Beneath the roar of the depths, and through the blood ringing in his ears, Aaron heard the sound of laughter. Quinn’s laughter.
A Vour’s laughter.
He fought to listen. He forced himself to hear the monster’s cruel delight.
That’s it, you bastard. Keep laughing.
Aaron stroked his arms through the water and propelled himself upward, the pressure in his ears lessening as he rose faster and faster toward the surface. The laughing grew louder and closer, and the smell of bubble gum overpowered the fish and seaweed. He broke the surface of the water in his mind.
Aaron breathed fresh air and recovered himself, but he kept his eyes shut and feigned unconsciousness. Slowly, he reached into his jacket and clutched the ice cubes in his pocket. He just needed to reach Quinn’s cheek, his neck — any exposed skin . . .
He swung his arm and pelted Quinn’s cheek with ice. Startled, Quinn let go of Aaron and stepped back, but something was wrong. Quinn did not scream in excruciating pain like Henry had done; his skin remained pale but normal-looking.
Quinn felt his cheek and saw the ice on the ground. “Ice cubes? What’s next on your weapons list, geek? A snow cone?”
Aaron tried to get to his feet, but Quinn pushed him back down.
“Yeah,” Quinn said, wiping water from his face, “Henry told me about you pelting him with a snowball. Really freaked him out. But then again, he’s just not used to his body yet. Me? I’m much more adapted. See?” Quinn reached down and picked up a handful of snow. He rubbed it across his face without a flinch. “I’ve taken worse hits on the football field.”
Aaron noticed that tiny, spidery black lines etched the skin where snow had touched the bloody gash on Quinn’s forehead. He curled his fist around a handful of snow.
“The last thing that bitch will see is this face.” Quinn bent over Aaron and stared into his eyes. “How does that make you feel, hero?”
“Human.” Aaron shoved the snow directly on Quinn’s gash, grinding it into the swollen wound. Quinn dropped to the ground, clutching his face.
Aaron stood and kicked Quinn in the side of the head, the toe of his boot clunking against the skull. Quinn lay dazed, but the monster would be on his feet in moments.
On his feet . . .
Aaron opened the SUV’s door and grabbed a Swiss army knife from the glove compartment. He returned to the Vour moaning on the ground, and yanked off Quinn’s shoes and socks, leaving his bare feet exposed. Aaron flicked open the blade and sliced open Quinn’s feet, from toe to heel. Quinn screamed as Aaron mashed snow into the cuts.
“You know that expression people use when they get scared, right?” Aaron stuffed the socks inside the shoes and dangled them by the laces in front of Quinn like dashboard dice. “They call it cold feet.” He hurled the shoes as far as he could into the snowy woods.
“You’re done,” Quinn growled. “You and your girl. Done.”
But Aaron was already racing down to the lake. From the shoreline, he could see the two bodies sprawled at the lake’s center in a serene embrace. Neither Reggie nor Henry moved, but Aaron knew his best friend and her little brother were fighting a battle more harrowing than he dared imagine. He had to reach them before Quinn overcame his temporary handicap.
Aaron stepped out onto the lake. Most of it was covered with white frost, but in a few places the ice was clear, and he could see the deep water below. If the ice cracked, he’d drown for real.
Where could they go that Quinn wouldn’t find them? And if Quinn was a Vour, certainly there were others. But how many? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
The headlights of the truck started to dim, the battery draining. Soon the lights would die, and Aaron would be left in pitch black, stranded out on the lake with two comatose bodies and a Vour lurking in the darkness.
The ice crackled on either side of him. He stopped and drew a breath.
They lay just ten feet away from him, but to Aaron it might as well have been the other side of a chasm. When he saw the hole in the ice and the dark water that rippled beneath, his knees almost gave out. But the two bodies beside the hole kept him focused.
Reggie had collapsed on top of her brother’s body, and her cheek rested against his chest. Henry, splayed awkwardly beneath her, looked like a character in a demented cartoon. His skin was purple and covered in black splotches. The two small toes on his right foot had turned completely black, and the fingers on both hands were darkening in the same fashion. Vour marks or actual frostbite, Aaron wasn’t sure. Henry’s tiny frame convulsed in tense, barely perceptible spasms.
His body was dying.
Aaron took off his jacket and tossed it at him, hoping at least to cover Henry’s body. The jacket landed more than a foot to the right.
“Good thing you’re not my backup quarterback, Cole,” shouted a voice behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Quinn striding across the ice. “You throw like a girl.”
Aaron turned to face the Vour. In the dimming light, he saw that the spidery mark above Quinn’s eye had spread across the bridge of his nose. The jock had ripped the sleeves from his jacket and pulled them over his bloody feet.
“You’re a wuss, you know that, Cole? Always have been, always will be. But you’re smart, I’ll give you that.” He gestured down at his sliced feet. “Can’t say I saw that one coming. Did your homework.”
“Did yours, too. From now on, I don’t do research papers for Vour cowards.”
“Cowards, huh? Big talk for a kid afraid of his own bathtub.” The Vour hobbled forward, and the ice cracked and moaned under the weight. Twenty feet separated them now.
“Yeah, well. Come any closer and we’ll all take a bath.”
Quinn limped toward Aaron and the ice crackled again. A single, thin rift formed between the two of them.
“I can smell your fear.” The sarcasm vanished from Quinn’s voice. Pure monster spoke now, a second raspy tone echoing behind Quinn’s own. “Ever smell a rose, Aaron? Really smelled it? Put your nose into the petals and breathed it in? The aroma is intoxicating. Do you know why?”
The Vour limped forward again. The ice crunched beneath its feet.
“Because if you bury your nose deep and breathe through the life of a rose, through the flesh and the earth and the beauty, you smell the death inside.” The Vour breathed deeply. “It doesn’t think, not like humans, but it feels. It feels the end of its life looming almost as soon as it blossoms. And it fears. A rose’s perfume is the terror of its own approaching death. I smell that on you tonight. Thick as blood.”
Aaron stepped backward and heard the ice start to give way behind him. The headlights faded and died.