Page 17 of Winter Reckoning
An envelope slid into the room, edges pulsing a faint yellow. It drifted along the floor until it landed at my feet. It was red with a gold seal. I should have been suspicious. After the last twenty-four hours, this was the least of my worries.
I picked it up and turned it over. In bold black letters: FROST — OPEN IMMEDIATELY.
I tore it open.
Frost,
If you're reading this, the cabin’s gone dark. Surprise! I’m not dead, at least I don’t think so. Tell Nick I’ve got operations covered. Frost, beware, the horned man is coming for you. He’s ancient. The only thing that can defeat him is another myth. Get through to him.
— C
I looked up at Nick. He was sitting now, hand pressed flat against his chest. His whole arm flickered, translucent from fingertips to elbow before solidifying again.
“Is Charlene okay?” he asked. He cared more about her safety than his.
I held it up. “Feisty as ever. She says she’s got operations covered.”
He didn’t respond.
The building vibrated as if the wind had turned into a hurricane. Not gradually. All at once. The wind screamed against the reinforced walls, rattling the frame hard enough that dust sifted down from the ceiling. With how thick they made these walls, we shouldn’t notice anything short of an earthquake swallowing the building.
The temperature dropped so fast my breath turned to fog. Frost spread across the walls from nowhere, crawling up from the floor in arcane patterns. Our friend had found us.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A glance at the computer showed the horned man on the other side. With another tap of his cane, cracks ran through the steel. While he thought chilling the room might be threatening, I siphoned the cold, gathering it in the pit of my stomach. With the next tap, the door shattered like glass.
Hemoved into the room. Tall and wrong-angled. Antlers scraped against the reinforced glass.
I moved between Nick and the door, hands freezing as if I had soaked them in arctic waters. Power coiled up my arms, visible as pale blue light. "Stay behind me."
His raggedy robes dragged frost across the floor. The antler crown sat crooked on his head, points scraping the ceiling. His cane tapped once against the floor.
The sound echoed like a death knell.
“Of all the myths I’ve watched die, yours is the one I wanted the most.” He was confident he had already won. “I’ve waited for you to weaken so I could drink you in.”
I kept my fists in balls, ready to hurl power. But some villains, it wasn’t brute force that did them in. First page of the hero manual, the trick we teach every civilian. Make them talk.
“Why now?”
The horned man stopped moving. The glowing pattern along the floor continued spreading, lightly pulsing as he moved along the walls. His head tilted to the side, horn scraping against the ceiling.
“While they fade, I’ve found a way to remain immortal.” He might be powerful, but he was also cocky. “Once weak enough, I drink their essence. Who needs belief when I’m fueled by deceased tales?”
Aha. I heard everything I needed. Not the greatest monologue, but he had slipped up. I let the chill move down my arms, coating my body in frost. I prepared to hurl everything I had. He wasn’t getting Nick, not if I had anything to say about it.
Ice erupted from my hands in jagged spears, each one sharp enough to pierce a tank. I'd used this technique to pin a rampaging metahuman to a building once. He swept his cane in a lazy arc. The spears shattered mid-flight, fragments melting before they hit the ground.
My stomach dropped. I summoned a barrier. Solid ice three feet thick, reinforced with every technique I'd learned in twenty years on the force. I poured power into it until my hands shook, thickening it until it’d withstand a bomb.
He touched it with one finger. The barrier cracked down the middle. With a slight gesture, the crack widened until he could step through.
His smile was crooked, showing far too many teeth.
My hands were shaking now. Not from cold. From the realization that nothing I had would work. I should have paid more attention to the Mystic or Mage Supreme. Perhaps if I could wield magic like Charlene had used, I’d at least be able to slow him down. I’d never balk at the sorcerers again.
He reached the middle of the room. Each step left smoldering footprints on the frozen floor. I glanced over my shoulder asNick tried to stand. I heard the scrape of boots on concrete, then his sharp intake of breath as his legs gave out. He caught himself on the cot.
