He doubted that. His blood would have to be petrified not to feel this cold.
He wanted to get his butt back to Reno before he became the first Dark-Hunter in history to freeze to death.
Jess poured an extra large Styrofoam cup full and headed for the counter. He set it down and dug through the five million layers of coat, flannel shirt, sweater, and long johns to pull his wallet out of his back pocket to pay. His gaze fell to a small glass case where someone had placed a hand-carved statue of a cowboy on a bucking bronco.
Jess frowned as he recognized the horse, then the man.
It was him.
He'd e-mailed a picture to Zarek last summer of him saddle-breaking his latest stallion. Damned if that wasn't an exact copy of the photo.
"Hey," the old gentleman said as he noticed it, too. "You look just like my statue."
"Yes, sir, I noticed that. Where did you get it?"
The man looked back and forth from him to the statue as he compared their likenesses. "The annual Christmas auction we had last November."
Jess scowled at that. "Christmas auction?"
"Every year the Polar Bear Club gets together to raise money for the poor and sick. We have an annual auction, and for the last, oh I don't know, twenty years or so, Santa has been leaving a couple of huge bags of these one-of-a-kind hand-carved statues and figurines that we sell. We figure he must be a local artist or something who doesn't want to let anyone know where he lives. Every month a big money order comes anonymously to our post office box, too. Most of us figure it's the same guy doing it all."
"Santa, as in Claus?"
The man nodded. "I know it's a stupid name, but we don't know what else to call him. It's just some guy who comes around in winter and does good deeds. The police have seen him a time or two carrying the bags up to our center, but they leave him alone. He shovels driveways for the elderly and carves a lot of those elaborate ice sculptures you've probably seen around town."
Jess felt his jaw go slack, then he quickly snapped it shut before he exposed his fangs to the gentleman. Yeah. He had seen those sculptures.
But Zarek?
It hardly seemed like something the ex-slave would do. His friend was crusty at best and downright ornery at worst.
But then, Zarek had never told him what he did up here to pass the time. Never said much of nothing to Jess really.
Jess paid for the coffee, then headed back out to the street.
He walked to the end of it, where one of the ice sculptures rested at an intersection. A rendition of a moose, it stood almost eight feet tall. The moonlight glistened off the surface that was so intricately carved that it looked like the moose was ready to break loose and run for home.
Zarek's work?
It just didn't seem right.
Jess went to take another drink of his coffee only to realize it had already chilled.
"I hate Alaska," he mumbled, tossing the coffee to the ground and then wadding up the cup.
Before he could find a trash can, his cell phone rang.
He checked the caller ID to see that it was Justin Carmichael, one of the Blood Rites Squires who was up here hunting for Zarek. It seemed once the Oracles got wind that Artemis and Dionysus wanted Zarek dead, they had immediately notified the Council, who in turn had sent out the orneriest bunch of Blood Rite Squires to hunt and kill the rogue Dark-Hunter.
Jess was all that stood between them and Zarek.
Born and raised in New York City, Justin was a younger man, about twenty-four, with a nasty attitude Jess didn't care for much.
He answered the call. "Yeah, Carmichael, whatcha need?"
"We have a problem."
"And that would be?"