Winter's Shadow (34 page)

She hung up the phone, feeling a little lost and hopeless. Staring through the kitchen window at the shadowy woods outside, she could see Owl Mountain, partially obscured by the sleeting rain. Looking at that monolith, Winter felt a shiver pass through her, followed by a strong sense of foreboding that bordered on premonition.

She shook herself, trying to clear the dark thoughts from her mind.

Blake was going to save her.

All she had to do was wait here until his return. Wait alone in the Velasco place, while soul thieves lurked outside and an unknown danger resided upstairs. As if sensing her vulnerable state, Nefertem leapt up onto the kitchen counter. Try as she might, Winter simply couldn’t see anything remarkable about the cat that suggested he could protect her. Still, supernatural guardian or not, she appreciated that at least she had some company. Gathering Nefertem into her arms, Winter left the kitchen to search the rest of the house for a television or something to keep her distracted.

Exploring the rooms with Nefertem curled up in her arms, Winter was disappointed to find nothing that might offer her an escape from her thoughts. No television, no books, no magazines – nothing whatsoever. Just dust, and cobwebs, and antique furniture covered in yellowing sheets. The box of journals had disappeared from the hallway as well. Despite her restlessness, she was grateful they were gone; the temptation to hunt through them for more English passages, to uncover more of Blake’s past, would have been difficult to resist.

She passed into the front hallway and her eyes jumped to the staircase and the darkness that lay at the top of the stairs. What was stopping the menace lurking on that forbidden level from venturing down to claim her?

Perhaps the danger Blake had referred to wasn’t a conscious entity but instead a mysterious artefact, like the lodestone he’d given her. Rolling the crystal absently between her fingers, Winter wondered if it really was magic, or if Blake had just given her some kind of Dumbo’s feather: an object Winter could hold onto for strength when she felt afraid or insecure, but one that had no real power.

Winter’s eyes shifted from the staircase to Blake’s painting, which was still propped against the hall table.

Grateful for something to take her mind off herself, Winter dropped Nefertem and bent down for a closer look. She lifted the sheet and gazed with new interest at the painted figures beneath. The sadness in Madeleine’s eyes now held greater poignancy for Winter.
She wondered what it was like to be the lover of an immortal.

Winter’s eyes drifted down to the tiny figure of Blake, his rosy cheeks and green eyes sparkling with mirth. He’d been happy then, too young to know what fate lay ahead. Claudette, on the other hand, seemed a much more sombre child. There was a wildness in her eyes that Winter had to suppose was the artist’s invention. She didn’t believe infants were capable of looking so malicious.

Unexpectedly, Winter heard a noise from the kitchen behind her. It sounded like crabs scuttling across the tiled floor. Her heart froze, a block of jagged ice in her chest. There it was again! An erratic clicking sound, like a giant insect.

She let the cover fall back over the painting and turned slowly to face the kitchen door. Nefertem meowed at her feet, his tail flicking back and forth, sensing the danger.

Winter tried to convince herself it was nothing, that it was just the pipes or some other house sound, such as the aged framework reacting to the humidity of the storm. With Nefertem at her side, Winter crept towards the kitchen, straining to listen for the erratic clicking, which had fallen silent. She paused outside, her hand resting on the doorknob, asking herself if she really wanted to see what was on the other side.

Her hand stole to the necklace – maybe now would be a good time to see if the lodestone really worked?
But she decided against it. Winter wanted to allow Blake as much time as he needed to find the answers in Krypthia. Calling him back so soon would only delay her salvation.

At her feet, Nefertem was staring intently at the door, making a strange growling noise in the back of his throat. Winter prayed that Blake had known what he was doing, entrusting her safety to the cat. There was nothing else for it. She could either remain here, cowering in the front hall, or face whatever lay in the room beyond.

Winter pushed open the door.

The Skivers had found her!

Winter’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of them standing outside in the rain. There were so many of them! A dozen at least, pressed up against the kitchen windows like horrid insects drawn to the light inside. At Winter’s entry, their cruel white faces snapped in her direction, teeth clicking together in excited unison at the nearness of their prey. Winter felt the strength in her legs fail as a wave of debilitating terror washed over her. She wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t move, held in place by the Skivers’ black-eyed gaze boring into her own. She could see herself reflected in their eyes, her image captured in a world of infinite darkness.

There was a blur of orange at her feet as Nefertem raced past her and leapt up on top of the kitchen counter.

The tabby coiled back on its haunches, hissing and spitting at the Skivers as though daring them to come through the glass.

Winter watched in dazed astonishment as the Skivers recoiled from Nefertem, drifting back from the windows and moving out of sight.
It was working!
The cat was actually scaring these creatures!

Once the last of the Skivers had vanished, Winter took a few hesitant steps towards the counter and scooped up the now-docile Nefertem. The cat felt hot and feverish in her arms, but otherwise had instantly reverted to his languor once his enemies had vanished.

Blake had been right about not underestimating the tabby’s worth, and Winter felt guilty for doubting him. Something about the cat had scared the hell out of the monsters, enough to drive them away.

Clutching Nefertem to her breast, Winter backed slowly out of the kitchen, watching the windows. After all, the Skivers could still be out there. Winter conjured a disturbing image of them gliding soundlessly around the house like hungry sharks circling a life raft, and shuddered.

Wielding her furry guardian like a weapon, Winter passed into the front hallway. There was no trace of the clicking sound any more; the house was silent. She could hear the wind whistling faintly through the trees outside, but apart from that – nothing. Cautiously, she made her way through the front part of the house, treading softly on the thick carpet.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Winter cried out at the almighty pounding from the front door. Staggering backwards, her eyes widened in fear as the doorhandle began to rattle violently. Blake had been wrong about the Skivers.

They were going to get in!

Nefertem seemed as startled as she was by the frightening din and squirmed from her grasp, dropping to the floor. The courage he’d shown had apparently been spent. Winter tried to catch him, but was too slow as the cat bolted up the stairs to the forbidden level. Winter spent one panicky moment in deliberation –
Blake had made her promise!
– before giving chase to the cat. Whatever dangers lurked above couldn’t be as bad as the ones that threatened from the other side of that door.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Winter crouched against the banister, ears straining for the sound of the front door being opened. The doorknob continued to rattle but there was no indication that the Skivers had gained entry. After a few more seconds of agonising suspense, the din abruptly ceased.

She remained still a moment longer, listening to her own harried breathing, before she allowed herself to move. It looked as if she was safe for the time being. Regardless, Winter would feel a whole lot better as soon as she had Nefertem in her arms again.

Winter felt like a trespasser, but comforted herself with the thought that even if Blake discovered she’d
broken her promise, he was sure to understand once she explained the situation. After all, Blake had been the one who had given her Nefertem as protection in the first place; Winter reasoned that he would want her to take whatever steps necessary to remain with her guardian.

She needed to find a light. It was too dim on the landing for her to begin searching. Considering the frayed state of her nerves, the idea of stumbling after Nefertem in the dark was deeply unappealing. Blake’s warning was also lurking in the back of her mind. It wasn’t safe for her here. Despite Blake’s kiss, the Sight hadn’t returned to her, though she could have desperately used the enhanced perceptive ability right now. Either the gift was as temperamental as he’d suggested, or her mind was too rattled to summon the concentration necessary for it to work.

It took her a minute, but Winter eventually found the light switch, partially hidden behind a dead fern near the banister. She flicked it on and the green-shaded lamps overhead sputtered into life. However, the wiring must have been faulty because the bulbs continued to flicker, creating an eeriness Winter could have well done without. The light was just enough to see by, and Winter began to move through the strobing light towards the hallway.

She turned a corner and came across an open doorway. Standing on the threshold of the room, she whispered, ‘Nefertem? You in there, little buddy?’

There was no response, so Winter ventured forward and flicked on the light switch. It took her only a quick
glance to deduce this was Blake’s bedroom. It wasn’t the small chest of drawers that gave it away, nor the neatly made single bed, pushed into the corner. It was Blake’s music collection.

During their brief time together Blake had dropped enough music references to convince Winter that he had more than a passing interest in it, but she had never expected to find anything like this. An entire wall had been turned into a shelving unit containing an amazing array of LPs, EPs, eight-track tapes, cassettes, CDs – and pretty much every other type of playable music media from all stages of modern history. When he’d run out of space on the shelves, Blake had taken to stacking his music collection into neat, waist-high columns of albums and singles.

Unlike Winter’s fastidious devotion to alphabetisation, there didn’t seem to be any logic to Blake’s cataloguing – Brahms was next to Kings of Leon, who shared shelf space with Queen and so on. Staring in wonder at the varied titles, Winter decided Blake had to have explored and owned a piece from every genre and subgenre music had to offer. It was an impressive collection, and if Winter hadn’t been feeling so tense, she would have had a difficult time restraining herself from browsing through it. However, she knew she shouldn’t be here. As there was no sign of the cat, she was turning to leave the room when something caught her eye – something silver, resting on the chest of drawers.

Letting her curiosity get the better of her, she crossed Blake’s room and picked up the silver object for a closer look. It was a hinged double picture frame, the ornate silver slightly tarnished with age. In the left-hand frame was a sepia-toned photograph of Blake, dressed in what Winter could only guess to be a turn-of-the-century black suit. It was not unlike the suit he had worn to the concert the previous night, and Winter couldn’t help but smile at the slightly uncharitable thought that occurred to her – while Blake’s music tastes had shifted and evolved with the passage of time, it seemed his fashion sense hadn’t.

The opposing frame held a photograph of a striking young woman with a thick mane of black hair and austerely beautiful features. Her first thought was that the woman might have been Elisabetta, the aged quality of the photograph making her red hair look black, but on closer inspection she realised her mistake. The Elisabetta she had glimpsed in Blake’s memory had been slight, possessing a shy girlishness, whereas there was nothing slight or girlish about this other woman. Instead there was a forbidding severity to her expression. The woman in the frame had to be Claudette, Blake’s sister.

‘What happened to you?’ Winter said softly to the grainy image. While she stared at the picture of Claudette, a low mewling sound suddenly came from deeper in the house.