Frost Burn

by Erica Stevens

  “What was that?” Angie asked breathlessly. Everything within her went completely still as she strained to hear another sound. It remained completely silent, unnaturally so. “Quinn?”

  Quinn lifted her finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. She studied the roof over their heads. There were no trees in the area, nothing could have fallen onto the roof, but a vampire wouldn’t have been so loud and obvious. Not unless they were trying to create a distraction. Quinn dropped the rag onto the table and took a step away.

  Her eyes searched the inside of the bar, but whatever was happening outside hadn’t made its way inside, yet. “Stay there,” she commanded Angie.

  “Quinn,” she whispered with a trembling lower lip.

  Reaching the front of the bar, she slid to the side of the large, plate glass window. She stared outside, passed the cursive Clint’s emblazoned on the glass. Melissa, Zach and Lou stood across the street. Melissa shifted back and forth and cupped her hands to blow on them. None of them showed any sign of having heard the noise.

  Her head tipped back to stare at the roof. The other buildings were close enough someone could jump from one rooftop to another; kids had done it in the past during the daytime. If it was only teens out on the town, looking to have some fun up there, why would they be loud on the initial landing, but not make a sound afterward? She cast a glance at Angie, she was as pale as the rag in her hand.

  “I’ll be right back,” Quinn told her. “Keep watch up here.”

  Angie watched her walk around the bar and toward the back; she didn’t move a muscle. Quinn stepped into the hall leading to the kitchen doors. Before she approached the doors, she bent down to pull one of the stakes from her boot and a knife from the holster strapped to her side.

  She stopped outside of the swinging doors to the kitchen and placed her foot against one of them. Carefully, she pushed it open and craned her neck to look inside the small room. The stainless steel counters of the island in the middle of the room shone in the light. She pushed the door open further to reveal the shining silver stove and fridge before she stepped into the room. The harsh scent of the stringent cleaning chemicals made her nose wrinkle.

  Only twenty feet across the room was the backdoor. She could see the deadbolt still in the locked position and the window in the door remained unbroken. Her gaze ran over the small room as she cautiously advanced on the door.

  She walked past the pizza oven and the fry station, before stepping around the island. Her eyes constantly flitted around as she waited for something to jump out at her. If she’d still had breath, she would have stopped breathing, as it was her body vibrated with the adrenaline pulsating through her tensed muscles. She kept her hands up by her head, ready to drive her weapons into anything that came at her.

  She didn’t dare bend down to search under the island, it would leave her too exposed if she did, but she was gripped with the certainty a hand was going to shoot out and seize hold of her ankle. It would be the last time that hand gripped anything, she’d make sure of it.

  She’d assumed making it to the backdoor would ease some of her tension; she’d been wrong. Pulling aside the curtain, she peered out at the night. Shadows from the streetlights lining the road danced and played across the sand and the roadway behind the building.

  She spotted Luther at the back of the building, staring at the roof, but she didn’t see Chris with him. Placing the knife handle between her teeth, she swiftly turned the deadbolt and pulled the door open. She took the knife out of her mouth and braced herself as she nudged the door the rest of the way open with her foot.

  Luther turned toward her and shook his head no in response to her questioning look. She craned her head and looked up and down for Chris; she didn’t see him near the garage or anywhere out in the sandy desert behind the bar. A chilly wind blew the hair back from her face, the hair on her neck stood on end as she felt eyes watching her.

  She was about to step forward when something dropped down from the roof in front of her. At first she was so surprised she took a startled step back. Then, as she stared at what she barely processed was a face before her, she realized its sudden entrance was nothing compared to its grisly appearance.

  What the hell is that? Her mind screamed at her, but the more she tried to assimilate what it could possibly be, the less she knew about it.

  It hung upside down, its feet gripping the edge of the roof so it could dangle into the doorway like a wacked out bat. A hiss escaped it, cracked and bloody lips skimmed back to reveal fangs far too long to fit into its mouth. A full thirty seconds went by before she realized the black cloud hanging into the middle of the door was hair. The unsightly hair would have been amusing in any other circumstances, now it only added to the unrecognizability of this creature.

  Red eyes gleamed at her, blood ran from its mouth, up its cheek, around its right eye and dripped onto the floor. Vampire. And yet, somehow, that made no sense either. The features were strangely distorted, and not because it was acting like Batman, but because they were scrunched together in a way she’d never seen before.

  With a croaking yelp that reminded her of a stepped on bullfrog, the thing flipped from the roof and landed in the doorway. A sinking sensation crashed through her body. She’d been expecting some kind of cracked out elf, not that elves existed to her knowledge, or some other strange ass creature she’d never heard of. She had not been expecting what stared back at her.

  The hair was going the right way now, but it was still a tangled puff around the distorted features. Blood trickled down its chin; the single drop falling on the floor was as loud as a gunshot in her ears. She realized now why the features were so distorted as she stared at the small four-foot frame across from her.

  A child’s face wasn’t designed to contain the fangs or the fiery eyes blazing like a demon’s at her. A girl, she realized though it was only a guess and mostly because of the long hair. That strange, squashed bullfrog sound escaped it again before it charged.

  Quinn had been so thrown off by the realization there was a vampire child standing across from her that she hadn’t been fully prepared for its attack. Lunging to the side, she rolled across the steel island in the center of the kitchen and landed on the other side. She spun, her knife and stake at the ready, but she had no idea what she was going to do with either of them as the child turned toward her. The idea of plunging either weapon into the child made her stomach burn with acid.

  Not since The Exorcist had she seen a child as frightening as the one on the other side of the kitchen. If this thing started spitting pea soup at her, she wouldn’t be the least bit amazed, and it would have made more sense to her right now.

  The child came back at her again screaming as rage made its tiny features even more indiscernible. At least she assumed it was screaming; the hideous croaking noise was all that came out, but its mouth was open and its hands waved through the air as if it were trying to frighten away a bear.

  Quinn leapt onto the two steel carts used to move dishes around and went to leap off again. The child charged straight into the carts, roughly shoving them backwards. Quinn’s arms spun, she leapt off of the back cart and landed on the first like some kind of demented surfer.

  Her clumsy leap brought her right in front of the girl. She couldn’t kill a child, but as spittle flew from its mouth and its teeth clacked from the snapping of its jaws, she realized she might not have a choice in the matter.

  “What is that?”

  She didn’t turn at the sound of Chris’s gasp; instead, she danced away from the grotesque fangs in the child’s small face. The fangs sliced into the bottom of the young girl’s chin, causing more blood to flow forth. She now understood the trail of blood trickling down the child’s face when it had been hanging upside down.

  Needing to put some distance between them, Quinn did a backflip off the cart and landed soundlessly on solid ground. Better than a torpedo honing in on its target, the child’s eyes followed her. When the young girl
charged at her this time, she was more prepared for it.

  With a graceful dart to the side, she left Chris in the girl’s direct line of attack. His mouth dropped; he braced his legs apart in preparation for the attack. Before the child could reach him, Quinn launched forward and brought it down. The spitting noises escaping it caused her skin to crawl, the child flailed wildly at the ground, but she refused to let go.

  Quinn dodged the tiny fingers trying to tear the flesh from her face as she pressed the child more firmly into the floor. Those awful sounds wouldn’t stop. Unexpected tears burned in her eyes; she’d once been in a position similar to this, once been helpless and unable to escape. She fought the tears back as she succeeded in pinning the child’s arms to the floor. Her head bowed, she took a minute to steady herself before looking at Chris.

  Chris no longer stood in the door; instead, Julian loomed within the frame. His broad shoulders encompassed the doorway; his ruby colored eyes met hers over the thrashing head of the child.

  “Are you ok?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes held hers for a minute before sliding to the child. “I’ll take her.”

  For once, she was more than willing to hand over control of something to him. She slid away from the child’s back when he knelt to take hold of her. Luther shoved past Chris and moved closer to the child, his face was stony as he stared at the girl. The sound of her name coming from the other room caused Quinn to shoot to her feet.

  “Who is that?” Julian asked.

  “Angie,” she whispered. “I’ll be back.”

  She hastily returned her weapons to their hiding places and smoothed back her hair as she fled the kitchen. Angie was coming around the corner when she emerged from the kitchen. “Is everything ok?”

  “Fine,” Quinn replied smoothly. “Just a raccoon.”

  “Mighty big raccoon.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn muttered.

  “I thought I heard some banging in the kitchen, did it get inside?”

  “I got it back out,” Quinn assured her.

  “I should have helped you.”

  “That’s ok. We had to make sure someone didn’t try to break in the front.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Angie murmured.

  “I probably should have left the raccoon for Clint tomorrow.”

  Angie released a short burst of laughter as she shook her head. “We’d both be out of a job then.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn agreed, but her eyes slid back to the closed kitchen doors and the horror that lay beyond.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Quinn stepped out the front door with Angie then locked it behind them. She slid the keys into her pocket and climbed down the steps with far more calm than she felt. Her body was twitchy with the urge to double around to the back, see what was going on, and help the others.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow!” Angie called and branched off to the left, toward her apartment.

  Quinn watched until she was out of sight before turning to go behind the restaurant. She didn’t make it all the way through her turn before she smacked up against a solid chest. Startled, she took an abrupt step back and shook her head. He moved as noiselessly as a wraith if he’d managed to sneak up on her, either that or she was way off her game.

  Despite the fact she was annoyed with herself, she couldn’t help but admire the way the moonlight lit his white blond hair and shimmered across eyes made even more arctic by the hostile air surrounding him. His gaze went to where Angie had disappeared before settling on her. With a sharp jerk of his head, he indicated the small alley between Clint’s and the bank next door.

  “How is the girl?” Quinn asked anxiously. “Is there something we can do to help her?”

  “No.” His blunt tone caused her to stumble over her feet a little.

  “What do you mean no?” she demanded. “There has to be something we can do.”

  “She’s dead.”

  Quinn’s mouth dropped, for the first time in her life, she believed she might throw up. “What?”

  Julian turned toward her. “There was nothing we could do for her, Quinn,” he said quietly. “The few children who survive the change are crazed monsters, but she didn’t survive it.”

  “I saw her,” she whispered. “She was alive.”

  “She wasn’t done with the change. She was too small. Her body couldn’t handle the influx of vampire blood, her system shut down. It was for the best; she would have been irrational and we would have had to put her down anyway. Children can’t handle the thirst; they can’t control themselves. There’s a reason why vampires can’t procreate.”

  Her gaze drifted back toward the bar; she couldn’t shake the sickness in her stomach. “She was so helpless, so broken.”

  He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her against his chest. She pressed her hands against the unyielding flesh of his ridged abdomen. To curl up in his arms and lose herself was an enticing prospect, but it wasn’t a possibility. Not today, not ever. She didn’t respond to his hold on her, but he kept his hand around her head. He bent and placed a kiss against her cheek.

  “We have to get back in there.”

  She nodded at his words and reluctantly stepped away from him. His eyes were still frigid when they came back to hers, but his face had softened a little. She walked with him to the kitchen door and braced herself before stepping inside.

  Melissa was kneeling by the child; tearstains streaked her face, but she’d stopped crying. Chris stood on the other side of the island, his hands rested on the steel. He glanced up at Julian, but his attention quickly returned to his hands. Lou and Luther knelt on the other side of the child; Zach had retreated to stand by the stove.

  “It’s the same girl,” Melissa whispered. “She looked far different, but this was the same little girl in my vision.”

  Images flipped rapidly through Quinn’s mind, screams echoed in her head as she stared at the body. The past surged up around her, it tried to pull her into its murky depths and bury her beneath an avalanche of fear and misery.

  “How is that possible?” Quinn managed to get out. “I thought we were looking for a human. There were no vampires, other than the two of us, in the bar the night of the fight.”

  Luther leaned back and rested his arm over his bent knees. “I have no idea.”

  Despite herself, she felt her eyes flicker to Julian. He’d been the one saying the killer was a human. Melissa hadn’t seen who the killer was in her vision, and he’d been away while the girl had been changed. No matter how much she tried to push it away, she couldn’t stop the suspicion growing within her.

  She hated it; she didn’t want to be skeptical of him. She’d trusted him with things she’d never trusted anyone with, but she couldn’t shake her growing uncertainty. His gaze slid to hers, and though she wanted to look away, she forced herself to meet it head on. She would know if he had done this, she would know if he was a killer, wouldn’t she?

  His gaze burned into hers, she knew he wasn’t a mind reader, but she became certain he knew exactly what she was thinking. Hurt flickered through his eyes before he turned away from her. Standing there, she felt more exposed now than she had when she’d revealed her hideous secret to him. She had every right to doubt him; he hadn’t been here when this girl had been changed, and he had been a killer.

  Then why do I feel so awful about it? She wondered as he turned his back on her.

  “Whoever is doing this is playing with us,” Julian said. “They sent this child here to prove that to us.”

  “Why would they do that?” Melissa asked.

  “Because they’re letting us know they’re here, and they’re coming for us.”

  Quinn couldn’t tear her gaze away from his back. Who would be coming for them, vampires she wasn’t even sure existed, or him?

  Julian’s mind spun as he stared at the ceiling and tried to sift through everything that had happened tonight. The killer was a vampire, but he knew there h
ad only been two vampires in the bar the night of the fight. He also knew he wasn’t the vampire who had caused the events of last night to unfold and neither was Quinn.

  The only problem was Quinn didn’t know both of those truths. He’d seen the look in her eyes last night, the uncertainty, and the doubt. She was looking at him with far more doubts about his innocence than he was at her.

  He’d been a heartless, murdering bastard once. He’d told her as much; he couldn’t blame her for doubting him now.

  So then why did it make him feel like a razor was repeatedly slicing at his deadened heart? He’d loved two women in his life. One had created a monster when she’d turned him, and the other had helped him to become a man again. And now there was Quinn, a woman who affected him in ways that neither Victoria, his creator, nor Cassie, his savior, ever had.

  She frustrated him and made him feel protective but even more, he realized Chris and Melissa had been right. He’d always known Victoria had never truly cared for him, and that Cassie’s heart could never be his. When Quinn looked at him, she didn’t see him as a toy she could play with and turn into a monster like Victoria had. She didn’t look at him like a friend and battle partner like Cassie did.

  No, when Quinn looked at him she simply saw a man. When she’d kissed him, she’d done so with enthusiasm and an openness he’d never experienced before, or at least she had before the events of tonight had placed misgivings into her head.

  Unlike Victoria, she had a soul to care for him with. Unlike Cassie, she had a heart that didn’t already belong to someone else. This wasn’t love between them, but damn if she hadn’t wormed her way into his heart with her unshakeable pride and determination, yet there was a vulnerability within her that touched a piece of his soul. He would do anything he could to keep her safe.

  Rolling off the couch, he climbed to his feet and stretched his cramped muscles. This couch was far more pleasant than the other one, but a bed would be better. Preferably, the one in the room next door, but he had a saint’s chance in Hell of getting in there after last night.