Chapter Forty-Six
“Astrid!”
Warm hands enclosed her forearms, yanking up.
Astrid’s body burst through a crust of snow to face the full moon above and Suri’s panicked expression.
Her body thrummed with too much energy, the stillness of Death long left behind. The cold was invigorating.
“Astrid? Is that you?” Suri’s voice was uncertain, fearful.
No longer hindered by fatigue, Astrid held out her hands, turning them over in the moonlight. Fingers, hands, then wrists darkened as if succumbed to frostbite but it tapered off the further it traveled up her limbs. The veins in Astrid’s body had darkened, too, stone gray beneath skin as white as snow, like cracked ice. From afar it might resemble old, wrinkled flesh.
She had claws of her own now, and following a cursory reach up, she felt a rack of antlers crowning her head.
Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, the gunshot wound pain but a dim, dull ache.
She not only survived but transformed, her metamorphosis into a hag complete, even at Death’s door. How, she did not know, and maybe the hag’s ritual was the reason she still lived, all that extra life-giving energy infused into her.
Suri took a step back, brown eyes wild and round.
“It’s me,” Astrid’s voice rasped, touching her hands, her arms, her shoulders, and torso in wonder.
Me. This is really me.
“I’ve changed, but it’s still me,” she added, hoping it would help, the happiest tears freezing on her cheeks.
Suri nodded vigorously, collapsing on the snow beside her and enveloping Astrid in an all-encompassing hug, rocking her from side to side. “You’re alive. I’m so glad you’re alive.”
Memory returned. The gunshot, the darkness, the cocoon of cold. Gudarīks. Johanna. Mutter. Astrid pulled back.
“Where are the others?” She gripped Suri’s hands in a too tight squeeze, the bones shifting between gloves and flesh. Suri whimpered, and Astrid quickly released them. She’d have to remember this newfound strength.
Tears streamed down Suri’s cheeks, their whole body shaking, but not the debilitating sort of tears, rather the sort that begot rage. “They got my jaan and the others.”
Dread sliced down her spine. “Got as in...?”
She couldn’t bear to ask if they’d been slain.
“Captured,” Suri answered. “We have to hurry.”
Not dead, then, Mutter Holle sei Dank. But for how much longer? Heldin and her people had a penchant for human sacrifice. Astrid shot to her feet with all the energy and wobbly clumsiness of a newborn fawn.
Suri caught her elbow and steadied her. “Where’s Gudarīks?”
“They took him, too.”
Angry tears streamed down her face, forming tracks of ice. They dared take her friend, her love ... Oh, how she would make those forsaken, ancient humans regret it.
Frostbite was now the very least of what she could do.
Suri swore. “Your cottage is on the way. Anything we can grab that might make a good weapon?”
For them? “I’ve got an ax and some kitchen knives.”
“Good enough. Oh, and I found this.”
Her nightgown . The naked “so happy you’re alive” hug only just now registering. Oops .
“Thanks.” Astrid donned it hastily, then broke into a quick clip, arms wrapped across her chest. Not from cold, but because bouncing tits were just not it for this situation. Suri followed.
“What happened to your drones?”
“Two of the three were smashed. It was like they already knew we were there. I was off in the trees a bit, up on some higher ground. That gave me a little warning, enough to get the drones off the ground, but not enough to spray without hitting our own. I fired a couple shots of regular pepper spray, but I must’ve missed, because it didn’t slow them down, and one of the poachers shot them out of the sky. Everything became so muddled, I couldn’t get another shot.”
“What happened after that?”
“They captured Johanna and the others, and I ran for help.”
Casting a look behind her, Astrid asked, “Did anyone follow you?”
Suri nodded. “There was one.”
“Was?”
A little smile lifted the corner of their mouth. “Blasted him with bear spray in the face.”
Well done.
“Duck!” Suri cried, and Astrid rushed to comply, but her head jerked back, new antlers dragging across the top of the threshold in an ugly scrape.
“Verdammt!” She rubbed the twin aching points atop her head.
“Are you okay?”
“Will be. Get the knives.”
While Suri raided the kitchen knife block, Astrid retrieved her ax from where it leaned against the wall by the back door. Next to it was the forest ranger assigned guard duty. The poor man was slumped over, still and cold. A pang of regret stabbed at Astrid’s chest, knowing Johanna would take the loss hard, but there was no time to attend to the body. The living needed them more, and there was no way of knowing how much time Johanna had left. Or even Gudarīks, if he wasn’t immortal, after all.
Bells rang just beyond her gate.
The warning spell.
Her attention snapped to the front door, eyes narrowing.
Something had triggered them.
Suri’s eyes rounded, lips parting to ask a question, but Astrid held up a finger, silencing them. Whatever lurked outside, she’d have it think she was alone.
Ax in hand, she crept toward a front-facing window, scarcely moving aside the curtain to look outside. Cigarette Man and one other. Had he circled back to make sure she was truly dead only to find her body missing, and followed her tracks here?
Astrid met Suri’s eyes, mouthing, “Poachers.”
Nodding, Suri’s expression hardened, newly acquired knives raised and ready for slashing.
Anger bubbled beneath the skin. Astrid whisked open the door, cold rushing in and steeling her spine. She may be full Winter Hexe now, but rage still burned.
They dare trespass on my home. Dare take my friend, my love.
“You’re looking better, Blondie.” Cigarette Man smirked, his gaze dipping to the blood-stained center of her chest. The bullet hole there had all but sealed, just a bit of residual puckered flesh. “Not that I would’ve minded. So pretty at the edge of death.” The last bit was spoken softly, almost wistfully, as if he regretted the inconvenience of her survival.
Everything about his sickly sweet gaze fanned the flames of her anger higher, as a serrated steel knife the length and width of his forearm glinted in his hand. Like he was entitled to that which wasn’t his and would take it at any cost. Maybe she’d recapture him, just so she could savor taking him apart later.
The man beside him scoffed, his disgust almost matching Astrid’s own, but this was no ally. On the wake of that scoff, he lifted his arm, gun in tow. A muscle in his hand twitched, and reflexively, Astrid stretched out her hand, ice shooting from the palm. In a split second between the firing synapses in his brain and action, she froze the end of the gun barrel, just as it fired.
Screaming ensued.
But not her own.
No eviscerating pain had followed, nor no new gaping hole at the center of her chest.
But her would-be shooter’s hand?
The gun had backfired, rendering it a bloody, mangled mess. More chewed up, stringy flesh than anything solid.
Astrid smiled, stepping down barefoot from her front stoop and into the snow.
Her unwanted admirer smiled, this development with his colleague fazing him none.
Cigarette Man tossed the knife from hand to hand. It was a wonder he wasn’t scared. Did he think she couldn’t repeat the magic? It was true she didn’t know the boundaries of her strengths and weaknesses, newly come into her hag’s power and restored from Death, but it was awfully cocky to assume she already reached her limit.
“It’s nothing personal.” He grinned, showing all his teeth, like he thought himself more wolf than man. “Kill or be killed. That’s the way of nature, isn’t it?”
A wicked smile twisted her mouth, filled with too many sharp teeth. He thought he was the predator.
He was wrong.
“I’ve hunted wolf, bear, summoned demon spawn from Hell.” He laughed, waving his knife around carelessly. “Those pretty, sharp teeth don’t scare me. I will...”
Astrid hefted her ax and swung, cleaving his screaming companion’s head clean from his body. It smacked the ground in a wet, meaty, and extremely satisfying thud, followed by his body.
“One swing.” Cigarette Man toed the severed head with his boot, having the audacity to look impressed. “Nice job, Blondie. This one was starting to get on my nerves.”
The doorstep creaked behind her. Suri .
He whirled, wrist flicking with a blinding speed she’d seen before.
Astrid threw up an ice shield, one large enough to protect her and Suri, but her friend was already darting to the side. As the poacher’s bowie knife smashed into the ice, Suri leaped forward, quick as a rabbit, plunging a kitchen knife into his shoulder.
He howled in pain but instinctively reached for their throat.
Astrid shot ice from her palm, pelting him so hard in the groin, it knocked him on his back. Howling turned to screaming as he clutched himself, rolling from side to side on the ground. The debilitating pain zapped the fight right out of him.
Together, they dragged him back inside and tied him to the chair, right where he belonged.
A black crow perched itself in the center of the tree stump outside Astrid’s gate, staring at them through the open door with its beady eyes. She couldn’t exactly pinpoint what she didn’t like about its open, unflinching stare. Crows always seemed brazen, but this one’s behavior bordered upon unnatural.
She considered shooing it off when a flash of orange streaked across her vision, almost too quick to track, leaving the space the crow occupied an obliterated puff of feathers. There was squawking and then an abrupt snap.
Moments later, Oskar emerged from behind the tree stump, a limp, feathery bird in the clutches of his mouth.
“What’s this?” she asked.
He laid the crow at her feet. “Formerly? A familiar for Heldin.”
Astrid nudged it with her toe. “How do you know that?” It hadn’t talked, just watched.
Oskar turned his nose up, looking offended. She didn’t mean to imply distrust. Only curiosity.
“I can see the master behind the servant,” he explained a little grumpily. “That’s a normal skill amongst our kind, which is why I didn’t let it see me and used the element of surprise.”
“I’m sorry.” She rubbed her chest, wincing at the phantom ache. “I’ve had a crummy night, so I’m a little more blunt than usual. I was only wondering.”
The fox familiar’s expression softened. In a manner that was very catlike, he rubbed his furry head affectionately against her legs. “That’s a lot of blood. What happened?”
“The short version? I was shot during the ritual, almost died, and these ‘fuckers’ kidnapped Gudarīks and Johanna.”
“Fuckers,” Oskar agreed, sniffing the air. Then the crow. Then the air again.
“What?”
“There’s more of this magic.” Before she could protest, he scampered past her and into the cottage where Cigarette Man was tied up.
The poacher’s head lolled back and forth, a delirious, glassy look to his eyes. Astrid was pretty sure she’d ruptured his testicles. “She showed us where to find the wolves and set the traps. She’s been right every time. How does she know, you think? Would’ve been nice if she mentioned you lot.” He began to slur. “Would’ve saved me a whole lot of trouble.”
Every time. And on a path Mutter took multiple times a day.
“She meant for us to find you. She set you up to be captured and brought here.”
“Suppose so.” He grimaced, coming to the same conclusion. “That cunning bitch.”
Oskar peered up at the man, squinting, then began to growl.
“What is it?”
“She’s watching us and listening. Through him.”
The rival witch had made Cigarette Man her unwilling familiar.
His head twitched, this way, and that, each motion jerky.
“What the fuck?” He sat ramrod straight for one long tense moment. Then relaxed, a lazy, devilish smile spreading his lips from ear to ear. A voice not his own spilled off his tongue, and in a language that was not his either. “Still alive, are we?”
A woman’s voice. Heldin, no doubt. She tsked. “We’ll have to remedy that.” Her attention snapped to Suri. “What pretty screams the friends you left behind make. If only you could hear the way they sing with every caress from my blade. Never have I heard such sweet music. But don’t worry, I’ll keep my blade plenty sharp for you, too.”
Suri gritted their teeth, fists clenched around the knives they held.
“One by one, I’ll take their skin and bathe in their blood, securing my people’s place amongst the living.” Heldin-possessed Cigarette Man blinked slowly, attention returning to Astrid. “And then I’ll take Wald Vater. What you’ve left for me anyway. His body, his soul, his immortality will be mine. And then I’ll take yours.” A fiendish giggle erupted from sneering lips.
“Oskar, I’ve heard enough.”
“Agreed.” The fox snarled, launching himself onto Cigarette Man’s lap, scratching at his eyes and gnawing on his ears. A mixture of the man’s voice and Heldin’s shrieks pierced Astrid’s eardrums, and violet smoke retreated from his nostrils. A useful spy no more.
The poacher’s face now a ruin, Oskar hopped off, licking his chops. Horrendous screeching became loud sobbing. Mutter Holle, she was so sick and tired of this man. Always something foul coming out of his mouth. First it was cigarette smoke and sleazy, predatory comments, now this...racket.
If Johanna survived the night, she’d not be able to turn him in to the authorities like this. No more reasons to keep him around.
Astrid swung her ax.
Blissful quiet settled over the cottage. Offset only by a dull, wet thump. Finally. Sighing with relief, she lowered the ax, blood dripping off the edge and onto the floor. She had so much scrubbing to do, but that was a problem for tomorrow.
The poacher was lucky she didn’t have an ounce of patience left, or the time to take him apart piece by piece. For what he’d done, and for what he threatened to do—to her, to her friends, to her lover—he deserved abject suffering.
Irritation crept back in.
Heldin got too close tonight. Far closer than she should have.
“Oskar, you didn’t notice he was being piloted by Heldin when we captured him? That would’ve been useful to know.”
The fox bowed his head, ears drooped. This time not offended. “No, I was distracted by the injured wolf, but I should’ve caught it sooner. I’m sorry, Astrid.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a slow, steady exhale. She couldn’t be mad at him. “It’s all right. Just report back to Perchta. Suri and I are heading to the site.”
The fox sprinted off into the night, leaving Astrid alone with Suri and two decapitated bodies.
“We take no prisoners tonight.” No excuses, no remorse. It was better Suri knew that now before the real carnage began.
They aimed a kick at the severed head, expression dark. “I didn’t intend to.”