Winter (The Manhattan Exiles) (6 page)

She swallowed them down, taking careful steps forward.

Aine could see the stack of buckets and gears, shining a dull bronze in foggy yellow light.

She was about to turn the corner when Gabriel ran between her feet, pink t
ail held high.

“
Go back, child!” the mouse shrilled. “Get back!”

The ground shook again. Gabriel ran on.

Aine followed the mouse around the corner. She stopped short. The pit was on fire.

It was the dull golden fire - the
dóiteáin domhain
- of Aine’s ancestors. The Cold Fire, used only by the Queen, only in extremity, and only once before had Aine witnessed it.

Then Gloriana had used the
dóiteáin domhain
to extinguish a forsaken courtier. The Queen had needed only a tiny piece of cold fire, only a handful cast over the man and in a breath he was nothing more than icy smoke. No one had dared mourn his death.

Aine didn’t believe in a mortal Hell, but the chaos ahead made her wonder if she’d been mistaken.

Cold Fire filled the pit, crawling up the walls of the shaft. It burnt not hot but with a cold so deep pieces of metal were already rimmed with frost. Mist rolled off the golden flames, thick as smoke but far more poisonous to the lungs.

“
Breathe too deep of the
dóiteáin domhain
and even the strongest soul will die,” Nan whispered to the child Aine. “Why, we all remember what happened to Finvarr’s Blessed.”

Aine pressed her sleeve against her nose and mouth. She was distantly surpr
ised to see a single pipe gripped in her hand. It was almost as long as her arm, and already filming over in the freezing mist.

She tried to make her fingers let go, but her muscles wouldn’t unclench.

The Cold Fire roared, and flickered, and howled. Then it swirled inward, coalescing and compressing, taking solid form.

“
Now!” Winter shouted.

He crouched at the edge of the pit, so close to the
dóiteáin domhain
that his hair and jacket were covered with flakes of ice. The bronze knife he’d used to flay Aine’s flesh was clenched between his teeth while he used both hands to load thick iron pellets into a very human weapon.

“
Gun,” Aine realized, horrified.

The
Cold Fire gathered and grew solid, turning itself into a monster. Tall and unnaturally thin, the creature bent over Winter, mouth gaping wide and wider still beneath a blunt snout. Aine saw dull yellow teeth and a narrow white tongue. It reached toward Winter with taloned hands. The carrion stench of its breath mingled with the mists.

“
Richard!” Winter seemed to be having trouble with his gun. He threw the weapon down, then dodged sideways, knife in hand, barely avoiding snapping claws.

Aine found herself at the edge of the pit without any memory of taking a step. Her muscles weren’t frozen after all because they worked very nicely as she swung her pipe with every bit of
strength she could summon.

Her aim was off. The pipe connected with the monster’s chest when she’d hoped to take off its head.

Even so, the blow was solid. The pipe bent, and bounced, and then shattered into pieces of metal and ice. Aine’s fingers went numb and she fell. The monster howled, and whirled toward her, tongue thrusting long and longer, seeking.

Winter threw himself at the monster’s face. It
screamed. Blood spattered, cold and noxious.

“
Winter!” It was Gabriel, sliding about on the ice. “He’s ready. Get down. Get down!”

“
Fuck me,” Winter said in the English, calm and precise. He threw himself across Aine, pressing her into the muck just as the shadows spat lightning: once, twice, three times.

A fourth crack of light threw Winter’s hand where it rested next to Aine’s chin into stark black and white. Then light and sound snuffed out.

Aine lay still beneath the grey-eyed boy, and tried not to breath in poison.

“Win?” Richard’s sharp-heeled boots pierced dirt and ice next to Winter’s hand.

“
Did you get it?” Winter gasped.

“
Would I be standing here if I hadn’t? I got it. What was left of it. I think you cut off its chin.”

“
It didn’t have a chin.” Winter exhaled shallowly. He rolled sideways off of Aine. “What were you waiting for?”

“
A clear shot.”

“
My gun jammed. Again.” Winter levered himself onto his knees.

“
So you had to dance with the ghoul? Give it a hug?”

The white mouse picked through melting ice.
“Are you hurt, Winter? What possessed you to get so close to it?”

“
I didn’t have a choice,” Winter snarled. He lurched to his feet. “Kamikaze princess here decided to go swatting
sluagh
about the shoulders with a stick.”

Some small cowardly part of Aine had been hoping they’d forgotten her. That same small cowardly piece contracted into a spike of panic at Winter’s words.

“
Sluagh
?” she echoed.

“
Exactly.” Winter reached down, grasping Aine by the shoulders, and sat her upright. His fingers clenched against her bones. She thought he wanted to shake her. “You’re not dead, princess. Not yet. But the
sluagh
have been mouldering for a long time and that one would have been happy to taste fresh blood and bones.”

“
But,” Aine swallowed hard to keep from gagging. “Gloriana imprisoned the
sluagh
before even my mother was born, sent them far away, and Warded the Court so they could do no harm.”

Winter’s fingers relaxed against her shoul
ders. He reached up, brushing back a piece of her shorn hair with his thumb.

“
Are you hurt?” he asked. “Did it touch you?”

“
No.” She couldn’t make herself look away. Something in his grey stare both frightened her and made her heart begin to pound. “You fell on me.”

“
Very brave, both of you, I’m sure,” Richard said. He’d managed to find and light a lamp. He held it over their small group. “Winter, I don’t think you’ll need that haircut after all. It’s coming out in clumps. And I’m afraid your ear is turning black.”

“
Frostbite.” Gabriel ran up Winter’s arm, and settled on his shoulder, stretching and fretting. “And on his cheeks. Her Ladyship will have a fit. Back to the kitchen, all of you. I have some ointment.”

“
I need to reset the Wards.” Winter looped an arm around Aine’s waist, pulling her to her feet. “Go. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“
How did it get past in the first place?” Richard wondered.

In the lamp light Aine thought Winter looked drawn and haggard.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out. Do you see my Glock?”

“
I’ve got it,” said Richard. “I need to know what went awry. It shouldn’t have jammed. In fact, there’s almost no way, not with my tweaks -”

He mumbled to himself as he shepherded Aine away from the pit a second time. She almost refused to go.

“What if there’s another one?”

“
Possible, but not probable,” Gabriel said. She trotted at Aine’s heels. “The trains are running again, so it’s unlikely any more
sluagh
slipped through. By dark, Winter will have determined what went wrong. Do your fingers hurt?”

“
Aye?”

“
Your fingers,” the mouse repeated. “You hit it quite hard with your stick. Quite hard. I wondered if maybe you’d brushed it with your hand?”

“
It was a pipe. An old pipe.” Aine lifted her hands, but the light of Richard’s lamp was too dim for a proper examination. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. They’ll heal.”

“
I suppose they will.” Gabriel hesitated. “You were very brave. You’ve never encountered one before?”

“
A
sluagh
,” Aine whispered. “One of the Dread Host. Nay, I wasn’t sure they were real. I thought they were dark tales, something that had happened before, not now.”

“
Well,” replied the mouse, somber. “You’ll find that life tends to run in circles, no matter what role you play.”

Aine stopped
abruptly between Richard’s junk pile and the first tapestry.

“
I’m not dead.” The Queen’s Host had little need to trouble with the departed. “I’m not dead. There must be some sort of mistake.” New panic rose. “Where am I? What is this place? What’s happened to me?”

This time she couldn’t quite keep the tears back.
“I want to see my mother. She’ll be missing me by now. And Gloriana. I need to go back. I’m
expected
. I need to go back!”

Gabby’s eyes gleamed in the dark.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said, sadly. “I don’t know how that’s possible.”

Richard left Aine in Winter’s room with the flickering lantern and an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“
I’ve got to see to the power,” he explained. “Twice in twenty-four hours is unusual, even for us. It may be more than a coincidence.”

“
Power?” Aine asked. She wondered if it were possible Richard knew an incantation that would keep the Host at bay.

“
Electricity.” He gestured absently above her head at the tunnel ceiling. “And I need to sleuth out why Winter’s Glock went bad. Again. It must have to do with the weight of the iron in the bullets. There’s a very small chance I cast them imperfectly.” He paused, and although Aine knew he couldn’t really see her expression in the gloom, he thumped her shoulder lightly.

“
Don’t worry. We’ll figure it all out. I’m sure Winter’s got you mostly solved already.”

She was glad Richard left her the lamp, even though it smoked. Winter’s room was narrow and cold. The ugly clock, hidden in the shadows, ticked loudly.

She sat on Winter’s mattress. She could feel the floor through the springs. A rough blanket was spread across the top. Wool, she thought. Good wool.

Her fingers ached. She chafed them together. Flakes of black skin peeled off, falling like ash onto her lap.

Her
stockings were ruined, clotted with mud and slush. She peeled them off.

The clock ticked in time with her racing heart.

She rolled onto her side on the mattress, tucking her feet up under the blanket. If she looked long enough into the lantern flame she could almost pretend it was the night fire on her mother’s hearth.

She could almost hear her mother humming as she sewed away the last hours of the evening. In the distance the Court bells tolled, signaling
curfew.

Counting the bells, Aine fell asleep.

She woke to bright light and the familiar sound of a spoon against porcelain.

Her eyes were gummed nearly shut with sleep, and her legs were tangled in the heavy wool blanket. She rolled over, automatically moving to push her hair out of her face before she remembered it was more than half gone.

Winter sat cross-legged on the floor next to his clock. He held a delicate tea cup in one hand and a bent silver spoon in the other. The skin beneath his left eye was black and red, and the tips of his fingers looked raw.

He wore a stripy knitted cap on his head. Aine wondered if his scalp looked as awful as his fingers.

“
Camomile,” he greeted her. “Richard found me a new carafe. I wanted coffee but Gabby claims tea has healing possibilities. Like some?”

“
Nay.” It was warm beneath the blanket. Aine wound it around her shoulders, then sat up. “I’m still here.”

“
Not for want of protest. Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

“
Most people talk in their sleep, one time or another. I want to go home.”

“
You can’t go home. You were singing, to be precise. A catchy little melody, if sad. I couldn’t quite place it. You slept a long time.”

“
What do you mean I can’t go home?” Aine stood up. “You can’t keep me here.”

“
As a matter of fact, I probably could.” He watched her. “I suspect iron chains would work.” Winter took a sip of tea. “Or an armed guard. I saw your face when I dropped my pistol. My parents don’t like guns either. I had to learn shooting from an uncle.”

“
It was guns humans used to drive us out of their lands,” Aine returned. Sleep had renewed courage and with it came indignation.

“
Was this before or after your misguided queen imprisoned the
sluagh
?”

“
Did your parents not bother teach you history?” Aine snapped. “And I’ll thank you to remember Gloriana’s as much your queen as my own, and as such deserves your respect.”