacon of white witchlight.

“Where did she take him?” he demanded before anybody else could speak.

“Take who?” Alexander shot back. Although he had to admit to being glad the angel was alive and ready to fight, he still did not like the bastard.

Tutresiel bared his teeth. “Shoftiel. Where did Max take him?”

“Into the abyss. She thought she could dump him there,” Tyler answered.

Tutresiel tipped his head back, closing his eyes. “Fuck, no,” he murmured. He straightened. “Where are the Grims? They can follow her into the abyss, right?”

“Gone,” Alexander said tonelessly. One thing was certain, Tutresiel liked Max. He was worried for her, and that scared the shit out of Alexander.

“Gone? Where?”

“They followed a family of salamanders through a crack in the world,” Thor said. “All of them just left. So did Spike, Max’s Calopus.”

“Max had a Calopus?” Tutresiel asked, startled. “When did she find one of those?” He ran a hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic show of agitation. “Just how long were we in Ledrel?”

“If by Ledrel you mean mostly dead, four or five weeks,” Tyler answered

Tutresiel’s gaze ran across the Blades, searching for who was not there. “Niko,” he said. “And Simon. Where are they?”

That he knew who was missing startled Alexander. “Dead,” he said.

Something passed over Tutresiel’s cold face and vanished.

“What exactly is going on?” Alexander asked. “Who is Shoftiel?”

Tutresiel gave him a long stare. Alexander glared back, not backing down. He had fought the angel before, and while he knew he could not kill him, Tutresiel clearly could be brought to the edge of death. Alexander was willing to make the effort to bring him there again.

“He is one of the angels of punishment—the Malake Habbalah.”

“He’s an
angel
?” Tyler said. “How many of you are there? And why are you so fixated on Horngate?”

“There are thousands of us,” he said. “We all have varying powers and abilities, much like witches or Shadowblades. Shoftiel, however, is special.”

“Of course he is,” Thor said. “How special is he, exactly?”

“There are seven angels of punishment. Each one has dominion over a region of hell, which is not in any way hell as your religious books envision it. Each presiding angel has unusually strong powers.”

He stopped a moment, his teeth gritting together. “Shoftiel has always thought himself superior. Religious documents have named him the angel of God’s judgment, and he loves the role. He believes angels should be ruling the world, with every human and nonhuman enslaved to service. While undoubtedly many other angels agree, we don’t tend to trust one another. Nor do we take orders well. It takes a lot to get us to join together. Shoftiel hasn’t been able to gather the forces he needs. Somehow he learned that Xaphan and I were in Ledrel in Horngate.”

“Ledrel?” Alexander interrupted.

“Between life and death. He assumed that the coven was keeping us in order to harvest parts of our wings and bodies to fuel their spells. So he came to rescue us, no doubt expecting us to join his cause and serve him as payment.”

“So why all this other with Sterling? And why go after Max?”

“Sterling? What is that?”

“Not what—who. A witch. He has formed a cult called Earth’s Last Stand and has been hunting down witches and killing them. Your friend Shoftiel has been helping him. Why would he do that?”

Tutresiel shook his head. “Shoftiel is no friend of mine. He is mad and, at the same time, brilliant. He likes to spoil and ruin. It would suit him well to be worshipped and to destroy witches and corrupt humans in the bargain. As for Max—” He drew a breath and blew it out, turning away. “He said he smelled her on us. She’d touched us. That was enough to punish her.”

“That’s because she was in that stupid vault every free moment, talking to you and trying to wake you up,” Tyler said hotly.

The angel nodded, saying nothing.

“So what now? Max was going to take Shoftiel into the abyss to lose him. Are you saying he can walk the abyss like she can?” Alexander asked.

“She didn’t go to the abyss,” Xaphan said, dropping silently down beside them.

Tutresiel scowled. “Of course she did. Where else could she go?”

Xaphan gave him a long look. “Blade of blood and bone,” he said at last.

Tutresiel stared, nonplussed. “That’s—” He broke off, a smile playing around his lips. “She beat him. Max beat him at his own game.”

“What does that mean?” Tyler demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“I told Max an old story about someone getting vengeance on Shoftiel and sending him to the Mistlands. When an innocent woman was wrongly killed by Shoftiel, her son forged a sword of blood and bone and used it to banish Shoftiel to the Mistlands for five hundred years,” Xaphan explained.

“What does that have to do with Max?” Alexander asked.

“At the end, she thrust her arm through his heart. A blade of blood and bone. They vanished,” Tutresiel said. “I had forgotten the story and assumed she took him into the abyss. But that’s not where they went at all.”

“Where
did
they go?”

“The Mistlands.”

“Where’s that?” Tyler pushed. “How do we get her back?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know,” Xaphan answered.

Alexander stood apart, no longer hearing anything they said. A roaring sound filled his ears, and the pressure in his chest swelled so tightly his heart thudded unevenly.

Inside him, something gave. Armor cracked like spring ice splintering apart on a frozen river. A torrent of emotions washed through him, and he rocked back and forth as if struck.

“Alexander?”

He could barely hear Thor ask his name. He turned, eyeing his friend. “What did I do?” he whispered hoarsely. And all of the fear, loss, and pain he thought he could avoid came crashing in on him like a tsunami. It crushed him under its rushing weight. He struggled against the raging cataract, then gave in, letting himself be carried away.

His Prime rose, smothering all vestiges of his humanity. But he was not out of control. He was brutal, precise, and focused. Max would want him to see the rest of this through. She was not gone. She was not dead. He had given up on her before; he would not do it again.

He became aware of the sudden wariness of the Blades around him. They had fallen back, watching him carefully. He ignored them, turning back to Tutresiel.

“How is everyone else? Is Giselle all right?”

“They are bound in Shoftiel’s magic. Xaphan and I cannot break it without hurting them. A witch might.” He glanced at Gregory.

“Take him,” Alexander ordered. “We will follow.”

Without another word, Tutresiel launched off the ground, swooping back down to pluck Gregory out of the kayak and fly him back to where the others were imprisoned. Xaphan leaped into the air after him.

“You’re eyes have gone white,” Thor told Alexander as they ran after the angels.

“Have they?”

“But you’re okay? Not going to rip any throats out?”

“The night is young yet,” Alexander said with a toothy grin. “And we have a lot of enemies left to kill.”

The glowing yellow building reminded Alexander of a Greek temple. It had columns all around, with broad steps leading up the front. Everything was made from gold light.

Sterling and his people had retreated, harried away by Xaphan. They had not gone far, just down to Mansion Heights, and it looked as if they were forming up in a mob. They were going to be back before long.

Alexander’s stomach tightened. It would be a bloodbath, with Sterling’s followers doing most of the bleeding. They could not hope to stand against Tutresiel and Xaphan, even with a powerful witch like Sterling helping them. Stir in Giselle, Gregory, Kyle, and the Shadowblades, and those people did not have a chance. They did not deserve such a death. They were stupid and gullible but not evil. He could not allow it to happen. Max would not want him to.

Gregory was at the top of the steps. All of the Horngate prisoners were locked inside columns of power. Although their eyes were open, they seemed unconscious and unaware of their surroundings. Gregory was working on releasing Giselle.

Alexander grappled with his emotions. The pain was raw, as if every nerve he had was being scraped by rusty razors. He was suffocating. Drowning in molten lead. His head pounded, his body throbbing as his hurt grew and grew. His Prime was growing more agitated, and despite his outward demeanor, the boundary between reason and going feral was as thin as gauze. The wildness filled him and overflowed. He gripped a spur of exposed granite, trying to hold himself down to sanity.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up. Tyler’s face was carved ice. His eyes had begun to show a ring of feralness. His fingers dug into Alexander’s shoulder, pinching bone. The other hand gripped a knife, his knuckles white.

“I can’t—” He gritted through clenched teeth.

Alexander did not think. Instinct guided him. He pulled Tyler against him, wrapping his arms around him and letting his Prime loose. Tyler did not need reassurance. There was none to give. What he needed was his sense of place. He needed a leader, a Prime, to help him pull himself back together. Or push him back together.

The power of Alexander’s Prime washed out, wrapping around the other Blades. He felt their relief as they leaned into his strength. Tyler made a harsh sound and tried to shove himself away. Alexander did not let him go.

His aura surrounded Tyler and smothered the feralness. He pushed the wildness back down inside the other Blade, feeling the moment when Tyler took control. Next, Alexander reached out to the others. Through sheer dominance, he settled them back down, helping them channel their panic, grief, and anger back into focus.

The worst of it was that every bit of their emotions only mounded on top of his own, making it that much more difficult to keep himself reined in. At the same time, helping them reminded him of what he was and his responsibilities as Prime. In the end, that gave him the strength he needed.

He let Tyler go.

The other man shook himself, not meeting his gaze. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Alexander said dryly.

He turned, and the other Blades drifted toward him, like metal to a magnet. None knew quite what to do. They needed action.

“Go check on Sterling,” Alexander told Tyler. “Take everyone with you. Watch out. The Last Standers are armed to the teeth, and even without Shoftiel helping him, Sterling is a powerful witch.”