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.
Bugs had either legged it or melted into the ground.
Jamie had purple vision. It was like night-sight, but in the daytime. With the Fang of Night, he could think faster. He didn't feel the cold. He could take anyone, any day of the week. He could only imagine what he would sound like if he used this onstage.
Keith plucked the jewel from his grasp, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were radioactive, then magicked it away with a conjurer's flourish.
'You of all people should know to treat those things carefully,' said Keith.
For an instant, Jamie wanted to batter the kid's face and take back the jewel. Then, he understood. Use it, but don't let it get its hooks in you. Dad had said that all the time.
'So, which Keith is this?' said Gene, tugging on the kid's wrist-tag. 'What school do you go to?'
'School? There hasn't been any school since the Spiders came. Good job too. They don't teach you anything useful. You have to learn survival, and
This Keith had a firmer jaw, healed-over scars, and a steady, manly, confident gaze. People snapped in line when he spoke and threw themselves under trains if there was a tactical advantage in it.
'He told us about this before we met you,' Gene explained. 'Some other Keith lives on an Earth overrun by arachnoid aliens. He's a guerrilla leader. He also plays opening bat for Somerset and has three girlfriends. Opinion is split as to whether it's a viable alternate timeline or some sort of Dungeons and Dragons wish-fulfilment fantasy. At the moment, I don't really care.'
She kissed Keith on the mouth. He took it as if it were his right, and then started struggling.
'What happened?' he asked, shaking free of Gene. 'Who was here?'
Gene let the familiar — the original? — Keith go, and edged away from him. He still looked confused. The other Keith had been useful in a pinch, but Jamie couldn't say he missed him.
