Page 8 of Taming Winter

My old home surrounded me. The glossy red buildings, the bloodstained cobblestones, even the scent of booze and metal thrummed within me with a familiarity that survived regardless of the years. Yet I felt nothing. Perhaps it was time or trauma, or my mind protecting against any sense of connection to prepare for what I was about to do.

Every step I took away from the underworld was like a constricting rubber band around my chest, ready to snap and send me careening back to my master. I was fighting a current of instinctual demand that was all-consuming. My fingers shuddered in desperation to return to Hades, and her presence filled my mind. I fucking hated it.

The sun was setting behind the silhouette of the underworld behind me, casting the world in an orange glow that reflected on the newly forming snowbanks. I had spent the day familiarizing myself with the Hydras’ movements. None of the soldiers who filled my squad during my time were still alive, but despite that, their activities were much the same.

The Hydras had never been particularly violent. Their focus was on the drug trade, funneling pills from Apollo's distribution system and selling them without a prescription for a premium. Our best clients came from those who found themselves in the clutches of addiction after leaving the hospitals. It had kept my days busy, being largely responsible for bringing retribution against our enemies. They had brought in some bigger men who appeared to have replaced me, but it wasn't the same. Muscle didn't outrank death.

When I was alive, the captains of the Hydras would reconvene at the same bar each evening. Through some sleuthing, I learned they maintained the same ritual at a new bar since enemies had burned the old one down in an attack. I was prepared for the task ahead, but my gut twisted at the thought of stepping from the icy shadows and entering that bar. It wasn't fear that stopped me in my tracks. Somehow, I was connected to this group of complete strangers tied to me under the same name, separated only by decades and death. I wanted to turn back, but the urge was strangled by my new, cruel master's command. My body wouldn't let me leave because it meant defying her orders, so I was stuck as the two sides of my soul ripped each other apart.

The sun dipped beneath the skyline, and the world was cast in navy blue. With every painstaking second, my body dipped further away from tension and into agony at refusing Hades. I pulled my Beretta from my waistband. My entire existence shrunk to the weapon as jagged patterns of ice stitched together over the well-worn grip, freezing my hand in place with my index finger a hair's breadth from the trigger. It was a familiar sensation, and my body settled into the comfort of holding my gun even after all these years. The exact pressure necessary, the milliseconds it took for the weapon to register the pull. Even without my powers, this bar would never have stood a chance against me.

However, I couldn't move.

I willed my mind into my routine I had repeated over a hundred times. My boss and mentor had taught me to shut off my emotions when I was younger and more sensitive to bloodshed. I fought to erect those frostbitten walls now. This was just a job—a means to an end to save my hide. Nothing unlike my living days. I didn't even know the people getting wasted and rowdy inside this bar.

The community that had taken a boy in after his own parents decided he wasn't worth the food and space, and I would now wipe them from Olympiara. A bubble of emotion erupted to the surface, which I quickly quelled. I would've prayed to the gods, but they were selfish assholes, so I kept my pleas to myself.

Being undead and therefore unkillable, I no longer needed to slink my way in, but I did so out of habit. Heat blasted me, along with raucous music and drunken bar patrons. It wasn't hard to tell who belonged to the Hydras, they didn’t hide their identities. Despite not being known for violence or brute capacity, everyone knew better than to fuck with the drug distribution chain. Members wearing clothes etched with the silvery outline of a three-headed beast enclosed in a circle filled the room.

A man broke away from a pool table and sauntered toward me, his irregular lope pointing to his intoxication. A silver Hydra necklace dangled from a piece of leather at his clavicle. He was taller than me—though that wasn't a surprise—but lanky, with a mop of brown hair he pushed out of his face. "You need to turn your ass around, friend."

I smiled but didn't engage in his drunken drawl. Instead, I lifted my Beretta and planted a bullet in his skull.

Blood sprayed his comrades in a fine mist of gore that my eyes tracked for a moment too long. The ring of gunfire and screaming filled my ears in a distant echo. I tried to move but found my hands leaden. My teeth ground together in frustration, and I loosed a growl to force my lagging trigger finger into motion. A man rushed me, but I launched jagged shards of ice from my palm, spearing him in the jugular in a rain of blood. The power was too easy to use. The ice simply did as I wished, bringing death to all those unfortunate enough to stand in my way.

I stalked deeper into the bar, pools of ice spreading from every footstep and clutching my opponents in its grasp. A bullet passed through my hollow chest and buried in a woman on the other side. My attacker’s face went slack with terror. I killed him with a shuddering sweep of my hand that showered the room in spears of ice. His carcass flopped against the frostbitten bar top, blood pooling over the surface until it trickled to the floor in a steady drip that rang in my ears.

My entire life had been bloodshed. It was why my body moved without my telling it to when I dipped under the next man's chaotic attack and thrust a spear of ice into his chest. His body crumpled in a bloody heap that filled me with a warmth that was as twisted as it was satisfying. Having that sense of purpose settled something broken inside me, not repaired but less jagged. My eyes found their next target, and I shot her in the gut.

The remaining patrons closed in, but that wouldn't help them. They understood that, too, because they hesitated in their approach.

"What do you want?" A scruffy man shouted.

A scowl tugged my lips. My desires didn't matter anymore. I was reduced to my basest desire for survival and nothing more. Unfortunately for him, surviving meant his head on a platter.

"I want you all dead," I murmured. There was truth in the statement. This nightmare would end once they were all terminated, but there was something beyond that. An instinctual drive pushing me to complete my task to the best of my ability. If that was hubris or my years of training, I wasn't sure, but I was feasting on the feeling like a man starved.

Panicked shouts rang through my skull, but I ignored them. The tension built as a shiver in my stomach and radiated outward as quick as a snap, forcing my hands out wide. A razor-sharp sheet of ice shot from my diaphragm and sliced into the targets encircling me.

Silence devoured the space. Blood poured in thin sheets from my targets’ midsections, staining their dark clothing. The man in front of me had parted lips and wide, unblinking eyes, never to see another sunrise. I planted a foot on his chest and pushed. His top half slid from his hips like a wet sponge flopping off a counter, splattering the ground in a kaleidoscope of gore. There were no ragged edges at the cut, even his spinal column was sawed clean through. That sheet of ice had to be an impressive blend of strength and sharpness not seen in human blades. My gaze trailed to where it had buried into the bar countertop. It was an impressive feat, likely the most effective method for murder I had used.

The newfound silence allowed my ears to catch the small whimpers of hidden victims. I stepped across a glossy floor of ice with snowflakes dancing around my undead form. A cluster of paid whores huddled behind the bar top, clothed in thin black straps and shuddering in the cold. When I came into view, the girl closest to me let out a broken sob. I let her terror wash over me and morph into cruel satisfaction for a job well done.

"Who are you?" A girl piped up. Her voice came out as a barely controlled cry, but despite that, I was impressed with her resolve.

At least that I had an easy answer to. "Death, darling."

With that, I raised my palm and brought a swift, frostbitten end to them all.

CHAPTER 9

HADES

Hermes was a peacock. His silver hair was slicked down with enough grease to hold a flame for hours, and his dove-colored feathers were shimmering in the low purple light, heavily preened. Even his suit was ostentatious, with a diamond-patterned undershirt stretching his barrel chest and a glimmering suit jacket. That, with a bow tie the shade of salmon and a toothy grin made for television, completed his gaudy ensemble.

We sat across from each other at the small tea table in my bedroom. He risked his life and position coming to visit me, and being seen by the guards littering my castle would certainly spell harm for him. He was one of the few who visited me from outside the Underworld because wings allowed him to avoid the guards trapping me in this place. Yet I was incredibly careful in his presence. The immortal thrived on gossip and had an ear for drama. He also had an infectious personality designed to break down his victims.

"I love what you've done with the place, Hades. It's giving very evil queen," Hermes crooned over his whiskey glass.