I - London Fog

A drizzling, gray sky dominates the afternoon, a reminder of the home still standing half a world away. Not that she really considers London her home. She grew up there, certainly, but she has no fondness for the place. Oxford she has more attachment to, a youth spent under creaking bookshelves with her heart and soul fixed more and more on knowledge, on opening doors, on perception and understanding how to unlock the gateways of power within herself to attain mastery of magic.

She stands under the overhang out of the inclement weather and fishes out a book of matches from one pocket, opening a pack of cigarettes with her other hand. It’s effortless, how simply she produces a slim cylinder and then touches a hungry flame to the end. A few seconds, and she exhales a stream of silver-blue smoke. 

“Filthy habit,” Frost grouses next to her as he puts his hat on. He likes the old school chic of a fedora. It seems oddly mismatched with the bulge of his obvious cyberarm beneath one sleeve and dermal plating. Even his shades show an augmented reality display. 

A shadow of a smile touches her lips. “Your drinking is hardly more flattering. Particularly nearly spilling your guts on that man’s carpet.” 

“Hah. Probably would have improved that atmosphere. What a shithole,” Frost mutters.

Her smile widens slightly, dry but sincere. “Truly you missed your genuine calling. Interior decorating with feng shui enhanced by alcoholism. It’s the avant garde avant garde.” 

Frost shakes his head. “Hardy har. If I hear another word that isn’t about the case, you’re walking home. I’m a little too hungover for you being cute.” 

She shrugs, but is nowhere near offended. Frost grousing is his favorite way of pursuing banter. He’s a dependable partner, a quick draw with eagle-eyed accuracy, and knows more than his share of people of the cop and crook variety alike. She can trust him. That’s more than she can say about most. “Have it your way. The gun, if you would?” 

Frost looks around. They’re in a back alley, with no one around to eavesdrop. He produces a customized heavy pistol, gleaming dully in the light. “No prints on it, but I’m sure it’s our weapon. Definitely going to need your voodoo.”

She nods, tucking her cigarette pack back into her armored jacket’s inner pocket. Keeping her cigarette trapped between her lips, she pulls off one glove. It never takes much, which is why she wears them all the time. Any separation that makes the walls easier to put up is welcome. Frost has learned to appreciate why she doesn’t care to be touched, why she puts up barriers a thousand different ways every day. It can be just too much. 

Her fingertips brush over the cold, metal surface of the pistol and she closes her eyes. She doesn’t even need to cast a spell. On contact, the air cools and ripples around the gun for a split second before the imprints hit her with lightning speed. 

...adrenaline rushing through her veins...so close, so close she can taste it...expensive bourbon on her tongue...mingling with salt and copper in her mouth...with sour fear...with the suffocating urge to scream...finger tightening on the trigger...two feral yellow eyes…fanged maw drooling blood, hanging clumps of blond hair from the skull crushed by jaws…failure, failure, failure...the boss….”I didn’t….I didn’t!”...the snarl of the beast becomes a twisted smile....“Rodin sends his love.”...gunshots ring out until the gun  is empty, but it’s not enough...agony...a hint of perfume…. 

She recoils from the gun, grimacing as the cracking of bone and screams echo in her ears. The more negative the experience, the more brutal the emotions and pain, the harder it is to center herself. She grabs Frost’s shoulder with her bare hand. She can’t feel his skin, but the barest hint of warmth from his shoulder holster reminds her of security. Not the gun, but the countless times he’s carried his revolver. The time and attention paid to the leather. The bitching whenever someone spills a drink on that side. The way he pretended to croon to it like it was some kind of infant the first time he unwrapped it from packaging to become his own, more personal than a standard issue police one. 

“That bad, huh?” Frost watches as she sucks in one deep breath after another. 

In a few seconds, she’s centered again and she pulls her glove back on, expression returning to its impassive normal. “Rodin took a dim view of his muscle switching to work for a competitor. A beast spirit ripped them apart. It mentioned his name.” 

“Well, shit. Didn’t think he had it in him. Any sign of Nina?” Frost tips his shades down so he can make actual eye contact even though he knows she doesn’t like it.

“I did not see her.” She can only meet his eyes for a moment before looking out at the gray haze. “But her perfume was certainly present.” 

Frost grimaces. “So I guess he’s got her. Lovely. If he’s got a beast spirit big enough to take down Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, I’m thinking we need more than a shotgun.” He wiggles his fingers at her. “How’s the mojo feeling after that?” 

She inhales deeply on her cigarette and then lets out a deep breath. “I hate it when you ask me things like that.” 

II - Quiet Drink

Frost grumbles something under his breath and pours them each a shot of the worst whiskey she’s ever had. It might just be white lightning dyed brown, exceptionally alcoholic without anything in the taste that can be considered flavor. “She’s a damn busybody.” 

She laughs despite herself. “Your wife is a lovely, formidable woman who cannot abide you poking your nose into everything you look at. Besides, she is secretary for the office. Managing your time is literally in her job description.” 

“She doesn’t micromanage you!” 

“Because I have demonstrated I can be responsible.” She takes out a matchbook and strikes a light, though away from the drink lest the damn liquid combust. If nothing else, the cigarette will dull her sense of taste to the alcohol. “She loves you, Frost. Consider yourself fortunate.” 

“Yeah,” he mutters, tone as grumpy as he can make it when a faint smile creeps in. He bumps Winter with his shoulder. “We need to get you someone.” 

It’s a sweet, but incredibly dangerous thought. “Not at all. I don’t like people close.” 

“The hell you don’t, Winter. If it weren’t for your weird magic touch thing, you’d be hugging random strangers.” He prods her in the side. “Besides, you said psycho-whatsit doesn’t usually work on people.” 

“Usually,” she says dryly. It’s hard to explain, but she feels security in her gloves and sleeves and long pants. She doesn’t have to think of every little piece of history, every emotion, every sensation tied to all the things people surround themselves with. It’s protection. Psychometry has made her very careful about such things. The door, like many in magic, once opened, cannot be shut. 

She isn’t angry with him for pushing on her because she knows he wants what’s best for her, and on a level, Frost understands how isolating it can be. “You’ll find some more friends, Winter. You’ve been personable as a blizzard and you’ve already got Jenna and I. You’ve only been here a few months. It gets easier.” 

She nods and eyes her drink. “Were you planning on stripping some paint?” 

“Watch it.” He throws her an offended glare. “This is Wild Turkey. You know how hard it is to find real gutrot, none of this synthahol lab shit?”

She blows smoke in his direction. “Is it called Wild Turkey because you can use it to poison errant wild birds?”

Frost shrugs and looks at the bottle. “Probably could.”

III. Talons

Everything about the warehouse feels wrong. The weather outside is raining, but when she steps in, she can see her breath. Ice frosts the insides of the windows, granting the world an eerie, muted cast. Crates litter the warehouse, turning it into a maze. She knows she is not alone here. A presence suffuses the area, cold eyes making her skin crawl. Her senses, so finely honed, tell her nothing. Physically and astrally, she looks entirely alone. Yet the feeling is inescapable: something is watching her.

There’s a time for stealth, but urgency pushes her onward. She knows Frost was here, meeting with his informant, and to the best of her knowledge, he hasn’t left. It’s an hour past midnight and she still hasn’t heard. Splitting up is just part of the job when it comes to running a detective agency in a way that keeps the lights on, but they always try to keep good contact. He’s been gone on a case for eight hours with no contact and it doesn’t feel right. 

Ice crackles under her feet with every step. She presses her lips into a thin line as she steps around the first untidy stack of boxes. “Frost,” she whispers into the subvocal microphone linked to her phone as she casts her gaze from right to left and back, stopping just long enough that she can look into the astral. Nothing. 

The smell of blood and offal hits her nose. Her stomach churns and she curls her lip. The dread settles above her like a sword over her head, hanging by a thread and threatening a lethal plunge. She doesn’t realize there’s manacount in the area until she’s in it, suffocated by the malevolence oozing from every shadow. Her legs are quivering like they want to bolt, but she can’t leave Frost. 

She has to know. 

But knowing opens doors, an insidious voice in her own head whispers. Things can come through doors. 

That thought chills her to the bone as she steps around the next barrier to see a pool of blood and shredded flesh. Little flakes of metal and pieces of wire are strewn about the mess. Maybe this was Frost’s informant. Maybe they didn’t meet, or maybe her partner fled the scene and….

Then she sees it, laying in the midst of the ooze: the gleam of a ring.

She has to know. Off comes one glove as she reaches the remnants. She reaches down and picks up the bloody wedding ring with bare fingers. 

Visions shatter her mind, pulling her a dozen different directions all at once. She sees Frost’s wedding through his eyes, feels tears of joy at his son’s first steps, tastes his favorite scotch, smells her own cigarettes as he gruffly rebukes her for smoking inside the office. Then it expands: the aches in his back from stakeouts, the nostalgia for old detective trids, the familiar crumpled fedora fitting on his head. 

Tears dripping down her face, she casts her spell. She has to know that he’s really gone. 

His death replays itself for her, in all its horror. Being ripped apart thread of existence by thread of existence, pain feeding the evil on every side, no merciful relief as it crawled inside his mind, ripping and tearing. She screams as he screamed, almost dropping the ring, losing the spell, but the psychic echoes of agony remain all around her, imprisoned in the mana. 

“What’s wrong, Winter?” his voice asks from behind her as she stumbles away from the body. 

She turns to find herself face to face with Frost, his fedora pulled low over his eyes even as he smiles at her. It’s a smile like nothing she’s ever seen, too wide and twisted, like something from the Cheshire cat. The eyes glint in the light, decidedly hungry. Even the voice is so close, almost his, but with a sickening malevolence in every syllable.

“Get away from me,” she says to buy herself time. A quick assensing reveals that she’s not dealing with any threat of the Material Plane. This one is all spirit, but more powerful than she expected. 

“After how long we’ve known each other?” He places a hand across his heart as though wounded even though he’s grinning. “I’m hurt.”

“I know you’re not Frost.” Her twitching fingers struggle to pull mana together. A blue glow weaves between her palms, but it’s barely anything thanks to the manacount. 

He moves faster than he should be able to. “That’s right,” the creature purrs, catching her by her throat. She can see his eyes now, and they are anything but like Frost’s. Eyes like black pits, holes into some starless void, stare into her own. “How….tantalizing. I can feel your power. There’s so much more to you than you know.” 

His touch burns against her skin, agony eating its way into her body, madness devouring its way into her mind. Fear pours through her body. It takes everything in her not to scream. 

The creature strokes her face with his other hand, still forcing her to struggle for air. Her blows against it are too weak to do anything, the flesh on her bare hand blistering in contact with the raw, dark mana burning under the spirit’s suit. “Give me all that you are, Mariah. I want to see the world through your eyes, feel life beneath your skin. Frost was a doorway into your world.” 

She can’t close her eyes, looking into the Abyss with horror. The ring is biting into her flesh, now a bloody reminder. She forces her shredded will to draw strength from the memories of Frost and everything he was in life. She pushes her bleeding, blistered hand out in front of the spirit’s fanged, sickening grin. 

The razor-like shard of blue mana she blasts into the spirit’s face is the largest she’s ever conjured. He is knocked backwards and she crumples down to the floor, landing in the pool of her partner’s blood. The cold liquid seeps through her clothes, bringing with it flashbacks of torture. More drips down from her nose and mouth, head throbbing from drain as she clings to consciousness. She can’t afford to lie down and die or worse, be possessed by this...thing. 

It picks itself up across the room, face ripped into halves. Now she can see it for what it is: bleeding blackness oozing corrupted mana into the world, a dark spirit evil beyond anything she’s encountered before. Even without a real expression on his face, the anger of the spirit is palpable.

Its words are a bestial growl now. “This isn’t over, Mariah.” 

Another manabolt hits it, this time in the chest, with enough power to rip into the spirit. This time, her will is strong enough to resist most of the drain, so she doesn’t black out. The spirit lets out a howl and lunges at her.

Black claws rake down her face, leaving no mark on her physical body, but ripping into her soul. The creature shoves her to the ground on her back, but this time she’s fast enough to bring her knees up to her chest and then kick out, knocking the creature off of her. She rolls and hits it again with a last bolt, this time drawing the power from her physical body more than just her will. 

The spirit screams and contorts horribly, writhing a moment before disappearing, kicked back to the astral. She feels no triumph. Instead, she grabs Frost’s ring and crawls towards the exit she came through as fast as she can, trying to ignore the blood. Safety is far, far away from where she is right now and she wants it desperately.

IV. Aftermath

The hardest thing she ever did in her life was returning the ring to Jenna with the news. Now, she sits alone in her chair in the desolate, shadowy office. The spirit’s evil feels like it’s crawling under her skin every time she closes her eyes and fragments of deaths replay periodically, tormenting her every time her thoughts seem to head towards peaceful rest. It will fade in time, she hopes.

Jenna took everything of value from Frost’s half of the office, which she raised no objection to. The only thing left was that damn shoulder holster, so lovingly cared for. It had taken a while to adjust it, but now she could wear it, over her shirt and under her jacket. Frost had always advised her to carry a gun even if she couldn’t effectively use it. For appearances, he assured her.

Everything else, every scrap of paper and piece of mess and empty bottle, has been thrown away or dropped into the incinerator. The agreement she had with Frost was that if anything happened to either of them, the other would keep December Inquiries open for business. She doesn’t have Frost’s connection with the cops to be tipped off to clients, though. That means one thing: sliding deeper into the shadows.

Another open door…