Frost Burned

Stefan turned his head away, and I was pretty sure he laughed.

But no one was laughing when Wulfe dropped in from behind me so I didn’t see him jump, only heard the sound of his feet hitting tile. I turned so I could see him and still keep an eye on Frost.

Vampires scared me. I even had a mental list of the vampires who scare me the most. Some of those were dead. More dead. Not ever moving again. On the very top of the list of the still moving was Wulfe. I didn’t know why, exactly, he was so much worse than other vampires. Maybe it was the way that every time I met him, he seemed to know just exactly how to freak me out. Maybe it was the “nobody home” look in his eyes.

The Wizard looked like he should be worried about how to ask a girl out on his first date, checking the mirror for acne spots, deciding if he should get an ear pierced and if so, how he could hide it from his mom. He wore ripped-up, red Converse basketball shoes, blue jeans, and a thick cable sweater. His hair had been shaved boot-camp short. He held a thick chain that was attached to a metal collar wrapped around the neck of another vampire.

The second vampire was huge. If he’d been standing upright, he would have been the tallest person in the room

the grungy basement. He must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds.

He wasn’t standing upright, though. He was crouched on hands and knees, and he clicked his teeth together in a weird rhythm.

He saw me looking at him—all of the vampires had looked away from him almost immediately. If I had known him when he wasn’t this

monster, I doubt I could have kept my eyes on him, either. He roared at me, then launched himself like a junkyard dog and hit the end of the chain hard.

Physics said that he should have been able to drag Wulfe across the floor. But physics had only a nodding acquaintance with Wulfe. He had no trouble holding the vampire—who must have been Shamus—with one hand. His other rubbed the stubble of his hair, which looked more white than blond in this light.

“Hey, Mercedes,” Wulfe said lightly. “So they succeeded in roping you into this? I’ve always wanted the chance to taste your blood from the source. Walkers have this lovely bouquet. Like daffydowndillies in the spring, my old ma used to say.”

“Wulfe,” said Marsilia. I think she wanted to say something else, but didn’t know exactly what. So she was just quiet, but her quietness had a quality of sorrow to it.

“Don’t be mad, Marsilia,” he said earnestly. “But us badass vampires must stick together, you understand.” He paused. “Maybe not. How about if I put it this way? It grievest me, dear heart. But in sooth, it is for the best, as you will see anon.”

“Five minutes,” said Stefan. “Starting now.”

12

We huddled in our corner. I huddled, anyway. Asil looked faintly bored. Honey never took her eyes off Frost. Hao lurked—which he did very well for such a compact man. Marsilia? Marsilia was all business.

I was going to fight vampires, and my name wasn’t Buffy—I was so screwed.

“Did you see his magic?” Marsilia asked me briskly. “I had Stefan tell you to watch closely.”

“I saw.”

“Your job is to stop him from doing it. Any way you can. Walkers are immune to vampire magic—even vampire magic that has its origins in witchcraft.”

She sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

“You didn’t seem to have much trouble stopping him,” I said.

She grimaced.“Yes. But he wasn’t trying very hard—and he exaggerated his reaction when the magic broke. He’s trying to get me overconfident.” She glanced over her shoulder at Frost, who was talking at Wulfe. Wulfe was watching Marsilia and not paying any attention to Frost that I could see. He noticedI was watching and winked at me.

“It is a tactic that Frost takes,” Hao said. He paused and looked at his hands. They were smudged black, and he had black ash smears on his gold shirt. Marsilia’s black outfit showed no wear and tear. I didn’t bother looking down at myself. My foster mother maintained that I could get dirtyin a swimming pool, and getting older hadn’t helped much.

“There were only a few witnesses to his other fights who were willing to talk to me. Some of them were in the same shape Shamus is.” He didn’t look at the collared vampire, but I could feel his attention. “Shamus was a fine guitarist, and he liked Tennyson poems. He could and would quote them by the hour.”

“Why aren’t there other vampires here?” I asked. “He doesn’t have all the seethes under his control, right? Aren’t any of the other powerful vampires trying to stop him? Why are you and Hao the only ones here?”

“Vampires do not work well together—any more than Alphas work well together. And the Masters who are farther east feel Frost is at the limits of what he can control. An illusion Frost has done his best to foster,” Hao answered me.

“And most of them think that Frost’s desire to bring out the vampires and allow them to feed where they will is the best idea they’ve ever heard,” said Marsilia. “Stupid. I hate stupid people.”

“You don’t seem to be in a hurry to plan anything for the fight,” said Asil. “And you have two minutes left.”

Marsilia looked at him—and for a moment I saw lust in her face again.

Hao bowed to Asil.“Marsilia and I have spoken about this much so our plans are already laid. She will take on Frost. I will take both Wulfe and Shamus. Ms. Hauptman’s job is to keep Frost from bespelling either of us. It may be that Frost will be so busy that he has no time for tricks and your

Alpha’s matecan sit on the sidelines and cheer.”

I was going to have to come up with a rank for myself besides Alpha’s mate. In the pack, I was just Mercy—but if ten more people called me the Alpha’s mate, I was going to hit someone. It sounded like a chess move.

“More likely, he has tricks up his sleeves,” said Marsilia. “He knew coming to this that he had failed to kill Mercy.”

“He has a bunch of ghosts trapped here,” I told her. And I remembered Peter brushing Honey’s hair. Ghosts who could manipulate the physical world were few and far between. “They could be a problem.”

“Ghosts are not problems,” said Marsilia dismissively. “They moan and scare silly people.”

“Ghosts who can throw rocks and debris are a problem,” I told her. “And there’s that dead but still-moving-just-fine fae assassin, too. If he animated her, it was because he had a job for her to do. If she is a real zombie, then my understanding of the rules says he can call her to fight with him. Zombies aren’t living creatures, they are animated dead with no willpower or thoughts of their own. A zombie would come under the heading of his ‘power’ right?”

“You take care of the ghosts, then,” said Marsilia. “And keep him from trying to control us. We will do the fighting.”

Hao smiled and rolled his shoulders to loosen them. I’d been wrong. He did smile when he was happy.

“This should be an interesting fight,” he said.

When the fight started, I was about fifteen feet behind the two vampires on my side with orders to stay as far away from the action as possible. My knee hurt, my cheekbone throbbed—and I was as scared as I’ve ever been.

“Dear God,” I murmured earnestly. I’d quit worrying about who could overhear me when I prayed a long time ago. When you live with werewolves, there is no such thing as a private conversation even if you are talking to God. “Please don’t let me end up in a wheelchair again. No broken boneswould be a happy bonus, but I’m not expecting you to make up for my stupidity quite so completely.” And then, even more sincerely, I said, “Whatever happens, you don’t let that vampire make it out of here still moving. If he wins, it will be bad news. Any help you can give us will be appreciated. Amen.”