Hell Hath No Fury Like a Glaciate Scorned

“I’m home, Electra. I picked up that generator you wanted,” Agent Ellis Eaton yells.

Ellis looks around the kitchen. Battered pots and pans litter the floor. The refrigerator door has been ripped off its hinges. Torn photographs are scattered like confetti. Electra’s copper bracelet lies abandoned on the kitchen table alongside a note.

Ellis,

Love was the energy that gave us the strength to battle against the storm seeking to drive us apart.  Now, my heart, like the storm, has broken.

Ellis hurriedly dials his partner's number at the E.B.I. (Extraordinary Bureau of Investigation).

“Electra saw the pictures of us. She’s gone.”

                                               ***

Karla Ketchum returns to the kitchen after surveying the Eaton’s devastated domicile, where Ellis sits swigging a beer. She thinks her handsome, olive-skinned co-worker's anxiety makes him look much smaller than his six-plus feet.

Tall and shapely, with fair hair, piercing blue eyes, a pale complexion, and a husky, enticing voice, Karla ponders why Ellis married a social recluse whose only interest seemed to be electric gadgets.

“She had a real meltdown, all right, over a few innocent pictures.”

“They were hardly innocent, and you know it,” Ellis says.

“I told you to get rid of them.”

“She always said she thought something was going on between us.”

“She was right. So, she’s gone. Good. I tried Ellis, but I never liked Electra. She was a recluse. The only thing I ever saw her do was read Electricity Today Magazine.”

“You don’t have to help me look for her.”

Karla balls up her fists. “How dare you! How long have we been partners?”

“…Five years…”

“Which is three years longer than you’ve been married to magneto woman,” Karla points out. “Our weekends of weakness aside, you saved me from a pack of fire-breathing Mondorian Dragons using just a fire extinguisher, and I saved you from a Tricerebrus by slicing off all three of its heads. We’re partners. Our bond is different from the one you shared with her.”

“Our relationship was brief, dangerous, and fun. My relationship with Electra cut much deeper…Maybe I should go after her alone. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“It’s a little late for that, lover,” Electra rasps.

“I mean physically hurt. Electra is a Glaciate.”

“She’s an alien?”

“Technically. She’s more like a phantom or a spirit.”

“Then you should have been studying her instead of sleeping with her,” Karla replies. “The E.B.I.  has a no fraternization law concerning other species. You could be fired or go to prison. So, you’re not really married after all...”

“No.”

“We’ll have to talk about that. What’s she capable of?”

“A Glaciate can summon blizzards at will and control snow and ice. Electra’s home environment is severely cold. Twenty degrees below zero is considered warm. Glaciates mate for life and put a high value on fidelity and trust.”

“…Oops. I guess we should have, too… Well, she doesn’t have a driver’s license. She can’t have gone far.”

“Glaciates can travel on a gust of wind. But their most dangerous trait is how they feed. They can freeze a person with a glance. Then they suck the energy out of them.”

“How many beers have you had?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Then how in the world did you avoid being freeze-dried?”  Karla asks. “And where did you meet a Glaciate?”

“Two and a half years ago, near the Montagne Hotel in Raquette.”

                                               ***

Ellis is enjoying his second cup of coffee, comfortably watching the blizzard take shape, when Beverly Lippe, another hotel guest, rushes into the dining room.

“Help! I hit someone! I think I killed them!”

Moses and Sunflower, a bushy pair of nerdy Gen Zs, rush to Beverly’s side.

Sunflower comforts Beverly.

“Where is she?” Ellis asks.

“I was skiing near the top of Petroff’s Peak. It started snowing pretty hard, so I decided to come back. The storm turned into a whiteout. I could barely see the road. It was like she flew in front of my car! I was going to help her, but she got up and flew away!”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Moses asks. “People who get hit by cars generally don’t get up and fly away.”

“I know I sound crazy, but the wind blew her away! I tried to follow her, but she didn’t leave any tracks!”

“We’d better call the police and an ambulance,” Sunshine states.

“In the meantime,” Ellis says, “do you two feel like forming a search party?”

                                               ***

Ellis climbs the north side of Petroff’s peak. His cell phone is dead, and he lost contact with Moses and Sunshine half an hour ago when they ascended the other side of the mountain.

The snow pelts him relentlessly as he raises his goggles to get his bearings.

A mound of snow catches Ellis’s attention. A pair of shoes is sticking out of it.

Thinking it’s a dead body, he cautiously approaches it, brushing away the snow.

A beautiful woman with long black hair and violet eyes, wearing a thin, white blouse and skirt, lies in the snow. He gently shakes her awake.

She pops up, smiling innocently. “Can you help me? I got lost and must have passed out from hunger…”

“You might have frostbite. Don’t worry, I’ll get you to a doctor.”

“No. No doctor.”

“Let me help you. I’ll carry you back to the hotel.”

The woman stands, looking Ellis over. “All the people I’ve met have wanted to hurt me. Do you really want to help me?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“…I need energy…”

The woman opens her mouth. A wave of frigid air bursts from her mouth into Ellis. Sliding down his throat, it steals his breath, freezing his limbs.

The woman’s body blurs, disappearing into their icy surroundings.

Ellis closes his eyes; certain he’ll freeze to death.

                                               ***

Ellis can feel his blood coursing through his veins again as a calming warmth spreads throughout his body. Opening his eyes, he gasps when he finds himself lying on his bed in the hotel.

The woman hovers nearby. “I’m Electra. I would have ceased to exist if you hadn’t found me. Your life force saved me. Amore vincti sumus. Your act of love has bonded us together.”

Electra explains to Ellis who and what she is.

“So, the woman who hit you…”

“Wasn’t delusional.”

Ellis slides away from Electra.

“I can’t hurt you. I love you.”

“Kindness isn’t love. Besides, you hardly know me.”

“Ellis Eaton, born May 24, 1989, in Penn Yan, New York. Parents: John and Tammy. Marital status: single. Occupation: Agent for the Extraordinary Bureau of Investigation. Heart rate seventy-five beats per minute and rising…”

“Okay, so you googled my name while I was napping. But do you even know what love is?”

“More so than you. Glaciates love with our hearts, souls, and minds, as well as our bodies.”

Ellis laughs nervously. “So, it’s a coincidence that I happen to be an agent for the E.B.I., and you’re an alien needing help?”

“No. The Great Maker willed this. We’re meant to be together. You’ll see.”

Ellis blushes. “You must be pretty hungry and thirsty. I’ll go down to the kitchen and get us some sandwiches.”

He gives Electra a satisfied, silly grin as he opens the door.

Moses and Sunshine pass by. Backtracking, Moses tells Ellis, “It’s too bad we never found that woman.”

“She must have been a figment of Beverly’s imagination,” Ellis offers. “She hit a deer and was so shaken up that she thought it was a person.”

Sunshine waves at Electra. “Who’s your friend?”

Ellis tenses up as the couple moves toward Electra.

“C’mon in,” Electra says cordially.

                                               ***

Ellis returns a few minutes later with a tray of food.

Moses and Sunshine stand motionless in the center of the room, their bodies covered in frost.

Ellis drops the tray.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Electra says casually. “I think it’s time we checked out.”

                                               ***

Karla glances at Ellis’s remorseful expression as he tightens his grip around the car’s steering wheel.

“…She’d sucked the life right out of them…”

“And you left them there, frozen like popsicles?”

“I watched them melt into the carpet.”

“And you never worried that she could do that to you, too?”

“She swore she loved me.”

Karla rolls her eyes. “Men are such idiots. A kiss, a shag, and you turn into sheep. She had to kill to stay alive. How did you manage to keep her under control?”

“The Inhibitor. She created it and gave it to me. It’s a copper bracelet she wore that dampened her lust for energy.”

Karla reaches into her jacket pocket, pulling out the Inhibitor.

“Is that what this thing is?”

“You took it from my house?”

“Relax, I’m not a klepto or a thief. I was intrigued by the inscription,” Karla explains.

She shows him the writing on the inside of the bracelet.

“It reads, ‘Non timeo te mecum esse.’ Roughly translated from your alien companion’s language, it means, ‘I have no fear as long as you are with me.’”

“I wasn’t aware you spoke Glaciate.”

“There’s a lot of things about me that would surprise you, Ellis. So, let me get this straight… You kept a woman, or should I say, a dangerous female creature you say you loved, a prisoner…”

“She was free to go whenever she wanted.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Ellis,” Karla says dryly. “You should have turned her in to our office.”

“I couldn’t bear to see her stuffed into an eight-by-six-foot cell, studied, interrogated, beaten, maybe even dissected.”

“So, the Inhibitor allowed you to become an interstellar Ozzie and Harriet and live happily ever after, right? NOT.”

“You’re right. Electra needed energy to survive. She could tap into the house’s electricity for a fix. You should see our monthly electric bill; it’s bigger than some factories. And I wasn’t aware that she slipped from time to time. I came home early once and saw the UPS man covered in frost. A few minutes later, he was just a puddle of water on the kitchen floor. It made me wonder how many other people she’d made disappear. Still, I thought we were safe and happy. Then I came home today…”

“…Hell hath no fury like a Glaciate scorned,” Karla says. “So, where do we look for her?”

“She liked going to the Hotel Montagne, where we met. She called it our second home.”

                                               ***

Antique dealer Glasgow St. Howe moans as he looks at his van’s shredded front tire.

“I told you it wouldn’t last the trip,” his partner, Brighton Sussex, scolds, scanning the surrounding grey sky. “Looks like that squall the weatherman predicted is turning into a blizzard. What do we do now?”

Glasgow points at the shabby motel across the street.

“Really? Stay in that fleabag? The sound of the cockroaches doing the Watusi across my crusty sheets will keep me up all night.”

Glasgow wipes the snow off his bifocals. “We could sleep in the van.”

“Not the way you snore. I need my own space. But I bet their continental breakfast bagels are stale.”

“What makes you think they even serve breakfast?” Glasgow replies.

The temperature begins to plummet, and the dancing flurries turn into a wall of blinding snow.

“Jeepers, we’ll be lucky to find our way across the street,” Brighton complains.

Glasgow’s response stalls in his throat.

“Did you see that?” he asks.

“You mean the pretty woman in white who floated past? Nope.”

                                               ***

A veteran of two tours in Iraq, Abner “Spike” Toughy, Regional Director for the Upper New York E.B.I., respects his enemies. Watching bounty hunter Draxus Bloodworth strip the skin off a Cobraceros through a one-way mirror, Toughy isn’t sure who the enemy really is.

Bald and ghostly pale with pointy ears, dark circles under his eyes, fangs, and long, sharp nails, Draxus Bloodworth looks as monstrous as the creatures he torments.

Bound to an examining table, the ten-foot, snake-like Cobraceros wails in agony, passing out.

“You’re next,” Draxus says to a second Cobraceros.

The Cobraceros tries to snap its constraints. “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you where my brethren are hiding! Just stop torturing us!”

                                               ***

Toughy is about to hand Draxus a fat cash envelope when his cell phone rings.

“Hello… Yes, Ellis, we’ve been getting reports about a Glaciate in Raquette… You’re certain she’s headed for the Hotel Montagne? … There’s a blizzard there?... Keep me appraised of the situation… We’ll send back up ASAP…”

Toughy hands Draxus the envelope.

“Twenties and hundreds, as you requested. We won’t be needing your services anymore, Bloodworth. Your methods are too inhumane.”

“They have to be to interrogate aliens.”

“If you don’t understand my reasoning, your answer proves my point.”

Walking away, Draxus mutters, “…I’ve never been dropped from a chopper in a snowstorm. Should be fun. I wonder how much China or Russia would pay for a Glaciate…”

                                               ***

Karla’s phone pings yet again.

“Another weather report?” Ellis asks.

“Yeah. That blizzard we’re heading into? Guess where its center is located?

The car fishtails. Ellis bites his lower lip.

“Easy, Ellis, I don’t want to have to walk to the hotel. And don’t worry about Electra. We’ll throw down a few double A batteries, stick some live electrical wires in the snow, and make a nice thousand-volt snack for her. She’ll come to us like a bee to honey.”

“Providing we get there first. Now that we’ve told Toughy we’re chasing a Glaciate, I have a feeling Draxus Bloodworth is going to know too…”

“The bounty hunter?”

“He’s a sadist. And he has a Liquidator…”

                                               ***

Officer Frank Buck squints, trying to see through the carpet of snow pelting his car’s windshield.

“Holy mackerel!”

Flashing his lights, Officer Buck pulls alongside a woman in a gauzy white blouse and thin, tapered pants.

He rolls down his window, the wind howling above his gruff voice.

“What in the name of Frosty the Snowman are you doing?”

“I’m going home.”

His astonishment wanes as he drinks in the woman’s beauty. “And where would that be?”

“The Montagne Hotel.”

“It’s about four miles from here. If you haven’t noticed, you’re not dressed for a blizzard,” Officer Buck says. “You can get hypothermia walking around like that.”

“I like the cold. How many people are staying at the hotel?”

“A dozen or so.”

A gust of bone-chilling wind muffles Electra’s response.

“Mmm. A smorgasbord.”

“What? Get in. I’ll drive you to the hotel.”

“That’s okay. I’ll drive myself.”

A translucent beam of light bursts from Electra’s mouth. It streams down Officer Buck’s throat, cutting off his scream. Unable to move, he feels his strength ebbing away as his body freezes.

                                               ***

A woman’s scream catches Draxus’s attention.

The tortured wails of two men follow.

Draxus knows the sound of the crackling of the logs in the fireplace will attract whoever is responsible for the noise.

Electra kicks the door open, lingering in the doorway. Despite the room’s cozy warmth, Draxus feels a chill invade the room.

Electra is momentarily bewildered by Draxus’s cadaverous appearance.

“I know what you are. You’re a Carrion. Your race are hunters.”

“And you’re the prey,” Draxus replies, his fangs glistening.

“There’s quite a contrast between us. Beauty and the Beast.”

“Not from where I stand. You’ve murdered as many creatures in an afternoon as I have in my entire career. You’re just as ugly as I am.”

Electra smacks her lips.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Very.”

“I’d call room service, but a cheeseburger might not satisfy you.”

“The more you resist, the more it’s going to hurt,” Electra says.

Reaching into his back pocket, Draxus takes out a silver cylinder the size of a pen.

“This is going to hurt you way more than me.”

Ellis and Karla race to the doorway as a beam from the Liquidator hits Electra between the eyes. The smell of electrical wires burning fills the room.

Ellis charges into the room. Diving at Draxus, Ellis knocks the Liquidator from his hand but suffers the dizzying effect of the bounty hunter’s powerful punches.

Leaving Ellis in a heap on the floor, Draxus rises, facing Electra.

“My turn,” she utters confidently.

A crystalline beam of light shoots from Electra’s mouth into Draxus’s maw. He struggles to get free from it, his eyes rolling back as his body shakes violently. A veil of frost engulfs him, freezing him with his long nails reaching out for Electra’s neck.

Laughing, Electra breaks off one of his hands, tossing it into the fire.

“Play time’s over, Electra!” Karla shouts.

Electra blows a cloud of frost at Karla, which makes her shiver when it hits her body.

“No, it’s game on. First, I’ll freeze you, home wrecker. Then, I’ll turn Ellis into a block of ice.”

“Glaciates can’t harm someone they love.”

“I don’t love him anymore. Confodite me, mitte me, et sanabo, sed frangam cor meum, et vulnus durat in aeternum.”

“Stab me, shoot me, and I’ll heal, but break my heart, and the wound lasts forever… If I didn’t hate you, Electra, I’d almost feel sorry for you. Jean Genet wrote, ‘Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.’ Maybe you should have read some of his books instead of sticking your mug in Electricity Today Magazine.”

Karla bull rushes Electra, burying her head in her chest. Grunting, Electra falls backward into the burning fire.

Pinning Electra’s hand, Karla pulls the Inhibitor from her pocket, forcing it onto Electra’s wrist.

Her strength and anger sapped by the bracelet’s calming properties, Electra shrieks as her hair catches fire. She tries to rise, but Karla keeps her pinned down, gritting her teeth as Electra’s screams fade to whispers and her beautiful features liquify.

                                               ***

Ellis wakes up in Karla’s arms.

“Electra! Where is she?”

Karla points to a trickle of water by the fireplace.

“Draxus killed her. The last words she spoke were about you.”