by Kristie Cook
“We’re going to a small village outside of Vorkuta,” Tristan said. “I don’t think it’ll be safe to flash once we get there. We’ll make our way to Vorkuta’s train station, which will take us to Moscow and the rest of civilized society so we can get back on track. If we get trapped and separated anywhere along the way, we meet in Prague.”
“There’s an old hotel two blocks from the safe house in old town Praha.” Solomon’s eyes cut to me when my brow furrowed with confusion. “Praha is Czech for Prague,” he clarified. “The hotel looks abandoned from the outside. Meet there.”
“You vamps are charged up with mage blood?” Charlotte asked, and both Solomon and Vanessa nodded, meaning they’d be able to flash. “I’ll help Sheree. Blossom, you can help Jax?”
“Of course.” She moved closer against him—if that were possible. I noticed her lips beginning to pale. The cold was becoming too much for her.
“I’ll take Dorian and lead Alexis,” Tristan said. “Owen and Vanessa, follow our trail, and the rest of you follow in suit. We’re good?”
Everyone nodded, but only after a moment of hesitation. Blossom’s eyes grew round and huge, and she gnawed on her lip.
Solomon, I said, only to him. His dark gaze darted over to me. Lead Blossom and Jax. If we get separated, I don’t know what they’d do on their own.
Except for a night on Amadis Island when Rina gave her blessing to search for Dorian last March, Blossom had never been out of the United States until a month ago, when we traveled through a portal from Virginia to England. Jax wasn’t much the world traveler himself, having spent several decades isolated in the Australian Outback.
Solomon nodded and stepped over to Blossom’s side. “I’ll take care of them.”
Tristan blew out a hard breath, gripped Dorian’s forearm, and slid his other hand into mine. “Let’s do this.”
He gave my hand a squeeze before flashing and taking me with him. We arrived on the side of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard. As soon as everyone else appeared, he flashed again. After the first couple of times, we had to take breaks for the less magical among us. The pauses lasted only about five to ten minutes at first, but then we came close to the only civilization we’d seen so far—a drab city of featureless buildings that all looked the same except for their paint colors of dulled blue, orange, green, and yellow. A greenish smog hung over the city, and even the freshly fallen snow wasn’t quite white, but more of a pale pink. Tristan called the city Norilsk, a mining town, evidenced by the plumes of smoke rising from stacks on the other side of the city. Also a Daemoni-controlled area that we needed to vacate immediately. After the back-to-back flash, our breaks grew longer, becoming twenty and thirty minutes each. Even the vampires were languishing, using all of this power in the daytime.
“One more flash to go,” Tristan said after our current break had stretched into nearly an hour.
We stood on the edge of a lake or bay, and although we followed the sun, daylight was quickly disappearing—the days were short this far north. In a few weeks, there would be an endless stretch of nothing but night. At least, it would feel endless to me. I didn’t know how people could stand living this far north, with no sun for weeks on end. And even though the cold didn’t really bother me, I still preferred the warmth of the sun and the feeling of sand between my toes, not snow clumping to my boots.
“We’ve made it this far,” Charlotte said.
Yes, we’d made it this far, but each flash had been a heart-stopping, breath-holding moment of fear and uncertainty. Not until we all popped into sight could I feel the slightest bit of relief. Then we’d have to do it all over again, the bottom of my stomach falling out each time. Would this be the time we got caught? The question echoed in everyone’s minds right before a flash.
“One more time,” Blossom muttered, her arms looped around Jax’s and Solomon’s, holding tightly to both. “We can do this.”
She didn’t sound as confident as she probably wished she did, making it apparent she tried to convince herself more than anyone.
“You’re doing great, Blossom,” I said. “Soon we’ll be in more interesting areas with much better scenery.”
She gave a weak laugh. “Yeah, this hasn’t exactly been the kind of international getaway I’d always dreamed about.”
Well, that wasn’t going to change. We weren’t exactly on vacation, after all. But moving farther west meant we’d be closer to civilization and farther away from Hades. Although, I didn’t know if that really meant we’d be much safer, with the way the world was quickly going to hell. It was up to us to stop it from getting there, though, so regardless of scenery and the hell we headed toward, we had to keep moving.
“Okay, one more time,” I said. “And then we can rest.”
Chapter 10
“Yes,” Tristan said. “We’ll take a long break until the middle of the night. I promise.”
We flashed to the side of another mountain, with what looked like a city in the far distance. Thick, dark clouds hung overhead, threatening a snowstorm that could begin any minute, and giving an earlier than usual twilight. Even as we stood there, taking in our surroundings, the lights of the city began to blink on.
Tristan tilted his head downward. “We’ll find shelter down there.”
I followed his gaze to the bottom of the mountain and focused on what looked like a tiny village directly below us.
“You want to go into a town?” I fixed in on the mind signatures below. Only a couple dozen, from what I could tell from here. “With Normans?”
“Just because they’re Normans doesn’t mean it’s safe,” Charlotte pointed out.
“They’ll just call the Daemoni like the ones in Italy,” Blossom said.
“We need to rest, right?” Tristan asked. “I was here two years ago, and half the town was empty then. I doubt there’s been a surge of population, meaning there are vacant buildings to hide in for a few hours.”
Big, fat snowflakes began to fall while the darkness of night quickly slithered over us. Dorian started shivering again, and I pulled him close to me, wrapping my arms around him and trying to share my body heat.
“I’ll keep us shielded and cloaked,” Owen said. “We need to take cover. This storm looks ugly.”
About a mile outside of town, we crept into an old barn to hide out for the night while we scoped the area for any danger. As soon as all of us had gathered inside, though, the horses began neighing loudly, the cows mooed, the pigs snorted and chuffed, and some chickens squawked, creating quite the ruckus.
“Sheree, change,” I whispered to the tiger, who immediately morphed into her human self, albeit naked. Blossom dug a set of clothes out of her bottomless bag, but even as Sheree dressed, the animals only grew louder. I checked on the owner’s mind, and he hadn’t heard them yet, but he would soon, and he’d be out here any minute.
“Do you think it’s Sasha?” I asked.
Jax shook his bald head. “Half of us here are their predators, and they sense the danger. Even if we all look human, they know.”
“Stupid animals,” Vanessa muttered as she strode over to the barn door to leave.
“Don’t take it personally,” I said as I followed her out. “I like bacon and steak.”
“That’s why they’re stupid. Those norms are more dangerous to them than Solomon or me. And any self-respecting shifter wouldn’t eat a caged, domesticated pet.”
“Nope. No challenge, no eat,” Sheree said from my other side as we strode down the lane and closer to town. My head snapped toward her at the uncharacteristic statement. I hadn’t known Sheree hunted at all. “What? A girl’s gotta eat, and I can’t always wait until I’m human to grab something out of the fridge. Especially now.”
“So Bambi and Thumper?” I asked with surprise.
“Alexis! No!” she protested, but then said with an edge of guilt, “Well, maybe their dads. I like turkeys, fish, and . . . well, don’t tell Jax, but gator’s good, too.”
She gave me a grin. “My favorite’s wild boar, though. Wild boar. Not Babe or Wilbur back in that barn.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t imagine . . .”
“I hate to break it to you,” Vanessa said, “but Babe and Wilbur are what you get from the fridge.”
I stared at her now, surprised she even knew who Babe and Wilbur were. She shrugged. “I like animal movies. So sue me.”
“Opening a package from the store is not the same as eating it fresh,” Sheree said.
I wrinkled my nose at that thought. No, definitely not the same, thank the Angels. “So you’re saying that you prefer Pumba?”
Vanessa laughed, and Sheree groaned. “Stop it. Like I don’t feel guilty enough as it is, you’re going to make me starve to death before I’ll eat another animal.”
I bumped my shoulder against her, hitting her upper arm because she stood so much taller than me. “I’m just giving you a hard time, and I won’t let you starve to death.”
“That looks promising.” Vanessa lifted her chin toward a small structure about a mile down the road. She disappeared in a blur, and then returned a few seconds later. “It’s an abandoned cabin. No furniture and no heat, but it’s shelter from this storm. And no people or Daemoni, so that’s a bonus.”
The wind whipped and howled around us, blowing snow in our faces as we moved toward the cabin. The weaker of our group, including Dorian and Blossom, pushed against the harsh gusts with their heads down and their arms held closely to their chests. With their Warlock bodies built a little tougher, Owen and Charlotte weren’t hunched over, but they weren’t a whole lot better off, either. As soon as we gathered inside the one-room cabin, Tristan pulled a cabinet off the wall and lit it on fire, providing some much needed heat and light. Everyone but Solomon and Vanessa gathered around it.
We hadn’t expected to be so far removed from civilization when we left, so we didn’t have much food with us. Dorian had the biggest stash of packaged crackers and snacks that we all shared. Except Solomon and Vanessa, of course.
“The things I do for you,” Owen said as he gritted his teeth while dragging the edge of one of Tristan’s knives over his forearm.
“You know it’s better for us both when I do it.” Vanessa licked the tip of her fang. Owen glared at her with a brow lifted. The rest of us suppressed a knowing laugh. A vampire’s bite only hurt at first pierce, and then it became bliss . . . nearly orgasmic. Owen’s face flushed a deep red, and his jaw muscle twitched as he held his arm over a brown plastic cup that had held potato chips a few minutes ago.
“You get the cup,” he said with a half-snarl.
Charlotte used another container to supply Solomon with his own meal. Between the blood and the darkness outside, he and Vanessa quickly became hyped up. Sheree and Jax seemed pretty energetic, too. So those four took turns guarding the perimeter of the cabin while the rest of us grabbed some rest.
After a few hours on the hard, wooden floor with Tristan’s arm as a pillow, my body felt as regenerated as it would get. I could hardly sleep in the lush, comfy bed back at the mansion, so enjoying much shut-eye here was out of the question. As soon as I sat up, Tristan did, too. He apparently couldn’t sleep, either. We snuck outside, so we wouldn’t disturb the others. Another few inches of snow had fallen, and the wind blew the frozen stuff into my face.
“Did you scope the town out?” Tristan asked Vanessa and Solomon once we stepped off the front porch. He spoke quietly, barely more than a whisper, although the vampires stood thirty yards away, in opposite directions. Neither turned toward us, but kept their alert gazes outward, surveying the fields and the town.
“Couldn’t leave you and Alexis without a watch guard,” Vanessa said.
“There’s a shield over the whole cabin,” I reminded them.
“And we’ve already seen more than once that a sorcerer can break Owen’s shields,” Solomon responded. “We’re barely more than fifty miles from a decent-sized town in Russia and still uncomfortably close to Hades. The possibility for such a sorcerer being nearby is quite great.”
“Go check it out,” Tristan said. “Alexis and I will keep guard.”
Solomon let out a displeased grunt before they both blurred out of sight.
“What does he think will happen in the short time they’ll be gone?” I asked rhetorically.
Less than a minute later, he and Vanessa returned.
“A lot can happen in the snap of a finger.” Solomon clicked his finger and thumb together.
As if in response, gunfire ripped through the silent night. The tat-tat-tat-tat of an automatic weapon. Visions of my mom’s body jerking with each hit tried to obliterate the snowy scene in front of me. I might have called out her name, but the memory disappeared when someone slammed me to the ground, driving my face into the snow.
“See?” Solomon hissed from above me.
I could barely move enough under his boulder-like weight to twist my head so I could breathe and see. Vanessa had already crossed the field and attacked the gunman, knocking the gun away, but he fought her off expertly. Another man joined the fight, and Tristan blurred over and paralyzed them both. He swept his hand out, and the two men flew closer to Solomon and me, and Tristan and Vanessa appeared right behind them.
“Solomon?” the one on our right asked, his voice thick with a Russian accent.
“Evgeny?” Solomon responded as he slowly moved to his feet, allowing me up, too.
Both Norman men were dressed for the weather in thick snow pants and billowy, grungy coats. Dark, bushy beards covered their faces. Solomon strode over to them, and they exchanged some kind of familiar but hesitant greeting, a slew of Russian words running between them.
My weird mind had a way of translating people’s thoughts easily, probably because people didn’t really think in words. At least, not words by themselves, and definitely not coherent sentences. Their thoughts came as . . . well, thoughts. With images, feelings, sometimes all the senses kind of rolled together into one. My brain morphed those many layered thoughts into my own words, but unless someone mind-talked to me, that’s not really how I received the messages. So I could interpret their thoughts enough to understand, even when any words were in foreign languages. However, translating actual vocalization in a tongue I wasn’t quite familiar with, like Russian, didn’t come so easily.
Tristan appeared by my side and paraphrased their conversation.
“They go back a few years,” he whispered. “Evgeny had been a student protesting in Moscow when Solomon was there to help bring the iron wall down.”
“Really?” I asked with surprise. “Solomon was involved with defeating communism?”
“Apparently. He’d served as Rina’s foreign relations diplomat for quite some time, so it makes sense.” He paused as he listened to the conversation, and then his head tilted and his brows pushed together.
“What’s wrong? Tristan?”
He didn’t answer me, but strode away, over to Solomon and the strange men. He spat Russian words out angrily, and Solomon’s voice grew harsh, too.
“They’re saying they’re hunters,” Vanessa said. I glanced at her, not understanding. So what if they were hunters? “Supernatural hunters.”
My brow shot up with surprise.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “That Evgeny dude is saying he found out we existed years ago, and he’s been hunting ever since. Finding vampires and shifters who attack humans and killing them. They’re not the only ones. He says there are hunters throughout the world. Now these two want to kill us. Tristan and Solomon are trying to convince them that we’re the good guys. It’s not going so well.”
We need to get out of here.
She gave me a slight nod, then blurred out of sight. She’d gone inside, silently waking everyone up and evacuating our group out the back of the cabin. All of them made their way into town except Owen, who joined me in front of the cabin. I mentally followed the group, and when they stopped
, I glanced through Vanessa’s eyes at a metal warehouse with a junk pile outside of it, including a bunch of old, broken down snowmobiles half-buried in snow. Charlotte and Blossom waved their hands over them, and three lifted away from the white blanket and their engines started up.
Owen threw a shield and cloak over me.
We’re good to go, I called out to Tristan as we ran toward the others.
Not five seconds after Tristan’s paralyzing power lifted from the hunters, more gunfire broke out, blowing snow at our legs as the bullets missed. Some kind of knife whizzed through the air not too far from Solomon’s ear. As fast and as good as these hunters seemed to be, I had to wonder if they were entirely Norman. Could they have been two of Lucas’s super-Normans? They hadn’t had that glassy-eyed look the soldiers had had that night when Lucas took over their minds.
Owen, help Dorian, I ordered as we approached the junkyard and I saw Dorian climbing onto a snowmobile by himself. The warlock disappeared from my side and hopped onto the front of the two-seater before Dorian could scoot up.
Charlotte and Sheree already sat on another of the running snowmobiles, and Blossom and Jax waited on the third. They took off, headed for the small city in the distance, and the rest of us blurred after them. We dropped the snowmobiles near the train station and snuck through a hole in the fence that surrounded the train yard.
“How do we know which one to get on?” Dorian asked quietly as we sidled along parked trains, crossing over when possible to other tracks.
“The first one that starts moving toward the west,” Tristan said.
“Like the one leaving the station this very second?” Vanessa pointed to a cargo train about two hundred yards ahead of us, pulling away from the loading platforms.
“If we can make it,” Tristan said. “Is everyone good for one last run?”
We didn’t have time to debate. For all we knew, it could have been the last train of the night, and we could be waiting for hours for another one to head west. Sitting still in one place was dangerous, especially this place so close to Hades. So Char and Owen zapped some energy into those who needed it, and we all took off in a sprint. Tristan reached a car with an open door before the rest of us and jumped up, grabbing onto the door handle to swing his body in. Then he helped the others who needed it. If any norms had seen Dorian make the jump, they probably would have claimed he flew. Luckily, no norms had seen it.