Ice Cracker II (4 page)

“
Someone’s dying out
there,” she said, more out of a sense of obligation than a genuine
desire to open the door.

Sicarius walked out of the darkness beneath
the stairs. If he had been sleeping, it was not evident. He was
fully dressed and armed.

“
He’s already dead,”
Sicarius said.

Amaranthe forced her breathing to slow and
listened for activity. She had a feeling Sicarius was right.

Footsteps crunched on the snow outside, but
they did not sound human. They were too heavy. The crunching
stopped, and snuffling replaced it. The door shuddered as something
bumped it. Amaranthe backed away. The snuffling came again, louder
and more insistent.

She continued backing up until she stood
beside Sicarius.

“
Are we safe in here?” she
whispered.

“
No.”

“
Oh.”
Better to know now than later, I suppose.

The door shuddered again, louder this
time.

“
It’s coming in, isn’t it?”
she asked.

“
So it seems.”

Amaranthe searched for
escape routes. If she ran up the stairs and climbed onto the
railing, she might be able to pull herself up into the rafters.
From there, she could crawl along the network of steel beams and
supports to the high windows. If she performed an amazing acrobatic
feat, she might be able to kick out the glass, then swing out and
climb onto the roof.
Good, Amaranthe, that
works for Sicarius. Now how are
you
going to get out?

She remembered the grates and the stacks of
ice stored beneath the floor. She shoved aside sawdust and found an
entrance. The inset handle required a twist and pull that only
someone with thumbs could open. She hoped that thing out there had
nothing of the sort.

“
You coming?” she asked
over her shoulder.

“
It’s cramped down there; a
poor place to make a stand.” Sicarius’s gaze drifted toward her,
then toward the windows and up the stairs, as if he sought an
alternative.

The creature slammed against the door. A
hinge popped off. Wood splintered. Only the bar kept the door
standing. And that would not hold long.

“
Fine,” Amaranthe said.
“Let me know how it goes up here.”

She grabbed the lantern and climbed down the
ladder. She paused to close the grate. Sicarius appeared and caught
it before it fell. He waved for her to continue down, then slipped
in and secured the grate behind him.

“
I thought you might change
your mind,” she said.

A crash came from above—the sound of the bar
shattering and the door collapsing. Feet or paws or something like
padded through the sawdust.

Amaranthe wished she knew what the creature
looked like, specifically if it had digits that would allow it to
turn the handle to their hideout. Or if its strength might let it
rip the grates open without bothering with a handle. She shivered.
Maybe she should have tried the window route.

There was not much room between the stacks
of ice and the wall. A block pressed against her shoulder and
numbed her arm. She wished she had grabbed her parka.

The footsteps altered pitch as the creature
moved from solid floor to the grate. Tiny flecks of sawdust sifted
through. With the darkness above, Amaranthe could not see anything
through the tiny gaps in the metal. She could only hear the
creature. Sniffing.

Sicarius faced the entrance, his back to her
and the lantern. Neither of them spoke, though there was little
point in silence. It knew where they were.

The scrape of claws on metal replaced the
sniffing. Slow and experimental at first, the noise then grew
faster, like a dog digging under a fence.

When claws slipped between the gaps in the
grate, she sucked in a breath. It was the span between them that
unsettled her. No animal she had ever seen had paws that large.

She lowered her eyes and stared at
Sicarius’s back, the steady expansion and contraction of his rib
cage. The air felt tight and constricting, and her own breaths were
shallow and fast. She tried to emulate his calm. After all, he had
not drawn a weapon. Maybe he knew they were safe. Or maybe he knew
fighting the creature was pointless.

Above, the clawing stopped. Nothing
moved.

A soft splatter to Amaranthe’s right made
her jump. At first she thought it had come from the ice above, a
drop melting. But it steamed when it hit a block. Another drop
struck the back of her hand. As hot as candle wax, it stung like
salt in a cut. Not melted ice, she realized. Saliva.

Slowly, she looked up. More drops filtered
down. Puffs of steam whispered through the grate—the creature’s
breath, visible in the chill air. Two yellow dots burned on the
other side of that fog. Eyes reflecting the flame of her
lantern.

Amaranthe sank into a crouch and buried her
face in her knees. She closed her eyes, willing the thing to go
away. A drop of hot saliva hit the back of her neck.

Time seeped by like molasses. The footsteps
finally started up again. They padded away and moved beyond the
range of her ears.

For several long moments, she and Sicarius
hunkered there, between the wall and the ice. The cold bit through
Amaranthe’s night clothes. Her teeth chattered and she shivered.
She held her hands close to the lantern, but it gave off little
heat.

“
Is it gone?” she
asked.

“
Impossible to tell,” he
said.

“
Well, I’m freezing. Either
one of us is going to have to check or we’ll have to start
cuddling.”

Sicarius climbed the ladder. He opened the
grate, peered out, then disappeared over the edge.

“
There’s something wrong
with a man who chooses to face death over cuddling with a woman.”
Amaranthe grabbed the lantern and followed him out. “Of course,
there may be something equally wrong with a woman who goes after
him instead of waiting in safety.”

Once up top, she left the grate open in case
they needed to jump back down in a hurry. She looked for Sicarius,
but her light did not illuminate much of the icehouse. Snow falling
outside the broken-down door caught her eye. The body had been
dragged to the side, and only an arm remained in view. Amaranthe
swallowed.

“
It’s not inside,” Sicarius
said.

He stepped out from behind the ice stacks
carrying a couple of boards. He resealed the door as much as the
warped hinges would allow. The splintered wood did not make a
reassuring barrier. Sicarius threw the old bar—now snapped in
half—to the side and replaced it with the boards.

“
Maybe we should go out and
check on that man. See if...”
He’s dead
Amaranthe. You were too late to help.

“
I wouldn’t,” Sicarius
said.

He was as cool and emotionless as ever, but
his unwillingness to leave the building concerned her. If, with all
his skill, he did not want to confront whatever stalked the
streets, who else could?

* * * * *

Thank you for reading! You
can grab
The Emperor’s Edge
at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and
other ebook retailers. You can also
read the first couple of chapters on the author’s
site
.