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.

30

Winner Winner

Bloodletter’s

Dinner

It seems like only a few minutes before Jaxon stops again, but when I glance at my cell phone, I realize that another hour has gone by. That means that if we traveled at the same speed we did during the first half of the trip, we must be about five hundred miles from Katmere.

“We’re here,” Jaxon says, but I figured as much. It’s in the tightness of his mouth, the sudden tenseness of his shoulders.

I look around, try to find the ice cave where we’re supposed to meet the Bloodletter, but all I see is mountain in every direction. Mountain and snow. Then again, I’m not exactly an expert on ice caves.

“Is there anything I need to know?” I ask when he takes my hand, starts to lead me closer to the base of the mountain.

“Honestly, there’s so much you need to know that I’m not sure where to start.”

I laugh at first, because I think he’s joking, but a quick glance at his face tells me that I’ve misread the situation. In response, the ball of tension in my stomach gets just a little tighter.

“Maybe the abbreviated version?” I suggest as we come to another sudden stop, this time right in front of two giant piles of snow.

“I don’t know how much good it’ll do, but I can try.” He shakes his head, runs a gloved hand up and down his thigh in the most nervous gesture I’ve ever seen from him as the silence goes on and on and on. I’ve just about decided that he’s changed his mind, that he’s not going to tell me anything, when Jaxon says in a voice that’s more wind than whisper, “Don’t get too close to her. Don’t try to shake her hand when you meet her. Don’t—”

He breaks off, and this time he runs a palm over his face instead of his thigh and, though it blends in with the howl of a nearby wolf, I swear I hear him say, “This is never going to work.”

“You don’t know that,” I answer.

His head snaps up, and this time the obsidian gaze he focuses on me is like nothing I’ve ever seen from him. Silver flames dance in the depths of his eyes, and there is a mountain of despair there as well as a host of other emotions that I don’t recognize or understand.

“You realize she’s a vampire, right?”

“Of course.” I don’t know where he’s going with this, but they were pretty clear back at the library.

“If she hasn’t eaten in a while,” Jaxon says, mouth twisted in a grimace I could never have missed, “she’ll probably have a food source there.”

“A food source?” I repeat. “You mean a human?”

“Yeah.” He swallows hard. “I want you to know that I don’t do what she does. I don’t feed from people the way she does. I don’t—”