Page 72 of Queen of Darkness
Alexi, who was seated on Dave’s other side, lifted his hand that rested between them. “Ow,” he said in his harsh accent. “It is definitely hotter.”
“It’s fine over here,” I repeated, touching the floor.
“Not here,” Dave said, moving away. “And I think it’s spreading.”
It didn’t take long to confirm his theory. Within minutes, I could feel the floor warming around me. Once it was too hot to stand, we scooted across the cell to the front, pressing our backs to the cool metal of the bars, eager for any bit of relief. The Enkk appeared outside the cell, but they only watched.
“This isn’t good,” Aaron said, breathing slightly faster now as the temperature in the cell continued to rise. The stones were heating the very air now, making it more difficult to breathe.
“Why not just kill us?” I asked, confused. “Seems less resource-intensive.”
“No idea. Maybe this is his idea of fun, torturing us by slowly cooking us alive?”
“Well, it’s working,” I said, sweat beading on my forehead and temples, soaking the back of my head as it dripped through my hair.
It wasn’t long before my clothes were soaked as well, with my body trying to regulate its temperature. The men all doffed their shirts. I waited as long as I could before doing the same, standing against the front of the cell in just a sports bra. Not that it made much of a difference by that point. We were getting close to overheating, and it had been maybe half an hour at this point.
“We’re going to die if we don’t cool this place down,” I said.
“How do you suggest we do that?” Fenrir said, miming looking around. “I don’t see a giant bucket of cold water or snow around here, do you?”
I stiffened in shock. “Not snow, no,” I said, grabbing Aaron by the shoulders. “Frost. You need to make frost. Try to cool the stones down!”
He looked at me, unsure of it. “That’s a lot of frost,” he said. “I’ve never done that much.”
“All of you, at once,” I snapped, pointing at his entire team. “Stand in a circle, try to do it together.”
With no better ideas, Aaron gathered the men around him in the middle of the room.
“Together,” he ordered. “One. Two.Three.”
A blissfully refreshing wave of cold rippled through the room. The stones hissed as a cold front formed around their feet, instantly blanketing the room in fog as the cool moisture met the heated air.
I gulped down huge lungs of the air, my body shaking as goosebumps popped up under the layer of sweat. It was the most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced, and I basked in it, as did the others.
Then, it was gone. The stones melted the frost, and heat eventually cleared the air. Leaving us right back where we’d been.
“Again,” I ordered.
The vampires worked in concert. This time they hit the room with their waves of cold three times in succession, leaving them gasping from the effort. The stone floor had cooled significantly, and we all managed to recover slightly.
Nearly five minutes passed this time before it wore away. I could see heat shimmering from the stones in the corner now, where it had first grown warm. They were once again turning the heat up in here, baking us in our own sweat, like turkeys basting.
“You have to do it again,” I said to Aaron. “It’s our only hope.”
Nodding, his face drooping with exhaustion, the six vampires once more tried to spread the cold. Alexi stumbled. Pieter, still weakened from the energy his broken leg had required to heal, dropped to one knee, shaking. Fred stood around stoically, putting on an indifferent front.
“It’s no use,” Aaron said as the cold front quickly disappeared, once more dropping us into a bath of heat. “We can’t create enough cold to make a difference.”
“Fuck.”
The single word cut through everything but the stifling heat.
“But you could,” Aaron added. “You’re stronger, Jo.”
“I’ve never done it before,” I pointed out. “You said yourself it takes practice to ‘vamp out.’ Now doesn’t seem like a time … But then again, what other options do we have?”
“Precisely.”
