Winter Lost

Winter Lost (Mercy Thompson #14) by Patricia Briggs

Titles by Patricia Briggs

The Mercy Thompson Series

Moon Called

Blood Bound

Iron Kissed

Bone Crossed

Silver Borne

River Marked

Frost Burned

Night Broken

Fire Touched

Silence Fallen

Storm Cursed

Smoke Bitten

Soul Taken

Winter Lost

The Alpha and Omega Series

On the Prowl (with Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny)

Cry Wolf

Hunting Ground

Fair Game

Dead Heat

Burn Bright

Wild Sign

Masques

Wolfsbane

Steal the Dragon

When Demons Walk

The Hob’s Bargain

Dragon Bones

Dragon Blood

Raven’s Shadow

Raven’s Strike

Graphic Novels

Alpha and Omega: Cry Wolf: Volume One

Alpha and Omega: Cry Wolf: Volume Two

Anthologies

Shifter’s Wolf (Masques and Wolfsbane in one volume)

Shifting Shadows

To my partner in crime—Dan dos Santos, who understands that a picture paints a thousand words. Thank you, my friend.

Prologue

Mercy

An artifact is an object that either has a magical effect or can be used to create a magical effect. Most of these are minor things—a lucky penny or a staff that helps you find your way home when you are lost. But magic is unpredictable, and some artifacts change in purpose and power.

Most artifacts are intentionally made, usually by the fae, though witches, warlocks, and wizards have also made their fair share. Some artifacts just happen. My friend Warren has a car, given to him by his lover with the intent of making him safer, that magicked itself spontaneously. That car tries to take care of him. Annoying, but also sweet.

The Soul Taker was an artifact like Warren’s car, in that it just happened. But it was the furthest thing from sweet. It was old, a sickle used to harvest the blood of sacrifices in service of some unknown and long-forgotten god. By the time I encountered it, it had become sentient and fixed in its purpose of bringing its god back on a bridge of the dead.

It did something to me, to my magic and to my soul. I thought that those effects would go away when I had it destroyed.

I was wrong.

Interlude

June

Montana

Summer wasn’t his season, but the creature known to the locals as John Hunter still liked the storms. This one came with lightning and thunder, making the interior of his cabin feel like a refuge and adding unexpected percussion to the music filling the room.

It was chilly so he’d lit the fire, and the smell of the burning wood was as warming as the flames. Not that the cold bothered him.

He closed his eyes, stretching his legs out. His dog grumbled and scooted around until his great muzzle weighed down John’s right foot again.

They both listened to the music—but the dog didn’t wince when their musician hit a flurry of wrong notes.

“I told you, harp or guitar I can do. But this is not like either one of them to an amazing degree.” Pause. “It probably would have helped if the person who created this thing actually knew how to play it.”

Amused, John Hunter opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his entertainment.

The clever and graceful, if work-begrimed, fingers of his guest danced over the lyre. The man, dressed in battered jeans and a torn T-shirt, looked at home in the cabin in a way that the lyre did not. Silver-covered wood inlaid with luminous blue turquoise formed the arms of the lyre, ending with elaborate carvings of wolf heads, or possibly dogs. At the base, the sound box was carved into a beautiful woman’s face. The artifact would have been more appropriately housed in an art museum instead of a cabin in the mountains.

“Doesn’t the magic help?” John asked.

His guest looked up, mischievous eyes alight. “Haven’t you learned by now? Magic never helps.”

1

December Mercy

There was a 1960 Beetle parked in front of my shop.

I eyed it warily as I let myself into the office. Having a 1960 bug parked outside was not unusual—I specialized in the old air-cooled VWs to the point where people brought them to me from other states to work on or restore. I just hadn’t seen this particular one before.

I would have remembered.

I locked away my purse, draped my coat over the chair behind the counter, then walked into the garage bays. The light was already on and Zee was hard at work. He’d been here for a while because the big furnace had already heated the space to human-friendly temperatures.

Buried in the engine compartment of the car he was bitterly cursing in German, Zee looked like a wiry old man with white hair that was thinning on top and a bit of a potbelly. Thanks to fae glamour, he bore no resemblance to the Dark Smith of Drontheim, who had built many deadly weapons and used them in his time to slaughter saints, kings, and anyone else who annoyed him. Currently, he worked a little more than full-time in the garage he’d once owned, helping me repair old cars.