Frost Burned

We’d e-mailed once a week since he left, and I called him once a month to keep up. Tad was the little brother I’d never had, and in some ways we were closer than I was to my half sisters. We had more in common: neither of us quite fitting in to either the world of the humans or the world of the supernatural. He because he was only half-fae and I because I was the only shapeshifting coyote in a world full of werewolves and vampires.

When the fae had pulled their disappearing act, I’d called him, both on his cell and on his dorm-room phone, to no avail. I’d decided he’d gone to the reservations with all the rest of the fae.

Apparently not.

“Tad?” I asked, because he hadn’t answered any of my questions.

He hung up on me. Evidently, he didn’t want to talk about it. Fair enough. I was a little short for time, too.

I dialed again.

“Go away, Mercy,” he said.

“Your dad told me I should call his house for help,” I said, speaking quickly. “Bad guys are after Jesse and Gabriel. I have them staying with Gabriel’s mom in the hopes that no one will think to look for them there. But if they do, if the bad guys come, there isn’t anyone there who can protect them.”

I could almost feel Tad’s reluctance to listen to me instead of hanging up again. Something must have changed in him while he was at college. I’d seen no sign of it in our correspondence or during his infrequent visits home. Maybe it had something to do with the reason that he was out here instead of in the reservation with the rest of the fae.

“You think I could protect them, huh?” he said, finally.

It was a fair question. Tad was half-fae, but I had no idea what that meant. From a few things that Zee had let slip over the years, I knew Tad wasn’t one of the half fae who were as powerless as most humans. But that was all I knew.

“Your father does.” I gave him the only answer I had.

He didn’t say anything.

“I have to see if Kyle is okay,” I told him. “Adam and the whole pack have been taken tonight, and one of the pack was killed. I’m trying to—” Do what? Rescue them? Stop the bad guys? “Check on Kyle because I think that they might have done something to him when they snatched Warren. I need Jesse and Gabriel to be safe, and I’m a little short of allies. It won’t be for long. I’ll come get them after I see that Kyle is okay.” I recited Sylvia’s address and hung up without waiting for him to say anything else.

I knew Tad. No matter how grumpy he was, he wouldn’t be able to sit around while someone was in danger. He’d flirted lightly with Jesse when he’d been home last—then spent two hours under the hood of Gabriel’s car helping him fix an electrical problem.

And the sooner I made sure that Kyle was safe, the sooner I could let Tad off the hook. I put my foot down and hoped the cops were out watching Walmart, the mall, and the interstate routes. The big Mercedes engine gave a satisfied purr and ate up the miles through the desert back to West Richland. The speedometer said 110, but it felt more like 60. I patted the dash, and said,“Good girl.”

The eastern sky was still dark when I neared Kyle’s house at a more lawful speed. Kyle and Warren lived in an upscale neighborhood where every house had ample garage space and driveways to catch the overflow. Usually, there were no cars on the street unless someone was having a party.

I passed a modest, dark, American-built car parked half a block from Kyle’s house and, as I drove sedately by, I saw that there was an unfamiliar black SUV in the driveway. There were no lights on at the house. Not even the one by the door that Kyle left on all night. The SUV and the car had California plates.

I drove right past and turned the corner, parking Marsilia’s dark, not-American-built car in front of a house twice the size of Kyle’s, where it looked much more at home than the cars I’d just passed. I got out and opened the back.

“It doesn’t look good for Kyle,” I whispered to Ben. “Did you see those cars?”

His ears flattened, and he stood up in the back seat, his sharp claws digging into the leather, even through the blanket, in a way that might have caused me to wince on any other day.

“No,” said Stefan, scaring me out of what was left of my wits.

If he hadn’t covered my mouth with a cool hand, I would have awoken the neighborhood. He made soothing sounds until I quit struggling—which was an embarrassingly long time. I was tired and my head had just blanked out for a little bit and it took a while to realize what had happened.

“There now,” Stefan said, his voice pitched low enough that a human standing next to him might have had trouble hearing. “Better? I am sorry. I didn’t want to alert anyone.”

Sorry for sneaking up on me or sorry for holding my mouth shut? I couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He was here, and I didn’t feel so alone. Stefan was smart, dangerous, andcompetent. I hoped that I was the first two, but it was the third I really needed for this.

“Kyle’s in trouble,” I whispered back. Keeping our voices down made sense. People ignore the sounds of cars, but most of them will wake up to the sound of a strange voice. I didn’t want to wake the neighborhood watch and try to explain to them what we were doing. “There is a car and an SUV parked by his house that shouldn’t be there and no outside light. Kyle always turns on the porch light.”

Stefan released me and took a couple of steps back, leaving me to grip the open car door for balance when Ben bumped against me as he got out.

Stefan was wearing a dark polo and slacks and I missed the Scooby-Doo shirts and jeans. I hadn’t seen him wear them for a while, not since he’d left the seethe. He wasn’t emaciated, but he had never regained the healthy look that he’d had before Marsilia had laid waste to the menagerie of humans he fed from. Marsilia’s betrayal and the destruction of his menagerie had nearly destroyed him.

“I had a few minutes to check out the house while I was waiting for you,” he said. “There are two strangers in the living room opposite the kitchen. There may be more on the upper floor because the lights are on.”

Now that we were not touching, I could see the awkwardness the older vampires I’d met exhibited—as if he knew how he should act but couldn’t quite feel it anymore. As if by giving up his Scooby-Doo shirts and his beloved Mystery Machine, Stefan had given up his last firm anchor to his humanity. Still, the Mystery Machine, Stefan’s old VW bus with the cool paint job, remained parked in his driveway, so I had hope.

“You didn’t see Kyle?” I asked.

“I didn’t see him. I don’t have your nose to follow a scent, and I didn’t want them to know I was watching. They were just a little too alert for my comfort. I could smell blood, though. I don’t know whose it was.”

I would. He waited, and I considered.

“Let’s go around back,” I said. “I can slip in through the back porch; there’s a dog door Kyle put in for Warren. I can check out the house and call you in when I find him.”

“I think that sending you into the house alone is the stupidest of our many options,” said Stefan repressively. “Ben should be at the front door, you should go to the back—and wait in the yard, Mercy—and I will go in.”

The oldest and most powerful vampires acquire names that define their most prominent characteristic. Stefan’s name among his kind was the Soldier. This was the sort of situation in which he excelled. I felt the relief of having an expert make the calls.

“They are only human,” Stefan said, and there was a familiar look in his face, though I was more used to seeing it on the wolves: hunger. “I will kill them, and Ben will kill any who get past me. You can let us know if anyone tries to get away out the back, and we will kill them, too.”

Stefan had always liked people. I hadn’t noticed before that he also enjoyed killing them. Maybe that was part of the new, more vampiric Stefan.

So much for letting someone else make the calls.