Good. I had little faith that they would return in time to be of any use, but Lexi would kill me if I didn’t summon her to help the wounded here anyway. More importantly, I did not want my friends to see me like this. Because I was going to murder the Ice Queen and Erik. Auggie would not be dying today, unless it was over my own dead body.
Which looked like a very likely scenario at this point.
I gathered devil’s moss and murder hornet honey, bat wings and four-leafed clovers, kneaded them together, and shoved them into a potion bottle, mixing them briefly before swallowing the concoction as I stalked purposefully toward the town square. Then I removed more ingredients: troll’s eye, naga scale, lava shard, mummy dust. Lock of siren hair, hydra nail, rose thorns. Hogweed, Satan’s bolete, gnome whisker. Jackalope antler, orc drool, philodendron stems, sugar water. The orb at my neck dwindled quickly, and then winked out altogether. I felt the power seep from my limbs, squeezing the magic out of my body to meet the demands of the spells. Many exotic ingredients had side effects when they interacted, but I needed to be at the height of power. Failure was not an option.
I grunted as I neared the town square, a flash of blinding pain stabbing into my side. I ignored it, even as I coughed and tasted blood in my mouth. If I survived the oncoming fight, I would see to my health. But for now, I would see to Auggie’s.
A demon with a lion’s head snapped to attention as I approached the town square. He held an axe and as he opened his mouth, a forked tongue slipped out. “Apologies, sir. I have orders to—”
I lifted my left hand, and a vine squirmed out from my wrist. I grunted as veins ripped open and my skin split aside to make way for it. It reached out and wrapped around the demon’s body. The demon clutched at his throat as a shout was cut off, and I swung him into the wall of a house so hard that his upper body went directly through it. This would be thanks to the siren hair, hydra nail, and rose thorns. It would be a temporary power, but I would make the most of it.
I stepped into the town square, gaze zeroing in on the center, where a gallows had been erected. Several men hung from a beam, while bodies of others littered the ground beside an altar, the earth all around it drenched with blood. Benedict was among the dead, staring sightlessly upward, deposited like trash. I would mourn the human when I had the time.
I shifted my gaze, and my attention snagged on a figure splayed out on a bench, tied and gagged. Auggie. His eyes were wide, his hair disheveled. He was stock-still as he gazed up at the menacing figure that loomed over him. I held myself back with some effort as I assessed the man who stood over Auggie. He was well over six feet tall and so muscled that his skin bulged everywhere. His hair was glossy, his naked chest smooth, and power radiated from him in waves. It was quite the transformation from the sniveling coward I’d come to know in Greenland.
Erik.
I was just about to charge when a disturbance across the square caught my eye. The Ice Queen entered the square, looking as arrogant as ever, sauntering as if she’d already won the battle. She didn’t see me, however, as she held a fist aloft, ice growing around it until it was easily the size of a cantaloupe. Then, she dropped to her knees and slammed her fist into the ground. I felt the earth beneath my feet rock gently and had only time enough to throw my arms up to prevent a wall of freezing ice from covering me completely. I gritted my teeth as my arms took the brunt of the attack, blinking back tears that had nearly frozen. I shook my arms free of ice and stood, thankful I’d had the foresight to ingest a lava shard with mummy’s dust to protect myself against such an attack.
A cold fog hung over the town square now, obscuring what was going on within, but I heard Erik shouting clearly enough, his voice echoing across the open space. I took a step into the square, where demons in various poses of reaction to the Ice Queen’s attack had been completely blanketed in ice, frozen beneath a thick layer. The red demon nearest me was able to shift his eyes to look in my direction, but that was all.
The fog cleared enough toward the center that I was able to make out the goings-on as I approached the Ice Queen. I was lucky that her back was to me.
“I think a little farther up,” she was saying. “Yes, just like that. Splendid.”
A snowy owl draped a rope over the side of the hangman’s beam. Below, white foxes tied it quickly around a polar bear, running over the bear quickly as if it were a snowbank. Once that was secure, the Ice Queen gestured the polar bear forward.
“Slowly now,” she instructed, voice cheerful. “We wouldn’t want the naughty boy to hang prematurely now, would we?” She turned to address the boy in question. Erik stood with his hands tied behind his back, a noose around his neck. He stood on a block of ice that steamed cold. He appeared indignant, but also scared, a cloth shoved unceremoniously into his mouth to muffle whatever curses he was trying to spew at the ice witch. Even at the height of his power, I didn’t doubt he was the same coward as before and would run at the first opportunity that presented itself.
“There we go,” the Ice Queen nodded as the rope drew taut, as if she was simply decorating a room. “That’s perfect. Hold it there.”
She stepped up to Erik. “All those muscles and not a lick of sense.” She clucked her tongue. “Now before long, that block of ice at your feet will begin to melt. You might have five minutes before you have to step up on your tippy-toes, but soon that won’t even be enough.” Her voice tinkled in a laugh as she gestured up at the sky. “Oh, and it’s nearly time. Another three minutes more, I think, and we’ll be right at the pinnacle of strength.”
My eyes found Auggie, but he hadn’t noticed me yet. His eyes were fastened on the Ice Queen as she neared him. She picked up a ceremonial dagger from the altar and began to hum, gaze fixed skyward.
As much as I loathed Erik, I might need his help here, at least as a distraction. I knelt on the ground and lay my hands on the ground, palms up. Another vine broke through the flesh of my right wrist, spraying blood as it squirmed over the ground. The vine from my left wrist joined it, stretching, as if spooling from the very earth itself, through me like a portal. The vines veered to the left of the square and found two demons trapped within ice. The plants wrapped around the ice and began to steam as they died, but not before they shattered the ice prisons. I grunted as the vines retracted back into me, the dead vestiges falling away. They had withered quickly after encountering the ice.
The demons I’d released howled their indignity and leapt into the square. The Ice Queen sent denizens of her own to meet them. Her attention sufficiently occupied, I sprinted on swift feet that made no noise, thanks to the jackalope antler and orc drool I’d ingested. Erik stared down at me with bulging eyes as I approached. I grinned at him, then lifted my hands, striking out with the remaining vines like whips to knock over the hangman’s beam. Where the vines struck, something like blood splashed over the ground. The polar bear roared in protest as a portion of the beam fell upon the creature’s back.
The vines had withered following this show of power, the one dangling from my right wrist losing most of its length, blood dribbling from its pulpy end as if it were truly one of my arteries. I grimaced at the pain, but I couldn’t stop now. There was no time.
I rushed to Erik’s side, making short work of his bonds with my dagger. He yanked the rag from his mouth and scrambled to his feet, turning his attention to the Ice Queen, who’d noticed the commotion.
She crossed her arms. “I thought you would be busy mourning that pet of yours about now.”
“Her name was Narcissa,” I spat. I lifted my hands and attempted to strike out with what remained of my vines, but even the left vine, still somewhat vibrant, shriveled as it neared her. The cold was too much. They shriveled, falling from my wrists, dead. At my side, Erik’s hands began to glow red. “Do something,” I told him.
Erik pushed his lips together. “I don’t know why you saved me, Callum, but if you thought I would be helpful in this battle, you’d be wrong. She doesn’t have blood running through her veins at all. It’s all ice water.”
I groaned. “Now you tell me.”
Erik glanced at me. “So … you have no backup plan?”
“You seem like you could get a few good hits in,” I offered.
He turned and ran.
“I knew it,” I swore.
