Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

Yuki-Onna sank her teeth intoher father's throat and Kara screamed.

Blood squirted, but only a fewdrops. The Winter Witch's tongue darted out and licked it up and then she beganto suck. Several crimson spots appeared on that pure white kimono, and thenfaded into the cloth as though absorbed from within.

Kara lunged at the demon. Yuki-Onnadid move. Kara passed right through the witch's body as if it were part of thestorm itself, mist and snow puffing out and then reforming. Kara hit the floor,her mind still working, still raging to rescue her father, but her body wouldnot work. She began to tremble and then to shake.

Is this a seizure? shehad time to wonder, and then her head began to slam against the floor. Only thesnow that had piled up around them saved her from caving her own skull in.

As it subsided, she sawYuki-Onna drop her father's still body to the snowy floor. Trickles of bloodran from the dozen small punctures on his throat. Breathe , she thought,staring at his chest. Breathe, Daddy !

She saw his chest rise and falland would have screamed in relief and gratitude, except that Yuki-Onna wasthere now, bending over her, the black pits that were the witch's eyes staringdown at her, blind and unseeing.

"What are you?" theWoman in White said, her voice like the crack of brittle ice about to give wayunderfoot.

Kubo had said the wards wouldblind the demon, but Yuki-Onna saw her. The witch didn't know what to make ofKara, but she saw her. Or did she?

Yuki-Onna frowned. Thehideousness hidden inside of her beauty subsided, the teeth hidden behinddemure, if bloody, lips. The Woman in White glanced around.

"Where are you?" sheasked.

Hope flickered in Kara's heart.

But then Yuki-Onna turned towardthe shattered door, and even at this angle, Kara saw the evil of her smilereturn. Sakura and Miho stood there with Ren, and they had nowhere to run.

"You broke your promise,beautiful one," the witch whispered.

Ren did not even try to flee.

"Hide him!" Kara said,her voice quavering. Her whole body twitched as she began to rise.

Miho gave a cry of anguish asshe stepped in front of Ren. "How?"

Kara staggered to her feet. AsYuki-Onna glided toward her friends, she edged around the witch, keeping pace. Yuki-Onnareached a hand out toward Ren, but Kara stepped in the way.

The demon froze, a troubledexpression on her face. Yuki-Onna frowned and moved her head to one side, hersmile returning.

"Surround him," Sakurawhispered, grabbing Kara's hand.

The warmth of the contact withher friend sent pain shooting through her. Her skin was so cold, now, that anymovement, any warmth, hurt her.

"Don't do this — "Ren began.

"Quiet!" Miho snapped."Crouch down."

The three girls surrounded himas best they could. Teeth chattering, they blocked Yuki-Onna's view. No, nother view , Kara thought. Demons see the essence of someone, right? So we'rehiding him behind whatever nothing she sees when she looks at us.

If only they'd had Hachiro'sward.

Hachiro . Thoughts tumbledinto place inside Kara's head, making a terrible kind of sense. If killingsatiated the witch's hunger, then she wouldn't be hungry right now. Even thoughshe would want to fulfill the curse of Kyuketsuki, Yuki-Onna might not kill herright away. She might take her to wherever Hachiro was now. If Kara could keepRen safe, he might be able to lead them all up to the mountain and save them.

Numb hands shaking, fingerslittle more than useless stumps, she pulled away from her friends and reachedup to remove her ward. She could give it to Ren. Save him, and then he couldsave both her and Hachiro in return. Insane, but the only option she could see.

"Kara, no!" Sakurashouted.

Sakura batted at her hand. Karaglanced at her, saw tiny icicles hanging from the jagged cut of her hair, sawSakura reaching up to untie the thong from her own neck.

Sakura took off Kubo's ward,eyes alight with fear and purpose. She turned, reaching out for Ren with bothhands to put the thong around his neck. Miho and Ren were shouting at her,telling her to stop, to put it back on, but Kara barely heard their voices.

She felt the winter's breath onthe back of her neck, and heard the perverse pleasure in Yuki-Onna's voice.

"One of the cursed, righthere in front of me. Delicious," the Winter Witch said.

"No!" Ren shouted,trying to get the ward back around Sakura's neck.

Yuki-Onna contorted her fingersand the snow and wind lifted Sakura from the ground and twisted her around sothat she faced the witch.

"Leave her alone!" Kara screamed.

She and Miho and Ren attacked,but they might as well have been tearing at the wind, their frozen handsuseless, passing through Yuki-Onna as though the witch were a ghost made ofsnow, made of storm.

"My sister will be gratefulwhen I steal your life, cursed girl," Yuki-Onna said, studying Sakura'sface with her black eyes. "But my vengeance comes before hers. Tonight Itake the pretty one, but I shall come for you and yours soon enough."

And with a gust of wind shehurled Sakura across the cafeteria. Sakura flailed like a broken doll, struckthe wall, then fell onto a side table before rolling onto the floor andbeginning to bleed into the snow.

Miho screamed.

Yuki-Onna grabbed Ren and hecried out, frost forming on his face and hair. Kara caught his wrist, trying topull him back, but as the icy wind carried him into the air she was lifted aswell. The storm embraced her. If she had thought she was cold before, that hadbeen nothing in comparison to the pain that screamed through her now, slowingher blood and dulling her thoughts.

Her hand could not grip. Herfingers would not close.

Kara fell, slumping to the snowyfloor. As her consciousness began to retreat, she saw the cafeteria windowsshatter and the storm flowed out into the darkness, carrying Ren with it.

The shadows coalesced at thecorners of her eyes, and then swallowed her, and her mind went dark.

Even in her dreams, Kara couldn'tget warm. Her unconscious mind was filled with the sound of shattering glassand the high, keening wail of the wind. It sounded so much like a scream ofanguish.

From time to time her eyes wouldflutter blearily open and she would see the hospital room around her — thewhite curtain, the metal piping on the guardrail of the bed, the darksilhouette of someone passing by in the brightly lit corridor — and thenshe would surrender to the cold dreams again. Voices reached her, evenunconscious, but the words were impossible to decipher. She recognized them asJapanese, but her brain was too tired to translate.

Sometime during the night shewoke more fully, aware of a terrible weight on her, and she looked down to seethe heavy blanket over her. She still felt cold, but her skin was clammy and itpanicked her a little to be constricted like that. Still, she moved the partsof her body slowly, testing out her feet and ankles, her hands and wrists, herneck and even her spine. She ached all over and there were apparently stitchesin her arm where flying glass had cut her, but otherwise she seemed all right,certainly well enough to move.

As she sat up, turning theblanket down, a slender figure blocked much of the light from the hallway.

"Oh," the nurse saidin a small voice. She hurried into the room, which was lit with a gloomy yellowthat Kara understood was some kind of hospital nightlight. In the semi-dark,Kara could barely make out a stream of blue in the woman's shoulder-lengthhair, and still half-asleep she let out a small laugh.

"You are awake andlaughing?" the nurse said. "The doctor will be very happy."

Kara couldn't say anything. Ifshe did, she feared she would blurt out the source of her amusement, which wasthe streak of blue in the attractive young woman's hair. It had made her thinkof Nurse Joy on all of the old Pokemon episodes she and her friends had watchedwhen they were little. Or was it Officer Jenny with the blue hair? Not that itmattered.