Dead of Winter (19 page)

The mere memory of that day drained me. “Can we just not talk right now?”

“Come on, Evie.” With me in tow, Jack cleared two back bedrooms and a bathroom, ushering me into the latter. “Why doan you change?” he said, setting up his spare flashlight. “I'll find some dry wood and get a fire goan. Stay in here, and take your time.” He obviously didn't want me to be alone with Aric.

Dry wood? Was there such a thing anymore? “I can help.”

“
Non
, I got this.”

Guilt weighed on me. “You're the one who was injured.”

“I ain't
un
used to getting my clock cleaned,
bébé
.” Because his mother's
beaux
had introduced him to violence early.

When he helped me take off my bug-out bag and poncho, I asked, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

He turned to go, but hesitated at the door. “See things clearer than before.”

I felt just the opposite.

Once he left, I gripped the counter, fighting a wave of dizziness. Could I keep riding at this pace? My headache throbbed, my legs and arms trembling. I stared into the mirror. My skin was so pale, my eyes seeming too big for my face.

In the reflection, I spied one of those shower squeegees behind me and felt a pang for the previous owners.

What a waste of your limited time.

Things could be worse. I could be dead like them. Though waterlogged and chilled, I remained free. No shackles circled my wrists, no Bagger bites marked my skin.

I stripped and hung up today's clothes, then unzipped my bug-out bag. Inside, I had an ultra-small sleeping bag, energy bars, a canteen, bandages for Jack, and more clothes. I dug for another change.

Banging sounded from somewhere else in the house. What was Jack doing?

I'd just finished dressing when I heard him return to the living room. “So you're two thousand years older than she is?” he said to Aric. “There's robbing the cradle—and then there's
this
. She's a teenager, you
fils de putain
.”

“When I married her, I was
younger
than she was,” Aric pointed out. “I can't control that I've endured this long. In any case, counting her various incarnations, she's lived on this earth for well over a century. She has memories of games when she was older, a woman grown.”

“The unwed girl in there is named
Evie Greene
. She went to Sterling High, and she grew up in cane country like me. And even if you had married her, you never consummated it, no.” He could be just as snide as Aric. “Not like Evie and me did.”
Low blow, Jack.

“I'm going to make you pay for that. In time.”

“Now I know why you tried to stop us that night. How'd that work out for you? All my life, folks been telling me I cheat death. Guess they were right.”

“The honor doesn't belong to the one she chose first for her bed,” Aric bit out. “It belongs to the one she chooses to keep there.”

“And you think that's goan to be you? You're delusional in your old age, you.”

Hostility continued to seethe between them, along with a cutthroat rivalry.

Now I was about to have to wade right into the middle of it. In a daze, I turned toward the door, nearly leaving my bag behind. Accustomed to the security at Aric's, I'd forgotten the first rule of survival out on the road.

Jack had tried so hard to teach me. I'd thought he was just being cruel.

And now I knew why he'd gotten angry whenever I'd been hungry. I would never forget the image of him as a little boy kicking that trap in frustration. . . .

Back in the living room, a fire was going. Clever Jack had harvested boards from the building's walls.

He sat at the hearth cleaning that crossbow, his own bug-out bag at his feet, his jacket drying nearby.

Helmet in hand, Aric paced along a line of dirt-caked windows, casting glances outside. Tonight, he moved soundlessly in that armor. Sometimes his spurs clinked as he entered a room; other times silent. Maybe he adjusted his stride. “The mortal's handy, Empress. Your very own squire.”

Jack didn't rise to the bait, asking me, “You eat anything?”

I sat beside the fire, dropping my bag. “Not yet.” I stretched my hands to the warmth.

Once my fingers thawed, I retrieved my canteen and dinner, a nutritious energy bar. Those bars gave me enough calories for an entire day, but the taste was so foul, I earned every one of them. I peeled the wrapper, knowing I'd need the energy to keep up with these two.

Jack polished his bow's arrow cartridge with the tail of his shirt. “It's goan to get worse and worse on this route. I brought an extra bulletproof vest for you.” Like the one he wore. “When we head out, I want you to try it.”

That vest would swallow me.

Death scoffed, “She can take a hundred bullets to the heart and survive.”

“I bet you know just what can kill her—since you've offed her so many times in past lives.”

“I wouldn't say
many
. And she's tried for me just as often.” Aric made a last round along the windows, then took a seat against the wall near the door. One arm rested over a bent knee.

“How'd you murder a girl who can regenerate, you? Decapitate her?”
If a guy has beheaded you on more than one occasion . . .
“Did you do to her what you did to those Baggers earlier? Sounds like a match made in hell to me.”

Aric's fists clenched, the metal of his spiked gauntlets grinding. No doubt he wanted to drive those spikes into Jack's face. “Unlike you and the Archer, who have everything in common?” To me, Aric said,
“I would advise you to ask the mortal if he's been with her in all these months, but then, he'd simply lie to you.”

Aric's words cut right to the heart of my problems with Jack: trust. Despite Jack's denial, I wondered again if something had transpired between him and Selena. She wanted him so much. . . .

The bar tasted like cardboard. I struggled to chew it. If Jack had lied to me about her, I could never accept him.

“You stirring the pot again, Reaper? Evie's the one I want. It'll always be that way.”

I glanced over at him with a question in my eyes. In a matter of hours, we'd gone from
I can't look at you
to this. Why the turnaround?

“You had many women before the Empress.” Aric took a whetstone from a pouch on his swordbelt. “You'll have them after her as well.” He slid one sword free.

That muscle ticked in Jack's jaw. “I found the one I'm goan to be with. It's her for me. Period. I'll protect her with my life.”

Aric ran that stone along his sword blade.
Graaaate.
“As will I.”

“Like you did with those Baggers? I wrote the book on toughening Evie up, but that was too much risk.”

Graaaate.
“Arcana are superhuman—should our lessons be merely human in intensity? Or even
humane
for that matter? Those Bagmen had been washed away with those victims, buried alive among them for weeks, perhaps months. They chose to rise today—because they finally had
motivation
. They tapped into the depths of their bloodthirsty natures for more strength. In battle, the Empress should do no less.”

“She can't do that if she's dead, no.”

“I'm right here,” I cried. “Right—here. If you two are going to fight, then do it over something other than me.” I folded up the remains of the bar, stowing it and the canteen. Dinner had officially concluded.

Aric raised his brows. “Aside from you, I have no quarrel with the mortal. He's an uncouth drunkard who slaughters the English language every time he attempts it, but I probably wouldn't kill him just for that.”

“You keep talking about slaying me, Reaper. Let's go outside and see if you can.”

My impatience boiled over. “Just stop it—both of you! Get your heads in the game. We're out here to save someone's life.”

After a hesitation, Jack returned his attention to his bow, Aric to his sword.

I asked Aric, “Can you call to Selena without the Lovers hearing?”

“Of course.”

“Will you tell her we're coming for her? And ask her for any information that can help us?”

“What makes you think she'll respond to Death?”
Graaaate.
“But for you, I'll try—because it seems I can deny you nothing.” He paused, his gaze going distant for long moments. “She's ignoring me, letting my words drift over her thoughts. A feat not easily done. Someone taught her a great deal about focus.”

That extensive Archer training. Looking from Aric to Jack, I asked, “What's our plan?”

“I'm curious as well.” Aric turned to Jack. “How far are you willing to risk the Empress in this endeavor?”

“If not for
coo-yôn
's prediction, she'd still be back at the outpost.”

I shook my head. “I need to help. Jack, the Lovers want revenge against me. I was in an alliance with them in the last game, but I betrayed them. Horribly. Their line chronicles, so they know every detail.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't know until they said something.”

He jerked his chin at Aric. “I bet he knew that history. Guess he couldn't find time in three months to warn you about a pair of psycho killers who're out for your blood.”

I had wondered the same.

Graaaate.
“After she earned my trust, I had only scant hours with her—because of your foolhardy capture. And actually that insults the Fool.”

I rubbed my temples. “Can we just talk about the plan, please?”

Jack cast a last scowl at Aric, then shifted his attention to me. “I'm meeting some dissenters from Azey North tomorrow on the road. I'll work with whatever I learn, see if I can trust them. At worst, they can give me intel on Selena. At best, they'll help me take the twins and the general off guard. I'll kill those three, free Selena, and seize command.”

Aric raised his sword, eyeing the edge. “So our ‘plan' rests on how well the mortal can read his co-conspirators' trustworthiness?”

“You got a better idea, Reaper? I'm all ears.”

“You assume the source twins and the Archer will be in Dolor?”

“
Ouais
. Until I hear different. It's the only waypoint I got.”

I asked, “If anything goes wrong, will the Lovers retaliate against Selena? Or if they find out another Arcana is riding with me?”

“Empress, they're
already
torturing her.”

I flinched and thought Jack had too. No doubt reliving his own torment, the ordeal he would never tell me about. “Will they kill her?”

Aric shook his head. “Not for a while. She's the most valuable thing they possess. Consider the lengths they went to in order to acquire her. If they were going to murder her outright, it would already be done.”

Death had gone to lengths to acquire—and keep—me. He'd had a suite prepared in his apocalypse-proof castle. I could understand how Aric had accrued so much power through the ages, to prepare for and weather the end of the world.

But how had the Milovnícis gotten the upper hand—over everyone? “How did the general amass an army?”

“He owned a private security firm in Virginia,” Jack said, “with a mini-army of mercenaries—the kind of paramilitary that rescued kidnapped CEOs and stuff. The Milovnícis and those mercs must've holed up during the Flash. Afterward, his men overran smaller militias in the Southeast, one after another. He built the Azey like a snowball.”

A bloody, murderous snowball—

Suddenly both Jack and Aric tensed. Outside, Thanatos gave a low nicker.

“What is it?” I asked.

Aric rose with that lethal grace. “I'm going to stand watch.”

Jack was on his feet as well. “If there's something out there, I'm ready to fight.”

“The day I need your help . . .” Aric trailed off. “I will
never
need your help, mortal.” To me, he said, “Get some sleep. You can rest secure,
sievā
.”

“What's that word mean?” Jack demanded.

Aric delighted in telling him, “
Sievā
means
wife
.”

I gazed at the door long after Aric had gone, disbelieving he'd left me alone with Jack, threat or no.

I suspected he was testing me, testing my promise.

“You're staring after Death,” Jack said, drawing my attention. Anger warred with confusion in his expression. “You worried about him?”

My protectiveness toward Aric hadn't waned. “Yes.” Worry filled me—for him and Jack. For Selena and Matthew.

“Because you think we need him? Or because you think you care about him?”

“Both.” I did care about Aric, maybe even more than
cared
.

I'd told Jack and Aric to get their heads in the game. I was one to talk. I couldn't stop comparing the two.

Jack's passion and drive versus Death's intensity and Arcana connection. God help me, I could see myself with either.

Or . . . neither? They'd both hurt me. The red witch in me whispered,
That's what dust is for: to leave them in it.

I wished I could get objective advice. Damn, I missed my best friend Mel. She probably would've told me to keep both guys, collecting men like handbags.

Jack set his bow down and began to pace in front of the hearth, his eyes so vivid in the firelight. His black hair had dried, reflecting the
flames like a raven's wing. “Death hurt you in all these ways, but you still give a damn about him.” Out came his flask. “I was dishonest with you over one thing, and you can't tell me if you'll stay with me?”

“Put yourself in his shoes, Jack. I tried to murder him after convincing him that I was madly in love with him. I did this to him not once, but twice.”