Frostbound Read Online Free PDF Page B

small, but Lore could snap his neck in an instant.
    The detective flexed his fists. “Thanks to you, I don’t have any witnesses. Yet.”
    “Sure you do,” said Lore.
    “Who?”
    He nodded toward the fire. “The building itself. A few years ago, that clinic used to be a machine shop. It’s all concrete and steel.”
    The detective’s expression tightened, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Concrete doesn’t burn.”
    “Concrete walls can be subjected to gas flames at one thousand degrees centigrade for four hours without structural damage. That’s why they make fire walls out of concrete.”
    Baines stared.
    “I was renovating a warehouse,” Lore added. “I had to look it up.”
    “No kid set that fire,” Baines conceded in a low voice.
    “The walls are melting.”
    Baines gave him a look. “What the hell does that?”
    “A spell.”
    Baines’s frown deepened.
    Lore stared at the fire, feeling the echo of sorcery deep in the heart of the flames. The hellhounds had not faced this enemy before, but it was old and powerful. Now that he wasn’t chasing his foe, he could test the flavor of the leftover magic, rolling it over and over in his mind.
    Necromancy .

Chapter 5
    Tuesday, December 28, 10:30 p.m.
Talia’s condo
     
    T alia might be dead, but she still had a bad case of the creeps.
    The scent of blood swamped her brain, swallowing sight and sound. She hesitated where she stood, her vampire senses screaming that something was wrong. That much blood was far too much of a good thing. The elevator doors whooshed shut behind her, stirring a gust of recycled air. Stirring up that maddening, tantalizing, revolting smell.
    And there was something oddly familiar about it, a specific top note stirring the memory like a complex perfume.
    Talia blinked the hallway back into focus. This was her floor of the condo building, and home and Michelle were at the end of the hall. She fished her door keys out of her purse and started walking, the glossy pink bag from Howard’s banging against her leg as she walked.
    Now her stomach hurt, her jaws ached to bite, but more from panic than hunger. That much blood meant someone was hurt. There were a lot of elderly people in the building. Many lived alone. One of them might have slipped and fallen, or maybe cut themselves in the kitchen. Or maybe someone had broken in?
    Talia quickened her stride, following the scent. She pulled her phone out of her shoulder bag, the rhinestones on its bright blue case winking in the dim overhead light. She flipped it open, ready to dial Emergency as soon as she figured out who was in trouble. She was no superhero, but she could force open a door and control her hunger long enough for basic first aid. If there were bad guys, oh well. She’d had a light dinner.
    She passed units fifteen-oh-eight, fifteen-ten, and fifteen-twelve, her high-heeled ankle boots silent on the soft green carpet. Fifteen-fourteen, fifteen-sixteen. She paused at each door, listening for clues. A television muttered here and there. No sounds of a predator attacking its prey.
    Fifteen-twenty, fifteen-twenty-two. The smell was coming from fifteen-twenty-four at the end of the hall. Oh. Oh!
    Fifteen-twenty-four was her place. Michelle!
    She grasped the cool metal of the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. The door swung open, and the smell of death rushed into the hall like the surf, drowning Talia all over again. That familiar note in the scent pounded at her, but she pushed it out of her mind, refusing to acknowledge that it reminded her of her cousin.
    Instinct froze her where she stood, listening. There was no heartbeat, but that didn’t mean much. Lots of things, herself included, didn’t have a pulse. Reaching out her left hand, she pushed the door all the way open. The entry looked straight through to the living room, where a big picture window let in the glow of city lights. It was plenty of light for a vampire to see by.
    “Michelle?” she said