Cold Fire: A Paranormal Novel

by Shaye Easton

  They step back to continue discussing plans and strategies and I mostly tune them out. The door’s still open and I step up to it, lining my eye up with the slit. The second I do, I regret it. It’s not just chaos out there—a tangle of spectres fighting with lightning guns and supernatural abilities and run-of-the-mill combat skills—it’s also a massacre. The dead and dying lie everywhere. People with their chests punched through. People missing limbs. People burnt, battered and bruised. People lying in a pool of their own blood.

  It’s horrifying. It’s hideous.

  Rand was right: I’m not used to this world. But it’s more than that. It’s ugly, frightening and corrupted. I hate it. They have all these powers, and what they’ve done with them is only paint the world in blood.

  And then I see her. Eyes burning as she fights among underwalkers on the other side of the room. Blood matted in her dark hair, turning her green streaks dirty brown. I remember her grisly, blood-soaked smile. I remember Lauren, dangling in the air, choking, her legs jerking as she fought to survive.

  She was her friend.

  And now Lauren’s dead.

  The rage is there in an instant, throbbing under my skin. Before I realise what I’m doing, I’ve opened up the door and slipped out into the foyer.

  “Melissa!” Caden hisses from the doorway. I feel his hand brush against my arm as he reaches to pull me back. But it’s too late; I’ve already moved too far away. “Melissa, get back here now!”

  The battle surges around me. A crackling blue bullet from one of the underwalker lightning guns zips right in front of me. Momentarily stunned, I halt. Behind me, Rand’s voice shouting over the din: “Melissa! What are you doing?”

  No one seems to have noticed me yet. I suppose in all the chaos, it’s hard to recognise faces, to differentiate between a common overwalker and the Final Prophet. I pass through the centre of the fight and have to start ducking, moving forward half-bent over so I don’t get discovered or shot. I move quickly, my heart thundering. But the only thing bigger than my fear is my anger and the closer I get to Kira, the more it grows.

  I make it across the room, past core of the struggle, unharmed. Kira’s there. She’s maybe one of the only underwalkers without a gun, instead making full use of her telekinesis. She isn’t that strong—she can only seem to tackle one opponent at a time, knocking them to the side, hitting them back. It’s a force that’s tactical, not deadly. And still her nose bleeds, the effects of the curse on her underwalker beliefs taking a toll on her abilities.

  I’ve heard, when punching someone, you have to close your fist with your thumb outside. I’ve never punched anyone before, but I remember this as I step up to Kira. She turns, surprised, as I raise my fist and punch her as hard as I can in the face.

  She stumbles away, clamping a hand to her nose. More blood snakes down between her fingers and runs over her lip. It turns out that ‘as hard as I can’ is pretty hard when you’re resistant to pain.

  Kira looks over at me, eyes bright with fury, wide with shock, tainted by disgust. It’s a far cry from the girl I met a few weeks ago. The girl who helped me when I was panicking, who smiled at me like she truly cared. Now just the sight of her pulls me back to the night of the party when I watched as she strangled Lauren and bled out on the floor.

  I suck in a deep, steadying breath, fighting to keep my anger from overwhelming me. From letting it all overwhelm me. Because it’s not just anger—it’s grief, it’s fear, it’s guilt. The whole mega concoction of emotions pouring into me like a deluge of water.

  Kira hasn’t said anything yet. She stares at me, not frozen, just deliberating. She drops her hand from her nose and her fingers are stained red.

  “What did you do with Lauren?” I demand, loud enough to be heard over the commotion.

  “Lauren?” Kira replies, genuinely taken aback. Then she laughs. “That’s what this is about? You risked yourself to ask about a worthless human? You’re kidding, right?” But she knows I’m not kidding, and my silence is all the answer she needs. “Do we really look like we care enough about one girl to take her body?”

  “Then where is she?! She didn’t just disappear!”

  We’re right on the sides of the fighting, but I still feel the force of all the gunshots behind me, sensing every nearby shout. My body wants to flinch; it tells me to duck, to hide, to run. But I haven’t been targeted yet and I force myself to see this through for as long as I can.

  “In a ditch somewhere, for all I know,” Kira replies. “And frankly, I don’t care either. She was a means to an end. And now she’s met that end and it’s time to move on.”

  “She was your friend!”

  “Are you really this stupid?” she spits. “Of course, she wasn’t my friend. This was all a job for me. I was operating on orders.”

  “So dating Lauren’s brother, Levi, was an order?’

  I’ve got her, and she knows it. But she hardens her gaze. “What is this? An interrogation? You fuck me over and then you have the nerve to judge the actions I take in defence?”

  “I’m sorry, but what? I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “Oh sure, like you don’t know. Like you have no idea why every underwalker has a personal vendetta against you.”

  Now I’m really confused. But more than that, I’m afraid. “What?”

  She ignores me. “Instead of being an arse, you should be grateful. I could have killed Sara before you arrived that night. All I had to do was sit back and let the ghost do the work. But I didn’t.”

  “Don’t pretend like your motivation was anything other than selfish. You just wanted to see me hurt.”

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t make me the bad person here.”

  “You’re a murderer.”

  Anger ignites in her eyes like a match. Then she smiles, stepping around me, circling me until my back is to the wall. “Seems like you’ve got a problem on your hands then.”

  Kira’s staring at me like prey and I suddenly feel like it. At what point did my anger extinguish? At what point did it become my fear?

  “What are you—”

  I don’t have time to react. I’m dragged up into the air by my neck, by an invisible hand clenching my throat. It’s Kira’s party all over again, only this time I’m the one being strangled to death three feet above the ground.

  “Davion wants you alive,” Kira seethes, “but his judgement is compromised when it comes to you. Given the option, he will always choose the alternative to killing you, as crazy as it may seem. But what he doesn’t understand is that killing you is the only option.”

  I gasp for air, clawing at my neck, trying to scrape away her invisible hold. It’s hopeless.

  “I’m probably going to get in shit for this,” she continues, “but it’ll be worth it. You’re a stain. And you need to be washed out.”

  I’m choking, my lungs burning for air. This is it, I think. I’m going to die here, just another casualty in a war between the bloodlines.

  “Please—” I choke.

  Kira shakes her head, new blood pulsing over her lips. “Goodbye,” she derides, “ice queen.”

  She tightens the fingers of her lifted hand, a mere moment from crushing my throat and snapping my neck. I open my mouth in a silent scream.

  And then the impossible: Kira’s body tenses, going rigid as a plank. Her lips part in shock, and dark spidery veins crawl across her skin like creeping, twisting vines. Her black eyes bulge and start leaking blood. It gathers around the rims and pours down her cheeks like tears.

  And I watch, choking, as her body convulses and dies.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I drop to the ground, heaving air into my lungs. Kira’s lifeless shell falls face down before me, thumping, dead limbs sprawled out on the floor.

  I stare, stunned and gasping. Then I lift my eyes.

  Across the room, Caden, Kathryn, and Rand have emerged from the stairwell. Caden stands before them, his hand still raised, his wide
eyes locked onto mine. For a full second, that’s all there is.

  The blast comes out of nowhere, hitting me square in the chest. I rocket backwards and smash into the wall, hitting my head against the plaster. The blow knocks the air from my lungs, throws my hair into my eyes. My vision falters. My hearing drops out. The sights and sounds of the pandemonium dissolve.

  The world is spinning as I push myself up and brush the hair from my eyes. I try to find Caden but to no avail. The battle has risen up between us like an angry beast, obscuring him from sight.

  “Caden,” I choke, aiming for a scream. I try again. “Caden!”

  Suddenly, someone’s at my side. They shout words at me over the roar of the fight but their voice slides into my ears muffled and deformed. I feel a pressure at the base of my skull like a knife digging into my brain. My head begins to throb and shudder, my mind growing murky. I reach a hand up to the back of my head and it comes away coloured a deep scarlet.

  “—you okay? Melissa, can you hear me? You have to come with me now.” The person’s shouts finally reach my ears as my hearing returns, but my eyes zero in on the blood on my hands and the voice is lost once more to the chaos. A hand latches onto my shoulder and at last my gaze flicks weakly up at the person above me, the harsh white lighting creating sharp, dark shadows on their cheeks.

  It’s Elodie Mora, Commander of the Ring. Her golden skin shines like it’s slick with oil and her raven hair flutters messily about her face. Two jet-black eyes stare at me intently, urgently.

  My mouth struggles to form words. “I-I…” I take a gasping breath. “I can’t—”

  A ball of blue crackling energy whizzes past and lodges into the wall by my right ear. I let out a cry and duck to the side, turning my head to see the smoking hole in the plaster. Then another comes, just missing Elodie’s arm. Two more hit the wall above my head. They’ve noticed me, and they’re shooting.

  So much for capturing me alive.

  “Melissa, now!”

  “But Caden—”

  She grabs me, her hands sheathed in black leather gloves, and pulls me to my feet. “He can handle himself,” she yells, “but you need to go!”

  A hand on my back pushes me forward, towards the exit. I don’t fight her. My head feels like it’s being repetitively smashed with a boulder and my muscles are weak and shaking. There’s an explosion behind me, fragments of plaster and brick raining down, hitting my back. I slam forward, stumbling but managing to stay upright. Elodie yells. A spectre falls down in front of me, landing face-up, its dark eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling. I release a scream that goes unnoticed in the mayhem.

  We push on. Something grazes my arm, ripping through my sleeve. Seconds later, Elodie grasps my shoulders and pushes me down and to the side. She gets right back up and sends a golden torrent at the underwalker who fired on us. He collapses, dead.

  I don’t have time to question it. We keep moving, ducking, Elodie pushing me this way and that. My pounding headache seems to sync with the whirls of the siren, still screaming over the racket of the room. The air smells smoky and burnt but also meaty, heady, with the metallic undercurrent of blood. I suck in a big breath and end up gagging.

  Up ahead, I spot Rand and Kathryn in turmoil. She fires a wave of air with her outstretched palms, knocking back a row of underwalkers. Then a blast from a lightning gun rockets between them, passing all too close to Kathryn’s side. She falls, hair splayed in every direction, her clothes burnt and blackened at her hip. As Rand backs up to help her, my gaze swings to the underwalker who fired the shot, his supernatural gun now raised to Rand.

  “No!” I shout and automatically extend an arm, palm out. On the surface, it’s a desperate gesture, a panicked attempt at stopping him. But underneath I’m reaching for a power that isn’t there and then crashing headfirst into the black pit left in its wake.

  Darkness envelopes my mind like a fog of smoke and ash. I never asked for my abilities and I certainly never wanted them. All I’ve ever wanted is to be normal. But suddenly I am that ordinary girl, human and fragile and defenceless, incapable of saving her friends when they need saving. I realise being normal is the last thing I want. Without my powers, I feel empty and dark. I feel cold, like they’ve been acting as a heater for the past seventeen years, warming my blood and bones, and now that heater has run out of fuel.

  The gunman presses on the trigger and I want to close my eyes, block it all out. But I can’t. I stare wide-eyed, frozen, waiting for time to slam down and solidify my fears as history.

  There’s a flash of light, close and bright. It takes me a second to realise that it wasn’t blue but gold—another burst of power from Elodie’s palm, fluid and sparkling, like lava if lava was golden. It knocks the underwalker down, killing him on contact.

  She grabs my arm again. “Come.”

  I turn to follow her, and get whacked in the face. Her hand slips from my arm as I stumble back, off-balanced. I blink, eyes sparkling with light, my vision clearing enough to see the underwalker before me and his fist as it swings for my face. I swerve right and it glances off my cheek. But my attacker is quick. The instant I’ve avoided his second blow, his elbow collides with my head. I stagger again and he kicks, swiping my legs out from underneath me. I trip and land on my back a solid thud.

  This man doesn’t want to kill me, I realise. He wants blood.

  He approaches again, lips curling, taking cruel delight in hurting me. The lightning from the guns around us paints his stark white hair blue. He pulls a knife from his pants and bends close. “Not so powerful now, are you?”

  The knife is against my throat and I tense up, afraid to move, afraid to even breathe.

  “What do you want from me?” I say, my voice shuddering out of my throat.

  He snickers. “I’ve heard of your games. Don’t think I don’t know your innocence is just an act.”

  Tears spring from the corners of my eyes. “Please, I don’t understa—”

  “Enough!” he roars, pressing down the knife. I feel it scrape through the first layer of skin. “This is for everything you’ve done.”

  He pulls back the knife, giving me a moment to breathe, to gasp, to realise he’s about to plunge it back down into my chest. I go still, but this is no time to freeze up. He’s got a hand down on my shoulder, blocking me from moving right. But his left hand is busy with the knife, leaving me space to squirm out from under him.

  I take a deep breath, watching as the light glances off the silver blade, shimmering as it tracks a path through the air.

  Then I move.

  It’s like a switch has been flicked in my brain. My body unfreezes, my mind taking control and I roll to the side just as his knife slams down. He yells and grabs for me, latching a hand onto my leg. I kick and scream until I’m free, and then I jump to my feet, spinning around fast so that the man doesn’t see my fist until it’s already hit him in the face. It’s like punching a wall, but it still leaves a burn on his cheek in the shape of my knuckles. His eyes smoulder. I back up quickly, shaking my hand, adrenaline pumping through my veins. Vaguely I recall a self-defence lesson in PE and the teacher’s words come back to me now, disjointed but malleable, and my brain mixes them into something I can use—a simple guide to get me out of a frightening mess.

  When the underwalker strikes my head with a fist, I throw my forearm up to block, swinging the other elbow round to jab him in the ribs. I should step forward and knee him in the groin, but he’s so imposing, and he has a knife…

  Over his shoulder, I vaguely spy Elodie fighting off a hoard of underwalkers. No one’s coming to my aid.

  The man slashes with the knife. I jerk back quickly, but he still manages to slice my cheek. Blood, wet and sticky, trickles down my face.

  “Please,” I gasp, staggering back, putting as much distance between us as I can. “Don’t.”

  He keeps forward. “This is what you deserve.”

  Then, a miracle: an underwalker’s gun dropped in the fi
ght and knocked over in my direction. It hits the toe of my boot.

  My assailant stares at it, then at me. We exchange glances. Then we dive. I go down, scrambling for the handle. He runs forward, gripping the knife. My fingers are sticky with blood, making my grasp on the gun slippery at best. I manage to lift it up and point it at him just as he descends on me. The nose hits his stomach. I scramble for the trigger. He slashes forward with the knife and I duck down, to the side, out of the way. But my sticky finger finds what it’s looking for. I don’t think. I squeeze my eyes shut and shoot.

  I have become what I fear.

  Blood sprays in my face, coats my shirt like a layer of paint. It gets in my mouth and I choke on the awful metallic taste, spitting. The man flops on his back, nothing more than a lump of disfigured meat. Except he’s still breathing, taking shallow hitching breaths, mouth flapping open and closed like a fish trying to breathe out of water.

  I read somewhere that a bullet to the stomach is one of the most painful ways to die. That it takes hours before the body finally shuts down. This man just tried to kill me, and the only way to put him out of his misery is to kill him. And I want to. I can’t stand the thought of leaving him here in this state.

  I step forward, shaking, my hands slipping on the bulky gun. It suddenly feels heavier than before. My muscles quake with the effort, my breath raggedly spurting in and out.

  The underwalker looks up at me, eyes wide and bloodshot, pupils dilated. His lips fall open and closed but no sound comes out. I wipe the back of my hand across my cheek and it comes back smudged with blood and tears. I’m crying.

  I take my aim. “I’m sorry,” I say through the tears, voice cracking. But the longer I stand there, peering down at him, the more I start to doubt my ability to pull the trigger a second time. The first shot was self-defence. But this…

  This is murder.

  I drop the gun, flinching backwards, disgusted with myself. What am I doing? I can’t shoot him. He needs medical attention. Stomach wounds are survivable, with the right help. I have to get him to a hospital. I have to—