SURVIVAL (Fire & Ice Book 2) Read online

  Survival

  Book Two in the Fire & Ice Series

  By

  Karen Payton Holt

  Copyright - Karen Payton Holt: 2018

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author, except for ‘brief quotations’ as part of articles of critique or review.

  No part of this publication may be circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  The story is a work of fiction.

  All characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Think ‘Twilight’ meets ‘Game of Thrones’, with a dark twist, and you are in the right mindset to enter the world of Fire & Ice.

  AVAILABLE NOW:

  BOOK ONE in the Series:

  Fire & Ice: Awakening

  Available in Paperback on Amazon

  Paperback and Hardback available in bookstores:

  A5 Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996614-0-3

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-9996614-1-0

  FREE on Amazon Kindle Unlimited

  This is BOOK TWO in the Series:

  Fire & Ice: Survival

  Available in Paperback on Amazon

  Paperback and Hardback available in bookstores:

  A5 Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996614-2-7

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-9996614-3-4

  FREE on Amazon Kindle Unlimited

  Watch This Space, up VERY soon,

  Fire & Ice Prequel: Death of Connor Sanderson

  Available in Paperback on Amazon

  Paperback and Hardback available in bookstores:

  A5 Paperback ISBN 978-1-9996614-8-9

  Hardback ISBN 978-1-9996614-9-6

  FREE on Amazon Kindle Unlimited

  Three upcoming releases are:

  BOOK THREE: Earth Walker

  BOOK FOUR: Heart of Stone

  BOOK FIVE: Invasion

  For the latest news on the publishing dates visit my websites:

  karenpaytonholt.com

  Karen Payton Holt on Facebook.

  @karenpaytonholt on TWITTER.

  Our epic journey continues, and I hope you enjoy the book.

  This is my second novel and I welcome your support.

  Praise for Fire & Ice:

  A breathtaking novel series from an exciting new ‘dark fantasy’, horror/thriller writer – with an exceptional talent for detailed world-building and striking imagery.

  – DAREN KING, author of ‘Boxy an Star’ – longlisted for the Booker Prize.

  I dedicate this novel to the two people who believed in me.

  They drove me forward, and, at times, gave me a much-needed kick up the posterior.

  This is for my mum, Sylvia, and my friend of forty years, Steve.

  Fire & Ice: Survival

  WARNING: This book contains adult situations/themes.

  Chapter 1

  Doctor Connor kept the three humans in sight as they walked in single file through the woods. He swallowed down the venom which flooded his mouth when a gust of wind rattling through the leaves buffeted their scent into his face.

  Hell, they are downwind. Connor peeled off and swept the immediate area, until, where the trees were thickest, he stopped. If he had a beating heart it would have been in his mouth while he listened for others of his kind. This part of the woods was not a favorite haunt for the London Vampire Hive, but there was always the possibility of a lone hunter exploring further afield.

  Connor’s black garb blended into the shadow, and standing motionless brought its reward. The nocturnal scrabbling of the woodland creatures filled the air once more, believing the danger had passed.

  They were the perfect barometer. If a vampire approached, warm blooded prey instinctively froze or went to ground.

  Connor listened to the humans’ distant lumbering with growing ease. They were almost at the meeting point eight miles out, and Greg could take it from there. He is human, but the toughest specimen I’ve ever come across.

  He shot a glance at his watch. Five a.m. There were three hours left of the frosty winter’s night. Being unseen by humans was easy, for it was just a matter of stealth and speed, but when it came to his own kind, invisibility was more about smoke and mirrors. Connor’s vigil would last until dawn drove his brethren back into the shaded streets of the city. Until I know the humans are safe, I need the smokescreen of behaving like a vampire.

  Resigned to delivering a performance, and looking as though he was in the woods to hunt, he took a deep vampire breath to scent the air and chose a promising trajectory. He darted off between the trees. Skimming through the maze of rough bark in an effortless weaving motion, he picked out a path between obstacles as though the jet black on charcoal landscape was bathed in full sunlight.

  He was not hungry, except for sight of his Rebekah; to enfold her in his arms, delight in the pounding of her human heart, and feel the rushing tide of her adrenalin-drenched blood tingling beneath his aching kiss. For that, I am ravenous.

  Connor eased his powerful shoulders in frustration. The fabric of his shirt creaked as the threads fought to stay bonded over rock-hard muscles moving beneath firm skin. He hated hunting fully clothed, but the moonlight on his stark white complexion would be a beacon to other vampires. Stripping to a bare chest would be an invitation to hunt as a pack, and company was certainly not what he wanted.

  Tonight, he was playing the part of Doctor Connor, the dedicated surgeon, feeding on the run before returning to pull a double shift back at the vampire hospital. A far cry from my human days of saving life and limb. Now, it is just sun scorched vampire limbs.

  It was not always possible to hunt prey which offered exhilaration. Pumas and tigers could be found in the vampire safari park of Dartmoor, only three hundred miles away. But, sometimes, when a vampire could not spare the half hour it would take to get there and back, the deer herds roaming in the woodlands of the English countryside offered an acceptable substitute.

  Connor stood stock still, and despite himself, saliva flooded his mouth as he listened to a snuffling sound – the brushed-velvet snout of a male roe deer tore leaves from the shrubbery.

  He moved fast, and in a devastating blow which snapped the deer’s foreleg, Connor’s marble-hard chest slammed into its side. He snatched his prey out of the air in mid leap and crushed it to the ground, compressing the softly packed woodland floor into a biting mattress of sharp stones and twigs.

  This is no time for finesse. Connor closed a fist around the muzzle, shoved the deer’s chin up until he heard the tendons in its neck snap, and then tore out its throat. Blood gushed into the back of his own throat as the agitated heart rate reached a frenzied peak before the blood pressure died away.

  As he rose to his feet, the blood smeared across his bone-white skin settled in the hollows beneath his cheekbones, dressing his striking features in a macabre mask. Connor lifted his chin and embraced the tingle skittering through his limbs. The warm blood pooling in his lungs and stomach rampaged along his arterial system, swelling his vampire tissue to the point of saturation. He set off again, riding the wave of knowledge that he owed his formidable strength to a mortal frame which was turned when at its peak of physical fitness.

  Connor’s powerful fully fed stride took him a half mile through the woodlands in an instant. He followed the lullaby of rushing water playing over moss covered rocks to where a brook meandered through the trees. Without pause, he waded fully clothed into the tumbling waters. Falling to his knees and cupping his hands, he rinsed the stains of the hunt f
rom his skin. The fast-moving current beat his clothes against his hard body, releasing the blood in dark billowing clouds to race away downstream.

  Loping back through the undergrowth, he scraped his hands through sleek, wet, black hair. River water poured from his clothes. I am clean, at least. Knowing that once Greg had settled Leizle and Thomas in the new shelter, he would have double-timed it back through the familiar terrain alone, Connor headed out to meet him at the rendezvous.

  The chilled air was motionless as the woodlands thickened. The leaves of the canopy barely shuffled in the oppressive silence which accompanied Connor’s controlled movement. He carved a path towards the small chapel, and the pressure inside his chest eased when glints of the granite-gray structure flashed between the black picket of towering tree trunks. This time tomorrow, they will all be safe.

  Finding the chapel had been a blessing, and even Connor could barely believe his luck. It is perfect. Living on the knife edge of an impending attack from Vampire Councilor Serge and his guardsmen had taken its toll on the humans. So, finding a temporary hiding place while he and Julian excavated an approximation of their old eco-town dwelling, was a gift from God. Strange, that vampires and God should be on the same side. Creases etched into Connor’s perfect twenty-four-year-old face as, for a moment, he smiled.

  Inevitably, the catacombs beneath the chapel were eerie; the chambers provided the resting place to mounds of intricately placed bleached skulls and bones. Nothing could be done to render them anything less than terrible.

  Connor had erected wooden screens over the arched entryways, but the humans still knew the remains were there.

  Thankfully, Rebekah’s Uncle Harry had stepped up to the mark. He succeeded in managing the danger of jittery human heartbeats, making sure the group took their modified beta-blockers and applied pheromone suppressant spray on a strict regimen.

  The crumbling facade of the chapel came into view, and Connor heard slow measured breathing before his preternatural sight combed the shadows and discerned the outline of a human shape. Greg’s back. Connor took comfort from the mountain of human muscle standing guard.

  Rebekah’s group had survived the pandemic which wiped out most of the human race, but few could anticipate that they would face worse than that. But, Uncle Harry had seen the vampire invasion coming. Being a biochemist, his talent for innovation had extended to modifying drugs to alter human physiology. It gave the refugees a fighting chance of remaining undetected by the keen senses of vampires. But, when acting fast and getting out of London became crucial, Greg’s contribution had been make or break. That was where Greg had excelled.

  Once vampires broke cover, it took only weeks for the vampire councils to round up the dwindling human population and imprison them on the farms. Vampires siphoned the humans for blood, pushing their bone marrow to its limit of replenishment and introducing them to a state of perpetual exhaustion. With the release of death taken from them, hell has arrived on earth.

  As he burst through the tree line, Connor directed his steely gaze into the darkest corner of the chapel portico from where Greg gave him the thumbs up signal. Arriving beside him in a hurricane of damp air which stirred a crackling storm of dried leaves around their ankles, Connor stared intently back out over the graveyard.

  “You’re very wet. Don’t tell me, you’ve been eating fish?” Greg said, deadpan.

  Connor chuckled. “Funny. I see you made good time. Leizle and Thomas didn’t give you any trouble?”

  Greg shook his head. “They knew they had to go next. Even with the pheromone suppressants, we can’t risk a scent trail of five people. They know that. And as Rebekah said, they’ll see her again tomorrow.”

  “And the new eco-shelter? Do you think it will stand up to the winter?”

  “It’s small.” Greg smiled. “But, I dare say it will feel like home in no time.” He lifted an eyebrow and assessed Connor’s profile. “You and your friend have constructed in two days what it took us a decade to achieve, thank you.”

  Connor shrugged. “It helps when the workers never tire and can keep going for forty hours without pause, and of course-”

  Greg waited expectantly.

  “We vampires actually understand the concept of quiet.”

  Greg rummaged around for a sarcastic response, but in the end, muttered, “Touché.”

  Connor considered the upheaval of the last few days. Although, the new eco-shelter location was eighteen miles away from the first, it was not further from London. Since the community had scouted the area for fifteen years, leaving a familiar stamping ground altogether, would be foolish. So, the move took them in an arc, from the south, to southeast of the city. The human farm and vampire hunting grounds are both west of London, so it’s a calculated risk.

  The safe house, situated south of the River Thames in Clapham, remained a secure place to gather. From there the group could forage inside the city and gather supplies and fuel, all as before. And I can keep an eye on Rebekah and protect her. Moving the equipment from the old eco-shelter to the new, was accomplished with Julian’s help. It would have been exhausting for the nineteen humans. They were better off keeping calm and staying hidden.

  The three main communal caverns were dug out beneath the rolling swells of the North Downs of Kent, and the successive undulation of hills offered the chance to expand, in time. With Julian’s help – and he turned out to be surprisingly willing in that – building had progressed quickly.

  The soundproofed chamber housing the generators was a feat of vampire engineering. The exhaust system vented out to the inside of a hollow tree trunk deep inside the woodlands, where the odors of methane and carbon dioxide formed part of the naturally occurring rich cocktail of nature’s decay. The generator chamber was already operational, harnessing water power and kinetic energy, and the hot water pipes salvaged from the old eco-town had been reworked to fit into the new space. Tapping into an underground spring, Connor had dug a well inside a small cave which fed water into the kitchen cavern, and the still to be completed hospital chamber. It’s all looking good.

  “As soon as we are settled, I’ll take one of the guys and let Seth know we have moved.” Greg frowned.

  “Finding he was still out there must have been a pleasant surprise,” Connor said, thinking of his own close friendship with Principal Julian. “It’s good to know someone is watching your back again.”

  “It makes life easier,” Greg replied. Both men served as Royal Marines together and backing each other up was second nature.

  Resting a hand on Greg’s shoulder, Connor said, “Are you sure Seth wouldn’t understand your situation?”

  “That I am fraternizing with the enemy? No offence.”

  “None taken.” Connor grinned.

  “No, it’s best this way. We came back together by chance, but after fifteen years our paths are set. He has his group of humans to protect, and I have mine, plus a vampire invasion to evade.”

  Connor let the silence hang.

  “You were human once. When Seth and I were in the Marines, a platoon had to get the balance right. Enough men to become a team and support each other, but not so many that clashes of personalities cause unrest.” Greg took a deep breath. “Our small group works well as a unit. It seems foolish to risk it falling apart.”

  The link between the two camps of human survivors was tenuous, but comforting. And they were only twenty miles away, which was a two-day hike in an easterly direction.

  When London became besieged by vampires, Greg scouted out the surrounding terrain. He established early on, that with a network of vampire hives cropping up throughout England, Europe, and probably the rest of the world, survival was a matter of hiding, not running.

  The funeral pyres of those who died in the pandemic had laid a haze over the London skyline, and the humans captured and taken to the farms had little hope of finding old friends. Seth and Greg each thought the other was dead.

  “Seth agrees it is best not to
put all our eggs in one basket. We can back each other up in a fight. And the less he knows about you, the better.”

  “I guess you know him best.” Connor let the subject drop.

  Humans prefer familiarity, so for Rebekah’s group, it made sense to replicate the environment of their previous hideout. As far as possible, anyway. After all, it has worked for them, up until now. Their fifteen years of liberty probably would’ve stretched into decades, had their luck not run out. Connor was relieved he had Greg to rely on. Even a vampire can’t be in two places at one time.

  Cold was the biggest enemy right now. Greg’s cold-climate survival training helped him; the ability to lower his metabolic rate to where his body conserved fuel and warmth was his forte. Surviving underground in the labyrinth of stone catacombs for three days, even wearing extreme weather clothing, had pushed most to their limit. And the mental stress – there are only so many whispered conversations and games of checkers the human mind can cope with.

  Connor shook his head in wonder. I’m still not sure how I got myself into this. Amusement danced around his lips at the realization he had known Rebekah only a few weeks. In that short time, she had turned his life upside down.

  She was the reason he stumbled across the eco-community. A blow to the head had led to their fated encounter in the hospital. Her suppressed human physiology had thrown him when he had swept into the room, intent on examining a female vampire for hardening; the tissue damage most common in vampires. He was distracted by the burning sensation in his nasal lining, but too busy being a ‘doctor’ to pay attention.

  Connor grinned wryly. These things mocked him now. How did I not know instantly? Because she’s a fighter, that’s how. When she regained consciousness, she had held her nerve, relying on the smokescreen of beta blockers and pheromone suppressants. And she almost pulled it off, too. She had very nearly escaped before the pieces fell into place.