White Winter (The Black Year Series Book 2) (41 page)

Four days after the cull, he could move around with a rigid back brace and the crutches. His left leg was missing below the knee, growing back painfully, but it was better than being dead. He would have preferred a long nap in the vats, but everyone seemed to have questions for him that couldn’t wait.

He rode the elevator back to his floor.

As he turned the corner, he almost ran into Eve. She had her hair back in a ponytail and wore a white t-shirt and gray sweats; he’d never seen her this dressed down outside of her room before. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey, Jonas.” She waved her cell phone. “I was just heading outside.”

“Want me to come with?”

“No,” she said, then added, “I… um… now that everything’s out in the open, I thought I might try calling my family.”

“Oh, wow. Yeah, okay, no wonder this felt awkward. I’ll see you later?”

She paused, then said, “Sure, I’ll stop by.”

His breath caught in his throat, but he said, “Cool, good luck then.”

“Thanks.”

He leaned against the wall while she stepped around him. He heard the elevator doors close as he crutched to his room.

He set his crutches against the wall, sat on the bed, and pulled a blood pack from his bag. He prepped it and took a sip, then leaned forward, pendant hanging from his neck.
Things could be worse. I almost got the world destroyed, but I settled for Manhattan. No more prophecy. My mom’s alive. Frank and the others are alive. The twins are fine, even if half the Macreadys are dead. Jim’s a vampire, Amelia’s a werewolf, and Kieran hates me, but I’ll find a way to make it up to him, somehow. It could be so much worse.
He turned the cracked, inert cylinder between his fingers, wishing he could somehow bring the specter back.

He drank again. The blood coated his mouth, his tongue, his throat, and he gagged.
Too much real food,
he thought, but it was more than that. It was the compulsion to feed, like some kind of monster. It was the series of betrayals. It was the deaths and the accusations and everything that had happened since the damned funeral. He just wanted it to stop.

He thought about his run in with Eve, but his mind shied away from it. She was just nervous about talking to her parents. The world might hate him - might try to kill him - but she knew him better than anyone. When he thought of her, he knew things would be okay.

♘

Eve sat on one of the planters outside the building and wiped the tears from her face with the inside of her wrist and said, “Yeah, Mom, it’s really me.”

She smiled as her mom freaked out
. She really missed me.
It felt kind of pathetic, but she’d worried-

“What? No, Mom, I didn’t run away. You got the ashes, right?” She closed her eyes and sighed. Nothing had changed. “I’m a vampire, okay? I was turned last year. No, I didn’t choose it! Some creep attacked me and I-” She dug her nails into her palm as her mom went off again. “Look, can you - just put Dad on, okay? I can’t deal with you right now.”

The line went silent. Eve took a deep breath.

Her father came on the line. “Dad!” she said, smiling.

“I told Mom, but yeah, I got turned about a year ago.” She listened. “Yeah, well, he’s dead, so you don’t need to get the gun out of the closet.” She almost laughed. The thought of her dad facing down a vampire was comical and a little sad. And then Eve was crying again because he’d do it anyway. “No, I’m okay, I’m just - no, I’m in New York.” She sniffed. “No, don’t, it’s not safe. I’ll come find you when things have calmed down.”

She watched a Humvee drive by, wheels splashing through the snowmelt. The turret tracked her for a moment, then spun back to the front.

“What?” she asked. “Yeah, Dad, I’m still painting. I mean, I stopped, but Jonas got some for me for Christmas and-” Eve giggled. “Yes, Jonas is a boy’s name. No, he’s not a hippie loser like Jerome.”

The sound of distant gunfire echoed down the street. Eve glanced toward uptown, then covered her ear. “What did you say? Well, of course I…” The words died on her lips.

Do I love him?

She leaned forward, resting her head on her left hand. “I don’t know, Dad. Stuff’s been crazy here. It’s just… it’s overwhelming. It’s been a shitty winter.” She looked down at her sneakers, drawing a circle with her toe. “I know ladies don’t cuss. Yeah, I know I don’t have to stay with him, Dad, but-” She felt a presence leaving her head and latched onto it. “Jonas?”

Things became focused. “You son of a bitch.” The mind she’d captured thrashed around, but she just held on tighter. She brought the phone back to her ear. “No, it’s okay, Dad, but I have to call you back.”

She got up stomped back, scowling at the army thugs guarding the lobby. One of them smirked and started to say something; he dropped like a puppet with his strings cut. The other two raised their weapons but she made them point their guns at each other instead.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” one of the soldiers said, struggling to get his head away from his teammate’s muzzle.

She got on the elevator and let them go. Jonas used the opening to escape.

♘

Oh crap
. His heart was racing; he’d dropped the mostly full blood pack on the floor. He hadn’t meant to spy on her, he’d been thinking about her and the remote viewing just happened, like back when Madoc was still alive.

I’ll meet her at the door. I’ll explain.
He stood, took a step, and the room spun. He staggered and fell on his side. Pain rippled up his back. His breath sounded hollow in his ears, his chest was tight.
What’s happening to me?

He tried to get up and didn’t make it a foot off the floor before he fell back down.

“Jonas? What are you doing?” Eve said from the doorway.

He looked up, eyes burning. “I thought this was you. I thought you were doing this to me.”

“I’m not…”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little more broken than I thought.” He tried to smile at her. His chest hurt, like someone was digging their knuckles into his sternum. His teeth chattered. He clamped his jaw shut.

She propped him against the bed and he leaned against her. She put her arms around him and stroked the side of his head. “It’s okay, Jonas. It’s going to be okay.”

He closed his eyes, still shaking, and did his best to breathe.

Frequently Asked Questions

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It’s a glimmer in my eye.

Is there anything I can do to speed that process up?

Yes. Your feedback as a reader is incredibly important to me. If you enjoyed the book, write a review and recommend it to your friends. Knowing there are people waiting for the next installment is what motivates me to write. You can also e-mail the address I send my newsletter from to cheer me on, report typo sightings, or tell me what your favorite/least favorite part of the book was.

If you want to write fan-fiction, I love the creativity and investment in the world, but can’t read it for legal reasons.

How many books are in the series?

The Black Year series will be four books long, unless I have to split one in two due to length. I won’t drag it on for decades, resurrect dead characters, or spawn alternate timelines. I also have other books planned in the Blackest Timeline, and will work on the next series or your favorite characters’ origin stories based on your feedback.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The following people contributed to the publication of this book:

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2016 Talk Sense Media

Cover design by Joshua Etteldorf

The Foundation: Ais, Ally, eden, Eileen, Holly, James, Ivana, Jason, Karri, Michael, Nell, Pratap, and Toria.

Copyright © 2016 by Darby M. Bodden Jr.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

RED SPRING

Jonas sat with his bare feet hanging over the lip of the wall that ringed the roof, looking out at the world. He was listening to Thomas Bergersen’s “Promise” in one ear and the sounds of humanity in the other, the sirens, jackhammers, and honking. The air was light, cool, and playful, tugging at his hair and clothes with gusts that smelled like car exhaust, pollen, and rain. Dark clouds hung on the horizon, and thunder occasionally rumbled through the urban canyons, shaking his bones, but he probably had another hour before he needed to go inside.

He wiggled his toes. It had taken two-and-a-half weeks for his body to recover. He was grateful for the small things.

Footsteps splashed in the puddles on the roof. Jonas twisted around and saw the priest looking up at him. “Hey, father. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Jonas. What makes you ask?”

Jonas shrugged, turning back to the look across the street. “No one really comes up here. I thought maybe you needed to be alone.”

There was a pause, then the priest said. “Is that why you come up here, Jonas?”

“Nah,” Jonas answered. “I can see people scurrying about from up here, and watch cars drive by. I can hear them and feel them living their lives. Did you know I can remote view like a specter now?”

“I’d heard something like that.”

“It’s like having a million different stories to look through,” Jonas said. “It’s nice.”

The priest leaned his back against the wall beneath Jonas. The old man was wearing a gray, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. His navy blue pea coat was draped over his arm. Jonas looked at his short, white hair and thought of snow.

“I heard you had a panic attack,” the priest said.

Jonas nodded, his eyes closed. He took a deep breath. “Frank says it’s okay. It’s the calm after the storm, letting everything unwind. I just need time to process what happened, adjust to the new normal, and I shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it.”

“That’s good advice,” the priest said.

Jonas smiled.
One day, one hour, one minute at a time.
“I didn’t destroy the world, father.”

“No, Jonas, you didn’t. Some people say you saved it.”

Jonas kicked his feet. “That’s okay then.” He had a funny thought and laughed. “Hey, father? What’s your name? I don’t think I ever asked you.”

Silence.

“Father?” Jonas said, twisting and kicking his legs over the wall so he was facing inward. He was alone on the roof.

Car alarms sounded in the street below. A lot of them. There was a sound like a flag fluttering in a storm. It got louder and louder, and then there was a flap, a gust of warm wind, and a hiss. Puddles boiled and spat as empty boot prints splashed their way toward him or crackled on the bare roof. They stopped. Jonas leaned forward and squinted.

Something touched his forehead.

The angel withdrew his gauntleted hand. At least Jonas thought he was an angel. He was seven feet tall, armored in heavy silver plate from neck to toe with a sword on his right hip and four massive, snow-white wings he tucked behind him. His armored boots glowed red, still cooling from the descent.

Hundreds of other angels landed in formation on the surrounding buildings and on the streets below, like the world’s most organized migratory birds.

The angel on the roof of the Agency fixed Jonas with blood red irises that were flecked with gold. His voice vibrated Jonas’s bones like the rumble of a waterfall. “I am Amon-Alon, commander of the 157th Legion. We are here for the evacuation.”

It took a moment for the words to register but, once he understood, Jonas sighed in relief. “You’re late. Most of the werewolves died in the…” He swallowed, feeling slightly nauseous, then said, “during the fighting.” He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to say the word “cull” again. “People are coming back now. The city’s safe, or at least as safe as it ever was.”

The angel frowned and flicked one of his wings outward like he was shaking off rainwater.

Jonas hoped he hadn’t been rude. “It’s okay. I mean, it was a lot to handle, but-”

“Jonas, I command a legion. I am not here to evacuate Manhattan.”

“But you said-”

“I am here to evacuate the planet.”

Another platoon of angels passed in front of the sun. Jonas looked up. There were thousands of them.

“The apostle was supposed to give you a message, preparing you for our meeting,” Amon-Alon rumbled.

Jonas put his other earphone in. “Icarus,” from the Deus Ex soundtrack.
Fitting,
he thought. He leaned back to follow another group’s arrival and slipped.