Last second save

Her mother was a monster. Peter was dead. She was going to be dead soon because those three had done their research and knew how to kill a basilisk to be sure it won’t come back. Fire did the trick. Anything else they would come back from but not fire. Even a simple burn took weeks to heal.

Fros had tried to untie the cable that fastened her to the corpse of Jonathan Miles but had failed. She had tried to wriggle a hand free but had given up quickly. Alice had tied it well. So now she was going to die unless whoever had an appointment with Jonathan at ten was extremely early.

When she heard the sound of a car Fros thought she was hallucinating. She’d fallen into something resembling a doze, full of memories, of all the times she’d had fun with Sam and even helped her, and all the times Sam had helped her, like finding her the first photography jobs and lending her the money for the deposit on her house because Fros had been having some temporary financial problems at the time. And all this time all Sam had wanted was to win her trust to betray her. To kill her.

A knock on the door made her head jerk up. Fros scanned the inside of the bag in the mad hope it had somehow become more transparent in the past five minutes.

“Hello?” she yelled. “Hello?”

The knock came again.

“Help!” Fros shouted. Her ears told her she was barely articulating sounds. “Help!” Now it was a roar that left her throat pulsing with pain.

Silence followed and Fros hung her head. It was a thick door. Of course they wouldn’t hear her.

“Oh, my god.”

It was weak and it was distant. It also came from the window. The curtains were drawn to let the light in. With the light, anyone looking into the room would see Fros and the corpse on the couch.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

Fros winced with the urge to strangle whoever could ask this particular question at this time. She shook her head vigorously and tried to raise her tied hands so the looker could see them.

“Oh my god,” the looker said. Her voice was strangely familiar but Fros couldn’t place it. “Hold on a minute.”

“That would be a minute too long,” Fros murmured.

A loud crash proved her wrong. More crashing followed as the looker turned into actor and cleared a hole to come in through.

“The candle,” Fros said when she heard her crunch closer. “Put out the candle before you do anything else.”

“What candle?” the woman said, her voice now up to annoyingly familiar like her scent of confidence and ambition currently mixed with terror. “Oh my god, oh my god, his throat is cut. His throat is cut!”

Fros inhaled. She exhaled.

“I know,” she said. “And I’m tied to him, the gas is on in the kitchen and there’s a lit candle somewhere. Find it and put it out.”

The woman gasped and apparently froze in place.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. Oh my god!”

Something that might have been conceived as a scream but by the time it was ready to be born had turned into a wheeze came out of the woman’s mouth. She must have seen Peter. Fros bit her lip until pain pierced her. There was no time for emotions now.

“He will be fine, believe me,” Fros said. “Find the candle.”

“Fine?! He’s been beheaded!”

Fros shook her head, wincing at the articulation of the truth. Luck had chosen an idiot saviour for her. An idiot saviour she suspected she knew. Maybe the fresh air that came through the broken window would buy them some time, maybe it would buy them enough for McKinley to get here but maybe it wouldn’t.

“Found it,” the woman said. “Done.”

The soft smell of burning flame was replaced by the sharp stink of charred wick.

“I should call the police,” the woman murmured. She was coming back and now her hands, freezing cold, were on the cable, untying it. “I can’t believe I didn’t call the police.”

“You can call later. Right now you could go turn the gas off.” Fros tried to speak as softly as she could, otherwise she would be screaming and the woman would probably run away.

“Right, yes, sure.”

“You could’ve taken my bag down but no worries, next time,” Fros said as the sound of the woman’s running feet disappeared. It didn’t take long before they reappeared.

“I got a knife from the kitchen,” the woman said. “For your hands.”

“Thank you.”

“Here, let me take that bag off.”

The light pierced Fros’s eyeballs in a thousand places but not before she got a glance at the woman.

“Jules?” she said at the same time as the woman said “Fros?”

“What is happening here?” Jules asked and got to work with the knife on the cable tie. “Who was it?”

“Long story.” Fros stood, finally free of all constraints. She allowed herself a very brief glance at Peter’s body and took out her phone with hands that were trembling so hard she almost dropped it. “I’ll explain but now we need to move. I need to move. You stay and call the police but first I need to make a phone call.”

Tal picked up after the first ring.

“Listen to me and don’t ask questions,” Fros said. Her voice wanted to tremble too but she wasn’t having it. “Peter has had an accident. Someone beheaded him. If you think you can save him, he’s at number 37 in Bailey Mews. Hurry up because we’re calling the police in ten minutes.” She glanced at Jules. Jules stared at her. “Talk later.”

To his credit Tal didn’t utter a single word while she spoke. Now Fros looked at her watch, which showed fifteen minutes to ten.

“I need to go but you stay and tell the police you came early, you found Mr. Miles’ body with a burning candle and the gas turned on in the kitchen. Tal will take care of Peter and I’ll take care of the killers. Can you do this?”

Jules kept on staring, her eyes so huge they filled her suddenly ten years older face.

“Can you do it, Jules? If you can’t I’ll have to take you with me.”

Jules drew back.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Fros said with a sigh. “I really need to find the killers while they’re close, okay? But I can’t risk the police learning that I was here. I already have problems with them.”

“I can lie,” Jules said in a small voice.

“Good.” Fros remained unconvinced but turned to go. Then she stopped. “Shit. The bag.”

She ran back into the room, allowed herself another glance at the headless body and the bodiless head of Peter. There was a small curved sword next to the body – a souvenir weapon with a colourful handle. It looked absurd and Fros had no time for absurdities. She grabbed the bag and the cable tie from the floor and ran out.

A car was just pulling in at the house and Fros’s heart did a cartwheel before she saw the driver. She was by his door before he had finished parking.

“What happened here?” McKinley said.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” Fros said and threw the bag and the cable tie on the back seat. “We need to go now.”

McKinley restarted the engine without a word.

“Jules, call the police and tell them about Mr. Miles,” she called to Jules who was standing at the door.

Jules raised her hand and waved.

“I really hope she can lie, or I’ll need to leave the country,” Fros murmured. McKinley pulled out of the alley.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Fros pulled her window halfway down and popped her head out, sniffing like a dog.

“Left at the end of the street, then I’ll tell you.” The scent of hate hung in the air, as clear as a breadcrumb trail on fresh tarmac.

“I found out who killed all those people,” Fros began after a stretch of silence punctured by her instructions as she followed the smell. “It turns out I have a sister but she’s not a basilisk, and she hates me. She said I was a monster. Apparently, she wanted to kill that monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” McKinley said, the words like a whip lashing the air. “And you didn’t choose to be born this way.”

“Yeah, I told Sam that but oddly enough she didn’t listen. She’s been preparing this for years, her and Rory. Take a right at the traffic light.”

“Who’s Rory?”

“The son of the man who’s sitting in his living room with an open throat, just like Jason Colby and that boy in my kitchen. He saw his mother die and,” she sighed and rubbed her face. “And my mother was there and Rory believes she killed his mother. I’m afraid he’s right.”

McKinley didn’t bat a lash.

“That doesn’t give him the right to kill you or anyone else.”

“Yeah, well, he clearly sees things differently. And he’s sleeping with his stepmother. She was there too. I guess love makes people do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. Left here.”

“That it does,” McKinley said. “What will you do when we find them?”

“First of all I’ll get back Peter’s car. The cheeks, driving off in the car of the man they’d just killed.” She kicked at the belly of the glove compartment but it didn’t make a good substitute for Rory’s face.

“And then?” McKinley spoke softly and calmly, like she hadn’t told him about a double murder and plans to burn her alive. He must have heard thousands of such stories over the years. He’d grown used to the horror.

“I want to kill them,” Fros said after a while, after he’d taken the right turn. The heat was pulsing in her head and it took everything she got to keep it there, for now. “I want to end them like that vamp—” She bit her tongue but it was too late.

One corner of McKinley’s mouth ticked up.

“Vampire,” he said and glanced at her. “You can say it. I’ve always known basilisks weren’t the only ones. It didn’t make sense. Vampires do.”

“You have? Why? How?”

He shrugged.

“Some weird marks on murder victims’ bodies. A few suspicious deaths now and then. And that girl and her mother. That was a vampire, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Her name was Tina.” Fros swallowed before continuing. “I think you knew her.”

“I did?”

She nodded.

“Turn left here and stop. They’re in the house at the end of the street.”

The street was lined with two rows of detached houses, almost identical with their red-bricked facades and bay windows. The smell of Sam’s hate was stronger here, radiating from the last of the houses on the left. Fros took it as a massive stroke of luck that her newfound sister had decided to forego the marigold tea for the endgame. It was the strongest, clearest smell Fros had ever encountered in her life. She could follow it with a bag on her head.

“You can drop me here,” she said, pointing to an empty parking spot.

McKinley shot her a look of disbelief.

“I’m not dropping you anywhere. I’m coming with you.”

“Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“Fros.” He stopped the car and put his hand on hers. She almost jerked it away but stopped herself at the last moment. “I want to help. Whatever you need to do I want to help.”

“I just told you I want to kill them.”

“I don’t think you will.”

“Excuse me?”

The man who had called himself her father turned and smiled at her.

“If you kill them, they get off easily.”

“Not the way I planned it,” she murmured. She hadn’t planned a slow death. She saw herself biting their heads off, like she’d done with Tina, and that was fast death, horrible but fast. They didn’t deserve that.

“Are you sure?”

Fros sighed in exasperation.

“Fine, okay, let’s go in and arrest them. I was a witness. I saw the murder through the window.”

McKinley’s smile widened.

“That’s more like it.”

He took his radio and called for backup while Fros got out of the car saying she needed to stretch her legs. What she actually needed was to kill someone, just one of the three people who had wanted to kill her. Just Alice, maybe, although Rory would be much better. But McKinley was right. They thought they’d won. Now they were about to get a nasty surprise that would last a while. And all the while they’d know Fros is alive and well.

She smiled grimly to herself, keeping her eyes on the house where the smell of hate – now mixed with exhilaration – flowed out from like a river. Peter’s “monstrosity” was parked on the street. It really was monstrous, more a minibus than a car, with the seats spaced so much you could live quite comfortably inside if you weren’t too tall or fat. She blinked to get rid of the stinging feeling in her eyes the thought of Peter had caused.

“Backup will be here in fifteen minutes,” McKinley said, joining her outside. Fros looked away and brushed at her face. A tear had slipped through her self-control.

The street was strangely empty but it was a work day and it was a quarter to eleven. Everyone was at work except mothers with small children, one of whom walked out of the house next to the one where Rory and Sam were hiding, pushing a sitting stroller. As she turned to lock the door, the door of the next house opened and Sam looked around.

The first thing she looked at was Fros, frozen next to McKinley’s car. The second thing she looked at was the mother with the stroller.

“No way,” Fros snarled and ran. In slow motion, she watched Sam’s lips stretch into a grimace revealing all her teeth before she called something over her shoulder and stepped forward to meet the woman with the stroller on the pavement. Rory’s head poked out of the open door and he said something Fros couldn’t hear because her blood was roaring like a waterfall in her ears and the heat was flowing into her eyes. She shot him a glance before focusing all her attention on Sam who was reaching for the handle of the stroller. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye but didn’t stop. She could take them both right now.

“What are you doing? Stop it,” the mother was telling Sam who was pulling at the handle. The baby started whimpering. “Hey! Stop it! Help!”

Out of breath, Fros came to a stop at Sam’s back and clasped a hand over her wrist. At the last moment she relaxed her grip a little, hearing in advance the crunch of Sam’s bones if she had grabbed her with full force.

“Excuse us,” she told the mother, panting, forcing a grin on her face, keeping the venom at bay by some miracle. Her cheeks hurt. “My sister’s had some mental troubles recently. We’ll be going now.” She nodded at the woman as she pried Sam’s hand from the handle. “Let go,” she whispered in her sister’s ear. “Let go or I’ll break your fucking hand.”

Sam let go and struggled to free herself from Fros but Fros wasn’t letting go. She kept her hold on Sam’s hand and spun around. Rory was on the ground and Alice was crying over him, calling for help.

“Whoops,” Fros said and caught Sam’s free hand before it punched her in the face. “Too bad.”

Sam tried to pull away again.

“You killed him,” she panted, her voice dripping with disgust. “You looked at him and you killed him. You better kill me, too, because I’m telling everyone what you are and what you’ve done.”

“He killed his father,” Fros noted rationally although it would have been too much to expect this would have any effect on Sam or crying Alice – who was no longer crying, a glance at where she had crouched over Rory’s body revealed. Alice was gone. Fros congratulated her on a smart decision and made a mental note of finding her once she had a moment.

“You monster.” Sam spat the words out. “You’ll pay. I’ll make you pay. You’re not getting away this time.”

“You could do that, sure,” Fros said. Blinking lights in red and blue appeared in the distance. There were no sirens. There was no need.

“I will do it,” Sam hissed, struggling, trying to wriggle away. Fros’s grip was steel. She could hold Sam’s hands forever.

“You’re the one who killed Peter, aren’t you?” Fros asked avoiding Sam’s eyes, breathing away from her. She could kill her. The venomous heat was under control but it was a fragile control and she didn’t want to risk it.

“Yes,” Sam said her eyes sparkling with something very similar to triumph. “And I enjoyed it.”

“Of course you would,” Fros said with a sigh and waved at McKinley who was walking unhurriedly towards them, the handcuffs dangling from his hand. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy prison, too.”

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