by D. N. Hoxa
“People. Running away from this place. Last night.” He grinned.
Oh, the smartass. “And did you happen to see who they were? What they were? How many of them?”
He was talking about the thieves. I’d been sure it had been one, but maybe my own habits gave me the wrong ideas every now and then. Whoever those people were, they had to be the people I was looking for. The ones who had Illyon.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” The smile on his face was victorious. He had me, and he knew it. Shit. “And I’d be willing to share with you everything I saw, right after you come with me to New York and help me find my missing vampires.”
My hands pulled up in fists. “You’re such a bad liar.”
I wasn’t sure he was lying, but it was always a possibility. He knew I was looking for something only because of how I reacted when he said he had people who could find things for me. I’d been careless—again—and now I could never be sure unless Aaron felt this guy and told me he meant what he said.
“I’m an excellent liar, in fact, but that’s not what this is. It was those runners that brought me here. I saw where they came out from, and that’s how I was able to come closer, within the wards. I saw them, clear as day.”
“Tell me exactly who you saw and where you saw them,” I whispered, my blood boiling now. If Frosty really saw them running, they could still be close, and if I went after them now, I could catch them easily.
“I will, as soon as you come with me and help me find my vamp—”
Blame it on the panic, but my foot hit his lower jaw before he could finish his sentence. He fell back a couple of steps, taken completely off guard. This wasn’t how I wanted things to go, but I wasn’t going to be manipulated now when it was Illyon—the only thing that gave me the smallest chance of defeating Samayan—we were talking about
I went for him again and aimed my fists at his face, but he’d recovered so he moved away, fast. Vampires were pretty much impossible to fight against for supernaturals because of their speed, but whatever it was that forced the time to move in slow motion for me while in a fight gave me all of the advantage. I saw him move even before he did and dodged and blocked all of his hits and kicks. The only reason Bob wasn’t in my hand was because I didn’t want to hurt him too much—just scare him. Tell him I was capable of kicking his ass if he didn’t just tell me what he saw. I wanted to show him I wasn’t to be messed with. Plus I needed him intact for when he told me everything.
“Star?”
Aaron’s voice reached my ears from far away. The second of distraction cost me. Frosty’s giant foot connected with my gut, and all breath left my body. I fell backwards, and before I could focus, a fist caught me on my face and I saw stars. For whatever reason, that made me smile. I loved a good fight, and Frosty there was proving to be a worthy opponent.
“Star, what the hell?” Aaron was closer now.
“Stand back, Aaron. Almost done!” I called, just as Frosty came at me with his fists again. I dodged them and caught his chin with my fist instead. My knee connected with his waist, and I hit him hard with my forehead on his nose the second he bent over. It hurt like hell, but when I heard bone break and cold blood explode from it, it was definitely worth it.
The pain blurred Frosty’s vision for a few more seconds, enough for me to land blow after blow all over his body. I caught his knee three times before it gave, and he fell to the ground, then stood up again.
“For God’s sake, stop!” Aaron called from behind me, but Frosty was already in attack mode, so I paid no attention to him. I fought the vampire instead.
It was the best therapy a girl could ask for. Unfortunately for me, after he managed to land a fist on the side of my neck and nearly broke it, and after I caught his face a few more times, Frosty took a step back and held his hands up.
“Stop.”
If he wasn’t defending himself, it was no fun to attack him. So I stopped.
“Ready to talk now?”
“What the hell is going on?” Aaron was right next to me now, looking at Frosty and at me like we’d lost our minds. Couldn’t wait to tell him the whole story.
“Meet Frosty, a friendly vamp who came to talk to me. We were just wrapping things up,” I said, grinning.
But Frosty wasn’t in the best of moods. He straightened before Aaron and gave him a curt nod.
“I’ve come from New York to ask for help. It doesn’t look like I’m welcome here, though.” He raised a brow at me.
“Help with what?” asked Aaron.
“Some vamps have gone missing. He wants my help to find them. I already told him we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”
“Missing?” Aaron asked, turning to Frosty now.
“They’ve probably just run off somewhere—”
“They’re disappearing into thin air. Someone’s taking them and leaving no trace behind. All female vamps, and they started with the strongest we have,” Frosty cut me off. Was he kidding?
“Why haven’t we heard about this until now?” Aaron asked, as if I wasn’t even there.
“Hello? There’s a war coming. We’ve got shit to do, remember?” I widened my eyes at Aaron. Had he forgotten about Illyon?
“Like I said, it doesn’t look like I’m welcome here. So I’ll be on my way.” A hateful look my way, and the mighty Frosty turned his back on us.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I strode after him, angrier than before as my brain raced. He’d seen something. He’d seen the thieves leave the Base, and right now, that was the only thing that mattered.
“I’m not going to help you if you won’t help me,” Frosty hissed, not even bothering to turn to me.
“I need to know what you saw. This is more important than you can even imagine!” I was pretty sure he could see it from the look on my face, but I was also sure he was going to use my desperation for his own gain. It’s what people did.
“And I need to find my vampires. Do you have any idea what losing females does to a coven? My people are losing it,” he spit.
I jumped in front of him and was going to push him back, but he and his annoying super speed made it impossible for me to even touch him. One second he was in front of me, the next he was ten steps ahead. My panic and hopelessness fueled my anger. I couldn’t just let the guy walk away. What he saw could lead me straight to the thieves. It was the fastest clue I could possibly find, even better than Arsenal, and that’s if he decided to help.
“Just let him be on his way, Star. We can’t help him,” Aaron said. He had snuck behind me as I watched Frosty’s wide shoulders move while he walked away from me.
“I can’t. He saw the thieves,” I whispered.
“The thieves?”
“He saw people running out of here last night. I’m ready to bet my life that it was them. If he tells us who he saw, we can find them before Illyon even makes it out of the state.” Good thing the White Book of Wisdom couldn’t exist in the immortal realm. Otherwise, I would’ve been fucked even more.
When Aaron refused to say anything for a long second, I turned to look at him and found him exactly as I had just a couple hours ago. He was sweating like a pig, eyes wide and mouth open.
“What?”
“We should stop him,” he finally said, the words barely understandable.
“No kidding,” I said with a sigh, then turned to Frosty again. “Hey, stop!”
He could hear me perfectly though he was pretty far away now, walking slowly as if he knew that I was going to call him back. When he turned to look at me, his eyes shone silver.
“If you want to try and kill me, go right ahead. I’ve got shit to do, too,” he called back.
I was going to run over there and fight him again when Aaron grabbed my arm.
“You’re losing it, Star. This isn’t the way to deal with people you need something from. You know that better than anyone,” he whispered in my ear.
And damn him, he was right. I never liked politics,
but that didn’t matter in the situation we were in. I was angry as fuck, yes, but I couldn’t go around fighting the only person who had the information I needed the most right now, information that could potentially win us the war. If he left, or even if I fought and killed him, he was going to take what he saw to the grave. No win for me. Shit. I was going to have to compromise. After a string of curse words left my lips, I cleared my throat.
“I’ll help you,” I said to the vampire. “I’ll give you my best people and my resources at your disposal.” I could put Kyle to it, even Sam. They would have to squeeze this investigation in with the rest of their work.
But Frosty flinched. “I’ve already tried the best of the best.”
“You haven’t tried with my team, though. Just the fairies alone could be invaluable to you.” And there I went again, about to ask Kyahen for even more favors. I was going to regret this for the rest of my days.
“You think a fairy is going to agree to work with me, just like that? I’m a vampire.” Frosty shook his head.
“He’s right. Kyahen isn’t going to listen to a single thing he says,” Aaron said with a frown.
“Damn it!” I hissed. “I can’t leave here! We need to prepare, all of us. You need to prepare, too! After Samayan’s done, there will be nothing left but him. Don’t you get that?”
“I do get that. And I want to help. All my vampires are going to help, if you help us first. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”
My hands were curled in fists at my side, and my blood rushed to my ears. How could he stand in front of me and tell me that any of this was fair?
“We’re all going to die if you don’t tell me who you saw out here.” My voice sounded weak, almost as if I’d already surrendered. I just didn’t know how else to put it for him.
“Two days,” Frosty said. “Give me two days. And if you can’t find out anything by then, I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Even take you to find those people myself.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out. I was more shocked at myself that I was actually expecting a vampire to realize just how serious the situation was and put the whole fucking world ahead of his personal interests. I knew better than that.
“One day.”
We both turned to look at Aaron, eyes wide.
“What?” Was he out of his mind?
“Give him a day, Star.” It was almost a warning.
“I’ll take a day,” Frosty said the next heartbeat, his face now that of an excited little boy.
I couldn’t tear my eyes off Aaron for a second. “Have you gone mad? We don’t have a day to spare!” Was I the only one who could see this?
“You do. Think about it. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be hunting down the thieves. It’s the fastest lead you’re going to get, and we both know how important this is.”
I was going to start shouting again, but when he put it like that, a day suddenly didn’t seem all that long. I turned to Frosty.
“You’ll take a day?”
“I will,” he said without missing a beat.
“And you’ll tell me exactly who you saw and where you saw them exactly twenty-four hours after I begin working on your case?”
“Yes! I will, I swear. I will give you the names, and I will give you the place. You have my word.”
Well, fuck me, I thought. As ridiculous as it all seemed, considering everything that had happened since I’d woken up, it looked like I was going to New York with a stranger vampire to investigate other missing vampires.
“He’s telling the truth,” said Aaron, and the four words sealed the deal.
13
——————————
“You need to speak to Eleanor,” I said to Aaron as we entered the tunnel that led to the Base, Frosty walking slowly behind us.
“The only thing he lied about was when he pretended to be on his way,” Aaron said.
“How would you know that?” said Frosty from behind us, but we didn’t pay attention.
“I’d still feel more comfortable talking to her first, and since I don’t want to waste any more time than necessary, you can just talk to her while I gather my things and get ready.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Aaron. I did, more than anyone, but Audrey had been right. If a person truly believed that what he was saying was the truth, Aaron would have no way of knowing if it was a lie.
“Okay, I’ll meet with her,” Aaron said, lips pressed. He was clearly not pleased, but he was on much better terms with the Elders than I was.
“What did the guards say, anyway?”
“Huh?” He looked completely confused.
“The guards you went to speak with? About the thing?” He’d gone off to speak to the guards that had been on duty the night before to ask if they’d seen someone leave.
“Oh, yeah. I spoke to them. They saw nothing,” Aaron mumbled.
“Someone ran from here. Frosty saw them. How did the guards miss them?”
It just didn’t make any sense. The thieves had been inside the Base, inside my room. And we controlled all the exits, didn’t we?
“There are two closed tunnels that we don’t monitor,” Aaron said, even more uncomfortable than before.
“What the hell? Why not?” Had he forgotten what had happened in Kentucky?
“Because they were shut down a long time ago. Earth collapsed. But since the guards didn’t let anybody in or out last night, my guess is they found a way through those two tunnels.”
Shocked out of words to say, I just looked at his profile for a second. Sure, we weren’t on the best of terms right that second, but was it just me, or did he seem awfully distant that morning?
“I assume someone’s checking them out?” I finally said because I didn’t have it in me to argue. I was already exhausted and I hadn’t had breakfast yet.
“As we speak.” Aaron nodded, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I wanted to pull him to the side and have a private conversation with him, just to make sure we were on the same page, but time was running out. I would have to leave my personal issues to the side for a day. When I got back from New York, I’d sit and have a talk with him, clear the waters and get rid of the confusion. Of all the people in the world, he and my sister were not someone I wanted to be on awkward terms with.
So while he took Frosty for a glass of blood before he spoke to Eleanor and made arrangements for a chopper to take us to New York, I made my way to my room to get my katanas, knives, and change into something more comfortable. I was hoping to get a second to talk to Ella before we left, but if not, I’d just get Kyle to tell her what had happened. I was going to definitely pay him a visit because I didn’t want to put even more on Aaron’s plate. I could check the security camera myself, though I doubted it had caught anything. Just like the guards hadn’t. And getting angry that there were two entrances unsupervised? Not even going there.
Unfortunately for me, the day was just beginning, and it had no plans to give me a break. Just as I opened the door to my room, exactly as it had happened the night before, there was nothing around me but glass and mirrors.
Shivers washed over my body, and for a second, I considered just getting the hell out of there. Screw the weapons. I could get new ones.
But…the door was gone, too.
“I suppose I caught you by surprise this morning, too,” Samayan said as his face very slowly began to reflect on the mirrors around me.
“I’m busy, Samayan. Can you please just go to hell already?” I had zero patience for him right now. He stole from me, right under my nose, and I didn’t even suspect anything. Of course I was pissed. He’d bested me at a time when I needed to believe I could defeat him, not stand around while he took away everything he pleased.
“You’re mad. I understand that, but wouldn’t you have done the same thing?” In a blink of an eye, in fact, but we weren’t talking about me. For all I knew, he was there to waste my time while
he did something else that was going to set me back a couple steps. So I changed the subject.
“Tell me, Samayan, why are you stealing independent female vampires?” The smile that had begun to form on his face was cut short. “Don’t tell me they’re for your harem. Do you even have a harem, oh, almighty master?”
A long second of silence. It was all the confirmation I needed. Samayan was stealing Frosty’s vampires, and until that second, he’d obviously hoped nobody would find out. Why? Because whatever the reason, it was important. Maybe going to New York wasn’t going to suck so badly, after all.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
“Even if I did,” Samayan began to say, but I was already trying to tune him out. The only way to break out of an illusion was to create another one in your mind, and with the right concentration, you could be back in the real world. I’d been forced out of illusions by professor Oszlovic once or twice, even by McGraw in my golden Lyndor years. As I breathed in and out and my heart rate slowed, I began to imagine I was back in my room, and all was right where it should be. “There are a lot of things more important…” Samayan was saying, but in those seconds, his words were simply white noise, nothing more. I’d allowed him to make a fool of me once. It was never going to happen again.
A couple of minutes later, when no sound reached my ears anymore, I slowly pried my eyes open. My heart pounded in my chest again because I expected to see Samayan reflected in those walls of mirror and glass he made, but instead, I was staring at my bathroom door. With a deep sigh, I went to the drawer and changed into a more comfortable pair of pants, shirt, and shoes. I packed my knives on my weapon belt, under my shirt and around my ankles, and I tied my hair up to get it out of the way. With my katanas on my back and my guns in the back of my black pants, I made my way out the door.
When I mentioned the vampires, Samayan had been surprised to say the least. He hadn’t wanted me to know about it, and that alone made the fight and arguments I’d had with Frosty that morning all worth it. Something was going on with those disappearing vamps, and though I had no clue how I was going to find out what, I was confident now that investigating it was the right thing to do.
