Blood Winter (3 page)

The heart of the Horngate covenstead was a mountain fortress west of Missoula. Giselle and the coven witches had carved a warren of rooms and passages, enough to house hundreds of people, with room to expand if needed. Max and Tory headed for a newer chamber on the northeast side of the mountain.

It was an expansive space with low ceilings. Vehicles were parked in rows. Max headed for a dark green Suburban. Kyle, Carrie Lydman, and Alexander were already waiting. Carrie was dressed much like Tory. Together, the two were stunning. Max had little doubt that men would certainly get diarrhea of the mouth upon seeing them.

Kyle was bouncing on his toes like a five-year-old at Disneyland, and Alexander stood at the rear of the Suburban, the back doors open as he checked supplies. At six feet, he was just a few inches taller than she. His skin was the color of tea, like he spent all his time in the sun. His short hair was black. A close-cut goatee framed his mouth. He was lean and muscular, and it made Max drool just to look at him.

He looked up as she and Tory entered, his dark gaze smoldering. Max shivered, resisting the urge to drag him off to a closet and have her way with him.

She took hold of herself, suppressing her reaction, keeping her face from showing her hunger. She was Horngate’s Shadowblade Prime, which meant she was in charge of Alexander and the rest of the Blades. She needed to stay focused on her job. She didn’t need anybody else dying on her watch.

She crossed to glance inside the back of the Suburban, sidling away from his hand as he reached for her. He pulled back, his mouth flattening, his eyes flashing hurt annoyance. Max clenched her teeth. What the hell did he expect from her? But she knew the answer. He wanted public acknowledgment of their relationship. The trouble was, she was still trying to figure out exactly what their relationship was. She cared about him—
loved
him, she corrected herself acidly. She might as well admit it to herself, even if she was too much of a coward to tell him.

She didn’t have much experience with long-term relationships. She’d only had one serious boyfriend before Giselle had turned her, and she’d fumbled that. She was like a child figuring out how to do calculus.

With a silent sigh, she pushed aside her internal turmoil. She’d work on fixing her head later. Now she had to get everybody in and out of Missoula alive.

Inside the back of the Suburban was a row of six shotguns upright in a rack. Beside them were six bandoliers with shells and grenades. The latter were witch-made. There was also a chest containing a variety of other weapons, including handguns, clips of bullets, knives, witch chain, canisters of salt, iron filings, mixes of herbs, tubs of healing salve, bandages, charms, light and dark sealed sacks, and duct tape, plus jerky, homemade high-calorie energy bars, and two jugs of Ugly Juice.

She and Alexander were both already wearing tactical vests, the pockets bulging with a variety of supplies. Max’s .45 was holstered on her hip, and she had her two favorite flat-bladed knives strapped to her arms. Around her neck was a gold torque that could stretch itself into a garrote, a wire-thin rope, and other useful shapes. She had a Glock 9mm tucked into an ankle holster and a combat knife in her waistband.

She glanced at her companions. “Ready? Remember, we’re going for the single purpose of intelligence collection. We’ll have to park away from the River Market and walk in. We don’t need anyone noticing that our vehicle runs on magic. Once there, try to blend in. The word is that the market stays lively late into the night, with a lot of buying and selling, not to mention gambling, whoring, drinking, and who knows what else. It can turn into a free-for-all pretty quick. Stick close to me and Alexander—and Kyle? Don’t do anything witchy unless you have to.”

Her brother looked at her innocently. Kyle never planned to be stupid and reckless, he just followed his idiot impulses. Babies had more sense than he did sometimes.

Max’s eyes narrowed. A smudge of the red dust streaked Kyle’s pale blond hair above his left ear. “What is that stuff?” she asked. “Do you know?”

“What stuff?” he said, even as Alexander came around the front of the Suburban. Beyul, another massive Grim, padded at his side.

“It’s on you, too,” she said, pointing at Alexander’s boot.

He glanced down, his brow creasing.

“What is it?” Max held up her forearm to show her splash of red.

Tory and Carrie examined each other. “We don’t have any of that junk on us,” Carrie said with clear relief, no doubt relieved that she didn’t have to worry about it staining her clothes.

“It doesn’t come off,” Max said. “Tyler had some on him, too.”

Kyle ran a finger over her arm. Pale blue magic flickered along his fingertip, and Max’s skin tingled. He pulled away, looking intrigued. “Could be magic-related. I need to do some experiments . . .”

“Not now,” Tory said, grabbing his arm and shoving him toward the door of the Suburban. “We’ll never get to town if you go off experimenting, Uncle Kyle. After all, it’s just a little color, right?”

Max had to agree. The stuff didn’t seem to be dangerous, and if Kyle went off on a mad-witch-scientist tangent, they might not get to town for another week or two.

“Load up,” she said as she slammed the two rear doors shut. The two girls pushed into the front seat beside Alexander, who was driving. Max let Spike and Beyul into the rear seats and then slid in beside Kyle.

She was just shutting her door when a jolt shuddered through the air and a hail of needles ran along her nerves. The walls of the mountain fortress trembled and groaned. A split second later, the alarm chime vibrated through the air. It reverberated through Max’s skull, making the marrow in her bones ache. Something had crossed the covenstead’s outer ward line, something magical that didn’t belong.

“What now?” Tory demanded. “Let’s just go.”

Max hopped out. “Trip’s canceled,” she said, her Prime rising hard. Her humanity flattened beneath the predator, her senses sharpening. With that came blinding rage. No one—
no one
—was going to get away with attacking her home again. She didn’t care what she had to do to protect it and the people within. This was her home, her family. She’d kill anyone who threatened them.

“Tory and Carrie, get to the Great Hall with everybody else,” she ordered hoarsely, her lips curling back from her lips in an animal snarl. “Kyle and Alexander, you’re with me.”

“I want to come with you,” Tory said, her voice tense but resolute as she stepped in front of Max.

“No chance, Buttercup,” Max replied, her fingers curling in an effort not to pick the teenager up and toss her out of the way.

“I can handle myself. Give me a gun.”

“When pigs fly. Get back to the Great Hall before you get yourself killed,” Max said. “That’s something else Shadowblades do—obey orders.” Max shoved past her, Spike loping at her side. Alexander and Beyul followed close on her heels, with Kyle bringing up the rear.

She pushed out into the night air. She could feel the wrongness in the wards and smell Divine magic. It came from the south.

She led the way around to the front entrance. The rest of her Blades had spilled out into the night, waiting for her, all armed to the teeth. A few Grims nosed around curiously.

Max turned to Tyler. “Where’s Giselle?”

“On her way with Gregory and Judith.”

She looked over her Blades. She probably ought to wait for them. “Tyler, Alexander, Oak, Nami, and Simon, you’re with me. We’ll scout ahead. The rest of you follow with the witches.” She looked around at them all. She scowled as she realized that each one was smudged with some of the red dust. She’d have to ask Giselle about it later.

“Whatever’s going on out there, watch one another’s back. Nobody dies tonight. Got it?”

Sober nods went all around the group, and a minute later, Max and her companions were loping across the steep ridges south of Horngate, each one a messenger of death for whatever lay in wait.

A
LEXANDER WAS SPOILING FOR A FIGHT. ANYTHING
to relieve the tension knotting tighter with every second he spent with Max. For weeks, she had been blowing hot and cold—one minute she was wrapped around him as if she would never let go, the next she was covered in steel spikes and driving him away on the end of a spear. It was getting old. Like being on a roller coaster that never stopped running. Something had to change and soon, or he was going to go insane.

He had lost control of himself once. Doing it again would be his death sentence. He had managed to come back one time, but he was certain the next time he would have to be put down.

The smell of Divine magic grew more dense as they ranged closer to whoever or whatever had penetrated the ward line circling the Horngate fortress at a circumference of about five miles. Uncanny creatures like Shadowblades and Sunspears were made of magic but had no ability to create spells or cast magic. Only Divine creatures could, such as witches and angels and a host of other beings.

The group came up over the final ridge above where the ward line crossed the road into Horngate.

“What the fuck?” Simon said, and was cuffed on the side of the head by Nami.

“Shh!”

The road below snaked through a narrow channel between tall, heavily treed ridges. A broad arch of elk, deer, and moose horns over the road gave Horngate its name. It was blackened, and an acrid smell of burned horn drifted upward.

A line of people carrying torches and chanting stretched out of sight along the road. They marched through the gate—something the wards should have refused to let them do—and poured into a flat, wide area just within. In the center was a small cleared space surrounding what appeared to be large crosses with people hanging from them, crucified in biblical fashion. The base of each cross was stacked with wood. Two of the victims were children.

Alexander’s stomach clenched and rage made the edges of his vision cloud. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep his Prime under control.

“Is that what it looks like?” Oak whispered in horror.

“It looks to me like a good old-fashioned burning at the stake,” Max said, her voice cold as frosted iron. “With a dose of crucifixion to add that shine of historical glamor. Is that what it looks like to you?”

“That’s fucking sick. They’re going to burn kids?”

“No,” Alexander said.

“You got that right, Slick,” Max said.

Though she seemed to be taking the situation in stride, her Prime told another story. It had risen to the killing edge and the air crackled with her white-hot fury.

“What are they doing
here
?” Nami asked.

“Sending us a message,” Max said.

“Like ‘Please come kick our asses’?” said Simon. His eyes had narrowed, and his hands flexed into claws, like a cat kneading the air.

“I would say they want us to know that they do not like witches, except that they clearly have at least one down there,” Alexander mused, watching as more and more people crowded into the small clearing below. The string of lights coming up the road had not thinned. There had to be a couple hundred people gathered already. How many more could there be?

“Wish we had the angels for a flyover,” Max muttered, and then she clamped her jaws together.

But both Tutresiel and Xaphan lay unconscious in a stone vault inside Horngate, neither dead nor quite alive. No one knew how to wake them or if that was even possible. They had fallen when a Fury arose and unleashed her rage. Their loss, along with Niko’s, had wounded Max to her soul. She had nightmares from which she awoke in a killing mood and after which she and Alexander usually had mind-blowing sex. Alexander did not know if she slept afterward out of satiation or exhaustion. The question bothered him more than he liked to admit.

“All right. This is what we’re going to do. Simon, Tyler, Oak, and Nami, get across to the other ridge and wait for orders. Get down close but not so close they can see you. When the witches get here, we’ll go in. Wait for my signal.”

The four peeled away into the darkness, Tyler’s Grim loping along beside him on silent feet. Whether she would choose to help or just watch was the never-ending question.

“Let’s go back to the road and wait for the others,” Max told Alexander.

They climbed back over the ridge and dropped down to the road, out of sight of the torch army.

“Who the fuck are they?” Max wondered aloud as she paced restlessly. “What are they up to?”

“We will find out soon,” he said, hearing the crunch of tires as two vehicles drove closer. They ran on magic now, making them mostly silent.

The Suburban that Max had intended to take to town pulled up first, followed by a pickup. The rest of her Blades piled out, followed by Kyle, and Gregory.

Gregory stepped out of the Suburban and shook himself as though to straighten out his lanky body. Like Kyle, he was a Triangle-level witch. His powers were considerable, and he had far more experience than Max’s impetuous brother.

His eyes were sunk deep beneath his black brows, his nose protruding like an eagle’s beak. He carried himself hunched, like a slave awaiting the bite of the master’s whip. Max and Alexander had rescued him and several members of his coven a few months back, and although his body had recovered from the experience, his mind had not. His eyes were always roving, searching for trouble. He rarely spoke, and when he did, his statements were terse and to the point.