Page 63 of Jack Frost
The Twilight Motel in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan seems like a decent place to lay low. Experimentally I walk into the lobby, Grecian gown and pointy ears and all; but the pasty man at the desk seems doesn't notice me. So I reallyaminvisible, which is cool and also extremely weird. When the desk clerk steps outside on a smoke break, I check myself in under an innocuous false name and snag a room keycard. I have the tiniest bit of guilt about not actually paying, but hey—I'm trying to save the world here. I think I deserve one freebie.
There's a computer at the end of the lobby with a sign tacked to the peeling paint: "Business Center, Paying Guests Only." Front-Desk Guy is still outside smoking, so I step over to the computer and email Karyl about my fake trip with Jack. I tell her that my phone fell in the toilet and died, but that I'm ordering a new one soon. Better that than the truth, that my purse, wallet, ID, and phone are in a smoking crater somewhere in Alabama.
Front-Desk Guy saunters back inside, so I have to postpone my resignation email to the conservancy. Just as well, because I need some rest after all the energy I expended. The hard little bed in my self-assigned motel room isn't great, but after everything I've endured lately, I'm pretty sure I could zonk out on a slab of rock.
I jerk upright out of a dream, my heart banging wildly. A quick scan of the room reminds me where I am, what I've done, and who I'm waiting for. The trace of cigarette smoke in the musty room is oddly soothing, maybe because it's so coarsely familiar in a world where my own body feels alien to me.
The TV on the dresser is also familiar in an ugly, prosaic sort of way. Grabbing the remote from the nightstand beside me, I power on the TV and begin flipping through channels. The smush of the button under my thumb is familiar too, and my breath slows—until I land on the weather channel, where a man is gesturing at a map of the Midwest. His face is lit up with the morbidly thrilled expression newscasters wear whenever there is a disaster to talk about. "We're getting reports of an unusual Arctic blast surging into the Midwest, bringing record low temperatures for a number of States. Ice storms and heavy snowfalls have left thousands of homes without power. We're looking at some really stunning temperature drops here—for example, in Amarillo, Texas, the high just yesterday was ninety degrees, and today, as you can see, it has dropped below zero. The bitter cold is expected to hang around for a few days, with temperatures breaking records set in the early 2000s and the 1990s."
"Oh god," I whisper, and then I clamp my hand across my mouth.
Oh my god.Idid that.
Ice storms. Thousands of homes without power. Record low temperatures.
Slowly I tug the thin motel blanket up to my chin, stunned by the power of unbalanced magical energy. I thought I'd be sending in some rain to help with the fires, not causing a huge Arctic weather anomaly. I'm going to have to be a lot more careful about the use of my energy, until Jack wakes up and teaches me how to control it. This job is going to take more finesse than I thought.
And it will require balance, on both sides. Which means I can't kill Auxesia. Much as I'd like to, I can't destroy her entirely, or there will be no one on her side to maintain the balance, to restore the heat of the world where it's needed. If I kill her, the Earth might slip into another Ice Age, which could be just as devastating as a fiery inferno.
I need to wear her down—to drain her power to its dregs. I have to suck out all the roiling negative energy she's been feeding herself for so many decades. Maybe, just maybe, its absence will allow her to contemplate her place in the cycle, her responsibility to the people and animals of Earth. Maybe while she recuperates she'll have time and space to regret her plan for global destruction. Maybe she could come around to a healthier point of view.
But that can only happen if I manage to face her successfully. I spent a lot of power on that Arctic blast of mine, and I'm not sure how much I need to defeat her. I've never fought anyone in my life. When Jack battled Auxesia, he made it look so easy—skating around her, erecting frosty barriers and shooting out ice missiles. I don't know how to do any of it.
My throat tightens, and my fingers scrunch the blanket into desperate fistfuls.
Oh hell. What have I done?
Auxesia is going to come here. She's going to find me, and I'm not ready. What was I thinking, trying to face her without Jack?
Not that I had a choice—he was too far gone to help me. And I couldn't wait. Since Auxesia believed we were out of the picture, she was probably planning a grand globe-burning for the next week or so. But her plans will have changed by now. She'll have realized that most of her fires on this continent are out, and not by natural or human means.
I can't be here when she arrives. She'll burn this motel to the ground, along with everyone in it. I'm lucky she didn't do it while I was asleep.
The cold wraps me in a vicious embrace when I step outside. Two cars sit in the strip of lumpy parking lot belonging to the motel. A single streetlight blooms yellow atop its stalk, casting a sickly circle onto the salt-stained snow at the edge of the lot. Ahead is the main road, bare and black, rimmed with bristly dark trees. Instead of walking toward it, I circle the motel, heading for the fields behind it. Here at least, the snow is clean, not grayed and blackened with road salt. My feet break through the crust of half-hardened snow and sink to mid-calf in the thick brown meadow grass underneath. I probably should have worn shoes after all; just because I'm impervious to cold doesn't mean the soles of my feet are invulnerable to spiky stalks and prickly weeds. But I don't want to waste any energy on flying until I absolutely have to.
Something pops in the air in front of me—a winking speck of light, there and gone. There's a glow at the edge of my sight, and my stomach lurches into my throat; but when I whirl to face the glow, it's not Auxesia. It's a pair of fire sprites, like floating embers with eyes. If they once looked vaguely human, like the ice wraiths do, the semblance has long since faded. They are pulsing lumps of heat, flickering with low flame, staring at me with amber eyes that swell and recede unnervingly.
Maybe they are scouts, sent by Auxesia, here to figure out what's going on and report back. If so, she can't be far behind.
Summoning my courage, I speak out. "Well? Where is she? I'm not just going to stand here all night. Go and get her." I want to say more, about vengeance, and a reckoning, but it feels awkward because what if they can't even understand me? "Do you understand? Go get Auxesia!"
A flare of heat at my back. "No need."
I spin, clenching my fists.
Auxesia's flame is low, barely clinging to her form. She still has ragged gashes where Jack's ice weapons sliced through her.
"How is this possible?" she growls. "You were dead."
"Wrong. I'm not dead, and neither is Jack."
Her scarlet eyes scan my form. "How did you transform?"
"None of your business."
"And Jack—he's probably hidden away in his disgusting ice hole. I should go and drag him out and finish him off. I'll cut off his head this time." Sparks whirl around her as she prepares to spiral.
Without thinking, I reach out and grab her wrist.
