THE WINTER OAK
The Wildwood: Book Two
by James A. Hetley
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2004 by James A. Hetley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
eISBN: 978-1-937776-36-7
Also by James A. Hetley
The Wildwood Series:
The Summer Country
The Winter Oak
Stone Fort Series:
Dragon's Eye
Dragon's Teeth
Visit James online at www.JamesHetley.com.
Follow him on Twitter @JHetley.
Table of Contents
THE WINTER OAK
Copyright Information
Also by James A. Hetley
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Special Excerpt from The Summer Country, The Wildwood Series Book #1
Author Bio
Chapter One
David gritted his teeth and followed Jo's hand through the darkness. He assumed the rest of her was still attached. Damp, clammy nothings brushed past his face and hissed gibberish threats in his ears. Phantoms teased the corners of his eyes, shapes black against black, yellow against yellow, flowing through the ghost images his brain played to give substance to emptiness.
The touches, sounds, and shapes plucked at his fear like virtuosi on over-taut harp strings. The air smelled of sodden graveyards, thick and rank in his nose and against his skin as if he had to swim through it.
Under the Sidhe hill, he thought. Three steps between magic and reality. Magic with teeth and claws as long as his forearm, magic with vampire briars that had tried to suck his soul into the land and spread his life in a blood sacrifice to renew the perpetual summer of the Summer Country. Magic that Jo carried in her genes.
He felt cold sweat between his shoulder blades and trickling down his sides under his arms. This was taking far too long. When Brian had brought him to the Summer Country, it had been step, step, step, and they were there, sunshine and green grass and warm sweet breezes contrasting with the icy mess of winter in Maine. David hadn't even had time to be scared. That had happened later.
Jo's hand gripped his, tight enough that his bones creaked. It tugged, and he took another step and another. The darkness held firm. Hot breath chuckled in his left ear, and feathery fingers brushed across his eyes like someone testing ripe fruit in the market. He flinched.
Jo scared him, but not enough to give her up. The other Old Ones, Dougal and Sean and Fiona, they were a different can of worms. No wonder Irish tales painted the Sidhe as lacking heart and soul. Anything they could do, they would do.
Tunnels seemed to open to one side or the other in the black, wet air, felt or heard in receding echoes rather than seen. Despair flooded over him. They were lost.
And then orange light flickered in the corner of his eye, a rectangle barred by darkness. He blinked, his brain whirled and re-set, and he recognized the window in Jo's living-room. Venetian blinds, half open, with the sodium streetlight beyond.
Night, not the perpetual velvet blackness of the space between the worlds.
Home.
He sagged with relief, hugging the small woman who had just dragged him headlong through the caves of hell. She shivered in his arms.
"Jo, you may be the sexiest woman alive, but sometimes you scare the shit out of me. I swear you'd teach a kid to swim by throwing him off the dock."
She stepped back half a pace in his arms, enough room to wipe her sleeve across her forehead. "No. But I never did have training wheels on my bike."
"What took so long?"
He felt her head shake in the gloom. "So long? It was three steps, just like Brian said."
"Next time, try shorter steps. I feel like I just chased you for half a mile." He paused and took a deep breath, calming his heart. "Cancel that. Ain't gonna be any 'next time.' I'll take the rest of my fairy tales out of books."
She seemed to be looking at him funny, as if she was having second thoughts about getting tied up with a pureblood human coward. But he'd never claimed to be anything else. He wasn't a natural warrior like Brian, handling weapons like they'd been forged to fit his hands, his eyes always weighing every scene for attack or defense, his body rock-hard from running ten miles around the walls of Maureen's castle each morning without breaking a sweat. Guitar players don't need that kind of training.
She shook her head, sniffed, and started looking around. The Old Blood had sensitive noses. Then David noticed it, as well -- something thoroughly dead.
"Oh, shit. The garbage." And dishes petrified in the sink, milk curdled in the fridge, last night's lasagna two or three weeks gone and furry. He'd walked over to Maureen's place to check with Brian, because Jo hadn't come home that night. And they'd stepped out of the world without coming back here. God only knew what mutated life-forms now lurked in the potato salad.
Jo groped for the light switch and flipped it on. David blinked like an owl at the sudden glare, catching flashes of the room as his eyes adjusted. Something didn't look right, but he couldn't pin it down.
Dishes waited in the drainer, clean. The garbage pail was empty, with a fresh liner. Jo stepped over to the refrigerator and swung it open. No milk, no meat, no fresh vegetables or cheese, just a few unopened cans of soda and the like. Jo shut the door and stood staring at the answering machine. The lid was up and the tape cassette gone. She pulled out the drawer underneath the phone,
