Frost Burned

“You’ve met him.” Stefan could smile and keep his voice totally serious. He wouldn’t have smiled if Marsilia was coming up behind me, so I relaxed that little bit more. “Do you remember the vampire who was pulling Estelle’s strings, who talked Bernard into rebellion?” When Stefan had been driven from the seethe with unpardonable brutality so that he could be an impartial witness.

“Gauntlet Boy?”

Marsilia laughed. One of those horrible not happy laughs. Like the Queen of Hearts inAlice in Wonderland. And on that thought I had to turn around so I could keep an eye on her. I noticed as I moved around that Honey’s ruff was up, and Asil had stiffened.

“Gauntlet Boy?” She knew she’d creeped me out. I could read the pleasure of it in her expression. “Gauntlet Boy. Yes, Mercedes, Gauntlet Boy. He started amassing power five years ago, taking over one city after another. He sees himself as the vampire’s version of Bran.”

“Bran is not a bad thing.” He might rule with sharp fangs, but life was better for everyone, werewolf and human alike, because he did so.

“A vampire’s version of Bran is not Bran.” Stefan spoke from right behind me. I hadn’t heard him approach.

I moved casually so that I had my back to empty space, with Honey on my left and Asil on my right—and all of the bloody scary vampires (Stefan included) in front. I knew they saw me do it—but they were willing to let me get away with it without commenting. Maybe Marsilia was serious about working together.

“Not Bran,” agreed Hao. “He goes by the name of William Frost. We do not know how old he is or where he came from. I first heard of him when the Master of Portland disappeared. For three weeks his seethe searched for him. As you know, Ms. Hauptman, because I am told that you do, vampires who are not powerful cannot live without feeding upon a vampire strong enough to maintain them. This is the most powerful hold that the master or mistress of a seethe has over their fledglings. The vampires of Portland were dying without their master, and so they called upon me. When I got there, though, they had already been

saved.” He said the word with a twist of his lips. “William Frost had them in hand, he said. Then he invited me to join him. He was quite forceful. I did not, however, wish to join his seethe. I refused, but because I also did not want to command a seethe, I left him unharmed. Mostly.”

Hao was not one of Marsilia’s minions. He’d told me that she’d sent him to get me, but if he went, it had been because he wanted to. Both of them were acting as though he was her equal.

Stefan put a hand on Hao’s shoulder. “You couldn’t know.”

Stefan liked Hao. I hadn’t known that there were any vampires left that Stefan liked.

Hao shrugged.“It is past and done. I cannot do it over. I did not want a seethe, and I was happy to leave Frost to it—though he made my skin crawl.”

He met my eyes, started to drop his—and then left them where they were. A vampire’s gaze didn’t affect me the way it does everyone else, but he tried anyway. When he failed, he gave me a solemn nod.

He looked away, and his gaze traveled to Marsilia and Stefan.“We are not good people, Ms. Hauptman. Good people don’t become vampires. I knew he was evil, and I left the vampires of Portland to him.” Hao smiled, and I knew that when he was really amused, he did not smile. “You have heard, I think, that the police are having

difficulties in Portland. Too many of them are dying as they go about their jobs. Bran moved the Portland pack to Eugene, Oregon, where they would be safer. I believe he was more worried about the police than the vampires, and he was right. Frost is not ready to take on Bran just yet.”

I’d heard about the move out of Portland. It happens that packs move. Not often. Usually it is just a matter of the Alpha switching jobs to a place where there is no pack and bringing the rest of his wolves with him. I hadn’t asked why the Portland pack moved to Eugene. At the time, it hadn’t concerned me.

“Bran is watching him?”

Hao shrugged.“I do not know Bran, Ms. Hauptman—that is your area of expertise. If he is watching William Frost, he isn’t doing anything about him. I suspect, though, Bran has enough on his mind without dabbling in—how did you put it earlier—vampire politics.”

“I am sorry if I offended you.” Nope. Not a bit, but it seemed politic to say so—or might have, if I’d used a different tone of voice.

He caught my lie and gave me an amused half bow.“Frost moved south from there instead of north to Seattle. I think it was because the werewolves in Seattle have a very strong hold on their territory, and the seethe there is small and weak. He would have had to import vampires from Portland to really control the city.”

I couldn’t remember who the Seattle Alpha was offhand. I’d have to ask Bran.

“He hit Los Angeles next. The vampires there are

” Hao’s voice trailed off, presumably because he was looking for the proper adjective.

“Barbaric,” supplied Marsilia. “Stupid. Weak. The Master of the Los Angeles seethe surrendered to Frost, practically gibbering in terror after seeing a demonstration of Frost’s power. William Frost, whoever he is, wherever he came from, has one of the rarest of vampire powers—he is a necromancer.”

“Not necessarily. Perhaps he was a necromancer before he was turned.” Hao’s nonexpression looked thoughtful, and I suddenly realized why I could read him. Charles had nonexpressions like that when his wife Anna wasn’t in the room. “A witch with an affinity for the dead. If so, he is very old, because the witch family who had those spells, that affinity, was among the first destroyed in the wars in Europe.”

He wasn’t talking about human wars, but about the vendettas and feuding that killed off most of the witch families in Europe and sparked the Inquisition and its softer, gentler brother, the witch hunts.

“By necromancer,” I said carefully, “you mean he controls the ghosts here. And he somehow reanimated the body of the fae assassin?”

“Yes,” Hao agreed. “At the very least, he can do such things—and there is no reason for anyone else to do so.”

James Blackwood, the Master of Spokane, had been able to control ghosts because he could absorb the powers of the creatures he fed from, and he had drunk the blood of a walker. Even the other vampires had been afraid of him—though not because he could control ghosts. He was just that crazy.

But a witch was different from a walker. A lot more powerful—if I could judge by the kind of power Elizaveta had. A necromancer witch would control the dead—and ghosts and zombies weren’t the only kind of dead. That was why Marsilia was afraid.

“Can he control vampires?” I asked.

“He is not strong enough to take us over,” Hao told me, motioning to the vampires present. “Though younger or less powerful vampires would be at risk.”

Was that why Marsilia hadn’t brought any of her other vampires? Why we had met here instead of the seethe? Did she worry that Frost would interrupt us?

“He has control of Oregon,” Marsilia said before I could ask her if she was expecting Frost. “The Master of Portland was the only one he killed, the only one who might have stood against him—the rest being weak of will and cowards. He has Nevada, not that there were ever many vampires in Nevada. He has California except for San Francisco. Frost is still afraid of Hao, and Hao is the only vampire in San Francisco. Like Blackwood, Hao prefers not to have encroachers in his territory.”