Undaunted, I kicked her again. Harder. With both feet this time.

I must have gotten the angle just right, because she fell backward onto the door latch. Unexpectedly, the door swung open, causing her to lose her balance. She flailed around gracelessly for a second, groping for something to hold on to. Finding nothing, Fonn fell with a whump out of the cab.

I slid into her seat and shut the door.

“Go!” shouted Sebastian, despite the fact that the only thing I could see out of the window was white, white, and more white. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We can’t,” I explained. “You saw what she was like with the snowplow driver. She’ll just find another person to suck.” Rolling up the window, I cranked up the heater a notch.

“Garnet,” Sebastian said, “she’s clearly some kind of elemental. We’re not going to be able to stop her. I’m not even sure Lilith could. Forces of nature are just that…. Part of the natural order of things. You can’t just wipe out the one in charge of winter.”

Why not? Couldn’t I just back the truck up and run over her a few times? Bump-bump, no more winter! I mean, come on, in Wisconsin winter generally sucks. Here in America’s Dairyland it was cold and miserable for nearly half the year. Sure, the first snowstorm with those fluffy, storybook flakes was beautiful, but it took less than a week for all the snow to get dirty from exhaust and other urban detritus.

But I supposed Sebastian had a point. Global warming was already a problem. If we stopped having winter altogether, we’d probably ruin some endangered ecological niche. Walleye population would explode from a lack of ice fishing. There’d be no annual mosquito die-off and they’d take over the world. So not cool, as it were.

Especially since I try to be so low-impact, you know? I even recycle my toilet paper rolls.

“We have to do something,” I insisted. I was starting to feel a bit warmer, more like myself, but not quite. My hands shook where I gripped the steering wheel.

“Yeah, drive,” said Sebastian. “Away. Fast.”

The snow flurries lessened enough to give me a tad more visibility. I glanced down out the side window, hoping to see Fonn unconscious on the snow. No luck. She was out there somewhere. Lurking.

I waved my hands in the direction of the sheets of snow still coming down thick and wet. “If I hit the gas right now, Sebastian, we’d ram into a light pole or another car. I can’t see a damn thing.”

“Except that,” Sebastian said dryly, pointing.

I gasped. Fonn pressed her face against the windshield. Rows of sharklike teeth lined an open, hungry mouth. Her hair whipped like snakes in the wind, blending into the sleet. Claws raked at the glass.

“Oh, great,” I said.

“Did you have a plan to get rid of her?” Sebastian asked as the safety glass began to show spiderweb cracks. “Because now would be a great time to let me know.”

“So, what do you think?” I asked, jumping in my seat at each slam of her claws on the windshield. “Could you take her? You’ve got super-vamp strength, right? How about you jump her?”

“How about I not? For one, I don’t think I could take her down, and secondly, what do I do once I have her? I can’t bite her; she might have antifreeze in her veins. How about you unleash Lilith?”

The windshield was completely cracked and starting to buckle in places. Safety glass, my ass.

Lilith was more than ready for the fight. It would not be a difficult thing to let Her out; but, She was Queen of Hell, Mother of Destruction. What if Lilith not only killed Fonn but also showed her usual lack of discretion and killed Sebastian, too? Then we’d have all that environmental disaster or Ragnarok or Goddess-knows-what-end-of-the-universe kind of stuff, and I’d be out one boyfriend.

Coldness began to seep in. I knew Fonn would be inside in a second.

I hit the gas hard and then slammed on the brakes. She slid off the hood and disappeared into the whiteout.

“Oh,” said Sebastian, a little startled. “Good job.”

“She’ll be back,” I reminded him. “We need to think of something slightly more permanent, but not too permanent.”

“Not to be unmanly, but I still think running away is a good option.”

“Well, it may come to that,” I admitted, hating the idea of leaving the next poor sap who happened to be out on Christmas to the fate of getting chomped by a heat-munching demon. “Are you sure you can’t bite her?”

“I could,” Sebastian said thoughtfully, then added, “if I want to die. Magical blood will kill me dead. And, like I said, God knows what’s coursing through those veins. You saw her, right? Did she look even vaguely human?”

“No,” I agreed. “So, if she eats energy, how do we counter that? She can’t be too affected by cold. I mean, she clearly controls it.”

“What about antifreeze?” Sebastian asked. “What if we blasted her with hot water and antifreeze straight from the radiator? Maybe, if nothing else, we could overload her…. Yeah, this could work. Turn off the engine. I’ve got an idea.”

Switching the ignition off meant no more heat. In the dangerous snowfall, it made no sense. As I hesitated, I felt someone pull at the truck’s door. I had to twist in my seat to double-check that it was locked. Sebastian reached across the seat and pulled out the keys.

“Distract her,” he said, opening the passenger’s side door and disappearing into the snow.

“Distract her? With what, my good looks?” I shouted at the open door. Two seconds later it registered: there was an open door.

Slowly taking form, Fonn materialized out of the snow. First, I noticed the black pits of eyes. Next I saw snow-white hair slashing wildly around her inhuman face. She crawled across the seat toward me, slowly, like a cat stalking its prey. Bitter wind blasted me, freezing the tips of my nose and ears.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I screamed. Screeched, really—all high-pitched and useless. I even started fumbling with the locks, slipping and scrabbling like a classic horror-film babe, until I remembered my purse. I made a snatch for it, and in a second, my fingers found the Mace where it always hung on the chain next to my keys.

Pulling out the tiny canister, I pointed the nozzle at those razor-sharp teeth. I let rip a big, nasty blast of the stuff.

Fonn reared back with a painful shriek. She pawed at her face.

I didn’t wait to see how quickly she might recover. Besides, discharging the pepper spray in an enclosed space had unintended consequences, like my own eyes starting to water. This time deftly flipping the lock, I scrambled out of the truck. Once outside, I slammed the door. I hadn’t really meant to shut it quite so hard, but the wind propelled it out of my hand.

Snow raged around me in blinding swirls. Momentarily, I lost sight of the truck even though I was standing right beside it. For a second, I thought maybe I’d blinded myself with the Mace. Then the truck reappeared in a gust of wind. I slapped my hands on to the metal frame so as not to lose it again.

“Sebastian,” I shouted into the squall. “Where are you?”

I strained to hear anything beyond the rush of air, and I inched forward toward the hood of the vehicle. Oh, it would so not be good to lose my boyfriend on his birthday. I started to feel a real quiver of panic as the storm continued to bluster. I couldn’t see anything. Snow slid into the tops of my boots as I sank knee-deep with each step. I felt like I was climbing forward into empty space.

“Sebastian!”

At this point, I might even have been grateful to see Fonn. Any sign that I wasn’t completely swept away into nothingness would have been welcome.

As if on cue, claws snipped at my back. Talons pierced my coat and scratched skin.

I tried to run. I tripped over something and lost my grip on the truck. My entire world became snow. There was snow in my mouth, my eyes, my nose, covering my face, and surrounding my body. I felt suffocated by cold. I started really screaming—deep, terrified-for-your-life bawling.