Winter's Shadow (36 page)

‘Who’s she?’ he asked her captor with a confused expression on his face.

‘How am I supposed to know, Marcus?’ the peanut-butter-scented person answered, revealing Crucifix’s name. Winter could tell the man holding her was much younger than Marcus, by the way his voice cracked slightly when he spoke. Peanut Butter couldn’t be much older than fourteen or fifteen.

‘I know her.’ The familiar voice came from the kitchen.

Winter was swung around and saw with astonishment Sam Bennet striding towards her. Jasmine’s Sam, who she’d last seen holding hands with her friend at the concert. Sam of the cheerful grin, shining blue eyes and slight bewilderment. There was nothing of
that
Sam here. Instead, his grimmer, more intimidating twin had taken his place. Like Marcus, his muscular frame was clothed in a black uniform and there was a crossbow strapped to his back.

‘She belongs to him,’ Sam said, his eyes flicking to Winter. He seemed completely unconcerned and unsurprised to find her being held prisoner by these two men.

‘What do we do with her?’ Marcus asked Sam. Though he was clearly older, the way Marcus deferred to him suggested that Sam was the one in charge here.

With a sigh, Sam tilted his head to one side and examined Winter as though she was a particularly annoying maths problem. ‘We’ll take her with us. I’m sure the old man would want to speak to her. First, though, let’s find out what she knows.’

Sam leaned in to speak to her, his eyes as hard as chips of ice. ‘Winter, are you alone in the house?’ She couldn’t speak with Peanut Butter’s hand clasped firmly over her mouth, but she was able to nod easily enough.

Sam was pleased by her answer. ‘Good. Where is he?’

Winter made an effort to respond but couldn’t. Sam scowled at her captor. ‘Let her speak, Damien.’

Peanut Butter – Damien – uncovered her mouth. Winter took a deep trembling breath, staring at Sam with wide, frightened eyes.

‘I don’t know, Sam.’

Sam frowned at her. ‘Don’t be afraid. Just tell me where he is, Winter.’

Still terrified, but resolute in her desire to protect Blake at all costs, she managed a small, unconvincing shrug in response.

‘Let me try,’ Marcus said behind Sam, and Winter’s stomach clenched in fear at the cruel smile on the brute’s face.

‘No, Marcus,’ Sam mercifully said, and grabbed Winter’s wrist. ‘I’ll put her in the van. Damien
can use his crystals when we get home. You two get to work.’

As Sam spun her around to drag her through the front door, Winter finally saw Damien. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen. There was a rash of pimples on his forehead, and some fine hairs above his lip which Winter assumed was his attempt to grow a moustache. Unlike Sam and Marcus, Damien’s hair was long and greasy. Though younger than the other two, there didn’t seem to be anything innocent about the teenager. Behind his thick glasses, his eyes studied Winter with a disturbing malevolence that made her flesh crawl.

‘Wait!’ he said as Sam pulled Winter towards the door.

‘What is it?’ Sam asked.

Damien’s gaze drifted down to Winter’s neck – no, not her neck, but the necklace adorning it. He walked over and studied the green crystal closely. After a few seconds of inspection, he said with a trace of awe, ‘She’s wearing a lodestone.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sam asked.

‘What’s a lodestone?’ Marcus asked, frowning.

‘She can call him with it, moron,’ Damien answered dismissively.

Marcus bristled at the slight and took a step towards Damien. Sam stepped between them. ‘Cool it,’ he cautioned. Turning to Damien, he ordered, ‘Take it off her.’

‘With pleasure,’ Damien said, eyeing the lodestone greedily. He reached for Winter’s throat.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Winter yelled, struggling against Sam’s grip.

‘I don’t want to hit you, Winter, but I will!’ Sam warned, stifling her frantic efforts. Winter could tell by his expression that he meant it. Damien managed to pull the necklace over Winter’s head, untangling the stone from her hair, and hid it in one of the pockets of his uniform. As she watched the green crystal disappear from sight, Winter felt her hope vanish with it. What was she going to do now? How could Blake save her if he didn’t know where to find her?

‘Let’s go.’ Sam dragged her through the open door. Once they were outside, Winter began to plead with Sam. Maybe he would take pity on her now he was away from the others.

‘Sam, why are you doing this?’ Her eyes darted around for a sign of the Skivers in the surrounding darkness.

Sam ignored her question and pulled her across the wet grass. It had stopped raining, but the wind was still strong, whipping Winter’s hair about her face. There was the black van idling in Blake’s driveway – the same vehicle that had driven her and Blake over the cliff. Sam and the others belonged to the Bane.

Sam yanked Winter to the rear of the van, wrenched open the door and threw her inside. The back of the van was more like a cage, with no windows and a wire mesh barrier separating it from the front compartment. Winter picked herself up from the cold steel floor and faced her kidnapper.

‘Please, Sam! You don’t know what’s out here!’

Sam avoided her tearful gaze and surprised her by answering with a note of genuine regret. ‘I’m sorry.’ He slammed the door shut, locking her in the gloom.

Winter waited until Sam’s footsteps had faded before trying to kick open the van door. When this failed, she attempted to pry apart the mesh barrier so she could slip through into the front seat. Unfortunately she wasn’t strong enough, and after several minutes of this frenzied activity she collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. Even in the depth of her despair, there was some small consolation that Blake had escaped this ordeal. Winter didn’t know how the Bane had found Blake’s home, but was glad he was far beyond any harm Sam and the others could do to him.

Sam’s reaction when he was first introduced to Blake in the surf club suddenly made much more sense to her. What Winter had taken to be simple jealousy on Sam’s part, she now saw as being something much deeper. She
wondered if he’d been behind the wheel when the van rammed them over the cliff.

She recalled the story Sam had read aloud in English class. It hadn’t been a work of fiction at all, but a thinly veiled allegory of the Bane’s history. In the story the young man, who Winter guessed was a surrogate Sam, expressed remorse at the merciless execution of the creatures he and his family hunted. There had been a definite longing in the character for a more peaceful existence. Maybe Sam too had doubts about what he was doing, doubts that might allow Winter to appeal to his compassionate side.

A sudden clicking sound outside the van banished all thoughts of Sam.

Winter held her breath, silently praying that her ears were playing tricks on her. Maybe the sound was some kind of auditory hallucination brought on by extreme stress and fear? It was a stretch, but one she clung to desperately. The alternative was too terrifying to consider.

As quietly as possible, Winter got onto her knees and looked through the wire mesh into the front of the car. Due to the angle of the van, she couldn’t see much through the windscreen, save for the woods faintly lit by the house lights. A luminous ground mist had begun to seep in through the undergrowth, slowly creeping its way towards the van. There was no sign of the Skivers. Maybe they’d abandoned the siege and returned to the Dead Lands. Maybe . . . Winter gasped as a shadowy
figure fluttered in her peripheral vision. By the time she snapped her head around to follow it, the black shape had vanished.

Fearfully searching the darkness, she slowly backed away from the mesh into the deeper gloom of the van, wary of making any unnecessary sound. If she was quiet, maybe the Skivers wouldn’t know she was in the van. They might think she was still in the house. Desperately, Winter clung to this notion, breathing through her nose so as to limit the sound of air rushing in and out. Agonising seconds ticked by and she began to believe the danger had passed.

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

Crying out, Winter threw herself to the opposite side of the van. This time the clicking had come from
right outside
the thin sheet metal next to her head.

Panic threatened to take over, but Winter fought it, gritting her teeth and trying to muster some – any! – courage. She didn’t want to die in abject terror. Another shadow fluttered past the windscreen.
They were playing with her!
She crept towards the mesh panel again, terrified at what she might see gliding towards her through the mist.

Nefertem suddenly jumped up from the front passenger seat of the van, making Winter scream. The cat stood on his hind legs, resting his paws against the wire mesh. He meowed in greeting, his yellow eyes regarding her warmly.

Winter let out a long shaky breath, feeling relief flood through her.

‘You gave me a fright, you silly cat!’ She pushed her fingers through the wire and tried to stroke Nefertem’s fuzzy cheeks. The cat nuzzled her hand, licking her fingers. Winter didn’t know how the tabby had found her, but was too grateful to care. He was here, that was the main thing. As long as Nefertem remained with Winter, she knew she would be safe. Safe from the Skivers, at least.

The front door of the house slammed, followed by the sound of footsteps and voices. The speakers sounded like Damien and Marcus.

‘Did you kill all of them?’

‘Yeah – the black one bit me!’

‘What the hell was going on in that room? All that stuff on the walls. I never seen nothing like it.’

‘I’ll check my books when I get home. I recognised some of the symbols. I think it was a containment spell.’

‘Why was there nothing inside the circle?’

‘That’s what’s bothering me. Why make a containment spell with nothing to contain?’

The front van doors were pulled open. Damien was first in, jumping back when he saw Nefertem. The cat leapt off the mesh and growled at him.

‘Woah! There’s another one in here!’

‘Kill it,’ Marcus said casually from behind him.

As Winter watched in horror, Damien swung a crossbow off his shoulder and aimed it at the coiled tabby.

‘No!’ she cried out before Damien could pull the trigger. Sam leaned in through the driver’s side door, and looked at her curiously through the mesh. ‘Please, Sam – he’s my cat! Don’t kill him!’ It was a lie, but a good one. She’d begun to feel as though Nefertem was her cat.

Sam seemed to deliberate for a moment. His cold eyes met Winter’s and she used the opportunity to silently plead with him.
Don’t kill the cat! Please, Sam! If he dies, I die!
Winter felt a glimmer of hope at what she saw reflected back in Sam’s gaze – a flicker of compassion. She hoped she hadn’t imagined it. Sam turned away from Winter and nodded at Damien, who seemed far too eager to employ his deadly weapon.

‘Give her the cat.’

‘But Sam, Dad told us to kill all the cats!’

‘Only Blake’s. She says this one’s hers.’

‘You believe her?’

Winter didn’t think Sam believed her in the slightest. Something about her distress had appealed to him – she could see it in the conflicted emotions on his face.

‘Give her the cat,’ he repeated sternly.

‘Sam —’ Damien whined again.

‘You heard me, Damien!’

Damien looked to Marcus for support but received only a shrug. Pouting, the expression making him appear even younger, Damien unlocked and lowered the wire mesh. Before he could pick up Nefertem, the cat leapt over the barrier and into Winter’s waiting arms.

Nursing the cat, she offered Sam a shaky smile. ‘Thank you.’

He ignored her and slid in behind the steering wheel. Winter suspected she’d exhausted any preferential treatment she could expect from him, but was grateful nonetheless. She doubted either of the other two would have shown her the same kindness. Marcus seemed like a sullen brute, and Damien a creepy little weasel. Sam might not be the boy Winter had thought he was, but he still seemed capable of empathy.

Stowing their crossbows, Damien slid into the middle, while Marcus took the window seat. There was a strange scent in the air – a pungent chemical aroma that Winter couldn’t identify. They all absolutely reeked of it! She was still puzzling on what the smell was when Sam revved the engine, taking off at speed.