Free Death's Mistress by Karen Chance Page B

idea.
    “How do we kill it?” I whispered, staring into nothingness that somehow stared back, a gleam of something feral below the ice.
    Gessa shrugged. “Not alive.”
    I’d already figured that out. It didn’t smell like a person or even an animal; more like wet stone—faintly organic with the acidity of waterlogged leaves. But the hand that had turned the doorknob had been lively enough. “How do we stop it, then?”
    “Cold iron,” she said, holding up her tiny weapon.
    Okay, snap out of it, Dory , I thought harshly. I should have thought of that. The fey had a serious aversion to iron in all forms. Unfortunately, my knives were blackened steel and my bullets were lead and silver. And I’d just seen how much good they did.
    I glanced around, hoping for inspiration. The edge of the fireplace in Claire’s old room was just visible through the open door. And sure enough, there was a cast- iron poker half buried under melting snow. I grabbed it and came back out, in time to see things go from bad to catastrophic.
    Claire had come out of the door leading to the living room. She’d lost her glasses somewhere, and in the low light, she didn’t see the transparent form of the Manlíkan standing beside the wall. The faded stripes of the wallpaper were only slightly distorted by its watery body as it slowly raised a hand.
    And then Gessa jumped, screeching, right through the hole, her little ax raised. It hit the creature at the top of the head and sliced straight downward, the “body” disintegrating behind it in a wave. Claire whirled, one hand forming a huge paw that, fortunately, slashed through the air above Gessa’s diminutive height.
    I jumped down beside her, and barely avoided getting sideswiped myself. “Claire! It’s me!”
    She grabbed me—with the hand still covered in scales like battle armor. It felt like it could rip through my bones with a flick of the wrist, causing me to go very still. Until those talons clasped onto my arm and she shook me. “Tell me you have them!”
    “Have who?” I asked, my stomach falling.
    “The children!” she said frantically. “I lost them in the storm, and they aren’t in the living room or the library or the basement—” She stopped, looking at something out the window. A single glance showed me what I’d expected—a dozen or more fey standing in the front yard, pale smudges against the night.
    I’d assumed they’d have to be close to work a spell like that, but standing right out there in the open was unexpected. And not good. It spoke of an utter confidence that I really didn’t like.
    Claire started for them, her face livid, but I jerked her back. “They don’t have them, Claire! They wouldn’t still be attacking if they did!”
    “They can’t attack!” she snarled. “The storm didn’t bring the wards down, and they can’t get in. And they don’t have the power, even combined, to pull that stunt twice. But if the storm chased the kids out of the house—”
    She flinched and looked down at the puddle on the floor left from the Manlíkan’s demise. A crystal clear hand had formed out of the rainwater and latched onto her ankle. “What is that ?” she screeched, shaking her foot.
    I drove the fire iron through the wrist, and it collapsed. For the moment. “Gessa called it a Manlíkan; I don’t know—”
    The puddle suddenly erupted, flowing upward this time, like a waterfall in reverse. The thing was only half formed, but one of its powerful legs reached out and kicked me hard enough to send me flying back into what remained of the stairs. A splintered railing stabbed my thigh, a bright, sharp pain that was worse when I tore it out.
    It was bad—I needed to bind it up—but there was no time. Two more of the things came through the door, one making straight for me. I slashed at it with the poker, but it dodged and I barely managed to take off an arm. And when it righted itself, what grew back in place of the missing appendage was a