by Karen Payton
Awakening
Book One in the Fire & Ice Series
By
Karen Payton
Copyright - Karen Payton 2018
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author, except for 'brief quotations' as part of articles of critique or review.
No part of this publication may be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
The story is a work of fiction.
All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
If you are here, you are about to read my book and to start out on an adventure.
Think ‘Twilight’ meets ‘Game of Thrones’, with a dark twist, and you are in the right mindset to enter the world of Fire & Ice.
This is BOOK ONE in the Fire & Ice Series:
Awakening.
Five more upcoming releases are:
BOOK TWO: Survival
BOOK THREE: Earth Walker
BOOK FOUR: Heart of Stone
BOOK FIVE: Invasion
Fire & Ice Prequel: Death of Connor Sanderson.
For the latest news on the publishing dates visit my websites:
karenpaytonholt.wordpress.com
Karen Payton Holt on Facebook.
@karenpaytonholt on TWITTER.
This is the start of our epic journey, and I hope you enjoy the book. This is my first novel and I welcome your support!
Praise for Fire & Ice:
A breathtaking debut novel from an exciting new ‘dark fantasy’, horror/thriller writer – with an exceptional talent for detailed world-building and striking imagery.
– DAREN KING, author of ‘Boxy an Star’ – longlisted for the Booker Prize.
I dedicate this novel to the two people who believed in me, drove me forward, and, at times, gave me a much needed kick up the posterior.
This is for my mum, Sylvia, and my friend of forty years, Steve.
Fire and Ice: Awakening.
WARNING: This book contains adult situations/themes.
Chapter 1
Survival rule number one, don’t get caught.
Rebekah headed out along Half Moon Street and turned left into Piccadilly. Long strides drove her forward, but she kept her footfalls light. Silence was an ingrained habit.
This part of London – The City of Westminster - showed signs of an affluent past. A brisk walk across Green Park would take her to Buckingham Palace, its weathered façade presenting a brave face to an empty world. At the end of the road, Rebekah could just make out the somber landmark of the legendary Piccadilly Circus. Soot-black tracks left by broken neon lights snaked across the stained walls of the buildings. She found it hard to imagine how it would feel to push her way along this street through a crush of eager tourists. She dimly remembered, from her six-year-old perspective, city traffic rushing by as she was guided along by her mother’s hand. At that time, being so small, the petrol fumes from the rumbling growling engines were overpowering. Was it really fifteen years ago?
A sudden staccato of bird song broke the silence, and the rustling leaves whipping along the street focused her attention. It’s getting late. The tightening of her skin had nothing to do with the cold. She scanned the grime-encrusted glass of the shop front windows, checking for signs of movement. The object of the mission was simple. With a grim smile, she recalled Harry’s gruff instructions: Get in, raid the drugstore, and get out.
Outside the store, keeping her movements small and contained, she pulled a cut-down crowbar from her backpack.
The exposed wood of the door frame looked solid, but Rebekah had no concerns about her skills; practice had made perfect. She might look light and feminine, but her frame was entirely honed muscle. Fitting the blade in-between the door and the lock, it took seconds for the wood to crack and the door to spring open.
Rebekah stepped from the sidewalk into the gloomy interior of the derelict store, hesitating only long enough for her eyes to adjust. She took a deep breath, set her jaw, and strode forward. Her sneakers made barely a whisper as they skimmed the marble tiled floor, disturbing the layer of dust. No one has been here in ages. ‘They’ don’t need medicine. Despite the evidence of abandonment, a prickling of unease drove her on. Let’s get this done.
In the pharmacy section, she opened her backpack, pulled out a wad of cotton gauze, and scanned the shelves filled with bottles of pills. She zeroed in on ‘antibiotics’ and ‘painkillers’. Expiration dates no longer mattered. No one has died from swallowing old pills, not yet, anyhow. Working methodically, she opened each container, stuffed wadding inside, and, if the pills inside didn’t rattle when she shook the bottle, it went inside her bag.
Checking her watch, she grimaced. Nearly three o’clock. It’ll be dusk soon. She abandoned the remaining dozen bottles or so, hoisted the backpack up onto a shoulder and headed for the exit doors. The light blue decal emblazoned across the window told her the drugstore was an outlet of ‘Boots the Chemist’, and she made a mental note to tell Uncle Harry to change the foraging status here to ‘amber’, designating it almost empty.
Rebekah paused with a foot over the threshold. She resisted the urge to rub the goosebumps on her bare arms. Autumn in England was harsh, and chilled flesh was a useful survival tool. She shot a look up at the clouds stampeding across the sky. The clumps of gray blotting out the weak sunshine was the last thing she needed; darkness meant danger. Her stomach churned.
She glanced left, then right, and set her sights on Green Park.
In the eco-town library books, she had seen pictures of the Royal processions and spectacular firework displays once held there. This ghostly quiet and expressionless London made her feel cheated. ‘They’ have a lot to answer for. Through the park, a straight run down to Vauxhall Bridge Road, over the River Thames, and she’d be back at the safe house. Okay, let’s get moving.
Taking a deep breath, Rebekah darted forward into the street. But, without warning, the wind picked up. The sudden chilling blast whipped feathered strands of blond hair across her face. Shit, they’re coming. How many? Even though her brain screamed ‘go back’, she hurried on across the asphalt. She leapt up onto the opposite sidewalk, vaulted over the top rung of the iron railings, and into the overgrown parkland on the other side. She landed heavily on the potholed ground, struggling for balance as the shrieking gale plastered her shirt to her body. Rebekah stood stone still. Too late. The cover of some sturdy oak trees was tantalizing, but they were too far away. Don’t move. That’s Greg’s theory: Don’t run, don’t move.
She shrugged the backpack from her shoulder, dangling it from her fingertips before letting it fall into the knee-high grass. She wanted to follow it, sink down onto her knees, lie flat even, but he was already here.
She prayed as the scream of rushing air filled her ears.
The dark mass streaked across her vision like the trailing blur of a comet. As the air pressure dropped in its wake, and the fear aching in Rebekah’s chest began to ease, the shockwave hit, tossing her into the air like an under stuffed rag doll. Landing with a thud, twenty feet away, winded and unable to breathe, she lay gazing skyward. Dirty gray clouds retreated behind a black velvet curtain, and, as her lips formed the word ‘ouch’, she lost consciousness.
<><><>
Rebekah awoke with every muscle locked tight. Awareness had arrived with a jolt and she felt sick. I’m in their hospital. Every body part screamed with tension, but ‘they’ didn’t fidget, and so, neither must she.
When
she rocked her head, it pressed on a bruise, bringing tears to her eyes. A memory broke the surface like an iceberg wallowing in murky depths. I’m still alive, so I didn’t bleed. Taking a careful breath made her ribs ache and she remembered the hard landing on cold ground, and then the littering of stars which filled her head. Lights out.
Her fingertips explored the padded edges of the narrow bed. Her heart sank. An examination table. The thin foam mattress compressed beneath her shoulder blades and made lying still hurt as pins and needles numbed her buttocks. She dropped her head to one side, prepared for the soreness this time, and assessed the cold sparse examining room. There were no monitors for reading the vital signs of life, no resuscitation aids, and no oxygen tanks. There was not even a trolley of dressings for wounds. However, a frightening array of Mole grips and pliers winked in the light.
Her cramped muscles burning from staying still, she gave herself another survival lecture. Get out. Now. It took only a few deep breaths to calm her pulse rate, proving that the enhanced beta-blockers coursing through her system were still working. The pheromone suppressant spray is good for eight hours. She swallowed noisily. The room was cold, and wearing summer clothes in autumn had chilled her skin. But for how long?
Registering for the first time that the room had no windows, she calculated the number of steps needed to reach the door and began the countdown in her head. Three, two-
At a blur of movement, her thoughts hit a brick wall. Someone’s in here.
The door clicked as it swung closed and a puff of air brushed across her skin.
Through hooded lashes, Rebekah gathered a fleeting impression of a square jaw and black glossy hair. Fear killed the urge to leap from the table. She could not move.
“I’m Doctor Connor,” he said as he glanced around the room. “Your escort has stepped out?”
Rebekah nodded. Escort? She knew a minefield when she saw one. To say as little as possible was all she had left.
His expression became fixed. “Unconscious for two minutes. That’s not enough time to rehydrate. Let’s take a look at you.”
Only two minutes? Shit. Dredging up knowledge of predators and prey from when natural history still had meaning, Rebekah stayed frozen.
The doctor’s eyes glittered as he swept a glance over her face, before traveling down the length of her body. He absently brushed hair back from his brow. Rebekah struggled with the tightness in her chest at the thought of those long, white fingers wrapped around a set of Mole grips.
In silence, he leaned forward and placed a hand on her ankle. His touch was cold, but not icy. Maybe, he has just fed?
When his assessment reached her hips and his hands spanned her pelvis, she suppressed a flinch at the pressure.
His detachment felt encouraging. Rebekah concentrated hard on directing an unblinking stare at the ceiling while his fingertips moved upward and probed her stomach. With a jolt, as if he’d been stung, the tendons in his neck became corded, and his white coat tightened over his shoulders. In a blur of agitation, he whipped his cold fingertips away.
Gripping the edges of the mattress, Rebekah kept the doctor in her sights.
“Your feeding network appears to be intact,” he said gruffly. He cleared the gravel from his throat and looked her in the eye. “When did you last feed?”
“An hour ago,” she whispered.
A frown chiseled into his brow as he fired off a series of questions which set Rebekah’s mind reeling.
“Have you suffered infrared exposure?”
“Any tendon sheath grating?”
“Lubrication dead spots?”
“Problems swallowing or stiffening of the jaw?”
She shot back the answers, hoping ‘no’ was the correct option.
He plowed on as though working through a tick list inside his head. His gray eyes clouded with preoccupation, like warm breath on cold glass.
Is that a good sign? Is he bored?
Searching for clues, she noticed his chest moved when he expelled air through his throat to speak. Can I disguise my breathing that way? And for how long? Uncle Harry’s modified beta-blockers worked, but she knew her depressed heart rate might be detectable at close quarters. He’s getting too close.
“Can I go now?” she asked in a monotone she hoped fit in with a just-fed persona.
The doctor met her stare, and after what seemed an age of deliberation, his broad shoulders shifted. “Sure, you seem fine. But, if you get any hardening, come back. Once your flesh becomes desiccated, I can’t help you.” He paused, looked more closely into her eyes, and added, “Get some sleep. Your stress levels are high, and you know what that does.”
The door swung shut. Her brain barely detected the white blur of movement which her eyes missed altogether. He’s gone.
Her still-clenched muscles burned as a jack-in-the-box of chaotic words taunted her. Hardening, rehydrating, tendon sheath grating, and dead spots was an information explosion of concepts; but one stood out, like the flare of a match head struck in the dark; ‘sleep’. The streets are never empty. We thought they didn’t sleep.
“And what about stress levels?” she whispered.
Before she could persuade her frozen muscles that movement was a good thing, a breeze fanned her hair and a shadow dimmed her vision again. The doctor was back. Even her brain had not registered the movement this time.
“When were you turned?” he asked sharply.
Rebekah suppressed her start of surprise, cursing the missed opportunity of escape. Did he hear me? A flutter of panic fought to engulf her.
His nostrils flared as he repeated, “When were you turned?”
How old am I? She studied the doctor’s smooth twenty-something looking face and tried to think in immortal years.
“Just decades will do,” he pressed.
“Two.” Rasping through a dry throat, she plucked the figure out of midair and mentally crossed her fingers.
“Two decades? Maybe that explains the smell, the residue of congealed human blood...” His voice trailed off as he sank into thought.
The tense expression on his face scared her. Is this it? Game over?
In a heart-stopping change of direction, he shrugged off his distraction and said firmly, “You need revival sleep.”
At her blank look, he muttered, “Oh for heaven’s sake. Brain tissue is thirsty, but you’ve just fed, right?” Clearly impatient, his glance moved down over her exposed neck and the bow of her clavicle. “Your color is-”
“Yes,” she cut in, almost choking when his attention darted back to her face. “I’ve just fed.”
“Good. Dead bone marrow no longer makes blood, so you have to be well-fed for this. Body tissue rehydrates spontaneously, but not the brain. You have to work at that.”
Rebekah risked a nod.
“Relax, clear your mind and visualize opening the door to the dehydrated control center in your brain. In this case your stress center. Your reflexes should take care of the rest. It will get easier to master, but be sure to practice in a safe place.” The doctor stared at her, looking for some sign she understood.
Rebekah nodded again, hanging onto a neutral expression. Even if she could have forced the words out, she dared not ask questions. She hoped silence would encourage him to continue.
His tone was condescending as he said, “And do it soon, before you get too agitated. If you don’t feed, your tissue will harden, your throat will shrivel, and then, it’s too late.” He ticked the list off on long pale fingers. “Locked-in syndrome; a conscious brain trapped inside a granite body.”
He spoke slowly, and she guessed he thought she was stupid. But she wasn’t complaining.
“Revival sleep,” she muttered, “Okay.”
A scowl etched deep lines into his firm skin. “When your escort gets here, go straight back to your cluster house. You should know all this. And rehydrate only one control center at a time, or your brain will shut down.” His gaze sharpened. “Is that what happen
ed today? When they found you lying outside? For goodness’ sake, this is survival one-oh-one,” he muttered, and then he vanished again.
Rebekah counted to five. It’s now or never. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and shoved her feet into her sneakers. The room swam, and her feet felt numb, but she drove the sensations to the back of her mind. Gritting her teeth, she crossed the room and steadied herself with a hand on the wall. She eased open the door and emerged cautiously into a silent hallway. The green emergency exit sign was no longer illuminated, but the sight of a gray man running on a black background still galvanized her into action. Keeping her movement smooth and fast, she headed out along the deserted expanse of waxed floor. Her heart clattered as she pushed open the exit door and welcomed the chilled damp air on her skin.
Outside on the street, she pressed back into the cold marble stone wall of the hospital and a shudder rattled through her body. Relief made breathing hard as she tried not to think about the doctor. They still pretend to be human, like a veneer of civility over an empty shell. She found the echoes of human behavior creepy.
The doctor had looked so normal. It was not what she wanted to see, slate-grey eyes sharp with intelligence. His breath had fanned her face with a clean sharp scent and not the stench of rotting flesh she expected.
Her heart thumped and her tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth as she glanced back at the closed exit door. Did I fool him or is he raising the alarm? Calling to have me taken to the farm. Her chest hurt as she took a deep breath and shoved away from the wall.
<><><>
Doctor Connor strode along the corridor, his coat flaring out behind as he found relief in acceleration. Agitation was not a familiar sensation, and he didn’t like it.