Scorched Ice (Fire and Ice #3)(47)
Daring to poke her head out around the corner of the building, she spotted Chris plastered against the wall next to the door and Vern on the other corner of the cabin. Blood trickled from the bolt in Vern’s thigh, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.
The porch they’d been standing on all night was nothing but a shredded mess of broken boards and wood splinters. Parts of the porch roof had at least a hundred bolts embedded into it. Some sections of the roof had been completely torn away. Despite all the destruction, enough of the porch remained that she couldn’t see what was hidden beneath it. More bolts were embedded in the walls of the garage across the way and the trees surrounding them.
Quinn gulped and ducked back. If those bolts had all unleashed last night, they would have been dead, but then Herb would have given away his hiding place to the vamps in the woods. Cassie and Devon wouldn’t have left here until they’d managed to flush the rat from his hole.
Herb must have something rigged beneath the porch to release so many bolts simultaneously like that. “How many more bolts do you think he has rigged like that?” she asked Julian.
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
The sun would soon be breaching the distant mountains; they didn’t have much time left. If Herb wasn’t able to travel under the cabin too, they might be able to go around the back and head for the woods there, or they could be making themselves wide open targets by doing so.
Even if they all made it to the woods, they would have to leave Devon, Chris, Melissa, Lou, Dani, and Luther here to guard Herb. The idea of leaving her friends alone to face Herb made her stomach churn.
Quinn glanced at the sky as a pinkish hue crept over the mountains in the distance. They only had fifteen minutes at most before the rays of the sun reached them. The anxiety rolling through her belly now had nothing to do with the rat they’d uncovered and everything to do with the rising sun. They had to get out of here, soon.
Julian glanced at the garage and then at the ruined sides of the porch. “I have a plan,” he said to her. “Stay here.”
“Julian!” she cried, but he was already moving across the yard and to the garage with enough speed that he became a blur.
When he entered an area where he had to cross in front of the porch in order to get to the garage doors, three more bolts released. He dodged the first two and sprinted into the garage as the third embedded itself in the door right where his head would have been. Quinn’s fangs lengthened as bloodlust rolled forth. She’d happily tear the throat out of this bastard.
Then, her eyes fell to her feet and the wooden siding of the house behind her. Keeping her back to the cabin, she inched her feet away from the house at the thought of Herb being able to travel underneath it.
She tried to control the crushing feeling gripping her chest as she waited for bolts to explode out of the wood and into her ankles. Or worse, for an arm to slide out and slice her Achilles tendon with a knife. She’d seen that happen in a movie once; not only had it made her wince to watch, but it was a scene she’d never forget. Sweat beaded on her brow as she became increasingly certain something was about to explode out of the foundation behind her.
Her eyes darted between her vulnerable feet and the garage as she waited for Julian to come back. What if Herb had set up a trap in the garage too that they had missed? What if Julian was in trouble right now? The wood beneath her fingers broke away from the cabin when her fingers tore into it.
Just as she was about to launch herself away from the wall and run for the garage, Julian reemerged from the building with chains draped around his shoulders. He ran in a zigzagging pattern, dodging the bolts firing at him as he raced back to her. She wanted to strangle him when he arrived at her side; instead she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
“Don’t do that again!” she scolded.
He kissed her cheek and then her ear before stepping back from her. She watched as he pulled the chains from around his neck and removed a blowtorch from inside of his jacket. “Blowtorch is the last resort,” he said. “For all we know, we could burn this whole place down and whatever Herb is hiding in could withstand it. We need to uncover him, which means getting rid of the porch.”
He leaned cautiously out to wrap the chain around the railing of the porch.
“It will collapse on him,” she whispered.
“Maybe not if I go fast enough,” he said.
“You can’t expose yourself to him again.”
“We have no choice. I’m not taking the chance of him escaping,” Julian replied as he took the rest of the chain and threw it across the remains of the porch to Vern. “Wrap some of it around that beam and throw the rest back to me,” Julian commanded.
Vern inched his way out to snatch the chain from where the end of it had fallen on the shredded top stair. The chain rattled as he twisted it around a beam before tossing the rest of it back to Julian.
“We don’t have much time, Boss,” he said to Julian when the chain crashed against the railing inches away from Julian.
“I know,” he replied, but she knew he wouldn’t leave here until it became absolutely necessary.
Quinn’s gaze went to the vampires in the woods. Surprise filled her when she saw all of them still standing there. She’d expected most of them to have fled between the hundreds of crossbow bolts and the rising sun, but they seemed determined to follow this through for as long as they could. Devon had moved forward to stand at the front of the group with Cassie close behind him.