Scorched Ice

by Erica Stevens

  Quinn gulped and ducked back. If those bolts had all unleashed last night, they would have been dead, but then Herb would have given away his hiding place to the vamps in the woods. Cassie and Devon wouldn’t have left here until they’d managed to flush the rat from his hole.

  Herb must have something rigged beneath the porch to release so many bolts simultaneously like that. “How many more bolts do you think he has rigged like that?” she asked Julian.

  “I don’t know,” he muttered.

  The sun would soon be breaching the distant mountains; they didn’t have much time left. If Herb wasn’t able to travel under the cabin too, they might be able to go around the back and head for the woods there, or they could be making themselves wide open targets by doing so.

  Even if they all made it to the woods, they would have to leave Devon, Chris, Melissa, Lou, Dani, and Luther here to guard Herb. The idea of leaving her friends alone to face Herb made her stomach churn.

  Quinn glanced at the sky as a pinkish hue crept over the mountains in the distance. They only had fifteen minutes at most before the rays of the sun reached them. The anxiety rolling through her belly now had nothing to do with the rat they’d uncovered and everything to do with the rising sun. They had to get out of here, soon.

  Julian glanced at the garage and then at the ruined sides of the porch. “I have a plan,” he said to her. “Stay here.”

  “Julian!” she cried, but he was already moving across the yard and to the garage with enough speed that he became a blur.

  When he entered an area where he had to cross in front of the porch in order to get to the garage doors, three more bolts released. He dodged the first two and sprinted into the garage as the third embedded itself in the door right where his head would have been. Quinn’s fangs lengthened as bloodlust rolled forth. She’d happily tear the throat out of this bastard.

  Then, her eyes fell to her feet and the wooden siding of the house behind her. Keeping her back to the cabin, she inched her feet away from the house at the thought of Herb being able to travel underneath it.

  She tried to control the crushing feeling gripping her chest as she waited for bolts to explode out of the wood and into her ankles. Or worse, for an arm to slide out and slice her Achilles tendon with a knife. She’d seen that happen in a movie once; not only had it made her wince to watch, but it was a scene she’d never forget. Sweat beaded on her brow as she became increasingly certain something was about to explode out of the foundation behind her.

  Her eyes darted between her vulnerable feet and the garage as she waited for Julian to come back. What if Herb had set up a trap in the garage too that they had missed? What if Julian was in trouble right now? The wood beneath her fingers broke away from the cabin when her fingers tore into it.

  Just as she was about to launch herself away from the wall and run for the garage, Julian reemerged from the building with chains draped around his shoulders. He ran in a zigzagging pattern, dodging the bolts firing at him as he raced back to her. She wanted to strangle him when he arrived at her side; instead she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

  “Don’t do that again!” she scolded.

  He kissed her cheek and then her ear before stepping back from her. She watched as he pulled the chains from around his neck and removed a blowtorch from inside of his jacket. “Blowtorch is the last resort,” he said. “For all we know, we could burn this whole place down and whatever Herb is hiding in could withstand it. We need to uncover him, which means getting rid of the porch.”

  He leaned cautiously out to wrap the chain around the railing of the porch.

  “It will collapse on him,” she whispered.

  “Maybe not if I go fast enough,” he said.

  “You can’t expose yourself to him again.”

  “We have no choice. I’m not taking the chance of him escaping,” Julian replied as he took the rest of the chain and threw it across the remains of the porch to Vern. “Wrap some of it around that beam and throw the rest back to me,” Julian commanded.

  Vern inched his way out to snatch the chain from where the end of it had fallen on the shredded top stair. The chain rattled as he twisted it around a beam before tossing the rest of it back to Julian.

  “We don’t have much time, Boss,” he said to Julian when the chain crashed against the railing inches away from Julian.

  “I know,” he replied, but she knew he wouldn’t leave here until it became absolutely necessary.

  Quinn’s gaze went to the vampires in the woods. Surprise filled her when she saw all of them still standing there. She’d expected most of them to have fled between the hundreds of crossbow bolts and the rising sun, but they seemed determined to follow this through for as long as they could. Devon had moved forward to stand at the front of the group with Cassie close behind him.

  Quinn’s attention was diverted from them when Julian took hold of her arms and kissed her.

  “Stay here,” he commanded and released her.

  “I can help you with this.”

  He shook his head as he coiled the chain around his fist and gave it a small tug. “I can move faster on my own.”

  Before she could respond, he took off like a sprinter from the starting line. A sprinter with supernatural speed and strength. She was still trying to process where he was when the chain jerked solid, a grinding noise filled the air, and the whole porch tore away from the house. It slid off its foundation like a dock sliding into a pond.

  It continued to move forward for another ten feet before coming to an abrupt halt. Quinn spun toward the remains of the porch to discover the concrete bunker beneath it that the removal of the porch had revealed. Like a groundhog, a man emerged from an opening in the bunker. He pushed open a thick metal door, keeping it at his back as he lifted a rifle to his shoulder, took aim at Julian and started pulling the trigger.

  Herb, she recognized him from the hotel.

  Julian ran in a zigzag pattern across the ground. The earth around his feet kicked up around him from the impact of the bullets. Some of them pelted the garage doors, shredding wood as gunfire rang across the clearing and echoed through the mountains.

  Quinn sprang forward to distract Herb from Julian as Vern lunged forward from the other side of the porch toward their enemy. Seeming to realize retreat was his best option, Herb’s hand closed on the handle of the metal door beside his head at the same time blood burst out the side of his skull.

  Quinn staggered back when Herb convulsively fired a few more shots that cracked off the trees before he slumped over the side of the bunker. Her eyes widened on the bolt that had driven all the way through Herb’s skull until it jutted out the other side of his head.

  Her eyes were drawn to Chris in the doorway as he swung his crossbow over his back and secured it into place. No emotion played over his face while he surveyed Herb’s unmoving form.

  “Nice shot,” Julian said to Chris as he strode past her and toward the body.

  “Told you I wouldn’t hesitate,” Chris replied, and there was a coldness in his eyes she’d never seen from him before.

  “So you did.” Julian knelt beside Herb and slid his fingers into Herb’s thick brown hair. He jerked his head up to peer more closely at him. “It’s Herb.”

  Quinn glanced at Herb’s bugged out eyes before focusing on the bunker Herb had been hiding in. Hundreds of holes lined its concrete walls. Holes that had housed the numerous bolts Herb had unleashed on them. It was an ingenious and disturbing design; she would bet anything that Herb could have survived in the bunker for months at a time.

  Julian abruptly released Herb’s hair and rose to his feet. Pulling Herb from the bunker, he tossed his unmoving body aside. Before she could blink, Julian disappeared inside of it.

  “Julian!” she gasped and rushed forward. She was about to jump in after him when Julian’s hands grasped the sides of the entrance, and he pulled himself out. “Stop doing shit like that!” she snapped at him.

&nbs
p; He rose to his feet and reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.

  “I’m sorry, Dewdrop. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You should start. It’s not just you anymore!”

  “I could never forget.”

  This time when he went to touch her, she didn’t try to stop him. She was still pissed, but they’d almost been killed. She could get angry with him again later. He cradled her cheek with his palm for the briefest of seconds before his hand fell away.

  “What was in there?” Chris asked as he jumped down from the doorway of the cabin, followed by Dani and Melissa.

  “Enough supplies to keep him alive in there for a while, portable toilet, family photos and some medals from Vietnam; they were his father’s. From what I’ve glimpsed, he kept most of those things stored in there and must have been in the process of retrieving them when we arrived. All documents involving The Commission are elsewhere. We have to go.” Julian clasped hold of Quinn’s hand and pulled her away from the wall of the cabin.

  “Where elsewhere?” she asked as they ran across the clearing with the others flanking them. They reached the woods, and the group gathered there.

  “Where the rest of The Commission can be found,” Julian replied. Quinn’s hand squeezed his as all the others exchanged looks.

  “Do you know where that is?” Devon asked.

  “I do, and I have somewhat of an idea on how to get there. We can discuss it later, but we have to get to safety before the sun rises, and to Maine to meet with the others. We’ll talk more there. You have my new number?” he asked Vern.

  “Yes. We’ll be staying at the motel in town for the day. I’ll let you know when we’re on the move again and on our way to Maine.”

  “Good.”

  No one said another word as they raced down the road to the waiting vehicles. The first rays of the sun broke over the horizon as Julian opened the door of the RV and stepped aside to usher Quinn into it. The others all scurried into their vehicles as they sought protection from the sun behind their tinted windows. Julian’s gaze remained on the vamps piling into the van until it took off down the road and back to the town where they’d eaten dinner last night.

  Devon pulled his Challenger up behind the RV as Julian climbed inside and shut the door. He took hold of Quinn’s hand and tugged her toward the back room without another glance at the others. Pulling her inside the room, he closed the sliding door.

  “Julian—”

  She didn’t get a chance to ask how he was before he turned to her, grabbed her waist, and drew her against him. She jerked as the intimate feel of his fangs sinking into her flesh, and her blood being pulled from her caused her body to turn into liquid heat.

  Turning her head, she kissed the tender hollow of the exposed flesh above his jacket. Her lips skimmed back until her fangs scraped over his skin. His fingers dug into her hips as he pressed her closer. Sinking her fangs into his flesh, she moaned when his blood pooled into her mouth in a rich, intoxicating way.

  His exhaustion beat against her while she drank. She caught a brief flash of the images he’d received from Herb’s cabin before he abruptly shut them off. He released his bite on her neck and slid his tongue over her flesh to lick away the last of her blood.

  “Too much. I saw too much from his things,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Retracting her fangs, she leaned back to peer up at him. Shadows marred his eyes; lines that normally weren’t there etched the corners of his mouth. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself,” she said.

  “The Commission must be stopped, and we are so close to doing so.”

  “But not at the cost of you.”

  He didn’t reply as he bent and swept her into his arms. His mouth fell upon hers in a claiming kiss filled with a hunger she could never deny. Every time his lips touched hers, she felt an electric thrill of need. She kept expecting the sensation to fade away, but it only increased until there were times when she wasn’t certain where he ended and she began.

  He laid her on the bed before lowering himself over the top of her.

  CHAPTER 18

  Julian gazed at the sea of faces before him. All of them were vampires, many of them looked a little uncertain about what he’d just laid out to them. There were more vamps here than there had been at the meeting in Arizona. Word had gotten out about what they were trying to do, and it had been confirmed that safe passage was guaranteed for all. Julian had a feeling they wouldn’t have any vamps splitting off from here at the end, like they had in Arizona. Those who were going to continue to kill wouldn’t come, even with safe passage. They wouldn’t want anyone to know who they were.

  The number of vampires in the world was once believed to be as high as fifty thousand, but many of those never made it to Elder status. They’d either been killed by Hunters or other vampires before they could make it to their first month as a vamp, never mind surviving five hundred years as one. Like many of the Hunters, a lot of vampires had also been destroyed during The Slaughter the now dead Elders had unleashed in an attempt to eradicate the Hunter line.

  Many vamps were extremely selective about who they turned. If their existence ever got out to the general population, the chaos that would follow may be the end of them all. It was best if most humans continued to believe they were only a myth. Due to all of those factors, there was no way to know the true number of vamps remaining in the world. The number might be ten thousand on the high side, but Julian believed it to be closer to five thousand.

  Hostility radiated from some of the vamps in the crowd as they glowered at him. Julian knew he’d never been overly liked before he stood shoulder to shoulder with Hunters and Guardians. The fact he could be a dick to almost everyone he encountered was an understatement. Over the years, he’d also killed many of his own kind. There would still be those vampires who would gladly see him dead even as they accepted his protection.

  Quinn remained silent by his side, but her eyes were narrowed on the crowd as they shuffled and spoke with each other in muffled whispers.

  “What if we decide to try to take out the rest of the Hunters and Guardians instead of working with them?” one vamp asked from the back. “From what I understand, there are far less of them left than us.”

  “If you try to make a move on one of them, every one of the vampires with us will be given free rein to destroy you,” Julian replied. “Besides, they’re not your enemies. The vampires who kill for the thrill of it don’t give a shit about you and are only looking for the pleasure of the hunt. Vampires are far more challenging and fun for them to hunt and kill than humans are, believe me, I know. We will help keep you protected from those vamps as well as what remains of The Commission and the Hunters and Guardians they control.”

  More murmurs went through the crowd. In the end, their bickering and hostility were for nothing, because just as he’d expected, none of them walked away.

  “I’m sure Vern, Hadie, and Prue have informed all of you what will happen if you agree to stay,” he said. “You will allow me and Chris to touch you, and there is no way you’re going to get past either one of us if you’re lying.”

  Most of the crowd nodded. Julian braced himself for what was to come from them. The vast number of images he’d taken in from Herb’s things last night still tumbled through his mind, but he could withstand this new influx. He had no other choice. Quinn stayed by his side as each of the vampires came forward to extend their hands to him and then Chris.

  When they were done, Chris looked as if a small breeze would blow him over as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. Julian remained composed with a blank expression on his face. No matter how much he craved crawling into bed with Quinn right now, he could never allow them to see the smallest weakness in him. They had all passed through him and Chris, but some of them would pounce on that weakness in a heartbeat.

  Quinn took hold of his hand. She strengthened him as she slipped some of her life into him in gentle waves that helped him to suppress the numero
us images fluttering through his mind. Many of the things he’d seen tonight he would eventually forget, as they’d been beyond tedious, but some of them would haunt him forever.

  That woman standing at the front of the crowd, Carla, had been brutalized when she’d been turned into a vampire. Carla’s bloodlust upon turning had driven her into a killing frenzy that took three days to sate. Afterward, she’d somehow managed to keep herself restrained from killing again, but she fought every day against the impulse to walk into the sun and never look back.

  The only reason she hadn’t killed herself yet was because her human child still lived. At thirty, her son believed his mother had abandoned him as a child, but she still watched over him and kept him protected. When he was gone, she would watch over her grandchildren too.

  Julian had already asked her, and some of the others, about joining the regulators. Perhaps the work would give Carla more of a purpose in her life. The rest of the newest regulators, he’d chosen because of their strength and abilities as well as what he’d seen from them and Chris’s approval.

  “Now,” he said to the crowd, “you’re all free to leave here, to continue on and live as you did before coming here. We may never have to see each other again. However, you should all know that when we leave here tonight, we will be going to take out the rest of The Commission.”

  All around the sea of faces, jaws dropped, and a few took a couple of steps away from him.

  “You can’t be serious!” someone shouted.

  “I can and I am,” he replied.

  Before they could start to panic, he informed them of what happened in New Mexico and what they’d discovered at Herb’s cabin. He let them know they had succeeded in taking out a member of The Commission and a Hunter working with him. Their eyes all swung to Chris when he told them the Hunter had fired the killing blow against Herb.

  “A Hunter killed one of his creators?” a vampire asked in disbelief.