4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

B lood on the snow was nothing new to Somerset.

He’d spent his life doing what Yule needed done but couldn’t be seen to do. It couldn’t all be candy canes and reindeer. after all. It was usually blood he was responsible for shedding, but blood was blood in the end.

So he didn’t know what it was about the splatter of blood on the grimy frost that coated the road that bothered him so much. Liar , the annoying voice in the back of his mind accused mildly. He turned a deaf ear as he hauled the wolf back, blood and snot bubbling out of its nose and between his fingers. Whatever it was that had unsettled him, he’d feel better once he took it out on someone else.

The wolf managed to twist free and staggered away a couple of steps. He snorted out a spray of blood and reached up to push the knotty muzzle back in with one hand. His face slid back into place, caught on the wood-bones underneath.

“You should have let me take the hand,” the wolf said. “I was going to let you keep the rest.”

Somerset wiped slime off his hand on the long tail of his coat. A very small, practical part of him knew he should take that win and run with it. Yule Lad or not, there were three—he caught a glimpse of a bulky form as it came around the side of the crashed ambulance and corrected himself— four of Winter’s wolves here. That wasn’t a fight he’d walk away from.

Of course—he heard the low growl of the other Lads’ bikes behind him as they finally caught up—he wasn’t alone either.

That made the odds better.

They were still going to bleed for it, though.

Somerset stepped between the wolf and Dylan. He glanced around briefly to locate the rest of the pack, but then kept his attention on the leader.

“Why come back?” he asked. “Did they send you to finish the job they started last year?”

The wolf just grinned. Behind him, one of the other wolves—one of the two who’d remodeled the host into something akin to the form they wore on the other side—stepped almost delicately through the smashed window of the Starbucks. It slapped a flimsy table with a cheap metal base out of the way with a gnarled paw. The table flew into the wall, the edge of it buried in the plaster like a discus, and someone screamed.

“Yule thinks too much of itself,” the wolf said, contempt in his voice. “It always has.”

“The Courts would disagree,” Somerset said.

Stúfur prowled out of the dark to stand next to Somerset, the semiautomatic he’d drawn held low and against his thigh in one hand. A step behind came Ket, who fell in at Somerset’s other side. He rested his hand on the hook at his hip but didn’t free it yet.

The wolf looked disinterested. “The Courts think too much of themselves,” he said.

There was no need for a signal. The wolves just attacked as one. Somerset was thrown as the pack leader slammed into him. He landed on his back and skidded over the slick road for a few feet, the wolf on top of him as it tore chunks of his arms and shoulders with thorn-tipped fingers. Tufts of cashmere caught in the ragged claws and felted together with blood.

He’d liked that coat, too.

Somerset bared his teeth in a snarl and managed to free one arm enough to close his fingers around the wolf’s throat. The outside of it gave like flesh, but he could feel the other, stiffer structures underneath.

“You should have run,” the wolf said.

Somerset still half-expected Yule to give him a cold shoulder when he reached for its power. After all, he’d not done any of the requisite groveling or asking to see his status at the Winter Court reinstated. Apparently it didn’t matter. He was a Yule Lad, like it or not, and as long as he upheld his oath, then Yule would give him what he asked for.

Heat filled him, painful enough to scald, and scalded its way up his arm. Surprise widened the wolf’s eyes a second before he burst into flames, filling the air with the crackle of dry wood as it caught light. Fire licked at Somerset’s hair and singed the collar of his coat.

The wolf snarled and threw himself off Somerset. He rolled in the bloody snow to put himself out, bare hands lightly charred as it slapped at stray embers and sparks.

Somerset scrambled to his feet. He reached into his coat and pulled out his knives, the weight of them heavy and familiar in his hand. The biggest of the wolves saw him and tossed Ket aside. One half of its face had been harvested at Ket’s hook, branches hacked apart and ivy yanked from its moorings, It didn’t slow it down as it dropped its mutilated head and charged at Somerset.

The storm surged ahead of it on a cloud of ice splinters and a cold so deep even Somerset felt the bite of it. He squinted against it, prickles of blood drawn on his hands and lips, and braced himself. Before the wolf could hit him, Stúfur spun away from the mostly-human wolf he tussled with in an elegant turn. He swung the gun up in one smooth movement and fired.

The splutter of a semiautomatic should have echoed off the nearby buildings, but it dropped into the muffled still between the seconds. The bullets stitched viciously along the wolf’s side, splinters of wood and shredded greenery torn out if it, and knocked it off its feet.

It nearly did the same to Somerset as a stray bullet punched through his thigh.

The jolt of pain shot up into his groin and made him stagger, his leg suddenly weak under him. Somerset caught his balance, weight shifted to the other leg as he waited for the wound to knit, and shot an irritated look toward his brother.

“You can’t shoot the broadside of a barn!” he yelled at Stúfur. “Use a fucking knife.”

Stúfur gave him the finger, flipped the gun around to grab it by the barrel, and turned to pistol-whip the wolf as it tried to lunge past him to get to Dylan.

The raw pain in Somerset’s leg had died down to a hot ache. When he tested his weight on it, it held. That was good, because the wolves were neither down nor out. The pack leader was back on his feet as he slapped out the last of the charred patches on his shirt. He grabbed the stunned wolf on the ground by the frosted scruff of its neck and hauled it back up onto all its paws.

Ket threw his hook in the air. The sickle blade caught the unsteady light from one of the few streetlights that Dylan hadn’t taken out. He caught as it came down, cocked his hand back over his shoulder, and threw it in one smooth motion. The pack leader caught it out of the air and turned it casually in his hand as he tested the weight. Before he could do anything with it, Ket pursed his lips to whistle. The hook yanked the pack leader off his feet and dragged him behind it as it headed back to its owner. It surprised the wolf enough that he didn’t let go for a second, and when he did, he went rolling over the road.

“Somerset!”

The voice was thin, a bit breathy as it cut through the noise. It still yanked Somerset’s focus out of the fight as he turned to find the speaker. Dylan was slumped against a crooked streetlight, one arm hugged to his chest with his free hand clutched over the wound.

“It wasn’t me,” Dylan yelled. He pointed clumsily with bloody fingers past the fight and toward the Starbucks. “They want her .”

Somerset looked in the direction that Dylan had pointed. The big wolf had ripped the counter out of the Starbucks, water pissing over the floor around its feet. Two women were huddled behind the counter, one of them with her body wrapped protectively around the other to block the debris.

It was Dylan’s partner—the one that always put Somerset’s back up—and the…pregnant woman from Demre and Hill?

Somerset hesitated for a second as he tried to make sense of that. He’d been sure the woman was just a lure, an injured bird on the trail to catch a Santa soft-hearted even by the standards of the job. That made sense.

“ Skellir !” Ket yelled, his voice sharp with warning.

Somerset turned just in time to drop his knife and grab the wolf’s jaws before they snapped shut on his head. Sharp, cold teeth sliced through leather and into his fingers as he held the wolf’s mouth open and braced himself against it. It snarled, and its breath smelled like fear and the sourness on an animal’s breath when it was run to death. The wolf reared onto its back legs and swung its head back and forth to try and dislodge him. Somerset hung on grimly as his feet scraped over the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the wolf in the Starbucks unstitch itself. The connective strands of briar and holly pulled apart, and the hooked “bones” of its rib cage creaked as they splayed out. The blonde one yelled and grabbed a broken length of metal to swing at it; the metal gouged a chunk out of the wolf and bent.

Somerset lost sight of them as the wolf dragged him around again. He set his shoulders, muscles clenched tight under his skin, and forced its jaws closed, fingers wrapped around the wickerwork muzzle.

He’d never done this before. It might work, but it might not.

This was his own magic, the one whispered in his ear along with his name before his ma put him in the cradle. Somerset didn’t have to ask for it, it was already at his heels. He tightened his grip and sealed the wolf’s jaws shut like it was a door. The hard mask of the wolf’s face wasn’t made to be expressive, but it still managed to look surprised as it tried, and failed, to open its mouth.

It staggered away from Somerset as it pawed at its face desperately. Claws split the wands of rowan used for its nose and pulled out raw, green chunks of holly bough. While that wolf tried to break Somerset’s seal, he turned his attention back to the pack leader. He peeled his shredded gloves off his hands, the leather wet and lightly frosted, and stalked toward the more or less still intact host.

Before he could get there the pack leader picked up Ket, swung him in a half-circle, and smashed him against a streetlight. It was one of the few that’d been unscathed by the crash, until now. The hollow metal caved in around Ket’s body and hung him there as the wolf let go.

“Enough,” the pack leader snapped as he backed away from the fight. “We have what we came for tonight. Santa and his watch can wait. We know where to find him.”

The big wolf shouldered the ambulance out of the way and climbed out through the broken window. It shook itself, shedding chunks of ice and frost. The women inside screamed and clung to each other as they were thrown around. It threw a snarl toward Somerset and then turned to disappear into the dark. The other wolves followed.

Somerset bent down to scoop the knife he’d dropped up off the ground. He started after the pack leader, but the wind rallied and pushed him back, hard enough to make him stagger. That was a betrayal he hadn’t expected, and it left him back-footed. Literally.

A quick, ugly smile twisted the pack leader’s face. He pointed over Somerset’s shoulder with his chin.

“Your oath yanks your chain, Yule Lad,” he said. “Time to answer. Last time I tasted Saint-blood, it ended badly for you. ”

He sketched a bow, a clumsy mock at Court courtesies, and Somerset didn’t wait to see him leave. Dread clutched, damp and strangling, at his chest as he turned around.

Dylan sprawled on the ground, his injured arm flung out to the side. A puddle of blood, dark and hot, surrounded it. He was very still.

Not dead, though, Somerset told himself. He’d know.

You didn’t last time , the cold thought eeled through his mind, Why this one?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stúfur raise his gun. He turned and slapped it down with the flat of his knife.

“Let them leave,” he said. “We’ve more important things to deal with than wolves.”

Stúfur spluttered indignantly. “They attacked Santa ,” he said. “Right under our nose. Bad enough we lost one, but another—”

“He’s not dead,” Somerset said, the words clipped as he wrestled back the urge to hurt Stúfur for being the one to put that into words. Except he wasn’t…and it would take too damn long to do the job right. “And humans don’t get back up from a bullet.”

“So?” Ket said as he held his hand out expectantly.

A second later the handle of the hook smacked into his palm. He spun it around and hung it back off his belt. Something that might have been sap or blood, sticky and pink-tinted, coated the sickle curve of the blade.

The callousness of the question caught Somerset off-guard. He wasn’t sure why. It was a good question. The Lads owed their fealty to the Line of Nick and to Yule, and that was it. Why would they care about anything else?

Somerset supposed he’d spent too much time in the mortal world. He’d picked up some patterns of speech to make that time easier. Most mortals wouldn’t need to ask “so,” they’d just know. Even the ones who didn’t actually care about the answer.

Luckily, Somerset didn’t have to explain that to his brothers. He had an answer to “so” that wasn’t based on sentiment or morality.

“Because the wolves want them,” Somerset said. “And I want to know why.”

Stúfur and Ket glanced at each other and then shrugged their agreement.

“You could have just said that,” Stúfur grumbled as he re-holstered his gun. He turned around to head through the snow toward Dylan’s sprawled body. “And look on the bright side. If he does die, at least this time we’ll have the Watch to anoint the next–”

This time Somerset didn’t resist the rise of his cold, black temper. He grabbed Stúfur by the back of the neck as they passed the Jeep and smacked his head against the side of it. The crack of bone on metal dented the car—just another ding to add to the collection—but barely fazed Stúfur. He just staggered, caught himself, and gave Somerset the finger.

“Today or a hundred years from now,” Stúfur pointed out as he backed out of reach. “He’s still gonna leave—”

Ket grabbed Somerset’s arm and pulled him back. “Why not make sure it’s not today.”

That was…a good idea. Somerset stretched his legs into an easy lope and crouched next to Dylan. The thin skin of snow on the road soaked through the knee of his jeans. He reached and pressed his fingers under Dylan’s jaw.

The soft pulse of warmth fluttered against his touch. Something in Somerset’s chest that had been strung so tight it was about to snap loosened, and he let out his breath.

“He’s alive,” he said.

“Doesn’t look it,” Stúfur noted as he leaned over Somerset’s shoulder. “It’s never good when they go that color.”

“Will he make it to the Pole?” Ket asked.

Somerset didn’t know. Alive or not was about as far as his knowledge of the mortal condition stretched. He took his coat off and draped it over Dylan. It covered the smaller man like a blanket, and maybe it was Somerset’s imagination but Dylan’s face seemed to relax.

Even if he made it to the Pole…what healer could he trust? Even if they weren’t already murderers, they could still be ambitious.

“We take him to the hospital,” he decided abruptly as he reached over Dylan’s body to grab his arm. The ripped sleeve of the paramedic’s jacket squelched under his fingers and blood oozed out. “They can patch him up.”

There was a pause Somerset could feel as his brother’s exchanged looks over the top of his head.

You say it.

Fuck off. You.

“They didn’t do such a good job with Gull,” Stúfur said. “And what if it’s not…you know…up and running for Christmas Eve? We’re right back to where we started last year.”

Somerset’s fingers brushed over the face of the watch sealed around Dylan’s wrist. It never kept good time, always stopped at a minute to midnight on Christmas Eve, but Santa’s power ticked along behind the glass.

If it stopped …

To hell with all of them , Somerset thought bleakly. He closed his hand over Dylan’s arm and pulled his own power up out of his bones. Frost crackled in the blood on Dylan’s sleeve as the ice sank down into his arm to slow the blood. I’ll smash the watch myself this time, make sure it’s done right.

Somerset half-expected some sort of otherworldly reaction to that, but there was nothing. He got his arms under Dylan and stood up. Dylan groaned softly at being moved, and his eyelids fluttered, but other than that he didn’t stir as his head lolled on Somerset’s shoulder.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” he said. “Go back to the Pole and tell Jars…”

He paused as he tried to weigh how little they could get away with telling their older brother. It was stupid that it mattered, with how they’d all lived since then, but someone it always did. Even now when they thought he might well be a traitor.

“We have to tell him something happened,” Ket noted. “Our shift ends in a few hours. Nik’s lined up to relieve us and…he might not be the brightest, but even he’s going to notice something is wrong.”

“Not only that,” Stúfur said. “He’s going to tell. ”

“Tell Jars it was an accident on the road,” he said after a glance at the ambulance. “Nothing else.”

He held Dylan tight to his chest as he headed over the road to where he’d left the pickup. Ket and Stúfur followed along behind him. Their feet were silent on the ice.

“What if he doesn’t believe us?” Ket asked.

Somerset hitched up Dylan’s weight in one arm as he reached for the handle of the door with the other. He got the door open with the help of his knee and gently lowered Dylan, still wrapped in stained wool, into the passenger seat.

“Tell him to come and find me,” he said and slammed the door.