Frostbound tdf-4

by Sharon Ashwood

  “Don’t bite me! For God’s sake don’t bite me!”

  It was an addict’s cry not to send him back to that corrosive hell.

  “Don’t bite me, Talia, please!”

  She hadn’t meant to, but he shouldn’t have put the idea in her head. Talia felt her mouth going dry, parched as if it were stuffed with dust and ashes. His struggling didn’t help. Fear, struggles, heat, and the scent of blood and sweat added up to only one thing: prey.

  Suddenly, Talia was shaking with hunger. She was starving. It had been days since she’d had a proper meal—too long for someone as newly Turned as she was. All she could see was fragile skin, all she could smell was his panic. Older vampires would make a game of seduction. She was too raw for anything but selfish urgency.

  She began to salivate.

  When she struck, skin would break with a springy resistance that reminded her of grapes. As her fangs breached flesh, there would be the first gush of hot comfort, and the blessed release of the venom. Her teeth ached with it, a pressure that built the hungrier she became. Now it would discharge, flowing from her into his veins and sending him into bliss. Oh, yes, she would give him a rush of pleasure.

  In just a moment.

  Unless she could hang on. She had to hang on. It was her brother. That would be weird and wrong. The first time, it had been a cruel trick. This time, she was in the driver’s seat. She could resist.

  She hoped.

  Max fought back, egging on the predator inside her. Talia couldn’t see his face and didn’t want to. The intimacy of the moment wasn’t something she wanted to remember. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she struggled against the urge to take him. She was panting, trying to find enough air to relieve the ache that racked her whole body.

  Back away, back away, back away.

  She could almost accept the blood-drinking thing. What she really hated was the loss of control.

  A clattering of heels broke her hunger trance. The door burst open and Errata nearly smashed into them. Talia looked up, hoping she wasn’t sticking out her fangs like some B-movie Draculette.

  The werecougar was staring at her openmouthed. “What are you doing?”

  Duh, isn’t it obvious? Sucking on a victim just outside the local morgue. Saves on body fluid cleanup. How’s your night been going?

  “Hairballs, something told me I should check on you. Talia, talk to me.” Errata took a slow step forward. “Who is this guy?”

  Talia swallowed hard before finding her voice. It came out strained and hoarse. “My brother.”

  Errata grabbed Max’s arm, pulling him out of Talia’s clutches. “Then don’t eat him. That would make Thanksgiving really awkward.”

  Talia felt an irrational urge to yank him back, but reason was starting to claw its way through the feeding frenzy. Max flattened himself against the wall, glaring at Talia. Errata had her phone out, calling somebody for help.

  Talia bent and picked up the semiautomatic, her fingers shaking with need denied. She couldn’t bring herself to look Max in the face.

  So much for the movie-of-the-week family reunion.

  Errata put away her phone. She looked from Talia to Max curiously, taking in his nondescript black clothes, the gun, and his glare. Her look said she had him pegged as very, very bad news. “What’s going on? What’s he doing here?”

  “Is this your friend, Tal?” An unpleasant leer came over Max’s face. “I always wanted to meet a girl who was all pussy.”

  His head whipped to the side, smacking against the wall. Errata’s hand had moved faster than Talia’s eyes could follow.

  “Next time, the claws are out,” Errata hissed. “I don’t care whose brother you are.”

  “Don’t!” Talia automatically stepped forward to defend him.

  The malevolence in his eyes froze her where she stood. What’s happened to him? He was never this cruel.

  But who was she kidding? Hunters killed monsters. Would they sweat a little rudeness? But he’s not like that. I know him.

  Errata gave her a look that was close to pity.

  The door slammed open again; this time Baines burst through. He flashed a badge. “Derek Baines, Supernatural Crimes Division. Stay right where you are.”

  Lore arrived a moment later, his expression baleful. He looked at Errata. “The detective was standing right next to me when you called.”

  When he caught sight of Talia, his expression said his worst fears had been confirmed. Detective Baines didn’t realize it, but he’d just found the elusive Talia Rostova. She slid the gun into her pocket and out of sight.

  Baines took a step toward Max, but he looked at Errata. “There was an altercation?”

  With her stomach turning hard and heavy, Talia began a slow fade down the hallway one step at a time. Until her name was cleared, she was in trouble if the police figured out who she was. If she was on that frickin’ registry, they’d hand her straight back to Belenos.

  But this was Max. Was she going to abandon him? Was she going to sell him out as the gunman who’d shot Perry?

  But he’s my brother.

  The worst they had on him was nearly being eaten by his vampire sister. Max would be okay. Talia had his gun—they wouldn’t even pick him up on a weapons charge.

  He shot Perry. He tried to murder someone.

  But that was what Hunters did. That was the family business.

  Perry had helped her.

  But it’s Max.

  Talia quickened her pace, panting from the tug-ofwar inside her. She’d put two doorways between herself and the cop. The harsh overhead lighting showed the lines between each floor tile, making the hallway into a game board of squares. Talia felt like a pawn sneaking out of the path of the rooks and knights.

  Max shrugged. “Look around. Obviously you’ve got no reason to hold me.”

  “Give me a minute,” Baines said dryly. “You’re already starting to annoy me.”

  “Hey, I’m the victim. These chicks are psycho.” He pointed at Errata. “This one hit me and that one bit me.”

  For the first time, Baines looked directly at Talia. She saw recognition light in his eyes.

  Shit!

  “Wait,” said Lore, a considering tone in his voice. “I know this guy.”

  Max took that moment to shove past Errata and bolt in Talia’s direction.

  Lore stabbed his finger at the running figure. “He’s the gunman from the university!”

  “What?” Errata exclaimed, a world of trouble in the one word.

  Max moved fast, pumping arms and legs in a desperate rush to freedom. He covered the distance to Talia in a few strides. Instinctively, she grabbed for his arm. She felt her sharp nails dig into the cloth of his jacket, tearing through to the skin beneath, but he kept running, shaking her off as if she were a pesky dog.

  Talia stumbled, bouncing off the wall, but lunged after him. “Max! Come back!”

  Her boots slid on the polished floor, struggling for a grip. She heard Lore calling her name, but her eyes fixed on the back of Max’s jacket.

  She couldn’t leave everything unresolved. He couldn’t get away.

  With a thunder of echoing footfalls, the others were coming after them. Baines was human-slow and would be left at the back of the pack. Talia, on the other hand, was a vampire with a head start. There was no way Max could outrun her. She dodged after him as he took a right turn. Signs hung from the ceiling, announcing what lay down each corridor, but they flashed by before she could read them. Smells told her they were places with plenty of chemicals and equipment. These weren’t the places where healing was done.

  Max took a sudden left turn. Talia was only a few paces behind him now, and she was getting angry. “Stop!” she snarled.

  He had to. At the end of the short hallway was a dead end, a blank wall with no door, no poster, nothing. But he didn’t slow.

  “Stop!” Talia cried again, now afraid he was simply going to brain himself like a bug on a windshield.<
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  Max roared something she couldn’t understand and jumped through the wall, his body melting into the painted concrete and disappearing. Talia’s brain wrenched at the impossible, nonsensical sight. A blast of outrage singed her. Jumping through walls was cheating.

  Just like Max to pull a fast one on his little sister.

  So Talia did the only thing that made sense. She jumped after him.

  Chapter 20

  Talia expected she’d keep on running. That was the problem with leaping into the unknown. It was, really and truly, unknown.

  Instead, she fell. It was probably only a dozen feet—nothing for a vampire—but she’d only just grasped what was happening when the ground leaped up to smack her.

  Wham. She lay for a moment, stunned and hurting. Her skin tingled like she’d stuck her whole body into an electrical current. Was that the aftermath of some sort of magic spell?

  Cold, damp ground. Outdoors? No. Wherever she was lying was mercifully bare of snow.

  She got to her hands and knees and looked around. Her first instinct was to call out for Max, but common sense stopped her. He was hostile, and she was horribly vulnerable. It was completely dark. Not nighttime dark, which had enough ambient light for a vampire, but pit of Hades dark. Only a glimmer showed in patches of what seemed to be a ceiling. Where am I?

  Skin crawling with nerves, she sniffed the air, trying to get some information about her surroundings. She could feel a slight movement of air, but city smells mixed with something musty and older. Almost sweet. Definitely stale. Somewhere in that cocktail was the stench of rat. The furry bastards were one of her few real phobias. A vampire sunstruck into her daytime sleep wasn’t safe in rat territory. They weren’t picky about whether or not flesh was dead.

  Talia shuddered, getting quickly to her feet before she began to dwell on the thought. Her boots crunched on sand and dirt, but that was over something uneven but harder. Brick maybe. The sound was oddly muffled, as if it wanted to echo but the surfaces nearby were too close. Stretching out her arms, Talia felt nothing. Not that close, then.

  Carefully, she moved toward the lighter patch of darkness ahead, pulling on her gloves as she went. Where was Max? There was no sign of him, not a whiff. Part of her was grateful, part pissed, part afraid. When had he learned to walk through walls? It wasn’t impossible—a simple teleportation spell was something a sorcerer could make for someone else—but it was entirely out of character. Hunters didn’t use magic. They were utterly against it.

  Something is very wrong. Unease burned in her stomach. It was one thing that she was caught in a moral dilemma between ratting out her brother and turning in an attempted murderer, but magic made everything more complex.

  Perhaps Hunters had started out protecting human villages and maybe they’d had the moral high ground once upon a time, but this was a different reality. To hate and kill someone just because they weren’t human—to hurt someone like Perry—was completely wrong.

  Monsters were monsters until they were your friends. Talia’s beliefs had been changing for a long time, but this sealed it. Shooting Perry had made it personal.

  And if the Hunters were using nonhuman powers? That was going from wrong to perverse. That was becoming the thing you despised in order to destroy it more effectively.

  That’s just repulsive. What the hell is Max up to? And if he was around, her father and the rest of the tribe wouldn’t be far away. That meant all of Spookytown was in danger: Lore, Errata, Joe, and eventually Queen Omara. Omigod they’re here to stop the election!

  Nonhumans getting the vote—that was exactly the sort of thing that would make the Hunters go crazy. Talia felt a surge of alarm, the rush of adrenaline making her still heart beat for a dizzying moment. But what did Perry have to do with it? Why shoot him? She might be glimpsing some of the picture, but she still didn’t have the whole thing.

  Whatever. She’d found out something important, and she had to warn the others. If that meant her Hunter past was revealed, she’d have to suck it up. Talia balked at the thought, a surge of apprehension tingling through her. I have to do it. There are a lot of lives at stake.

  Crap.

  Talia had to get out of there and find Lore. But where was out? Wherever the spell had taken Max, she’d merely gone for a ride on the tail end of the magic—and apparently fell off along the way.

  She stopped a moment, hugging herself in the intense darkness. It was really, really hard to pretend she wasn’t afraid when she had no cell phone, no idea where the heck she was, and no way to find out. Not fear. Don’t give in to fear.

  Sunrise was just a few hours away, and she didn’t have forever to get someplace safe. She stood under the brighter patch of dark, craning her neck to see straight up. Her vampire’s eyes made more sense of it than a human could, but even she needed more light than this to get a clear picture. All she could tell was that the patch was a square broken into smaller squares, like a paned window. A very, very feeble light shone through.

  Talia tried to rearrange her perspective, testing theories about where she might be. The hospital was northeast of downtown. How far might the spell have carried her? Just through the wall? Or miles away?

  She saw motion above, a blur of light sweeping from left to right. Then she understood. Those were bus headlights. I’m under the street in Old Town. She was standing in one of the old service tunnels that used to run to the basements of the shops and hotels. Back then, coal was delivered to underground storage areas—not to mention slaves, opium, whores, and smuggled liquor. Talia had read a little of the town’s history on the Internet when she’d first arrived—Fairview had played its part in making sure the West was not so much won as partied into a stupor.

  That little bit of research had paid off. She remembered that thick blocks of glass were built into the sidewalks of Old Town to provide light to the tunnels. Over the years, the glass had turned a deep purple color, but they still did their job, more or less. That’s what was overhead. The old glass bricks were letting a tiny glow from the streetlights shine down to her. Okay, score one for the history geek. Now, how the hell do I get out of here?

  In the old days, the tunnels had been accessed through iron grates that opened onto metal stairways that led below street level. According to the Web site, most of those had been paved over for safety reasons. The best she could hope for was to find a door to some old building and use her Undead strength to break through it.

  It looked slightly lighter straight ahead, so she started trudging in that direction. Her body temperature was always below normal, and now she was starting to feel the cold in a serious way. She wouldn’t die, but she could slow down like a lizard left in the fridge—and then there would be rats.

  No mistakes. No delays. It was dark enough that she could walk by a door and not notice it, so she roamed from one side of the tunnel to the other as she went. Occasionally she felt a ripple of something pass by. Ghosts? She was no witch, but she could tell these tunnels weren’t empty. There was a presence besides the rats down there—and she really didn’t want to know more.

  Talia picked up her pace, pushing her frozen limbs. She was heartened by the fact that the blocks above her seemed to be growing brighter, as if moving into a busier part of the downtown. She hadn’t gone far—perhaps eight city blocks—when she came to an intersection of sorts. The other tunnel was newer, lined with concrete. A sewer? A storm drain? Who knew? She liked history and old books. What she knew about modern city engineering could have fit on a credit card, but tunnel number two had a ladder about twenty feet away. Yes!

  Water had frozen at the bottom of this passage. Talia picked her way across the slick, gripping the wall with tense fingers. When she reached the ladder, she realized with a burst of relief that it led up to a manhole cover. As she climbed, the chill of the metal ladder leached through her gloves. Her feet were numb, and she had to be conscious of where she set them, one rung at a time. Giving commands to her body was like operating a
robot, distant and imprecise.

  The heavy cover was more problematic, mostly because it had a thick layer of snow that fell into her face the moment she scooted it aside. Grunting, Talia clambered out and shoved the cover back into place. She heaved a breath, grateful for the fresh, free air. When she looked around, trying to get her bearings, the first thing she saw was a blue neon sign flashing on the snow. It announced Nanette’s Naughty Kitty Basket. Her joy dimmed a notch. Oh, great. She’d rejoined the world above right outside a strip club that featured the werebeast equivalent of horny alley cats.

  She struggled to her numb feet and walked in the other direction. It was an alleyway, but sheltered from the elements by high brick walls. There was not as much snow and walking was easier.

  Only when she was halfway down the alleyway did Talia realize where she was. Three tall, dark-haired males stood in front of an arched doorway set into the brick wall. The door was made of vertical oak planks strapped with black iron—the sort of thing one would expect in an old castle or cathedral—except the subtle throb of magic that seeped from it was like nothing she’d felt before. The three guards were too much like Lore—big-boned, shaggy, and tough-looking—not to be hellhounds.

  Of all the places in Fairview, she’d avoided this spot deliberately. The Castle.

  She’d been raised to fear and fight monsters. This was the entry to an entire prison dimension filled with them. Some called it Hell, though that wasn’t literally true. It was a war zone where factions battled through the eternities, scrabbling for brute power. Lore’s people had escaped, but only with massive losses. Ever since arriving in Fairview, Talia had paranoid fantasies of being thrown inside, losing access to even the remotest scraps of her human existence. In other words, kind of like high school.

  She started to turn and retrace her steps when one of the hounds called out, “Miss, are you lost?”

  Do I look that clueless? She straightened up, forcing herself to look confident. She yelled across the distance that separated them, “Where can a girl get a hot drink around here?”