Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

The frosties waited until the five had tramped a hundred difficult yards or so past them, committing to the path ahead and an uncertain footing. They were in Sutton Mallet. It wasn't much of a place. Two Rolls Royces were parked by the path, almost buried, icicles dripping from the bonnet ornaments. Nice machines. His Dad drove one like them.

"What's that thing called again?" he muttered, nodding at the dancers.

"The Spirit of Ecstasy," said Sewell Head. "Originally, the Spirit of Speed. Designed by Charles Sykes for the Rolls-Royce Company in 1911. The model is Eleanor Velasco Thornton."

"Eleanor. That explains it. Dad always called the little figure "Nellie in Her Nightie". I used to think she had wings, but it's supposed to be her dress, streaming in the wind."

Everyone had fallen over more than once. It stopped being remotely funny. Each step was an uncertain adventure that only Gene was nimble enough to enjoy. Then, even she skidded on a frozen puddle and took a tumble into a drift.

She looked up, and saw the four snowy sentinels.

"What are you laughing at?" she shouted.

At that, the snowmen upped stumps and came in a rush. When they moved, they were localized, roughly human shaped blizzards. They had no problem with their footing, and charged like touchy rhinos whose mothers had just been insulted by howler monkeys.

"There are people inside," yelled Keith. "I think they're dead."

"They better hope they're dead," said Gene, flipping herself upright and standing her ground, adopting a fighting stance.

The first and biggest of the frosties — who wore a top hat — barrelled towards the Burgundian girl, growing into a creature that seemed all shoulders. She met it with an ear-piercing "ki-yaaa" and a Bruce Lee-approved power-kick to the midriff. The topper fell off and the frosty stopped in its tracks, shedding great chunks of packed ice to reveal a well-dressed gent with a deeply-cut throat and a slack mouth. He had bled out before freezing. The snow crawled back up around the corpse, cocooning it with white powder, building layers of icy muscle, growing icicle spines and teeth. It reached down with an extensible arm, picked up its hat, and set it back on its head at a jaunty angle. The coals of its mouth rearranged themselves into a fierce grin.

And the other three — who wore a tartan cap, a jungle hat and two bugs on springs — caught up with their leader. They were swollen to the size of big bruisers.

Jamie looked down at his hands. His gauntlets were mittened with black clouds, containing violet electrical arcs. Out in the open, with snow all around and cold sunlight, there was too little shade. Night was far off. He cast darkstuff at the Scotch Snowman, who was nearest, and sheared away a couple of icicles. They instantly grew back.

He would have to do better.

Fred Astaire Snowman patted its healed-over tummy, and shot out a big fist which clenched around Gene's throat. Astaire lifted Gene off the ground. She kicked, but floundered with nothing to brace against. Jamie saw she had longer, sharper nails than normal — but any tears she made in the snow-hand were healed over instantly. She gurgled, unable to talk.

Comical Bugs Snowman and Jungle Explorer Snowman shifted, in opposite directions. They were forming a circle. A killing circle.

Astaire grew a yard-long javelin of solid ice from its shoulder, and snapped it off to make a stake. It pressed the ice-spear against Gene's ribs, ready to hoist her up like a victim of Frosty the Impaler.

Susan had her eyes shut, and radiated warmth — but not heat. Sewell Head was chattering about snowmen in fact and fiction, citing pagan precedents, Christmas cake decorations and the Ronettes. Keith wrapped himself in his magician's cape, and rolled his eyes up so that only the whites showed. Jamie supposed he was having a fit.

Gene squeaked a scream out through her crushed throat. Scarlet blood showed on her safari jacket.

He tried to gather more darkness, from inside.

Suddenly, Keith's eyes snapped back — but they were different.

"Don't waste your energy, Shade," he said, in a commanding tone. "Use this."

From the depths of the cloak, Keith produced a thin, diamond shaped, black object. It was Dennis Rattray's Fang of Night. Jamie had wondered where Dad had put it after taking it from Blackfist. Keith tossed the jewel to Jamie, who caught it and staggered back. The Fang was the size of a gob-stopper, but weighed as much as a cannonball. He held it in both hands. It was like sticking his fingers into a live electric socket.

"Sue," Keith said, "cover Shade's — Jamie's — back. Imagine a wall of heat, and concentrate. Swellhead, give me some dark refraction indices, considering available light, the Blackfist gem and whatever these snow-things are. Today would be a help."

Astonished, Head scrawled sums in the snow with his forefinger.

"Gene, hang on," said Keith. Gene even tried to nod, though her face was screwed up in agony and spatters of her blood stained the snow under her kicking feet.

"Can you feel it, Shade?"

Jamie was seeing a different Keith Marion. And the jewel didn't seem so heavy once he'd worked out how to hold it. Rattray had tapped into its energy by making a fist around it, but Dad said that was what had killed him in the end. There were other ways of using the Fang of Night.

Head put his hand up, and pointed to a formula he had traced.

"Well played, Swellhead," said Keith, patting Head's bald bonce. "Shade, hold the Fang up to your forehead and focus. Aim for the hat!"

Behind him, Susan grunted, and he heard slushing, melting sounds.

"Ugh, disgusting," she said.

Jamie fought an urge to turn and find out what had happened.

"Concentrate, man," insisted Keith. "Gene can't hold out much longer."

Head began to give a figure in seconds, but Keith shut him up.

Jamie held the stone to his forehead. It seemed to fit into the V above his goggles. The dark matter was sucked in through the gauntlets, thrilling into his palms, surging through his veins and nerves, and gathered in his forebrain, giving him a sudden ice-cream migraine. Then, it was set free.

He saw a flash of dark purple. Astaire's top hat exploded in flames that burned black, and the snowman fell apart. Gene was dropped, and pulled out the ice-shard in her chest before she sprawled in the snow. She crab-walked away from the well-dressed, still-standing corpse that had been inside Astaire. Its knees kinked, and it pitched forward.

"Now, turn," ordered Keith. "The others."

Jamie wheeled about. Susan was on her knees, with her arms held out, fingers wide. Scotch Snowman and Explorer Snowman loomed over her, melt-water raining from their arms and chests and faces — the trapped corpses showing through. Susan was running out of charge, though. A slug of blood crawled out of her nose. Angry weals rose around her fingernails.

This time, it was like blinking. He zapped the tartan cap and the solar topee to fragments, and the snowmen were downed. Susan swooned, and Keith was there to catch her, wrapping her in his cloak, wiping away the blood, squeezing her fingers. She woke up, and he kissed her like someone who'd known her longer and better than few hours.

"Excuse me," said Gene, "but I nearly had an icicle through my heart."

Keith looked at her and asked brusquely "you all right?"

Gene eased her bloody jacket out of the way. Her scrape was already healing.

"Seem to be," she admitted.

"Good, now help Shade with the last of them. It's the most dangerous."

Gene saluted.

"Sue," whispered Keith.

"Do I know you?" she asked, frankly irritated. He let her go, and stood up, stiffly. In his cloak, he looked like the commander of a victorious Roman legion. Jamie didn't know where the kid had got it from.