by Lissa Kasey
We trotted along through the heavy snow. Con and I moving among the trees like ninjas or hunters trying not to scare a deer. Neither of us would point out that, if there were a vampire near, he’d hear our heartbeats long before he saw us.
When the tower came into sight, the darkness from the above windows lingered like a bad omen. Only a small flicker of light from within led anyone to believe that someone might be alive in there. The cabin twenty feet away roared with light, smoke pouring from the chimney, a fire obviously raging within. Was Roman in there? He wouldn’t need the heat. That would be more for Sam, since vampires couldn’t feel the cold.
Not that it mattered. We’d run into him sooner or later.
I tiptoed to the ladder to the tower, looked up at the closed hatch above, then started to climb. My hands tingled from the wind that wailed around us. Several rungs wobbled in my grip and made me cling harder going up.
“This place has seriously bad vibes,” Con whispered. I barely heard him through the constant howl of cold.
“Stay here,” I said to him and continued to climb. When I reached the top, the closed hatch loomed like something out of a horror movie. So much could be beyond that piece of wood. There had been a time when things like vampires hadn’t scared me. They just hadn’t been real. But the memory of the murdered rangers at Beaver Creek had ripped away that illusion.
Hell, the whole axis of my world had changed since meeting Seiran. People really did hurt you just because they could. Monsters came in many different shapes.
With that thought, I pushed on the wood plank, felt it shift and slide back. The flicker I’d seen from the ground was a single candle that bounced light around the dirty corners of the tower.
The power of a spell drenched the room. Red stained the floor in intricate patterns, and the stink of blood made me cover my nose. I didn’t know enough about spells to understand what I was seeing. But Sam sat curled in on himself, face gaunt enough to make him look skeletal, and eyes hollow with heavy black bags around them. When was the last time he slept or ate?
He shook his head at me, lips forming words that didn’t make a sound. I rushed to his side and lifted him. He was so light, his mouth still moving.
“How do I end the spell?” I asked him. “How do I stop the storm?”
“Kill me,” he whispered, voice sounding like he hadn’t spoken in years.
“Not happening. Tell me how to end the spell.”
He didn’t answer and was little more than a rag doll in my arms. I searched the tower room for anything that made sense. Maybe if I destroyed the scrollwork. I dug the knife out of my pocket, pulled off the sheath, and scratched at the edges of the design. Sam writhed in my arms, blood welling up from a cut that magically appeared on his cheek.
Shit! He was attached to the spell.
I put the knife away and decided that I had only one choice—remove him from the situation. Shifting him to a fireman’s carry, I made my way down the ladder and out of that horrible tower. Maybe if I got him away from the spell it would weaken enough for me to free him. I headed toward where Con and I had left the sled, only to hit an invisible wall. Sam groaned in my arms, his body shaking so badly I struggled to keep a grip on him.
“Con?” I called quietly into the trees. When no response came, my heart skipped a beat.
“Kill me,” Sam begged. “Please.”
I touched the invisible barrier, and my hand went through just fine until I moved far enough to try to carry Sam across the barrier. Whatever it was wouldn’t let him pass. But there was no way I was going to leave him here. I’d seen him come from the cabin in a dream, so maybe we just had to go around the barrier. Following the trees around the large gap of the river, the smell of the wood burning and the snapping of tree branches breaking because of the cold made me shudder.
Holding on to Sam seemed to be pulling the energy out of me. The wind had died down, but the moisture in the air grew. The frozen river shimmered like something alive. And I nearly jumped out of my skin when Con appeared in front of me. “Crap, Con. Give me a heart attack, why don’t you?”
He didn’t speak, and I didn’t have enough time to react when his fist slammed into my face. Sam and I flew backward from the force. I tripped through the snow, trying to keep Sam from taking my fall, but we both landed on the ice. He just lay there on his side, eyes wide and fear-filled as Con jumped me.
Blood oozed from Con’s neck, and a shadow leered just a few feet from us on the shoreline. Andrew Roman. Cat stood at his side, her expression so empty she looked dead. Her eyes glowed in the little bit of light refracting from the cabin. My brain churned fast with the knowledge I’d learned from Gabe in the past few weeks. Roman had changed her. I wondered how long she’d been a vampire and if Con had known.
Con’s hands wrapped around my neck, and he banged my head into the ice, making stars of pain flood my vision. I barely saw Sam reach out his hand to touch the ice as the darkness was pulling at me from lack of air.
The piercing crackle of ice brought me out of the black, fighting while Con seemed to relax his hold in shock. We fell in a slow motion of horror and cold. Water poured around us, yanking us into the frigid grip that felt like a two-ton weight on my chest. The power of it pulsed through me with new strength even as it froze my lungs and made my heart sluggish. Con followed me down, his weight pushing us further into the depths beneath the water.
I kicked at him, hoping to free him from the water before he drowned. Cat screamed from the shore and leapt toward her brother, ripping him from the water before bounding them both back to shore like she were some sort of incredible, agile jungle cat. Andrew didn’t move. And all the while I fought to catch another breath, each one colder than the last.
A little sound made me turn back to Sam, who closed his eyes as his body slid off a broken chunk of ice and into the water. No, dammit, I wasn’t failing anyone today. Defying my already tiring body, I dove, cold stinging every part of me and freezing my eyes as I sought out Sam, captured him around the neck, and pulled him to the surface.
The river moved around us. The break in the ice Sam caused became larger, letting the water speed its way south and rushing us further downstream. I gripped pieces of ice, trying to stop our descent, but they kept breaking away. The current pulled us under until I fought again to bring us back out.
Struggling against the water, I caught sight of Jamie, bloodied, moving up behind Andrew, which made me flounder and nearly lose my hold on Sam. He must have come looking for Sam but found Roman instead. He looked like he’d been bitten several times and beaten. But he gripped an axe and was almost thirty feet away when he threw it with impossible precision, catching Roman in the back.
Andrew fell like a sack of potatoes, arms writhing while he tried to reach back and pull it out. Cat slammed into Jamie with enough force to tip him over while Con just looked confused.
“Jamie!” I screamed for him, water choking me and making my lungs feel like icicles formed inside them.
I gripped a heavy root and tried dragging Sam and myself to shore. He felt so lifeless in my arms. His small size, dark hair, and almond-shaped eyes made me think of Sei, and how I’d failed them both. I carefully crawled up onto some ice, feeling so incredibly cold I wondered if some of my limbs were still attached. How my arm was still wrapped around him, I couldn’t guess. “Don’t die on me, Sam. Please.”
But the wind suddenly picked up, hitting me so hard it knocked me back into the water. The chill poured over my head, taking me into the murky brown-blue darkness of the mud-caked water that wouldn’t let me find my footing. But a hand grabbed mine. I fought to reach my other hand up too, saw Sam’s eyes widen as he kept me from being swept downstream.
His lips moved, saying something I could barely hear. “Water is stronger than wind.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked, hoping he had some idea how to get us out of this. The ice began to break around him, and I fought to get him to release me so
he wouldn’t be dragged down too. Just as the crack ripped through the air like a cannon, he smiled so sweetly, reminding me of how Sei had looked in that closet, lost and hiding from the world. Sam was just as broken. But unlike Sei, he was ready to die.
We both fell beneath the rising river, him not letting go and me feeling that terrible dread that had plagued me for weeks in my sleep. Only it wasn’t Jamie dying in my arms. Cat had probably killed him, and now we’d never have a chance, since I was going to drown, if the cold didn’t take me first.
The feeling of powerlessness nearly strangled me while the world began to lose focus. I had to save Sam, somehow. I closed my eyes and gave everything I had to the water, willing it to take my power and my life, just to save them all. For Sam and Con, who both needed a chance at life, for Cat, whose life had been stolen, for Sei and Gabe, who seemed to always be followed by demons, and Jamie, who I loved so much I couldn’t imagine life without him. I gave up all that I really had—my life.
Chapter Nineteen
Jamie
CAT’S fingernails ripped like claws into my side, but I fought
her anyway, trying to get to Kelly before the river stole him from me forever. She fought like the girl she was, shrieking, all nails and teeth, no skill. Brute strength was bad enough, since the ache in my chest said she’d cracked a few ribs.
Con stood over Roman, confused and completely torn. The injury I’d dealt Roman would only keep him down awhile. And keeping Cat from ripping my head off was taking up most of my time. She fought like a wild thing, and even though she was probably 115 pounds, she had more than double the strength I did. But if I could get by her to kill Roman, she would be nothing more than a disoriented baby vampire who would need a new master.
I knew I lost my chance when Con bent over and pulled the axe out of Roman’s back. The man rose, looking pained but having use of his legs again, even though I’d aimed well enough to sever his spinal cord. His dark hair glistened with snow, and those piercing blue eyes that had haunted Seiran for so long glared daggers at me.
He didn’t speak, but Con moved, heading my way with the axe in his hands. Cat stopped flailing and shifted to hold me down. He approached as I saw Sam and Kelly behind him, on the river, fighting their way up onto some ice. Flinging my power into the ground, I sent out a tremble that made Roman and Con stumble. Once again, Roman’s hold on Con broke. Con turned away from me, looking back toward the river. Cat growled at him and let me go like she was going to grab him, but he turned at the last second and buried the axe in her chest.
His pained expression didn’t stop him from pulling the axe out as she fell. I jumped to his side and grabbed the thing from him. He didn’t try to take it back. Instead, he dropped to his knees, emotion overwhelming him as he stared at his sister’s bleeding body. The blow couldn’t have killed her, but she would be down for a while.
I turned to the water to make sure Kelly and Sam were safe, but they were gone. The rushing water gave no sign of them. My heart nearly stopped. Every moment I’d spent with Kelly flashed through my head in bittersweet memories of what I’d lost. How could life be so cruel? Years of searching, only to find the one I wanted and have him ripped from me.
An earth-shattering rumble shook the ground again, and this time it wasn’t me. The water began to build upstream like some sort of tsunami, rising twenty, then thirty feet. I caught a glimpse of Kelly’s blond hair when the water seemed to pour into the growing wave and grabbed Con’s hand, dragging him toward the river.
Building my power as we ran was a lot like the newmoon change. I let it flow freely into the earth, filling me and looping like the current I’d felt running through my little brother. This was much stronger than anything I’d ever felt. But I’d take what I could.
When I reached the edge of the river a few seconds later, I poured my power into the ground, heaving Kelly upward. I pulled a page from Seiran’s book, making heavy roots break through the snow and wrap around us as the water hit with a crushing force.
Struggling to breathe in between the bursts of cresting and falling water was the worst. We fought to stay together, me to hold Kelly and Con to grip us both. The booming crash brought the tower down, the evil magic it held washed away in the flood.
Not even Roman could escape the rushing power of the river. He vanished beneath the waves, struggling against the current. He would not get away this time. His time of haunting my family had to end here and now. I pressed more power into the ground, feeling the trees grab him and hold him in a steel-like grasp.
The river finally calmed, and I felt Kelly stir in my arms, body shaking so badly, if it weren’t for Con, I would have lost my hold on him. I pulled us ashore and heard the buzz of a snowmobile coming from the distance and prayed it wasn’t another enemy.
Chapter Twenty
Kelly I FELTlike I’d been put in a washer on cold spin cycle. My stomach heaved, making me hack up icy, dirty water and some blood. That couldn’t be good.
The storm had stopped, and within a few seconds the moon appeared and glowed down on us. I’d felt the power of wind snap away when Sam had died. He’d died when the water hit the tower, destroying the spell.
Con and Jamie held me, both shaking nearly as hard as I was from the cold. We’d die from hypothermia if we stayed out here. But having lost my hold on Sam made my heart break.
Tears froze on my face as I gripped Jamie and buried my head in his shoulder. I felt Sam in the water, asked the waves to gently return him to me, and they did, laying his lifeless form at my feet. He’d been so battered, never had a chance to have a good life or fall in love. It was so unfair.
A snowmobile rolled to a stop a few feet away. I couldn’t see well enough to make out who approached us. “There are helicopters on the way.” The voice had Gabe’s old-world accent.
Jamie nodded against my face and tried to get up, but his legs didn’t want to work any more than my eyes did. “How’d you find us?”
“The Gossners. When they discovered both Con and Cat missing, they admitted to helping Andrew Roman.” There was a pause, then, “Where is the bastard?”
“Water,” I said. And reached out, pushing the power that now coursed through me into the river, refreezing it. Rubbing at my eyes a handful of times until they made out some colors, I grabbed Sam and held him to my chest. Once again, I’d failed.
Gabe stood over Roman on the newly formed ice, watching the man struggle against the roots and frozen river. He stood so silent and still, I wondered what crossed his mind. Surely he didn’t think Roman could walk away from this one. It had to end here.
I pushed myself to my feet, legs more like rubber than what I was used to. Jamie’s hand grasped at mine, but I shook him off. This was for Seiran, Sam, and everyone who’d been hurt in Roman’s baseless quest for revenge. I limped across the ice to Gabe’s side, leaving Sam in Jamie’s care. “He needs to die.”
Gabe sighed. “Yes. But the very old are harder to kill.” “Not really.” Total body destruction would probably be the only thing to work on a vampire as old as Andrew Roman. But vampires were essentially humans with special powers, which meant, just like everyone else, he was 80 percent water. The power of the water still ran through me like an electric current, charging me up far beyond anything I’d experienced before.
Roman glared and cursed at me with those pretty blue eyes of his while I touched his forehead, pulled power through the still flowing water beneath the ice, and froze him from the inside out. It wasn’t pretty, but I got up and walked away when he stopped moving, knowing Gabe would take care of the rest.
A person shouldn’t shatter, but Roman did. None of us watched as Gabe released every last bit of that calm collected resolve he fought so hard for and lost himself in rage.
When the helicopter appeared at the edge of the river near us, there was no sign that Andrew Roman had ever existed. The last remaining slivers washed away when I let the ice unfreeze.
Gabe gathered us to the s
ide, and we huddled around Sam while the EMTs went to work trying to keep us from losing parts or dying from the cold. I only vaguely remember getting rolled on a gurney into the loud machine and pulling away. Panic enveloped me just as I realized I was no longer with Jamie, and unconsciousness finally found me.
WAKING up in the hospital made me realize just how crappy a place it was. But seeing my friend’s smiling face staring down at me made me feel like I could take on the world again.
“Hey, sleepyhead.” Sei looked tired but otherwise unhurt. The soft sound of a fountain had a soothing impact on me. The running water throbbed through my every sense like little flares of white light in my limbs.
I breathed deeply and was glad to find my lungs mostly clear and painless. “Is everyone okay?” Then I remembered Sam, who I’d failed, and closed my eyes. That stung, worse than any physical pain I could have felt.
“Con left the hospital yesterday.”
“How is he?”
“He’s broken up about his sister. I think he feels really
guilty for attacking you and Jamie. Though he couldn’t help it.”
I nodded. “We’ll help him through it.” Sei smiled like that was what he was expecting me to say. “Gabe’s at home since it’s still light out. Jamie is recovering from some broken ribs. He had a fit when I told him I was taking over for a few hours, but he really needed the sleep.”
Jamie had been here? Sei laughed. He must have read what I was thinking in my expression. “Like a bear protecting his mate, that one.”
I felt fire burn my cheeks. Did he know we’d had sex again, several times? That I wanted to keep repeating that until the world ended? He’d probably think I was reckless too.
“And you just need to get your feet under you, and then you’ll get to leave.”
My feet under me? The thought made me panic, thinking something had happened to my legs. But I wiggled my toes beneath the blanket, and everything felt fine. I even pulled back the blanket to make sure all my toes were intact and counted my fingers too. Everything was where it should be.