Thin Ice

by Renée Jaggér

  I pulled Ronan down so that we would not be visible from the narrow aisle. We waited in silence, practically holding our breath as we waited for the Suburban to pass us. The dull roar of an engine crawled by our hiding spot, and I was sure the jig was up. There was no way he wouldn’t spot us. But the car inched by, and the driver gave the all-clear.

  “What was all that?” Ronan asked, sitting up. “Was it Jax?”

  The driver pulled the car out of our hiding spot and headed for the exit.

  I shook my head. “It was one of the vampires from before. One I saw standing with Vaughn at the airport.”

  “Why would Vaughn need to have us followed?”

  “Probably because we cut them out of the investigation. He doesn’t have one of your fancy phones, so the only way he knows what we’re up to is if someone tells him or if he follows us. Maybe Jax didn’t tell him.”

  Ronan sighed. “Good point. Does this mean you’ve decided he is connected to the assassination attempts?”

  “I don’t know what it means, but I intend to find out. As soon as this is over, we should have a sit-down with Vaughn and find out what he’s been up to.”

  We made it out of the parking garage and back onto the highway. On the way over to the Palace Theater, I didn’t spot the Suburban again, which must’ve meant we lost him.

  We reached the theater and parked outside, but there were no signs that anything was out of the ordinary. The part-time security guards were there waiting for us and opened Ronan’s door as soon as our car stopped. He scurried out of the car and toward the theater, with me at his back. We told the driver we’d find our own way home.

  If Jax was going to make his move, it was now or never.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The theater was eerily empty. Roughly three thousand seats were arrayed on the steep incline, facing an empty stage. Our footsteps echoed, making it sound like there were twice as many of us as there were. All told, there were only five: me, Ronan, the two part-time security guards, and a guy who worked for the theater. I quickly dismissed him, slipping him an extra fifty to get lost for two hours. If this took longer, I’d have to part with more money, and the advance on my paycheck that Ronan had given me had run out.

  Ronan went straight for the stage, violin case in hand. He knelt there and started to get set up for the concert. Everything had to look normal, as if Ronan really were performing a private concert. If Jax walked through the door and Ronan wasn’t playing for an imaginary audience, he’d know something was off and turn right around.

  I took the part-timers backstage and rolled out a map of the building. We divided it into three parts, each of us responsible for a different section. Armed with walkie-talkies and a small arsenal of handguns, as well as body armor, we set out to do our initial sweep of the theater. I took the upper sections and walked each row, checking behind every seat. I was looking for more than Jax. There might be signs that he had been there, setting up before we arrived. I was also checking for other potential security breaches and familiarizing myself with the space. It was standard procedure, or at least, that’s what I told myself.

  As I walked through my section below, Ronan did a check of the sound system. One of the microphones squealed, but he got it adjusted without too much trouble. The theater guy had gone into the control room and turned on a spotlight before he left, providing him with plenty of light.

  I thought the violin he brought was the one I had seen him playing at his house, but that was wrong. This one looked thinner, and almost as if it were made of plastic rather than wood. Maybe it was. A long cord ran from the wider end of the violin to a piece of equipment behind him. Ronan positioned the violin against his chin and drew the bow across the strings. The sound he produced wasn’t like any violin I’d never heard before. It sounded much closer to an electric guitar, but not quite. He grinned up at me, winked, and began to play.

  It took me a bar or two to recognize the opening riff of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, and I had to admit it was actually pretty good. Show-off. I rolled my eyes and went back to work.

  After a few rows, I found myself thinking he might be able to carry a crowd if he had the backing of a few other instruments. He was no Lindsey Stirling, but he clearly enjoyed what he was doing, and he was good at it.

  I paused to clap when the song ended, and he took a bow.

  “Anything?” Ronan called.

  I shook my head. “Keep playing. You picked an easy AC/DC song. Now impress me.”

  He positioned the violin and adjusted a few settings while I finished my sweep. Next thing I knew, he’d launched into playing the first verse of Californication. It didn’t have the energetic beat of the last number, but I had to admit that song was hard to play wrong. As he fell into the notes of the chorus, I stopped in my tracks. Was he…glowing? No, it had to be the light.

  Something moved above me. I thought at first it was one of the other two security guards, but they were in other sections of the seating area, and the movement I’d seen was in the control room. I pulled my gun and crept up to investigate. The control room door creaked slightly as I pushed it open and I winced, thinking I’d lost my element of surprise. Maybe Ronan’s playing had covered it. It was all for nothing, though, since the control room was empty.

  A shadow shifted in one of the private booths, and I spotted him. “I’ve got eyes on our target. Continue as normal.”

  “Do you need backup?” David asked.

  “Negative. Stay where you are, in case he jumps down. Let me know if he moves. He’s in one of the private booths, high and stage-right.”

  “Copy that. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  I slid out of the control room and rushed out of the main seating area as quickly as I could to head for the stairs that would take me to the balcony. Taking them two at a time, I crept up with my gun pointed at the floor.

  Jax stood with his back to me, peering through the scope of a rifle. He had a perfect shot. Why hadn’t he taken it yet? Maybe he thought he’d let Ronan finish his song. Or maybe he’d been waiting for me. I held my breath and closed on him, slowly raising my gun until it was even with the base of his skull. When I was close enough that he couldn’t possibly dodge the bullet, vampire or not, I said, “Take your finger off the trigger, Jax.”

  “Or what?” His voice came out raspy. “You’ll shoot me in the back? Come on, Callie. Where’s your honor?”

  “Then turn around so I can shoot you in the face.”

  Jax’s finger relaxed on the trigger. He lifted his hands in surrender and slowly turned to face me. “Well? You going to shoot your old pal or what?”

  I shifted my grip on the gun, my mouth suddenly dry, pulse racing in my ears. “Not if you don’t make me.”

  Jax and I stared each other down, waiting for the other to make a move. Ronan’s playing drifted up from the stage. Could he see us having our standoff, or was he so lost in the music, he had no idea what was going on around him?

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” I said. “You can still walk away.” Please, Jax. Don’t make me shoot you.

  “Only you would think that’s still an option.” His hand moved so fast I didn’t get the chance to react until his palm was already against my wrist, pushing the gun aside.

  I pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide. The boom of gunfire shook the theater like thunder, and Ronan finally stopped playing.

  Jax lunged forward. I thought he was going to go for my throat, but instead, he hit me with a headbutt that left my vision blurry. Pain exploded inside my skull. I stumbled back a step, my limbs suddenly unresponsive.

  He spun and ran for the balcony. With one hand, he gripped the railing and vaulted over it to land in one of the aisles below.

  I shook away the pain and ignored the copper taste of blood in my mouth to run to the banister and lean over. He might’ve been able to survive that fall, but if I jumped after him, I’d break both my legs.

  Jax stood and drew a handgun from
where he must’ve hidden it in his pant leg, pointing it at Ronan. The part-timers were fumbling to get their guns up and respond. Jax was going to shoot Ronan, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  “Jax, stop!” I screamed, but it was no use.

  The thunder of gunfire growled through the theater as Jax pulled the trigger.

  Time slowed. I knew I had to do something, but I was trapped in the balcony. By the time I made it downstairs, it would be too late to help Ronan. I had one chance, and it was a hell of a long shot, considering my powers had been elusive at best. What choice did I have, though?

  I reached for the icy magic that had let me freeze the vampire in the parking lot. It hadn’t answered my call when I’d tried to summon it before, but this time I felt it lurking just beneath the surface. I coaxed it out in a blast of wintery cold and thrust it into the bullet’s path, squeezing my eyes tightly closed.

  The air crackled and popped with power. Ronan let out a shout.

  I opened my eyes.

  The floor around Jax was covered with crystallized chunks of ice at least a foot high. His feet were encased in more ice that stretched as far as his knees. His outstretched hand was also frozen in a block of ice, rendering the gun useless. Frost trailed out from that, coating the seats of a whole section. Chunks of ice filled the air, forming a line in front of Jax that thinned out the farther away from him it moved. Encased in a small frozen bubble at the end of the line, just inches from Ronan, was the bullet Jax had fired.

  There was no time for me to admire what I’d done. I pushed away from the rail and sped down from the balcony. Jax would be trying to pull himself free, and he was strong. If he got loose before Ronan got to safety…

  “Get Ronan out of the building!” I shouted into the walkie talkie as I ran, but I must’ve bumped the frequency because the only answer I got back was static. With a curse, I threw the walkie talkie down and sped around the corner to burst through the theater doors.

  Jax had pulled his hand free of the ice and was working on his legs. My two part-timers had closed on Jax. He had one of them by the throat, and the other was cradling a hand that seemed like it was attached wrong. Jax must’ve broken his wrist when he came too close.

  “Get out of here!” I shouted, and the guard with the broken wrist retreated.

  The vampire threw the other guard, and his unconscious body flopped over several rows of seats before it came to a stop, rolling into an aisle. I pointed my gun at Jax, but he tore himself from the ice just as I pulled the trigger. The block of ice exploded when my bullet hit it.

  Jax bounded up the aisle toward Ronan in a straight line. I had a clear shot, but that meant shooting him in the back. Did I really want to shoot a friend in the back? He’s not your friend, I reminded myself. The Jax you knew was gone. You left him in Iraq. If you don’t shoot right now, Ronan is a dead man.

  I held a picture of Jax in my mind. In it, he was smiling while telling a joke. He wore fatigues, his helmet, and carried the standard-issue rifle. He looked happy. That was the Jax I knew. That had to be the Jax that I remembered.

  I held my gun steady, pulled the trigger, and closed my eyes.

  The shot echoed through the theater, followed by silence. I cracked open an eye to find Jax face-down in the aisle, a stone’s throw from being able to jump on-stage and get to Ronan. If I’d held out for a moment longer, he would have.

  I lowered my gun and ran to Jax’s side, dropping to my knees to check on him. With a grunt, I turned him over on his back.

  Jax’s hands shot up and wrapped around my neck, squeezing off my air. I stared into his bloodshot eyes. They held no hint of recognition, no sign of humanity. It was as if Jax’s very soul was gone, replaced by this monster of violence and hunger.

  I clobbered his arm, trying to free myself. When that didn’t work, I resorted to striking his elbow. Darkness closed in at the edge of my vision.

  “Callie!” Ronan shouted.

  A second later, his violin smashed into Jax’s head, and the instrument broke in two. The pressure around my throat released and Jax sprang up and spun on Ronan, hissing like a feral cat. Ronan dropped his bow and backed away, eyes wide with terror.

  Jax stalked after him, relishing his fear. “I was only going to kill you because they told me to. Now, I’m going to do it for fun.”

  I need to stake him like I did the vampire at Kloud9, but with what? I searched the ground. This was a theater. There weren’t going to be sharpened sticks of wood lying around. My eyes fell on the violin bow Ronan had dropped. I ran for it, grabbed it, and raised it to drive it through Jax.

  He turned around at the last second and grabbed the bow in his fist. “When are you going to learn you can’t sneak up on me, girl?”

  “Don’t call me ‘girl!’” I twisted the bow and the wood snapped, leaving a jagged tip that I plunged into Jax’s chest.

  His eyes went wide, his body rigid.

  I leaned forward, putting all my weight behind the makeshift stake, pushing it slowly into Jax’s chest.

  He staggered back a step and looked down at the violin bow sticking out of him, then wrapped his hands around it as if to pull it out but stopped. The look he gave me, it wasn’t anger. All the rage and hate had drained from his face. The vampire beast was gone, and I got one last glimpse of the man Jax had been before he whispered, “Thank you,” and fell to the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The police came because someone had reported gunshots in the area. By the time they arrived, however, Jax’s body had turned to ash. All that remained of him was a pair of bent dog tags that I scooped up and pocketed before anyone could see.

  I was left to make up a story, explaining how my gun had gone off during a routine training exercise. The cops were understandably irritated over being called for nothing, but it was better than trying to explain what had really happened.

  As the police were wrapping things up and getting ready to leave, Vaughn and his entourage arrived. Apparently, he’d found out where they were from the police and come to assure Ronan that none of this would fall back on him.

  “If there’s any official paperwork, my office will make sure it disappears,” Vaughn said, walking alongside Ronan.

  Ronan paused in the aisle to pick up the pieces of his broken electric violin. “I’m sure you will because if any of this lands on me or my court, I’m going to make your involvement public.”

  Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “My involvement?”

  “Are you going to stand there and tell me you had no idea who Jax was or what he was up to?” Ronan straightened up and gave Vaughn a doubtful glare. “Our two peoples almost went to war over this, a situation you claimed to be investigating. Either you’re very bad at your job, Vaughn, or you didn’t want to find out who was behind the attempts on my life.”

  The vampire folded his hands behind his back. “I made every reasonable attempt to assist in this situation. You and Miss Hart pushed me out of the investigation at a crucial stage. Had you involved me more, I might have been able to deduce his involvement. I publicly disavow any knowledge whatsoever of Jax’s actions and his existence. There are many vampires in the world, Ronan, and I simply cannot keep track of them all. That does not make me bad at my job. It makes you and Miss Hart bad at communication and teamwork.”

  “I think we make a pretty good team,” Ronan said, raising his hand for a high five.

  I slapped his palm. “Hell yeah, we do. And you owe me another steak dinner.”

  “Another?” he asked, turning to me with a frown. “I played what you asked.”

  “I must’ve missed your Metallica number, then.”

  “Damn,” Ronan muttered. “I knew I forgot one. I can play it for you later.”

  I picked up what was left of the broken bow and gestured at his shattered violin. “Unless you’ve got another of those stowed away, I think it’s going to be a while. I like my steaks medium-rare.”

  Vaughn raised his chi
n. “In any case, I suspect that, having captured and dealt with the assailant, you will be telling the winter queen I had nothing to do with it. Unless, of course, you have irrefutable evidence to the contrary?”

  Ronan and I exchanged glances. “I know you’re behind this,” I said. “Someone had to be funding Jax. He didn’t have the cash to buy the guns and equipment I saw him with. He certainly didn’t have the resources to travel to New York. The way he was talking, someone hired him to do this, and the only one who stood to gain anything from starting a war with the fae was you.”

  “Can you prove your outrageous accusation, Miss Hart?”

  “No,” I admitted. “And it’s a good thing I can’t because if I could, Mab would crush you like the cockroach you are.”

  “Bold words for an unaligned fae.” Vaughn smiled and stepped back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do.”

  He turned his back on us and walked away.

  “He’s going to be trouble in the future,” I told Ronan.

  “I certainly don’t think that’s the last time our paths will cross.”

  Ronan was right. We might have stopped Vaughn from starting a war this time, but I couldn’t be there every time he tried to stir up trouble. That was the problem with people who wanted war; eventually, they got their way.

  My watch beeped, reminding me another hour had passed. We were inching toward the deadline Mab had given us. “Ronan, we still need to get back to Mab.”

  “Say no more.” He tossed the broken violin into the trash can in the corner. “I’m ready to go.”

  On the drive across town, I considered everything that’d happened. I’d taken this job to make a difference, and in the hope that I would get answers about what I’d seen in Iraq. I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for. Not only had I found out that vampires were real—and deadly—but that I was half-fae. There was a whole new world for me to learn about—new people, new places, new rules.