The Frozen Witch Book One (9 page)

“A magical gun.”

“A magical gun?! But I can’t shoot. I’ve
never fired a weapon before!” I began.

He brought up a hand, so stiff, so cold,
so white with tension it looked as if it had been carved from ice.
He spread his fingers wide in a silencing move. “You will learn. As
I said, you will either dig deep tonight, take responsibility for
your sins, and do everything within your power to catch this man,
or…” he trailed off.

“Or I’ll die?”

He met my gaze then nodded once. “Leave
now, Lily-white.” He said my name, stringing it together in one
word. “And only come back once you obtain your target.”

“Obtain my target?” My breath caught in my
throat. “You want me to bring him in alive?”

Vali suddenly looked up sharply. “Without
question. For if you murder, there will be no
redemption.”

I nodded. I nodded even though I didn’t
understand a word.

I turned on my foot and headed towards the
door. Though it was closed, I heard something unlock, and it
creaked open.

Before I managed to take a step through
it, I heard Vali shift once more. “You will not take your locks off
under any circumstances. Do you understand?” His voice achieved
such a low note of warning, I was certain it would trigger an
earthquake.

With cold dancing up my back, I forced
myself to nod.

I walked forward. With every step, I waited
for this hallucination to end, but with every step, it simply
became more real and more horrible.

I’d gone from being indentured to the
so-called Nordic god of revenge, to being given an ultimatum to
track down a magical hitman by tonight, or suffer the
consequences….

I expected to get some training. Something.
Anything. Even if it was just a manual on how to use a magical gun
and track down a hitman.

I got nothing.

After my short meeting with Vali, I headed
back to my room, because I had absolutely no other option. The
corridor outside Vali’s office seemed to only lead in one
direction, even though I twisted to the right instead of the left.
It still led back to my bedroom.

I walked inside, the door clicking open and
swinging shut behind me.

I fell down to my knees, the sound thumping
through the room.

I brought a hand up and covered my eyes.
This time I didn’t wait for this stupid nightmare to end, because
this time I understood it never would.

This was my life now.

I felt so cold, so very cold. I’d never felt
colder in my life. Every muscle, every bone, every tissue felt like
ice. I wasn’t human anymore. I was a storm, a blizzard come to
life.

Slowly, I stumbled to my feet. I began to
pace back and forth, back and forth, clutching one sweaty hand into
a fist over and over again.

More than once, I brought my attention
down and locked my gaze on my bangles. I was terrified of them. As
I tentatively touched a finger along their smooth metal, dread
washed down my back. And yet, at the same time I couldn’t deny the
urge to take them off. I wasn’t an idiot. Take them off, and Vali
would kill me. So instead I settled to staring at them.

As I continued to pace, the sun, which had
once been high in the sky, began to set. I had no idea when I would
be let out of here for my so-called first mission. All I knew was
with every dying ray of dusk that moment was coming closer.

Finally, I heard a click behind me as the
door unlocked.

I whirled on my foot to face Vali’s
secretary, Megan. She was decked out in a stunning white silk
dress, a beautiful sapphire pendant hanging down her throat. Her
hair was curled and set up in an elegant bun.

“Why are you dressed like that?” My
curiosity got the better of me.

“Because I’m going on a job with Vali
tonight,” she snapped.

“A job?”

“We’re tracking down a target. A
high-level target,” she added primly. “Now, follow me.”

I didn’t question. I simply took up step a
meter behind her as I followed her out of my room.

Somehow, the corridor beyond was different.
It didn’t lead in an unending line to Vali’s office. Instead, there
were doors on either side. There were also people. So far, the only
two people I’d seen since I’d woken up this morning were Vali and
Megan. Now I saw others, and they looked weirdly normal. They came
from a great cross-section of society: from teenagers to senior
citizens. A few were guards in blue uniforms, but the rest seemed
to be wearing ordinary clothes.

I stared at them with complete confusion
crumpling my brow, and they stared back with obvious curiosity. I
heard a few comment that Vali “Had another one. Another
sinner.”

That word… every time I heard it my hands
would clench into bloodless fists.

Vali was absolutely right: I had not yet
accepted the fact I was a sinner, and I had not embraced my
responsibility, as he’d put it. And I never would. The first chance
I got, I would get out of here. And hey, maybe that chance would
come tonight.

As soon as I thought that, my common sense
got the better of me. I was indentured to the god of revenge. Where
exactly could I run?

With that disappointing thought shifting
through me, my shoulders loosened and my hands dropped limply to my
sides.

Without a word, Megan led me into some kind
of armory. There were lots of people about. What was more, they
were doing magic.

My gut
reaction was to scream, turn, and run
the hell away. Instead, I stood there, wide eyes bulging as I
watched two men attack each other with what looked like magical
glowing swords.

No matter how many times I blinked my eyes
and tried to rub them clear, every time I opened them the magic
remained.

Megan walked me up to a wall and swiped her
hand to the left. A second earlier, it had been nothing more than a
simple, drab, grey concrete wall. Now weapons appeared – a massive,
long row of every weapon you could imagine, from guns to nunchucks
to a glowing samurai sword.

As soon as I saw them, I took a nervous step
backwards, cramming a hand over my mouth.

Megan looked thoughtful as she shifted
forward and grabbed a small handgun. She checked it, yanking out
the magazine and staring at the glowing bullets within. When she
was satisfied, she turned and shoved it against my chest.

I did not grab it. Instead, I jerked back
with a gasp.

“Take it,” she snapped. “We don’t have
much time. Well, you don’t have much time,” she clarified
primly.

I stared at her
then gathered the
gumption to bring up a shaking hand and grab the weapon. It was
strangely light. It didn’t tingle, either, didn’t send charges
along my fingers as if I’d just grasped lightning. It felt like
nothing more than a plastic gun.

“You point, you shoot,” she said, and then
she turned to leave.

“Really? That’s it? That’s my
introduction? I’ve never fired a weapon before. I was just a
waitress, for god’s sake. I have no idea how to track down a
magical hitman.”

She turned sharply on her heel, the
pointed end scratching against the concrete floor. “You’ll learn.
Like I said before, either you reach forward and embrace your
responsibility, or you don’t and you die.” She walked
away.

“Wait. Wait! Where the hell am I meant to
go? Where do I track down this John Lambert?”

Megan flicked a hand behind me and
gestured to one of the other men in the armory. “Take her to a
waiting car.” With that, she was out of sight.

Spinning. Freefall. My mind felt as if it
had been pushed into terminal velocity. Every belief, every
feeling, every thought – they were all spinning as if I’d been
thrown out of a plane.

With one hand, I clutched the gun warily to
my chest. With the other, I covered my eyes.

“Come with me,” the man said.

I had no option but to follow, several steps
behind him. He led me down the corridor into a large elevator then
down into a basement.

It was a carpark, but I could tell from one
glance it didn’t belong to the public. Nope, it had every kind of
vehicle you could imagine. There was even one of those submersible,
deep-range submarines they use on scientific expeditions.

The only thing I could do to keep from
screaming that this was insane was to clamp my teeth together. My
jaw became so stiff I was sure I was going to strain a neck muscle
or crush one of my vertebra.

The guy led me to a van. I hadn’t yet had
the opportunity to point out I couldn’t drive, but a second later,
I realized the van had a driver.

“You get in. He’ll take you to the right
place. You find your man; you capture him. It’s that simple,” the
guard said as he turned sharply and didn’t even bother to nod. He
strode off.

Get in, find my guy, and bag him. That
simple, ha? Sure, it was so simple I could cry.

I didn’t get the opportunity to cry. The
driver grumbled at me, and I jumped into the van, sitting in the
back. The door closed of its own accord, and there I remained, a
magical gun pressed carefully into my lap, my eyes as wide as the
magical disc I’d seen Megan use before. Thoughts ran riot through
my mind. They felt like a mob tearing at my sense of self, undoing
every belief I’d ever had about reality.

I sat there, one hand crumpled over my mouth
as I stared at the city flitting past through the window. It was
night now. Dusk had given way to impenetrable gloom. Though I saw
plenty of city lights flickering outside and the headlights of
passing motorists, they couldn’t touch the darkness that now
swelled around me. Nor the cold. For the cold had never left. It
simply sat there, growing, that grain of ice above my heart so
dense it felt as if I’d swallowed a black hole.

Though I rubbed and rubbed my chest, there
was nothing I could do to dislodge the sensation.

I shook as I kept one hand steadily locked
on the gun. Though I was terrified of it, I was more terrified to
let it go. Megan had said it was simple: I point and shoot. But it
couldn’t be that simple. This wasn’t an ordinary gun. I didn’t know
anything whatsoever about it. This… none of this was fair, and yet
there was no one I could complain to.

Finally, I heard the van come to a
shuddering stop.

My heart exploded in my chest.

“We’re here. Get in, get out. I’ll be
waiting,” the driver said in a gruff voice as he turned around in
his seat to face me.

The door to the van opened itself. I heard
it grate back against its mechanism. And though the sound was loud,
I swore it blared louder than a bellow between my ears.

Pressing my hands into the seat below me,
slowly I rose. I almost lost hold of my gun, almost let it clatter
to the ground, but I caught it just in time, a thrill of terror
chasing up my back.

I moved to get out of the van.

“Click the safety on and shove it into the
back of your pants, for god’s sake,” the driver said, “you’ll draw
too much attention. And if you let people see you practicing magic,
you’re done for,” he warned.

I shook. I brought the gun up. “Is this
the safety?” I asked, pointing to the mechanism at the back of the
barrel.

He let out an unkind chuckle. “You’re
gonna die. But yes, that’s the safety. Now click it on.”

I did as I was told. Then, reluctantly, I
shifted around and tucked the gun into the back of my pants.

I had never been a bad girl. Yes, okay, so
I’d stolen some things in my youth. But I’d never done it to hurt
others. It had always been to define myself away from my oppressive
family. I had absolutely no experience with tucking a gun into the
back of my goddamn pants and heading into a nightclub to rough a
man up. But experience or not, I didn’t have any option.

With one more rattling breath, I jumped down
from the van.

The cool night air hit me – hit me as if I’d
just been transported to the Arctic. To everyone else it seemed
like a balmy night, as all the passing women were wearing tiny
dresses and the guys were in nothing more than shorts and shirts.
It felt like subzero to me.

I latched a hand on my collar and drew it
up, trying to nestle further into it. Suddenly, I remembered my gun
and tugged my jacket down with all my strength.

“Oh god, I can’t do this,” I muttered to
myself under my breath.

Before I’d left, Megan had handed me a
written note. It contained all the information I would need on John
Lambert. Apparently he was meant to be at this nightclub tonight.
All I would have to do was wait for him, follow him, and capture
him. Sure, why not ask for a miracle while I was there? Why not ask
for the heavens to be split from the earth, for the stars to fall
from the sky? Because I had about as much chance of that happening
as seeing this mission through.

As that thought struck me, I realized I
was going to die tonight. Either John Lambert was going to kill me
or Vali would.

As soon as I thought that, some part of me
disagreed. It was the same part that had seen that deep, deep coil
of goodness trapped within Vali’s gaze – a glimpse to something
beyond the god of revenge.

“Pull yourself together. You can do this.
You have to do this,” I muttered to myself under my
breath.

I was terrible at stressful situations. And
as I’d already mentioned, I never rolled with the punches. I fell
with the punches. Now, with nowhere else to turn and no one to save
me, all I could do was rely on myself. So I gathered what courage I
had – what little courage remained in my frozen heart – and I
straightened my back.