Winter's Shadow (45 page)

If she hadn’t been so upset by Blake’s pain, Winter knew she would have screamed, but as it was, only a strangled cry escaped her lips. One of the Skivers tilted its head, studying them in that hideous way of theirs – the Master.

She scrambled to her feet, standing over Blake protectively. Winter was terrified of these black-clad wraiths, but wouldn’t let fear dictate her actions. Not any more.

‘No . . .
no, you can’t have him!
’ She directed her indignation towards the Master.

Sam, kneeling beside his father’s body, glanced up at her from across the church. His voice sounded distracted when he spoke. ‘Who are you talking to?’

Winter ignored him.

Blake spoke softly behind her. ‘It’s okay, Winter. It’s okay.’

‘Blake —’

‘Please, come here.’

Winter risked momentarily diverting her attention away from the creatures, and saw him beckoning weakly for her to join him on the floor. The Skivers hadn’t moved yet; they remained where they were, watching. Winter quickly crouched back down at Blake’s side. Her hands found his and held them tightly.

‘Look at me,’ he whispered, gazing at her, willing her to see.

‘What?’

‘Look at me, Winter . . .’

Winter still didn’t understand what he meant until she saw the light in his eyes. His kiss had restored the Sight and now she could see his Occuluma; the tiny flames burning in the depths of Blake’s pupils. They were no longer green.

‘Blake, what have you done?’ Winter cried with horror, staring at the sickly red light.

‘I made them a deal. It was the only way to save you. My life for yours.’

Winter began to cry. She buried her head in his chest. ‘No, Blake! No! Why would you do this?’

Stroking her hair softly, he whispered into her ear, ‘You have to ask?’

She raised her head and looked deeply into his eyes, her heart breaking at the acceptance she saw there. Blake wasn’t going to fight this; he was going to let them take him.

He gently cupped her face in his hands, and even through her grief Winter could see how
tired
he looked. How tired he sounded.

‘No tears, Winter. You’ve given me something wonderful: an excuse to die. I never belonged here anyway.’

It was wrong,
so
wrong and he didn’t seem aware of it. She’d make him aware of it – make him see how much he meant to her, but when she opened her mouth the words wouldn’t come, even though Winter willed them to. ‘
You belong with me!
’ she wanted to say to him, but a pain-racked sob was all that made it past her lips.

She leaned forward to kiss him one last time, their lips brushed against one another – and then she was being lifted off the ground by cold, white hands.

‘No!’ she cried out, struggling in the two Skivers’ clutches, but their strength was great and her efforts went unnoticed. Her eyes remained on Blake as she was pulled away.

If he was afraid, there was no sign of it on his face, just a kind of resigned sadness as the Master knelt over him. It conjured an ornate canister from its robes and opened the lid, placing it on the ground. Trapped in the Skivers’ iron grip, Winter watched numbly as it withdrew a pair of scissors. She heard the
shnick
as the blades sprung open – like a knife being scraped against stone – and watched as the creature reached into Blake’s chest and pulled forth a dazzling orb of red light. One of those loose strands of red light twisted around its pale,
shrivelled hand like a snake as the Skiver brought the blades to the thread.

Winter stared at Blake from across the church and willed him to know her heart, willed him to see it in her eyes. She saw a glimmer there, a flash in those beautiful green depths and felt some relief amid her sorrow that he did.

Blake
knew
. . . he’d always known.

The Master closed the shears on Blake’s life and Winter heard someone scream in agony. It was her own scream. Once the deed was done, the Master placed Blake’s shimmering soul in the canister and returned it to its robes. It stood and turned towards Winter, regarding her somewhat pityingly – or as close to pityingly as its alien features could – then was gone, like so much black smoke. The two Skivers at her side also vanished, disappearing back to the Dead Lands.

Ignoring the rumbling sounds from the roof above, Winter ran through the grey rain of dust that was falling from the eaves, and threw herself onto Blake’s body. His head was tilted up towards the ceiling of the church, the eyes open, a beatific smile on his lips. Sobbing uncontrollably, Winter gathered him up into her arms and rocked him gently. She would have held him like that forever, but a hand fell on her shoulder.

It was Jasmine. She’d limped across the church to where Winter was crouching over Blake’s body.

‘Let’s go, Winter,’ she said with quiet urgency, and Winter allowed herself to be led away.

Seconds after she and Jasmine hobbled through the church entrance, there was an apocalyptic crash behind them as the rest of the roof came down. Sam was lying in the grass at the foot of the steps, cradling his father’s wasted corpse in the moonlight. It had been the only body he’d had time to retrieve before the roof collapsed. He looked up at them with wide, lost eyes as they came down the steps towards him.

‘What do I do now?’ he asked them hopelessly.

Winter didn’t have an answer, and had too much pain in her heart to pity him. Instead she and Jasmine walked on, leaving Sam to wallow in his grief alone. They didn’t speak on the walk through the woods. The cloud cover had moved on and the path was easier to see in the clear moonlight. Winter barely noticed. She wouldn’t have
minded if the woods had been pitch-black. She was beyond fear. She was beyond anything but pain and grief, which seemed to have wrapped itself around her like a heavy shroud.

Once they reached the Heritage Centre, Jasmine turned to Winter. ‘What happened tonight, Winter?’

‘He saved me,’ Winter answered quietly, and they were the only words she had left to say. She walked past Jasmine to the edge of the parking lot and closed her eyes, breathing in the night air.

She willed herself to slip into the Dead Lands, to follow Blake into Krypthia. If she truly was one of these mythical Keys, then let this power manifest itself now. For a moment she fooled herself that the ground beneath her feet lurched as if threatening to fall away, but when she opened her eyes the night around her was unchanged. It was her night, a night which held no deeper mysteries.

He was gone.

Winter took the following week off school, spending most of the time alone in her room, reading and listening to music, anything to keep her mind off her grief. Lucy was surprisingly empathetic, not questioning her decision to stay at home. It was as if she sensed Winter had been through something profound and was willing to give her the space and time to come to terms with it.

Two nights after the incident on the mountain, Winter was lying in bed staring at the ceiling when a scratching sound came from the window. Almost too afraid to look in case her hopes were dashed, she slowly turned to see Nefertem pawing at the glass. Somehow the cat had survived the crash, and made it back to her house. Weeping with surprise and joy, she threw open the window and
hugged him tightly. His return was a brief respite from the darkness, but one she was grateful for.

As she washed the dirt off the squirming cat in the bathroom, Winter’s mind turned to the mysteries she’d witnessed, trying to piece together the parts of the story Blake had never explained. She remembered the door in Blake’s house with the strange sigil painted on it, and deduced that Blake must have imprisoned Claudette in that room. When the Bane set fire to Blake’s house, the flames must have burnt away whatever mystical means he’d used to keep her from escaping. She was the monster Caleb and his sons had hunted through the years, the girls on their list victims of her hunger. Blake had been merely her keeper.

Towelling Nefertem dry, Winter watched herself in the mirror. At first all she saw was her plain reflection, but after a moment’s concentration the bright blue flames of the Occuluma ignited in the depths of her pupils. Comforted that Blake’s sacrifice was not in vain, she managed, with some difficulty, to switch off the Sight. She was slowly improving. She held onto the hope that in time she would have enough control that it would only arise at her summoning. The idea of accidentally seeing the Occuluma in Lucy or someone else’s eyes and knowing they were going to die, or, worse yet, be harvested by the Skivers, was horrifying. Ignorance was bliss.

During Winter’s week of solitude Jasmine dropped by twice, but Winter refused to see her. This was partly because she had yet to master the Sight and she was wary
of contact with people; the other reason was she couldn’t yet bear the thought of talking about the tragedy. It was like scratching at a fresh wound.

Jasmine left separate gifts on both occasions – the first was a box of caramel-filled chocolates, which she knew were Winter’s favourite; the second was a newspaper with a circled article. Winter read the circled section with interest:

Winter didn’t need to read the rest of the article – it was too painful. She suspected she knew the identity of the arsonist behind the fire at Pilgrim’s Lament – it had to be Sam. Perhaps he’d wished to destroy any evidence linking himself to the bodies recovered on the mountain. In any case, Winter found comfort in the fact that Pilgrim’s Lament had been reduced to ashes. It no longer
stood as a monument to that tragic night of horror and pain.