White Winter (The Black Year Series Book 2) (19 page)

“Jim’s not people. Jim’s crazy.”

She nodded, taking another pull. The smoke tickled his nose. “And I like that about him. But I think part of what makes humans, werewolves, and other short-lived creatures interesting is the counting down of the clock, the knowledge that soon they’ll be gone and all that will be left is what they built or what they destroyed. If I wait another 100 years, I’ll most likely meet another Jim. Maybe several.”

“So, you’re not going to turn him?”

“Not anytime soon,” she said. She dropped the cigarette and ground it out with her toe.

Of course, when Jonas looked down at the mat, there was nothing there. “Does Jim know any of this?”

“No. Jim just thinks you have the hots for teacher.”

Jonas blushed. “I don’t-”

“Then stop staring at us. I don’t need you hanging over my love life as a reminder of mortality and fate. I had my mother for that, and she died in the 1940s. And Jonas?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Your barrier’s getting sloppy.”

Sam? What does she mean by our barrier’s getting sloppy?

I don’t know. It’s Viviane, she’s probably just messing with our heads. Nothing’s wrong.

♘

“He called me fluffy?” Kieran said.

“Yeah.”

“I think he likes me.”

“You may be the only werewolf he does like.”

It was just below freezing, which was normal for early-to-mid January and warmer than it had been all week. Light snowflakes fell, dusting the cars and making a sludgy mess of the salted sidewalks. It had been ten degrees on Tuesday, and even colder when they got on the plane to Europe. He couldn’t remember a winter this cold in his lifetime. There was something almost menacing about it.

Kieran stopped.

“What’s up?”

He sniffed. “We’re being followed. Better see what he wants.”

Jonas turned around, hands at his sides so he wouldn’t get caught off guard. The city was relatively quiet, except for an ambulance siren two or three blocks away and a single taxi driving west on 47th Street. He burned a little blood to get his body warm, just in case.

The Sorcerer landed on the sidewalk three car lengths away. Jonas knew the Macreadys traversed the city rooftop to rooftop sometimes, but it still filled him with a kind of awe to see 200 pounds of meat throw itself around like that. The Sorcerer straightened and walked toward them, his staff slung diagonally across his back. “Kieran,” he said, nodding. “Clan-leader.”

“What happened to ‘boy’ or ‘vampire’?” Jonas asked.

“I’m old.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

The Sorcerer rotated one of the wards on his hip, then grabbed Jonas’ wrist.

♘

Pain and darkness and fire.

He thrashed wildly, trying to scream with missing lungs and seared vocal chords. He wanted to die. He wanted it desperately. His fingers found the edge and he pulled himself out, molten stone sloughing off his bones
with a crackle of anima, and collapsed on the obsidian beach.

Then there was the smell of sulfur, the dryness of the air.

Then there was light. Tikaani crouched nearby, watching him, a wry grin on his face. He had round cheeks and slanted eyes, and always smiled, even when he was killing people. His lips moved, but Gamil-Sin couldn’t hear him. His eardrums hadn’t grown back yet.

Tikaani grabbed the skinned carcass by both ends and dumped it on top of him, offal and all. He felt his body assimilating the meat. He regrew enough of a brain to fall unconscious.

♘

He gasped, then coughed, shooting pains spreading across his back and ribs. He was back in the camp.
Tik must have dragged me the whole way.
Lykos was playing some kind of small, stringed instrument, while Tikaani turned two squirrels on spits over the fire.

“What did you say?” Gamil-Sin said.

“When, fearless leader?”

“When I pulled myself from the fire.”

“Ah. I said, ‘I told you it was a stupid idea to jump into a volcano.’”

♘

“Get your hand off him,” Kieran snarled, shoving the Sorcerer back.

“Easy, pup. All I did was give him some context.” He twisted the charm at his hip back to the way it was.

Jonas massaged his wrist, the smell of the rotten eggs still vivid. “I can see how that might make you grumpy.”

The Sorcerer grunted. “That was nothing. Try drowning over and over for a month, then waiting for the chains to rust through.”

“How long did that take?”

“Don’t know, something ate me before I could find out!” he said, laughing.

Jonas and Kieran looked at each other.

“Well,” Jonas said, “it was great seeing you, but we’re meeting some friends at a bar near here.”

“Great. I’ll come with you. I could use a drink.” He started walking.

Jonas looked at Kieran again and mouthed, “What do I do?”

Kieran shrugged, and started after the Sorcerer. Jonas shook his head and followed.

“So, your name is Gamil-Sin?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“So is yours. Did you know Jonas means both a message from God and a destroyer?”

Jonas swallowed. “I didn’t know that. What’s yours mean?”

“The benefit of sin.”

“That’s…”

“It’s a stupid name to give a child, yes. I was a king’s bastard, and my father fancied himself a clever man. Didn’t feel so clever when I killed all my siblings, although I’m sure part of him congratulated himself on the prophetic nature of the name.”

Jonas followed in silence for a few steps, then said, “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“No, but I figure if I let you keep talking, you’ll wind up saying something useful.”

Kieran whistled. “That was a good one.”

“Incredible burn,” Jonas added.

The Sorcerer stared at them.

Jonas pointed to the left. “It’s right there.”

♘

Overlook was a narrow, four-story, plastered building dwarfed by its brick neighbors. Then again, the building to its left looked like it was scheduled for demolition and there was a vacant lot to its right, so maybe size mattered less than obstinacy. Jonas wondered if there was a story behind it.

As they neared the entrance, the doorman frowned at Kieran and Jonas, but Jonas waved his hand and flexed his mind and all the man said was, “Have a good evening, gentlemen.” The Sorcerer raised an eyebrow at him. Jonas grinned.

The first floor was more sports bar than pub. Hardwood flooring, black leather booths with a small TV at each table, and drawings of actors and news anchors on the walls. Frank and the others had occupied the round table and the far left corner. Jim waved them over.

“Jonas. Kieran. Who’s your friend?” Frank said.

“This is Gamil-Sin.”

Frank looked at the Sorcerer. “I knew an interpreter called Gamil. Iraqi. That where you’re from?”

“Close enough,” the Sorcerer grumbled. He grabbed an empty chair from another table and carried it over. Jonas did the same; Kieran squeezed in with the others.

“That’s a wolf, Frank,” Billy said, looking at the Sorcerer.

Kieran opened his mouth in mock horror. “Billy’s here? Should I wait outside?”

Billy scowled. “Not this again.”

Frank put an arm around him and kissed the top of his head. “You know we love you, Billy, right? Hey, Jonas, you remember that time?”

“What time, Frank?” Jonas said sitting down.

“Grand Central. Is this kind of like that?” he said, smiling. Jim shifted in his seat.

Jonas had walked Frank into an ambush at Grand Central. They barely made it out. “Nah, this isn’t like Grand Central. More like when Jim met Viviane.”

“Who’s Viviane?” the Sorcerer said.

“Jim’s girlfriend.”

The Sorcerer glared at Jim. “You try to make me your girlfriend, they’ll be calling
you
Viviane.”

Everyone but Billy laughed.

“Can we get another round?”

♘

Gamil-Sin waved his beer mug theatrically. “So, our king is fed up of the war, and their king is fed up of the war, and they’re
this
close to giving us back all the treasure they took and letting us sail home.”

“You’re kidding!” Frank said. “Did they back out on the deal?”

“No!” the Sorcerer roared. “We thought they were desperate, so we attacked!” He drank. “And we got our asses handed to us. Achilles got into a pissing match with the king over a woman - can’t even remember her name - so we sat out most of the battle anyway. At this point, Hector’s got us surrounded, talking of burning our ships, so Tik sneaks through their lines and pulls an omen out of his backside. I think he fed a fawn to an eagle.”

“And that worked?” Billy asked, eyebrow raised.

Gamil-Sin snorted. “Like a charm. Greeks suddenly found their manhoods again, stopped the Trojans right where they were, no thanks to Captain Sensitive.

“They went back and forth for a while; Achilles finally let us jump in when Hector made it all the way to the ships. Then Hector went and killed his battle-brother, and Achilles lost it. No sitting around after that, and no restraint; the Greeks played games, and we went behind enemy lines. The only time we stopped was to clean the blood off our gear.” The Sorcerer stared at his glass. The others were quiet.

“Why’d you fight for him if he was such an ass?” Billy asked. Frank frowned at him.

“No, it’s okay. He
was
an ass. And a monster. But he could fight. He took Lykos on barehanded, once. Knocked him out cold. Didn’t stop Paris from turning him into a pincushion.”

“I thought he was invincible,” Jonas said.

“Nope. Just brave and strong and well trained. The truth is, Paris was a fine shot and put one clean through his neck. That slowed him down enough the boy was able to put two more through his cuirass and one in his leg. We knew the Greeks might respect that - never saw a bigger group of men obsessed about honor. So we dressed the wounds neat as an undertaker and started the rumor about poison. They sacked the city; killed every man, woman, and child they found.”

“That’s… harsh,” Jonas said.

Gamil-Sin shrugged. “Standard treatment for a defeated city, at the time. We’d been at war for ten years.”

The Sorcerer called for a round of shots. He passed one to Jonas. “Here you go, kid. Drink up.”

“I’m only 17,” Jonas said.

“So was I, once.”

Jonas sniffed the glass. It smelt strong and unpleasant. The other’s downed their shots, placing the glasses upside down on the table, and looked at him, amused.
Here goes nothing,
he thought.

It rasped his throat on the way down, then his gut clenched. The others laughed, and Gamil-Sin clapped him on the back.

“It burns,” Jonas said.

The other men grinned.

“Aye, boy. Whisky will do that.”

Jonas squeezed one eye shut and winced. “No, I mean it really
burns.
” His blood was attacking what it thought was poison. He grabbed the pitcher of ice water from the middle of the table and pushed the heat into it, melting all the ice cubes. Then he burped, and the booze came back up as fumes, passing through his nose. His face went numb.

“You’re a sorcerer,” Gamil-Sin said, frowning.

“No, man,
you’re
the Sorcerer,” Jonas said, the world suddenly funnier than it was before.

His blood finished clearing the alcohol from his body. His head hurt, and he felt a little dizzy.

“That was pretty epic,” Kieran said.

“Never again,” Jonas groaned.

The others laughed.

Frank’s phone rang. Then Jim’s did, and so did the soldiers’ team leader’s. Jonas’ phone vibrated, and a text from the Agency operator popped up with the recall code.

“Time to go, folks,” Jim said.

Frank started to flag down the waitress, but the Sorcerer said, “You boys go ahead. This one’s on me.”

“Thanks,” Jonas said, surprised.

The others echoed the sentiment.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, sitting back to finish his beer.

♘

Frank climbed back into the van. Kieran followed him in, eyes red and tearing, and pulled the door shut behind him.

“What’s the word, Frank?” Jim asked.

“Simple burglary,” Frank said. “At least that’s what NYPD thinks.”

“What do we think?” Jonas asked, yawning. It was getting close to 4 a.m.

“Shop was broken into with tools. They cut the padlock outside with bolt cutters and forced the latch on the metal shutter with some kind of jack. Small floor safe behind the counter was drilled into; the owner said it held about 500 dollars in cash. Burglary seems like a pretty good guess.”