Storykiller (11 page)

“What? I mean, no. No tea for you. Tell me what it is you want and get out.”

The stranger sighed a bit and his smile dimmed slightly. He put the picture frame down on the coffee table. “I’ll come back,” he said. “You’re clearly not in the right frame of mind.”

“You’re the one who got me up at three a.m., which, while we’re on the subject of time, is not an appropriate time for social calls.”

“Depends on who you are, I suppose.”

“What does that even—ohmigod—are you some kind of vampire?”

The stranger’s controlled expression broke for just a moment, and he looked horrified. “Gods, no,” he spat, disgusted, before his face slid back into effortless stoicism. Tessa breathed a sigh of relief before looking at him confusedly.

“’Gods, no’ why? What’s wrong with vampires?”

“Bunch of dramatic fops, fawning all over themselves and acting like idiots,” he said, his mouth twisting but less dramatically this time. “Not really their fault, I suppose, so many of them are written as sexy little emo-fantasy boys, but still.”

“Okay, whatever you say. Vampires are the worst. I’m sure you’re something awesome,” she said, half-joking, half-fishing for answers. He turned smoothly.

“I am indeed,” he said, his rocky voice with that same strange cadence Tessa was finding so hypnotic. She shook her head in the hopes of perhaps literally shaking the stranger out of her head.

“Listen, what is it that was so damned important that it couldn’t wait until a more rational hour?”

“I thought you might want help finding your new Advocate,” he said simply. The words shocked her and Bishop’s vacant-eyed face immediately flashed unbidden in her head. The bat wavered and then she let it drop, almost unconsciously. He watched her with a curious expression, as if he was surprised to see the pain that crossed her face. As he saw it, his smile fell away and his teasing manner became serious. He tilted his head to the side as if examining every fiber of her.

“Get out,” Tessa said, unable to hide a tremor in her voice. The stranger moved closer to her, dangerously close if he was something dangerous, which Tessa had to say, she guessed he probably was.

“I’m offering you my help,” he said softly. Tessa racked her brain. She
did
need help, so much help she didn’t know where to start. But she doubted she could trust him. Was he a better or worse bet than Snow? Snow was clearly in league with The Court, and Tessa didn’t know where The Court really stood, or if they even stood together. She had no idea how to judge it, her gut was so churned up she doubted it knew which way was up, let alone how to lead her to a good decision. She didn’t want a new Advocate, she had just been responsible for the death of her first. She didn’t want to get anyone else killed. But it was obvious she needed help.

“I don’t want a new Advocate,” she said, straightening her shoulders and looking him in the eyes as coolly as she could manage. “But you’re a Story, you seem like the kind of guy who’s got mad connections. I need someone to help train me, educate me about some of this Story crap. Can you get me someone to do that?”

He moved so close to her that parts of them were actually touching. Tessa tried not to step back, but failed. “What about me, Hardcore?”

Tessa took an additional step back. “I don’t fancy training at three a.m. B
esides, I’m looking for a hero Story and you strike me as decidedly un-hero-y.”

He stepped close again, and it was almost like they were dancing for a moment. “The Advocate can do all those things,” he said. The mention of the A-word again sent shivers of guilt running through her.

“I said no.”

“Scion—”

“Get out,” Tessa said, stepping back from him several feet and raising her bat aggressively between them.
‘Get out’
was in danger of becoming Tessa’s catch phrase.

“Scion, be reasonable—” he began again but Tessa kept the bat raised and pointed it at him.

“Did I freaking stutter?” she asked. The stranger held up his hands again in a defeated gesture.

“As you wish, Scion,” he said and moved toward her so fluidly it looked almost like liquid. As he passed her, headed for the front door, Tessa felt a strange flutter in her, some kind of ancient warning system. It was hard to describe, a slight chill of something decidedly dark running through everything she was for just a moment. She went to the door to see where he would go, but when she got there, he was gone. Swallowed up into the night. Tessa breathed deeply.

“Oh yeah, that’s not too creepy.” She closed the door, locked it, for all the good it seemed to do, and went back upstairs to try to catch a few hours of sleep before something else decided to break
into her house.

She didn’t sleep at all.

Even though nothing else burst into her house. Instead she lay there, exhausted but wide-eyed, until the sun came up. When it did, she sprang into action and was ready in record time. On her way out the front door, she grabbed her largest duffle bag and flung it over her shoulder. In half an hour she was downtown and trying to determine which building The Snow Queen would want to live in.

It was easy. Though Lore had a surprisingly large and thriving downtown for its size, there was only one building that looked like a bright glassy icicle shooting into the sky. Certainly the only building a “Snow Queen” would deem fit to live in. On the top floor there were two penthouses on either side, one called “A” and one called “B”. Tessa went for the more obvious “A.” As she drew closer, she felt a decided chill from behind the door. Bingo.

Tessa knocked on Snow’s door softly at first but began pounding after three minutes of silence on the other end. Finally, she heard some movement inside and upped her pounding in an effort to get Snow to hurry. Snow flung the door open, clearly irritated. A wave of cold air hit Tessa as she did so.

“Scion. What a damned surprise,” Snow said, leaning on the door yet not opening it wider to let Tessa in. Her eyes had looked hard like pebbles when she opened the door but they softened slightly and the temperature raised a few degrees at the sight of Tessa. Clearly she didn’t consider Tessa much of a threat. Tessa pushed past her into the apartment. Snow groaned. “Please, by all means, why don’t you shove your way in?”

The room was still unreasonably cold, cold enough that Tessa was glad she had her jacket. As she took in her surroundings, she couldn’t decide whether to burst out laughing or be impressed. The condo was one of two loft-style penthouses on the floor and thus had a sweeping 180-degree view that wound from the distant woods on the east end beyond the city clear down to the ocean on the west.

Tessa stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows and marveled at the city. When she was a child, Lore had seemed magical to her, and now she guessed that wasn’t just a convenient word. It wasn’t just coincidence that the city had everything. It was almost like a fictional paradise. To the northeast of the city were woods as thick and wild as the imagination could conceive, while to the far west the city trailed off into a stunning rocky coastline, like something out of a picture book—epic waves falling against perfect shores. Between the two—ocean and mountainous woods—was a city that made more sense now—a downtown too big for the city’s actual size, too many parks, too many cemeteries, too much of everything, really, and all of it a bit unreasonably beautiful. Tessa ‘tched to herself. She would never be able to look at Lore with the same casual approving eye she once had.

Tessa turned from the window to examine Snow’s apartment. The rooms themselves looked more like movie sets than any place a real person lived, which was fitting she supposed. The floors were a gleaming white, perhaps some kind of thick lacquer on top of wood, and everything else was white or faint grey with occasional pops of either a pale or electric blue. The kitchen was all gleaming stainless steel and white marble, and marble statues littered the wide-open spaces, figures mostly, a few of which Tessa recognized, and all looking like beauty frozen in time. Tessa figured that was part of the appeal. Huge pieces of pale art hung on the walls. Snow stood next to a giant painting that was mostly white and almost blended into it with her pale skin, hair, and long, white silk robe. She looked effortlessly beautiful despite the hour. “To what do I owe the extremely early honor, Scion?”

Tessa looked away from her and took in the view again. “I need your help,” Tessa said, crossing her arms.

“I’m unsurprised,” Snow said, bored. “With what
exactly
.”

“I need to get something out of the school, and I need you to take it from me and keep it here for a little while.”

Snow raised one eyebrow suspiciously, “Sounds deceptively simple. Is that all?”

Tessa nodded. “Yes, but we need to go now.”

“Yes, yes, of course it’s now. Everything is always now with you, Scion,” Snow said, walking to the back bedroom. Tessa sat down on the white angled couch. She figured someone like Snow would take just this side of forever to get ready, but nearly as soon as Tessa sat down, Snow breezed out of the room again. Her hair was piled elegantly on her head, and she was clad in a plunging, bright white sweater dress that belted at her waist and hugged her slender curves dramatically. She wore a pair of amazing grey boots that came up above her knee, artfully covered with straps and buckles. She looked like a freaking supermodel. Again. A jerk, but still a supermodel. Damn.

“Um…okay,” Tessa said, looking her up and down then self-consciously running a hand through her own hair which she had barely even bothered to comb. Snow grabbed some keys, sunglasses, and a soft grey bag (that must have cost at least a thousand
dollars) off a table by the front door and nodded at Tessa impatiently.

“Coming, Scion?” she called. Tessa scrambled to her feet, grabbing her giant empty duffle in the process, and followed Snow out into the hall and down into the underground garage.
Snow turned the key and the engine roared to life.

“How do you manage it? You’ve been here barely two days and you have a car, a completely outfitted penthouse, a slew of gorgeous clothes, who knows what else?”

Snow rolled her eyes. “You know the part of my name you keep leaving
out?”

“Huh?”

“QUEEN. I’m The Snow QUEEN, Scion. You think I got that way by not knowing how to get things done? Please,” she said, peeling out of the garage at a bracing clip.

“Someone was in my house last night.”

“Mortal or Story?” Snow asked, as she took a tight turn going at least forty.

“Definitely Story,” Tessa said, grimacing at the speed.

“Who was it?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t get a name…didn’t even ask, come to think of it. Although, that’s hardly my fault since it was three am. I figure I’m lucky I was conscious and wearing clothes.”

“Well, describe them, perhaps we can narrow it down. Male or female, or something else perhaps?”

“Male, definitely male. Devastatingly handsomely male.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“Yeah, are you all like that?”

“Like what?”

“In a word? HOT.”

“I suppose. You’re unlikely to find a lot of wallflowers. Very few plain janes. Most are written as ‘the most beautiful’ or, of course, the reverse. Extremes are popular in Fiction. Some of your more modern tales are deliberately not that way perhaps, but you’re less likely to run into them.”

“Why’s that?”

“New Fiction tends to play itself out for a hundred years or so before it gets bored and starts pushing on its boundaries, discovers what it truly is, how it can cross into other worlds. Since they each live in their own perfectly constructed worlds, some Stories can go centuries before they even realize they can step outside those—pages—for lack of a better word.”

“Interesting,” Tessa said, and then flinched as they careened past a busload of elementary school children while going a
cool seventy.

“I suppose. So what else? I’ll need more details than ‘devastatingly handsome’.”

“Oh, right. Um, tall, at least six foot three, maybe four. Dark hair very short, shaved down in fact. Broad shouldered, moved like…liquid.
Had a dark voice, almost a British accent, sort of. It was hard to tell his eye color but I think they were dark grey. Big strong hands, lots of muscle, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt,” Tessa detailed, trying to conjure up the visual from memory.

“Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Seriously?”
“Scion, you just described half the fantasy men of Fiction. I mean you could have just said ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ and I’d have about as much to go on. The accent is your best clue, Stories frequently have the accent of their original story, although you said it didn’t sound like true British so that could mean it’s not his original language. It could be a blend or something he picked up here, depending on how long he’s been in the Mortal world.” Snow shifted into a lower gear and jammed her foot down on the accelerator. Tessa winced at their speed as a 25 mph sign whizzed past them. “What did he want?”