Kissed by Ice

by Shéa MacLoed

  I started. Other women?

  A quick glance around the wide grassy plain revealed a dozen other women in clothing much like mine, hair either shaved close to the skull or bound in braids. There were no men. Instead, the women were clearly warriors. Weapons bristled from their belts and packs: swords, daggers, bows. It was as though they expected to be attacked at any moment. We moved at a fast pace, wading through the endless sea of grass, headed toward… what? I had no idea.

  We crested a rise, and the woman who was clearly our leader raised her hand. The entire company came to a halt. Below us spread a vast water. It had waves, like an ocean, but the air lacked the briny tang of salt. A lake then, and freshwater, too. Large enough I couldn't see the end of it. One could easily lose a ship out there.

  The leader turned to face me, her dark eyes circled with fatigue. "Princess," she said, "we are here."

  But where was "here?"

  # # #

  I woke to Kabita pounding on my door. I stumbled out of bed and staggered across the floor to let her in. I nearly broke my ankle tripping on my boots.

  "Come on. Time to go."

  "Give me a sec," I said, limping to the bathroom to use the facilities. As I splashed my face with cold water, the dream played over in my mind. This wasn't the first time I'd dreamed of being the Princess. The first time, she'd been a small child escaping from the dying city of Atlantis. The second time, she'd been a teenager running from the Temple of the Moon and invaders who were slaughtering the priestesses. She had been with the High Priestess called Amaza, and they'd been running for a distant colony. In this dream the Princess had been older. Closer to twenty, maybe. But where was she? And why was the dream so damned important?

  # # #

  "You have got to be kidding me." Kabita hung half over the railing, a large flashlight trained below as she stared at the water with a frown. I wasn't sure if she was talking about the long drop to the ocean's dark surface or what was waiting for us below. Either way, I couldn't blame her. Now that it was full dark, we could finally put our plan into action. Unfortunately the plan didn't help ease my mind one bit.

  "No kidding. Eddie," I said, turning around to face him. "You don't think we're going to jump, do you?"

  "Of course, my dear." Eddie beamed. "How else do you expect to get down there? It is the most expeditious way I could think of."

  I glanced over the rail again and shuddered. It wasn't that I had a heights problem. It was that I had a jumping-off-a-perfectly-good-deck problem. Especially when the seething cauldron I was supposed to land in was a good twenty or so feet below. "And the, ah, creature waiting for us?"

  Eddie joined us at the railing and peered over. The wind whipped his halo of gray hair into a froth of wild curls. "Perfectly harmless, I assure you. And an excellent swimmer. If he can pull Poseidon's damned chariot around, he can certainly carry the two of you to shore."

  "Make that three," said a deep voice behind us.

  All three of us whirled around to find Haakon Magnussen looming over us like an avenging Viking angel. Good gods, he was tall. Taller even than Jack, and Jack wasn't exactly a shrimp. In the darkness his hair practically glowed, but his eyes were dark unreadable slits. Still, I didn't need to read his eyes to feel the anger and determination rolling off him.

  "Oh, no, my dear boy," Eddie said, thrusting his hands into his pockets and drawing himself up to his full height. All of about five feet. "You couldn't possibly ride along with the girls. They have a job to do, as do you. And yours is here on the ship." He gave Magnussen a stern, almost fatherly glare. Magnussen ignored him.

  "You know very well why I must go with them," Magnussen said. His English had a slightly stilted quality to it. Almost overly proper like many non-native speakers. Except he spoke it with an almost perfect West Coast American accent. Interesting.

  Eddie sighed. "Fine. The Hippocampus can take you too. If you insist."

  "I do."

  "Hippocampus," I muttered to Kabita. "Isn't that part of the brain?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Didn't you study Greek mythology in school?"

  I shrugged. "Sure, but I've been kinda busy since then. Creatures from Greek mythology haven't been exactly high on the priority list."

  "Well, that down there is a Hippocampus," she said, pointing over the railing, "and according to mythology, two of them pull Poseidon's chariot around his underwater kingdom."

  "So Poseidon is real, I guess." He wouldn't be the first god I'd discovered was more than an ancient myth. It still never ceased to amaze me.

  "Yep."

  "Huh." I stared down at the creature waiting for us. The front half was a horse. A very large, very powerful horse. Clydesdale maybe, or something bigger. The back half was something else entirely. It was fish-like in that it had scales and fins, but it was long and sinuous like I'd always imagined a sea serpent would be. It was too dark to make out any color, but its scales shimmered slightly in the lights from the ship. "And we're supposed to ride that thing?"

  "More like let it pull us through the ocean. Like riding a dolphin."

  "I did not sign up for this shit."

  "Ladies," Eddie interrupted. "You really must get going. The Hippocampus needs to take you to shore and return to Poseidon's palace before dawn." He gave a shooing motion as if to hurry us along. How in Hades had I managed to get myself into this?

  Oh, yeah. It was my job.

  "Here," I said, unclasping the Atlantean amulet that always hung around my neck and handing it to Eddie. "Hang on to this for me. Don't want it ending up at the bottom of the ocean."

  "Hmm. Yes. Can you imagine if Poseidon got his hands on it? He's already insufferable enough. Don't worry. I'll take good care of it."

  I clambered up and over the railing until my feet were braced on the deck on the ocean side while my hands gripped the railing behind me. We were on the lowest exposed deck, but it was still way too high if you asked me.

  "Here goes nothing."

  I leapt into space, arching out over the water, and then the water was rushing toward me. I hit hard, plummeting beneath the surface for several yards before I started to slow. I began to kick my way to the surface, but the motion of the giant ship above me churned the water so I tumbled sideways, losing my sense of place. Panic threatened to overwhelm me. I couldn't find my way to the top, and I was running out of air. I flailed uselessly, my lungs burning. And then the weirdest thing happened.

  It was like the ocean currents themselves changed course, pushing me toward the surface. Suddenly I popped up out of the water and dragged in deep lungsful of salty air. I half expected to get hit in the face with waves, but I didn't. It was as if the ocean itself held me up out of the water. I really must be losing it. Lack of oxygen to the brain for sure. How many brain cells had I lost this time?

  Then the Hippocampus appeared beside me, whickering softly and nudging me with his velvety nose. I wrapped one arm around his massive neck, tangling my hand in his thick, silky mane. With the other I gave him a good nose rub, which earned me another gentle nudge. Raising his head, the massive creature began swimming through the water, front legs churning up foam while the serpentine tail propelled us at the most unbelievable speed. I grabbed his mane with both hands and hung on for dear life, letting myself be dragged through the ocean like a rag doll.

  We pulled up alongside Kabita, who was calmly treading water as if she ended up in the middle of the ocean every day of her life. She gave the Hippocampus a nose rub, and he whickered some more. Then she used his mane to lever herself up so she was straddling his back like she was on a proper horse.

  "I thought you said we had to ride him like a dolphin," I said, pushing a strand of soaked hair out of my eyes.

  "Apparently he wants the two of us to ride astride. Magnussen will have to do the dolphin thing."

  "What? You can talk to him now?"

  She smirked. "No. Eddie can."

  "He and I are going to be having words later." I reached up, and s
he helped me haul my ass on board while the Hippocampus waited patiently. As soon as I was on, he swam toward a third figure in the water. Magnussen was already plowing through the waves toward us with long, even strokes. Clearly he and the water got along just fine.

  The ship had nearly disappeared into the darkness by the time we were all aboard the Hippocampus. The creature wheeled and took off for the nearest island at top speed as if carrying two normal humans and one massive one was all in a day's work.

  Chapter Nine

  The hippocampus sliced through the water, legs churning up foam in front of him. It was a good thing we were doing this at night. I'd hate to have to try and explain our ride to the harbor patrol. I was having a hard enough time trying to explain it to myself, and I was used to weird things.

  Our ride dropped us off on a deserted beach on the least populated side of the second island from the charts. Then he turned around and charged back into the sea, disappearing beneath the waves.

  "Well," Kabita said, wiping salt water off her face, "that was different."

  "No shit." I stared at the deserted beach. I couldn't see anything but the faint glow of pale sand and the dark outlines of palm trees. No lights from a nearby house or headlights from cars passing by the beach. There was absolutely no sign of human life. No sign of vampire life, either, if the lack of pain in the back of my skull was anything to go by. "Why did he drop us off here? Other than obviously not wanting to be seen, I mean."

  "This was the nearest point of populated land to the ship at the time the vamp went overboard," Magnussen said, voice cool, face impassive. "Couple that with this being a low populated area, it seemed the most logical place to start."

  "Okay, Mr. Spock," I snarked under my breath.

  A smile twitched the corner of his mouth. "You can call me Haakon."

  "Uh, sure thing. Haakon." I pronounced it "Haw-ken" which wasn't quite correct, but I couldn't seem to get my mouth to form the vowels properly. He winced.

  "Close enough."

  "Now, how are we going to find this vampire?" Kabita interrupted as she finished wringing seawater out of her long, thick braid. "This is a pretty big island. The vamp could be anywhere."

  "I can't sense him," I admitted. "And he's got at least an eighteen-hour head start on us. Even if he landed on this very beach, he could be on the other side of the island by now."

  "If we are correct and he is headed toward whomever is controlling him," Magnussen—er, Haakon—said. "I would think it unlikely such a person would reside in the center of town or any other heavily populated area."

  I shrugged. "Depends on if the vamp's master is a people person or not." Or was human or not. But I didn't mention that out loud. I figured I didn't need to. "Let's find a road. There must be one nearby. We can figure it out from there."

  The three of us trudged across the beach toward the dark silhouettes of palm trees waving in the sea breeze. The sand shifted constantly under my boots, making walking difficult. My legs burned with the effort. Kabita and Haakon had out their flashlights, but I didn't bother. I could see better without one. One of the more positive side-effects of channeling just a touch of the Darkness.

  I scanned the line of trees for a path leading off the beach. I finally found an area where the foliage seemed marginally less dense than the surrounding underbrush. I led the way through, stopping short as something caught my eye. Streaks of something dark glimmered on a low hanging branch. I'd have never seen it if it hadn't been for my extra-special night vision. I stepped closer, sniffing. I caught the faintest hint of copper and decay. Vampire blood. Idiot had gotten himself sideswiped by a low-hanging branch.

  "We're in the right place," I told the others. Without waiting for a response, I pushed my way quickly through the brush, scanning intently for more signs the vamp had been there. Without my bidding, the Darkness rose. My vision tunneled down to a pinprick of light against a field of black. Suddenly it was as if a path was laid out before me: a smear of blood here, a strand of hair there. Each object was surrounded by a slight purple glow as if the Darkness was saying, "Here you go." Yes, the vamp had definitely come this way.

  I heard the others following me, but I was completely focused on the task at hand. Like a bloodhound, the Darkness inside me eagerly hunted down each little glowing drop of blood. I had no idea why my vision saw the drops as luminescent. The blood itself was long dried even in the humid air of the tropical island. But whatever it was, the Darkness was pulling at the leash, eager to chase it down.

  I finally stumbled out onto a narrow dirt road just wide enough for a car to squeeze between the trees on either side. The trail of blood drops stopped. "Damnit," I snarled under my breath. The Darkness snarled something worse. I mentally told it to shut up. It sulked.

  "What is it?" Kabita asked, pushing her way out onto the road, her breathing heavy, Haakon hot on her tail. She glanced up and down the road as if expecting a vamp to come charging out of the night.

  "The trail ends here," I told her. "He must have gotten into a car." It was the only thing that explained the abrupt end of his trail.

  "We'll never find him." Kabita was clearly not thrilled with the idea. "If he got in a car, he could be miles away."

  "Maybe not," Haakon said.

  We both stared at him. "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "There may be a way to track him." He pulled something out of his pocket. It was a plastic bag shaped like a walkie-talkie. He ripped open the sealed packaging and pulled out a satellite phone.

  "Nifty," Kabita said as Haakon began pressing buttons. "I should get you one of those." She shot me a sideways glance. "Then you'd have no excuse not to answer my calls."

  "Hey, the last time I was underground," I snapped. "Pretty sure those things don't work in tunnels."

  She just gave me The Look, which I ignored. We both turned our attention to Haakon, who was barking orders into the sat phone in a language I didn't recognize. It sounded vaguely European. I'd bet it was a Scandinavian language. Maybe his mother tongue, whatever that was. Norwegian or Swedish maybe. What language had Vikings spoken, anyway? I was going to have to look that up.

  "All right," Haakon said as he hung up. "Let's go." He started walking down the road toward the dark mountains looming in the distance.

  "Why that way?" I trotted along behind, trying to keep up with his damn long-legged stride.

  "This is the way the car went."

  "And how do you know that?"

  "I've got my sources."

  Kabita and I exchanged looks. I glanced up at the sky. "Let me guess. You've got somebody who can access satellite images."

  He raised an eyebrow. "So, you're not just a pretty face."

  "Don't be an ass. You know what I am."

  He smiled a little at that. "As you know what I am, I imagine."

  "Eddie told me," I admitted. "But I probably would have figured it out."

  "Eventually," Kabita said dryly. I shot her a dirty look.

  Haakon said nothing, but there were definite signs of a smirk as we continued down the road. Or rather, he continued walking. Kabita and I were closer to a jog. I subtly tapped into the Darkness, channeling just enough to keep me from getting tired. Oddly enough, it cooperated without throwing much of a snit. My, my, what a cooperative little superpower.

  I wanted to ask Haakon about the whole Sunwalker thing. The only Sunwalker I'd ever met was Jack—well, and supposedly me, but I liked to ignore that little factoid—and the only thing I knew about them was what little Jack had told me. And what I'd learned from my dreams and Eddie's sentient book. Maybe Haakon would know more or at least be willing to share. I also had a lot of questions about the whole Viking thing. Because, frankly, Vikings were awesome. But first, we had a vampire to stake.

  Chapter Nine

  It felt like days later, but was probably only about an hour, when we finally reached the edge of civilization. Low houses gleamed white in the moonlight, their windows like dark, empty eyes. There
were no streetlights, only the occasional security light left burning over a garage or front door. A dog barked sleepily nearby, answered by another. I heard what I could have sworn sounded like a goat. Other than that, it was nothing but us and the crickets.

  The dirt road turned to gravel and finally pavement. Although the asphalt was so pitted and scarred, "paved" could only be used in the loosest sense of the word. The houses grew closer together and eventually the odd streetlight sprung up here and there, though half of them were out. Finally we found ourselves standing in the middle of a village. Well, village was maybe too enthusiastic. They didn't even have a traffic light. Just a beat-up stop sign where two roads converged with a shop on one corner and a cafe/bar on another.

  "The vamp came here?" I couldn't keep the incredulity from my tone, but seriously, this wasn't the kind of place vampires usually hung out. It was both too remote and not remote enough. In such a small community, people tended to notice when their neighbors started getting snacked on.

  "This is where the car dropped him off." Haakon propped his hands on his hips and glared around him as if the village would spit up its secrets. A rooster crowed in the distance.

  "Okay, so where did he go after that?" I asked, glancing around as if I might catch sight of our prey. Unlikely. The sky was starting to turn gray, which meant the vamp had gone to ground. If he was smart.

  "No idea," Haakon admitted.

  "What? Your fancy schmancy satellite whatsis couldn't tell you that?"

  He glared at me. "It could have, but my guy had to get off the system before he got caught."

  "Enough, you two," Kabita interrupted our spat. "This isn't helping. Let's split up and see if we can find any sign of the vampire."

  "Good plan, but you and I left our phones back on the ship," I said. We didn't have Haakon's fancy little plastic pouch and there hadn't been time to hunt down a Ziploc. "How are we going to let each other know if we find what we're looking for?"