Frost Burn (The Fire and Ice Series, Book 1)

by Erica Stevens

CHAPTER 17

  Quinn put her hands in Chris’s back and pushed him toward the door. “But we’re supposed to stay with you,” he protested.

  “Not after closing,” she told him.

  “Julian’s going to kick my ass.”

  “And Clint will fire me if he finds out I let anyone stay in here after closing. Stand outside; I’ll be out in half an hour.”

  Melissa and the others were already gathered in the parking lot when they arrived at the door. “But…”

  “Don’t forget there’s a backdoor,” she said and closed the door in his face.

  “Talk about some barflies,” Angie said and shook her head. “I didn’t think they were ever going to leave.”

  “Me either.” Quinn gathered the last of the glasses from the tables and placed them on her tray. She dropped them off at the bar for Angie to put in the washer.

  “Where did Julian go?” Angie asked.

  “He had some things to take care of,” she replied evasively.

  Angie’s eyes were probing when she met Quinn’s gaze. “I think he likes you.”

  Quinn shrugged and began to wipe off the tables. She had no response for her or any idea of what she and Julian were to each other. It was all such a confusing mess, one she would have preferred not to have in her life, yet she also didn’t want him out of her life. She didn’t have a choice on that matter though, not as long as he believed she could possibly become a menace to them if she was caught.

  She’d opened up more to him than anyone else in her life, and then she’d shut him back out again. It had been difficult to do, but necessary. Tonight the reasons why had slapped her over the head again.

  Sometimes she thought he might care for her, and then he reminded her the only reason he was still here was to make sure she couldn’t be used as a weapon if she fell into the wrong hands. Of course that was his number one concern, his heart belongs to another, she reminded herself for the thousandth time.

  It felt like a weight had been tied around her heart, but she couldn’t shake the heaviness dragging her down since he’d left. She hated that she’d come to care for him and opened herself up to him in such a way. It made her vulnerable, made her feel exposed and like a fool for thinking he could feel anything more than pity for her.

  But his kisses…

  She could vividly recall every one of his sizzling kisses, but he hadn’t kissed her since she’d told him about the horrific events of her transformation. Nothing pissed her off more than being pitied, and that’s exactly what she felt she was now. As she scrubbed one of the pub tables she debated giving him a good ass kicking so he would stop thinking of her as fragile.

  “You’re taking the paint off it,” Angie said with a laugh.

  Quinn stepped back as she realized she had indeed scrubbed off a layer of varnish. “Just distracted,” she muttered.

  “I bet I know by what or should I say, who,” Angie teased.

  Quinn smiled at her, however she felt anything but cheery as she moved onto the next table. Angie sprayed down the bar; she was beginning to wipe it off when a loud bang on the roof froze them both.

  “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 righ
t 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.