Chapter Text
When Toot-toot found me, I was up to my knees in snow, wrangling slate onto the roof of an outbuilding next to Demonreach's old lighthouse. The snow whirling against my skin and melting into my socks was chilly, distantly, but it didn't hurt. My current day job gave me some immunity from the cold, from the elements.
Mab wasn't the Queen of Air and Misplaced Hammers, though, and when I blinked against a swirl of snow, missed the steel nail and caught my thumb square on my own, it hurt in a very real and present way. I swore and shook my hand out, trying to flap away the throbbing pain, and swore again in surprise when a tiny figure appeared out of the blizzard in front of me.
Toot watched with interest as I reacted gracefully to his sudden appearance by jerking backwards, toppling off the roof, and dropping four feet into a snowdrift that swallowed me completely. He landed lightly on the edge of the roof, gave a tiny scowl of concentration, and executed a perfect swan dive that turned into a belly-flop halfway down.
There was a puff of displaced snowflakes, and an exact, fairy-shaped hole; Toot's head popped out of it, wearing a fetching bouffant of snow. "Za Lord!" he saluted.
"Hi, Toot-toot," I said, frowning. "What brings you out here?" I wasn't mad at him or anything, but last I knew, I'd asked him to stay watching over... ...some stupid place where some stupid guy I wasn't speaking to lived. Also known as Chicago's largest human stronghold, Baron Marcone's Fort. And Toot takes his obedience to me pretty seriously.
"You told me to tell you if something weird happened! Sir!" He saluted again, knocking off a bit of his snow-do. "Something weird happened! Sir!"
"Such as?"
"The Sheriff Errant visited! She was really angry!"
My eyebrows rose. "Murph went to the-- Murph visited? Voluntarily?" It wasn't that she'd never gone there before; she stopped by now and then. But the world usually had to be ending. Again. Or she was visiting Luccio, and she wasn’t angry for those visits. Or she really needed a place to crash, and could avoid... ...that asshole jerkface we know.
"She was looking for you!"
I tried to man up. "Is she still there?"
"Nope! I told her where you were! She's coming to meet you! She left right away!"
"In this weather!?" ...and because I was the worst friend in the world, I was at least relieved that I wasn't going to have to go pick her up at the Fort. The snow was bad on Demonreach this winter; the snow was bad everywhere I’d been this winter-- well, everywhere that got snow. It was a good thing, I knew, but a stark change to the dry, droughty stretch the world had been trapped in almost since the sky had first blacked out.
"Do you want to go see her?"
"Yeah. Now." I could feel the hammer lying on the ground a few feet away, at the bottom of a chest-high drift. I left it. It wasn't like I couldn't find it later. And the hammer, unlike Murph, wasn't going to get frostbite. I ripped a hole in the Nevernever; it would lead through the island’s presence on the other side of the mortal line, and from there come out near my Hold in Winter. Once in Winter, there where paths that could get me almost anywhere in Chicago, anywhere in the mortal realm. "Mouse!" I yelled, and a snow bank a few feet away stood up, shook, and bounded through the hole in the air. Toot-toot hung back.
"Za Lord?" He said, worried sounding. "We're... not going by the Manitou, are we?"
"The wha-?"
"The Wind Walker? The flesh eater?"
I twigged-- there was a Winter fae, a wendigo-weetigo-whateveryoucallito that lived near my hold; our route would go past his territory. "Danny?" I waved the little fairy to follow me. "Danny's not so bad. We have a truce." We'd been down right neighborly ever since I solved a disagreement with a rock giant for him, right before the last time I'd set foot in That Stupid Place (it was for my day job, okay?). He even stopped by for tea and a chat once, somehow compacting his bony-- literally-- two-story tall form until it fit inside my hamster tube of a fallen tower. "Besides, he's been away for a couple of months." ...Had it really been that long? I felt a little small and cold suddenly-- and it wasn't just the snow melting into my socks.
"You're sure?" Toot zipped close, peeking out from behind my shoulder.
"Yeah. I'm sure."
As promised, no great white northern monsters blocked our way, and soon we were jogging through a crisp Winter's night-- me and Mouse were jogging, anyway, Toot was zipping forward and back, waiting for us to catch up and then darting ahead again until we reached the gateway out of the Nevernever.
We came out into darkness. It'd been evening when Toot had found me; now it was full night, still snowing. In Faerie we'd had the moon to navigate by-- stepping into the mortal world was like suddenly plunging underground. The only light source was Toot-toot's natural glow and a trickle of light from my pentacle: they were painfully bright in contrast with the black and the silently falling snow. Visibility was crap; I could see far enough to not trip over anything too obvious, and that was about it. Toot-toot, though, knew where he was going. Mouse and I slogged behind him. We were walking along what looked to have been a freeway; abandoned cars squatted like hibernating animals under a covering of snow, and at one point I tripped over something that clanged. Blowing off the snow, I saw the rusty remnants of a sign that promised a McDonalds and a Denny's off the next exit.
After a while Toot led us off the cracked pavement and onto dirt, and Mouse and I slipped and clambered down a hill towards a dark spot on the dark horizon. As we drew closer, it slowly took shape and became a little cluster of gutted buildings. The snow and drifts weren't as deep here, but it was still coming down hard, the flakes small and wet. I was pretty soggy when we finally saw the dim light of a fire.
The convenience store's big plate glass windows were just metal shells now; it had been looted, years ago, and nobody had bothered to try to patch it up. There were pine branches and random junk stacked over the worst of the breaks, freshly moved, with enough of a hole to let the smoke out. Inside were barren shelves, trash, and two cloth lumps sleeping next to a small, well-constructed fire.
The nearer, larger lump lifted its head and glared at me, one bar-pupiled eye gleaming balefully in the light of my pentacle.
Mouse growled low in his throat, and the big... I squinted... sheep? subsided.
The smaller lump of cloth sprouted a gun barrel.
"Step into the firelight, pal," Murphy said, her voice sleep-husky and still iron.
"Murph. Pax. I didn't mean what I said about the apocalypse making your butt look big." I stepped in, hands up. Toot hid behind my shoulder, staring at Murph over my left ear. It didn’t really hide him, he’s too big for that, especially with the way he glows, but I guess it’s the thought that counts.
She snorted a laugh and tucked the gun back under her pillow. "Speak of the camp wench."
"Toot said you were looking for me."
"...So you came out after sunset in this weather. Oh, wow, Harry. Never change." She peered at me. "Are you wearing shorts?"
I looked down. "Um."
"That's disgusting. I'm going back to sleep."
"Murph! I was worried about you!"
"Because I'm the one who goes out in the middle of the night badly dressed and has no wilderness survival skills." She grunted. "We'll talk in the morning. Pull up a stack of newspapers." She snuggled back down into her fur-lined bedroll, yanking it over her face.
Mouse dropped down next to the sheep, friction apparently forgotten, rooting with his nose until he was partially under the sheep's bedroll, and I sighed and sat down next to them.
Toot poked his head up from over the ridge of my shoulder as soon as Murphy seemed to be asleep, his Ken-doll sized nightlight impression not denting her ability to drop off whenever and wherever she needed to. His wings buzzed a comfortable white noise in my ear as he hoisted himself up, little hands braced against my shoulder, little feet against my shoulder blade, "Za Lord! Shall I return to the Fort?"
My mouth jerked down at one side. "Yeah. ...Keep an eye on it. Well done, Toot. Battlefield commendation for quick thinking."
"Sir!"
He zipped out, and I lay down, leaning on Mouse. I didn't mean to sleep, but the da... um... days? Two days? When had I last slept? Mouse was already snoring, and I meant to keep an eye on the door, but...
I woke up to the smell of something herbal. Murphy had a little camp pot slung over the new-built fire, and was stewing something wheaty.
"Tea?" Murphy grunted. It was her before-coffee voice. The knowledge that there was no coffee to get her back to humanity was a little scary. All she had was bitter tea in a couple of tin cups. She pushed one at me, and I swigged-and-winced.
Mouse shoved up from under my arm to go out for a pit stop-- the big sheep from last night came trotting back in to take his place, folding up primly and polishing one of his massive, curling horns against an empty merchandise rack.
"So. Weird silence about you at the Fort. Do I get to know what's up with that?" Murphy stirred the pot; took a drink of tea and grimaced.
"No." I sipped my tea again, made a face. "Do I get to know why you have a pet sheep?"
"No."
"See? That's why our friendship works. Communication."
She snorted and stirred the camp pot again, the scrape of metal on metal and the stink of smoke familiar and oddly comforting. "Yeah. Communication. You'd warn me if the Wild Hunt had declared Human Season, right?"
"What?" Okay. Too early. I reached for the tea once more, swigged it all down-- glagggh aagh bitter-- and reconsidered her question, how the conversation had come to that point. "What?"
"Wisconsin, northwest. There have been raids this winter, escalating. Whatever's doing it is strong enough to get past thresholds and the standard defenses: garlic isn't working, holy water isn't working, they bust right through salt circles. It's leaving the victims gutted and skinned like deer when it's leaving them at all."
I stared at her, horrified. Murph had been Chicago PD before the Darkness fell: first an officer on the street, then Special Investigations, facing the homicides so strange that Homicide wouldn't take them. She'd developed a cast-iron stomach for murder scenes. Me? I wanted to hurl just hearing the description.
"The Hunt doesn't do raids. They're a hunt. I mean, the Erlking could break a threshold, but it's cheating," I said, trying to shake the image of what Murphy was describing. The Wild Hunt isn't pretty, but it wasn't that kind of horrible. There wasn't anything safe these days, but people's homes, they were the closest things to it. For something to waltz in and do what Murphy was saying... "It could be a Rawhead and Bloody Bones, or ghouls, but..."
"But they can't break a threshold like that. And the survivors-- they couldn't see much. The attackers were covered up, hands and faces. But these things moved like humans."
That could have been Black Court Vampires-- but garlic would have driven them off, as would the rest of the normal battery of supernatural defenses. For one to make it past everything... it would have to be one hell of a strong or crafty Blampire. And since the mad buffet of the first years of Darkness had died out (I see your gallows humor and raise you one apocalypse), the Black Court were starving. Those humans that had survived, they'd learned fast about garlic and holy water and faith objects. A starving vamp was not a crafty or logical one. The Blamps could have used a Renfield, a lobotomized human slave, to break through the supernatural barriers-- except that as humans had learned about them and strengthened up, they'd slowly turned on their pet killers.
In Chicago, the vampires had fought hard a few years ago, a long drawn out stretch of constant attacks on settlements and homesteads, sometimes with remarkable foresight for all they were starving and angry, other times as scourges of hungry, mindless monsters. It had been similar in most of the other settlements I visited, or that we got news from. But in the end, there were more humans remaining than vamps, and spotting a Renfield was a rarity. One of Marcone's combat wizards had taken out a big chunk of the local non-eaten Renfields near the end of the struggles, and the Wardens had been taking them down whenever they found them. I couldn't see many Blamps these days having the patience to break and turn a servant when the alternative was a full meal. Kind of a 'give a man a fish, teach a fish to slaughter other fish for you' thing, but like I said, they were thinking with their stomachs these days.
“And it’s eating. All of them?” Some spirits and fae are very specific about what part of a human they go after. Kelpies and Nixies eat everything but the liver-- too much iron, I guess -- whereas other things eat nothing but. Murph and I both knew about that one, about as first-hand as we could with our chest cavities still intact.
She nodded. “I checked,” she said grimly. “Just in case.”
"Then I don't know," I had to admit. ...Bob would probably know. I wasn't going to go ask Bob. He was at the Stupid Place with the Asshole Guy I wasn't speaking to.
"Dammit." She hissed out a sigh. "I need to know what I'm up against. I headed up there soon as I heard the first rumour, but between the militia who thinks they own half of the cleared land and what’s left of the local Black scourge, I nearly got my leg blown off and my face eaten. Had to waste a bullet on the trigger-happy dumbass who took a potshot at me, too."
Wow. That was tacky. The Sheriff Errant wasn't just a cute nickname Toot had for Murph. It was a generally respected title: acknowledgment that Murph was pretty much the head of what was left of any kind of law enforcement, a representative of the police and emergency services who'd pulled together in a desperate effort to keep casualties as low as they could.
Even after the ammo had all but run out and most people had dug down into one of the fortified settlements, Murph had kept moving. She'd risked her life delivering messages and bringing food to stranded survivors all over the tri-state area for the past eight, nine years. A lot of the knowledge that had spread about garlic and faith objects and iron and salt was due to her and her deputies hiking for months through contested territory to reach human settlements. She says it's because she isn't about to settle down in Marcone's little Disney castle. I say it's because she's a big damn hero.
Between her and her deputies-- a couple other old cops, what was left of SI, mostly people she'd rescued or bartered back from the fae-- there was almost a mail system again. Miss Manners said that the proper reaction to that was inviting her in for the night and feeding her. A bullet to the leg? Gauche. Really gauche.
"I could try to research it. Head out there. Give it a wizarding eye."
She nodded. "I was thinking of that. Just one problem. I'm not exactly working with a contractor budget these days."
"Murph, don't--"
She cut me off with a sharp slash of her hand, cutting through the air between us. "I can't let you do me a favor, Sir Snowbunny." She gave me a rueful look. "And my usual methods of payment aren't going to work so great for you. Especially not for this. I saw your face just now. This is going to be hard on you. You don't know what you're getting into."
Sometimes I hate my job. Seriously. "The deal thing, it's a technicality, Murph."
"Yeah. No big deal until your boss decides I've short changed you and locks me in a glacier." She jutted her jaw, draining her tea to the dregs and scraping wheat gunk out of the stewpot and into the empty cup. She gave me breakfast in her only bowl, and a knife to eat with. "There's something I can offer you, though."
"I'm all ears." I started shoveling phauxtmeal into my mouth.
"...Luccio's making swords again."
I choked on breakfast.
"This is Warden work. You do it, you're overdue the sword."
“I thought I was persona-non-give-a-sword-to,” I said, brow furrowing, not wanting to hope too hard. “The Council doesn’t claim me unless I’m in trouble and it’s time for a spanking.”
“Luccio says there’s a little bit of thaw from Scotland. Sounds like some bigger fires have come up-- you’re not top on their to-screw list anymore. If you’re interested, of course.”
A symbol that I had a position helping humans, not just being Mab's go-fer? A reminder that I belonged in the mortal world? Golly. I didn't know if I wanted that. Enough to chew a limb off.
"...Harry, you look like Mouse when I eat in front of him and don't share." Murphy reached over and took my hand. I'd dropped my eating knife; I only realized when she squeezed my fingers. "It's not a limited time offer. If this thing in Wisconsin is too much for you, don't try to man it up. Luccio wants you alive. I want you alive. You're not the only one who could do this--"
"--but I'm the best one, because I'm a wizard who's not tied down to a settlement. Not to mention I get a free pass through Winter territory. And people like wizards." It had been a weird thing, going from being a public laughingstock to a treasured commodity in the space of a couple years. "People will talk to me."
"Most people like wizards. Most people don't waste ammo on other humans, either." She sighed. "You be careful, okay?"
"Sure thing, Murph," I said, snapping off a salute and scrambling to my feet, abandoning the breakfast sludge I'd only about half eaten. Murph didn't need to be wasting her supplies on me, anyway. She and the sheep could use it. "Come on, Mouse."
"Hold on, John Wayne. I don't know if you've been in Northern Wisconsin recently, but they still consider pets a source of protein up there." Murphy jerked her head. "You can't take him with you."
"He's a smart dog," I protested. "I'll look out for him."
"That's not the way your relationship works," Murphy said dryly. "I'd feel more comfortable if he was keeping an eye on you, too. But he's just going to make you a target."
"I'm not going to leave him alone on Demonreach."
"Who was asking you to? My next stop is Mac's place. The Hamlet-- Thomas and Wizard McCoy-- can take care of your pony between them, and there're enough people there these days, he won't be at a loss for attention." She screwed up her face in a smile for Mouse, and he thwapped his tail against the floor. "We'll take him along. The Damnsheep doesn't seem to mind him." Murphy hooked my half-eaten bowl with a finger and skidded it over to the animal in question, who started lipping up the dregs. She diplomatically offered Mouse her mug to clean: he held it daintily between his front catcher's mitts-- sorry, paws-- and started to lick oat gunk off the inside. It took him two swipes with the Slip-N-Slide he calls a tongue, and I think the second one was just for show.
"Murph. You don't like big dogs."
"Gosh, Harry, it's a good thing you're here to remind me. I might have forgotten," she said, rolling her eyes. "I can deal with Mouse. Go find out what's eating people so I can kill it."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And think about visiting the Hamlet. Mac says you haven't been back since the September before last. The visit with Billy and Georgia doesn’t count. You barely talked to anyone. They were worried."
"Yes, MA'AM!" I snapped off a salute and pushed down my guilt. It had been an awkward trip. I hadn’t known what to say to anyone but hadn’t really wanted to spend another day alone in my tube, and had left after an hour or two, feeling like more of an idiot than when I’d gotten there. Wait, 'Mac says?' Must have been a talkative day for him. "Anything else I should do while I'm at it? Clean underwear? Pack a change of socks? Eat my veggies?"
"A pair of pants wouldn't kill you."
I looked down at my dirty cargo shorts.
Oh. That too.
The trip to Demonreach to get my pants, traveling gear, and actual winter clothes took about half an hour, in daylight, and it was another half a day on the meandering path of the Ways-- in and out of some of the darker, nastier parts of Winter, through a rainforest and then the ruins of an outdoor shopping center-- and I was in Northern Wisconsin. For Murph, on foot with a pack animal, in the mortal realm and with community wizards only escorting her along the safest and best-known Ways? Two weeks at least, in a hurry. Probably more like a month, in this weather.
I tried not to feel guilty. This was why she was paying me the big bucks.
My Winter Knight protections didn't make the slog through knee-deep snow any easier: there weren't any wagon-rutted roads or even footpaths like I'd have seen in a population center like Chicago, and I hadn't come out near any roads. It was exhausting. When I saw buildings rising in the distance, it was hard to remember Murphy's words of caution and not just go straight over to grab a rest.
But no, I circled in cautiously, focusing on the little keep as I got closer-- there was a wall, stone and cannibalized brick, about ten feet high, and past that a second perimeter of razor wire. Behind that, sentries, who I was keeping an eye on just in case they decided to play target practice.
I backed off until they couldn't see me anymore, and I couldn't see them, and relaxed a little...
"Hands up," said a man's voice behind me. "Drop the staff. Turn around slowly."
I let my staff fall from my gloved fingers and turned glacially. "Is this a stickup? I left my wallet in my other snow pants."
I was half-surrounded by four bundled-up figures on snow shoes: three with bows, one standing further back with a hunting rifle sighted between my eyes. All of them were wearing mostly older clothes -- you know, the kind with zippers and synthetic fibers -- augmented with much rougher, newer looking fur and hide. "You're funny," said Mister Rifle-holder. He nodded to Mister-or-Missus Bow-holder on my left, who shifted their grip on the bow in their hands and pulled a small object out of their utility belt. "Catch it," he told me, and Mister-or-Missus Bow-holder lobbed it underhand.
I caught it, barely feeling the weight through my gloves, and squinted at it: a wrought iron hook with a screw end, like the kind you'd hang a plant from.
"Touch it to your face," Mister Rifle-holder said calmly.
I was tempted, briefly, to make a whole production out of it, maybe a few lines of 'I'm melting, oh what a world', but I actually thought better of it. Don't tell anyone. I touched the little iron piece to both cheeks and then my forehead before holding it out for them to take back. Mister Rifle-holder nodded and Mister-or-Missus Bow-holder came close enough to take it back from me. Close enough to throw water in my face in the next instant, quick-drawing a little pill capsule from the next pouch on their belt.
I spluttered as the holy water ran clammy down under my coat collar and started soaking through the front of my shirt; I gestured up at the sky, the sunlight filtering dirty through the clouds overhead. "You know daywalkers are just something they made up to sell Blade comics, right?"
"He's good," grunted Definitely-A-Mister Bow-holder.
"He's dandy. As long as he's not poaching," said Mister Rifle-holder placidly. "What's your business?"
"I'm looking into the raids up here for a friend of mine."
A glimmer of recognition. "Was he the angry short guy with the sheep--?"
I glared back. "That was her. The Sheriff, don't know if you've heard of her. She says thanks for the complimentary bullet under her pillow, by the way."
I couldn't see much through his balaclava, but Mister Rifle-holder might actually have looked a little sheepish. "That was Bravo Team. They were a little on edge; they shouldn't have attacked before doing a check, but they said he was-- she was armed. Is she all right?"
"She's fine." I crossed my arms. "Can I have my staff back now?"
Mister Bow-holder moved back. "Reach down slowly," he advised me.
"I'll do you one better," I said, irritated. "I won't reach down at all. Vento servitas!" My staff smacked into my hand in a swirl of wind-whipped snow. "Can I go try to figure out what's eating people, or do I get shot if I wander into all your well marked land for any reason?"
"Depends. If you give us twenty-four hours to tell the rest of the security patrols and the hunting teams, you'll be fine. If you're a smartass, you'll probably get shot," Mister Rifle-holder said, not rising to my bait.
"He's a wizard," piped in another Bow-holder, his voice higher, younger, but making it three-out-of-four manly men that I could identify now, plus one unknown (but I had a good guess), just voices under shapeless masses of clothes. "Don't piss him off."
"I'm being polite," Mister Rifle-holder told him calmly. "If he's investigating the raids, he knows that we've got good reason to be cautious. Don't you, Mister Wizard?"
"Sure thing. Being at each other's throats will definitely solve this mystery, gang." The air around me popped with ozone as I raised a shield between us, a little ostentatious but a firm reminder that his bullets didn't have to be a problem for me if I didn't want them to.
Winter shut us up. Lowercase-w winter, but really not much less deadly than the uppercase-W Winter: it came as a wind, howling down the trees that surrounded the complex, dragging with it a swathe of darker clouds that blotted out the weak light.
The people in front of me swore, went into a sudden, tight huddle; things were broken out of packs, two lanterns assembled and lit with the group forming a windbreak around them. Two little flames against a sudden darkness. They'd practiced this group-and-light routine, drilled it. Winter was hitting hard-- was it this hard a hundred miles south? Had I missed the sudden darknesses and icy winds while I was being sulky and immune to cold and safe on my own little island, or as a celebrity in Winter?
The territorial pissing contest was officially postponed on account of weather. The game was suddenly four mortals against the freeze, the oncoming blizzard, and the dark. The last dregs of the light would keep down the local Black Court-- out of habit, more than anything, old skittering instincts calling the shots in their hungry, rotten brains-- but not the in-between things that never used to come out in broad daylight, fetches and redcaps and other nasty things... they'd be circling a hunting party, too, because they'd eat off the bones of deer or bear just the way they'd eat off of humans. Everyone in this little group had maybe a fifty percent chance of making it back alive across the mile and a half between here and their fort.
No. They were organized. Seventy-five percent chance. That was a whole three out of four. If things went entirely according to plan, one of these people would still probably die this evening.
"We'll be going," said Mister Rifle-holder, all business suddenly. "You people can walk between worlds, right? You'll be fine."
Yeah. I'd be peachy: I could just waltz away through the Nevernever, and I had plenty of magical ammo to take on little minor hobgoblins. They knew it, and so did I.
Remember the good-old-days when seventy-five percent wasn't a reasonable survival rate for a walk in the woods?
"Fine? Me. Yeah." I fished under my coat and shirt, cold and damp from the holy water bomb, and held up my mother's pentacle, the jewel flashing in the center. I poured a little trickle of power into it, and the clear blue werelight lanced through the dark and the snow. A little power into my staff vaporized the ice that had been clinging to the carvings. Things at the perimeter of the light skittered back, and there was a near-silent whoosh as my shield suddenly got a lot bigger, catching the falling snow and pushing it away in a wide circle that surrounded all of us. "So will you guys."