Patricia Briggs - Frost Burned

Adam lowered his head and roared at her. It was a rumbling bass sound that vibrated my chest and hurt my ears at the same time. I could smell his rage.

I’d had my ten seconds of rest, and there was no more fighting to be done. I rose to my knees—and Adam turned to me and roared at me, too.

“I couldn’t help it,” I said to him. “He was going to destroy the world.”

Adam snarled and snapped his teeth at me.

My cheekbone was hurting again; sometime during the fight, Frost had hit it. I was going to have the world’s worst black eye. My shoulder hurt, my wrist hurt—my burnt hands hurt a lot, now that the battle rush was gone. I was cold, miserable, and tired.

Adam had every right to be mad. I’d have been outraged if he’d gone to battle without telling me. Without explaining himself.

“By rights, as the Master of Ceremonies, I should kill him for interfering,” Stefan told me. I jerked my head around to look at him. I’d forgotten about that, forgotten, truth be told, that there was anyone but Adam and me there. “But I suspect that the Lord of Night won’t stir himself to come punish me for a result that he himself desired. And”—he toed Frost’s body—“he was as good as dead when you stabbed him. Adam was overkill.” He bumped the body again. “Hmm. I thought he was older—but those of us who are really old turn to dust when they die. The sun will do the job.”

Asil knelt beside me with a wary eye on Adam. “You okay?”

I wiggled my toes and fingers. The fingers hurt. A lot. But they moved. “Look,” I said brightly. “No wheelchair. Last time I battled immortal monsters, I ended up in a wheelchair.”

I heard Wulfe giggling. He was propped up on the remains of a wall that had taken more damage in the fight. The broken areas showed pale cement against the blackened surface of the rest of the wall. I had been trying to lighten the atmosphere, but I hadn’t been as funny as all that.

Asil ignored Wulfe. “I like you—but I’ll say it for him”—he tipped his head toward Adam—“because he can’t. You aren’t a monster, and if you insist on fighting them with toothpicks because it’s the right thing to do, all the magic in the world isn’t going to be enough to save you.”

I looked him in the eye, ready to defend myself hotly—who did he think he was? And then I looked at Adam, who had quit growling. He was panting with effort—more effort than what he’d used to finish off Frost. How had he known? How far had he run?

My throat was raw, and my eyes were burning. It wasn’t because of the remains of the fire.

“I understand. I really do. But I can’t—” I swallowed. “I just can’t sit and do nothing when you and the other people who are mine are in trouble. It isn’t in me.” Cautious, yes, I did cautious. I tried my best not to be stupid—and hey, I was still alive, right? “I called and let people know where I was. I brought backup. I can do that. I am careful.” I wasn’t talking to Asil anymore. “But Adam, good and evil are real—you know that better than anyone. I have to do the right thing. If not, then I am no better than that—” I jerked my chin toward Frost’s body. “‘All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.’”

Hao said, “Life is not safe. A man might spend his whole time on earth staying safe in a basement, and in the end, he still dies like everyone else.” Half-naked, covered with the same filth we all were, he still gave the impression of being in control of himself and his environment.

Adam sighed. He picked his way through body parts and lay down beside me. He was wet and cold, too, on the surface, but underneath the top coat of his fur, he was very warm.

“How touching,” said Marsilia, then Shamus was on her.

There was a loud sound—and it was Wulfe standing over Marsilia instead. Shamus lay in two pieces, and Wulfe had Zee’s sword in his hand. I had to look at my hands to make sure I wasn’t still holding it. My skin still held the memory of the cool metal against it. Wulfe glanced at the sword, then met my eyes as Shamus slowly dissolved into ash that blended with the wet soot on the floor.

“You feed this fae artifact your good blood, Mercy, and you won’t share with me?” Wulfe asked me wistfully.

Everyone stayed motionless—and Wulfe laughed and tossed the sword in my direction. I caught it before it hit Adam. This time when I willed it to diminish itself, it did so, as if it was scared of Wulfe, too. I tucked it into my pocket while Wulfe helped Marsilia back to her feet.

“I did want to go back to the time when we could freely become lost in the blood of our prey,” Wulfe said, sounding a little sad. “I guess it won’t happen now, but that might be for the best. Here, let me carry you, it will be easier.” He picked Marsilia up in his arms.

His look took in Stefan and Hao. “You’ll have to kill Frost’s vampires. He overestimated his hold on them because they didn’t die when he did, but they have no ability to direct themselves anymore.” He sighed. “And then I suppose I’ll have to go hunt the other vampires he broke in his cities.” He looked at Frost’s body. “You’ve made a lot of work for a lot of people. If you weren’t dead, I’d kill you myself.”

To Marsilia, he said, tenderly, “I’m taking you back to the seethe. You need to eat and bathe and rest.” Then he walked to the side of the basement and jumped out, still carrying Marsilia.

“Was he on our side all this time?” I asked.

Stefan shrugged. “Who knows. I’ve seen him be a lot more lethal than he was tonight. There were no firebombs, for instance. But he doesn’t always remember how to perform magic—that’s what he tells us anyway. And Hao is well-known for his ability to fight.”

Hao shrugged. “Frost is dead. If Wulfe were mine, I would kill him, but Marsilia’s seethe is no concern of mine.”

When we left the remains of the winery, Hao and Stefan were killing the vampires who had collapsed against the wall of the basement. Marsilia’s Mercedes was gone, though the seethe’s other car was in the lot. There was no sign that Adam had brought a car, so we all piled into Warren’s truck—the werewolves in the back. We went home.

We gave the Rabbit a Viking funeral.

She sat a battered warrior—or a decrepit pile of junk—perched on a pile of wood three feet high and a foot bigger around than the car. I’d drained her fluids and stripped her of any parts that were usable before the pack had lifted her to her final resting place.

Those parts were now tucked in and around the junker Rabbit that still graced the space between my old home and my new one. Sure, I could have found somewhere else to put the parts, but Adam had yelled at me about fighting the vampire one too many times.

I know I’d scared him—I’d scared me, too. I also remembered how mad I’d been at Adam when he’d hurt himself kissing me because he thought it would break the fae’s magic that held me. He’d been right to kiss me, though it burned him, and I’d been right to help Marsilia with the vampire. I’d yelled at him anyway.

Which was why the old junker only got to wear a pair of tires on its trunk instead of getting something rude painted in fluorescent pink or (and I was saving this one for something serious) a solar-powered blinking red light that I’d found at Walmart on the ill-fated Black Friday shopping expedition.

The fire burned hot and long past the time when the last of the marshmallows and hot dogs were roasted. Even with the heaping mounds of firewood, the car wouldn’t have burned to ash without Tad’s help.

It had been two weeks since Frost died.

Adam’s appearance on TV had cemented (if it needed cementing) his reputation as a hero and a pillar of all that was good and civil. It was a fortunate thing that no one had gotten a picture of him tearing into Frost’s body. Tony assured me that the police were satisfied with the abbreviated story Adam and Agent Armstrong had given them.