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Breath of Ice Lynn Viehl

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Copyright 2014 by Lynn Viehl

All Rights Reserved.

Author’s note: this e-book is not intended for sale, and is not to be used in any form to generate profit. Readers do have the author’s permission to copy and distribute it freely, or use the contents for non-profit educational purposes.

First Electronic Printing June 2014

Cover art design by Lynn Viehl

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For Mr. Frost, and his dark and lovely snowy woods.

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Stephanie Lewis signed off on the last of the property inspection forms and handed it to her boss. She didn't want to say anything about the Chandler estate, but in a week it would go on the market. Since no one had been allowed on the property in decades they were expecting as many gawkers as serious buyers, and the thought of all those people traipsing in and out troubled her. Especially because I don't know why, Steph thought, and that decided it. "Dana, I think there's something in the cellar at Valais." "Sure there is." Dana Malone added her initials to the document and peered through her reading glasses at the neatly-typed list. "One decrepit furnace, disconnected. Nine panels of wrought iron fencing, rusted. Twentyone boxes of assorted antique crap that someone forgot to bring up for the estate sale, and what looks like a pretty awesome wine collection, untouched until we get it appraised." Steph loved her property management job, which allowed her to use her deep affection for antiques and architecture in a practical way. She also adored working for Dana, who had not let being born wealthy, gorgeous and smart result in her becoming the usual useless narcissistic bitch. Steph often thought she had the perfect job. Working at Valais this summer, however, had made her consider quitting several times. "That's not what I meant." Dana glanced up. "We miss something?"

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"I wasn't talking about the things stored in the cellar." Putting her fear into words made Steph cringe a little -- in their business, every other client had a silly haunted house story -- but this wasn't her imagination running wild. During her afternoon visit to Valais she'd heard the noises again, and this time they'd been too loud to ignore or explain away. "It's something else." "Something else like . . . a squatter? A pipe bursting?" Dana rolled her French-manicured hand. "Maybe a ghost?" "It's not a ghost, Dana." Steph got to her feet and wandered over to the window, where she wouldn't have to see her boss's expression. "I was locking up downstairs on my way out and I heard noises coming from under the floor. It sounded like something was moving around down there." "Could have been mice or rats. They love old houses." Dana flipped through the papers in the file. "No, the exterminator did his inspection on Tuesday, and he signed off, no vermin or bug problems." The noises, which had been a series of uneven, heavy thumps, echoed in her memory. "I think it might be bigger than a rat." "A squatter, then." Dana's voice took on the crisp, all-business tone it acquired whenever she was pissed. "Did you go and take a look?" "I should have, but I was there by myself, and, well." Steph hugged her waist. "I really hate cellars." "Honey, no one likes them but home canners and serial killers." Her boss picked up the phone and dialed a number. "Mr. Franklin? Hi, it's Dana Malone from Lightside Management. One of my associates was over at Valais

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today and heard some noise in the cellar. Do you know why?" She listened for a minute, nodding to whatever Franklin was saying. "Uh-huh. Great. We appreciate that. Have a nice weekend." She hung up the phone. "Good news, your squatter was actually the caretaker." Steph began to feel more than a little stupid. "What was he doing down there?" "Showing the wine collection to the expert," Dana said. "Evidently the guy arrived a day early. Franklin left his appraisal on the front foyer table." "That's a relief." She moved away from the window and sat back down "Sorry for the false alarm. I feel like a total moron." "No harm done -- unless you called the cops or the local newspaper or your boyfriend and told them Valais is haunted," Dana said, smiling. "Then I might have to kill you." Steph lifted her hands. "All I did was text the real estate agent to check on the listing date, and I only told her that there might be an issue with the cellar. I'll call her back and let her know there's not." "Let me do that. I need to go over a couple things with her for next week anyway." Dana took off her glasses and sat back to rub her eyes. "Would you mind stopping on the way home to pick up the appraisal for the wine? I'd do it, but I promised my husband I'd be home in time for dinner." Steph glanced through the window at the sunset. She'd made a point to go to Valais only during the day, but Dana had said Franklin had left the

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estimate in the front hall. Retrieving it would take all of maybe a minute. "Sure, I'll run by." "Thanks." She sighed and closed her eyes. "God, I hope my hubby isn't trying to surprise me by cooking again. Last time, it was so bad? He set off the neighbor's smoke detectors." # The house Magnus Chandler's grandfather had begun building in 1900 had taken almost five decades to complete, thanks to material and money shortages caused by the Great Depression and two world wars. Once Valais was finished Senator Calvin Chandler had moved from Washington D.C. to Denver to take up residence in the house, where he promptly dropped dead a year later. His son avoided the place for the next fourteen years while he built his business empire in Chicago, but his grandson Magnus had reopened the house in 1964, the year his wife had died in Europe. "Broke his heart, poor guy," her boss had told Steph as they went over the initial paperwork to handle the estate sale. "The day after her funeral Chandler resigned his position as CEO of Chandler Pharmaceuticals, handed the reins over some protégée he'd been grooming, and was never seen again in public." "How did the wife die?" Steph asked. "Avalanche got her while she was skiing. Chandler was the one who found her body." Dana made a face. "Horrible way to go, really, so it's no wonder it destroyed the man."

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Steph frowned. "But the papers say Magnus Chandler was one of the most successful businessmen in the world." "That's PR for you," Dana told her. "After he came back to the U.S., Chandler moved into Valais and went totally Howard Hughes. He never talked about the wife or spoke to anyone, really. The lawyer and the caretaker were the only people he allowed in the house." "What about the mystery heir?" Steph had read all the news articles speculating on exactly who would inherit Chandler's estate. So far Chandler's lawyer had flatly refused to provide any name or details, and no one had yet come forward. "Surely they had some kind of relationship. Maybe he had a son or daughter with a girlfriend, something like that." "I think a kid would have come forward by now, although the old man could have had a honey on the side." Dana waggled her eyebrows. "Someone who wouldn't mind blowing an octogenarian hermit for a couple of years so she could become the ninth richest person in the world. Which is who, Anna Nicole Smith, and pretty much every other woman with a pulse, right?" Driving through the four hundred acres of woods surrounding Valais didn't make Steph feel a single twinge of envy for the mystery heir. Chandler's billions might have tempted some gold-digger into screwing her way into his will, but the house where he'd hidden away from life and then died was no gift. Steph actually hated the massive sprawling brick monster mansion from the day she'd first set eyes on it-- and from that night on she'd had one nightmare after another about being trapped inside.

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That was something she'd flatly refused to tell Dana or anyone, that she kept dreaming of being imprisoned in the cellar at Valais. Sometimes she dreamed it slowly filled with ice and snow until she was buried alive; other times she hung chained in a cage while a burning-eyed monster poked her with knives and cattle prods. In one particularly gruesome nightmare the horrible thing had fired a shotgun at her over and over, pausing only to eject the smoldering shells and reload. Aside from her dreams, Steph had no legitimate reason to hate Valais. An immense mansion built more like a small castle than a residence, it had been constructed with timeless style and great attention to details. Dana claimed it reminded her of some of the wonderful old French and Italian manors she had seen while bumping around Europe as a student -- on a much bigger scale, of course. Anyone who lived at Chandler's house could sleep in a different room every night and never occupy the same bed in a year. Doesn't matter, Steph thought as Valais came into view. If it were mine, I'd demolish it tomorrow. Steph pulled around the circular drive and parked her little Ford between the white Italian marble fountain and the wide circular steps marching up to the front entrance. Even the fountain, which featured a life-size statue of Aphrodite rising from a wide, shell-shaped basin, made Steph shudder. The statue had been placed so that the goddess faced the house, not the drive, and something about Chandler wanting those blank, blind marble eyes staring at him all day gave her the willies.

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She took out the keys to the front door, using them to let herself in. Once she entered the disarm code on the security pad she looked around the foyer. All three of the elegant wall tables held vases of fresh-cut flowers from the extensive gardens at the back of the house, but no paperwork. The sound of footsteps made Steph freeze, but once she picked up from where they were coming she relaxed; someone was walking in the back hall. "Hello? Mr. Franklin, is that you?" Her voice shook on the last three words, and she forced herself to move forward toward the sound. "It's Stephanie Lewis from Lightside Management. I'm here to pick up the wine collection appraisal." No reply came, but the sound of the footsteps continued, regular and rhythmic, as if the man were pacing. Maybe he can't hear me. Steph had never met Franklin in person but Dana had mentioned that the caretaker was elderly; Chandler had hired him back when he'd first moved to the estate. That would put him at least in his late sixties or early seventies. Steph's pace slowed as she noticed all the doors to the rooms off the hall had been closed. On impulse she stopped to try one door knob, and found it locked. So was the next door, and the next, which was wrong. Dana's instructions had been to leave every room open for easy access. Why would Franklin lock the doors to every room? Except for the cellar and the front foyer, every part of the house had been completely emptied.

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"Mr. Franklin?" Using a louder voice to call out to him might work. "Are you back here?" "Right here, Miss." Steph jerked around to face the man, who was standing directly behind her. "Holy sh-- you startled me." "Sorry, Miss." Franklin's wrinkles deepened as he displayed yellowed, chipped dentures. "Used to being alone here, since the old man died. You're wanting that paperwork?" "Yes." The faint, acrid smell coming from him made her nose twitch, but she kept her expression bland. "Dana said you were going to leave it in the front hall, but I didn't see it there." "Said I'd try." He nodded toward the kitchen. "It's still downstairs." "In the cellar?" When he nodded again she felt her stomach clench. "Would you get it for me, please?" He peered at her, his beady eyes slowly moving from the sleek bob of her dark hair to the tiny dent in her chin. "You afraid to go down there yourself, Miss?" If she said she was, he'd laugh at her. "Not at all, but you know where it is. I don't." "I'd fetch it for you but . . ." He lifted the wooden cane in his right hand. "The hip's giving me grief. Can't manage those stairs again." "I see." How convenient, too. Franklin, she suspected, was as nasty as his dentures. "Where did you leave it?"

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"On the little table behind the stairs. Can't miss it." He touched the brim of his cap and hobbled off. Stephanie debated on what to do as she watched him go. She could tell Dana that Franklin hadn't left the paperwork in the hall. It wouldn't be a lie. Dana would probably come over in the morning to retrieve it herself. And if Franklin tattled on her, Dana would even understand. It was no big deal. Steph kept telling herself that as she trudged through the kitchen and stopped in front of the door to the cellar. She put her hand on the knob -flinching as the cold metal chilled her palm -- and turned it, pulling the door open. A waft of cool dampness, scented with dust and decay, caressed her face. Nothing but darkness waited on the other side. She flicked on the old circular switch just inside the door frame, and the single, dusty bulb hanging over the steps cast a beam of sickly yellow light to illuminate the way down. Her feet wouldn't move, Steph discovered. They had decided on their own that Dana could come by tomorrow and get the appraisal. As for her feet, why, they were walking out of here. They were getting in her little car and going home. Her feet were pretty damn smart. Steph began to close the door when it pulled out of her grip and banged open against the wall. At the same time something hard curled around her ankle (cane?) and yanked backward, sending her falling head-first onto the stairs. As she fell, a boot slammed into the small of her back. That extra force

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sent her tumbling, arms and legs flailing in terror, to bounce from step to step. Someone screamed as her temple struck something hard and the fear -- and everything else in her head -- shattered. The last thing Stephanie saw was the bulb above the stairs, an instant before it and her thoughts switched off. # Something nasty pooled on Steph's tongue. It tasted like warm, wet pennies. She needed to brush her teeth immediately, and she would, too, just as soon as she dragged herself out of . . . The cellar. She scrabbled with her hands until they found the floor, and pushed. Pain exploded across her right side, sharp and bright, pounding in time with the dull throb on the side of her head. She'd cracked a rib once in high school while playing volleyball and falling badly. This was worse. The pain nearly knocked her out, and then her side grew hot and full, as if it were burning from inside. A tiny, incredulous voice began shrieking inside her skull: Threw me down the stairs -- tried to kill me -- trapped down here oh God trapped trapped trapped-"Shut up." Even breathing out the words made her chest hurt, but at least the munchkin of panic inside her head stopped screaming.

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Slowly, gasping through it, Steph pushed herself upright, and groped for the stairs. She might not be able to stand, but she could crawl. She'd crawl to the top, and open the door, and then -She wasn't by the stairs. They were in front of her, and they were wrong. No, she was wrong. Somehow she'd fallen through them, and now lay on the floor of the cellar behind them. Steph squinted, trying to see something in the faint light, and then glanced down. What light there was came from behind her, from a crack in the floor. She shifted around, coughing and then groaning as the movements stabbed new knives of agony into her hurt side. Not a crack in the floor, but beneath a door -- one that felt concrete instead of wood. After resting for a few moments Steph reached up until she felt a latch, and a small object hanging from it. A padlock, from the way it felt. It hung in the metal ring of the old latch, but it hadn't been locked. When she pushed it the lock fell off and landed in her lap. Have to get up. Steph let the tears stream down her face as she struggled to stand. As soon as she put her weight on it her left ankle felt as if it were filled with jagged broken glass, but her right seemed to be okay. She braced one arm against the stone wall and ran her hand over the latch again, finding and grabbing the release. It didn't want to budge at first, but she leaned into it and heard it grind. The smell of rust rose as the latch went down and the door began to move out.

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Cold white light tried to freeze the eyes out of her head, but she turned away and pushed the door again. As heavy as it was, it had to be made of concrete -- and felt two feet thick. Why would Chandler need a concrete door in his cellar? Steph peeked out from beneath her lashes, but the light was still too intense for her to make out anything. If there was power for light, there had to be something else in there. Another room. A safe room. An escape hatch. A way out. "Please." She whispered the one-word prayer as she slowly squeezed through the narrow gape she'd opened. As soon as she was inside, she slid down, gulping air as the pain tunneled through her abdomen and wrapped around her lungs. Whatever had happened to her ribs, they wouldn't take much more of this. She stared at the blur of the floor until her eyes adjusted, and saw she was sitting on white-washed stone. A stainless-steel drain punctuated the surface by her right foot; a white electrical cord snaked around her left. Slowly she lifted her head to see the rest, and forgot to blink. She was in some kind of laboratory, judging by the equipment and tables and machines. Even stranger, everything in the room was perfectly white -- the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and even the gigantic cage in the center of it all. It took seeing the breath Steph exhaled hanging in the air like a little cloud for her to realize the whiteness was frost, which blanketed everything.

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Ice crystals covered the thing inside the cage, too, but only in thin patches. Beneath the frost sat a huge bundle of black and gray rags, utterly filthy, impossibly tattered. The rags shifted, rolled and the thing inside them looked back at her. Black eyes with no pupils or whites to them regarded her without blinking. It wasn't an animal, though. It had a thin, battered, impossibly filthy gray face with a nose and mouth and forehead, and a mound of snarled hair that had no color at all, as if it were spun glass. The mouth opened and closed. The pile of rags shifted again, hiding its face as it muttered something. Steph stared at it, unable to tell if it was male or female, or even if it had arms and legs. "Did he do this to you? Franklin?" The sound of her voice echoed thin and reedy around the lab, while the thing in the cage made no sound at all. The rags began to flutter, and Steph realized it was shivering. It's afraid of me. "You were the one making the noises." Steph wanted to slap herself in the head, but the movement would probably make her pass out. "He knocked me down the stairs. Franklin, I mean. I don't know why he did it, but I'm hurt pretty bad." She looked around the room, but saw no other way out than the door behind her. "Would you help me get out of here? Please?" The thing turned to face her again. "Would you." The words sounded like a rusty saw cutting through rotted wood, but the deep, harsh tone was

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definitely masculine. "Help me. Get out?" The impossibly all-black eyes shifted toward the ceiling. "Franklin." He sounded as if he hadn't spoken for days or even weeks, and the way he echoed words from what she'd said to him wasn't reassuring in the slightest. Did he even understand what they meant? "Franklin," Steph said, looking into his scary eyes. "Franklin put you in there?" She pointed at the cage. "Franklin." He moved his head up and down. "Magnus." He knew Magnus Chandler's name, which she hadn't said out loud, but before she could ask him more questions something even more frightening settled over her. The lab, the cage, the ice everywhere -- this place was straight out of her nightmares. Steph remembered every detail from those awful dreams, and now they seemed to be coming true. What would happen next?? Would Franklin put her in the cage, too? Was he planning to torture her, or smother her, or -"Please," the man said again, his voice low and exhausted. "Help me." "Okay. Hang on." She began crawling over to the cage, dragging herself on her uninjured side. As soon as she drew closer she saw that the cage bars were encased in a thick layer of ice, and that there was no visible door or locking mechanism. "How do I open this?" He stretched out his rags, and a withered, ice-crusted hand emerged from the bars. Like his face it was the color of ash. "Touch."

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"Touch what? You mean, your hand?" Not without a bottle of disinfectant spray, Steph thought. "Is there a phone in here? I left my mobile in the car. I could call the cops." "Touch." His voice barely registered above a whisper this time. "Please." Steph closed her eyes for a moment. She wanted to scream but that might be the last sound she ever made. What was this happening to her? She wasn't perfect, but she had never hurt anyone. She'd just been doing her job. You don't get killed for doing your job. And now she was dying -- she could feel that, the life draining away inside her -- in this horrible place with some filthy homeless wretch. Or had he been like her before Franklin had done this to him? Fear crawled over her again, but not for herself. She'd been down here an hour, maybe two. How long Franklin had kept this man locked in the cage? Horror washed over her as she realized she knew the answer to that. She'd been hearing the sounds from the cellar for weeks. I did nothing about it. I just ignored it. I'm afraid of cellars and that's the reason he's still down here. Because I couldn't be bothered. Because I'm a coward. "It's my fault you've been down here so long. I'm sorry." She would have cried again, but her dry, gritty eyes could only look into his. She couldn't see any forgiveness or kindness in them, and that was the worst. She should have been his hope; she'd probably been his last hope. "I'm so sorry." He made a horrible sound and began to roll away again.

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"No." She lifted her arm, stretching to slip her hand between the bars and touch him. The rags covering him felt like ice powder, and the threads disintegrated beneath her fingers, falling in a shower of black to the floor of the cage. Then Steph felt hard, cold flesh. He went still, and then slowly covered her hand with his, threading his fingers through hers. The frigid, unyielding contact shocked her. How can anyone be so cold and still be alive? Steph wondered, her fingers going numb as the horrendous pain in her side dwindled. He was reaching out with his other arm, and curled it around her as the ice on the cage bars began to drip. His strange eyes lightened to a silvery shade, and reflected two little images of her white, pinched face, but he wasn't looking at her. He was watching the door behind her. Steph felt her spine go liquid and she slumped over, her forehead touching the bars. They were made of concrete, like the door, and they felt hot. But a minute ago they were covered in ice . . . His arm shifted her so she lay on her back, and for the first time she saw something else, something that had been hidden by his body. Another man, dressed in a beautiful suit, sat leaning against the other side of the cage, his arm wedged between the bars. He stared at her, his face frozen in a strange smile. Ice covered every inch of curly black hair and dark skin. Crystals of it furred his teeth and filled his eyes.

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He killed him, Steph thought, amazed at how calm she felt. The same way he's going to kill me. Stone scraped against stone, and something snapped. As Steph tried to keep her eyes open her eyes, arms that were strong and hard and impossibly cold lifted her from the floor. "Sorry." A warm, gentle mouth touched her cheek where the tears had frozen on her cold skin. "So sorry." His breath washed over her face, sweet and gentle, and hung there like a sparkling cloud. In it she saw shards of her own features, the pale pink of her lips, the soft violet of her eyes, and the icy whiteness of her skin. Soon she'd be covered in frost, too, just like the other human he'd killed. As she felt other things (ropes? snakes?) touch her, a thousand tiny mirror shards glittered as they drifted down to frost her lashes and lips, closing and sealing them. # Steph had always assumed dying would be like going to sleep and simply never waking up again. It turned out she'd been partially right; she did feel as if she were sleeping -- but she hadn't counted on the dreaming at all. Somewhere she had never traveled stretched out all around her: huge mountains covered in snow, a vividly clear, bright blue sky, and a distant blur of a brown and green valley below her. No one else shared the dream with her, so she began following a trail in the snow. Her feet were bare and brown and much bigger and dirtier than she

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remembered, but she didn't feel the cold beneath them. The icy wind blew through some holes in the very badly sewn fur coat she wore, but it didn't chill her. If anything, she was steaming hot; she could feel sweat collecting in fat beads above her lips and along her hairline. The things she carried made no sense: some sort of long walking stick with a pointed end in one hand, a raggedy pouch dangling from her waist and a big horn swaying from a thong wrapped around her neck. She felt the weight of the objects, and lifted a hand to touch the snarled mess of her hair, but something kept her moving along the trail. She had to get somewhere. There was a storm moving in; she could see it welling up on the horizon -- and there was something far more dangerous coming ahead of it. The avalanche began beneath her bare feet as the trail cracked and shifted and suddenly slid sideways. She scrambled, reaching desperately for a handhold, but found nothing to cling to as the snow and ice carried her down the slope. She fell into it, rolling with it until she struck something hard and it began piling on top of her. She fought it, trying to keep it from covering her face and blocking out the sun, but it was unstoppable. The sun vanished, and her body went still as it cooled. She waited, holding her breath as she listened for the storm and the others. Both came, but it was the storm that brought new snow with it. It piled atop her icy tomb, pressing her down, freezing her in place. As she became a statue she could still feel the presence of the others as they searched for her, but they never find

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her trail. They drifted away, and then only silence and snow remained to keep her company. She had no language other than her thoughts, but they kept her company. She thought of the others, and how they burned, and what they had done to all of her kind. She thought of the time before the others, when her kind had been strong, and many. They had not feared the others, but the burning ones had been terrified of them. That she had survived to be the last to walk the ice had never been her choice, and being buried alive like this meant the end of her life, but at least now they would never find her. They would never have the last victory. Steph believed in that for almost an eternity. Sleeping and dreaming in the ice, she was safe, never to be disturbed. Until she was. # Heat opened her eyes, melting the frost on her lashes and sending droplets of water like tiny tears to streak down the sides of her face. Steph could feel that she had been wrapped in something warm and heavy, and when she braced herself on one elbow she saw she'd been left on a window seat in the front reception room. A glance down revealed that the red-velvet drapes that had once hung around the window seat now enveloped her like a luxurious cocoon.

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In front of the flames crackling merrily in the fireplace crouched the black-eyed prisoner from the cellar. He had stripped out of his rags and now wore the frozen man's trousers. Steph studied the other changes in his appearance. He was still dirty, but he had obviously wiped or washed away the ice and the worst of the grime. His skin was not longer gray but a dusky gold. As he turned his head to meet her gaze, eyes of the same color flashed like ancient gold in the firelight -- no longer black, but still no whites or pupils. Steph wasn't sure what to say to him. "Franklin?" "No." He moved his hand from one side of the room to the other, and then pointed at her and then his own chest. "You, me, here. All." She hoped he understood more English than he spoke. "Why didn't you kill me?" He stood, and she nearly fell on the floor as she took in her first decent look at him. He stood at least seven feet tall, and dense muscle packed his long, lean frame, which only rudimentarily resembled a man's physique. He had two arms and two legs, but they were half again as long as her own, and were padded with heavy, inhuman musculature. Atop his much wider neck sat a large, sloped skull partially covered by a mound of glassy hair. Steph blinked as she saw the reason his throat appeared so broad: two webbed fans of flesh extending from the top of his shoulders to the edges of his lower jaw. Big bunches of corded tendons, bulging like ribbons beneath his hairless skin, formed strange diagonal clusters all over his body.

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"Why didn't you?" he asked. "Kill me?" He was echoing her words again, and Steph wondered how he was able to pick the right words to use. "I'm not like the others." The strange dream of walking in the mountains and being buried by the avalanche came back to her, but it didn't frighten her as the other nightmares had. Had he been responsible for that, as well as all the others? Had she been dreaming of things that had happened to him? "I'm not going to hurt you," she told him. "I'm going to help you get out of here." He knelt down in front of her and reached for her hand. His seven fingers had twice as many joints as hers, and were webbed like his throat. She also saw tinier versions of the tendon clusters coiled over each of his knuckles. He showed her their clasped hands. "We help." "Okay, well, we have to get you out of here before Franklin comes back." Steph pushed aside the velvet and stopped, touching her side. "It doesn't hurt." She did the same to her temple and then flexed her left foot. She's been dying, but now she felt fine. Better than fine. "Did you heal me?" He frowned, and glanced at the fire before shaking his head. "Me heal you. You heal me." She smiled a little. "Sorry, but I can't heal anything. I even have trouble applying Bandaids." "We." He brought her hand to his chest, which she admired despite the fact he had no nipples. "We heal we."

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At first the prisoner's flesh felt like solid, cold rock under Steph's palm, almost bruising her softer skin. She expected her fingers to go numb, the way they had when he'd touched her in the cellar. This time, however, she felt his skin heat under her hand, which also grew warmer. "How do you do that?" she murmured, fascinated. "How can you be so cold one minute and hot the next?" His golden eyes peered into hers. "You. Stephanie." "Yes, I'm Stephanie." The halting way he said her name, as if it were three separate words, made her heart twist. "What's your name?" "No name." "You can't remember?" "Remember." He frowned. "Magnus call me Yet." "He named you Yet?" He nodded, and Steph wondered why Magnus had chosen such an odd word, but she first needed more details on the immediate situation. "How did you get here? Who brought you?" "Magnus." Yet looked over at the fire. "Magnus woman see, dig snow, touch me. Her touch like" -- he nodded toward the flames. Steph recalled how Chandler's wife had died, and thought of the dead man beside the stone cage. "Did touching you kill her?" He nodded slowly. "Not want kill, but sleep so long. They wake before me. Always hungry." His gaze shifted, and he released her hand as he stood. Steph glanced across the room, and a few seconds later the door to the hall opened.

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"Here's gratitude for you." Franklin hobbled in, the shotgun in his hands pointed at them. "Bad monster. I give you this tasty bit, but all you do is play with your food. And you." He eyed Steph. "You're supposed to be dead." The shotgun scared her, but she refused to cringe. "Yeah, I got that much when you shoved me down the stairs." "If you'd minded your own business, Miss, you'd be fine, but no. You had to run your mouth." His expression darkened at he regarded Yet. "As for you, laddie, you know better. Remember what happens when you're not a good boy? I have to use the cattle prods." Yet bared his teeth, which were blunt but completely colorless, like his hair. "Remember." Steph swallowed as two sets of long, ice-colored fangs suddenly appeared and arched outward from Yet's mouth. "Mr. Franklin, let us go and I won't tell anyone what you've done, I promise--" "You're a terrible liar, Miss, and no one is going anywhere but me." The old man uttered a sour sound. "I've waited fifty years to be shut of that thing and this place. Once I get my share I'm off to a nice, hot beach to watch the bikinis." "Franklin?" Steph froze at the sound of her boss's voice, and then shot up from the window seat to shriek, "Dana, get out of the house! Call the police--" An enormous explosion cut her off, and Yet moved so fast he became a golden blur. Just as Steph registered that Franklin had pulled the trigger, Yet

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shoved her behind him and then jerked, stiffening before he collapsed at her feet. Dana Malone appeared and snatched the weapon from the caretaker's hands. "What are you doing, you crazy old coot?" "He was going to attack me--" "Why shouldn't he? You've tortured him and kept him locked up for God only knows how long." Steph covered the gaping yet bloodless wound in Yet's chest with the velvet drape before she looked up at her boss. "He's not human. I don't know what he is, exactly, but we have to help him. Maybe we can call for a doctor to come here." Dana studied Yet with remarkable calm. "That would be a very bad idea, honey." Beneath the velvet Steph could feel Yet's body growing colder. "Dana, please, I know how strange he looks, but he's hurt, he could be dying--" "He?" Her boss snickered. "It's a monster, Stephanie, not a man or even a person. Also, just FYI, it can't die." She blinked. "What?" "That's why Magnus brought it here after it killed his wife. It wouldn't die, you know, no matter how many times he shot or stabbed or poisoned it. So he decided to study it and find out why. He thought he could use the knowledge to live forever." She prodded Yet's shoulder with the pointed toe of her shoe. "Stupid, really. Whatever this thing is, it's definitely not human." Steph's throat tightened. "You knew Yet was in the cellar, all this time."

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"Where else would you experiment on a monster that can suck the life out of you with a single touch? In the guest bedroom? On the back porch? Oh, stop looking so traumatized." She peered down at her. "You don't believe me." She laughed. "I didn't believe it, either, until I saw him recover from one of the old man's 'tests.'" She used the end of the shotgun barrel to pull back the drape. "Watch." Steph's eyes widened as she saw the wound on Yet's chest fill with a clear liquid, which then solidified into ice. "How could you be a part of this?" "I inherited him, along with this dump and everything else Magnus owned. But you know what? I didn't even have to give the old bastard so much as a hand job for it." Dana grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. "Magnus found out he had Alzheimer's, so he hired me to look after his property. It was my buddy Franklin here that told me about the thing in the cellar. The rest was just managing the whole mess. Come on." She hauled Steph away from Yet. "Wait. Please." Steph tried to free herself only to find the shotgun pointed in her face. "Why didn't you tell me about this?" "Gee, Steph, I don't know. I guess the fact that Franklin and I drugged Magnus, got him to sign a new will, and then fed him to the thing he kept caged in his cellar, never came up in casual conversation. I really didn't like killing the appraiser, or that real estate agent you bitched to, but I couldn't risk anyone finding out about Magnus's special pet." She shoved her into the hall.

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"Kitchen. Move it." As they went, Dana called back over her shoulder, "Franklin, get the restraints on that thing before it wakes up." Once they reached the kitchen, Dana prodded her in the direction of the cellar door. Steph knew she was taking another trip down the stairs, and Yet wouldn't be allowed to heal her a second time. Begging for her life seemed pointless. "What are you going to do to him?" "What Magnus should have done a long time ago, and stop calling it a he. I'm going to sell it off to the government, or whoever ends up winning the private auction. I'm expecting once I provide blood samples the bidding will get quite lively. I had it analyzed, and you know what? It's mostly water and some kind of weird albino chlorophyll. The freaking thing is a walking, talking houseplant." Dana reached past her to open the cellar door before she pumped the slide on the shotgun. "So tell me something. It's sucked the life out of anyone who comes near it. How did you keep it from doing the same to you?" Steph stared down into the darkness, and lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "I know what he wants. All he's ever wanted, really." Dana leaned in. "What?" Steph jerked her head, smashing the back of her skull into Dana's face. As her boss screamed, she turned and wrenched the shotgun from her hands, lifting it and using the stock like a club on her shoulder. "Help." She kicked shut the cellar door. "He just wanted some help." "You stupid little twat." Dana fell to her knees, her hands trying to staunch the streams of blood from her nose as she glared up at her. "You have

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no idea what you're dealing with here. I told you, that thing kills everything it touches. It's a monster." "No, that would be you." Steph hit her again with the shotgun, knocking her out, and then dragged her into the empty pantry. Once she had locked Dana inside she hurried back down the hall. In the reception room Steph found Yet standing over the body of the caretaker. His chest wound had vanished, but that wasn't what made her eyes bulge. All the coiled clusters on Yet's body had unwound and snaked out from his skin in hundreds of glowing, whip-like tentacles. The warm light emanating from them came from within, and throbbed like a heartbeat. Some of the eerie appendages had attached to the skin on Franklin's face, neck and hands, which were frosted over with ice crystals. What had Yet said? They wake before me. Always hungry. As Yet saw her he released the old man, and the tentacles drew back into his body, coiling up again under his skin. On some level Steph should have felt repulsed, even horrified, but she hadn't taken a shotgun blast to the chest. She also didn't see a monster in Yet's eyes. "Are you okay?" "Yes." He glanced down at the dead man and then past her into the hall. "Dana?" "I knocked her out and locked her up in the kitchen." Steph tossed aside the gun. "I'll call the police, but you have to get out of here right now. There

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are mountains about a mile in that direction." She pointed to show him. "You'll be safer if you go there." "Go there. Yes." He moved across the room to stand before her, and held out his hand. "We go there." She began to reach for it, and then let her arm fall. "I can't. I'm not like you, Yet. He . . . " She stopped and briefly closed her eyes. "Yeti. That's what Magnus meant. You're a Yeti." He shrugged. "You like me. They make." "No one made me like you. I just do." When he shook his head, she did take his hand. "I also know that you had no reason to trust me, not after what Magnus and Franklin and Dana did. So thank you for not hurting me, and healing me. You saved my life." "We save we." Yet turned his head toward the windows and then scooped her up in his arms. "Sun. Show you." Steph almost laughed as he carried her out of the house. "I've seen it before, you know." But he hadn't, not for a very long time, so she didn't resist. Despite all the gruesome events of the night, seeing the dark sky turning purple, then scarlet and orange made her feel better. She'd survived to live another day, and so would he. Yet carefully set her down on her feet, and as he did she noticed a fine transparent fuzz springing up on his arms, chest and face. As the sun rose and bathed them both in warm cheddary light, the spun-glass hair began to grow visibly longer, until it covered every inch of Yet's skin.

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"Your hair grows really fast," Steph murmured, running her fingers over the new growth. It might have looked like glass, but it was the softest thing she'd ever touched. "Fur," he said, stepping back and turning a little. As he did the transparent hairs began taking on the colors of the hedge and trees and ground behind him, until the camouflage effect caused him to virtually disappear from view. "Wow." Steph grinned. "That's amazing." It also explain why no one had ever been able to take a photograph of a Yeti. He took a step toward her and his fur returned to its glassy state before it receded into his skin, vanishing entirely. "You like me." "I do like you." Her delight fizzled into regret. "I wish I could help you get back to your own mountains, but I'm not sure how I could manage it. I don't think anyone will issue a passport for a Yeti, not even Switzerland." "Stay." He gestured toward the mountains in the distance before he gave her a direct look. "Come." His golden eyes and skin had lightened to a silvery shade that absorbed and reflected color like his fur. When he looked at the horizon, Steph saw the sunrise fill his face with light and color. "I can't go with you. I have to tell the police about the people Dana and Franklin killed." "You like me."

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"Of course I do, but--" She caught her breath as he lifted her hand into the sunlight. Beneath the fine, transparent hairs growing out of her skin were tiny, tightly-coiled clusters atop each knuckle. Yet touched her neck, and the contact made the new growth of the webbing there arch outward. "You like me now." # Steph returned to the kitchen to use the phone there to call the police. Instead of telling them everything, she reported finding two dead bodies and a woman who seemed deranged. When the dispatcher asked for her name, Steph hung up, and then unlocked opened the pantry door. "That was smart," Dana said without opening her eyes, her voice thick and ugly. "They'll blame me for what that freak did. I'm innocent, but the truth say will only make me sound crazy enough to do it." "You think you're innocent?" Steph felt a strange, cold sensation in her chest as she regarded her former boss. "You and Franklin murdered Magnus Chandler, killed two other people and kept Yet locked up like an animal. If not for him I would died down there, too." "That thing is an animal, and you're . . . " her boss's voice trailed off as she stared up at her. "Stephanie, my God. Your hair -- what did it do to you?" She glanced at her dim reflection in the kitchen window, and saw her hair had turned transparent, like spun glass -- like Yet's. "He saved me, Dana. After everything you and Franklin and Magnus did to him, he should have

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killed me. But he's not a thing, or an animal, or a vampire. He's just different." "That's what he wants you to think. It's part of the infection." Dana's tone softened. "Steph, I can help you. He's tried to turn someone before, and Magnus came up with an antidote. I know where it is. We can stop the change before it's too late." She was lying, Steph thought. She could see it in her boss's eyes, and even more strange, smell it in the air. Her senses were shifting and changing; now she could see the heat rising from Dana's head like a yellow cloud, and taste the sour wine of the other woman's concealed hatred and anger and greed. Something else was happening, too; all over her body her skin twitched and rippled, as if something beneath it wanted to get out. Always hungry. "There's no antidote for this." Steph crouched down to look into her eyes. "But you'd say anything to get me to trust you again. What's the plan now, Dana? Do you want to put me in a cage and sell me, too?" "Stephanie." Yet appeared beside her, and drew her to her feet. "Go now." "Wherever you two go," Dana said, her eyes bright with pain and malice, "I will find you. I swear to God, I will find you and lock you up and make sure you suffer for--" Yet reached out with one long arm, clamped his hand around Dana's throat, and made a single jerking motion. Her eyes bulged as the sound of

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bones snapping cracked in the air, and then her head sagged and she went still. "Not this time," Steph murmured as Yet released the dead woman. Knowing what Dana would have done to them both outweighed the shock of seeing Yet kill the woman with a flick of his wrist. It also made getting him out of here even more imperative. "Yet, the police will be here soon, but before we go we should go get more clothes for you. I want to see if there is anything about you in the lab, too. We have to hurry, though." Yet nodded, and followed her down into the cellar. He stopped at the doorway to the lab behind the stairs, his features tightening as he looked inside the white room. Steph couldn't blame him for his reaction, not when he'd spent so many years confined and being tortured in the awful space. "It's okay. I'll do it." Removing the jacket and shirt from the appraiser's corpse was unpleasant, but discovering the massive database the laptop computer was even worse. Magnus had kept extensive files on all the experiments he had done on Yet, along with videos and audio recordings. Deleting them would take several hours, and there was nothing in the lab she could use to completely destroy the laptop's hard drive. She unplugged it and brought it and the clothing out to Yet. "We have to take this with us, or they'll find out about you and all what Magnus did to you. I'll have to delete everything, or maybe find a big magnet I can use to wipe the hard drive."

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Yet took the computer from her and flattened his hands on the outsides. A moment later it was encased in a thick layer of ice, and when Yet took his hands away it fell to the concrete floor, where it smashed like glass. Steph surveyed the small, ice-coated remains of the laptop. "That works, too." # Although Dana's Mercedes would have been a better car for their trip into the mountains, Steph didn't want to leave behind any evidence that she had been there, so she led Yet out to her Ford. His size was a real problem, however. Even moving the passenger seat back as far as she could barely created enough space for him to get into the car, and once he did he immediately climbed back out again. She could hear sirens in the distance and frowned. "Look, I know it's a tight squeeze but--" she stopped as Yet leaned in and pulled the passenger seat out of the car. "Okay, maybe not." After stowing the seat in the trunk, Yet climbed in and sat on the back seat, stretching out his long legs until his feet touched the floorboards under the dash. "Better." Steph started the car and drove down to the access road, where she took a right turn toward the mountains. At the same time she turned on her GPS. "We'll need to find a place to lay low for a while. There isn't much up there except for some old hunting cabins and one little town in the pass." "Pass." Yet leaned forward. "What is pass?"

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"It's the place between two mountains, where you can pass between them," Steph said as she used one hand to program the GPS. "The town is named after it, too. It's called Frenchman's Pass." Yet peered at the mountain range ahead. "People there?" "Yes, so we can't stay in town," Steph admitted. "But I'm sure we can find an empty cabin in the woods to use for a couple of days. It'll keep us safe and out of sight while we figure out what to do next." Yet touched her shoulder. "We safe now, Stephanie." So they were -- but for how long, she didn't know. "I hope so."