Frost Bite

by S A Magnusson

Dazed, he shook his head. “There is power on the other side of that door, Dr. Stone. We need to—”

  He didn’t have the opportunity to finish. The door thundered open, the protections placed upon it clearly useless against the might of the people outside. Each of them carried wands and pointed them at us.

  Barden rolled over, sweeping his arm around him as he went, creating a mark on the floor. For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off him and off what he was doing. My skin tingled as he did it, and he made an entire circle around us. He got up shakily and wiped his hands across his jacket before pointing outward.

  “Who are these people?” I asked.

  Barden watched them carefully. His eyes were narrowed, and there was something on his face I couldn’t read. Was it fear? I’d been around Barden often enough that I wouldn’t have expected him to be afraid of anything, but his anxious look left me wondering. “Vampires,” he said softly.

  I jerked my head around, turning my attention to them. “Those are vampires?”

  Two men and one woman stood in front of us. The men were extremely well dressed, like businessmen, with nothing else distinctive about them; I doubted I could have identified them on the street. The woman wore a leather jacket that hung down to her knees, and her wand was longer than the others. All had a slightly pale complexion, but nothing like the stories suggested.

  The two men both had dark hair cut short, and the woman had deep red, almost black hair, braided and running down her back.

  I laughed, unable to help myself.

  “You aren’t helping us by taunting them,” Barden said.

  “I’m sorry, but look at it this way. The woman has the biggest wand.”

  Barden studied them for a moment, a hint of a grin coming to his face. “As I said, you aren’t helping anything by taunting them.”

  “Why do you think they’re here?”

  “Why don’t we ask?” Barden pushed forward, and a hint of energy surged off him, enough that I could detect it. It was strange I would be able to pick up on something like that, but it tingled along my skin, like a jolt of static electricity. “Why are you here?” Barden asked.

  It was the woman who spoke. “Release the woman and you may go, mage.”

  “I believe the Councils have an accord.”

  “The accord is not valid for her.”

  “And yet, here I am, placing her under my protection,” Barden said.

  The woman glared at Barden. “Your protection means nothing.”

  “No? I sit upon the Mage Council. I would say my protection means something.”

  “Not in this case.”

  “And what case would that be? There are very few situations where the presence of a Mage Councilor doesn’t have any bearing,” Barden insisted.

  “She is responsible for the death of one of the elders.”

  Barden glanced over at me, frowning. “Dr. Stone?”

  “But that’s ridiculous! I didn’t kill anyone, Barden.”

  “I doubt you did, but did you know you had encountered an elder vampire?”

  “How am I supposed to know that? I barely know anything about the magical world.”

  “There would be a telltale sign. Something about him that would identify him.”

  “She carries the Mark,” the woman said.

  “What mark?” I asked.

  “The Mark of the Elder.”

  Once again, Barden looked over at me. Now, uncertainty was written on his face, and I worried for the first time. When the vampires had initially attacked, I’d only been uncomfortable. Knowing there were vampires in my home was troubling, but I wasn’t alone, and Kate had always told me if anything worrisome happened, Barden would be able to help. She was the one who had given me his contact information, entrusting me to get in touch with him if needed and when she wasn’t available. It was the reason I had called him first.

  It was the uneasy expression on his face making me uncomfortable.

  “Release her, and you may go, mage.”

  “I will need more than your belief that she has taken the Mark.”

  “You don’t need our belief. All you need to know is that she has it. I feel it on her.”

  Barden studied me, and something in his gaze gave me a moment of fear. He was going to hand me over to them; I could tell just by the way he was looking at me. I began to tremble.

  “Is there anything about the man you saw in the park?”

  “No. Other than the tattoo on his chest.”

  “Did you take anything from him?”

  “Nothing…” Bumblefuck. I hadn’t taken something from him, but I had taken something from Mr. Rorsch. I reached into my pocket, pulling it out. I’d completely forgotten about it before now. “I was given this—”

  The vampire stepped forward, cutting me off, her wand still pointed at me. “That is the Mark.”

  “Dr. Stone. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help,” Barden said.

  Barden stepped off to the side, and as he did, the two other vampires reached forward and grabbed me.

  5

  I struggled as they dragged me from the condo, but there was nothing I could do. Even though I wanted to fight, they held me with an iron grip, squeezing my arms, forcing me to go along with them. The woman led them, and both of the male vampires held a wand. At one point, as I was dragged along the hallway, I cast a glance back to see Barden standing in the doorway. We reached the stairs, and when I descended, I lost sight of him.

  “Where are you taking me?” I snapped.

  None of the vampires answered, continuing to drag me along, and though I wanted to scream, the way the men had their wands pointed left me wondering if it would even make a difference. It was possible it wouldn’t at all. I knew various magical spells could confine things, and suspected they had a way of preventing me from making enough noise to draw any attention.

  And then there was the matter of what Barden had said about others’ response to magic used around them. If they were using a spell, it was incredibly likely anyone who might pop out to offer any help would be deterred by the use of magic too.

  And all this meant I was alone.

  Out on the street, they dragged me to a boxy van. The woman climbed into the driver’s seat, and the two men threw open the side door, bundling me inside.

  Why wasn’t Barden trying to fight them off, trying to see if there was anything he could do to rescue me? Was it because I had the coin Mr. Rorsch had given me?

  “I think you’ve made a mistake,” I started when we were in the van. They placed me onto a bench seat, forcing me to sit between the two vampires, and I wasn’t able to move at all. When they let go of me, I tried to jerk my arms, but I couldn’t. Some spell on me prevented me from moving.

  None of the vampires said anything, and I found that the most distressing thing of all. Not only did they ignore me, but the two men sat practically motionless, with me trapped there between them. I craned my neck, at least able to do that much. As we sped away, I saw Barden standing outside of the condo, watching us disappear.

  It would’ve been nice for him to do something more.

  Studying the vampires, I couldn’t tell anything about them that would reveal them as such. Maybe that was the point. I wished Kate had told me something about them or more about the shifters, or even more about the magical world in general. If I’d known even a little more, I wouldn’t have felt so helpless there.

  “At least tell me where you’re taking me,” I said.

  “You are responsible for the death of an elder vampire. You will answer for that,” the woman said. She didn’t look back, and I tried positioning myself to look out the window to see where we were going. But it seemed as if we had no headlights on, and I couldn’t make anything out. Looking at the windows of the van, they were deeply tinted, almost black, and I wouldn’t be able to see anything there, either.

  I trembled slightly. Trapped between these vampires, caught in a world where I knew nothing, I thought
back to when Kate had offered to exclude me from all of this. The only reason I was living with her was that my apartment had burned—a completely non-magical event, but because of a couple of potheads living below me. Kate had offered to let me stay separate from the magical world, and I’d mistakenly told her I didn’t need to, that I wanted to understand her world. Now I saw that had been a mistake.

  “I’m not responsible for the death of anyone. I’m a doctor, a healer,” I added, not sure if vampires even understood the purpose of doctors. For all I knew, they’d never been human, though that didn’t make a whole lot of sense either. I might not have known much about vampires, but I figured they had to be turned by someone, which meant they’d have once been human. And if they’d once been human, they’d surely know more about our world than I knew about theirs. “This coin—or Mark, whatever you want to call it—was given to me. I didn’t take anything. Please. Just listen to me!”

  The woman glanced back at me, giving me hope she might actually believe me, but then turned away, focusing once more on the road ahead.

  I wanted to scream, to do something—anything—but doubted it would make any difference. Not against a vampire who was uninterested in anything I had to say.

  If only I could see where we were going, but I couldn’t, which meant I wouldn’t even know where they were taking me. That was dangerous, especially as any hope of escape depended upon me knowing where I was, if I’d ever be able to call attention to what had happened to me.

  The van slowed, and I tried to look out of the window, but there wasn’t anything to see.

  When it came to a stop, the woman climbed out, and the other two vampires didn’t move. Dread filled me. Were they taking me someplace to drain me of blood? If they believed I’d killed that vampire, was this how they would get their revenge? Or were they going to turn me, make me into a vampire myself? Maybe Barden was wrong about how I’d get pulled into the magical world. Maybe I would simply get dragged in because the vampires forced me, giving me no choice but to become one of them.

  A part of me wanted to do and say all the clichéd things people did and said when they were abducted, but I doubted these vampires intended anything other than to abuse me. I didn’t even need to know much about vampires for me to believe that; what other reason could there be for them to have taken me in the way they did?

  I said nothing as they dragged me away. We were on a secluded driveway, with massive trees lining it, an enormous home rising in front of me. It looked something like a palace—if such a thing could be said to exist in the Minneapolis area. Ivy crawled along the walls of the home, the branches barren of leaves at this time of year. Strange blue lights cast a soft glow on the driveway.

  Two massive men stationed either side of the door looked bored as they stared outward. Neither paid me any mind or bothered that I was a captive, a young woman dragged into the vampire realm.

  “The least you could do would be to help me,” I said.

  No one responded.

  They pulled me into the home, the lead vampire still marching along, saying nothing. The only sounds were my hammering heart in my chest, along with my panicked breathing, and the clatter of their boots on the tiles.

  We reached a door at the end of the hall, where the woman paused and knocked. As she waited, I had an opportunity to look around; the surroundings had the look of wealth, the kind of old money in places I’d never be able to afford. Everything was exquisitely detailed, including the symbols etched into the door, the same kinds of markings as on the magic wands the vampires carried. A few paintings hung along the walls, though I didn’t recognize any of the people. I guessed they were vampire royalty—if there was such a thing.

  The door opened, and an older man greeted me. He was meticulously dressed, wearing a dark suit accenting his muscular physique. Flat gray eyes watched me, something in them predatory and leaving me shuddering. The other vampires had intimidated me, but there was something more about this one. He appeared to be in his seventies, yet a fit kind of seventy. And if he looked that old, it meant he was older still.

  “This is her?” He spoke in an accented manner, though it wasn’t one I recognized.

  “We found her where you said we would.”

  “And she had the Mark?”

  “She has it still,” the woman said.

  “Bring her in.”

  They marched me into the room that turned out to be an office. Everything was deeply stained wood, from the rows of bookshelves behind him to the massive desk occupying most of the space in the center of the room. Two leather chairs faced the desk.

  I half expected the two vampires holding me captive to take a seat in the two leather chairs, but they stood on either side of the single chair, forcing me to sit in between them. The woman took her seat on the other chair.

  The older vampire closed the door, and everything became somewhat muted. I had a sense he was using some magical spell, though not what the spell might be.

  When he returned to the desk, he took a seat, looking over at me. “You know who I am?”

  “Do you know who I am?” I asked.

  “You are the one who holds the Mark of an Elder. Reports tell us you are responsible for what happened to him.”

  “Then your reports are wrong. I saved him.” I leaned forward, the irritation getting the best of me. “If your lackeys had listened, they would’ve known I wasn’t the one responsible for what happened to your elder. He was brought into the ER and resuscitated.”

  The vampire glanced at the other two for a moment before turning his attention back to me. “You did what?”

  “I’m a physician. He was suffering from hypothermia. He came in without a heartbeat and…”

  “And what?”

  “We brought him back.”

  He eyed me strangely for a moment. “What kind of magic did you use?”

  “No magic. Medicine. CPR.” I figured I’d keep it basic. Better that than to complicate it by describing the events of the code.

  “CPR?” the vampire asked.

  “Yeah. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation? You know, pushing on the chest.” I mimed pushing my hands outward, but he simply stared at me. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “My name is Donovan Icahrn.”

  “Am I supposed to know that?”

  “I would’ve expected someone with the Mark of an Elder vampire would recognize the Icahrn family.” He looked at me with disdain like I was clueless.

  “Well I don’t, so I guess you’ll need to elaborate for me.”

  The man glanced at the woman. “Are you certain this is the right one?”

  “She has the Mark. You can find it yourself if you need to.”

  The man studied her a moment before turning his attention to me again. He took a deep breath. “Where is it?”

  “The coin you’re looking for?”

  He nodded. “I would have it.”

  I reached in my pocket, trying to find the strange coin Mr. Rorsch had given me. I’d had it back at the condo, but when the vampires attacked, I’d dropped it. That was a mistake. I hadn’t intended to drop it, but the suddenness and brutality of the attack surprised me.

  Everything began to darken around me, and as much as I tried to focus on it, I wasn’t able to. The only thing that loomed large in my vision was the sight of the vampire. Donovan sat behind his desk, watching me, something in his gaze terrifying.

  “Where is the Mark?” he asked, his voice seeming to come through a muted tunnel.

  “I told you…”

  “I’m aware of what you told me, and I am telling you I would have the Mark.”

  I wanted nothing more than to provide him with what he wanted. If I could do that, I had the sense that the strangeness I detected, the sensation of the world closing around me, would begin to dissipate. Any intention of resisting on my part faded.

  Then again, how could I resist a vampire? Who was I but some nobody? What made me think I’d be able to overpower someone
of such strength as Donovan?

  Distantly, my mind tried to intrude, alerting me that these weren’t my thoughts, that they couldn’t be. I didn’t feel that way about Donovan. I recognized he was a strong—even powerful—vampire but wasn’t about to give him more credit than that.

  I tried to fight. A part of me rebelled, angry at what he was doing to me, but that part was blown back by the power of his presence within my mind. It was too much for me to oppose, and regardless of whatever else I might do, I wasn’t going to be able to withstand him.

  Why fight? Why not just tell him what he wanted to know?

  If I did, I could see I would know a sense of relief. I wouldn’t be tormented the way I was now. I’d be able to relax, finally at peace, understanding that I could serve the vampires.

  Wasn’t that what I wanted?

  I’d seen how powerful they were. Maybe if I served the vampires, they would grant me an opportunity to do more than just serve. Maybe if I served them well, they would offer me an opportunity to become one of them.

  A vampire.

  Could I actually become a vampire?

  I couldn’t shake the sense I wanted to know that power. And why wouldn’t I? That power was far more than anything I’d ever known. That power meant I could gain an understanding, and I could no longer have to fear the magical world. And I did fear it. Why deny that fact to myself? I had no magic, regardless of what Barden had told me. I was nothing. I would be nothing. And until I embraced that fact, I’d continue to cower behind and beneath beings of power just like the vampires.

  Embrace this.

  If I allowed myself to do so, I could become so much more than I was.

  Faintly, I felt a surge of rebellion. But where did that rebellion come from? It was a distant sense, but one I recognized. It came from a place of warmth, of affection and caring, and from someone who wanted me to be better than this.

  Kate.

  Her name whispered softly in the back of my mind. Ever since she’d restored me, saving me after my near death, we’d been connected. That was part of the magic she possessed. Not only was she connected to a power rivaling death, one she claimed came from death, but she was a healer. And through her healing, she had connected to me, thus saving me.