Raven
Two, then three more specter hands dropped upon Winter.
“No, no, no.”
Their grip clamped tight, their pull unrelenting.
Heat rose off my body, ripe with wild, uncontrolled anger.
“Let him go!” I yelled.
Any fear I had previously felt in the presence of those monsters had vanished, replaced with sheer desire and steeled determination to protect Winter. To save him from their attack.
My fury leaped off me like flames seeking their next combustible victim.
“You’re not supposed to want him,” I seethed, my jaw tight and muscles strained.
That was what Winter had told me, and after what I’d formerly witnessed, I was inclined to believe him.
I grabbed the wrist of one specter and tried to pry it free. The touch of its skin sent a swirling howl through my senses; an all-consuming void filled with endless screeches and agony. I sensed a smile from the specter beneath my touch. It delighted in the deliverer of death dwelling within me.
Everything inside of me wanted to recoil, but I wouldn’t give up on Winter so easily. I might be a bringer of death to many, but I was more than that—could be more than that. I could also (apparently) save a life. Or lives.
I tightened my grip upon the specter’s wrist, and I pulled at its skin.
“Let him go,” I repeated between gritted teeth, all my effort shoved into the act of freeing Winter from their soul-sucking touch.
Winter’s eyes glazed and turned blurry. His hollers ceased, as did his struggle, his skin turning gray, and his healthy glow vanishing. His face became sunken, devoid of the male from moments ago.
He dropped to his knees, and I screamed in protest…or disbelief. My chest caved inward, crushing my heart.
And still, the specters refused to release him.
Wetness ran down my cheeks. Was I crying? When had I started crying?
A frenzied kind of panic wrecked my body. I didn’t have a clue how to fight these things. How to stop them. And I needed to stop them, because…because Winter…
“Not him.”
The protest had not been mine, and I startled at the intruding female voice. It thundered through the open spaces of the tunnel, and the specters… They complied. In a single beat, they released their many holds upon Winter.
He slouched forward into my ready and awaiting arms. His body felt cold. So very, very cold. Cold and empty. Seeing and feeling him that way carved a black pit into my soul.
I hugged him close to my body, praying my warmth would revitalize him as I kept a watchful stare upon the specters.
Several yards away, a female dressed to match the surrounding shadows stepped free of the darkness. The mad woman from my remembered dream.
Watcher.
Aside from locating Chace, this woman remained the one individual I had secretly plotted to eventually find in the underground labyrinth. And now that I had found her, I could do nothing more than cling to Winter and hold him against the frost taking over his body.
Watcher barely spared me a glance as she beckoned the specters to follow.
And follow they did, like well-trained dogs.
She spun around and trudged into the sweltering tunnel, disappearing and taking the ghostly demons with her.
When the shadows once more enveloped all but a sliver of her outline, she swung her gaze to me.
“It was supposed to be you,” she said.
Not him. Not Winter.
“You won’t be so lucky next time. Especially with him no longer around to protect you.” She slipped into the black, only the slight crunch beneath her boots marking her departure. “I warned you. Told you to leave. You should have listened.”
Her voice, moving ever more distant, carried through the darkness.
Even if I should have been the target, I supposed I should be thankful for the save. After all, the mad female had stopped the specters’ attack. But had she done so in time? Was whatever they’d inflicted on him reversible?
I shifted and pulled back to better evaluate Winter.
His skin felt both freezing and clammy in uneven patches, his body rocked with slight shudders, and his eyes―I peeled back his lids―either glazed white or rolled back in his head.
Conditions in which to assess anything were difficult, yet I felt fairly certain he was in worse shape than Earl or Myla.
Had they both started like Winter and then gradually improved? I thought back to the female Aldine had attempted to save that first night in the citadel, gaining my likely answer—no.
But where Aldine had failed, I had succeeded. Only the how remained uncertain.
How did I cure that woman?
I’d held my hands on the woman’s skin while activating my innate reaper tools.
Where exactly did I touch the woman?
Acting on my best guess, I placed my palms on Winter and activated my reaper’s grip and collector’s eye in unison. Concentrating on summoning healing, I opened my inner energy channels and handed over control to my reaper tools.
Please work. Please work.
My skin hummed, the atmosphere crackled, and Winter… He didn’t respond.
“Come on. Work.” I stretched my hands wider, pressed my thoughts harder.
Try as I might, no amount of effort proved fruitful. Winter remained unchanged and unresponsive. He had become a shell of impenetrable ice. As if he were not only partially devoid of life like Earl and Myla but encased within a coffin of his winter magic.
He’d saved me, saw me healed from incredible injuries, and now, in return, I was failing him. I needed to get him out of the tunnels and back to the surface where I might find help.
“Winter? Can you stand?” I tried to pull him to his feet, but he was too large and too heavy. “Please answer me. We need to get out of here. Get you back to the surface where we can get you help.”
He hung, unresponsive, like a rag doll in my arms. A rag doll with the weight of a hundred sandbags.
I gently laid him upon the tunnel floor and sat back on my haunches, staring at him while I chewed my lower lip and considered.
Considered the situation, what I would have to do—alone—and how deep into the tunnels we had traveled.
Exhaustion burrowed down to my soul, and aches plagued every part of my body. Winter had been right with regard to me requiring more time to recover. But none of that mattered now.
I glanced at the burning torches tossed at the end of the tunnel then back to Winter. He no longer held any awareness of what was what, and I was done pretending for the sake of a world that was a hundred years behind the times.
I pulled a small electric lantern from my pocket, where I always kept it, and flipped it to full illumination. Flashed the light in both directions. All appeared clear.
As hot and miserable as I now felt, I needed to get moving. Winter depended on me, even if he didn’t yet realize it.
I uncoiled to a stand, and when I did, the edge of my boot brushed against the same something it had earlier.
A canvas bag hidden in the alcove shadows.
I checked the contents―matches, a skin of water, a sliver of charcoal, and a small notebook.
Most of the pages remained empty, but a few hosted notes and scribblings marking tunnel locations and connections.
Why had someone left it here?
Based on a handful of the notes, someone had been observing the barrier through which Winter could not pass, but I could.
Who and why?
Understanding anything and everything might come in handy on my long trek back, I tied the bag to my belt, then I hooked my arms under Winter’s armpits.
Hunched over, with my back aching, I began dragging him toward the pub, walking backward with short steps, the electric torch in my hand lighting where I had been rather than where I headed.
My body burned with exhaustion and pain, and sweat covered my skin. If only I had a hairband to pull my hair up and away from my skin. Or a beautiful shower of cold water falling over me.
At each junction, my torch found Winter’s chalked arrow on the wall, informing me of the correct direction. I thanked the reaper gods he had not only thought to mark the way but had done so efficiently.
I spoke words of encouragement, hoping he could hear me and would rally against the affliction.
When the words became too many and they began to feel empty, I switched to stories.
Without mentioning what I was or what I was born to do, I imparted stories about family and friends, things I’d done and places I’d been.
I had no idea how much time had passed since we had embarked on our mission to explore the underground, but the journey back took an eternity. No doubt, my exhaustion, the one-way conversation, and Winter’s dead weight played huge roles.
And, of course, my own weakened state.
Just keep your focus on one more small step, followed by another, then another. Don’t stop. Keep going.
By the time I managed to pull Winter into view of the steps leading to the pub’s hidden entry, my back and legs felt more rubber than muscle, my flesh blistered from the heat burning inside of me, and my mouth beyond parched—the skin of water drained forever ago.
“We’re here,” I said to him, my voice a breathless croak as I gently set his upper body upon the ground.
He’d been nothing more than dead weight the entire time. And my words were less to reassure him than they were meant to lift my own spirits, hopefully give me an energy burst.
I’d appreciate any extra energy.
I tore and crumpled a few pages from the notebook, then I used the matches found in the canvas bag to set them on fire.
Nothing in the tunnels looked like I could use it as tinder, so I tossed the burning paper balls several feet in either direction, giving Winter a touch of light while I retrieved help.
Leaving him in the dark felt wrong, but the pages wouldn’t burn for long, so I would have to be quick.
“I’ll be right back.” I shoved the notebook into my pocket, weakly patted his chest, pushed to a stand, and dragged my body up the stairs—slower than I would have preferred.