Breathless

Also by John Passarella Novels Wither (Bram Stoker Award-Winning First Novel co-authored under the pseudonym “J.G. Passarella”)

Wither’s Rain: A Wendy Ward Novel Wither’s Legacy: A Wendy Ward Novel Kindred Spirit Media Tie-In Novels Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ghoul Trouble Angel: Avatar Angel: Monolith

eBook Novelettes “Forces of Nature” - A Wendy Ward Novelette “Breathless” - A Wendy Ward Novelette

“Breathless” A Wendy Ward Novelette JOHN PASSARELLA

Passarella Author Network Swedesboro, New Jersey

Copyright © 2007 by John Passarella Cover illustration copyright by Eric Asaris This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this novelette may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, with the exception of brief quotes used in reviews.

For more information: Passarella Author Network P.O. Box 381 Swedesboro, NJ 08085 Email: [email protected] Web site: www.passarella.com

Introduction “Breathless” is the second Wendy Ward novelette, following in the footsteps of “Forces of Nature” which took place after the events of Wither’s Legacy, my last Wendy Ward novel. As I’ve mentioned before, these novelettes are my way of carrying Wendy’s story (and timeline) forward until I have the opportunity to write a new novel featuring Windale’s favorite Wiccan. “Forces of Nature” brought Wendy up to Midsummer’s Night of 2003. And although “Breathless” details some events from Spring 2004, the main story takes place during one wintry afternoon in January 2005. In “Forces of Nature” Wendy faced a moral dilemma presented by the magically seductive Morgan. Was he one of the “creatures of chaos” coerced by Wither’s curse to find and destroy Wendy? Or was he a potential ally, offering her a magical life free of Wither’s posthumous reign of terror? To this day, Wendy remains unsure of Morgan’s motives. She may never know the truth. With “Breathless” I wanted to tell a different kind of story, a change of pace from the last novelette. This time Wendy would not be haunted by the ambiguity of a paranormal encounter and face an impossible, life-altering choice. Instead she would be terrorized by a powerful and merciless foe. In these pages, the threat is certain, the danger immediate. The story begins with Wendy visiting her long-time boyfriend, Alex Dunkirk, who is in the hospital, recuperating from an emergency appendectomy. A secondary, but no less important goal for me in writing “Breathless” was to bring Hannah Glazer back into the mix. In the novels, Hannah has participated in Wendy’s stories mainly as an apparition, her temporally jaunting alter-ego, the Crone. Physically, she’s spent most of that time with her mother, on the west coast. In this story, she faces physical jeopardy for the first time since her unusual birth. Hannah’s accelerated aging has continued unabated. Physically, she appears to be sixteen years old. And, as a freshman at Stanford University, she is even more advanced mentally. Considering the hummingbird pace of her five-plus actual years of life, she is remarkably well-adjusted, yet she is burdened by a keen sense of her own mortality. She’s come to Windale to tell Wendy about a newly discovered temporal ability. This new paranormal skill takes Hannah one step closer to her destiny as the time-traveling Crone manifestation. Bringing Hannah to Windale with Abby and Wendy accomplishes something I’ve been planning since Wither’s Rain: to give Wendy her own unique “coven.” By interfering in

the lives of these three young women, Wither’s demonic coven made them infinitely more formidable. Powerful enough to face whatever dangers the future holds. # To stay informed about future Wendy Ward stories and my other writing endeavors, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at http://www.passarella.com, and don’t forget to visit me on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/jpassarella. Though I have nothing immediately planned for Wendy, I fully expect to return to Windale someday soon. For now, sit back and take some time from your busy schedule to read this chilling new novelette, “Breathless.” I hope you enjoy it! —John Passarella / March 31, 2007

Breathless

The relentless January snowstorm throttled Windale, Massachusetts, as if determined to wipe the quiet New England college town from existence. Like the encampment of an invading army, ominous storm clouds had rolled across the slategray sky at dawn and became entrenched over the downtown area. And if one could consider the storm clouds an army, then she was its general. Despite her vast wintry resources, she had come not for a full-scale war, but for a private battle. Strange magic compelled her to slay a single foe—a young woman named Wendy Ward—but she would not hesitate to kill anyone who stood in her way. # “Looks like a pillow factory exploded out there,” Senior Patrolman Curt Melhorn said to the attractive brunette receptionist sitting behind the information desk in the main lobby of Windale General Hospital. Leaning his elbow against the round laminate countertop, he struck a casual pose at odds with his starched uniform. Mostly, he gazed through the large revolving door—motionless now—at the hypnotic snowfall, but occasionally he spared an appreciative glance at the equally hypnotic Kim Doerge. “Reminds me of the blizzard of 2002,” the receptionist said, shuddering at the memory. “Before my time,” said Melhorn, who moved to Windale and joined its police force in November 2004, almost fourteen months ago. “Be glad you missed it.” Melhorn heard her mutter something about “slasher murders.” He was somewhat familiar with the town’s strange history, the eerie stories of bizarre murders and even more bizarre bogeymen, but he chalked it up to modern folktales, Windale’s peculiar urban legends. Because the town’s economy depended on celebrating a history steeped in witchcraft and persecution, he assumed the chamber of commerce had embellished recent events as a bit of cultural window dressing. New ghosts to spruce up the old haunted house attraction. Aside from Chester, the old security guard hunched in a cramped booth across the lobby, sleepily contemplating his beckoning retirement years, Melhorn and the receptionist were alone in the expansive lobby. The hospital was unusually quiet. Everyone safe at home, out of the storm, he thought. Fine by me. Melhorn hated winter.

Thinking ahead to quitting time, he decided to employ the power of the creepy urban legend to his advantage. “I’d be more than happy to give you a ride home after your shift, Ms. Doerge.” “Might take you up on that, Curt,” she said with a charming little smile. “But, please, call me Kim.” “Sure thing, K—” His radio squawked out the voice of Chief McKay. “Curt, what’s your status?” Turning his head to the side, Melhorn squeezed the transmit button on the mike clipped to his epaulet. “All quiet down here, Chief. Not sure what you’re expecting. Even the snow plows are having a bitch of a time keeping the parking lot clear.” “Keep your eyes open for anything . . . unusual.” “Sure, Chief,” Melhorn said, rolling his eyes for Kim’s benefit. She chuckled softly and brushed a stray lock of her shoulder-length brown hair from her green eyes. Melhorn released the transmit button and nodded toward the front entrance. “Nothing’s moving out there. Am I right or am I—Hello!” Kim followed his gaze. “Is that . . . ?” “I’ll be damned.” From within the swirling funnels of snow, a young woman with long black hair falling straight to her waist walked with a determined but unhurried stride. Her face was pale, uncovered, and she wore only a long, flowing white gown, almost perfect camouflage against the whiteout conditions. “She’s not wearing a coat,” Kim said, shaking her head in disbelief. “No scarf, hat or gloves, for that matter.” “There’s something else . . .” He almost said “strange” but his voice faded away. Maybe this qualified as “unusual” but she was a lone woman, apparently unarmed, nothing for him to be concerned about. Certainly nothing to report. Don’t want McKay thinking I’m a nervous Nellie. Nevertheless, something wasn’t right— “Maybe she’s in shock,” Kim suggested. “Could be hypothermia,” he said, casually displaying his limited medical knowledge to the nubile receptionist. The pale woman slapped her palm against the button that set the revolving door in motion. The whump-whump of the moving door panels startled Chester out of his lethargic state. He looked up in mild confusion, scrambled off his stool, hitched his belt up over his expansive waistline and positioned himself near the door to greet the visitor. Melhorn stayed by the counter, letting the geezer handle the attractive, underdressed woman, hoping his restraint would win him points with Kim.

~8~

A moment later, the woman stepped out of the spinning doorway. She had a face as smooth and pale as porcelain, ice-blue eyes, a delicate nose, and blood-red, Cupid’s bow lips. “Can I help you, Miss?” The frosty glare she directed at the old-timer rode the blast of frigid air she’d admitted into the hospital. “I am not here for you,” she said dismissively. “Didn’t expect you were,” Chester said with an affable chuckle. “You’re visiting then?” Her blood-red smile never reached those winter-crystal eyes. “In a manner of speaking.” “Well, then,” Chester said, hitching up his pants again, “tell Kim, over there, the name of the patient, and she’ll direct you—” “You bore me.” The woman grabbed Chester’s collar, as if she meant to shove him aside. Given their respective sizes, that was not about to happen, unless she held a black belt in some martial— Chester groaned in pain, doubling over. Then the weirdest thing happened. The woman exhaled forcefully, directing her breath at Chester’s face as if she meant to topple him with a blast of air from her lungs. Slapstick images flitted through Melhorn’s mind, but any humor he might have experienced evaporated when Chester groaned again, trembling as if caught in a seizure. He crumpled to his knees and fell sideways, stiff as a board. Heart attack, Melhorn guessed. But Chester’s face was blue, frozen in a startled rictus of pain. Ice crystals speckled his bushy gray eyebrows and sideburns, as if his body had been stored for weeks in an industrial freezer. “What the hell . . . ?” Melhorn said. His hand dropped to the compact Glock 23, holstered at his side. No need to call for backup. The .40 caliber semi-automatic was more than a match for one unarmed woman. “Hands behind your head. Now!” With a languid, oddly amused, smile, the woman complied. The chill in the air intensified. Melhorn’s breath plumed in front of his face. “All right, then, I—” As he took a step toward her, planting his weight on his right foot, his leather shoe sole shot out from beneath him and, a moment later, he was flat on his back, rubbing his skull where it had struck the tile floor . . . the frozen floor. A layer of ice had spread across the lobby, radiating from the point where the pale woman stood. “How—?”

~9~

She pounced on him, slender fingers darting out, clutching his throat like bony claws. Her smooth white face and ice-blue eyes were impossibly close. For a moment, he thought she was about to kiss him on the lips. Instead, she exhaled. Melhorn shivered and couldn’t stop shaking. The air became too frigid to breathe, felt like icicles stabbing his shriveled lungs. His vision dimmed and, belatedly, he thought to reach for his holstered weapon. But that was all. A desperate thought. No action. Limbs too heavy to move. Fingers frozen stiff. Immobilized, mute and almost blind, he had one last flash of insight. Her hair—in the swirling snow! In the midst of the fierce winds, her long black hair had hung straight down, unnaturally motionless. His thoughts took on impossible weight as lethargy tugged him down into rigid darkness, frozen oblivion. Too late he learned that the monsters of Windale were real. # Paralyzed with fright, Kim Doerge held her breath. First Chester had died, then Curt Melhorn—frozen—by the strange woman. Kim wanted to run, but the message never reached her legs. With trembling fingers, she reached for the telephone, but stopped with a gasp as the strange woman suddenly rose from Melhorn’s frost-covered body and stared at her with those ice-blue eyes. “Who—what are you?” Kim whispered. The woman seemed to glide across the glistening lobby floor to the information desk. In a heartbeat she stood within arm’s reach of Kim. White fingers, tipped with blue fingernails curled like crystal spider legs on the laminate countertop. Her voice a frosty exhalation, she said, “The Lady of the Snow.” “L-lady Snow . . . ?” “They should have warned you about me.” Her throat too dry to swallow, Kim nodded, wanting to agree with the woman, no matter what, to avoid any chance of initiating a conflict that would result in Kim’s immediate demise. Her eyes flickered briefly to the frozen corpses. “Y—yes, I can see that.” “Naturally, I would not want you to warn them.” Kim shook her head vigorously. “I won’t say anything. I promise. Just please— please don’t—” The woman canted her head to the side, seemingly curious. “What?” “Fr-freeze me!” “Oh, no, Kim, not that,” the woman said, a statement undermined by the curlicues of frost billowing from the corners of her Cupid’s bow lips. “I need your help.” “Okay,” Kim said, trembling with relief. “Good.” With the speed of a striking cobra, the woman’s hands snatched Kim’s wrists and yanked her across the counter until their faces were inches apart, lips close enough ~ 10 ~

to kiss. “No, Kim, not good for you.” Then the Lady of the Snow opened her mouth and inhaled. # Hannah was laughing good-naturedly at Abby. “It’s not fair,” Abby repeated to Wendy, who sat at Alex’s bedside in the semiprivate hospital room. With the second bed unoccupied, the room was unofficially private. Recuperating from an emergency appendectomy, Alex was groggy at best and not tracking the conversation. If Wendy hadn’t been at work when Alex first started experiencing pain, she might have been able to heal the problem magically. But after surgery, she was too cautious to interfere with the doctor’s handiwork. Abby pointed at Hannah. “Look at her and tell me I’m wrong.” Wendy glanced back and forth between the two young women. Hannah Glazer was slender, verging on thin, with deep blue eyes and long, wavy black hair, marred by a thin streak of gray that flowed from behind her right ear all the way down. Looking at her, you would guess she was sixteen years old. You’d be very wrong. “Yes,” Wendy said, “she’s a little taller than you.” “She’s barely five-years-old!” “I turned five more than two months ago,” Hannah said evenly. “Fine,” Abby conceded. “She’s five and two months and I’m fourteen! But she’s taller than me—and she has bigger boobs!” Wendy laughed. “In all fairness, Hannah’s only five in calendar years.” “What other kind are there?” “Dog years, for one.” “She’s not a dog—!” “I’m not quite normal either,” Hannah said. “And neither are you, shape-shifter. How many days of the month do you spend as a wolf? Or a hawk?” “Hours, not days. Besides, that’s completely diff—” “Would you want to age three times faster than everyone around you?” “Breezing through puberty would be nice.” Abby sighed. “But, no, I guess not, when you put it like that.” “Anyway, I don’t feel like I’m five,” Hannah said. “I learn three times as fast. Mom says I go through phases three times as fast. I eat like a horse and barely maintain my proper weight.” “What’s so bad about that?” Hannah chuckled, brushed a long strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Nothing. That part’s actually kind of cool.” “Despite your apparent age,” Wendy said. “I’m kinda surprised Mrs. Glazer— Karen—your mother let you fly here alone.”

~ 11 ~

“She doesn’t relate to me by my calendar age anymore,” Hannah said. “Not since I stopped looking like a child. Maybe it stopped when I entered college. She treats me like an adult. Be kinda silly to baby me, right? She believes my mental development has surpassed my physical acceleration.” “So she’s relating to your mental age,” Wendy said, nodding. “But what about emotionally? How old do you feel?” Hannah shrugged. “I have no basis for comparison. What I’ve experienced growing up is all I’ve known. Even when I was a child, I couldn’t relate to other kids. From my point of view, they were growing in slow motion. Now?” She shrugged again. “I feel competent. Less like an oddball. More comfortable with adults. Independent. Not afraid. At least not irrationally.” Hannah sighed. “The four of us in this room have experienced things that would frighten anybody, regardless of age or maturity. But personally, I worry about my accelerated aging. If it doesn’t stop, by twenty-two I’ll be ready for retirement.” “I haven’t given up on finding a cure,” Wendy said. “I use border vision to study the pages of Wither’s journal that survived the Wendigo attack. Every chance I get, until the headaches get so bad I can’t think straight. But I’ve never found a single clue about stopping the process.” “I know you’re trying, Wendy,” Hannah said. “Maybe Rebecca Cole kept the cure to herself. Or maybe she never thought that far ahead. After all, she was insane. Even by witch-demon standards.” “If there’s a spell to begin accelerated aging,” Wendy said, “there must be a counter-spell to stop it.” “Who says magic has to be logical?” Hannah said dejectedly. “I do,” Wendy said. “Maybe it was in the pages that were destroyed. But somehow, someway, I’ll figure it out.” Wendy quirked a smile. “Who knows? Maybe the Crone will remind me how I eventually figure it out.” The Crone—a manifestation of Hannah’s future self—often relayed information to present-day Wendy that Hannah learned in the future from Wendy herself. A paradox, but somehow it worked. Perhaps, as the Crone had explained, because the time gap between the two of them remained mutable. “Maybe,” Hannah said, sharing a hopeful smile. Hannah wished she shared her Wiccan friend’s confidence. Maybe Rebecca never gave the idea of a cure much thought because she expected to transfer her life-essence into a succession of unsuspecting human victims. Why sweat the details when you’re practically immortal? When Hannah’s future self appeared to Wendy as the ghostly image she thought of as the Crone aspect of the Mother Goddess, Hannah appeared physically old. But how far into the future was the source of that elderly image? Could be twenty years as easily as sixty.

~ 12 ~

The air in the room rippled before Hannah’s eyes. She became alert to her surroundings, anticipating… Alex, recovering from his burst appendix, stirred and squinted both eyes as he mumbled to Wendy, “Could you turn off the overhead light?” Wendy stood and reached past the bedside meal tray to flip the light switch behind the headboard. Her arm bumped a Styrofoam cup, tipping it over. Ice water spilled over Alex’s midsection. Gasping, he jerked upright and winced in pain, clutching the site of his surgical incision. “Oh, God! Alex!” Wendy was almost in tears. “You’re hurt! I’m so sorry!” The air rippled in front of Hannah again. Groggy from sleep, Alex squinted against the severity of the ceiling light and mumbled to Wendy, “Could you turn off the overhead light?” Wendy stood and— Hannah spoke quickly. “Watch the cup!” Wendy froze, a moment before her arm would have knocked over the cup. “That was close! Hannah, how did you—?” “Pre-play,” Hannah said. “A new talent I seem to have developed. One of the reasons I decided to visit you.” “Premonitions?” “Somewhat. I seem to skip forward in my timeline and witness events that will happen soon. Then I slip back to the present again, and it seems to me as if the events are replaying instead of happening for the first time.” “Since it’s beforehand, you get a pre-play,” Wendy said, nodding. “Got it. Your body keeps finding new ways to ignore temporal boundaries and limitations.” Knuckles rapped on the hospital room door. They turned as— # Police Chief Bobby McKay entered Alex’s hospital room. “Everything okay in here?” “So far, Bobby,” Wendy said. Of course Bobby was familiar with Wendy, the Wiccan who employed his girlfriend, Kayla, at the new age shop The Crystal Path. The two women were close friends besides, as was tow-headed Abby Nottingham. And despite knowing Wendy had genuine magical abilities and Abby could transform into a white wolf or a red-tailed hawk at will, he was a little unnerved by the presence of Hannah Glazer, a former Windale resident currently based in Menlo Park, California. She appeared to be a poised and attractive teenager, on the cusp of adulthood. Academically advanced, she was a freshman at Stanford. But chronologically, she was five years old. A child in the body of a young woman. Since she’d lived most of her life on the west coast, he hadn’t seen her grow up. He had to trust that she was who she said she was, though it seemed physically impossible. His cop instincts fought blind acceptance. How well ~ 13 ~

could anyone really know Hannah when she changed practically overnight, every night? “Good,” Bobby said, nodding. “Everything’s quiet on my end as well.” “You warned them, right?” Wendy asked. “Told them to be on the lookout for anything unusual.” Wendy was shaking her head before he finished his statement. “You have to tell them everything, Bobby!” “Wendy, these guys are new,” he said quickly. “They haven’t lived through any of the weirdness. Trust me, they won’t understand. They’ll think I’m nuts. It won’t make any difference in their response. And I’ll lose their respect in an instant.” “Ignorance will get them killed,” Wendy said harshly. “Do you value their respect more than their lives?” Bobby dropped his head, chin against his chest, deflated and a little ashamed. Of course he shouldn’t place his reputation before their lives. And he hadn’t, not consciously. Part of him kept hoping that the recurring madness had ended, that they’d finally survived, come out the other side, ready for a return to normalcy. “No,” he said. “You’re right. I was kidding myself.” In a lighter tone, Wendy said, “Maybe I should teach a Windale orientation class for your new recruits.” “Right,” Bobby said, smiling. “Then they’ll think you’re the nutty one.” Wendy shrugged. “I’m used to it.” “Hold on.” Bobby squeezed the transmit button on his radio microphone. “Curt, this is McKay. Listen, we need to talk about this . . . situation.” He released the button, waited for a response, frowned, and transmitted again, “Curt? What’s your status?” Silence. “Jackson? Mendez? Report!” “Here, Chief,” both officers responded seconds apart. “Either of you seen Melhorn?” Neither had. “Want me to check the lobby?” Mendez offered. “Negative. Maintain your posts. I’ll check.” “Something wrong?” Abby asked. Hannah’s bright blue eyes seemed wide with alarm. Kayla had told Bobby that Hannah could sometimes recall the past of her future self, but he never understood how it worked. Could she predict the future? Maybe, sometimes, in some ways—but Kayla had always made it seem as if the future Hannah saw was malleable. Even if she predicted the worst now, things might play out differently. “Probably nothing,” Bobby said. “Poor reception, dead battery. I’ll check the lobby.” “Hannah?” Wendy asked. “Anything? Hannah shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “And the Crone can’t manifest while I’m here.” Bobby moved toward the door. ~ 14 ~

“Wait,” Abby said. “I’ll go with.” “Stay here, Abby,” Bobby said, shaking his head. “I can’t guarantee your safety.” Abby smiled. “I’m coming to protect you.” “Me?” Bobby asked, confused. Wendy was grinning at him. Hannah looked slightly amused. “Wait a minute, Abby. No, no, no! You can’t prowl the halls of Windale General as a wolf!” “Only if absolutely necessary,” Abby said. “Or if I need to follow her scent.” “You don’t know her scent.” “I know it won’t be human.” “Suppose not,” Bobby said. “Okay, you can come. But stay behind me. And warn me if you’re about to go lupine.” “Fair enough,” Abby said and grabbed her custom, mini-backpack from the floor. It had makeshift elastic straps that could endure her physical transformation. Besides, when she reverted back to human form in her birthday suit, she would need the spare set of clothes it contained. After they left, Hannah said to Wendy, “They’ll be okay, right?” “Abby has proven herself in battle more than once.” “Right,” Hannah said nervously. “It’s just—I’m not accustomed to being at ground zero during these attacks.” She began to shake her head. “I have a bad feeling about this.” “Nerves.” “More than that.” “Think she’s really here?” “Nothing concrete,” she said. “But I don’t buy that ‘dead battery’ excuse.” “Maybe this…Yuki-whoever…” “Yuki-Onna,” Hannah reminded her. During Hannah’s flight from California to Windale, the Crone had appeared to Wendy, warning her about this new threat, the Lady of the Snow, also known in Japanese folklore as Yuki-Onna. As usual, Hannah had no recollection of the conversation between her alternate self and Wendy, but Wendy had related the encounter after she picked up Hannah at Logan airport. The frightening details of that conversation remained indelibly etched in Hannah’s mind. Yet she had resisted telling her mother that her first independent flight had landed her in the middle of an impending attack. If her mother found out, she’d never let Hannah go anywhere alone. “Maybe she won’t be so bad,” Wendy said. “I banished Morgan without casualties.” “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about you-know-who in front of”—she jerked a thumb toward Alex, who was dozing again—”you-know-who.”

~ 15 ~

“I told him about it,” Wendy said, adding, “more or less.” “Ah, so you left out some of the . . . interesting details?” “I explained how the, um, attempted seduction was magically assisted.” “No actual physical attraction between you and the dashing Morgan?” “We’ll never know, because Morgan is gone for good.” “Wendy, I don’t think he was one of them.” “A faerie? No, he was human, living among the faeries, learning their magicks.” “I mean, I don’t think he was one of Wither’s creatures of chaos. You survived, but he survived too. Mission unaccomplished. If he was one of Wither’s enslaved minions he would have been compelled to keep trying until one of you was dead. And, afterward, you never saw the expanding ring of green light, calling the next one.” “You may be right,” Wendy said frowning. “I’ve had doubts myself about Morgan’s motives. Attempted magical seduction aside, maybe he was telling the truth.” “How long have you suspected?” Wendy sat on the bedside chair and sighed. “Since the nuckelavee tried to kill me…” Spring, 2004. She would never forget the night it first appeared to her… Near closing time, in the alley behind The Crystal Path, it cornered her by the Dumpster. At first she thought a horse was galloping toward her. But the creature had a man’s head and torso attached to the quadruped body, reminiscent of pictures of centaurs she’d seen. The details proved her wrong. Like a gene-splicing experiment gone awry, it had one bloodshot eye, a hideously wide mouth, and fins on its legs. Worst of all, when it stepped into the meager light of the alley, she saw that it had no skin, merely exposed muscles and sinew, dark red and glistening. The Crone had warned her about a nuckelavee the previous night, but she never expected to encounter it so soon, and certainly not in downtown Windale, right behind Theurgy Avenue. She swung the Dumpster away from the wall, creating a barricade between her and the creature whose breath could wither crops and kill animals, including humans. From the scant research she’d done since the Crone’s warning, Wendy knew the nuckelavee’s main weakness was fresh water. Even rain could harm it. But she doubted she’d be able to concentrate long enough, while fending off a deadly attack, to conjure a spring shower. The nuckelavee reared up on its hind legs and lashed out with its forelegs. Black hooves struck the front of the Dumpster with a sound like twin cannon shots. As the Dumpster rolled back against her, Wendy fought to maintain her balance. She noticed movement in the trash bin and thought, one man’s garbage is another man’s—or Wiccan’s—salvation. A half-empty—no, half-full!—water bottle rolled across a plastic trash bag, sloshing its precious contents down the side of the bag. Wendy snatched it. She splashed some of the water into her palm and flicked her fingers at the grotesque, skinless face of the horse-like creature. Each droplet of water sizzled on its raw hide, burning into its musculature. The creature roared, backing away but glaring ~ 16 ~

malevolently at her, seeking the slightest opening to crush her skull with its formidable hooves. Wendy feigned a sudden charge, and flicked more water at the nuckelavee to create separation between them. An instant later, she raced to The Crystal Path’s rear entrance. Slipping inside, she slammed and bolted the metal door a split second before hooves thundered against it. Safe for the moment, Wendy gripped her multi-bead bracelet in her right hand, and focused her thoughts and energy long enough to cast the spell for rain. Nature, already in a wet, spring mood, cooperated. The enraged pounding of hooves gave way to a terrible, pained howling. The nuckelavee galloped away and found shelter before the rain could destroy it. She knew because it attacked again the following night. Fortunately, the twenty-four-hour reprieve was all the time Wendy needed to prepare her team. The plan was simple. They knew the nuckelavee would attack at night. Abby took wolf form and tracked the creature’s scent. With great risk to herself, she harried the nuckelavee, darting in repeatedly to nip at its finned fetlocks and haunches while avoiding its lethal breath. She herded the creature to the clearing where Wendy and the others were waiting with a stockpile of loaded Super Soakers. Alex, Kayla, Bobby and Wendy surrounded the creature and squirted it continually throughout the night. Its futile rage gave way to pained exhaustion. Dawn brought the arrival of the nuckelavee’s other weakness: the sun. Trapped in the clearing, the nuckelavee couldn’t escape the sun’s cleansing rays. Already hobbled from the nightlong barrage of fresh water, the nuckelavee fell over and its skinless hide shriveled and hissed in the unforgiving light until nothing remained but charred grass. Moments later, an expanding ring of green light flashed outward past them, with a concussive whump, signaling that while the battle had been won, Wither’s magical, posthumous war against Wendy was not over. Seven months had passed since then . . . “The moment I saw the flash of green light,” Wendy said, “I began to suspect that Morgan was legit, that he thought of me as a kindred spirit with whom he wanted to share his magical faerie life.” “And not a pawn to Wither’s curse.” “He can cross over only on Midsummer Night,” Wendy said. “If he was a victim of Wither’s spell, he would have tried again last year on that date.” “Had you known then what you know now, would you…?” “Would I have gone with him? No, for several reasons. First, I’m in love with Alex. Second, magical compulsion was involved. I never would have known if the decision was mine. Finally, I would have changed . . . realms, but I would still be alive. Wither’s curse wouldn’t end. It would have followed me there, or continued to wreak havoc here. I need to stop this madness. I may be the only one who can stop it. I can’t run from that responsibility. One way or another, it ends with me.” # ~ 17 ~

At first Kim was unsure what was happening. One moment she was holding her breath, and then, when she tried to breathe, she couldn’t. As Yuki-Onna continued to inhale, Kim strained to gulp the smallest draught of air and struggled to free herself from the woman’s powerful grip. Whipping her head from side to side gave her no relief. Bone-chilling cold settled into her body. Kim shivered uncontrollably, growing weaker by the second. Terrified, she watched as her arms shriveled, losing muscle tone while rapidly acquiring a network of wrinkles. She whimpered as the bones in her wrists grew brittle, then snapped in the woman’s merciless grasp. With her enfeebled body unable to continue the struggle, Kim rose helplessly from the ground as the woman pulled her over the counter. A moment later, she dropped Kim to the cold hard floor, broken and spent. Kim managed to take a breath, finally . . . but it was her last. # “I’m telling you, there’s a perfectly rational explanation,” Chief McKay said to Abby, at his side as they walked down the corridor to the lobby. No matter how many times he cautioned her to stay back, inevitably she fell in stride beside him. Sheriff Nottingham had warned him how stubborn Abby could be, and she hadn’t mellowed in that respect since the sheriff’s tragic death. If anything, she’d become more independent and self-assured, as if realizing she couldn’t count on the adults in her life to protect her, that ultimately she was on her own. The halls of Windale General were unnaturally quiet. The only human sound came from a bald orderly, singing a Marvin Gaye tune while pushing a cart as he stepped into an elevator. The metal doors closed, swallowing his song mid-chorus. Kim Doerge, the night receptionist, strode purposely toward them from the opposite direction, a smile of secret amusement quirking her lips. “Abandoning your post, Kim?” Bobby said as she neared. “Something I need to do,” Kim said without slowing her determined pace. Abby’s nostrils flared. She tugged on Bobby’s sleeve. “You know her?” “Night receptionist,” Bobby said. “Why?” Abby shrugged. “Not sure,” she said. “If I was in wolf form, I could—” “We discussed this,” Bobby said, making a horizontal slicing motion with the flat of his hand. “No wolf prowling the halls of the hospital.” “I’m missing something.” “You’re just being paranoid,” Bobby said. “Understandably, considering what you’ve experienced throughout your life.” Abby frowned. “She wasn’t wearing a name badge.” “Probably left it at her desk.” Abby looked over her shoulder nervously. “Maybe we should have called the lobby desk from the hospital room phone.”

~ 18 ~

“I wanted a face-to-face,” Bobby said. “Besides we’re here now.” They turned the corner and stepped into the lobby. “Melhorn, your radio isn’t—” McKay stopped as if he’d walked into an invisible wall. “Oh, hell.” Chester, the old security guard lay sprawled near the wide revolving doorway, literally frozen. A few feet away, Curt Melhorn was similarly stricken. Another body, shriveled and desiccated to the point of anonymity, lay in front of the reception desk. With a sick feeling of dread in his gut, Bobby rushed to the third body and turned it over. First he noticed how light and fragile the corpse was, no more than a dried husk. Then his gaze drifted to the employee name badge. He felt as if the floor had opened up beneath him. “Damn it!” he exclaimed bitterly. “This is my fault.” He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Wendy’s number was on his speed dial. As he waited for the call to connect, he heard a low growl behind him. He almost dropped the phone as he whipped his Glock 23 out of its holster and spun on his heel. “Christ, Abby, you scared the shit out of me!” She stood before him, a large white wolf with bright blue eyes, her entire lupine body bristling with energy and a need to hunt her prey. An incongruous sight in a hospital lobby, made more bizarre because of the backpack slung over her shoulders. “Wait! We need to warn—Oh! Wendy, great to hear your voice. Listen. She’s here! In the hospital. Froze the security guard and Melhorn and she… mummified the receptionist. Now she looks like that woman—right, some kind of glamour. She walked right by us before—Look, you need to get out of that room now! Don’t argue. Go!” Bobby shook his head as he disconnected the call. He pressed the transmit button on his police microphone. “Jackson, Mendez. Converge on room three-two-three. The killer is in the hospital. Disguised as Kim Doerge, the hospital receptionist. Don’t ask. No time to explain. I’ll meet you there.” He turned to lupine Abby. “Let’s go!” # Hannah gasped as the heavy hospital door shot open on a blast of freezing air. A woman who appeared to be the hospital receptionist strode through the doorway and scanned the room. With two quick steps, she closed the distance to Hannah, wrapped a hand around her throat and slammed her body against the wall. “Ah, you are most unusual. Brimming with energy,” the woman said with unconcealed excitement. “Almost glowing. I must drain you. Every last morsel.” “Let her go!” Wendy called. Alex tried to sit up and grimaced in pain. Circling around from the far side of Alex’s bed, Wendy approached the woman cautiously, obviously worried that a sudden move might endanger Hannah’s life. Hannah struggled to breath. Her limbs tingled, beginning to go numb. She clawed at Yuki-Onna’s hand to no avail.

~ 19 ~

“You are the one I have come for,” Yuki-Onna said to Wendy, nodding with satisfaction now that her ultimate prey was within reach. “First I will drain you,” she said, oozing confidence, “then I will savor all that this special one has to offer.” “Lose the disguise,” Wendy said. “I see exactly what you are.” One moment Yuki-Onna was the spitting image of the hospital receptionist, the next she was a pale woman with long black hair and crystal-blue eyes, as inhuman as colored glass. “Fortunately,” the Lady of the Snow said to Hannah, “you need not be conscious when I feed.” To punctuate that comment, she brought Hannah toward her sculpted face for a moment before slamming her head into the wall with enough force to cause a momentary blackout. “Wait here!” the snow demon said needlessly. Released from the demon’s grip, Hannah slid down the length of the wall, her numb legs unable to support her weight. She slipped sideways, knocking over the waste can as she fell to the floor, too dazed to move or to think clearly. She could only stare as… . . . the air in the room rippled. Her perspective shifted upward in the blink of an eye. She was standing by the door again, unharmed. Wendy closed her cell phone and her expression echoed Hannah’s fright. Alex stirred, glanced back and forth between them and said, “What is it?” “Oh, my God,” Hannah whispered thankfully. “Pre-play!” “Hannah you zoned out during—tell me what you saw!” “Yuki-Onna came through the door and . . .” Hannah shook her head, trying to rid herself of the visceral premonition. She felt echoes of pain she had not yet experienced, but she needed to focus on the present, to determine how to avoid the future she’d glimpsed. “We need to leave. Now!” “I can’t run,” Wendy said grimly. “She’ll find me wherever we—wherever I go.” “What are you thinking?” “Stay with Alex. I’ll find the nearest empty room and wait for her.” “Alone?” Alex said, gripping a bedrail as he prepared to rise. “No way!” “Alex, you’re in no condition to fight this battle with me,” Wendy said, pushing him back down. “Besides, we don’t even know how to beat her.” “What will you do?” Hannah asked. “Don’t know,” Wendy said as she came around the foot of the bed. “Conjure a few fireballs.” She shrugged. “Then wait in my protective sphere for the cavalry to arrive. Bobby and Abby are coming. I only need to buy a few minutes.” She bent down and kissed Alex briefly on the lips. “Wish me luck.” “Wendy, I—good luck.” Alex sighed in resignation. He was in no shape to get out of bed, let alone fight the snow demon with her, and he knew it. A bitter pill. ~ 20 ~

“Stay out of sight,” Wendy said as she slipped through the doorway. “Stay safe.” When the door clicked shut behind Wendy, Hannah hurried to Alex’s side and pulled the privacy curtain around the near side of his bed, blocking them from casual inspection. # Not trusting or understanding the mechanical contraptions humans employed to raise or lower themselves through tall buildings, Yuki-Onna climbed the stairs until she reached the level of her prey. When she paused and focused on her need to find and kill Wendy Ward, she glimpsed a filament of pale light that unspooled like an airborne thread, leading the way to her. At other times, she sensed the right direction intuitively. Of the two methods, she preferred reliance on her internal compass, because focusing on the thread of light made her head ache to distraction, and she couldn’t afford any lapses when she encountered her prey. Another intuitive insight, magical in nature, informed her that the young woman was dangerous. A warning to proceed with caution. She opened the door at the third-floor stairwell landing and entered the long hallway. At a more cautious pace, she strode across the white tile floor, creating a mere whisper of sound. Motion to her left. A dark skinned man emerged from a hospital room, wearing the uniform of a human guardian, holding a compact weapon trained on her torso. He uttered a tightlipped command, confident she would obey. “Freeze!” “Always my pleasure,” she said, smiling. Her right hand darted toward his wrist, a blur of motion too fast for human eyes to track. Quick twist backward and down, and bones ground together. As he fell to his knees, the man cried out in pain but managed to fire a single round at her. The projectile irritated her, like a sudden, imperious shove, but ricocheted off her chest without penetrating her demonic flesh. Nearby, a window shattered from the deflected impact. Yuki-Onna leaned over the grimacing man—the nametag pinned to his shirt read “Jackson”—and breathed the chill of death into his body. He fell like a split log, no longer any concern to her. With the explosive sounds echoing in the deserted hallway, patients lying abed in their rooms and caregivers stationed behind desks began to scream, running for cover, slamming doors, pulling blinds across windows, as if cloth or wood obstacles could deter her. Fortunately for them, she had not come to prove her superiority over humans. She was compelled to kill one young woman for a reason beyond her understanding, but a compulsion nonetheless. If these humans stayed out of her path and did not distract her, she might let them live. Then again, she owed them no mercy. Letting her dark intuition guide her, she came to a room with a closed door designated 323. Her prey’s presence permeated the air around the room. But something was wrong. It occurred to Yuki-Onna that the woman might be able to ~ 21 ~

disguise her presence, an imperfect ability at best, but perhaps deceptive enough to create doubt in Yuki-Onna’s mind. “Never,” she whispered as she pushed down on the metal handle and shoved the door inward. She saw the foot of an elevated hospital bed protruding past the edge of a privacy curtain hanging from a metal track in the ceiling. Gripping the edge of the curtain, she flung it aside with a clatter of metal rings. The bed was empty, but the padding held the residual warmth of a recent occupant and, unlike the fresh bed on the far side of the room, the sheets were rumpled. The patient must have fled during the recent commotion. Standing motionless, her gaze fell upon a closed door on the far side of the room, halfway between the two beds. She took a step toward the door. The pale thread of light curling out of the room into the hallway made her pause. Wendy Ward had been in this room recently, but no longer. Yuki-Onna walked out of the room, letting her intuition guide her. # Locked in the restroom, Alex leaned against the tile wall, skin clammy, legs trembling with weakness. A few moments ago, Hannah had been supporting his weight. Then she slumped back against the wall herself, unconscious, almost as if she had fainted from fright. But Alex thought something else was happening with her. A second pre-play image had warned her that Yuki-Onna would enter Alex’s room after Wendy had gone. She helped him into the restroom, locking the door, while a brief battle raged down the hall, followed by panicked screams. Alex waited with gritty determination, his quick, shallow breathing the only sound while the snow demon examined his room. He fought to maintain his upright position while propping Hannah against the sink. If either of them fell, Alex had no doubt the demon could burst through the locked door in an instant. With the passing of each agonizing second, wisps of frost curled under the bottom of the door and drifted toward him. He had a strange suspicion, almost a dread certainty, that if the tendrils of mist touched his flesh, the demon would sense his presence. A moment later, the mist began to dissipate and he knew she was gone. “Hannah,” he whispered urgently. “Hannah, wake up. She left.” Mumbling, Hannah straightened, looked startled, and then latched onto Alex’s arm to keep him upright. “Sorry. Guess my mind changed channels.” “You passed out.” “No,” Hannah said. “Different wavelength.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “Could be good news. Meanwhile, let’s wait here a little longer.” Legs wobbling noticeably, Alex grimaced in pain, but nodded assent. Compared to what Wendy faced, how could he complain about standing still? # Separating from Hannah had been the key. ~ 22 ~

Once Wendy slipped into a nearby vacant room, the Crone had manifested to her. Hannah’s future self appeared to Wendy in times of crisis, but she couldn’t materialize in her younger self’s presence. “I’ve never been so glad to see you,” Wendy said. “We must hurry,” the Crone said, her ghostly image fading from translucent to transparent and back again. “My younger self will be incapacitated while I’m here and she needs to protect Alex.” “Understood.” “You have seconds to prepare,” the Crone said, “and you need to know that Yuki-Onna is practically invulnerable to conventional weapons.” “Not real encouraging,” Wendy said. “Got anything else?” “Yuki-Onna, the Lady of the Snow, has several states and appearances,” the Crone said. “She often appears as a young, attractive woman, pale-skinned, with long black hair and ruby-red lips, wearing a flowing white gown. Yet this is not her true appearance. She can literally freeze men with her breath or drain the life-force from any woman, and she has the ability to briefly assume her victim’s appearance.” Wendy nodded. “Bobby said she looked like the hospital receptionist.” “Then that woman is dead,” the Crone said. “The acquired glamour is just another disguise, another layer. Her true appearance is grotesque and cadaverous, but she is inhumanly strong.” “Don’t care what she looks like,” Wendy said. “How do I defeat her?” “While wearing her normal human disguise or an acquired glamour, she is impervious to bodily harm by any conventional means.” “Conventional? What about magical? A spell?” “I am aware of no spells that will harm or defeat her.” “Get her to reveal her true appearance? Is that the key?” “No,” the Crone said. “Her physical appearance is irrelevant.” “Then what is relevant?” “You won’t like it, Wendy.” “Do I have a choice?” “No.” “Then spill!” “Very well,” the Crone said. “You must focus on her states.” “What—?” A gunshot erupted in the corridor, followed by glass shattering, panicked screams, the sounds of doors slamming, and various items crashing to the floor. “She’s coming. Make it fast.” The Crone nodded, acknowledging the urgency of the situation while remaining calm enough to impart the knowledge she had come to deliver. “Her existence consists of energy transference,” the Crone said. “She freezes and she feeds…” # ~ 23 ~

Having no patience for the elevator, Bobby McKay and Abby took the stairs to the third floor. On the second-floor landing, his cell phone rang. He signaled Abby to stop as he took the call, and listened as Wendy gave him a rapid set of instructions. “Understood,” he said. “Yes, I trust you. Now trust me. Wendy—?” He disconnected the call and looked down at Abby. Her blue lupine gaze focused on him with unwavering intensity. “Follow my lead,” he said. “C’mon!” # Yuki-Onna left the deserted room and turned right to follow the wispy thread of light leading to her prey. As she concentrated on the magical aid, her head began to pound with the effort and she failed to notice the uniformed man sprinting toward her, weapon drawn, until he was an arm’s length away. “Stop right there, Miss!” “Yes, this is close enough… Mendez,” she said, reading his nametag. She wrapped her fingers around his weapon, and felt it jump within her grasp as it expelled hot chunks of metal toward her at incredible speeds—One! Two! Three! Again she felt the urgent shoving of the projectiles as they struck and ricocheted from her body. With growing impatience, she exhaled forcefully and watched in delight as cool mist flowed up around her in a sensual, embracing cloud of cold. A thin layer of ice flowed across the tile floor and coated the windows around her. The guardian trembled, his teeth chattering briefly before his limbs stiffened and the spark in his eyes winked out. She tossed him across the hallway and walked toward the room that beckoned to her, almost as if it were whispering a delightful secret. The end of her murderous quest waited beyond that door. Freedom restored, at the price of one simple task. Kill the young woman and Yuki-Onna would rid herself of the compulsion forever. Smiling, she shoved open the door to room 329, stepped forward and— —recoiled as a blazing ball of fire hurtled toward her head. Instinctively, her arms crossed in front of her face to ward off the unpleasant warmth. She sensed the fireball was magical in nature as it dispersed around her head, leaving tendrils of loathsome heat in the air. Gagging but unharmed, she gathered her energy and emitted a blast of cold air into the room just as a second fireball was forming before her. Her freezing wind and ice snuffed out the fireball as if it were a candle flame. An attractive young woman, with auburn hair and green eyes stood defiantly before her. She wore a forest-green sweater, black dungarees, and tan, calf-high boots. Nothing more than a human. A woman with a few magical tricks up her sleeve, but a human nonetheless. “You are the one I seek,” Yuki-Onna said. “Wendy Ward.” “And you are Yuki-Onna,” Wendy said softly. “We both get gold stars.”

~ 24 ~

“You are afraid of me,” Yuki-Onna said, nodding slowly. “Good.” “Drop the disguise. I see right through you.” Yuki-Onna released her glamour, the appearance of the woman she had drained. The image would have dissipated soon anyway. “Satisfied?” “Now drop your other disguise.” Yuki-Onna inclined her head. “You see what others do not.” She nodded. “Very well, Wendy Ward, we will face each other as true adversaries. No pretenses.” The snow demon focused for a moment, releasing her regular human guise, an appearance she wore so often that its absence seemed strange to her. She raised her white-furred, clawed hands before her eyes, flexing her sinewy forearms. “You are one ugly bitch,” Wendy said, shuddering but not, Yuki-Onna guessed, from the cold. “Let’s do this.” “I, too, am eager to finish,” Yuki-Onna said. “But your fire disgusts me.” “The feeling’s mutual.” Ignoring the human’s feeble insult, Yuki-Onna continued. “Promise me you will not attempt to create more fire and I will make your death as painless as possible.” “How can I refuse such a gracious offer?” “Exactly,” Yuki-Onna said, stepping forward. Too late she sensed a sudden gathering of magical energy. She braced herself for another burst of nauseating fire, but her foe surprised her. Something invisible and hard slammed into Yuki-Onna, not once, but repeatedly, battering her and, remarkably, staggering her. Yuki-Onna’s claws slammed into the wall for support, their tips gouging six-inch furrows before she regained her balance. “A magical shield as an offensive weapon! Clever girl.” “Thank you,” Wendy said, smiling as she took a confident step toward YukiOnna. As if it would be that easy to defeat an ancient snow demon. Yuki-Onna lashed out with her free hand and grabbed at the surface of the magical sphere. Incredibly, she felt it vibrating beneath her palm—spinning! A protrusion from the rotating sphere had struck her. She must not allow that. Would not allow it. After all, a magical sphere was a manifestation of energy. Yuki-Onna fed on energy. It was how she survived so long. Digging her claws into the slippery surface of the magical barrier, she slowed then stopped its spinning. With the barrier static before her, she began to absorb its potent energy. Wendy’s lips were compressed, her eyes wide. Nervous. As she should be. “Your shield is a gift,” Yuki-Onna said. “It feeds me.” “I was afraid of that,” Wendy said. “I’m cutting you off, bitch!” In the blink of an eye, the sphere vanished and Yuki-Onna stumbled forward. Her claws clamped down on Wendy’s shoulders, piercing her soft human flesh. The young ~ 25 ~

woman grimaced and cried out with the sudden pain. She tried to back away, but banged into the first of two empty hospital beds. Yuki-Onna pinned her there and smiled. “Your struggles were in vain.” Her voice hoarse with pain, Wendy said, “Reasonable assumption.” “I will drain you,” Yuki-Onna said. “Promises, promises.” “You will not stop me.” “No.” “Afterward, I will shred your husk.” “Don’t put yourself out,” Wendy gasped. “Enough talk,” Yuki-Onna said. She leaned forward, pausing when her lips were inches from Wendy’s face. “Your death will release me.” Yuki-Onna closed her eyes and inhaled, siphoning Wendy’s energy into her own body, feeding her way to freedom. Almost instantly, held firm in the snow demon’s grasp, Wendy’s began to tremble, gasping for air. # Wendy fought for breath and realized that her last-minute plan had a fatal flaw. The fireballs and the sphere attack had been stalling tactics, designed to give Bobby and Abby enough time to reach her room. At the appropriate moment, she’d told them, she would signal them to attack. But they must wait for her signal. A crucial detail. Now the time had come, and she was breathless! If she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t call out to them. Yuki-Onna would drain Wendy’s life-force and then resume her killing spree as she left the hospital and returned to her winter storm. At Wendy’s urging, Yuki-Onna had dropped what Wendy thought of as the demon’s baseline glamour. The young Wiccan no longer needed border vision to see the hideous nature of the snow demon. Covered in rancid, matted white fur, her sinewy form was the height of an average woman but any similarity to humanity ended there. Her hands and feet terminated in dark gray claws. Her forehead had a severe slant, with red-rimmed eyes prominent, a flattened nose with long nostril slits and, at the end of an elongated snout, instead of teeth, she had a dark maw ringed with a mass of quivering pink-and-gray tubules. These tubules seemed to serve a dual purpose, to emit her deadly freezing breath and to absorb life-energy from her female victims. The tubules strained hungrily toward Wendy’s face, rippling with the influx of her life force. Wendy croaked but it was a weak, strangled sound, lacking sufficient volume to travel into the corridor where—she hoped—Bobby and Abby were waiting patiently for her command. If she couldn’t call them soon, she… Call! Her cell phone!

~ 26 ~

She barely had enough time to call Bobby and outline her plan before Yuki-Onna had burst through the door. Wendy had conjured the first fireball in record time—but first she’d dropped her phone. Where—? The bed! She reached behind her back and that simple effort required all her concentration. Numb fingers fumbled across the cool sheets, finding and gripping the smooth metallic clamshell shape of her cell phone. Bobbling it, almost dropping it, she brought the phone as close to her mouth as she could and whispered in a hopelessly faraway voice, “…now…” Disgusted with her effort, she flung the cell phone over Yuki-Onna’s shoulder. It clattered across the floor and skidded through the doorway into the corridor. As if tossing her phone had been the prearranged signal, Bobby whipped around the right side of the doorway into the room, his gun leveled. A moment later, Abby, in wolf form, charged into the room and attacked the demon. Her powerful lupine jaws clamped down on the right hamstring of the cadaverous creature sucking the life-force out of her best friend. Abby tugged viciously, growling as she whipped her head back and forth. Startled by the unexpected and ferocious attack, Yuki-Onna released her clawed grip on Wendy’s shoulders and turned toward the new threat. In her feeding state, the demon was inebriated with the influx of energy, dazed and—more importantly— vulnerable. Wendy dropped to the floor and shrieked, “Now! Before she—” Bobby knew. Eschewing half-measures, he fired his Glock until the magazine was empty, one explosive burst after another. All but the last two rounds ripped into the creature’s upper torso, creating jagged blossoms of pus-colored blood. As the quaking and bloodied demon gripped the bed rails for support, Bobby’s last two shots drilled into its oblique head. The first slug burst through the left eye; the second shattered the right cheek, exploding out the back of the oblong skull. After initially bowing backward under the fusillade, the creature’s furry body sagged forward and crumpled to the floor, lifeless. Wendy climbed to her feet, balancing on shaky legs and unable to avert her gaze from the abomination that had tried to suck her life away. If Bobby and Abby had hesitated a few moments more… Wendy shuddered, a delayed reaction. Then she hugged herself, almost as it she needed to confirm she was still alive, flesh and blood and not a dried husk of flesh. Smoke began to issue from the creature’s corpse. Beneath clumps of matted fur, sinewy flesh pulsed and bubbled and quickly liquefied, creating a rancid puddle of goo that spread across the hospital room floor. In moments the liquid evaporated, leaving a stain the color of tar on the white tile. Scattered piles of fetid white fur crumbled to dust. Centuries of rot and decay passing in a matter of seconds. Wendy heaved a trembling sigh. Of course, she had been afraid the entire time she was alone with Yuki-Onna. Her plan had been to stall the demon long enough for

~ 27 ~

Bobby and Abby to take position outside the room. Once there, they had to wait until the demon began to feed. After the Crone had told her the snow demon was vulnerable during the feeding state, Wendy realized the only way to defeat her would be through deception. Wendy had to offer herself as bait and make it seem as if she expected to win with magic. She fought long enough to make her struggle convincing. When Wendy eventually lost, the demon became overconfident, eager to feed, never suspecting the battle had been a sham and a stalling tactic. Had the demon suspected a trap, had she guessed they knew her weakness, she never would have let her guard down. She would have incapacitated Wendy, killed anyone in the immediate area, and only then would she have fed. Overconfidence had been her undoing. But it had been a near thing, giving Wendy an uncomfortably close look at her own mortality. “Thank you,” she said to Bobby. Then she directed her gaze at the panting white wolf. “Both of you.” The wolf gave a single nod. Bobby said, “Figured the flying cell phone was a ‘Plan B’ signal.” “Second she started feeding, I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to yell.” “Waiting out there was brutal,” Bobby said, “but I knew we’d only get one chance to catch her with her guard down. Since I’d already screwed up once…” “Don’t beat yourself up, Bobby,” Wendy said. “There are no rule books for this craziness. You saved me. And you killed a practically immortal demon. Give yourself some cred—” Wendy staggered, and Bobby caught her. “Bit light-headed,” she said apologetically. “You’re bleeding,” Bobby said, indicating the claw marks on her shoulders. “You’ll need stitches. And plenty of antibiotics, I bet.” Wendy grinned uneasily. “Snow demons aren’t very sanitary, are they, Chief McKay.” “Not in my experience,” Bobby said. Because of his close encounter with the wendigo several years ago, she knew he could empathize. “I’m ready to move where it never snows.” Suddenly a green light began to glow around them, swelling for a moment before blasting outward in an expanding ring of magical energy, leaving behind eerie retinal afterimages. Startled, Bobby looked at Wendy. “That means…” She nodded grimly. “The clock is ticking.” # Alone in the restroom, Abby shape-shifted back to human form and donned her spare set of clothes. Then she and Bobby walked on either side of Wendy and escorted her back to Alex’s room. Nurses scrambled along the hallway, first covering the frozen corpses of Jackson and Mendez with spare bed linens, then attempting to calm patients

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and call doctors for advice. Soon the hospital would return to normal. Wendy wished her life could be normal, but resisted the urge to wallow in self-pity. “Maybe they’ll give us adjoining beds,” she said to Alex as the three of them entered his room. His voice weak, Alex said, “Always look for the bright side.” His face was clammy and he seemed wiped out. Hannah explained her pre-play vision and how they had needed to hide from Yuki-Onna. Wendy prayed Alex had suffered no internal damage from the exertion, and was confident he would recover. She downplayed her own experience with Yuki-Onna. Everyone focused on the claw marks on her shoulders, but she was more concerned with the internal damage she’d suffered. When Bobby and Abby had helped her across Alex’s room, they passed a wall-mounted mirror. A quick glance revealed a new streak of gray in her hair. She finally had a firsthand understanding of Hannah’s predicament with accelerated aging. Wendy wondered how much of her own life, how many days, weeks, months or years she had relinquished to the snow demon in those brief moments before help arrived. Then she thought grimly, I might not live long enough to miss that time. If she didn’t find a way to end Wither’s curse, her retirement years would never be an issue. Eventually, magic or luck or ingenuity would fail her. She would die young and, no doubt, horribly. Today was a day Wither managed to reach from beyond the grave and exact a small measure of personal revenge against Wendy. Every other day was a gift.

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About the Author John Passarella is the Bram Stoker Award-Winning co-author of Wither, chosen by the Horror Writers Association as the best first novel of 1999. Columbia Pictures purchased the film rights to Wither in a pre-emptive bid, but the studio has yet to make a feature film version of the story. Passarella followed Wither with two standalone sequels (Wither’s Rain & Wither’s Legacy) featuring Wendy Ward as a series character. His other novels are the paranormal thriller Kindred Spirit and the original media tie-in novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ghoul Trouble, Angel: Avatar and Angel: Monolith. In his spare time, Passarella designs and maintains Web sites for New York Times bestselling authors Harlan Coben and Nicholas Sparks, and has many other clients. For more information, visit www.authorpromo.com . Passarella’s official author site is www.passarella.com . He answers reader e-mail sent to [email protected] . Currently, he resides in Logan Township, New Jersey with his wife and three children.

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About the Illustrator Eric Asaris has had illustrations published in Wicked Hollow, Not One of Us, Quietus, and Lullaby Hearse. You can see his online gallery at http://degenerart.deviantart.com .

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