Almost.
* * *
The yellow warning triangle was replaced by a blinking lightning bolt—the “charge me” symbol. A few seconds later, the BOW rolled to a stop within sight of the bridge. Meg got out, poised to run across the bridge. But the snowmobiles roared into sight, the headlights blinding her.
She knew what it felt like to be free, to have friends, to have a life. To have people she loved. She wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from her.
She bolted down the bank that led to the frozen creek. Harder to catch her, harder to disappear with her if she could reach the creek where she would be in the open and the Others could see her.
Her feet went out from under her, and she slid to the edge of the constructed retaining wall next to the bridge. As soon as she lowered herself to the creek, she screamed “Help!” and began shuffling across the ice.
“Stop!” a man shouted behind her. “Stop, you stupid bitch!”
Meg kept moving toward the other bank, slipping and sliding while men shouted for her to stop.
“Winter!” she yelled. “Winter!”
“Meg?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere—from the snow and from a coldness that was so bitter, Meg felt like she was breathing ice.
“Stop!” a man shouted.
The crack of gunshot. Something hit the ice near Meg’s right foot. Shards struck her, and she jerked to her left, still moving toward the bank.
Cracking sounds under her feet. Remembering Spring’s warning, Meg veered toward the right. Another shot sprayed shards of ice that had her turning back toward the weakened ice.
Winter suddenly appeared on the bank.
“They have guns!” Meg shouted. She tried to hurry and get off the ice before her friend was noticed by the men with guns. Just another step, she thought. Just another step.
“Meg, no!” Winter screamed.
As she took the last step, her hands reaching for the stones that acted as a natural containment wall on this side of the creek, the ice shattered beneath her feet, and Meg went under.
CHAPTER 27
The special messenger swore when the property fell through the ice. Still had a chance to retrieve her. If he could drive off the bitch standing on the bank, his men could cross the bridge and . . .
Two more women suddenly appeared. One of the women leaped from the bank, smashing through the ice while black smoke flowed across the creek toward the hole. The white-haired woman who was dressed like something out of a creepy novel screamed, and then the one standing next to her screamed. And then he couldn’t see anything because it was snowing so hard, and that snow was whipped by such a savage wind, he couldn’t even see his own hand. As he fought his way back up the incline to his snowmobile, he heard tree limbs snapping around him.
What were those bitches?
No chance to recover the property now. Good thing the benefactor had made a subsidiary deal for the Wolf pup with the Sparkletown bigwig who had hired Asia Crane.
Had Asia tried to double-cross all of them when she went after the pup by herself? He didn’t know and, at this point, he didn’t care. He just hoped the pup’s acquisition would be profitable enough to make this job worthwhile.
He crawled the remaining distance toward the barely visible lights of two snowmobiles.
“Report!” he yelled, fighting to gain his feet.
He tripped over one man whose head was almost twisted off the shoulders. Where was the other member of his team? Fucking coward must have run off.
Or was taken?
Lightning tore the sky, closely followed by thunder that shook the ground.
When he reached his snowmobile, he took a moment to recall where he needed to go in order to escape from this place. Then he roared across the bridge.
Fuck this assignment and this fucking city. As soon as he handed over the pup and got paid, he was getting back to civilization. And he hoped his balls fell off if he ever took another assignment that involved the fucking Others.
* * *
Cold. So cold. Already impossible to breathe.
Suddenly, Meg’s hands felt the sting of bitter cold air. She tried to grab for something, anything. She thought she felt fur, but she couldn’t hold on.
Cold. So cold.
She slipped back into the dark.
* * *
Simon clamped his teeth around her forearm firmly enough to hold her. When Vlad flung her toward the surface, Simon felt her fingers in his fur as she tried to grab him. But she hadn’t been strong enough to hold on.
The ground rumbled beneath him, shaking him off his slippery perch just enough that Meg’s head went under the water again. He hauled on her arm, pulling her back up while Blair grabbed for anything he could without ripping her skin with his teeth and claws.
Vlad was doing his best to keep her where they could reach her, but as smoke he couldn’t help her, and in human form he risked being swept under the ice. Even Water was trying to get Meg to safety, but she didn’t know how—none of them knew how—to help a human.
Shifting to a between form that kept the Wolf head and teeth but gave him the fur-covered body of a man, he finally got his fingers through a belt loop in her jeans and pulled her up the bank.
Smelling blood, he noticed the gash in her chin. He licked off the blood, licked and licked to clean the wound.
Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled.
Blair said.
Simon replied. She was so cold. If she were a Wolf, he would know what to do. But she wasn’t a Wolf, she was Meg, and he didn’t know what to do except take her to the humans who could fix her.
He squinted at the blinding snow, hunching over Meg to give her some protection. How were they supposed to reach a hospital?
Jester was suddenly in front of him, holding out blankets. Then Winter placed a freezing hand on his shoulder and said, “I’ll drive you to the human place.”
Wrapping Meg in one blanket, he carried her to the sleigh and climbed into the backseat. He settled on one side of her while Jester pressed against her on the other side, tucking the second blanket around all of them as best he could.
Simon stared at Blair, his enforcer, and Vlad, who was Erebus Sanguinati’s most trusted weapon.
Blair howled the Song of Battle and took off. Vlad gave him a nod, shifted to smoke, and followed his own trail.
Air leaped into the front seat beside Winter, who looked back at Simon. Despite his own fury, it took all the courage he had not to whimper at what he saw in her eyes.
“Run, my boys. Run!” Winter shouted to Thunder and Lightning. “Run for our Meg. AND LET THE STORM FLY!”
She screamed, and Air screamed.
Simon held on to Meg, licking the leaking wound on her chin as the Elementals unleashed their rage on the city of Lakeside. And he wondered if the hospital with its human healers would still be there by the time the sleigh arrived.
* * *
Monty and Louis were a couple of blocks from the intersection of Chestnut and Main when the new storm came out of nowhere and hit Lakeside with an insane fury.
Fog rolled so thick through the streets, they couldn’t see anything but the taillights of the car ahead of them—and half the time they couldn’t even see those. Mist followed fog, creating a thin glaze of ice on the street, and what fell on the windows defied the wipers’ ability to keep the glass clear. Snow fell heavy and fast, and the traffic that had been making slow but steady progress was instantly bogged down. Tires spun on the ice, and the wind was a batte
ring force that slammed some of smaller cars into other vehicles as funnels appeared and disappeared, ripping a door off a car and flinging it through the window of a nearby building. Postal boxes were torn off their concrete platforms, becoming another hazard for motorists and pedestrians alike. Even people, knocked off their feet by the wind, were flung into the fog-filled streets, invisible to drivers. Lightning flashes came so fast, they reminded Monty of strobe lights, and the thunder that followed each flash rattled buildings and shattered windows.
“Turn on the radio,” Louis said. “Don’t know what good it will do, but I’d like to know what we’re in for.”
Monty turned on the radio.
“. . . blew in out of nowhere. They’re calling it the storm of the century. We’ve had a foot of snow in the past fifteen minutes, and there is no sign of it letting up. Lightning strikes have taken out some power nodes, and several areas of Lakeside are without electricity. Telephones are erratic. Ice is coating the lines, and they’re snapping under the weight. So are tree limbs. Being outside isn’t just hazardous, it’s suicidal. We’re WZAS, but we’re not being a wiseass now, folks. This is big and it’s bad. Get off the streets. Get to some kind of shelter. This is Ann—”
Static. Monty shut off the radio.
A storm that hit the city with insane fury. The radio station might be saying it came out of nowhere, but Monty figured that by now everyone in Lakeside realized where this storm came from. But how many had heard about an explosion in the Courtyard and could even guess why this vengeance was pounding the city?
When it was done, how many of these people would be left to bury their dead and rebuild their lives? How many would try to pick up the pieces without ever knowing why this storm tried to destroy them?
* * *
* * *
The special messenger raced toward the Corvine entrance. The fucking Crows wouldn’t be out in this storm. The wind would snap off their wings. Gods below, nothing should be out in this storm.
But something was standing there. Two of them. In his way.
Female forms caught by the snowmobile’s headlight. One of them was brown, but the other had red hair tipped with yellow and blue. They swung out of his way before he ran them down, but as he passed them, the brown one stomped her foot.
The earth lifted under him, under all that snow, tossing him and the snowmobile into the air. He felt the machine tipping and couldn’t regain the balance. As he came down, he threw himself off the snowmobile to avoid being trapped.
He hit snow that melted under him so fast, he found himself at the bottom of a crater filled with several inches of steaming water. Then the red-haired female leaped into the crater, grabbed his shoulders, mashed her lips against his, and breathed into his mouth.
Fire burned his throat and seared his lungs. Burn holes appeared where the yellow and blue ends of her hair brushed against his parka. Struggling to breathe, he reached for his gun, tried to defend himself. She grabbed his hands, and fire burned through the gloves, turning his hands into torches.
She held on and laughed. Then she released him, sprang out of the crater, and disappeared.
Have to get out. Have to get away.
He was still struggling to draw air into his damaged lungs and pull himself out of the crater when the Wolves found him. And he was still alive when they began to feed.
* * *
Asia rubbed at the snow crusting her eyelashes and looked again.
She’d made it. She’d reached the Market Square. From bits she’d heard, the Others didn’t always lock their doors. She might find something open, might be able to get out of this storm for a little while.
A howl came from somewhere behind her. That freaking Wolf. Why didn’t it have the sense to hole up somewhere?
An answering howl came from somewhere ahead of her.
Gods above and below, another one?
She turned her back to the wind to give herself a chance to take a few full breaths. She couldn’t take shelter in the Market Square. If the Wolves found her there, they would kill her. She had to get to her car. Or maybe she would leave the freaking car and just go to the Stag and Hare to wait out the storm.
With luck, the special messenger had stashed Meg somewhere. And the Wolf pup too. Maybe she wouldn’t get as much money as she’d hoped, but the experience would be invaluable for her TV series and give her an “I’ve seen the real thing” edge no other actress could match.
As soon as she could get out of this city, she would head back to Sparkletown. She would meet with Bigwig, who would be her producer, and then she would spend a couple of days on a beach, baking in the sun until her bones finally thawed.
But before she could do any of that, she had to get out of the Courtyard.
Staying close to the buildings, Asia trudged the length of the employee parking lot to the wall that separated that lot from customer parking. Gasping for breath, she leaned against the wooden door that provided access between the two lots.
Almost out. Almost safe. She could make it.
She kicked snow away from the door in order to pull it open enough to squeeze through. Then she waded through thigh-high snow—and bumped into one of the other cars that was buried in the lot. Fighting her way to the lump of snow that was closest to the street, she let out a giddy laugh as she brushed the snow off the driver’s-side door. She needed to get out of the storm for a few minutes before fighting her way up the street to the Stag and Hare.
“Keys,” she said, pulling off a glove in order to unzip the pocket that held the car keys. With keys in hand, she went to the back of the car and kicked the snow away from the tailpipe to give the exhaust a way to escape. Then she hurried back to the door and opened it. “Going to get out of here. Going to get warm.”
“No. You’re not,” Tess said.
Asia turned and felt something break inside her mind when she looked at the black hair that coiled and moved, looked at the face Tess usually hid behind the human mask. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t make her eyes work, couldn’t do anything but stare at something she didn’t want to see.
She sagged and would have slid to the ground if Tess hadn’t grabbed her arm to keep her upright.
She couldn’t feel that arm, and her legs weren’t working right. And beads of sweat trickled down the inside of her skull. She could feel them trickling and tickling inside of the bone.
That wasn’t right.
Tess eased her into the driver’s seat, lifting her legs and positioning them so that all she had to do was shift her foot to the gas pedal. Her hands were gently placed in her lap. Leaning in, Tess tossed the keys onto the passenger’s seat. Asia could see them out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn’t turn her head to look at them, couldn’t lift her hand to reach for them. Couldn’t do anything except feel the relentless, terrible thing that was happening inside her body.
It was raining inside her skull.
“Wha . . .”
Fingers turned her head so she could look at that terrible face with its terrible smile.
“Wha . . . are . . . you?”
Tess stared at her, then breathed in deep and sighed as if she’d just tasted something wonderful. “You monkeys have no word for what I am.”
Her face was turned again so her eyes stared out the windshield that showed her nothing but snow. The car door closed.
Asia’s mind continued to break. Her body continued to break. Nerves finally screamed their warnings of pain, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
And inside her skull, it continued to rain.
* * *
Tess squeezed through the
door at the back of the parking lot, then pushed it closed.
In ancient times, there had been a name for her kind. But the naming attracted the named, so the word was said to be cursed. As races and languages changed, the symbol of the word, still recognized in the primal part of the human mind, was never translated into newer languages. Which was why, beyond a few whispered myths, even the rest of the terra indigene no longer knew about Namid’s most ferocious predator.
Long ago, there had been a word for her kind. Then, as now, it meant “harvester of life.”
CHAPTER 28
A car was stuck in the intersection, blocking traffic in every direction.
“No,” Louis said as a man got out of that car and walked away. “No. You can’t do that.”
Monty watched the man and instinctively braced himself. “Louis, he’s trying to run from something.”
Lightning struck the intersection, thunder shook everything on the street, and a gust of wind shoved the car out of the intersection as a sleigh raced by, heading for the hospital.
“Follow the sleigh.” Monty’s heart slammed against his chest. He could think of one person in the Courtyard who, if injured, would need human help. And if Meg Corbyn was in that sleigh, everyone in the hospital was at risk if the terra indigene reacted badly.
As if the blizzard wasn’t a bad enough reaction.
Louis didn’t ask questions. He turned right on Main Street and went after the sleigh, driving down a street that was suddenly cleared of all obstacles.
As they approached Lakeside Hospital, Monty pointed and said, “There.”
Nodding, Louis started to make the turn into the emergency-care entrance.
The sleigh was parked right in front of the emergency-care doors. The horses—one black and one white—tossed their heads and stamped their feet. Lightning cracked the sky while thunder shook the car right off the pavement. It ended up packed against the snow mounded beside the emergency-care entrance.