The Brightest Embers

  “Are you serious with your racist shit? I’ve got news for you—I’m half Latina!” I sputtered out even as Costa growled, “You’re pulling this with the wrong person,” with more of his Greek accent than usual.

  Zoe and her husband stiffened as if they were the ones who’d just been royally insulted. “That a threat, mate?” Dylan asked, squaring off against Costa.

  Costa laughed. “Normally, it would be, but not this time. I can sit back and watch, because if you keep pissing off my friend, he’ll get Old Testament wrathful on your ass.”

  “Doubtful,” Zach said in a mild tone. “For one, I do not spill blood unless ordered to. For another, even if it were mine to decide, I would not repay them in full for their sin. My purpose here is to save lives, not to take them.”

  Dylan looked rattled, as if on some level he sensed that there was more to Zach than he could see. Then he lost that brief moment of intelligence and sneered at Costa and Zach. “I don’t need to be threatened by a fucking dago and his n—”

  Zach held up his hand and Dylan didn’t finish his other appalling slur. Dylan’s eyes bulged while his mouth started moving faster and faster, yet no sound came out of it.

  “For your trespasses, you will not speak again for three full moons,” Zach said, still in that same mild tone. “And if you do not repent of the hate in your heart by that time, your speech loss will become permanent.”

  “What did you do to him?” Zoe screamed as Dylan’s miming became more frantic. Her shrill voice turned several heads among the people who were also waiting for the bus. Zach stared at her, letting a glimpse of his real power out through the tiny, star-like lights that appeared in his eyes.

  “Stop speaking,” he said, those brilliant lights burning even brighter. “Or you will soon be as silent as he.”

  She shut up with a gulp, grabbing Dylan and almost dragging him back to the train instead of toward the bus. Guess she’d decided against their going to the Icehotel. I resisted the urge to yell, And you got off lucky! after them.

  “That was epic,” Jasmine breathed.

  “So much for not being vengeful,” Costa said with a grin.

  Zach lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “If it were vengeance, their bodies would lie slain on the ground. This was merely a lesson.”

  I gave mad props to Zach for how he’d handled the racist duo, but there was another, more pressing topic I had to discuss.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, because what you did to those two was masterful, but you told me goodbye the last time you saw me, and it sounded permanent. Why are you back now?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE TINY, BURNING lights in Zach’s eyes disappeared, leaving nothing but their normal, walnut-brown color when he said, “Your bus to the hotel is boarding. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait an hour for the next one.”

  “Why are you here?” I continued to prod. I wanted to be happy to see him, but a sick fear had also risen in me. What if he was here because something terrible had happened to Adrian?

  “He is fine,” Zach said, using his mind-reading skills again. “And I will answer your questions only when I am ready, as you should be well aware by now. Get on the bus, Ivy. You gain nothing from standing out here in the cold.”

  Now that I knew Adrian was all right, that sick feeling left me. I was still nervous about what Zach’s purpose was, but he was right. I did know better now than to keep pestering him. Zach wouldn’t tell me what he was up to until he felt like it or was ordered to, period. Even if I threw the biggest fit in the world, all that would happen would be me, Jasmine and Costa freezing our asses off while we waited for the next bus.

  “Brutus!” I said instead, and the gargoyle quit circling overhead and landed next to us. “Follow this bus,” I told him, pointing at it. He knew what that meant. He’d managed to follow us during all the taxi rides we’d taken between train stops and hotels. To Jasmine and Costa, I said, “You ready?”

  Costa hefted two of our heaviest bags, leaving the smaller ones for Jasmine and I. “Yep. Let’s do this.”

  When I turned around to ask Zach if he was coming, too, he had already disappeared.

  * * *

  I DON’T KNOW what I had thought of the Icehotel before I saw it. A tourist trap, of course. An overpriced, hollowed-out ice cube, possibly. I didn’t expect it to look like a mythical fairy mound on the outside, with its wide, misshapen silhouette rising up from the ground in uneven heights. Maybe Hobbit house would be more appropriate considering the dry brown grass that covered the low, sloping roof. It had a double door in the middle, and around that, decorative blocks of ice in an upside-down U shape. They weren’t melting, and it wasn’t from the rapidly dropping temperature as the sun dipped lower on the horizon.

  Another neat fact I’d found out while booking our rooms was that the hotel was now opened year-round because it was kept chilled using solar panels. In another couple months, the temperatures would be enough to do the job, but mid-September temperatures still ranged in the forties for the highs.

  We checked in through the “warm” side of the hotel, where we were shown the saunas, dressing rooms, showers and relaxation areas we would use during our stay. We were also given our special coats and boots for when we were in the “cold” side of the hotel. Jasmine and Costa were eager to see the ice bar, where even the glasses were made of—you guessed it—ice. I was waiting for Zach to pop up around every corner, and when I wasn’t thinking about that, I was activating my hallowed sensor to see if I felt any blips.

  So far, nothing, although I doubted that the spearhead was hidden beneath the hotel. It was redone every year as dozens of ice sculptures changed the layout to reflect fresh new themes, we were told by our reservation guide. If the spearhead were here, it was more likely hidden in the surrounding village or the wilderness around it. We’d arranged to go sightseeing and hiking tomorrow, common tourist activities here. With my hallowed sensor picking up strong objects from a half-mile radius, I was hopeful that a sweep in and around the village would be enough to either find it or rule this place out.

  When we were finally allowed to check into our custom-designed suites in the cold section of the hotel, I briefly forgot about why I was here. Instead, I looked around at the gorgeous ice sculptures that adorned every hallway and room, and I knew why, out of the thousands of places that Adrian had visited in this world, he’d chosen this among his favorites.

  My heart ached as I pictured him returning to this place over and over as he must have to include it on his list. With everything around us made entirely of ice formed into exquisite shapes, this was as close as you could get to a demon realm without actually being in one. Add the upcoming polar winter where there was little to no sunshine from December to mid-January, and this place must have felt like home to Adrian.

  They only showed me the beautiful things at first, Adrian had told me when I’d asked how he could have stood to live with demons for as long as he had. And there had been beauty in their world beyond the horrors they’d initially hidden from him. Icy, dreamlike beauty where the impossible was made real, just like this place. Everything in the suite was dazzlingly carved ice, from the chairs, tables, benches and bed, to the multi-room 3-D mural featuring sea creatures such as mermaids and mermen frolicking in the waves of a frozen ocean. Expand this hotel until it was the size of an entire city, add a lot more artistic creativity and bling, and you had a demon realm without the demons, minions or suffering humans.

  “Oh, Adrian,” I whispered to the empty room.

  I should have seen past his hatred of demons long ago to realize that—minus their gleeful cruelty and desire to destroy humanity—he was one of them. He hadn’t been fighting only the negative aspects of his Judian heritage and a fate that said he’d be the cause of my death. When he walked out on demons, he’d also disowned large p
arts of himself. Because he refused to admit that, he hadn’t been able to heal from it.

  If he accepted who he was without the hatred he normally associated with that, I believed he’d finally be able to overcome the inner hurdles that he now saw as insurmountable. After all, his self-identification and half his genetics might be demon, but that didn’t mean he was without choices. Just like he’d chosen to be a different Judian than fate predicted, he could also choose to be a different kind of demon.

  “Isn’t this amazing?” Jasmine said, interrupting my thoughts as she came into the room. “It’s like a little frozen slice of Disneyland!”

  I was relieved the Icehotel wasn’t giving her flashbacks of the demon realm she’d been a prisoner in for weeks. She’d suffered enough already. “Amazing,” I agreed.

  “I’m freezing my ass off, of course,” she went on cheerfully. “Costa and I are about to hit the bar so we can warm up on the inside with lots of shots. You coming?”

  “You guys go ahead. I’m a little tired,” I said. She deserved a few hours with Costa without my being a third wheel, or their having to focus on my quest for the spear. Besides, in this country, she was already the legal drinking age, so she might as well take advantage of that. “Think I’ll check out how hard the ice bed is,” I went on.

  She waved at the bed. “Oh, there’s a bunch of hides beneath the sleeping bag, so it’s not that bad, actually.”

  I stifled a snort. “You’ve been in your room for less than twenty minutes, and you already know how the bed feels?”

  She shot me a grin that was pure Old Jasmine, before the horrors of the past year had smashed her life to pieces. “Waste not, right?”

  Now I didn’t bother to contain my snort. “Go have your drinks, but don’t forget to eat something, too.”

  “Yes, Mom,” she teased. Then a shadow crossed her face, and just like that, she was back to her new, far-more-burdened self. “God, I miss them,” she whispered.

  “I do, too,” I said softly. “So much that I rarely let myself think about them, even though that’s awful.”

  “It’s not awful,” she said, taking my hand and gripping it. Then, her voice very intense, she said, “It’s survival. I cry every time I think about Mom and Dad. Then I get so furious over their murders, I can barely function from the rage, and I don’t have a lot to do, but you do. That’s why you need to stay focused however you can. If that means not thinking about them right now, Mom and Dad would be the first to tell you to not think about them.”

  I blinked hard, refusing to let myself cry, because it felt like crying was all I had been doing lately. “You’re right, they would,” I said, faking a strength I didn’t feel. “So, you go get drunk with Costa, and I’ll take a nap like an old person.”

  She gave me a quick hug. “Join us if you change your mind.”

  “I will,” I said, but I knew I wouldn’t.

  I waited until I was sure that Jasmine would be at the bar with Costa. Then, instead of taking a nap like I’d said, I left the hotel. It was fully dark out now, but I didn’t need to see for what I was about to do. Not yet. I just needed to feel.

  I walked until I was outside of the range of lights from the hotel. I could hear the nearby river, but I couldn’t see it anymore. It had blended into the darkness that felt like it had swallowed me.

  “Brutus,” I called out. Then, louder, “Brutus!”

  A few minutes later, the gargoyle sailed to a graceful landing not far from me. I walked over to him, scratching him in his favorite spots around his head. Then I climbed onto his back, using the leather harness he always wore to help myself up.

  “Let’s go for a ride, boy.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  IT TOOK ONLY an hour for my night vision to return. The goggles I’d grabbed helped, keeping the wind from stinging my eyes due to how fast Brutus flew. As expected, he seemed to revel in the cold, undeveloped landscape, dipping low over the forest as if trying to tag the treetops with his clawed toes.

  I let him fly wherever he wanted for that first hour, waiting for my senses to kick into a higher gear. Once they did, I directed him in a loose search grid a few miles out in either direction from the hotel. I had to make sure that we kept out of view of the village lights, of course, which made us skip some areas, but those I could explore on foot tomorrow. For now, I wanted to cover a broad search area over parts that couldn’t be explored by foot, like the river.

  I had Brutus fly over that as low as he could, reassuring myself that if he made a mistake and we crashed, he would fish me out. Sure, I might get hypothermia, but it wouldn’t kill me. My body could stand a lot more than most due to the perks of my lineage. In any event, it was worth the risk. If I wanted to hide the spearhead where it would never be found, the bottom of an icy river would be a great place.

  I sent my hallowed sensors outward, looking for any telltale blip that might indicate an interesting object. So far, I’d felt nothing except for an area in the village that the tall steeple outed as a church. Another hour later, and the cold was getting to me even through my thick protective wear. An hour after that, I was pretty sure I was getting frostbite in my fingers. These gloves were made to withstand the interior of the ice hotel, not countless blasts of wind that came from steering a gargoyle at high speeds through the arctic night.

  “Let’s go back, boy,” I said, steering Brutus toward the lights in the distance. This flight had accomplished one thing: it told me that if the spearhead was here, it was warded. Otherwise, I would have felt it, and I’d been within fifteen or twenty miles of the hotel in almost every direction.

  If it was warded, it had to be in a box that was buried. After all, no one would leave a big, symbol-covered box out in the open unless they wanted whatever was in it to be found. If it was warded and buried somewhere in the river or the vast wilderness around the village, I wouldn’t be able to find it even if I had a map with a big X on it, and if I couldn’t find it, then neither could demons.

  I was cheered by that thought. Tomorrow, we’d hike around the area plus check out the village, and if we didn’t notice a big warded box, we could mark this place off and move on to the next one. That might be interesting. I’d never been to Russia.

  Brutus chuffed and dipped in a way that caught my attention. He jerked his head to the left, chuffing again while also slightly altering course. I squinted, trying to see what he saw. At first, all I noticed was the many lights and roofs of the village we were approaching, with the darkness of the river on the opposite side. Everything looked normal. What was agitating Brutus?

  Brutus chuffed a third time, this one ending on a growl. A few seconds later, I noticed a lone figure standing in the middle of a field that was bordered on one side by the river. As we got closer, I realized it was a large backyard. It didn’t seem strange until I factored in the late hour and the much colder temperatures. It had to be well below freezing by now, and whoever this was really wasn’t dressed for a midnight stroll.

  The person turned and seemed to stare right at us. I told myself that had to be coincidence. With the black sky as our backdrop, no one should be able to see us. That was why I’d chosen dark colors for my outerwear, and Brutus’s blue-gray skin was natural camouflage—Wait. Did that person have long blond hair?

  “Ivy!” I faintly heard before the sound was snatched away.

  “It’s Jasmine,” I told Brutus, patting him when he only growled again. I angled him toward her and pulled down on his reins so he’d drop lower. He did, and with every second, I got a clearer look at her. She was wearing a different coat than the one the hotel had supplied us with, and she waved when we got within five hundred yards of her. Yep, she’d spotted us.

  Maybe she’d been searching the sky with binoculars. She must have checked on me at some point and seen that I was gone, then figured out what I was doin
g. I felt bad for worrying her. I don’t know why I lied to her about taking a nap in the first place. Damn this new tendency to lie without thinking twice! Was that the darkness from my soul-tethering growing? Or was it me, taking the easy-but-wrong route all on my own? Either way, it had to stop—

  Brutus’s growl turned into a roar as he pulled his wings to his sides and began to dive right at Jasmine. Good Lord, he would hit her if he didn’t veer! I yanked his reins hard to the right, but he ignored me. Jasmine smiled, oblivious to the danger. I hauled on Brutus’s reins with all my strength, trying to pull him up, and he only roared louder.

  “Brutus, stop!” I screamed. What was the matter with him? He was going to kill her!

  I figured it out as soon as I was close enough to see Jasmine’s face. It was just as pretty as ever and her eyes were just as blue, but the look in them. This wasn’t Jasmine.

  In the final seconds before we hit, I hid behind Brutus’s back and held on for all I was worth.

  The impact felt like hitting a brick wall. I was torn free from Brutus and tumbled through the air, limbs flailing, until something hard broke my fall. A fence, I realized dazedly. I’d broken it, too, and every part of me felt as destroyed as it was. It was agony to even breathe, let alone to move, yet I forced myself to scramble through the remains of the wood and wires until I was free.

  That was when I got my first look around, and screamed. Brutus was about fifty feet from me, swinging around to put himself between me and what could only be Demetrius. No one else could shape-shift into someone’s exact likeness, and Demetrius was well aware of what Jasmine looked like. He’d held her prisoner in Adrian’s former realm for weeks. But I wasn’t screaming in fear of Demetrius, although I probably should be. I was screaming in horror over what he’d done to Brutus.

  His left wing had been torn completely off. It lay, spasmodically jerking, in front of Demetrius as if it were still attempting to take the demon’s head off. Dark red blood ran from Brutus’s side and he was howling in pain, yet he didn’t run. He squared off against Demetrius, lowering his remaining right wing into a chopping formation. Demetrius, still wearing my sister’s appearance, smiled at Brutus while a thin trickle of shadows flowed into the shape of a large sword.