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

Jamie saw the shadow lying at the foot of Mount Bugs. A man, stretched out. Jeperson was under here.

He pointed to the spot and told Keith, "Dig there, mate. There."

"Where?"

Keith didn't have the Shade-sight. Jamie knelt and began scooping snow away with gloved hands. Keith used a tray from the cafeteria as a spade, digging deep.

A face emerged, in a nest of long, frozen hair. Thin, blue, hollow-cheeked, jagged-moustached and open-eyed.

"Hello," said Jeperson, smiling broadly. "You must be the new boys."

Suddenly, Richard felt the cold. Not the Cold — he was disconnected, now. The little crystals were out of his brain. He hoped he had given the Cold something to think about.

"Would you happen to have seen some clothes in your travels?" he asked the two young men. One wore a long dark greatcoat and goggles, the other a red-lined magician's cloak.

They dragged his fur coat along and tried to wrap him in it. What he could see of his skin was sky-blue.

"It's stopped snowing," he observed.

The wind was down too. And sun shone through, low in the West. It was late evening. Long shadows were red-edged.

The Cold was responding to his plea, drawing in its chill. It could live on in perpetuity as a sub-microscopic speck inside a rock, or confine itself to the poles, or go back to the void below absolute zero. Without Cleaver telling it what it wanted, it had its own choices. Richard hoped he had persuaded the Cold that other life on Earth was entertaining enough to be put up with.

Now, he would probably die.

He hoped he had done the right thing. He was sorry he'd never found out who his real parents had been. He wished he'd spent more time with Barbara, but — obviously — he'd been busy lately. His personal life hadn't been a priority, and that was a regret. He could trust Fred and Vanessa to keep on, at least for a while. And, if these lads were anything to judge by, the Diogenes Club, or something like it, would continue to stand against Great Enchanters present and future, and all manner of other inexplicable threats to the public safety.

The boy in the goggles tried rubbing Richard's hands, but his friend — who knew something about hypothermia treatment — told him not to. Friction just damages more blood vessels. Gradual, all-round warmth was needed. Not that there was an easy supply around here.

He tried to think of quotable last words.

Some people came out of the building. Leech, and two women. One flew to him. Genevieve. Good for her. They'd not worked together much, but the old girl was a long-standing Valued Member.

"Richard, you won't die," she said.

"I think I'll need a second opinion," he muttered. "A less optimistic one."

"No, really," she insisted.

Leech hung back, shiftily. Richard expected no more. Genevieve pulled the other woman — a brown-haired girl who kept herself to herself — to help, and got her to press her hands on Richard's chest.

Warmth radiated from her touch.

"That's very… nice," he said. "Who are you?"

"This is Susan," said Genevieve. "She's a friend."

Richard had heard of her. Susan Rodway. She was on Catriona's list of possibles.

He felt as if he were sinking into a hot, perfumed bath. Feeling returned to his limbs. He heard hissing and tinkling, as snow and ice melted around them. A bubble of heat was forming. Susan took it slowly, not heating him too fast. His temperature came up like a diver hauled to the surface in stages to avoid the bends.

He tactfully rearranged a flap of fur to cover his loins. Susan's magic warmth had reached there, with an unshrivelling effect he rarely cared to share on such brief acquaintance.

"What did you do?" asked Genevieve. "Are we saved?"

Richard tried to shrug. "I did what I could. I think the Cold is getting a sense of who we are, what we're about and why we shouldn't just be killed out of hand. Who knows what something like that can really feel, think or do? You have to call off the blitzkrieg, though. Any smiting with fire and sword is liable to undo the work of diplomacy and land us back in the big fridge."

Leech was expressionless. Richard wondered how things would be if he'd had his way.

Genevieve looked back and said, "Make the call, Derek."

He made no move. Genevieve stood. Leech nodded, once, and walked back to the building.

"I see you've met Dr Shade and Conjurer Keith," said Genevieve. "They've done all right too."

Susan took her hands away. Richard regretted it, but knew her touch couldn't last. Everyone looked at the huge, liquefying snow-giant as he stood up and got dressed as best he could. Sharon Kellett would be inside that glacier. The others would be strewn around the fields.

This patch of Somerset would be better irrigated than the rest of Britain — for a few days.

"Who else turned up for the ice age?" Richard asked.

"There's a knowledgeable little fellow you don't need to meet just now," said Genevieve. "He didn't even waver, like some folks. Went straight to Leech. He's inside the weather station. At the Manor House, Catriona has a whole tea party. Old friends and new. Including a strong contingent from the Other Side."

"I can imagine."

"Maureen Mountmain's here," she said, pointedly.

Richard was glad to be warned of that potential complication. Genevieve let the point stick with a needling glance.

"It was a ritual," said Richard, knowing how weak the excuse was.

"It was still…" she mouthed the word "sex".

Richard knew he was being ribbed. Now they were less doomed, they could start squabbling, gossiping and teasing again.

Leech came back.

"We're invited to supper at the Manor House," he said. "It's only nine o'clock, would you believe it? You'll have to make my excuses, I'm afraid. I have to get back to London. Things to do, people to buy. Give my best to Miss Kaye. Oh, Cleaver's dead. Choked on his false teeth. Pity."

The blotch on his forehead was already gone. Leech recovered quickly.

"See you soon," he said, and walked away.

Richard knew an autopsy wouldn't show anything conclusive. Professor Cleaver would be listed as another incidental casualty.

"I feel much warmer now he's gone," said Genevieve. "Didn't he say something about supper?"

Most of the company had scurried back to their holes. Catriona was relieved to have them out of the house.

She sat in her drawing room. Paulette Michaelsmith was upstairs, tucked up and dreaming safely. Louise Teazle had walked home to the Hollow, her house on the moor. Genevieve was outside in the garden, with the young people. She was the last of the old ladies.

Ariadne had taken Rose with her. Mr Zed, round weal on his temple, didn't even complain. The Undertakers were a spent force, but even in their prime they couldn't have stood against an Elder of the Kind. Rose would be safe with Ariadne, and — more to the point — the world would be safe from her. Catriona assumed that Ariadne could pack Rose off to where she came from, just as — eighty years ago — Charles Beauregard sent Princess Cuckoo home. However, the Elder might choose to raise the creature who usually looked like a little girl as her own. At this stage of her life, Catriona doubted she'd live to find out. Charles wasn't here. Edwin wasn't here. At times, Catriona wondered if she were really here. She knew more ghosts than living people, and regretted the rasher statements made about spirits of the unquiet dead in books she had published in her long-ago youth. Occasionally, she welcomed the odd clanking chain or floating bed-sheet.

Maureen Mountmain, clearly torn, had wanted to stay and see Richard — she babbled a bit about having something to tell him — but Leech had ordered her to rally a party of Mr and Mrs Karabatsos, Myra Lark, Jago and leave. Jago, well on the way to replacing Rose as Catriona's idea of the most frightening person on the planet, took a last look around the Manor House, as if thinking of moving in, and slid off into the evening with Maureen's group. They wouldn't be able to keep him for long. Jago had his own plans. Leech had picked up Sewell Head, too — though Catriona had looked over his file, and concluded it would take a lot to lure him out of his sweet shop and away from his books of quiz questions.