Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) by James Hunter Page B

“I don’t think those things’ll come back, but they could. Best to scoot our happy asses along. Hey, that means you too, Stumpster. Keep close, but don’t get in the way.” The gnome shrugged its shoulders and bowed, as though to say, Whatever, dude, let’s just get this over with.
    We wound our way through the corpse-littered floor, careful not to touch any of the bodies or the puddles of sickly fluid.
    I placed the keycard on the reader. The locks disengaged and I pulled the door open on oiled hinges. Time to show whoever was running this circus why taking kids was a big no-no.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    FIVE:
     
    Wonderland
     
    A gen-u-ine winter wonderland lay behind that metal door, like the set of Santa’s workshop only about a thousand times creepier. Thick powered snow covered every square inch of the cavernous floor—pristine, unblemished, and sparkling like a thousand gemstones, so bright I could hardly look. But when I put foot to the snow, there was no crunch underfoot. It was as solid as a winter lake, but with better traction. Massive icicles jutted from the floor and ceiling, natural columns, catching a few trickling shafts of sunlight from above and breaking them into a smorgasbord of color—gold and red, azure and deep purple, just about everything else in between.
    Neato Toledo, not that I’m the kinda guy to wax poetic or anything.
    Against the far wall was a sight far less lovely. A cage, holding a slumbering kid of eleven or twelve, all wrapped up in thick blankets, his brown hair poking out. Ben’s grandson. Next to the cage sat a massive throne, all lacy curves and flowing lines, carved of ice in a thousand shades of blue and white. Swirls and flourishes ran over the surface of the chair, dancing with delicately wrought pictures of men and women being tortured.
    A man, sawed in two. A woman, drawn and quartered. A couple being torn apart and eaten by gnomes. Pictures inside of pictures, until the eye lost count. The fae are so friggin’ creepy—can’t just have a pretty frozen paradise. No, they need to go and remind you that they’re all homicidal jackasses.
    “Quite amazing, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind us.
    I spun, calling up an energy shield, preparing for an assault. I shouldn’t have worried about it. The guy standing behind us, just inside the metal door, looked a breath away from turning to dust. Old, old, old. A long wispy beard of hoarfrost, similar to the ice gnomes, trailed down to his belly. Pale-blue skin so ancient it wasn’t even wrinkly, just thin as cheap toilet paper and stretched tight against a lean skeleton. Gaunt, this guy, every bone obvious on his frail and desiccated body. Nearly naked, save for a dirty cloth caked with ice covering his nether regions—thank God for small miracles—and leaning heavily on an old shepherd’s crook of plain dark wood.
    This guy didn’t look like much of a threat. Shit, part of me wanted to walk him across the street, maybe help him find his seat at the Golden Corral, and then get him hooked up to his oxygen tank.
    “Took me two centuries to make it, you know.” He paused, wheezing. “A reminder of my greatness while I waited out my exile.” And then he was gone, a breeze of wind fluttered past, and I spun again to find him sprawled on the throne, a skeleton king dead in his chair.
    “I know well how I must look to you,” he said, “much like I look to the rest of the fae, I imagine. Old, harmless, mayhap? A lion without teeth or claws?” He chuckled.
    “Even the mage underestimates me. He sees only a weak old man, that one. He brought in the harpy to make you suffer. Idiot idea. Didn’t trust me to do the job, myself. As though some winged spirit whore could best me.” He scoffed. “Ever since the high fae ousted me, usurped my kingdom. Everyone thinks me weak, but I’ll show them all. Take back what’s mine.”
    “Oh shit,” I said putting the pieces together in my mind: old man, ice-cave,