Frozen: Heart of Dread, Book One (10 page)

T
HE PLACE WASN’T A CASINO EXACTLY.
It was just another crowded subterranean basement room with a few roulette tables, card tables, a craps table, and a bar. Nat found the noise and the smell of sweat and smoke overwhelming as she walked into the room, a little unsteady on her high heels. She was dressed as a tai tai, a rich Xian trophy wife, slumming in K-Town on her way to Macau.

With the help of a video blog and a few silver coins from Wes’s stash, she’d managed to find an appropriate costume. She was wearing a tight red cheongsam, her long dark hair was held back in a bun with two sparkling chopsticks, and the blue stone remained looped on a chain around her neck, masquerading as a decorative bauble. Farouk had outfitted the dress with a fake fusion battery, which blinked red at her collar. She’d protested she would freeze before she got inside the door, but Wes had been adamant. The tai tais did not wear bulky layers of any kind; they slithered around the city flashing their bare legs as a sign of wealth and ease.

“You look good,” Wes had allowed before she left the shelter. “You think you can do this?”

“Watch me,” she’d told him. Even if she was nervous, it was too late to back out now, and he knew it, too. Besides, of all the things she could do in the world, she could play poker.

The Slaine brothers, dressed in chauffeur uniforms, would act as her bodyguards. If anything happened, they would make sure to get her out of there alive. She didn’t know if she trusted Zedric and Daran with her life, but, once again, she didn’t have a choice. Without a ship, she might as well go home.

“VIP room?” she asked the bouncer guarding a door near the bar.

“Fingerprint,” he grunted, pointing to a reader. “And no muscle inside,” he said, shaking his head at her companions. He held up a flashlight to check her pupils.

Wes had warned her there was a chance she would have to run the play alone, but if she had entered the hall without any protection, no one would believe she was who she pretended to be.

Daran winked and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll be close by.”

She dismissed them with a wave of her manicured fingers and smiled at the bouncer as she put her designer sunglasses back on her nose. She pressed her hand against the print reader. Farouk had entered her photo and fake background into the system. She was Lila Casey-Liu, the sixteen-year-old wife of a molecular phone magnate.

Nat would have to do much more than convince a bouncer; she’d have to deceive the Slob, one of the most feared slavers in the Pacific. His real name was Slavomir Hubik, but everyone called him Slav, or the Slav, or SLB, his handle in textlish, which had turned into Slob. The Slob was far from one. He was a trim nineteen-year-old pirate from somewhere in New Thrace, the most notorious of the outlaw territories. He was one of the top men in a fearsome scavenger armada that trolled the black waters, supplying garment slaves to Xian factories, drugs to New Vegas, and pleasure girls and boys to anyone who would pay the bride price. There were even rumors that the slavers weren’t just trading animal meat either; to desperate buyers, they were willing to sell the human cargo that wouldn’t sell otherwise.

The Slob had a scar above his right eyebrow, dyed white-blond hair “drau style” in a military fade, and tonight wore a vintage velour tracksuit—a real synthetic, not the cheap animal furs that the other slavers preferred. His face was all sharp angles, handsome but with an edge. He didn’t look up when Nat joined the table.

“Deal me in,” Nat said, taking a seat next to the dealer, traditionally the luckiest draw in the table. “One hundred large,” she said, with a brilliant smile as she slipped him a doctored heat-credit card. Farouk assured her it would pass the scanner in the room, but once it was out of range it would read zero.

“Feeling lucky tonight?” she asked her fellow gamblers. The Slob wasn’t the only slaver at the table; she could tell by the tattoos on their faces. There was a girl, about her age, similarly bejeweled and bedecked, who nodded when she approached. “Love your shoes,” the girl cooed.

Nat played conservatively at first, allowed herself to win a few hands, but not so much that she attracted attention. Wes had cautioned her to reel him in slowly.
He’s a wise guy—he won’t expect you to be a hustler—the tai tais like to gamble for the thrill—the slavers let them in because they bring big money to the table. He’ll like a challenge. Beat him up a little.

It was time. Nat won the next hand and the next, by the third, she had quintupled her money.

“Big win for a little lady,” the slaver said in his clipped accent.

“Eh,” Nat said dismissively.

“Too boring for you?”

“Let’s make it exciting,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

He shrugged. “Sure. What do you want?”

“I hear you have a fast boat,” she said.

The slaver seemed amused. “You can’t have
Alby.
Out of the question.”

“Too scared you’ll lose, Slob?”

For a moment, Nat saw the rage in the slaver’s eyes. No one called him Slob to his face. But Nat knew she would get away with it. She had seen the way he looked at her legs. She giggled, letting him know she was flirting, playing her role.

The slaver gave her a thin smile. “Please, call me Avo.”

“Avo, then,” she said.

“If I put the bird in play, what will you give me?” he said, leaning over with a wolflike grin. “That gem around your neck?” he asked.

“This? A mere trifle,” she said, slipping the stone underneath her collar and wishing he hadn’t noticed it at all, irritated with herself that she had worn it. “This is the real treasure.” Nat placed a small velvet pouch on the table. She pulled the string and showed him what was inside: tiny crystals that sparkled in the light, bright as diamonds.

It was fleur de sel. Sea salt. Real salt, not the synthetic kind—which was at once too salty and not salty enough—but the real thing, from before the floods, when the world was still whole. The last in the world, harvested before the oceans were poisoned. It was one of the souvenirs she had taken from the treatment center, nicked from the commander’s kitchen, and she had been saving it for just the right moment. Wes didn’t ask her where she got it, only told her it wasn’t enough to buy a ship, but it might be enough to win one back if she was clever enough.

Avo Hubik eyed her. “Do you know how valuable that is?”

“Yes,” she said evenly.

“I doubt it; if you did, you would not wager it so easily,” he said, picking up his cards.

“In New Kong we bathe in it,” she said, and waved her cards like a fan. The rest of the table folded, watching the two circle each other—like a mating dance—one before a kill.

“Why do you want
Alby
so bad?” he asked.

“I have a hobby. I like taking what matters most to people. It keeps life interesting.” She yawned.

“You can’t have the boat.”

“We’ll see,” she said sweetly.

“Fine. Let me see the salt.”

He held it to his eye and then tossed it to the beautiful girl with bright orange hair and gold eyes who was standing behind his chair. A sylph, maybe? Nat couldn’t be sure. The mages’ mark on her cheek shaped like a serpent meant she was a healer, Nat knew. “Check this,” he said.

“It’s real,” the girl said, tasting a little of it with her finger. Her eyes shone greedily.

Nat flicked her eyes away, disturbed. “Show me your cards,” she said, laying down hers: a straight flush.

This time, the slaver smiled broadly. “Full house.” He took the velvet bag of salt off the table.

“My husband will kill me,” she mumbled.

“I’ll make it easy; you win this next one, you can have the bird,” he said with a smile now that he could afford to be generous. He threw the keys to the boat in the middle of the table. “I’m a gentleman.”

Nat nodded. She was prepared. Wes’s words rang in her ears.
He’ll get arrogant, he’ll want to show off . . . and when he does . . .

Now was her chance. She had been watching the game closely, counting cards. The dealer put down the first cards. King of clubs. Queen of diamonds.

Avo Hubik smirked.

The next one: two of hearts.

The slaver studied his cards with a frown.

An image came to her unbidden: Avo taking another card and drawing a king, which would give him a high pair, which would win him the game, as she held nothing but garbage in her hand. The image faded. It was a premonition. A warning. She understood that she couldn’t let that happen, and she began to panic. She had to do something! But what? She couldn’t control her power, she couldn’t do anything . . . she was paralyzed, cold—

A sudden gust of wind blew the cards from the deck, which scattered across the table.

“What the . . . ?” the dealer cursed.

The gold-eyed girl stared at Nat, her eyes blazing.

Nat didn’t dare look up and scrunched her forehead, pretending to concentrate on her cards.

Was that her? How did that happen? It didn’t matter; what mattered was that the deck had been shuffled.

Avo didn’t seem to think anything of it. He tossed a card and picked up a new one.

She picked up the next card, and somehow, before she had even looked at it, she knew she held the winning hand. Two of clubs. With the two of hearts on the table, it made a pair.

The dealer threw down the river card. Nine of clubs.

Nat felt her skin tingle with anticipation.

The slaver showed his hand with a grin. Ace high.

Nat showed hers.

She had won with the lowest cards in the deck. A pair of twos.

The slaver’s face paled.

She took the keys off the table. “I believe this is mine.”

“T
HIS
is what I won? This is your
legendary ship? I say we give it back to the Slob!”

Wes ignored her and jumped onto his boat, which was moored to a rotting pier at the far end of the city. A skeleton of a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel stood not far from them, and a handful of boats bobbed in the water, all of them half-flooded derelicts, their hulls blasted full of holes, engines missing. The rest of the team followed him on board, but Nat remained on the pier, her arms crossed in front of her, an angry, frustrated look on her face.

“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to get in?” he said finally, as he helped Shakes pull off the tarp.

“I’m not getting in
that
 . . . it looks like it’s about to sink!”

“Suit yourself,” he said, whistling as his crew found their places and hauled in the supplies for the journey. He unrolled the canvas, feeling a glow of pleasure from being back on board. Wes had missed his ship, and its loss had been a harder blow than he would care to admit. He wasn’t one of those sentimental fools, overly attached to their vehicles. A car was just a car, a truck was just a truck. But he did have a soft spot for this one, although he was more amused than annoyed by Nat’s insults. The boat was an old Coast Guard ship, a converted fishing trawler, more than a century old, and built to last, fifty feet long, with a battered hull, a deck pocked with holes and a Jolly Roger painted crudely on the starboard side,
ALB-187
etched on the transom. The steel rails had rusted, and the paint was chipped, sure, giving the boat a saggy, dilapidated air, but there was more to
Alby
than looks alone. Nat might not know it, but he and Shakes had done major work on its engines, and the old girl practically had rocket boosters for propellers, that’s how fast it could go.

“Seriously, we traded one of the most valuable things left on this planet—salt—for this?” Nat was saying. “This isn’t funny!”

Wes looked up from his task, trying not to roll his eyes. He had to hand it to her—she was as tough as they came, she hadn’t blinked once. Without her, he’d never have gotten his ship back. But enough of the princess act already. “We’re not laughing,” he said. “I’m sorry
Alby
isn’t one of those sleek white whales the navy uses. If I’d known you were such a snob, I’d have turned you in as a border jumper.”

He went back to his task, but she remained on the pier.

“Are you getting in or what?” he snapped. Then he saw the look on her face.

“Behind you,” she whispered.

Wes sniffed the air and sighed. He knew the stench well, knew immediately what was standing behind him. With one graceful motion, he unholstered his sidearm and fired before he’d even turned around. The first bullet struck the deck of the boat and the second flew past the creature’s ear, tearing a chunk of flesh from the earlobe. The thriller, a rotting corpse of a boy that had most likely huddled in the shadow of the canvas, staggered backward, away from him. It was human in shape, but its skin reflected no light and his eyes were a blind, glassy white. Wes emptied the rest of the clip into the air, and the creature dove into the black water.

He exhaled in relief until he saw it wasn’t his only problem. “Nat! Get in the damn boat!” he yelled, firing his weapon once more.

Nat turned to look behind her and screamed. A rotten corpse was reaching for her. It was a girl once, but no more; the face hung from its ear, the flesh had decayed to a turgid, swollen mass, and it was grasping for her with its cold, dead hands. It slumped to the ground, as Wes shot out its knees. “COME ON!” He extended his hand and she finally took it.

They were everywhere—swarming the boardwalk, shambling out of the shadows, out of the rotting carnival booths and the broken carousel. There were so many of them, some of them fell through the rotted wood planks of the pier into the black water. The thrillers were far from mindless, moving with intent, their hands and feet grasping for holds.

“They’re not dead!” Nat said shakily, as he pulled her into the boat.

“Tell me something new,” he muttered. But he knew what she meant. Saw the horror on her face as she processed the information. The thrillers weren’t dead at all. They were very much alive—
conscious
—their distress and desperation unnerving in its intensity.

“SHAKES! CUT THE ROPE!” he ordered, sliding his key into the ignition and jamming the engine out of neutral. The boat was still moored to the pier, and as he pulled forward, the two aft ropes snapped, their long lines whipping through the air. A third line, wrapped over the bow, pressed against the front of the craft, slowly sawing at the hull. The sound was excruciating.

Nat pulled a knife from Wes’s belt and severed the rope. Her hands on his waist unnerved him for a moment, but he quickly recovered and nodded. “Good call.”

The gray cord went flying across the deck and slapped Daran hard in the back. “Watch it!” The soldier glared in their direction.

“Sorry!” she called.

When he saw it was she who had caused it, he grimaced and tried to smile. “It’s all right!”

But the boat was free, and they shot away from the pier, out of danger finally—when from belowdecks came the sound of a gun
shot. He cursed the slaver and his lazy crew. Wes and his boys knew how to secure a ship from a thriller infestation, but obviously the slavers didn’t care to take the same precautions.

“Take the wheel,” Wes ordered, giving Shakes command of the ship.

“I’ll come with you,” Nat said.

He didn’t argue, and Daran followed them down the stairs as backup.

• • •

Down below, Zedric had a gun pointed at one of the creatures. The thriller had a gunshot wound in its shoulder where the soldier had shot it. Under the bright lights of the cabin, Nat could see the thriller’s face. It was a girl. Her skin was mottled and gray, and her purple eyes were lifeless as the rest. And she was wearing a familiar-looking pair of light-gray pajamas.

“Help me,” she whispered. “Please.” Her hair—Nat saw that underneath the mud and the dirt and the filth, the girl had hair the color of light, a bright, dazzling yellow. She was a sylph, or had been once, and Nat felt her blood run cold at the discovery. What was happening to them? Why were they like this?

Daran raised his gun to fire, but Wes grabbed the barrel. “Give it a rest, man, we’ll let this one swim,” he said, twisting the weapon from the soldier’s grip.

The creature saw her chance and dashed away, out onto the deck, and there was a splash as she fell into the ocean.

Zedric kicked the wall but Daran hustled him out of the cabin. “Come on! She didn’t touch you? You’re sure?” he said, yelling at his brother.

“Why’d you do that?” Nat asked Wes, staring at him. “Why’d you let her go?” He never shot to kill, she had noticed.

He put away his gun and led them back upstairs. “She’s not our first stowaway. They all want to come with us, hitch a ride out to the water.”

“The thrillers?”

“Yeah.”

Nat looked out at the pier, where hundreds of them had gathered, shuffling and groaning, their arms reaching out toward them, begging, asking for something. There were a few more bright-haired sylphs underneath the grime, and white-eyed ones with silver hair. Drau. They had to be, but these weren’t frightening at all, just incredibly sad. It was why Wes didn’t shoot them. Because the thrillers weren’t attacking them, they were asking for help.

She had never been close enough to see them before. When she had escaped, she had seen them from a distance, and had managed to keep away from them, but now she saw all too clearly the truth.

So there was one thing the government hadn’t lied about.

Those who were marked by magic were marked for death.

The thrillers weren’t the victims of chemical testing or nuclear mutation. They were people. Marked people. Magic people whose mages’ marks rotted them out from the inside, melting their flesh, their bodies decaying while their minds remained tragically alert. The military herded them into the safe zones and centers to keep them away from the rest of the population, kept the borders tight for that same reason.

It was why the military personnel in K-Town didn’t care to arrest the marked girl working as a cashier. As far as they were concerned, she was already where she belonged. She was already refuse, already part of the garbage. The thrillers were escapees from MacArthur, refugees who could not find passage, left to roam the Trash Pile, unable to die.

Looking for refuge, hoping for the Blue.

Just like her.

If she stayed, the magic inside her would kill her slowly, draining her of life, but keeping her alive. She would be trapped in a decaying physical shell, while her mind was alert to the full breadth of the horror happening to her.

She watched the marked masses flailing on the pier, their terror and their desperation at their inability to escape.
Take us with you. Take us home.

Wes looked at her. “Ready to go?”

They were out of the shallows and in the open sea.

Nat gave him the same answer she’d given just a few days ago. “Ready.”

If she stayed, she would rot. But if she went . . .

She closed her eyes. There was a monster in her, a monster that was part of her, and the closer she drew to it, the closer the dark voice in her head sounded to her own.

There would be fire and smoke and devastation in her future. She would be the catalyst for something terrible. She could feel the power within her, the wild, savage, and uncontrollable force that had the ability to destroy entire worlds.

I am the monster,
she thought.
The voice is mine.