“Dasc said a war is coming,” I say.
“Then I guess he knows something the rest of us do not.” She closes the door so there’s no chance of asking her anything further.
We stand together on the doorstep and Hawk puts a hand to the pendant hidden under his shirt. I hope Scholar is as clever as she thinks she is. That pendant is our best hope of giving Hawk security against the beast inside him, and so what happened to Duke never happens again. Another silent moment passes beneath the awning as the sun climbs higher before disappearing completely behind a row of heavy storm clouds. A bitter wind blows in and brings a dusting of snow with it.
I lead the way to the SUV and climb in. I consider where we ought to go next when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Hawk frowns when his buzzes at the exact same time. Curious, I pull out my phone to find a single text from Jefferson.
Emergency with Duluth team. Need you back ASAP.
“Did you get it too?” I ask.
Hawk holds up his phone so I can see. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Let’s get moving.”
I drive the SUV through the turnaround and head full steam down the driveway. The iron gate swings open upon approach and we make our way to the interstate. An emergency with the Duluth team—that could be anything, but after what happened in Wisconsin, I’ve got a bad feeling.
“It can only be one thing, right?” I say. “The vampires.”
“Pixies. The hits don’t stop coming do they?”
The snow flurry quickly increases, faster than I thought it could, and I slow as visibility reduces within minutes. A storm had to come today. The exit to Moose Lake appears through the snow flurry and we make slow time. I heave an audible sigh when we finally pull up in front of the cabin. Jefferson waves us over to the barn and we march through the snow blowing around our feet to shelter inside.
“I’ve got Agent Boyd on video chat,” Jefferson says and we jog up the flight of stairs to huddle around a video he already has open on his screen. Agent Boyd’s face fills the screen. Her curly blonde hair is frazzled and she looks furious.
“Agents,” she says curtly. “This morning another one of the selkies went missing and we suspect the vampire took her. Using surveillance video we tracked the Mustang to the University of Minnesota Duluth. Charlie and I, assisted by some of the selkies, started combing the area. Charlie reported he found something suspicious on the campus but his call was cut off. He and the selkie who went with him are now missing as well.”
Oh, pixies. Charlie.
“I need all hands on deck,” she says, her voice strained. “I’m going to continue my search but we have an agent and two selkies missing. My other agents are heading down from the Boundary Waters to assist but they’re hours away.”
“You can count on us,” Jefferson says. “We’re heading out now.”
“We’ll meet you at the main campus of the college. And hurry.”
The live chat closes and Jefferson immediately begins to grab retractable blades, machetes, and bio-mech guns off the walls. “Gear up. We’re leaving immediately.”
Hawk takes the offered weapons and passes along a few to me. I quickly tuck them into my belt and lining of my jacket.
“What about the people here in town?” Hawk asks. “With the threat of a vampire attack incoming, someone needs to stay behind and man the office.”
“Maybe we should call in a code black,” I suggest. “Get some extra manpower up here.”
Jefferson frowns at the machete he holds in his hands. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because about forty-five minutes ago a leviathan was spotted off the coast of New York.” He gestures to the computer and I hunch over the back of the chair to see the emergency response message in the upper corner of the screen. You’ve got to be kidding.
“It was real?” I ask in disbelief. “All those sightings were true?”
He nods, a dark frown on his face. “Most of the code black squads are headed that way to back up Draco before that thing wipes New York off the map. There are a couple of squads still in the area but they’re watching the Wisconsin border because of the vampires.”
“A leviathan? Seriously?” Hawk peers over my shoulder. “A leviathan hasn’t been seen in over a hundred years.”
“Well, a lot of crazy crap has been going on lately,” Jefferson grumbles. “Get in the car. I already contacted Deputy Graham before you two got here and he’s going to man the office temporarily. And I sent out a werewolf wide alert so they all know to keep indoors somewhere safe. Now, we’ve got people missing. Let’s go bring ‘em home.”
His beady eyes are livid and I know what he’s thinking of—missing people reminds him of what he’s already lost. We’re not going to lose anyone else today. I race after him and we pile into the SUV. Jefferson spins the tires as he guns the engine and we fly out of Moose Lake. The snow is incessant and getting heavier by the minute. Jefferson curses under his breath several times as the roads quickly worsen. Snow plows come out of their dens but the snow is falling faster than they can remove it. I turn on the radio and listen to the weather forecast. It’s a massive storm and is supposed to last for a couple of days. The estimated snowfall is at least a foot. Fantastic.
And Charlie’s missing. How on earth can anyone even get the jump on him? Can’t he just port away to safety? This is really, really bad.
The hour-long drive tests all of our patience. Melody calls Jefferson when we’re halfway there to let us know they still haven’t found Charlie or the selkies yet.
But what could get Charlie? Vampires are fast but . . . there have been hints everywhere that something else is driving the vampires. A mysterious “she” mentioned by the shapeshifters, the vampire in La Crosse saying their failure meant getting wiped off the map, and that vampire at Enger Tower mentioned something about a “she” not being there. What if the big bad we’re looking for isn’t a vampire at all? Something with influence on the level of Dasc and the long dead alpha vampire. What kind of monster are we really hunting? The fact that a leviathan is alive and attacking pops into my head. If something like that has resurfaced, maybe another one of the ancient monsters has come back to spearhead this . . . whatever this is.
At long last we reach the top of the hill and although I know Duluth is directly below us, I can’t see it through the gusting wind, wall of snow, and low cloud cover. The SUV is buffeted as we make our descent and Jefferson expertly avoids cars that skid out on the road ahead of us. We follow the interstate deep into the heart of the city and eventually work our way up the hillside through residential neighborhoods. These streets are even less taken care of and slow us to a snail’s pace.
How long has Charlie been missing now? Pixies, I hate this.
“We’re here,” Jefferson says and I crane my neck to look up through the windshield. The buildings of a college campus rise around us several stories tall plastered with snow, and we pass beneath a windowed walkway. I can’t see much else of the campus through the blizzard ravaging the place. A line of cars is trying to escape in the opposite direction and students flee to their vehicles.
“They must be closing the campus because of the storm,” Jefferson mutters. Past a bus stop and beneath another walkway, we come to a parking lot where Melody stands braced against the frigid wind. The second Jefferson parks, we all bail out.
Melody waves us over and we’re almost shouting to each other to be heard over the wind trying to tear my hair out of my head.
“I tried pinging his cell but it must be off or broken,” Melody shouts. “We’ve already gone through the main building, and Nessa has some of her other mates combing the streets. If he’s not here, we don’t have any other leads.”
So, either we find him here or we don’t at all. I swallow.
“We go in pairs,” she continues. “The selkies have agreed to help us out. I’ll keep going round with Nessa.”
“We stick together,” I shout and point bet
ween me and Hawk. I’m not letting my brother out of my sight. Melody looks to Jefferson for confirmation and he shrugs as if to say “whatever.”
“Okay, then Barnes, you can go with her.” Melody points to a tall brunette standing against the side of the building out of the wind. “Keep on the line. Call out the second you find anything.”
We all patch our cells into a single line and go our separate ways, quickly disappearing into the gusts of the storm. Hawk and I head southeast towards the section of medical buildings. Melody texts each of us a picture of Charlie so we can stop people to ask if they’ve seen him. Hawk and I enter the closest building and ask a couple of students on their way out if they’ve seen him. They just shake their heads and move off like the building’s on fire. We pass more students and ask a few professors as we make our way through to another parking lot on the other side of the structure. No one’s seen Charlie.
A group of students hurry past in their parkas with scarfs wrapped tightly about their faces. They’re all wearing sunglasses.
“Are you kidding me?” Hawk grouses to me. “Who wears sunglasses inside? And the sun isn’t exactly shining outside.”
I come to a halt and hold out an arm to stop him. “You know who I have seen wear sunglasses inside? Vampires.”
I pivot on my toes as the four students pause in the doorway to the lower parking lot. One even gives me a small smile to display a set of elongated fangs before hiding his face in his scarf again.
“Hawk.”
“I see ‘em.”
The group vanishes outside into the storm but we’re hot on their tails. At least, I think we are until we get outside. It’s a complete whiteout. The most I can see is ten feet in front of me, if that. I knock a fist against Hawk’s shoulder and we both draw our bio-mech guns.
I hit the alert sound on my cell to notify everyone else on the channel, and then lift it to my ear, “We’re onto something just east of the medical suite.”
“Come again, Phoenix!” Melody shouts through the line but is hard to hear over the wind. “I didn’t read your last.”
“Medical suite!” I shout. “Four vamps. Wearing sunglasses.”
“Phoenix, over here!” Hawk shouts and rushes forward. He vanishes into the storm.
“Wait!” I run after him and nearly slip sideways into a car. I slow down with the bio-mech gun raised in one hand and my phone to my ear in the other. The snow comes and goes and it turns me around. Then a figure appears directly ahead of me between the cars. “Hawk! Don’t run off like . . .”
The person stands facing away from me and doesn’t move. Wait a second . . . Hawk’s hat didn’t have that gray strip along the edge before. The figure turns around to look directly at me. Not Hawk. Not even remotely like Hawk. A woman. Even through the blur of the snow I can tell there’s nothing human about those eyes. They’re serpentine slits.
I fire the bio-mech gun as adrenaline surges through me in a flood. The snow billows out in a cloud around the pulse but the figure is gone. She doesn’t jump behind a car or run off. She’s just gone. It’s the same way Charlie gets around. If it’s the same way then—behind me!
A hiss slithers in my ear and a pair of rough hands shove me onto the ground. Strength rallies in my muscles and I throw back my shoulders to knock her away. Then there are more hands before I can turn around to face her. The group with the sunglasses surround me and I thrash against them, knocking one of their sunglasses off to reveal the bloodshot eyes of a vampire. But what the crap is the other thing that ported behind me?
Arms wrap around me from every direction and they tear at the collar of my jacket to expose the skin of my neck.
“No!” I shout. “Hawk! Jefferson!”
Brutal fangs bite into my exposed flesh and I let out a cry of pain. My head swims and this isn’t like the bite of a vampire. Whatever that thing with the slit eyes is, it’s worse. It’s so much worse. My knees buckle beneath me and my vision blurs as whatever venom is in its bite takes me under into darkness.
Chapter 21
I don’t know how much time has passed by the time I come to again. I keep my eyes shut and do my best not to grimace against the pain in my neck—both sides in two days. That must be some kind of record. But that other . . . thing. What is it?
I realize I’m in a sitting position with my hands tied to the sides of a chair. The sharp iron taste of blood is in the air. It could be mine, could be more than just me. The air is hot and muggy, kind of like that club where the selkies hang out. There’s also a smell of smoke. Something hisses and I almost shudder thinking it’s that thing again, but it sounds more like a gas leak, or steam. Steam would make more sense for the heat and humidity. Where the heck am I?
There is no sound of footsteps but the hairs on the back of my neck rise and I realize there’s someone behind me.
“We should kill the other two,” someone whispers close by. I remain motionless to let them think I’m still out of it so they continue to talk. “This is definitely the girl.”
Me? Why do they want me? And the other two . . .
I crack my eyelids open to slits and see a pair of sneakers directly in front of me. I recognize those shoes—they belong to Hawk. So they did get him. Crap. My eyes shift sideways and I can make out another pair of legs before a chair to my left but I don’t dare move anymore to see who is it is, though if I had to guess, I would say it’s Charlie. Those shoes are too immaculate and fashionable to belong to anyone else.
The voices talk more softly so I almost can’t hear.
“Check that one again,” a woman says and her voice makes me want to shiver. It’s cold and there’s a barely audible hiss when she speaks. “I sensed something odd about him.”
“He’s just a werewolf,” a boy says and terror reeks in every word that comes out of his mouth.
“I said check him,” the woman says slowly, forcefully, the hiss rising.
A boy—I’m assuming a vampire—shuffles around me and I ease my eyes shut as he moves over to Hawk. Please, don’t let them hurt my brother. I swear if they harm a hair on his head, I’ll rip them all to pieces. Fabric shuffles, someone breathes in rasps, and then I get that sense of movement again without actually hearing footsteps.
“Pathetic vampire wretch,” the woman snarls. There is a panic-inducing shrill cry, the tearing of flesh, and the unmistakable crack of bones. My hands shake and I can’t keep my breathing even anymore. What will my eyes meet when they open again?
“You just wasted a perfectly good meal, Zeta,” another woman’s voice says directly beside me. “All that blood is getting filthy on the floor.”
“He was a fool,” the one called Zeta snaps. “And I rather like this strength, although something about it is setting my chest on fire.”
“I told you not to drink from the girl,” the other sighs.
I struggle to string together the clues and run through the list of all the monsters I know. I have a theory, one that’s so outrageous that it can’t possibly be true, but I need to see. I need to confirm my theory and try to find a way out of this nightmare. If they are what I think they are, then they should have patches of snake scales on their skin. I crack my eyelids open and find a pair of slit eyes only a couple inches away.
“I knew you were awake,” she hisses.
I jerk away and strain against the thick chains wrapped around my chest. She laughs and straightens to her full height, those deadly poison-green eyes watching my every move. Even wrapped in a winter jacket, scarf, and thick boots, I can tell she’s lithe. Her bare hands show the edge of scales peeking out beneath the sleeve of her jacket, confirming my fears. Her dark hair hangs straight to her waist and she’d be absolutely stunning if not for those freakish eyes, shark-like teeth, and a pair of even longer fangs. Everything about her screams deadly.
Like a key sliding into a lock, all the little clues come together and open the mystery of what these creatures are. It’s a good thing I had that refresher in history class wit
h Dasc or I might not have remembered all of the Greek mythology. The serpentine eyes, the fangs, the knockout venom, biting people and taking their magical abilities for their own—these are lamia. I thought they were all supposed to be dead. Back in the day they wreaked havoc with the ability to drink the blood of magic wielders and temporarily gain their power. They feed off magic. If Zeta is the one that bit me, then the strength she just used to kill the vampire is my strength. That must be why she could teleport—she drank Charlie’s blood too.
There’s a good chance none of us are getting out of here alive. Back when the lamia were still active, they were considered level 4 monsters. Some even wanted them reclassified as level 5, the highest rating on the deadly monster scale.
It’s hard to look away from the menace towering over me as if I’m her next meal—which I very well could be—and survey the area around me. Straight across from me Hawk is strapped to a chair and unconscious as a similar blonde woman, Zeta, pats him down. To my left Charlie sits slumped in his chair with his chin resting on his chest. There’s a needle in his arm and his blood drains out into a bag. A couple of other bags are already full and stacked beside him. He’s much too pale with bruise-like shadows under his eyes and he’s either unconscious from lamia poison or blood loss. I guess that explains the needle marks on the selkie and the vampire we found. The lamia were collecting blood to feed themselves. If they had simply bitten their victims, the bite marks would have given them away.
Thick pipes crisscross overhead in the dark room and more border our little section of space. We must be in some kind of heating facility and the hiss I heard earlier was steam in the pipes. Are we still on the college campus?
On the floor, even though I’d rather not see, is the body of the boy vampire. His head sits face first on the floor, physically ripped from the rest of his body. I fight back bile in my throat and a wave of dizziness sweeps over me.
The Bite of Winter (International Monster Slayers Book 2) Page 30
