The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 19

the last of its warmth. Even Anthony Jago, who feared not the ice and fire of Hell, had his hands in his armpits. The house itself creaked more than usual.

'Richard?' exclaimed Maureen. 'Are you sure?'

Catriona, who had been trying not to listen, had a spasm of concern. Maureen had blurted out the name in shock. She and Richard had…

Maureen hung up, cutting off Catriona's train of thought. The room looked to Maureen for a report.

'Derek needs us all,' she said. 'He needs us to hurt the Cold.'

A lot of people talked at once, then shut up.

'Catriona,' said Maureen, fists pressed together under her impressive bosom, 'your man Richard Jeperson is lost.'

'Lost?'

'Probably dead. I'm sorry, truly. Derek says he tried to reach the Cold, and it took him. It's a monster, and wants to kill us all. We have to hit it with all we've got, now. All our big guns, he says. Maybe it can't be killed, but can be hurt. Driven back to its hole.'

A tear dribbled from Maureen's eye.

'Reverend Jago, Lady Elder, Rose… you're our biggest guns. Just tear into the Cold. Miss Teazle, work on Mrs Michaelsmith — direct her. Think of the heat-wave. Karabatsos, clear a circle and make a summoning. A fire elemental. The rest of you, pray. That's not a figure of speech. The only way we can beat this thing is with an enormous spiritual attack.'

The news about Richard was a terrible blow. Catriona let Maureen go on with her 'to arms' speech, trying to take it in. She was not a sensitive in the way any of these Talents were, but she was not a closed mind. And Maureen had said Richard was only probably dead.

Mr and Mrs Karabatsos were the first to act. They rolled aside a carpet and began chalking a circle on the living room floor.

'Excuse me,' said Catriona. 'Is this your house?'

Karabatsos glared at her, nastily triumphant. Catriona would not be looked at like that in her home.

'No need to bother with that,' said Anand Gitamo.

'Summoning a fire elemental requires a circle, and a ritual,' said Karabatsos. 'Blood must be spilled and burned.'

'Yes dear, spilled and burned,' echoed his wife.

'In normal company, maybe,' said the Swami, sounding more like plain old Harry Cutley. 'But we've got extraordinary guests. We can take short cuts. Now, you two sorcerers shut your eyes and think about your blessed fire elemental. Extra-hot and flaming from the Pits of Abaddon and Erebus and all that. Think hard, now think harder. Imagine more flames, more heat, more burning. Take your basic fire elemental, add the Japanese pikadon, the Norse Surtur, Graeco-Roman Haephaestus or Vulcan, the phoenix, the big bonfire at the end of The Wicker Man, that skyscraper from The Towering Inferno, the Great Fire of London in 1666, enough napalm to deforest the Republic of Vietnam and the eternal blue flame of the lost city of Kor…'

Nigel Karabatsos and his wife shut their eyes and thought of fire.

'Rose dear,' said Gitamo. 'Peek into those tiny minds.'

Rose Farrar caught fire and expanded. She grew into a nine-foot-tall column of living flame, with long limbs and a blazing skull-face. Though she was hard to look at and her radiant heat filled the room, she didn't burn the ceiling or the carpet. She was Fire.

'Reverend Jago,' said Gitamo, 'would you open the doors. Rose needs to go outside.'

The man in the dog-collar was astonished by what the apparent little girl had become. Anthony Jago didn't know whether to bow down before a fiery angel of the Lord or cast out a demon from Hell. His already-peculiar belief system was horribly battered by this experience. Catriona feared no good would come of that.

But, if anything could hurt the Cold, it would be Fire Rose.

Louise Teazle reported that the snow outside was melting. Fire Rose was radiating, beyond the walls.

'No,' said Ariadne, snapping her fingers. 'I think not.'

Fire Rose went out. Spent-match stink filled the room. The little girl, unburned and unburning, sat on the floor exactly as she had been. She was bewildered. No one had ever switched her off like a light before.

Jago was enraged. All the cups, saucers and cutlery on the table near him and all the books on the shelves behind him leaped at once into the air, and hovered like projectiles about to be slung. Catriona had known he was a telekinetic, but this was off the scale. In any other drawing room, parapsychologists like Cross and Lark would be thinking of the book deals and the lecture tour — though, after Fire Rose, this little display scarcely made the needle tick. Jago's eyes smouldered.

Ariadne shook her head, and everything went neatly back to its place. Not a drop of tea spilled or a dust jacket torn. Jago knitted his brows, blood vessels pulsing, but not so much as a teaspoon responded.

Mr Zed took out a gun, caught Ariadne's gaze, then pointed it at his own head. He stood still as a statue.

'If we're not going off half-cocked,' said the Elder of the Kind, 'let us review our plan of action. In dealing with the Cold, do we really want to do what Derek Leech says.'

Exactly. Ariadne had said what Catriona felt.

'You can't win a Winter War with fire,' she said. 'Fire consumes, leaves only ashes.'

'Then what?' said Maureen, frustrated, red-eyed. 'If not Derek's plan, what? I'd really like to know, ladies. I'm freezing my tits off here.'

'There there,' said Catriona, touching Maureen's shoulder. 'Have faith. He'll be all right.'

Maureen didn't ask who she meant.

'He'll see us through,' Catriona said.

Richard.

XII

On some other path in life, an expert outdoorsman Keith had loads of survival training in extreme weather conditions. Probably, Keith had to weed out a couple of dozen plonkers who didn't know how to tie their own shoelaces, but he'd found the useful life in seconds. Not a bad trick. While Jamie scanned for tracks or a human shaped bump in the snow, Keith barked instructions — keep moving, breathe through your nose, turn your shoulder to the wind.

One good thing: in all this mucky weather, Richard Jeperson couldn't have gone far.

Any footprints were filled by new snow. The marks they had made coming from the thicket to the buildings were already gone. Jamie looked for dark traces, the shadows of shadows. It was Dad's game, and he wasn't expert in it yet — but he could usually see shadow-ghosts, if he caught them in time.

He found a discarded fur boot. And another.

A shaggy clump a little past the boots turned out not to be the missing man, but an abandoned coat. A fold of dayglo green poking up from the snow was a cast-off balaclava. Leech had said Jeperson went out naked. That was not true. Jeperson had gone outside, then taken his clothes off. Leech wouldn't have got that wrong unless he were deliberately lying. If Jeperson knocked Leech out and left him inside, Leech would not have known what Jeperson did next — but he had said Jeperson took his clothes off, went out and lay down in the show. Had Leech attacked Jeperson, stripped him, and left him to freeze to death, cooking up a story to exonerate himself? Jamie should have checked at once — tried to replay the shadows in the building. He had an inkling it wouldn't have worked. There was something wrong with Leech's shadow.

He hoped Gene and Susan could take care of themselves. Derek Leech was dangerous.

They were near Bugs, the mammoth snowman. It had lost human shape and become a mountain. Novelty insects still bobbed on its summit like the Union Flag on top of Everest.