The Lure

The iron gate was a filigree of black lace choked with ice. Ida put her shoulder to it, grunting with the effort. It didn't budge. The blizzard screamed around her, a wall of white that erased the world behind her, leaving only the manor, a dark silhouette against the swirling grey. Her fingers, numb inside her gloves, fumbled with the latch. It was frozen solid. She took a step back, breath pluming, and kicked it. The shock vibrated up her leg, a dull ache in her shin. Again. The ice cracked with a sound like breaking glass, and the gate shuddered open just enough for her to squeeze through.

The path to the front door was a ghost. She waded through drifts that came up to her knees, the cold seeping through her insulated trousers. The great oak door was the final obstacle. No lights burned in the windows. No smoke rose from the chimneys. The letter had been desperate, Vic's familiar scrawl made jagged with haste. Come. I'm sick. The cold won't leave.

She pounded a gloved fist on the wood. The sound was flat, swallowed by the snow. "Vic! It's me! Open the door!"

Only the wind answered. The cold was a physical presence now, a predator. She could feel it searching for ways into her clothing, a needle-sharp prickle against her skin. Panic, cold and sharp as the air, began to rise in her throat. She couldn't freeze out here. She’d come too far. Her eyes scanned the front of the house, landing on a low window to the left of the porch, its frame dark with what looked like rime. She crunched through the snow, pulled the heavy flashlight from her pack, and wrapped the end in a spare scarf. One sharp blow. The glass didn't shatter; it crazed, a spiderweb of cracks spreading from the point of impact. Another blow, and a section fell inward with a crystalline tinkle.

She cleared the remaining shards with her gloved hand, the cold of the glass biting even through the thick material. Hoisting herself up and over the sill was clumsy work. She dropped into a crouch inside, landing on a carpet stiff with frost. She stood, shining the flashlight beam around the room. The air was colder in here than it was outside. It was a dead, still cold, a cellar cold. A tomb cold. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating a drawing room frozen in time. Furniture was draped in white sheets that glittered, each fiber coated in a delicate layer of ice. Her boots crunched on the floor. It wasn't the carpet; it was a thin, perfect sheet of ice coating everything.

Her breath hung in the air, a cloud of silver particles in the flashlight's beam. And then she saw them. Hanging from the ornate chandelier in the center of the room were icicles. Thick, perfectly clear icicles, some of them three feet long, their tips nearly touching the sheet-draped shape of a grand piano below. Water didn't drip here. Nothing moved. It was a frozen diorama.

"Vic?" Her voice was a small, tight thing in the oppressive silence.

A floorboard creaked from the grand staircase in the main hall. She swept the light towards the sound, her heart hammering against her ribs. A figure stood at the top of the stairs, shrouded in shadow.

"You shouldn't have come," a voice rasped. It was Vic's voice, but stripped of its warmth, thin and brittle like old paper.

"Vic, my god. What's happened?" She moved towards the hall, her light bouncing ahead of her. He descended the stairs slowly, one step at a time. He wasn't wearing a coat. Just a thin linen shirt and dark trousers. His feet were bare on the icy steps. He moved into the edge of her flashlight beam, and she bit back a gasp. His skin was the color of bleached parchment, tinged with blue at the lips and fingertips. His hair, once the color of dark honey, was streaked with white, and his eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, shadowed and empty. He looked like a man who had been cold for a very, very long time.

"I told you not to," he said, his voice flat. He didn't shiver. He just stood there, radiating a cold that seemed to push her back.

"Your letter... you said you were sick. I came to help." She took a step closer, reaching for him. "You're freezing."

"Don't touch me." He recoiled, his movement sharp, violent. The air between them seemed to drop another ten degrees. "Leave, Ida. Now. Before the storm gets worse."

"The storm is the reason I have to stay! I'd die out there. What's wrong with you? Let me help you. We can build a fire..."

He laughed, a dry, cracking sound with no humor in it. "A fire." He gestured vaguely at one of the cavernous, stone fireplaces. It was choked with ice, a glacier flowing out from its hearth onto the floor. "There hasn't been a fire in this house for weeks. The house doesn't allow it."

"What are you talking about? A house doesn't... Vic, you're not making sense." She kept her voice even, calm, the way you would with a frightened animal. But he wasn't frightened. He was something else. Something hollow. He watched her, his gaze distant, as if looking through her at something far away.

"Just stay away from me," he whispered, and the whisper was a cold draft. "Find a room. The one at the end of the east hall. It's... safer there. Don't leave it. Don't come looking for me." He turned without another word and walked back up the stairs, his bare feet making no sound on the ice-slicked wood. He disappeared into the upper darkness, leaving her alone in the frozen hall, the cold seeping into her bones.

She found the room he’d mentioned. It was colder than the rest of the house, if such a thing were possible, but it felt... clean. The frost here was a delicate lacework on the windows, not the thick, suffocating blanket that covered everything else. The bed was made, the covers turned down. It felt like a guest room, prepared and waiting. She pushed a heavy armchair against the door, a flimsy barricade that did little to soothe the knot of fear in her stomach. Exhaustion washed over her, heavy and final. She didn't bother to undress, simply collapsed onto the bed, pulling the thick woolen blankets over herself. The cold of the mattress leached the last of her body's heat. Sleep was a dark, freezing ocean, and she sank into it.

She woke to the sound of scraping. A long, slow drag, like stone on ice. It came from the hallway. Her eyes snapped open. The room was pitch black. The scraping came again, closer this time, followed by a low, guttural breathing that didn't sound human. It was wet, ragged. She held her breath, listening. The armchair she'd wedged against the door shifted, groaning as something pushed against it from the other side. The doorknob rattled, a frantic, metallic clatter.

Ida slid silently from the bed, her hand closing around the heavy steel flashlight on the nightstand. It was the only weapon she had. The pressure on the door increased. Wood splintered. A dark, jagged crack appeared near the lock. A cold mist, colder than the air in the room, seeped through the crack, smelling of freezer burn and damp earth.

With a sound of tearing metal and splintering wood, the door flew open, tossing the heavy armchair aside as if it were a child's toy. A shape filled the doorway, a thing of nightmare. It was vaguely man-shaped, but too tall, its limbs too long and thin. Its body was a shifting mass of shadow and jagged, blue-tinted ice. It had no face, only a smooth, dark surface where a face should be, and from its chest emanated a pale, cold light. It moved into the room, its long, claw-like fingers of ice scraping against the floorboards. It was turning its featureless head, searching. She knew, with a certainty that went deeper than thought, that it was searching for warmth. For her.

She didn't scream. The sound was frozen in her throat. She backed away, her bare feet sticking to the instant frost that spread from the creature's path. It saw her. The smooth head swiveled, locking onto her position. It raised one of its arms, the icy claws extending, and lunged. She threw herself to the side, rolling as the claws sliced through the air where she had been standing, the impact shattering the nightstand into a thousand frozen splinters. She scrambled to her feet, brandishing the flashlight. She had to be protecting Vic. This thing, this monster, it must have been what made him so sick, what was draining the life from this house. She was here to save him, and that meant fighting this thing.

It came at her again, faster this time. She flicked on the flashlight, aiming the high-intensity beam directly at its head. The creature recoiled, letting out a high-pitched hiss like steam escaping a frozen pipe. The light seemed to hurt it, to make its shadowy form smoke and dissipate at the edges. It shielded its head with an arm of ice, the beam refracting through the frozen limb in a shower of cold rainbows.

She had an advantage. It hated the light. She backed towards the broken window, keeping the beam fixed on the creature. It followed her, more cautiously now, staying just at the edge of the light's full glare. Its hissing filled the room, a constant, hateful sound. It feinted to her left, and she sidestepped, her back hitting the cold stone of the wall. Trapped. The creature gathered itself, its icy form coalescing, becoming denser. It was going to rush her, light or no light.

With a roar of desperation, she hurled the flashlight at the wall above the creature’s head. The heavy steel casing struck the plaster with a crack, and the bulb shattered, plunging the room into absolute darkness. The creature let out a shriek, a sound of triumph, and lunged. But Ida was already moving. In that split second of blindness, she had shoved off the wall and dove for the open doorway. She scrambled into the hall, not daring to look back, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. She ran, slipping and sliding on the icy floor, down the grand staircase and into the frozen library. She slammed the heavy oak doors shut and fumbled for a lock. There was none. She could hear it coming, the scrape and drag of its icy limbs. She threw her weight against the doors as it slammed into them from the other side, the impact jarring her teeth. It was strong. So much stronger than her.

She looked around the room, frantic. Moonlight, filtered through the ice-caked windows, gave the room a faint, ghostly glow. Her eyes fell on a heavy iron poker leaning against the fireplace. She grabbed it, the metal so cold it felt like it was burning her skin. The doors shuddered again. She had to find Vic. She had to get them both out of here.

She fled through a side door, deeper into the manor's frozen heart. She found herself in Vic's study. Papers were scattered everywhere, flash-frozen to the surface of his desk, the ink blurred and feathered. A half-empty glass of brandy sat on a side table, the liquid frozen solid, the glass cracked. And in the center of the desk, held open by a crystal paperweight shaped like a snowflake, was a leather-bound journal. Vic's journal.

Her hands shook as she picked it up. The leather was stiff with cold. His handwriting filled the pages, growing more erratic, more desperate, as she read.

October 17th. The chill has set in. Not in the air, but in me. It started in my hands. I can't seem to get them warm. I sit before a roaring fire, and yet I feel as if I am standing in a blizzard. The doctors find nothing. They say it's nerves.

October 29th. I touched a bird that had flown into the window. A small sparrow. It died the instant my fingers brushed its feathers. It didn't convulse. It just... stopped. When I pulled my hand away, its body was rigid, covered in a fine sheen of frost. What is happening to me?

November 12th. The cold is a hunger now. It's not a lack of heat, but a need for it. A ravenous, gnawing need. I find myself staring at the fire, not for its warmth, but like a starving man staring at a feast. The heat from the flames... it feels like it calls to me. I had to send the staff away. The way I looked at them... it wasn't right.

November 21st. I can't bear the touch of sunlight. It burns. The house grows cold with me. The frost is on the windows now, inside and out. I broke a mirror today. The man I saw wasn't me. His eyes were blue, not the blue of the sky, but the deep, hard blue of glacial ice. There is a monster wearing my face.

December 3rd. The hunger is unbearable. I tried to satisfy it. I focused on the heat from the furnace, drawing it in. The pipes froze solid and burst. The house is dying. I am killing it. But the hunger... for a moment, it was sated. It was glorious.

December 9th. It happened last night. The hunger was too much. I couldn't contain it. It tore itself from me. A piece of my own soul, my own cold, given form. It is shadow and ice, a thing of pure need. It stalks the halls, drawn to the memory of warmth, the residual heat of life. It is my own starvation, walking and hunting. It is me.

Ida’s blood ran cold. It is me. The creature in the hall. The thing she had fought. It wasn't some external monster that had infected Vic. It was a part of him. Something he had made.

The final entry was dated two days ago. The handwriting was a barely legible scrawl.

December 15th. It is too weak. I am too weak. We are starving. The hunger will consume what's left of me. I need more than a fire. More than the ghost-heat of this house. I need life. I need warmth. Real warmth. I sent the letter. Ida will come. She always comes. She is so full of warmth. Enough to last a long, long time. Forgive me.

Ida dropped the journal. It fell to the icy floor with a dull thud. He lured me here. The realization was a physical blow, knocking the air from her lungs. This wasn't a rescue. It was a trap. He hadn't been warning her away to protect her. He was trying to keep the last shred of his humanity from devouring her on sight.

"I see you've been reading." The voice came from the doorway. Vic stood there, calm and still. The blue in his skin was more pronounced. The cold he radiated was so intense it made her teeth ache. He looked at her, and for the first time, she saw the hunger in his eyes. It was ancient and absolute.

"You..." she breathed, backing away, the iron poker held out in front of her. "You brought me here to die. To feed that... that thing."

"Not to feed it," Vic said, his voice a low whisper of frost. "To feed me. It is just the part of me that can no longer pretend it isn't starving." He took a step into the room. Frost bloomed on the floorboards around his bare feet. "I'm sorry, Ida. I fought it for as long as I could. But the hunger... it's all I am now."

"Stay back!" she screamed, her voice cracking.

"I can't," he said, and his expression was one of genuine regret, a ghostly echo of the man he used to be. "You are so warm. I can feel it from here. It's like the sun." He took another step. She could see her own breath crystallizing in the air between them. The poker felt heavy, useless. He wasn't the monster of ice and shadow. He was worse. He was the man she loved, wearing a monster's skin.

She turned and ran for the main doors, the ones she'd first entered. She had to get out, into the storm, anywhere but here. She reached the grand hall and threw her weight against the front door. It didn't move. She looked at the handle, the hinges, the frame. All of it was encased in a thick, glittering shell of ice, inches thick, sealing the door to its frame. She was locked in.

She turned slowly. Vic stood at the other end of the hall, by the base of the grand staircase. He hadn't moved. He just watched her, his head tilted slightly.

"I can't let you leave," he said, his voice echoing in the frozen silence. "The cold is so deep now. I don't think I could survive you leaving." He lifted a hand, not to her, but towards the ceiling. Above her, the great chandelier dripped, not with water, but with cold. The icicles hanging from it began to grow, visibly lengthening, stretching downwards like crystalline stalactites. A low cracking sound filled the hall, the sound of a house freezing to its foundations.

The icicles on the ceiling sharpened, lengthening into crystalline daggers aimed directly at her heart.