Ice Queen (Tess Skye Book 5), page 1
ICE QUEEN
TESS SKYE (BOOK 5)
D.N. ERIKSON
Copyright © 2022 D.N. Erikson. All rights reserved.
Published by Watchfire Press.
This book is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual events, places, persons or other entities are coincidental.
Watchfire Press
www.watchfirepress.com
www.dnerikson.com
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Ice Queen/D.N. Erikson. – 1st ed.
v1.2
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
ONE
“You’ll have to make friends with the media one of these days, Tess.” Captain Victor Amato slams the door to his Mercedes sedan and starts heading across the back lot toward the Ragnarok precinct. His dirty blonde hair flutters in the stormy breeze.
“I don’t really need any new friends right now,” I say as I walk beside him.
“Allies, then.”
“Not after last time.”
He glances over at me from behind his wayfarer-style shades but says nothing.
There’s really nothing to be said, after all. My first—and to date, last—press conference addressing my recently revealed Soulwalking abilities went less than smoothly. I’d been confident as I’d stood there on the steps, Finn and Ella behind me, awaiting the first question.
Then it had slithered out from somewhere in the back. From a nervous voice barely loud enough to cut through the electric hum of the crowd. But the shaky words were tinged with accusatory venom.
Why’d you hide all this time when you could have been helping more people?
To which I’d responded with you don’t know who I’ve been fucking helping.
Things had gone downhill from there.
I bite my lip and crane my neck upward toward the gray, shaking the memory off. Dark clouds lurk above, threatening to open up at any time. The temperature has dropped from sweltering to merely sweaty as the final days of summer wind down. We’re sneaking into the station through the utility entrance, so as to avoid from the throng of media vultures buzzing around the front stairs, waiting to descend upon me.
The dying days of summer have also marked the death of my privacy.
A couple weeks back, I thought I’d been getting a lot of publicity. There’d been ample media coverage about my investigatory exploits relating to Emmy Davis and Reg Samuels. As a result, I’d had mail and requests for interviews stacked high in my office.
Turns out I had no fucking idea what actual publicity was.
But I sure as hell found out when the article dropped: “Bringing Back the Dead: A New Creature Revealed,” by none other than Brandon Eagleson, famed journalist who broke the story of the Great Reveal forty years ago.
And while nothing could measure up to the societal impact of finding out vampires, werewolves, and the like were real—and living among humans, no less—discovering that I could reanimate the dead wasn’t that far behind on the public’s oh shit scale.
Suffice to say, the last two weeks had been completely and utterly insane—for me and anyone caught in my remote orbit.
This is my life now: celebrity detective.
I’ve had TV show offers—both reality and scripted. Someone apparently had even optioned the rights to an article written about me: “Beneath the Soulwalker.”
Catchy name.
But complete tabloid bullshit.
Then there’d been the thousands of emails and calls offering ungodly sums to speak with dead loved ones. Almost as many requests on cold cases across the country—both from private parties and local governments.
Reporters had staked out the office, precinct, my apartment. It was relentless.
And I’m anything but prepared.
That ill-fated impromptu press conference had taught me one important lesson, though: when journalists smelled blood in the water, they’d spit you up and chew you out until there was nothing left but bone meal.
So I was giving reporters a wide berth until further notice.
At least no one had tried to kidnap me or force me to do anything nefarious yet. But that day could come again. Which was why I was walking around strapped 24/7.
Victor stops by the department’s utility entrance and leans against the faded brick, raising a leg to rest a sandaled foot on the nearby railing. In his khaki shorts and polo shirt, he cuts a visage closer to an oceanfront bartender than a police captain.
“Allies could help you put out fires like this.” He thumbs across his phone’s screen and then tilts the device toward me so I can see the webpage.
The headline shouts “Hellraiser Primadonna Ex-Cop Tells Reporters to Go F*** Themselves at Press Conference.”
“Come on, that’s not even accurate.” I’m looking at a picture of myself on the apartment stairs flipping two double birds, scowling like a drunken rock star at the media gathered on the tree-lined sidewalk below.
Ella and Finn, slightly out of focus in the background of the shot, both look like they want to crawl into a hole and die.
Victor raises an eyebrow as if to say oh really. “Can I offer you a word of advice, Tess?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve just been doing?”
He adjusts the shades but doesn’t take them off. They might as well be permanently attached to the brim of his nose for how often I’ve seen him without them. “You don’t get to choose every game life has you play.”
I squat down and pretend to adjust the cuff of my jeans over my boot. My Glock’s holster digs into the bottom of my ribcage as I crinkle the denim.
Really, I’m just trying to think of a witty response that will show him everything is okay.
That I’m handling my newfound fame well.
That I’m prepared for the shitstorm that’s been unceremoniously dumped on my doorstep.
But an awkward silence punctuated only by the low rumble of distant thunder—and the faint chatter of the media throng on the other side of the precinct—grows as I come up completely blank.
I brush a nonexistent bit of dirt off the toe of my boot before getting up with a long, exasperated sigh. Peering right at Victor’s shades I say, “Then what exactly do I get to choose about this particular game?”
“Just how well you play it.”
“That might be tough.” I scowl at him. “Aren’t you the one who told me a couple weeks ago that I have some rough edges that need sanding out?”
Victor grins and scratches his deeply tanned arm. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”
“Oh, it wasn’t just that. I seem to remember some other gems, too. Loose-cannon. Liability. Decent detective, but replaceable.”
“Well, you did break into my condo and try to talk with my dog.”
“You said all those things before I did that.” I realize as the words exit my mouth that this doesn’t actually constitute an effective rebuttal to his point.
“I’m a student of human behavior.” He shrugs, the lightly gray-flecked stubble gracing his chin twisting as he smiles ever so slightly. “Everyone has patterns.”
“Exactly.” I jerk my thumb toward the noise bubbling from the front of the station. “And given those patterns, you really want me in front of the press without media training?”
“See, now you’re catching on.” He sets his foot back on the ground and reaches for the handle. “Getting trained would be playing the game.”
“I’m not a dog, you know.”
“I know you’re not.” He pauses and turns around. “Even if you do occasionally try to interrogate them.”
Touché.
“So about this media training?”
“Already scheduled it in for tomorrow,” he says. “It’s in your consulting contract that the department will pay for it.”
“And what about an apology?” I ask.
“For?” The smile briefly fades.
“Being a dick.”
“Are you going to apologize for breaking into my place?” The grin returns.
“I didn’t take anything.”
His brow furrows. “Not sure that defense would hold up in court.”
“Then cuff me, big shot.” I hold out my arms and twist my wrists skyward.
“Let me ask you something.” He drums his fingers on the door handle. “Was my assessment wrong?
“Well, given that I can plumb the depths of the dead’s souls, I think decent and replaceable were incorrect. And hurtful.”
“You don’t strike me as the sensitive type, Tess.”
“I’m full of surprises.” I feign a pouty face, but he’s not buying it.
I think I’m less insulted than worried.
Worried that he might’ve been right.
But hell if I’m going to tell him that.
“I did say that your abilities elevated your utility.” A cold blast of air rushes outside as he flings the utility door open. Or maybe that’s just the harsh truth slapping me in the face. “Shall we?”
We stare at one another.
Him in his khaki shorts and polo, looking ready to rent out a cabana on an exotic beach.
Me, half-prepared to make an impulsive decision and hold The Tess Conference: Redux. Right now.
What could possibly go wrong? Besides everything.
Even if we’ve only been working together for a few weeks, I must be predictable because when I don’t move toward the door Victor says, “Do what you gotta do, Tess.”
I narrow my gaze. “Reverse psychology won’t work here.”
“If you want to self-immolate because I told you my honest opinion a couple weeks ago, then go ahead. But you should know two things.” He holds up two fingers to illustrate.
“Which are?”
“One, I might be wrong.” Then he removes the shades. His eyes lock with mine, the deep scar below his right eye scrunching up as he squints from the dim sunlight fighting its way through the gray sky. “And two, even if I’m right, people change every day.”
“Is that so?”
“I did.” He puts the shades back on. “I’ll be down in the morgue with Jenkins.” Then he slips inside the precinct and the utility door slams shut, leaving me alone.
Victor does shit like that. Says his piece, then that’s it.
His lack of interest in conflict is irritating. Just pure efficiency in the dogged pursuit of results. Admittedly, it’s been working—for him and the department. The clearance rate around here has gone through the roof since he came aboard. He’ll make Ragnarok PD into an exemplary model of policing yet.
Probably because he doesn’t get down in the mud with anyone.
He lays out the facts as he sees them. Then he lets everyone make their own decisions.
And deal with their own consequences.
I swivel my head toward the media chatter floating in from the building’s front.
I imagine the scene: annoyed, unprepared. Answering questions as they come in. Raw. Unfiltered.
So, Tess, do you have any comments about your conduct a couple weeks ago?
Me: Yes. I stand by it, 100%. You guys are assholes.
I shake loose from my thoughts. Yeah, that approach isn’t gonna win me any friends.
So I make the smart decision and head inside. The fresh, cool breeze of the AC brushes against my sweaty cheeks. Even in the death throes of summer on an overcast day, the California heat is no joke.
I wind my way through the back corridors and head down to the basement. Thoughts continue to bounce around my head as I head down the dimly lit hall. The chemical scents of formaldehyde and ammonia slap my nostrils as I push into the morgue.
Inside, Victor and Jenkins the pathologist both stand near the room’s sole steel slab.
A funereal silence hangs over the frigid room as the door slams shut.
“So, uh, who died in here, huh?” I ask, trying to bring some levity to the situation.
No one cracks a smile. And instead of answering, they both just step away from the slab.
And then I see. There’s no body. Just a congealed mass of melted fluid.
And Victor says, “She’s back.”
“Who’s back?”
“The Ice Queen.”
TWO
I’d like to claim that the Ice Queen moniker rang an instant bell, conjuring up news footage or crime scene photos or snippets of magical history. But perhaps this lack of recognition was just a symptom of one being merely decent at their chosen profession, as Victor had so deftly established just a few weeks prior,
I lean against the cold tile wall and shove my hands into my jeans. The buzzy fluorescent lights cast a harsh high wattage bloom over the concrete floors. The row of three cold chambers along the wall directly across from me gleam. Tucked in the corner next to them is Jenkins’ cluttered desk. A half-eaten sandwich sits perched atop a cascading mountain of paperwork, tomatoes spilling onto the underlying files.
Not surprising—either the mess or the meal. Jenkins isn’t what I’d call the most organized guy. And it’s a little past noon. There’s little doubt we interrupted his lunch.
Victor and Jenkins stand silently near the gelatinous blob of melted bone, cartilage, and blood pooling on the stainless steel slab. The silence strikes me as odd. I find it hard to believe that somehow this is the moment where we’ve finally hit unprecedented waters.
“One guy turns to soup and you guys lose your fucking minds, huh?” I mouth boom and gesture like my head is exploding.
“You don’t understand, Tess,” Victor replies, the annunciation of each syllable deliberate, like he’s reciting a script for a radio spot.
“I don’t understand why I’m here if I can’t Soulwalk.” I gesture toward the slop adorning the autopsy table. “Unless you’re thinking…”
The unspoken question lingers in air without an immediate answer.
I mean, it was true that I’d Soulwalked in a headless corpse just weeks ago. I’d been shunted away into the decapitated head, in a completely different part of Ragnarok, for a brief but painful interlude. So it wasn’t like Soulwalking in a pile of bones and blood was guaranteed to be impossible. Looking at the pool of melted sinew at the table, though, I could only imagine what that experience might entail.
I’d bent the rules of time and space before with my Soulwalks and experienced some pretty weird shit. Even survived to tell the tale—with my mental faculties intact, no less.
But I’m not exactly eager to test the limits further.
“No.” Victor adjusts the shades as he finally answers the question.
“It still counts toward my contract if I don’t, right?” I had five cases left on my consulting deal.
“It counts,” Victor says. “If you close the case.”
“Close it?” I ask, folding my arms. “And who determines that?”
“Me.” Victor removes his hands from his khaki shorts. “Is that going to be an issue?”
“Did I close the last one?”
Not that I was trying to get out of the deal. I’d just signed it, after all. But I guess part of me wanted the credit.
“The Ferryman?” Something that’s not quite a smile creases his lip. “Rather definitively.”
“Just wanted to know if I should be on the lookout for technicalities.”
It’s at this point that Jenkins clears his throat.
We both turn our attention toward the broad-shouldered pathologist, built more like a linebacker than a doctor.
“I hate to interrupt this scintillating banter,” he says. “But you both came down here for my autopsy report.”
“It’s a bit early for dinner with the wife, Jenkins,” I say. “And I can already see you’re eating lunch alone today.”
“Because you two have me working on this.” He spreads a gloved hand out toward the mess covering the slab.
“I have nothing to do with the assignments.” I hold my hands up in faux surrender. “That’s the boss man’s purview.”
“Nonetheless, I’ve been here all morning.”
“A great tragedy, having to do your job.”
He rolls his gray eyes hard. “Why would I ever want to spend time with Laura when I can have your sparkling wit as company?”
