Biting Cold (4 page)

“Oh, God,” I muttered, grabbing the door handle with one hand and the shoulder strap of my seat belt with the other. Immortal or not, life felt suddenly fragile.

The wheel jerked to the right, and Ethan swore out a curse as he tried to maintain control. “I can’t hold it, Merit. Brace yourself.”

He’d only gotten out the words when we ran out of time. It felt like we’d been nailed from behind by a locomotive—in this case, a
completely impossible, out-of-nowhere magical storm of a locomotive driven by a would-be book thief with no apparent qualms about killing those who got in his way.

The back of the car lifted and sent us into a spin, passenger side first, toward the road’s shoulder—and the guardrail that separated the car from the shallow ditch below.

“Guardrail!” I yelled out.

“I’m trying!” Ethan yelled out. He pulled the wheel back to the left, but his effort was for naught. Winds swirling around us, the car made a complete circle as it skidded across the road.

We hit the metal guardrail with a head-thudding jolt, but not even steel could stop the momentum of a Mercedes pushed along by magic. The car screeched along the rail with all the subtlety of nails on a chalkboard, before another burst of wind or magic or both tipped the driver’s side into the air.

I screamed. Ethan grabbed my hand, and over we went, the car rolling sideways over the guardrail and down the hill, somersaulting into the gulley that separated the road from the neighboring land.

Our fall couldn’t have taken more than three or four seconds, but I remembered a lifetime, from childhood with my parents to college to the night Ethan made me a vampire, and from his death to his rebirth.…Had I gotten him back again only to lose him again at Tate’s hand?

With a final bounce, we landed upside down in the gulley.

The car rocked ominously on its hood, the metal creaking, both of us hanging from our seat belts.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the hiss of steam from the engine and the slow squeak of a spinning tire.

“Merit, are you okay?” His voice was frantic. He put a hand on my face, pushing my hair back, checking my eyes.

It took me a moment to answer. I was alive but completely disoriented. I waited until the roaring in my ears subsided and I could feel the parts of my body again. There was an ache in my side and scrapes along my arms, but everything seemed to be in place.

“I’m okay,” I finally said. “But I really hate that guy.”

He closed his eyes in obvious relief, but blood from a cut on his forehead seeped into his eye.

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” he said. “I’m going to get out; then I’ll come help you. Stay there.”

I wasn’t in much of a position to argue.

Ethan braced himself and unclipped his seat belt, then scampered out. A second later, his hand appeared at my window. I unclipped my belt, and he helped me climb out of the car and onto the ground, then wrapped me in his arms.

“Thank God,” he said. “I thought that might be the end of both of us.”

I nodded and put my head on his shoulder. The grass was wet, and mud seeped through the knees of my jeans, but I was grateful to be on solid ground again. I sat there for a moment, waiting for my stomach and head to stop spinning. But my panic only swirled faster. Tate apparently wanted us dead. What if he was still up there?

“We have to get out of here,” I told Ethan. “He could come back.”

Ethan wiped the blood from his head and cast a glance up toward the road, body tensed like an animal scouting his territory. “I don’t feel any magic. I think he’s gone.”

“Why go to the trouble of pushing us off the road without checking to make sure he’d really done us in?”

“He’s in a hurry to get to the book,” Ethan said. “Maybe he only wanted to get there before we did.”

He offered me a hand. I stood up and looked back at the car, covering my mouth with a hand. Ethan’s car—his beautiful, sleek Mercedes—was a wreck. It lay upside down in the ditch, two of its wheels still turning impotently. It was undeniably totaled.

“Oh, Ethan. Your
car…”

“Just thank God it’s November and we had the top on,” he said. “We’d be in a world of trouble otherwise. Come here. Let’s see if we can get our things out of the trunk.”

The trunk had popped halfway open in the fall, so we maneuvered and tugged until we could wedge our bags and swords out of it.

“You didn’t hear me,” he suddenly said.

“Didn’t hear what?”

“Before he threw us off the road, I called you. You didn’t hear me?”

I shook my head. Vampires had the ability to communicate telepathically, that power usually, but not always, limited to Masters and the vampires they’d made. Ethan and I had talked silently since he’d officially Commended me into Cadogan House as its Sentinel.

“I didn’t hear you,” I said. “Maybe that’s a side effect of your coming back? Because Mallory’s spell got interrupted?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

We’d only just pulled our swords out when a shout echoed down from the road. We looked up. A woman in a fluffy down coat waved at us. “I saw that twister throw you off the road. Came out of nowhere, didn’t it? Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“We’re fine,” Ethan said, not correcting her about the twister comment, but casting one final glance back at his former pride and joy. “But I think we’re going to need a ride.”

Her name was Audrey McLarety. She was a retired legal secretary from Omaha with a brood of four children and thirteen grandchildren
scattered across Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. All the grandchildren were in soccer, dance class, or peewee baseball, and Audrey was on her way back to town after watching a dance recital for three of the girls near Des Moines. Late as it was, it hadn’t occurred to her to spend the night with her children afterward.

“They have their families to attend to,” she said, “and I have mine.” She meant her husband, Howard, and their four terriers.

As much as we appreciated the ride, Audrey was a talker.

We drove toward Omaha through pitch-black darkness, past more empty fields and the occasional factory, its lights and steam pulsing across the flat plains like a sleeping monster of metal and concrete.

As we neared the city, the horizon began to grow orange from the glow of streetlights. Fortunately, Audrey had grown up near Elliott and agreed to drive us all the way to the farmhouse. Doubly fortunate, actually, because the sun would be rising soon, and we needed a place to bed down.

We crossed the Missouri River and drove north through Omaha’s compact downtown, passing a pedestrian-heavy plaza with a lot of old brick buildings and a hilly string of skyscrapers before popping back into a residential neighborhood. Older houses and fast-food joints eventually gave way to flat fields and farmland, and we ended up on a long, bone white stretch of gravel road.

The road was long and straight, and it divided fields now stripped of their crops as winter approached. Dust rose in our wake, and in the darkness I couldn’t see much behind us. That made me nervous. Tate could be hiding there, waiting for us. Ready to strike again, ready to throw us off the road—and on his second try, we might not be so lucky. And we’d have dragged an innocent human into it.

We passed farms that all followed the same form—a main
house and a few outbuildings behind a wall of trees, which I assumed was protection against the wind. The houses glowed under the shine of bright floodlights, and I wondered how their inhabitants slept with the glare…or how they slept at all. Something about the idea of sleeping under the flood of a spotlight in the middle of an otherwise dark plain made me nervous. I’d feel too vulnerable, like I was on display.

After fifteen minutes of driving, we reached the address Catcher had given us, large steel numbers hammered into a post that stood sentinel at the end of a long gravel driveway. A farmhouse much like the others sat at the end of it, a few hundred yards back from the road, glowing under its security light. Its wooden clapboards were dark red, and it was accessorized with white awnings and wooden gingerbread in the corners of the small front porch. It had a pitched roof, with one gable over a large picture window. I had a
Little House on the Prairie
–esque image of a girl in a gingham dress sitting behind that glass, spending long winter days staring out at endless winter snow.

Audrey pulled to a stop, and we grabbed our swords and bags, offered prolific thank-yous, and watched the cloud of dust whisk her back toward Omaha.

“She’ll be fine,” Ethan said.

I nodded, and we walked down the driveway, the world silent except for our footsteps and an owl that hooted from the windbreak. I had a sudden mental image of great, black wings swooping down to pluck me up off the driveway and deposit me in the hayloft of an ancient barn. I shivered and walked a little faster.

“Not much of a farm girl?”

“I don’t mind being in the country. And I love woods—lots of places to hide.”

“It appeals to the predator in you?”

“Precisely. But out here, I don’t know. It’s a weird mix of being isolated and completely on display. It’s not my bag. Give me a high-rise in the city, please.”

“Even with parking permits?”

I smiled. “And the 90 bumper-to-bumper during rush hour.” I looked around. Beyond the halo of the floodlight, the world was dark, and I wondered what might be hunkering around out there. Watching.

Waiting.

The owl hooted again, sending goose bumps up my arms. “This place gives me the creeps. Let’s get inside.”

“I don’t think owls feed on vampires, Sentinel.”

“I’m not in the mood to take chances,” I said. “And we’re not long for sunrise.” I gave Ethan a gentle push toward the house. “Let’s go in, sunshine.”

T
he worn wooden porch steps creaked as we took them, and the doorbell sounded with a long, old-fashioned chime.

A moment later, a woman opened the door in a pale silk robe she’d pulled tight around her chest. It looked old-fashioned, something a woman might have worn in the 1950s. Her hair was a tousled bob of brilliant red waves, and her eyes were shockingly green—emeralds against her alabaster skin. In a word, she was gorgeous.

Still muddy and bruised from the rollover, I felt mousy and awkward.

She gave me, then Ethan, an appraising look. “Can I help you?” she asked, but then filled in the blank. “You’re the vampires.”

“I’m Ethan Sullivan,” he said, “and this is Merit.”

“I’m Paige,” she said. “Please, come in.” The required invitation offered, Paige turned and padded down the hallway in bare feet, the door open behind her.

I glanced at Ethan, intent on letting him go first, but his gaze was on the woman disappearing down the hallway.

“Ethan Sullivan,” I said, jealousy fluttering in my chest.

“I’m not looking at her, Sentinel,” he admonished with a wink, “although I’m not blind.” He pointed at the hallway.

My cheeks warming, I looked back again. The walls were filled with vertical stacks of books, one beside another, packed so tightly together there was scarcely room between them. And these weren’t just discount-table paperbacks. These were the old-school, leather-bound type—the kind you might see in the house of an Order archivist…or on the basement table of a rebellious sorceress. As much as I loved books, that made me nervous to step into a space full of magical tomes.

I followed Ethan to the sitting room at the end of the hall. It was small but comfortable, with vintage fabrics and cottagey decor. A small fireplace put the smell of woodsmoke in the air, which mingled with the scents of ancient paper and fragrant tea.

Paige curled up on a couch and picked up a teacup from a small end table. “Sorry I’m a bit of a mess.
She
hasn’t shown up yet, and I wanted a few minutes of peace and quiet. Have a seat,” she said, pointing at a facing couch with a delicate teacup and saucer dotted with small pink flowers. “Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you,” Ethan said. We took seats on the couch, bags and swords at our feet.

“You have a lot of books,” he said.

“I’m an archivist,” she said. “It’s what I do.”

“Read?” I asked.

“Learn and catalogue,” she said. “I compile the history of what came before, and I record the history as it happens. And, frankly, I have a lot of time to read out here.”

“This isn’t quite the frontier,” Ethan said.

“For humans, no. But magically? It’s basically a vacuum. Isolated, both from magic makers and supernatural populations. That
makes it a great place to house the
Maleficium
, when it’s our turn to keep it, but not much else.”

“Is it here?” Ethan asked.

“Safe and sound in the silo,” she said. “So, officially, welcome to the repository for the
Maleficium
. At least for now. When they found out Mallory escaped again, they started making arrangements for a new location.”

“Shouldn’t they have picked it up by now?” I wondered.

She smirked. “You’re assuming they’re eager to carry it around. That is not the case. Baumgartner’s having to call in substantial favors just to get potential transporters to consider it. Too much risk. When someone finally volunteers, it will be a blind drop to protect their identity. Or supposedly.” Paige narrowed her gaze at Ethan. “The Order wasn’t thrilled when it was taken from Cadogan House. We all expected it would be safe there.”