Whiteout (Aurora Sky

by Nikki Jefford

  I came to a halt, eyes narrowing on Rex’s hand. He let it drop back to his side, expression hidden beneath his thick beard.

  “She’s not here,” Rex reiterated.

  “I know she’s not here,” I snapped. I snatched a cigarette and lighter from my pocket and fired up the human cancer stick. My nails nearly tore through the tobacco roll with the crushing force of my fingertips.

  Rex scratched his hairy cheek. Oddly enough, I’d met him through Joss. Rex didn’t run in any of my circles. The vamp lived more like a lone wolf in Seward, fifteen minutes southeast of our current position atop Exit Glacier. The guy looked more like a yeti than a vampire. He was both an outdoorsman and Alaskan history buff. Joss had procured books on both topics for him on an ongoing basis.

  While I puffed angry clouds of smoke into the air faster than a runaway locomotive, Rex slipped his canteen over his head and took measured sips. He stood in place, waiting to take his cue from me.

  Rex was right. Aurora wasn’t here.

  The only information Noel had time to pass along was that both Aurora and Dante were alive, but Jared had gotten away. She learned this from her handler soon after reporting Aurora missing.

  Now Aurora was on the run with her not-big-brother, very male, very vampire, VERY HORNY, ex-boyfriend/partner, whatever the hell, Mr. All-American Hero. Somewhere in the wilderness, she was out there—this raven-haired, spirited woman I craved more than blood, smoke, or preservation.

  I’d lived life and I’d lived it well. What I hadn’t done until this point was fallen head over tails into can’t-think-straight-gotta-have-you infatuation for a woman.

  I was, as we say in Italy, inamorata with Aurora Sky.

  The English word wasn’t strong enough to describe my feelings for her.

  And now, no doubt, she was shacking up with her ex. They were young vampires. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. They needed blood, sex—both!

  Sharp, hot pain burned my fingertips. I’d smoked the cigarette so fast, the flame had raced up the filter and reached my skin. I dropped the last bit of flaming paper and watched it land beside my boot and sizzle out in the snow.

  Rex held his canteen to me. I took a swig and handed it back. After swallowing, I said, “Animal blood.” It wasn’t a question. The blood had a dense, pungent taste.

  “Moose blood,” Rex clarified, capping the canteen before slinging its cord over his shoulder.

  Moose blood. Call me a true Alaskan vamp now. I drank pig’s blood in Italy eons ago, but this was my first taste of big game. Had to say, I preferred human—fresh from the vein. Hadn’t had that in way too long. Unlike new and less savory vampires, I could hold out. I also had contacts and ways of procuring blood bags. Taste-wise, it was a bit like comparing canned food with home cooking, but the nutrients were the same.

  I chipped at the ice with the tip of my trekking pole briefly before saying, “This is far enough. We’ll head back.”

  “It is fortunate we did not find her,” Rex said. “The only way she’d still be around is if she were a corpse.” His lashes lowered. “Let us hope that Kushtaka has not claimed her.”

  Ice cracked under the brunt of my pole as I plunged it beside me and came to a dead stop.

  “Who is Kushtaka?” I demanded. “You never reported any big players in the area.”

  I had eyes and ears all over Alaska—hell, all over the world—and part of that duty meant informing me of high-profile vamps and their activities.

  “Not a vampire, an evil spirit,” Rex clarified. “The Tlingit Indians say he is a cross between a man and an otter. He captures unfortunate souls who have gotten lost or drowned, and takes them away to his realm, never to be seen or heard from again.”

  I snorted with derision, heading with carefully placed footsteps back to the trailhead. “You’ve been reading too many books.”

  “Maybe so,” Rex said, falling into step beside me. “But it doesn’t change the fact that an uncanny number of people go missing in this place.”

  “More likely they were drained and disposed of by renegade vampires than a man-otter,” I said.

  “That is one possibility,” Rex acknowledged.

  One possibility out of hundreds. Vampires and evil spirits aside, Alaska was a land of unforgiving extremes. A person could fall from a mountain, crash in a bush plane, drown, freeze, or get buried beneath an avalanche. If nature didn’t do the trick, there were always bear attacks or the occasional trampling by a provoked moose.

  “What are you going to do about Josslyn?” Rex asked.

  Ah, yes, Joss. Unlike Aurora, I knew exactly where to find my best friend. And I knew how to get him back. As soon as I’d confirmed Aurora was a vampire, I’d set in motion a plan— unbeknownst to her, Noel, even Joss—to give me leverage over the agency and free her of her obligations when the time came.

  As it were, I’d need to use the maneuver to free Joss first.

  It was time for the agency to meet my family. Not just any family. An Italian family. The Donado family.

  5

  Wanted

  {Aurora}

  The lantern’s flame went out sometime before dawn. No more oil. No more fire. Daylight took her sweet time chasing away the cabin’s somber shadows. One of the bunk beds creaked as someone stepped out. I sat up straight and folded my arms, thinking it was Dante, but it was Giselle who walked into the main cabin with her backpack.

  She didn’t say good morning or even look at me. She moved to the cabin’s square window, pulled out a brush, and set her backpack on the floor by her feet. She brushed through her long blond hair while staring outside as though in a trance.

  Every movement looked mechanical.

  It made me wonder if a vampire like her was capable of falling in love. She seemed to lack emotions of any kind other than displeasure.

  She hated Jared—that much was clear. And she wanted to take down the man who’d freed him and given him the resources to kill her family. Melcher.

  While Giselle got started on her fifty brush strokes, I got up and grabbed a bag of granola out of the duffel bag.

  Fifty strokes, that’s how bored I’d become in the backcountry. I’d actually counted the times Giselle brushed through her locks each morning.

  I didn’t care about the hair on my head or legs at the moment. Life on the lam sucked. I was sick of it. I wanted to get back to civilization, but how in the world would that ever happen? A sense of false bravado propelled me the day we left Girdwood. Since then, hope had dwindled into desperation. Who was I kidding? What chance did two agency defects have in taking down a government organization? If anything, we were the ones who would be taken down.

  My throat tightened.

  These thoughts never did anything except make me want to break down and weep.

  I glanced at Giselle with her steady brushstrokes and swallowed down my despair. Giselle was a sort of satiric talisman in my life. Tears dried up instantly in her presence. She was the last person I’d allow myself to lose it in front of.

  My resolve tightened.

  I plopped back down on the couch and shoved a handful of granola in my mouth, munching it down hungrily.

  My hair could wait. Hell, maybe I should get dreads or a bandana and not worry about it at all. Go au naturel. Granola-munching hippie/hunter. I snorted.

  I munched. Giselle brushed.

  Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty.

  She set the brush back inside her pack. Next she headed for the front door. Nature called.

  Tommy stood up and followed her. Giselle didn’t bother putting on a hat or coat when she headed to the outhouse. She and Tommy stepped outside, and the door closed gently behind her.

  I tossed another handful of granola in my mouth.

  The floorboards creaked inside the bunkroom.

  My teeth crunched over the hard bits of granola. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant thing to eat. Not soft or chewy. I didn’t mind crunchy. I loved pretzel sticks. Bu
t granola was like chewing on a mouthful of gravel.

  More floorboards groaned as Dante moved around the bunkroom. He emerged wearing a fresh T-shirt, his hair brushed. Guess I was the only slacker. Man repellent. Good. I didn’t want to attract Dante in any shape or form.

  He stretched, his muscled torso spreading taut against his shirt.

  I chewed more vigorously.

  His arms arched, spreading wide as he lowered them to his sides. Our eyes met. I chewed louder.

  “Good morning,” he said, cheeks dimpling when he smiled.

  I nodded and kept chewing, annoyance nibbling away at my brain. Leave it to Dante to be cheerful following a vamp attack.

  He walked to the duffel and set a can of Spam and a fork on the table. While his back was turned, I ran my fingers through my hair. They got caught in tangles almost immediately. Maybe I should hack it all off.

  Dante plopped into a chair, pulled back the can’s lid, and picked up his fork.

  “Three down,” he said. “We’re on a roll. Who needs the agency?”

  I swallowed the last bit of granola and frowned. “I don’t want to spend my whole life running and hiding. I don’t want to have to worry about the safety of my family and friends every second of every day.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll stop them. Melcher wouldn’t dare hurt your mother.”

  “Why not?” I demanded. “What’s stopping him?”

  “She’s human.”

  “So was Crist.”

  Dante stabbed the Spam with his fork. “Unfortunately, Agent Crist was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I gave an angry shake of my head. “There is no wrong place or wrong time with the agency. There is only risk by association.”

  “We’ll stop them.”

  “How?” Before he could answer, the cabin door opened. Dante and I stood up, but it was only Giselle returning, a canvas backpack held in one hand. She set it on the table.

  “I found this inside the outhouse.”

  “Gross.” My nose wrinkled.

  Dante unbuckled the pack and stuck both arms inside. He pulled out a baggie with dried green herbs. Dante sniffed it and tossed it on the table before resuming his search.

  Giselle encroached on his space, staring into the pack as Dante rummaged through it.

  “Jackpot!” he cried, lifting a phone. He moved it from side to side in his hand, making the device dance.

  My spirits lifted.

  A phone.

  Communication.

  Finally.

  “Now we can find out who this vamp was, along with his contacts,” he announced triumphantly.

  I looked at him, slack-jawed. Dante’s priorities and mine were definitely out of sync. Eyes locked on the phone, I straightened my spine. “We can use that to call your roommate and make sure he got a message to Noel. I’m worried about her.”

  The phone stilled in Dante’s hand. “Are you sure it’s Noel you’re worried about, or is it someone else?”

  Dante didn’t need to say who he meant. Fane’s name was right there, towering between us like the ice Wall in Game of Thrones.

  The accusation in his tone made my blood boil and heat rise over my skin. My anger, like fire, felt strong enough to suck oxygen from the room.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giselle pull a folded sheet of paper from the pack and open it slowly.

  “This isn’t good,” she said.

  No shit. I was about ready to throw Dante’s Spam at him.

  It took me a moment to realize Giselle wasn’t talking about the storm brewing between us. She handed the paper to Dante.

  I looked over his shoulder, catching the bold headline first.

  WANTED

  Below the imposing letters were black-and-white photos of both Dante and me.

  My heart lurched.

  The text beneath our pictures said: Call this number if you have any information regarding the location of either of these two individuals.

  REWARD stood out in capital letters. Fifty thousand dollars for any information that led to our capture.

  My knees nearly buckled. There was a price on our heads. We were doomed. Done for.

  I shook my head. No. Don’t freak out. The whole world knew what Osama bin Laden looked like too. I’d just have to avoid public places for a while. Stick to remote locations.

  “Do you recognize the phone number?” Giselle asked.

  “No,” Dante said.

  Giselle pulled a thin stack from the backpack. “He had more copies,” she said.

  “Maybe he’s been handing them out or wanted to share them with his buddies,” Dante said. “Throw them in the stove.” He stretched his arm toward Giselle then quickly retracted it. “I’ll hold on to this one… for my scrapbook,” he mocked.

  Giselle leaned beside the stove, pulling one flyer from the stack before opening the iron door and feeding the rest to the fire. The hinges on the small stove door squealed when she closed it.

  “Are you starting a scrapbook too?” I asked sarcastically, dropping my gaze to the flyer between Giselle’s slim fingers. When the Vulcan didn’t answer, I added, “Thinking about turning us in now that there’s a reward?”

  Giselle gave the slightest scowl; a brief flicker of annoyance passed over her face. I watched her reaction carefully.

  “I have no interest in reward money,” she stated. She folded the paper in half three times until it was compact enough to fit inside her jeans pocket. Her posture was more rigid than usual as she met my suspicious gaze with a glassy stare.

  The paper crinkled in Dante’s fist. “You know what this means?”

  I broke eye contact with Giselle to look at my partner in crime. Maybe we should start calling ourselves Bonnie and Clyde.

  Dante didn’t have to say the rest. I knew what it meant all right.

  The agency had outed us.

  Truck loaded, we rolled away from the vamp cabin, the birch trees pressing in on us from both sides. Driving out didn’t appear much faster than walking in. At the end of the road, we passed a banged-up Bronco with a dented passenger’s side and a missing bumper. It had been parked on the side of a slightly wider dirt road preceding the private driveway.

  Once we reached the Parks Highway, the truck stopped jostling around. Usually it was a relief to be on the highway. In the past it had comforted me knowing that in some small way I was still connected to Anchorage.

  But that was before I found out our identities were in enemy hands. Now I wanted to cover my face or duck down every time a car passed from the opposite direction.

  Nothing should have surprised me at this point, but I couldn’t believe Melcher had so easily given us up. It had to be the agency. Who else knew we were on the run? Who else would know Dante and I worked together? Who else would print my high school yearbook photo? They’d ruined my senior year. Why not toss up my school picture to rub more salt in the wound?

  There wasn’t anything about us being vampire hunters on the paper, but how else would the flyer end up in the hands of a vampire unless the agency placed it there?

  “There’s got to be someone else we could report Melcher to,” I said. “Someone more accessible. Maybe someone else on Elmendorf Air Force Base.”

  “We can’t trust anyone working directly under Melcher,” Dante replied. “I only trust Sergeant Holmes, and the only way to reach him is through a new recruit sent to boot camp.”

  “What are you talking about?” Giselle asked.

  My foot tapped against the floorboard in thought. “Selene!” I said suddenly. “Melcher threatened to send her to boot camp. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help bring about agency reform.”

  “Agency reform,” Giselle sneered, her condescending tone reminding me too much of Jared. “I thought we were out for revenge, not reform.”

  “Both,” Dante said.

  Giselle seemed almost to freeze in place. Her body, even her breath, stilled.

  She had no reason to
go manic. It wasn’t like I had any clue where Selene was being kept—no way to contact her. Melcher might not even send her to boot camp.

  Dante also began tapping. His fingers beat out a rhythm on the steering wheel as though playing a flute. Hopefully that meant he’d come up with an idea. “What we need are informants of our own.”

  “Informants?” I repeated, unsure of what direction his mind had taken.

  “Double agents,” Dante clarified. “We need Noel.”

  Wasn’t that what I’d been trying to tell him all along?

  “In that case, shouldn’t we be heading south or using the phone to reach her?” I asked.

  “It’s too risky,” Dante said. “At least right now. We need to disappear for a while. Drop way off the radar. When the time is right, we’ll see what the situation is in Anchorage. Maybe even do a stakeout. Wouldn’t be my first time keeping tabs on someone.”

  I turned in my seat to face him. “Right, and that lasted how many hours before you got tired of watching your subject and decided to engage him instead?”

  He chuckled before answering. “Hey, I lasted a full day and night.”

  “Wow, a full day and night. However did you manage?” I asked sarcastically.

  Dante squeezed the steering wheel and pulled himself forward, chest rising. “It wasn’t just a stakeout. I also went undercover.”

  “Yeah, you told me about that. I seem to recall you saying something about kicking back with a vampire and drinking beers.”

  I watched Dante’s face closely. His grin widened. “My vamp pal Buck. See? I can play nice with the ones who make an honest living and drink beer, not blood. You may also recall that my activities led to the agency’s knowledge of tastings.”

  “And your capture,” I said, shooting Giselle a dirty look.

  “I would have found him one way or another,” Giselle informed me.

  “How did you know to go to the tasting in the first place?”

  “I followed you from your house up to the hillside.” Giselle stared out the window as though speaking to someone else.

  Dante shifted in his seat. “Then she came in and lied to me. Said my girl was in trouble.”