Frost Burn

by Erica Stevens

  “Stay calm and stay near me,” he whispered against her lips.

  He sat back to study her; she nodded her agreement. She had no idea what he’d intended when he’d climbed onto this roof. She didn’t get a chance to ask as he rose to his feet, climbed onto the wall, and then stepped off of it.

  Quinn shot up like a firecracker. The sight of him standing only a foot beneath the wall and grinning up at her doused her panic. “Ass!” she hissed.

  “Shh,” he said and put his finger against his lips.

  He was lucky she had to be quiet; otherwise, she might have staked him herself. Instead, she swung her leg over the wall and suppressed a gasp when he grabbed hold of her waist and lifted her effortlessly into the air.

  Goosebumps broke out on her flesh when he slid her back down the broad expanse of his chest. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he kept her pinned against his body on the set of fire stairs running down the front of the three-story building.

  “Don’t move.”

  She thought he might actually be enjoying this, and she couldn’t deny the thrill of pleasure the feel of him gave her, but she kept her senses focused on the world around them as they remained immobile on the stairs. She tried not to think about how old these stairs were and when the last time they’d been maintained was. If the stairs gave out beneath them there would be no keeping their presence here a secret. Every vampire in a hundred yard radius would know where they were. And they would come for them.

  The breeze tickled her hair and chilled her skin. She didn’t move so much as an eyelash as she strained to hear. She thought she caught the sound of voices and tuned out the lonely howl of the wind over the sand. Yes, there were definitely voices.

  She couldn’t make out what was being said or how many there were, but they were coming from inside the building. Grunting and the hollow thump of fists hitting flesh followed the voices. She frowned at the noises, unable to understand why they were fighting amongst each other.

  She turned her head and rested her mouth against his ear. “How many?”

  “Seven, maybe eight,” he whispered. “You really should stay here.”

  She shook her head. “You’re not going in there alone.”

  “You’re to stay near me, Dewdrop,” he told her again.

  He released her and slid around to stand in front of her. She followed noiselessly behind as they crept down the dilapidated stairs. With every step they took, she was certain the stairs were going to collapse beneath them. Miraculously, the stairs held firm until they arrived at a second floor window.

  Chapter Twenty

  Julian kept hold of the remaining pieces of glass as he knocked them out of the already broken window. He dropped the glass silently onto the floor inside the building before noiselessly slipping inside. He had no idea where the vampire who had shot up the bar had gone. He could have continued to follow him, but his attention had been drawn to this building by the overwhelming stench of decay, and the presence of even more vampires.

  He’d find the one who had fled the bar eventually, he would definitely pay for what he’d done tonight, but he couldn’t ignore the nest of vampires here. A nest he was certain the vampire he’d been chasing belonged to, but he’d purposely gone in a different direction. The vampire hadn’t realized Julian wouldn’t be so easily lost or led off the real trail.

  Turning back, he took hold of Quinn’s hand and helped her inside. He didn’t like the idea of her in here with him, would have preferred to keep her far away from this, but that would have been impossible. It was better to have her with him while entering the building then to have her sneak in later.

  She bent over and pulled two stakes from her boots. She handed one out to him, but he waved it away. ‘Keep it,’ he mouthed to her.

  She shook her head and shoved it into his hand. Before he could protest further she tugged a knife free of a holster on her waist. He’d known she was armed at all times, but he hadn’t realized she was a walking death trap as she shoved the knife into his hand and pulled another one free.

  Her eyes were the color of amber when they met his again; they brought to mind a hawk’s eyes when it honed in on its prey. He hesitated, his gaze slid back to the window as he briefly contemplated dragging her back outside and far away from this place.

  The vampires in this place may not be old, but they were still volatile and lethal, especially to her. She jerked her head forward and jutted her chin out. She would never agree to leave here without a fight. Julian turned away from her and focused on the cavernous room they’d entered.

  The expansive space took up the entire second floor of the building. Heavy cobwebs hung from the rafters above their heads, their feet left prints in the thick dust as they crossed the floor with care. At least half a dozen five-foot tall mannequins of torsos were shoved into the shadowed corners of the room. Some had sheets draped over top of them, but the sheets had fallen off of others and were a dusty heap pooled upon the ground.

  He didn’t pay any attention to the floor squeaking beneath him. The rats he heard in the walls and scurrying through the shadows were more than enough to cover a noisy floorboard or two. At the end of the room was a single wooden board running from the wall to the set of stairs winding down to the first floor. Light flooded up from below, it bounced off of the dark ceiling beams and illuminated the first five feet of the loft area they stood in.

  Voices reverberated through the room. A low moan sounded; he could hear the solid thwack of a boot connecting with someone’s ribs. Something cracked, a squeal sounded from below and then the hollow thuds stopped. Small mewls and whimpers continued, but the beating had ceased, for now.

  “What is his problem? Why did he flip out like that?” a voice demanded from below.

  “I don’t know,” someone else answered.

  Bending down, Julian crept forward the last few feet, and held his arm back to keep Quinn at a safe distance away. He peered over the edge of the loft at the eight men gathered below. One of the men was curled up in the fetal position on the floor. The pitiful noises were coming from him as he kept one hand clasped against his caved in cheekbone, and the other against his concave chest.

  “Kill me,” the pitiful, bloodied and broken vampire moaned. “Please, just kill me.”

  “Shut up,” one of the others said and spat at the writhing man.

  Julian’s lip curled in revulsion as his gaze drifted away from the pathetic excuse of a vampire lying on the floor. Before he’d looked over, he’d already known what to expect as the stench of rotting flesh and coppery blood filled his nostrils. The spectacle of the piled bodies below was enough to make even his stomach turn.

  He rested his hand against the railing and wrapped his other hand around Quinn’s arm in order to hold her back. It would be impossible to keep this from her, but he’d like to be able to do so for a little bit longer.

  There were at least a couple dozen bodies of women and children lying in a heap near the back of the building. These vampires were the worst form of life. They killed innocents, and slept and lived with the remains of their food. Animals had more care for their environment and conditions than this.

  He was going to enjoy killing these bastards.

  Bloodlust built within him, excitement pulsed through his body; his fangs tingled as his body swelled with power. Quinn’s hand wrapped around his bicep drawing his attention back to her. She crept closer to him and rested her hand on his cheek.

  She affected him in some strange ways, but he wasn’t prepared for the sense of calm that slid through his body at her touch. He placed his hand over top of hers and turned his lips into her palm. She tried to take a step closer to the edge; he kept her back and shook his head no.

  ‘Not yet,’ he mouthed against her palm.

  Her eyes flickered toward the lower room, but she didn’t try to fight him on it. From below the sounds of more blows falling upon the flesh and bone of someone drifted up to them. He leaned over to see three of the
m beating the one on the floor again. With the way they were going, they were going to kill him before Julian had to worry that he and Quinn were outnumbered four to one.

  Julian pulled Quinn back when the front door opened and moonlight briefly spilled inside the building. Thick leather boots resounded on the wooden floor as the vampire he’d been chasing strolled inside with a cocky grin on his face. His long brown hair stood up in spikes on top of his head. Julian’s fingers flexed on his free hand, as he imagined driving his fist into the smirk on this guy’s face.

  “Where have you been?” one of the others inquired.

  “I decided to pay our friends a little visit,” the shooter replied.

  A man who had been hanging back, watching the others beat on the broken vampire on the floor, held up his hand to halt the others. They reluctantly stepped away from the now unmoving form curled into a ball.

  “What?” the man who had halted them barked.

  The shooter shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. “It will make them think twice about snooping around again.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” The man strode across the open floor toward the shooter. The shooter’s eyes darted nervously toward the others, but they all stayed where they were. Julian focused on the one approaching the shooter; the one he assumed was their leader. “Who gave you permission to do that?”

  The shooter took another step back. “We can’t continue to hide from them, I thought…”

  “No one said you could think!” The bellowed words reverberated through the rafters of the building and shook the walls. “You just poked at a nest of rattlers.”

  “They’re only two vampires,” the shooter stammered as he began to back peddle faster.

  “I told you last night, after you sent the child, to leave them alone! I won’t tell you again!”

  The crunching sound of a punch hitting shooter’s cheekbone echoed through the building. He felt the small flinch that ran through Quinn’s body. She was tough, she’d been through a lot, but she didn’t have this level of viciousness and cruelty within her. He pulled her closer against his side in the hopes his touch would be able to pacify her as much as hers did him.

  The piercing snap of a bone cracking was followed by a squeal that reminded him of a frightened pig. The shooter hit the floor with a loud thump. His going down didn’t stop the other vampire from continuing to pummel him.

  He knew he could take them out, but he worried about Quinn. She would never agree to stay up here and out of danger. The others would be arriving soon, he could always wait for them but he’d never been one to wait, or require help. He’d also never had anything worth waiting around for. He squeezed Quinn’s hand reassuringly again.

  The shooter lay unmoving upon the ground; blood seeped out around him and covered the one who had been beating upon him, but Julian knew he wasn’t dead. Kneeling down, the one who had been beating on the shooter removed a knife from the holster at his side. Julian pulled Quinn further back; he shot her a silencing look when she started to protest. She didn’t need to see the man having his head methodically sawed off.

  When he finished separating the head from the body, the vampire Julian assumed was the leader of the group holstered his knife, rose to his feet and kicked the head carelessly aside. It rolled across the floor before knocking up against the wall. “We’re going to have to go and finish what this moron started.”

  “But you said we should stay away from them, Drew,” one of the others protested.

  “That was before this idiot,” he punctuated the word with a severe kick to, “idiot’s,” headless body on the ground. “Went and declared war on a vampire that’s easily a hundred years older than us.”

  Julian scoffed at their deadly wrong assumption that he was only a hundred years older than they were. They had absolutely no idea what they were dealing with, which only led to his growing belief that the oldest amongst them was at most a hundred.

  The Elders had needed to be destroyed, but jackasses like these guys were the bad side of having the hierarchy of vampires removed. Even if The Elders had mostly faded away into oblivion after The Slaughter, the knowledge of their existence had been enough to keep vampires like these assholes from stepping out of line.

  They’d spent the past two years concentrating on trying to gather the straggling remainders of the Hunter and Guardian lines together, but he realized now they’d made a big mistake by ignoring the vampires still out there.

  They’d given little consideration to the younger and therefore less of a hazard, vampires. Vampires like these were a big menace to society and their way of life, if they believed it was remotely ok to start shooting up human establishments and attacking other vampires in public.

  “Let’s go,” Drew commanded.

  Those words made his decision for him, he couldn’t allow them to leave this building.

  Turning toward Quinn, he tugged her up against him so he could whisper in her ear. “I’m going down there. Wait here until I tell you differently.” He could see the argument building in her eyes as they shimmered with defiance. “The two of us in here, without them knowing is our biggest element of surprise right now. If we don’t go down there together, they might assume I left you behind when I chased our attacker. Just wait.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him, he had no doubt she wouldn’t wait for long; he could only hope he’d be able to take out a couple of them before she followed. He wrapped his hand around the rail and gave it a forceful tug. Dust fell down from it, but it held up beneath his jerk. Switching both of his weapons into his left hand, he seized the board with his right and climbed onto it. He remained crouched on it for a second before launching himself over top of the stairs and out over the first floor.

  Air rushed up around him, it whipped his hair back from his face and beat at his clothes as he fell from the sky. He didn’t make a sound as he landed in the center of the building with his knees bent to absorb the impact. His left hand rested on the floor, the knife and stake pressed firmly into his palm as he met the startled eyes of the men surrounding him.

  He remained crouched as he stared at the men. Three of them glanced wildly toward the front door. “I’ll rip your head off before you make it ten steps,” Julian promised them.

  “Hey now,” Drew’s tone of voice made Julian’s fingers curl into the wooden floor as his upper lip curved into a sneer. “We’re all the same kind here; we’re all friends.”

  “You may be vampires, but you’re not my kind, and we are not friends.”

  They exchanged uneasy looks, but none of them made a move. His gaze flickered over all of them as he waited for the telltale niggle at the base of his skull that would alert him to who he was searching for.

  And then he felt it, the distinct sensation of something trying to wiggle its way into his mind like a worm slithering into the earth. His nostrils flared, his head turned to take in the one he sought. His eyes settled on the disheveled man across from him. He looked no older than twenty, his collarbones stuck out from his torn shirt and there was enough dirt on his face to give Pig-Pen a run for his money.

  The boy’s eyes were focused on Julian, the niggling at the back of his skull intensified. Julian held his gaze as he broke into a slow smile and gave the kid a wink. The boy did a double take, his forehead creased in confusion before he took a step back. With a burst of speed, Julian sped toward him, grabbed him by the neck and drove him into the floor. A startled cry escaped the boy; his fingers tore at Julian’s hand.

  “Don’t poke at those whose minds are far older than yours,” Julian snarled before driving the stake into the boy’s chest.

  The boy convulsed beneath him; his fingers clawed at the stake before he went limp. Julian jerked it free and spun to face the other six as they started toward him. Though he hadn’t given the signal, Quinn leapt onto the railing of the loft and swung out to grab hold of a beam over her head. He’d been hoping to take more down before she decided to disobey him, but his b
iggest concern of taking out the one with mind control had at least been accomplished.

  Quinn swung across to another beam while the others charged at him. Julian braced himself for their rush as she began to fall from the sky. The impact of her weight falling onto one of the vampire’s backs knocked him down; his face pressed into the ground as she raised her stake above her head and drove it through his back. Two of the others split off to go at her while the other three continued to hone in on him.

  Unwilling to lose sight of her, Julian stepped to the side. The men circled with him, but the other ones continued their rush at Quinn. The knife she whipped through the air buried itself to the hilt in the throat of one of the men running toward her. Blood burst from his neck; his hands scrabbled at the knife as he fell away from her.

  Quinn spun to the side and swung her arm out as the other vampire tried to attack her. She drove the stake in her hand deeply into his chest and ducked the arm swinging toward her that would have knocked her over. Placing her foot against his hip, she pulled her stake free as she shoved the man remorselessly away from her.

  One of the men who had been stalking him spun toward her. Julian leapt forward, and seizing hold of his head, jerked it harshly to the side. The breaking bone resonated through the building. Julian didn’t stop until he’d wrenched the head completely around and tore it from the man’s body. Dropping the head on the ground, he took out his knife and whipped it at another vampire rushing at Quinn. The knife plunging into the man’s back did nothing to stop his momentum toward her.

  The vamp’s hands wrapped around her upper arms, but even as they did, her hands encircled his forearms. The man’s mouth dropped; he jerked as he tried to break free of her grasp, but she continued to cling to him. Before his eyes, the man began to wrinkle like a prune left out in the sun. Quinn shuddered; she didn’t let go of him as she absorbed more of his life force.

  Drew and his cohorts’ mouths dropped. Before they could spin to get away, Julian grabbed the one who still had the knife in his throat by his shirt and jerked him backward. He thrust his fist into the vampire’s chest, breaking through flesh and bone to wrap his hand around the non-beating heart within.