Frost Burned

“I have never been certain,” Marsilia said, speaking to Stefan, “that he wasn’t smack in the middle of the conspiracy that Estelle headed up. I know she thought so.” She hugged herself and looked about fifteen. “To tell you the truth, I did ask him if he felt up to the fight. He said hefelt that it would not be a good idea.” She gave Stefan a gamine grin, an expression I’ve never seen her wear. “He called Iacapo and yelled at him. Said he was getting old and lazy if he couldn’t bestir himself to ‘squish’ Frost.”

Stefan snorted.“That sounds like Wulfe.”

“I have heard it said that Wulfe made Iacapo,” Hao said.

Marsilia shrugged.“Wulfe is the older—and Iacapo could never get Wulfe to obey him any better than I can. But that means nothing.”

“Iacapo couldn’t get Wulfe to obey him at all,” said Stefan—which for some reason made both Marsilia and Stefan laugh. Stefan stopped laughing first. He rubbed the thigh of his jeans and looked away.

I followed his gaze and realized that he was watching for something. For Frost.

“Tonight,” I said, feeling stupid because I’d been evaluating the basement as a fighting ground since I’d jumped in after Marsilia. “He’s coming to fight you tonight. Here.”

“Yes.” Marsilia’s eyes were dark again. And she still looked like a college student, young and vulnerable. I knew some of the people in Stefan’s menagerie whom she’d tortured to death. She was not some helpless girl but a sociopath who had outlived most of her enemies.

I was her enemy. Stefan was my friend—and he wasn’t Marsilia’s anymore.

“You wanted Adam for your second,” I said.

“How long has your fight been scheduled?” Asil asked.

“He picked the time, I chose the place,” said Marsilia. “He challenged me two weeks ago.”

Which gave Frost time to set up the attack on the wolves.

“They were supposed to hold the werewolves until the fight was over,” I said, working it out. “Then what? He would come in to rescue the wolves and kill the humans? Vampires and werewolves unite?” I’d thought he wanted the wolves dead. But if he allied himself with Adam

Not that Adam would ever be that stupid. If Frost came in as the rescuer, it would take Bran longer to understand that he had a new enemy. Maybe too long.

Asil growled, a subsonic sound that jangled my nerves. Then he echoed the gist of my thoughts.“At least until he feels strong enough to take on the werewolves as a whole—because Bran would never allow Frost to do as he wishes.”

“That was probably part of Frost’s plans,” said Marsilia. She sounded like I was amusing her. Maybe it was supposed to irritate me—but I thought it was just habitual; she seemed too distracted to be her usual nasty self. “But he had something else in mind as his real target. Whom does thepack protect, Mercy? Who would be vulnerable if the pack were gone?”

There was a dramatic pause while I stared at her. I understood who she meant, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure outwhy.

“He wantsyou dead,” Stefan told me. “When his mercenaries failed, he sent a pair of half-fae assassins after you.”

He’d known that someone had been sent after us?

Stefan made an impatient sound.“Don’t look at me like that, Mercy. Remember, I’m not a part of the seethe anymore. How do you think Marsilia got me to come here?”

He’d been sounding pretty chummy with her, I thought uncharitably.

“We only heard about the assassins earlier tonight,” Hao said, half-apologetically. “After they had already failed.”

“They were supposed to killme?” I said. “That makes no sense at all. Why go after me?”

Marsilia’s lips turned up as if she’d had a pleasant thought, and her voice was velvet-soft when she said, “I would kill you if you didn’t have the pack.”

I made a frustrated sound.“I mean someone who didn’t know me. I’m a lightweight.”

“Clever coyote, to survive so many attempts to kill you.” Marsilia sounded somewhat bitter.

“Really, why me?” I looked at them. “I get the whole vampires-hate-walkers thing, I do. But we’re not talking about sending me out on a hunt to find where he sleeps. I’m just not that—”

“Like Coyote, you just keep staying alive,” said an amused voice from outside of our makeshift, ash-coated arena. He’d been standing on one of those damned I-beams watching us for Heaven knew how long.

He hopped down and looked around, laughing silently to himself, a man no one would ever look at twice. At least not unless he were wearing metal gauntlets that looked as though they ought to be part of a torture museum display—as he had been the last time I’d seen him.

William Frost turned around and clicked his tongue against his teeth.“You chose the oddest location for this, my lady fair. We shall all look like chimney sweeps when we are through here. And—no audience? Marsilia, my love, you disappoint me.”

Marsilia drew herself up like a cat that someone had tried to pet without permission, and he smiled.“That’s what the Lord of Night said when he sent you away, isn’t it? ‘Marsilia, you disappoint me.’”

Stefan cleared his throat.“I’ve heard that version. But

actually not.” He sounded apologetic. “It was in Italian, which is a much more beautiful language, but I can translate for those who don’t speak Italian.” This last was aimed at Frost, with just the right amount of veiled contempt. “He said, ‘My beautiful, deadly flower, my Bright Dagger, you dare more than I can allow. I will die of sorrow and boredom without you, but it must be done.’ I was there for that part. The rest I have from an acquaintance in his court. The Master of Milan composed a love song in her honor, as beautiful as his pain, that all who listen to it are moved to tears. The painting the Lord of Night created on the evening when she was banished is still on the wall above his bed so that he can show his lovers that none can compare with his Bright Dagger.” He smiled, showing his fangs, and his voice was nearly as sharp. “He will not be pleased with thee, William Frost. But you won’t have to worry about it, because you’ll be dead.”

Frost had quit smiling.

“It’s like that bit inThe Princess Bride,” I told him. “When Vizzini says, ‘You fell victim to one of the classic blunders.’ Never go in against an ancient Italian vampire whendeath is on the line.”

Stefan laughed. I think he might have been the only one who had watched the movie. Or no one else thought I was funny.

“I have brought an audience for us,” Frost said, ignoring me entirely. “So the display will not be ruined.”

He clapped his hands, and the upper edge of the north side of the shell of the basement of the winery was suddenly lined with the shapes of people—like Indians on the ridgetop in one of those old Westerns. It should have looked hokey—and it did, sort of—but it was also worrisome. Then, in a simultaneous motion that raised every hair on my body, they all jumped into the basement. They were so close in sync that they made one sound when they landed. I’d seen vampires do that kind of thing before, responding to the dictates of their master or mistress. But repetition didn’t make it seem lesswrong.

A black cloud formed around their feet and rose as far as their knees before the ash settled back down on the ground. Maybe a little more rain would be a good thing—but the water that was coming down so far was still just a drop here and there.

“These are mine,” Frost told Marsilia, raising one arm theatrically. “I have bound them to me in such a way that if I die tonight, they will all die. I thought it only fitting that they witness this.”

He looked around again.“So it is you and the Soldier who will fight me, then? Who is your third?”

Marsilia just smiled at him—and I realized we were missing someone. I tried to remember when I had last seen Hao, and it was a long while ago. Long before Frost had done his sudden-appearance act. The sharp smell of the burnt building, so much more sour than true woodsmoke, made it impossible to pick out one vampire from so many. If Hao was somewhere nearby, I couldn’t find him. I wanted to turn around to look, but controlled the impulse. If he had disappeared, it was for a reason. The broken-cement remnants of walls stuck up waist high in places. Maybe he was hiding behind one of those.