Cold Days (The Dresden Files 14)

I took the knife and drew a short cut into the skin of my left hand, in the fleshy bit between my thumb and forefinger, over an old scar where I had been hurt at the bidding of a Queen of Faerie before. While that welled up and began to bleed, I reached up and slashed off a lock of my hair with the same knife. I took the lock and used the freshly shed blood as an adhesive to hold it together, and dropped it onto the surface of the ice. More death, just in case. Then I poured a circle of oil around the hair and the blood and set it quickly alight with the matches.

Fire and water hissed and spit, and wind moaned over the top of my grave. I braced my hands on either side of it, closed my eyes, and spoke the invocation I'd chosen, infusing my voice with my will. "Ancient crone, harbinger!" I began, then raised my voice, louder. "Longest shadow! Darkest dream! She of the endless hunger, the iron teeth, the merciless jaws!" I poured more of my wind and my will into the words, and the inside of my grave rang with the sheer volume. "I am Harry Dresden, the Winter Knight, and I needs must speak with thee! Athropos! Skuld! Mother Winter, I summon thee!"

I released the pent-up power in my voice, and as it rang out I could hear birds erupting up from where they sheltered all over the graveyard. There were shouts and cries of surprise, too, from the tourists or the Gothlings or both. I ground my teeth and hoped that they wouldn't come my way. Getting killed by Mother Winter wouldn't be like being killed by Titania. That might at least have been huge and messy-not really a fight, but at least a proper slaughter.

If Mother Winter showed up and wanted to kill me, I'd probably just fall into dust or something. Mother Winter was to Mab as Mab was to Maeve-power an order of magnitude above the Winter Queen. I'd met with her once before, and she'd literally knitted up some of the most powerful magic I'd ever seen while carrying on a conversation.

The echoes of my summoning bounced around the graveyard over my head a few times and then . . .

And then . . .

And then nothing.

I sat there for a moment, waiting, while the burning oil hissed and sputtered on the ice. A running tendril of oil ran out to my blood and hair, and a tongue of flame followed a moment later. That part was fine by me. It wasn't like I wanted to leave a target that juicy lying around for someone to steal, anyway.

I waited until the fire burned out entirely, and quiet settled over my grave again, but nothing happened. Dammit. I wasn't going to figure out what was really going on tonight by carefully sifting all the facts and analyzing how they all fit together. Not in the time I had left. My only real chance was to get to someone who knew and get them to talk. Granted, going to talk to Mother Winter was about half an inch shy of trying to call up Lucifer, or maybe Death itself (if there was such a being-no one was really sure), but when you need information from witnesses and experts, the only way to get it is to talk to them.

Maybe my summons hadn't been deathy enough, but I hadn't wanted to kill some poor animal just to get the old girl's attention. I might have to, though. There was just too much at stake to get squeamish.

I shook my head, put my tools away, and then the ice just beneath my toes shattered and a long, bony arm, covered in wrinkles and warts and spots, and belonging to a body that would have been at least twenty feet tall, shot up and seized my head. Not my face. My entire head, like a softball. Or maybe an apple. Stained black claws on the ends of the knobby fingers dug into me, piercing my skin, and I was abruptly jerked down into the freaking ice with so much power that for a second I was terrified my neck had snapped.

I thought I would be broken for certain when I hit the ice, but instead I was drawn through it and down into the mud, and through that, and then I was falling, screaming in sudden, instinctive, blind terror. Then I hit something hard and it hurt, even through the power of the mantle, and I let out a brief, croaking exhalation. I dangled there, stunned for a moment, with those cold, cruel pointed claws digging into my flesh. Distantly I could hear a slow, limping step, and feel my feet dragging across a surface.

Then I was flung and spun twice on the horizontal, and I crashed into a wall. I bounced off it and landed on what felt like a dirt floor. I lay there, not able to inhale, barely able to move, and either I'd gone blind or I was in complete blackness. The nice part about having your bells rung like that is that mind-numbing horror sort of gets put onto a side burner for a bit. That was pretty much the only nice thing about it. When I finally managed to gasp in a little air, I used it to make a whimpering sound of pure pain.

A voice came out of the darkness, a sound that was dusty and raspy and covered in spiders. "Me," it said, drawing the word out. "You attempt to summon. Me."

"You have my sincerest apologies for the necessity," I said, or tried to say to Mother Winter. I think it just came out, "Ow."

"You think I am a servant to be whistled for?" continued the voice. Hate and weariness and dark amusement were all mummified together in it. "You think I am some petty spirit you can command."

"N-n-nngh, ow." I gasped.

"You dare to presume? You dare to speak such names to draw my attention?" the voice said. "I have a stew to make, and I will fill it with your arrogant mortal meat."

There was a sound in the pitch-darkness. Steel being drawn across stone. A few sparks went up, blinding in the darkness. They burned into my retinas the outline of a massive, hunched form grasping a cleaver.

Sparks danced every few seconds as Mother Winter slowly sharpened her implement. I was able to get my breathing under control and to fight past the pain. "Mmm . . ." I said. "M-Mother Winter. Such a pleasure to meet with you again."

The next burst of sparks gleamed off of an iron surface-teeth.

"I n-need to speak to you."

"Speak, then, manling," said Mother Winter. "You have a little time left."

The cleaver rasped across the sharpening stone again.

"Mab has ordered me to kill Maeve," I said.

"She is always doing foolish things," said Mother Winter.

"Maeve says that Mab's gone insane," I said. "Lily concurs."

There was a wheezing sound that might have been a cackle. "Such a loving daughter."

I had to believe that I was going to get out of this somehow. So I pressed her. "I need to know which of them is right," I said. "I need to know who I should turn my hand against to prevent a great tragedy."

"Tragedy," said Mother Winter in a purr that made me think of rasping scorpions. "Pain? Terror? Sorrow? Why should I wish to prevent such a thing? It is sweeter than an infant's marrow."