2
Match sighed, because snow witch or jack frost, it was going to be a long, ugly night.
Wrestling the door closed, he headed upstairs to the spare bedroom Phil and Rick had allowed him to use as storage for spare equipment and supplies on this side of town since he spent so much of his free time with Ronan now.
He'd bought a cheap, plyboard footlocker at the local thrift store and filled it with all sorts of tools and ingredients.
Together with what he always carried with him in his bookbag, there was more than enough to figure out what they were working with.
Divining a problem wasn't always possible, but in this instance it would be.
Taking everything downstairs, he returned to the sunroom and rolled up a rug and set it out of the way to clear some space on the hardwood floor.
Then he unfolded his handy travel board, which unfolded to a good-sized chalk board on which he could draw whatever he needed.
As he wanted to divine the nature of the problem, he drew three concentric circles, with a pentagram in the middle of the smallest.
Using the points of the stars he divided the circles into sections, and in each section drew the requisite symbols.
Once everything was drawn, he got out his herbs.
Sneezewort for tears, as both potential culprits were beings of rage, dissatisfaction, and often vengeance, but at their heart was a driving sorrow.
Grecian Foxglove for communication with the otherworldly, especially faeries, and both creatures had fae origins.
Dragon's Blood for rage. Willow Herb for communication and grounding. Clary Sage and Sage for clearing the mind, purifying the immediate area, so that the spell would cast cleanly with no outside interference.
Also quartz for amplification of the spell to cover a wider area; amethyst for divination, turquoise and black tourmaline to better communicate with the negative energies of the entity they were seeking; and finally Jasper to aid even further in connecting him specifically to the spell so he was likelier to understand what was said to him.
In a small bowl in the center he piled more sage along with an offering of 'sweet' flower petals like roses, lilacs, lilies, and more as an offering to the spirits themselves, request and thank you for the assistance being requested.
Finally he placed candles, white, black, red, blue, and green, at each star point, but along the edge of the outermost circle.
When all else was ready, he got out a match in preparation and set it nearby.
Going outside, he scooped up a pile of snow and carried it back inside.
He filled each point of the star with some of it, until all of it was divided, then struck the match, lit the contents of the bowl and then the candles, then stuck the burnt match in his mouth and closed his eyes, silently casting the spell, calling his request to those who could provide the answer.
At first all he got was scattered noise, hints of comprehensible voices, like a radio that needed to be tuned.
Match took a deep breath and let it out slowly, leaving his hands relaxed on his folded legs.
Nothing was understood by forcing the matter.
He simply listened, slowly but surely discarding some noises, lining up others, fine tuning until finally he could hear the words sharp pointed cutting thorny barbed cruel bite bite bite.
He jerked back, inhaling sharply, the noise cutting off abruptly, leaving him wholly in the sunroom again, the candles and offering extinguished—and the rest of the team gathered around him.
Benny dropped his folded arms.
"What have we got?"
"Jack frost."
Benny and Ronan swore, sharing a look.
Which they should, because killing the jack frost would fall to them.
It was too powerful a creature for magic to have much effect, and someone like Traci who fought with literal tooth and claw would die immediately on contact.
It would take paladins with special armor and their magic swords to get the job done.
"Can you find it for us?" Benny asked.
"Not yet.
I'd need a piece of it—hair, clothes, whatever.
Which we can't get until we find him, so a location spell is completely pointless for now."
"Still, we'll make certain to grab something in case he gets away from us," Ronan said.
Penelope, sitting on a nearby wicker bench, said, "I might be able to give us a general area, let me do some research."
"What research?" Traci asked.
Not looking up from her work, Penelope replied, "The snowstorm started abruptly, but it had to start somewhere, these creatures don't just have the storm start all at once everywhere, they're the starting point.
I'm sifting through weather reports, tweets, TikToks and more for the area, combining all of that to see who started complaining first and….
Got it! The storm swept in from the southeast, sounds like it started outside of town and blew in fast."
"Southeast…" Benny said thoughtfully.
"The old factory," Match said as he cleaned up his casting.
"The woods out that way would be good ground for festering." Because a jack frost was a vengeful spirit, born from a violent, unjust death that tied somehow to winter.
Normally someone left outside to freeze to death, or pushed into a frozen lake.
The list of creatures born from violent death were numerous, and each one had a very particular set of requirements. A jack frost wasn't even the most particular.
At least it wasn't a Wendigo.
His parents had dealt with one of those once, and to this day they both struggled with nightmares and falling asleep anywhere but a heavily warded, brightly lit room.
"Traci, you go ahead and see if you can't sniff out a more precise location, then fall back and wait for us.
Penny, go with her as backup.
Ronan and I will go to the vault to get the super fancy special armor.
Match, come with us, you can start your spellwork from downtown and work outward, unless you have a different plan."
"Nope, that works perfect." If they couldn't bring the jack frost down quickly, then their next best bet was to start activating the various wards he had around town for precisely this kind of situation.
It would keep people safe and force the jack frost into certain areas, effectively caging it.
As it was already in the southeast of Harper Valley, then starting from downtown and working that way would keep it confined where it already was.
He'd need a lot more snowdrops than he had to hand, but downtown also had his favorite shop for such things when he could get it himself.
"Be careful, everyone," Benny said, then kissed Traci briefly before they all divided up and headed out.
They took Benny's SUV, far more equipped for the snow than their bikes or Ronan's car, and despite the snow made it downtown with relative ease.
Townhall always made him tense because nothing pleasant ever happened here, just rejection after rejection after rejection of all his attempts to increase his pay.
Lately, with Benny's fight, it had been even worse.
He was used to people treating him warily because he was not just a witch, but a really fucking good witch, but Mayor Wright and all his lackies seemed to dislike him with a particular vehemence he'd never been able to figure out.
"You two be careful," he said at the bottom of the steps.
"I'm going to hit up Maddie's for more snowdrops, then I'll start activating the wards." He kissed Ronan.
"Don't do anything stupid, either of you."
Benny saluted.
"Do our best."
"I doubt it." Match left them to it, heading across the street and down the block a bit to where Maddy's shop, Peaceful Grove, was located between a Chinese restaurant and a stationery shop.
The familiar bell chimed as he slipped inside.
"Maddy! There's a Guard emergency and I need—"
"We're closed," Maddy said, as he rounded a high shelf and she and the counter she was behind came into view.
"You need to leave, please.
Right now."
"What? Are you hurt? Has the jack frost or something else come this way? I can—"
"You need to leave," she said, voice growing slightly chillier, her eyes fastened firmly on the counter, mouth turned down sharply.
"Please, Match, just go."
"I really need that snowdrop though."
She didn't say anything, just continued to stare at the counter, mouth cutting deep frown lines into her face.
Anxiety and hurt curdled his stomach, and he left without a further word.
Out on the street, he took stock of what snowdrop he did have.
Seven, each one carefully preserved with petals, stem, and leaves intact.
They were crucial in activating the vital parts of the wards.
As it was impossible to create an individual ward for each and every big bad that might threaten Harper Valley, and there wouldn't be time to create the necessary ward every time of those big bads showed up, Match had gone for the complicated solution: A big, highly elaborate and complex ward that braided together all the necessary castings, like French braiding spells together, and when a particular one was needed he used an activating agent to trigger the particular ward he needed.
In this case, the winter wards, and the activating agent was snowdrops.
He needed twenty of them in total, which shouldn't have been a problem.
Except his planning at the time hadn't included him being at a boyfriend's house and nowhere close to his apartment—but his contingency had always been Maddy's, which was close to the townhall where so much of their specialized and heirloom equipment was kept in a special vault.
None of his plans had accounted for Maddy, whom he'd known since they were ten, throwing him out.
Why? He hadn't even been to the shop in almost a month because he always needed less in winter.
When he'd returned to townhall, the SUV was gone, which meant he couldn't get a quick ride to his apartment.
There was no one he could call to give him a ride to his apartment either, not in this steadily worsening weather.
He could barely see in front of him anymore.
Fine, work with what you've got.
Townhall and the surrounding area was the largest ward he'd created, a space that most of the town could retreat to if necessary, all of it if they really stacked on top of each other, but that was a worst of the worst situations.
So the first step was activating the townhall wards.
Which meant going back across the street because the ward circle actually started there, to encompass townhall, its auxiliary buildings, and all the nearby public land.
Taking out one of the snowdrops, he knelt and brushed snow away from the area he needed, craning over it to keep it clean.
Laying the snowdrop down, he took out his matches, set the snowdrop aflame, and stuck the burnt end of the match in his mouth.
The ward shimmered to life in a rainbow of colors, and Match sighed softly to see it working.
One down, nineteen to go.
Six more he could activate.
He'd worry about the remaining thirteen when he ran out of snowdrops.
So he worked, ignoring the biting, ever worsening cold.
Whatever the others were doing, they weren't having much luck yet in stopping the jack frost.
By the time he got the seventh ward up, which at least took care of the vast majority of downtown and the very edge of two residential neighborhoods, he could barely feel his fingers and he couldn't feel his face.
Fortunately, he could see a shop he'd completely forgotten about in his confusion and dismay over Maddy's behavior and his drive to get the wards up—a flower shop.
Eric was sure to have some snowdrops, he used them in a lot of his winter bouquets.
It was an adorable shop, all glass-fronted, colorfully lit, one of the shops that had been around nearly as long as the town, owned by his mother, her mother, her father…
Still lit, neon sign said open, perfect.
He hastened across the street, moving as quickly as he dared in the snow—but right as he reached it, the lights and open sign went out.
What the hell? Eric was on the other side of the glass, turned away, messing with something on a table.
Match banged on the glass door.
"Eric! Come on, I just need some snowdrops real quick! Eric!"
But Eric only walked away as though Match wasn't there.
As though they didn't do coffee and talk about plants a couple of times a month.
Like he hadn't just bought an aloe plant and some rose petals from him last week.
What in the hell was going on? Eviction? Okay.
Maddy kicking him out? Strange, but could still be coincidence.
But eviction and two of the shops he frequented most pointedly having nothing to do with him? All on the same day?
Something weird was going on.
Unfortunately, it would have to wait, because he had a job to do even if no one would let him do it.
Dropping his satchel, he yanked off his outer layers until he wore only his perpetual tank top, maroon today, and his arms were bare.
Pulling out a match, he struck it, set his left arm alight, and stuck the burnt end in his mouth.
He pressed his fingers to the casting symbols he needed, the flames going to them and burning brighter.
Pressing his hand to the door, he willed it to unlock.
When it had done so he turned the handle, threw the door open, and stormed inside, going straight for the fridges in the back, ignoring Eric's yelling and sputtering.
Glancing through the glass-fronted fridges, he finally found them in the fourth one, yanking the door open and pulling out an entire container.
Throwing cash on the counter as he passed it, he stopped in front of a still-blustering Eric.
"I don't know what the fuck is going on with you and Maddy, but refusing to help me when we are dealing with a jack frost could get people killed.
If someone dies tonight because you wouldn't give me the damn snowdrops I needed to activate the town wards, I will ensure you never have a single day of peace the rest of your life.
I thought you were my friend."
He stormed off, ignoring when Eric called after him.
Slinging his bag over one shoulder, he gathered up the rest of his belongings and headed back to townhall.
Inside, safely away from the weather, he brushed off snow and dried off as best he could before pulling all his layers back on.
Finally warm, or warm-ish at least, again he knelt to sort through the snowdrops.
No doubt he'd be getting arrested for breaking and entering later, possibly theft though he had left money, but that was a problem for later.
Gathering up the thirteen he needed, he stashed the bucket with the remaining snowdrops in the breakroom fridge to return later.
He got the next ward activated, and headed for the next one when the scent of coffee drew his attention.
His stomach growled, reminded of food, but a proper meal would have to wait.
Coffee, though, coffee would be fantastic.
Though it also reminded him of Eric, because this was the coffee shop they always hung out at.
Pushing inside, he lifted a hand in greeting. "Hey—"
"We're closed."
"What?" He stared blankly at Heather.
"It's barely five, you guys don't close for like three more hours."
"Too much snow," she said shortly, not quite looking at him.
"I was just about to flip the sign and lock the door.
Sorry, Match, you need to go."
He thought about arguing, but what was the point? There was clearly a trend.
Fighting tears, hurt and humiliated, he left.
By the time he got another ward done, though, he could barely keep his eyes open and he wasn't even half done.
The smell of coffee and cheap, greasy food washed over him as he passed the Katydid Diner.
The namesake, Katy Mortimer, had died last year, but her son and granddaughter continued to run the diner, and it was a favorite spot of those who worked odd shifts and kids with limited spending money.
Inside, he soaked up the warm air, flexing his fingers to get them to unstiffen.
Smiling at the man behind the counter, Ronnie, he stepped up to it ready to order the coffee he hadn't gotten before.
"You can't be in here."
Why had he bothered to hope the Katydid would be different? "What a fucking surprise," he said bitterly.
"Working my ass off to protect all you assholes from a jack frost and what do I get? Everybody is fucking closed or just plain throwing me out? I have been in that snow for hours, would it fucking kill you to let me buy a single cup of coffee? Fuck all of you!"
He stormed out, tears stinging his eyes, making a mental note to buy some of those handwarmer thingies you just had to like break, or shake, or something.
Or bother with putting castings for warmth on his clothes.
He'd never needed to before, but usually people were happy to let him come inside and warm up and give him a goddamn cup of coffee.
He'd just gotten through activating four more wards when Benny's SUV pulled up.
"What's up?" he asked as they spilled out and gathered around him.
"I'm a little over half done.
Did you find it?"
"Not it, them," Penelope said grimly.
"There's at least two, and Traci says there's probably three of them, but the scents are so tangled and muddled it's hard to tell for certain."
"Especially as it's so fucking cold and getting colder.
They vanished for now, and with it so dark now it's not safe to hunt for them in the woods, even for us.
We were gonna warm up, get some food, and come up with a plan."
"We'll help you finish the wards first.
Surprised you're not further along," Ronan said.
"Did you run into trouble?"
"Of a sort, nothing I couldn't handle though it may come back to bite me in the ass later," and waved the matter aside when Benny and Ronan started to ask more questions.
"Let's get this done, because I'm exhausted and food would be great."
Ronan continued to regard him with concern, which was sweet and disconcerting because Match really didn't feel like sharing all the humiliating parts of his day, but he was going to have to eventually and look like a pathetic fucking fool in the process.
Thankfully, Ronan didn't say anything, only pulled him in close whenever they were driving, and stayed close while he activated the wards.
"We swung by your place so I could take care of your pixies, by the way," Ronan said.
"Didn't want you to worry about them."
"Thank you," Match replied, because he had been worried about them, he'd just been forced to ignore that worry for bigger problems.
He'd left them with extra food before, but that had been when he'd planned on being back really late or first thing in the morning.
By the time it was finally finished, Match was dead on his feet.
He'd wolfed down a couple of protein bars while he worked, but they'd barely made a dent in the energy depletion.
Being a witch could be a real bitch sometimes.
They convened at Benny's house like usual, and Match nearly wept to see the food that was already laid out, no doubt done by Benny and Traci's neighbor, Joan, who was always helping that out with things like this.
Nothing fancy, just food from like at least four fast food places, but who needed fancy? Not Match.
He needed calories, and he preferred they be easy to get and delicious.
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, salad, cheeseburger, fruit cup, and a sweet tea the size of his head.
"Almost feel human again," he said when he was finally finished.
Around the table, everyone else looked much the same, since everyone but Penelope used up calories on a level with professional athletes.
"I'm glad I don't pay your food bills," Penelope said.
"My family tries to convince me I eat too much, but around ya'll I feel like I don't eat enough."
"It can be a bitch on a day like this," Match said around a yawn.
"So what's our glorious plan?"
"Rest," Benny said.
"In the morning, we'll put Penelope and Traci back on scouting.
When we have a general area, you'll make certain they can't leave that area and then we'll start narrowing it.
We'll also have to figure out how to divide them, because taking on all three at once is a fool's game, but one problem at a time."
"I can't believe there's three," Match said.
"That isn't possible.
They're born of vengeance, and three murders happen at the same time and they all turn into jack frosts? That's hinky."
Ronan lifted his head from where he'd rest it on his folded arms.
"You think they were what, made on purpose? Is that even possible?"
"It's not impossible, but the only other option is that someone went out, caught three different jack frosts, and brought them here.
The amount of knowledge, skill, and sheer effort that would require is astronomical.
Look how exhausted you all are just from tracking and fighting them.
No, depressing as it is, murdering three people and forcing them into becoming jack frosts would be easier and more effective, especially since you could set control spells in place right from the start. But why."
"I can't answer why, but after a nap I can definitely find likely victims," Penelope said.
"That will give us something to work with."
"Sounds good," Match replied around a yawn.
"I'm gonna go crash." While he waited for the cops to show up to arrest him, but he wasn't dealing with that problem until it knocked on the door.
Hopefully it would keep until the problem was resolved, because he really didn't want to bother the others with whatever weird ass drama he had going on, least of all in the middle of this mess.
Upstairs, he took the guest room he normally used when he was here, because Benny and Traci had a truly ridiculous house, though that was partly because as the leader Benny was expected to have room for his whole team at all times.
This house had always served that purpose, and continuing that tradition meant a lot to him.
In his room, he threw his clothes in a laundry basket he kept there and took home periodically, then headed into the bathroom and took the hottest shower he could handle.
He hadn't been in there long when the door opened and a familiar figure stepped inside.
"Room for one more?"
"Always," Match said, "but don't expect anything frisky, I'm fucking tired."
Ronan laughed and took over the washing, deft and graceful as always, even in the most mundane things.
"I'm going to sleep like a rock, that's for certain.
Should have seen the bastards, creepy as hell."
"Seen pictures, even a shaky video my aunt took once a million years ago," Match replied.
He soaped up Ronan's hair, then his own.
Thankfully, the showers in Benny's house were as ridiculous as the rest of it, one more than capable of handling two people, triple showerheads and everything.
Sometimes he came over just to use the fancy shower and take a nap in peace, though rarely, because the last thing he wanted was Benny harassing him about just moving in or something.