Frost Bite

by S A Magnusson

  “Didn’t say a thing. You do realize I wasn’t planning on coming here after work.”

  “That’s right. Maybe I said something to him… who knows?” he said. He got up and nodded to Gillespie.

  When Matt got to the table, he glanced from Roberts to me and took a seat. “You two…”

  “Out for a drink. Nothing more,” I said.

  Roberts clutched at his chest. “I’m hurt, Stone; mortally wounded, beyond repair. Breaks my heart. And here I thought you and I were out on a nice date. You go and crush my feelings.” I raised my half-filled glass, threatening to dump it on him, and Roberts grinned. “I figured she could use a drink. Same as you,” Roberts said.

  “I don’t drink,” Matt replied.

  “Fine, then you can watch us.” Roberts finished his beer before getting up and heading to the bar.

  When he was gone, I asked Gillespie, “Why did you come?”

  “My attending asked me to.”

  “That’s the only reason?” I shot a look over at Roberts. “Not sure he’s the attending you should be idolizing.”

  “It’s not that I’m idolizing him... Just trying to make my residency as painless as possible.”

  I chuckled before finishing my beer. “That’s not a bad strategy.”

  “Are you on tomorrow?” he asked.

  I pulled out my phone, clicking through the calendar, before realizing I had a day off. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “You have to look to see?”

  I shrugged. “One day is pretty much like the next. After a while, you get used to the fact you need to check and see if you have to work.”

  “I have my schedule pretty well memorized,” he said.

  “Because you’re still an intern. That will change.”

  “If you say so.” Matt took the soda Roberts offered him, swirling it around as he eyed it for a moment.

  “I didn’t spike it if that’s what you think,” Robert said.

  Matt took a sip before setting it back down. “Old habits.”

  “Something you had to learn in the military?”

  He nodded slowly. “Something like that.” He took another sip, finally turning his attention to me. “How come you didn’t change, then?”

  “I wasn’t intending to go out.”

  “You always wear scrubs home?”

  “Most of the time. Makes it easier.”

  “What happens if you get bloody?”

  “Then I change there. You do realize there is a whole stack of scrubs in the ER?”

  “I guess. But don’t you get cold going home like that?” Matt asked. I felt like I was caught in an inquisition.

  “Stone doesn’t live far from here,” Roberts interrupted. He coughed, and I wasn’t sure if it was enough to show that Roberts knew his way to my place. But Matt was unfazed. “Plus she’s our resident badass—at least, if you ask her,” Roberts went on.

  “I’ll show you a bad ass,” I said.

  Roberts raised his hands before taking another long drink. “You get used to her threats. Most of them don’t mean anything, though she can be pretty violent. Just watch your back…” he grinned, adding a wink.

  I didn’t like that assertion, and I was tempted to punch him to show him just how violent I could be. But the strange sense of magic came over me again, a constant fluttering now. Why should I continue to detect it? And what did it mean?

  I looked around the bar, searching for a sign that might explain what I was feeling, but didn’t come up with anything. Maybe it was nothing more than my imagination.

  When it came yet again, I realized it wasn’t.Getting to my feet, I reached into my pocket for a stack of bills before dropping one on the table. “Thanks for the drink, Brad.”

  “You’re heading home already?”

  “I’m tired.” I turned to Matt. “Don’t let him keep you out too late. Residency is hard enough that you don’t want to be sleep-deprived on top of it.”

  “You should listen to her. She knows what she’s talking about. Most of the time she came in hung over,” Roberts said.

  “Not most of the time. Just once in a while.” I said. I wrapped my coat around my shoulders, pulling the collar up high to deflect the wind and heading back outside. As soon as I stepped out into the cold, my breath pluming outward, I felt the strange sensations even more potently than before. It was there, but why?

  Maybe it had come for me. And if it had, I wasn’t going to be caught out in the street by some creature of power. It was better to get back to the condo where the protections around the door would provide some safety for me. The vampires might have shown me how those protections could be destroyed, but Barden had already replaced them.

  I began to hurry home, trying—and failing—to avoid feeling foolish, in spite of my fear. After a while, I started running. I tried not to think of what might be out there, what might be chasing me, knowing there was someone—or something—after me. And if it was magical, as I had detected, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  When my building came into view, I allowed myself to relax. I slowed, trying to catch my breath and struggling as I did. There was the ongoing sense around me, a strange vibration that suggested magic was still out there, hunting me.

  I hesitated, pulling my coat tighter, wondering what Kate would do if she had someone chasing her. She wouldn’t run. She was far too confident for that. So, what would she do? She would do something unexpected. That was the best way to avoid an attack. I realized if I could guide the pursuers somewhere else, then not only would they be less likely to know where I lived, but I had more of a chance to escape them.

  I ran around the edge of the block, reaching an alleyway that stretched between my building and the next. From here, it wouldn’t be as far to run to the back entrance. I could sneak away, and hopefully by doing so, could disappear.

  I should have listened to Barden and begun to try to learn some magic. At least then I wouldn’t have been so helpless, not like I was now. Even if I called the police, there wouldn’t be anything they could do to help me. How could the police help if vampires or shifters or even mages came after me? And what a strange emergency call it would make.

  I paused in the darkness, looking around, waiting. The sense of magic had died down, and wasn’t returning. Maybe it had been nothing more than an overreaction on my part. If so, I needed to stop being so foolish.

  I was reaching for the door along the alley when something slammed into me. I went spinning off to the side, staggering, and feeling wobbly. I couldn’t see what had hit me. All I was aware of was that something had struck, and whatever it was had driven into me with significant power. Fumbling for my phone, I had it partially out of my pocket when something slammed me again. It flung me forward, making me strike my forehead against the wall. I blinked, and everything went blurry for a long moment before I managed to clear it.

  A concussion. Great. That was just what I needed. I had enough trouble the way it was and didn’t need to be suffering the effects of a concussion on top of everything else. I tried to get to my feet but was unable to do so.

  There came a flicker of shadows. Bracing myself, I tried to be ready for whatever it was out there attacking, but it didn’t strike me.

  “Time to get up, Dr. Stone.”

  I recognized the voice but wasn’t sure why. It didn’t sound like Barden. Could it be one of the others who worked with him? I knew Darvish, but not too many others of the Dark Council.

  Everything was spinning, and I looked around me, trying to get a sense of where I was and what had happened. Hadn’t I been near my home? Now it seemed maybe I hadn’t at all. I tried to look to see who was nearby—but couldn’t tell.

  “Dr. Stone?”

  “What happened?”

  “Come on. Do you live near here?”

  “Here?”

  I couldn’t think beyond the throbbing in my head. How badly had I been hit? Others might be accustomed to fighting like this, but I w
asn’t. Getting hit did nothing other than disorient me. I was used to being the one helping those with concussions, not the one who actually sustained them.

  When someone lifted me, I couldn’t tell who it was. I had a hard time focusing. Nausea rolled through me, reminding me of the patient we’d seen earlier in the day. All I could think of was that I hadn’t been smoking marijuana.

  Or maybe I had? Maybe all of this was nothing more than a hallucination?

  Another wave of nausea worked its way through me. If this wasn’t real, then it was the kind of nightmare I wanted to wake from. Unfortunately, it felt as if I was being dragged deeper and deeper into the abyss.

  9

  When I finally came around, all I could feel was the pain throbbing in my head. It was terrible and constant, the sensation of ongoing pulsing. Everything span as well, leaving me with an unpleasant dizziness, one I couldn’t shake.

  Definitely a concussion.

  Where was I?

  I tried to sit up but found I couldn’t. It wasn’t that I was bound in place or confined; it was more that the nausea I felt wouldn’t allow me to sit upright. I managed to roll my head off to the side and saw I was in a small, wood-paneled room. A lantern set on a table near me cast a soft white light. A box of Kleenex was positioned next to it, and next to that a pitcher of water.

  Where was I?

  It wasn’t my home, but I couldn’t tell exactly where I was. Nothing was familiar about the room, yet there was nothing to leave me feeling unsafe either.

  As the nausea eased, I rolled over, shifting so I could sit at the edge of the bed. When I did, I managed to stay there for only a moment before the swimming in my head sent me toppling over, and I crashed onto the floor.

  As I was getting back to my feet, the door opened. “You’re awake.”

  I looked up, and a part of me thought I might find Barden or even Roberts caring for me. I was surprised when it was Matt Gillespie. “What did you do to me? Did you drug me?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Drug you?”

  I should have considered the possibility before. What if someone had slipped something into my drink? I had several beers at the bar and hadn’t done the one thing I tried to make sure everyone else did—which was to be in control of their drinks the whole time. Robert had brought me one, and the bartender had brought another.

  Then again, the Red Hen wasn’t the kind of place I’d have expected someone to slip a drug into a drink. It was a safe place, the kind of place where others from the hospital went, and it was the kind of place that should have been safe for me too.

  “Where am I?”

  “I tried to take you home, but you didn’t answer me, so…”

  “You brought me to yours?”

  “Look, it’s not as if I had a whole lot of choice.”

  “You could have brought me to the hospital. You could’ve put me in a call room. You could have—”

  “Fine. I could have done those things, but I didn’t. My first thought was to get you to safety. After the vamp attack, I—”

  “The… what?”

  “Vampire attack.”

  More than anything else, his mentioning vampires cleared my head. “What do you know about vampires?”

  “I know you have several after you. I wouldn’t have even mentioned anything, but you were targeted specifically. They don’t do that for just some random person on the street. They only come after those they target if there’s a reason. What is it they want from you, Dr. Stone?”

  “Something I’m not sure I have.”

  “What is it?”

  I sat up, leaning back against the bed. “Listen, Matt. I appreciate that you helped me. You knowing about vampires is something you and I are going to have to talk through at some point, but right now, I want to get home, and if the vampires were responsible for the attack, I need to make a call to… someone.” I decided not to reveal Barden, not knowing whether Matt understood things about the magical world or was playing at it. Him defending me against vampires surely meant he had some ability, though, didn’t it? “How did you help me?”

  “Now you’re questioning my techniques?” he asked.

  “No. I’m questioning how you were able to defeat three vampires.”

  “Five. It was five.”

  “Five?” He gave me a moment, letting it sink in. When I’d been confronted by three vampires with Barden, he hadn’t been able to help. It had required him to go after other Dark Council mages to assist, and now Matt wanted me to believe he’d managed to overpower five vampires—and all on his own? I laughed, and he just watched me. “I have a hard time believing you were able to overpower five vampires. One of the most powerful mages I know had a hard time when there were three.”

  “Is that who you’re going to call?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I had the element of surprise. I don’t think they were expecting me to appear.”

  As my head was clearing—though it still pounded and throbbed, leaving waves of nausea rolling through me—my mind worked a little bit better than before. “How is it you knew to come after me?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “A hunch. And then you managed to overpower five vampires. And you want me to believe all of this is just by chance?”

  Matt got to his feet, went to a closet that I hadn’t realized was there, and pulled out a folding chair before taking a seat. He waited as I managed to get to my feet, dragging myself back to the bed where I sat propped on the edge of it. How late was it now? “You want some answers.”

  “I think they would be helpful.”

  “Before I went into medical school, I was in the military.”

  “I know that. We all know that. You were deployed somewhere, and most of the attendings think you’re some kind of badass.”

  He breathed out heavily, clasping his hands in front of them, resting his chin on them. “I was in the paramilitary.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Think of it as a branch of the military which handles unique threats.”

  “Unique as in magical.”

  “Unique as in unique.” He leaned back, resting his hands on his lap. “I learned to handle a variety of threats. It’s not the first time I’ve faced vampires, though I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting them to chase after you today… I just headed out for a simple beer.”

  “Yeah, well it seems I have magical connections of my own.”

  He watched me with renewed interest, and it left me a little unsettled. “What connections?”

  “The sort that ends up with vampires after me.”

  “And now you want to call your mage friend.”

  “He’s going to be worried about me.”

  “Is this someone you’re with?”

  “Not exactly. I’m not so sure I’m his type.” I pulled my phone out, resting it on my lap. I wanted to be ready to call Barden if needed, though I didn’t have any sense Matt was going to try anything with me.

  “Go ahead and call him. If it will make you feel better.”

  “What did you do to the vampires?”

  “I neutralized the threat.”

  The cold way he said it almost made me shiver, but the continued headache I had took away any remorse at the vampires getting what was coming to them. “How?”

  “I’ve been trained to handle unique situations like that.”

  “Trained?”

  “You’re not the only one with magical connections, Dr. Stone.”

  “Are you a mage?”

  “Something like that.”

  “From what I understand, the Mage Council has a treaty with the vampires,” I said.

  “There is a treaty between the Council and the vampires, and one with the shifters. I’m outside of those treaties,” Matt said.

  “Which means you aren’t a part of any of them.”

  “That’s what it means.”

  “And in order for you to be able to fight them, you’d have to have so
me access to magic.”

  “It would be helpful,” he admitted.

  “You’re saying you don’t?”

  Matt watched me. “You haven’t been forthcoming with me, so I figured I didn’t need to be so forthcoming with you.”

  “What is it you want to know?” I asked.

  “Who are you going to call?”

  I hesitated. It wasn’t that answering was a betrayal of Barden—I doubted he’d mind me revealing that he and I knew each other. What worried me was whether Barden was prepared for someone with military-type training being aware of him.

  “A member of the Mage Council.”

  Matt smiled tightly. “That’s all I get?”

  “Well, I do know several members of the Mage Council.”

  “How is it that you do?”

  “Some of us have connections,” I said.

  “Seems that way,” Matt laughed.

  “Tell me about your training,” I asked him.

  “As you suggested, I have some magic of my own. That magic has been honed so I can use it when necessary. What I don’t possess, I borrow.”

  “You borrow magic?”

  “As I said, when it’s necessary.”

  “You have a rune.”

  He just smiled at me but said nothing.

  What would Kate have said about him? Could Kate even be the reason he was here? It was unlikely to be chance that someone who was a paramilitary—a magical hunter—would show up right around the time Kate had developed her magic. Maybe it was best she was off on her sabbatical. Somehow, I’d need to send word to her, to warn her before she returned, though it was unlikely Matt would be able to do anything to harm her. I was sure Kate was far too powerful for that.

  “The mages aren’t too fond of runes,” I said.

  “That’s because they believe all magic is being stolen when it’s used in such a way,” Matt answered.

  “Then it’s not?”

  “Not the kind I use,” he said.

  “You’re saying you use magic that’s freely given?” I was trying to understand.