29

I’m Too Sexy for
My Coat…and So
Is Everyone Else

“Nice coat,” Jaxon says when he sees me thirty minutes later, and the painfully tight line of his mouth curves upward.

I’m dressed in about six layers to protect me from the wilderness—including a hot-pink puffer coat that predators can probably see from fifty miles away—but when Macy proudly laid it on my bed, I didn’t have the heart, or the energy, to say no.

“Don’t start,” I say, then look him over for something to make fun of as well. Of course, there’s nothing. He’s dressed head to toe in all-black winter wear and he looks good, really good. Nothing at all like an escapee from a cotton-candy factory.

As we walk down the front steps of the school, I expect to see a snowmobile parked at the bottom of them. But there’s nothing, and I look at Jaxon in confusion, even as I duck my face a little deeper into the wool scarf that covers me from cheekbone to chest.

“The temperature is going to drop at least twenty degrees in the next couple of hours,” he tells me as he pulls me close. “I don’t want you out here any longer than you have to be.”

“Yeah, but won’t a snowmobile help with that?” I ask. I mean, it’s got to be better than hiking, right?

But Jaxon just laughs. “A snowmobile will only slow us down.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to fade.”

“Fade?” I have no idea what that means, but it doesn’t sound particularly appealing. Then again, what about this situation is appealing? Visiting an ancient vampire and hoping she doesn’t kill us? Living with a psychopath inside my head? Having no memory of the last four months?

Screw it. Whatever fading is, whatever Jaxon has in mind, has got to be better than anything else we’re dealing with right now.

Which is why I just nod when Jaxon explains that fading is a vampire thing and it involves moving very, very fast from one place to another.

I start to ask how fast is fast, but does it matter? As long as we get to the Bloodletter and figure out what to do about Hudson before he decides to turn my life into a fictional TV show called Bodysnatched, we could swim to the Bloodletter’s cave and I wouldn’t care.

“So what exactly do I need to do?” I ask as Jaxon moves in front of me.

“I pick you up in my arms,” he answers, “and then you hang on tight.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. Almost romantic, even.

Jaxon leans forward and sweeps me off my feet, one arm under my shoulders and the other under my knees. Once I’m safely balanced in his arms, he looks down at me and winks. “Ready?”

Not even close. I give him a thumbs-up. “Yeah, absolutely.”

“Hang on!” he warns, then waits until I wrap both my arms around his neck as tightly as I can.

Once I do, he shoots me a grin. And then he starts to run.

Except it’s not like any running I’ve ever experienced before. In fact, it’s not like running at all. If I had to guess, it’s more like we’re disappearing from one place to the next in rapid succession, too fast for me to get my bearings on the new location before we disappear again.

It’s strange and terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time, and I hold on as hard as I can, afraid of what will happen if I let go, even though Jaxon has his arms gripping me tightly against his chest.

As he fades again and again, I keep trying to think, trying to focus on what I want to say to the Bloodletter or how I can lock Hudson out of my mind, but we’re going so fast that real thinking is impossible. Instead, there’s only instinct and the most basic follow-through of thought.

It’s the strangest feeling in the world. And also one of the most freeing.

I don’t have a clue how long we’ve been traveling when Jaxon finally stops at the top of a mountain. He sets me down slowly, which I’m grateful for, since my legs suddenly feel like rubber.

“Are we there?” I ask, looking around for a cave entrance.

Jaxon grins and, not for the first time, I realize how nice it is that Jaxon doesn’t have to cover every inch of exposed skin the way I do when we’re outside. I like being able to see his face, like even more being able to gauge his reaction to my words. “I wanted to show you the view. And I thought you might like a break.”

“A break? We’ve only been moving a few minutes.”

His grin becomes a laugh. “It’s been more like an hour and a half. And we’ve gone almost three hundred miles.”

“Three hundred miles? But that means we’ve been traveling at close to—”

“Two hundred miles an hour, yeah. Fading is more than just movement. I don’t know how to describe it; it’s kind of like flying—without a body. Every vampire starts practicing it at a young age, but I was always very, very good at it.” He looks like a little kid, absurdly proud of himself.

“That’s…incredible.” No wonder I was having such a hard time holding on to images and thoughts as Jaxon faded. We weren’t so much moving as bending reality.

As I turn all this information over in my head, I can’t help thinking about a book I read in seventh grade, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In it, he talks about people driving cars superfast on the regular highways—like 130 miles an hour fast—and the government condoning it, because it keeps people from thinking. They have to concentrate on driving, and not dying, to the exclusion of everything else.

It felt a little like that when Jaxon was fading. Like everything else in my life, even the bad stuff, just disappeared, leaving only the most basic survival instincts in its place. I know Bradbury meant his book to be a warning, but fading is so cool that I can’t help wondering how Jaxon feels about it.

I wonder if it feels for him the way it did for me, or if vampires are more able to handle it because they’re built to go those kinds of speeds. I almost ask him, but he seems happy—really happy—and I don’t want to ruin that with questions that might be hard to answer.

So I don’t say anything at all, at least not until Jaxon turns me around and I get to see the view from the very top of this very tall mountain. And it is breathtaking. Massive peaks as far as the eye can see, miles upon miles of snow packed onto the tops and sides of mountains in a kind of frozen wonderland made even more precious by the fact that we really might be the only two people to ever stand here.

It’s an awe-inspiring feeling…and a humbling one, which only grows as astronomical twilight closes in around us, turning the world to a faint purple.

The aurora borealis isn’t out yet, but some of the stars are, and seeing them against this gorgeous, seemingly never-ending horizon helps put everything I’m going through in perspective. I can’t help comparing what one human life—one human’s problems—is in contrast to all this, just like I can’t help wondering, for the very first time, what immortality feels like. I mean, I know what I feel when I’m standing here. Small, insignificant, finite. But what does someone like Jaxon feel, not only with the knowledge that he can climb—and conquer—this impossible mountain in minutes, but also with the knowledge that he will be here as long as this mountain is.

I can’t imagine what that feels like.

I don’t know how long we stand there staring off into the ever-darkening distance. Long enough for Jaxon’s arms to creep around me and for me to relax against him.

Long enough for the last little bit of sun to sink down below the mountains.

More than long enough for the cold to seep in.

Jaxon notices my first shiver and pulls away reluctantly. I know how he feels. Right now, I’d be okay with spending eternity up here on this mountain, just him and me and this incredible feeling of peace. I haven’t experienced anything like it since before my parents died. And maybe not even then.

Peace can’t last with Hudson inside you, a voice in the back of my head says, shattering the feeling of contentment. Could it be my gargoyle side again, warning me? I wonder. Obviously Hudson wouldn’t warn me about himself.

Another question for my research, I decide, if my life ever slows down enough for me to actually get some done. Which reminds me, I need to set aside some time when I get back to Katmere to review the notes on gargoyles that Hudson apparently took. Another shiver races down my spine as I wonder what he was looking for about me.

“We need to go,” Jaxon says, unzipping my backpack and pulling out a stainless-steel bottle of water. “But you need to drink something before we do. These altitudes can be brutal.”

“Even on gargoyles?” I tease, leaning in to him again because it feels right.

“Especially on gargoyles.” He smirks as he holds the bottle out to me.

I drink, more because Jaxon is standing there watching me than because I’m actually thirsty. It’s a small thing, not worth arguing about, especially when he knows more about this climate than I do. The last thing I need is to add dehydration on top of everything else going on inside me right now.

“Can I have a granola bar?” I ask when I hand him the bottle to put back in my pack.

“Sure,” he says, digging in the backpack to find me one.

After chewing a few bites, I ask, “How long until we get to the Bloodletter’s cave?”

Jaxon lifts me into his arms again, considers it. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not we run into any bears.”

“Bears?” I squeak, because nobody said anything about bears. “Aren’t they still hibernating?”

“It’s March,” he answers.

“What does that mean?”

When he doesn’t answer, I poke him in the shoulder. “Jaxon! What does that mean?”

He shoots me a wicked grin. “It means we’ll see.”

I poke him again. “What about—”

He takes off, full fade, before I can finish the thought, and then it’s just Jaxon and me flying down the side of a mountain. Well, Jaxon, me, and, apparently, a bunch of bears.

I so didn’t sign up for this.