Frost Line Read online

  Derek had almost stopped hurting, but he was pretty sure his balls wouldn’t be anywhere near normal for days to come. Sitting behind the wheel of his car, down the street from the garage where Sammy worked, he adjusted his aching equipment. It didn’t help. He was in a very bad mood and looked forward to killing someone today.

  He was furious with the blonde for kicking him, but at the same time, he was impressed that she’d managed to take him down. If he had a daughter, he’d want her to do the same, in that situation. Not that he had a daughter … that he knew of. Even though he was impressed with the blonde’s abilities in the self-defense department, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t deliver a little payback when the time came. Still, at the moment he felt a mixture of anger and admiration, as well as a lingering pain.

  The auto shop where Sammy worked was north of Atlanta and well out of Lawrenceville and the other major satellite cites. The place was open until two on Saturday afternoon, thank God, otherwise Derek would have had to wait until Monday to take care of the man Markham wanted snuffed out. He’d put off taking care of the kid for now, though he wouldn’t let the job drag on too long, but this could happen today. Derek had no reservations about killing a grown man who had obviously stepped into something he shouldn’t have.

  Making Sammy’s death look like a suicide was possible, but it did complicate matters—not that Markham hadn’t paid extra for the trouble. The police force in the small town might be easier to fool than the Atlanta PD. He could hope so, anyway.

  Any grown man who let people call him Sammy deserved to die. Okay, that was a little harsh. What about Sammy Davis, Jr.? But show business was different, right?

  Derek entertained himself trying to think of other famous people named Sammy while he watched the front entrance. It was possible—likely—that there was a rear entrance, as well, but there were too many people around for him to check it out for himself. So far, everyone seemed to come and go from that front entrance, but he hadn’t yet seen any employees leaving.

  Markham had shown Derek a picture on a cell phone—a god-awful selfie—and then he’d taken that phone with the intention of dismantling it and tossing it in the river. Derek was curious about what an auto mechanic might have on his phone that would cause the senator to go to such lengths. He was a bit surprised that Markham hadn’t asked his all-purpose PI to get rid of it, but it didn’t matter. He was just curious.

  The phone was likely gone by now, but Derek had seen Sammy’s face and that was all he needed.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t decided to wait until closing time to check out the shop. It was just before noon when a man who might be Sammy walked out of the shop. The man had a long, cocky stride, but he was too far away for Derek to be certain this was his target. Grasping the wheel he leaned slightly forward, focusing his attention on the man, waiting for him to turn his head so he could be sure. Soon enough, he did. Bingo!

  Sammy walked past two rows of cars, those waiting for service and other employee cars, before stopping and pulling keys from the pocket of his overalls. He slid into the driver’s seat of an old, rusted embarrassment of a car, and pulled out of the parking lot.

  Derek followed.

  Chapter 9

  Strength had not returned to Aeonia, after all. So now what?

  After confirming that Lenna hadn’t been returned to her proper place, Esma and Stroud checked every other world she might’ve traveled to, in case she’d possessed the Alexandria Deck and—for some reason Esma could not comprehend—had decided not to return to Aeonia. There were a handful of livable worlds; Strength had been on none of them. While it was possible that Lenna had been moving from world to world herself, and they had simply never been on the same world at the same time, that scenario was highly improbable. Strength was not a skilled traveler. Even if she did possess the deck, she didn’t possess the necessary skills to use it so deftly.

  “Where is she?” Esma wondered aloud, her voice soft so no one could overhear. She and Stroud had once again checked on Aeonia—just to be certain—but there was still no sign of Strength. She kept her tone low so no one would report to Veton that two Hunters were searching on Aeonia for the missing Major Arcana.

  “We need to go back to Seven,” Stroud replied in the same low tone. They hadn’t wasted a lot of time, not with their teleporting capabilities, but the fact remained that the minutes were passing and they hadn’t completed their mission. With a quick glance between them, the two Hunters returned to Seven to resume the hunt. Neither of them wanted to face Veton empty-handed.

  Veton couldn’t hurt them, not in the conventional sense. But he could—and would—touch them with his essence. Worst case, nothing would ever succeed for them again; everything they touched, every relationship, every mission, could be a disaster. If that happened they might as well be dead.

  When they returned, darkness had fallen. Time passed quickly on Seven; the days here were short. In the time they’d been gone, the day had passed, and at this time of the year night came especially early. Esma rarely noted the fluid movement of time from one world to another, but here, for this job, time was an important element.

  Not much more than four days remained before Strength had to be returned to Aeonia. And if she couldn’t be returned, then killed, in the hopes that there was some kind of cosmic contingency plan.

  It seemed an unnecessary risk to Esma.

  “The Alexandria Deck is the thing,” she said as she and Stroud studied the dark house from which Lenna and the boy had run, earlier that day. “I don’t know how Strength has hidden herself from us, if she is running from Caine as well as from us or if he’s helping her, but the how doesn’t really matter.” She had her suspicions. While it was possible Lenna possessed the power to shield herself, it was more likely that Caine was protecting her.

  That in itself was unlikely; Caine let nothing sway him from the mission. Yet Strength hadn’t been returned, and neither could they sense her—or Caine—on this world. As unlikely as the probability was, Caine had to be shielding her.

  The problems with that were so obvious she could only shake her head in disbelief. Caine and Strength would have to remain physically close at all times. If one of them stepped away, even for a moment, she would be outside the protective blanketing and they would immediately sense her. How could they possibly function? What was the purpose of all this?

  Nevertheless, Esma would be waiting and watching for Strength to slip, because if there was a mistake of that nature it would be Strength who made it. Caine would not; his focus was too intense.

  She would wait, all her senses alert.

  Until then, she and Stroud could search for the deck. The logical place to start was this house.

  Snow started to fall again, light and icy, the drifting flakes illuminated by lights from the houses on either side of the one they watched. The night would be considered cold, by some, but Hunters felt neither heat nor cold as intensely as humans did. She thought the snow was actually pretty, an unnecessary observation she didn’t share with Stroud.

  Instead, she turned to business. “If Lenna has the deck on her, Caine would have returned her to Aeonia. He would’ve insisted. On the other hand, if she managed to escape—for whatever reason—and went to another world, we would have found her. There are two possibilities. Either the deck is damaged and isn’t working properly, or for some reason Lenna isn’t ready to leave Seven.”

  “The deck managed to bring her here. It’s unlikely it would’ve been damaged so soon, after surviving for more than two thousand years. As for Strength choosing to stay … Why?” Stroud asked, his own frustration clear.

  “Who knows? We don’t need to know why. We just need to do what we were sent here to do.” Which was retrieve the deck and kill or save Lenna. Esma knew what her preference was. “Let’s assume she has chosen to stay. If that’s the case, she must have hidden the deck. If she has it with her, Caine would have teleported her regardless of what she wanted.”