A Line in the Ice Read online

  A Line in the Ice

  By Jamie Craig

  Bloodthirsty monsters are emerging from the Antarctic ice, the same creatures that once stalked the battlegrounds of World War I. Back then, a group of soldiers valiantly fought off the beasts—and were never seen again. A century later, an elite military squad stands between civilization and the mysterious return of the enemy.

  Captain Charlie Weller thinks she’s seen everything—until a man crawls out onto the ice, barely alive and muttering about a place called Illyria. Lysander Davies claims to be the descendant of one of the missing soldiers. He insists the monsters are actually gentle creatures, under the control of beings far, far more dangerous…

  Drawn to the stranger, Charlie believes his stories and agrees to help him. But they both know nothing can come of their feelings for one another, for the only way to save earth is for Lysander to return to Illyria and close the rift behind him, forever…

  96,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  I feel as though it was just last week I was attending 2010 conferences and telling authors and readers who were wondering what was next for Carina Press, “we’ve only been publishing books for four months, give us time” and now, here it is, a year later. Carina Press has been bringing you quality romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy and more for over twelve months. This just boggles my mind.

  But though we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary (with champagne and chocolate, of course) we’re not slowing down. Every week brings something new for us, and we continue to look for ways to grow, expand and improve. This summer, we’ll continue to bring you new genres, new authors and new niches—and we plan to publish the unexpected for years to come.

  So whether you’re reading this in the middle of a summer heat wave, looking to escape from the hot summer nights and sultry afternoons, or whether you’re reading this in the dead of winter, searching for a respite from the cold, months after I’ve written it, you can be assured that our promise to take you on new adventures, bring you great stories and discover new talent remains the same.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  For Jeffrey. I can no other answer make, but thanks,

  and thanks.

  This book wouldn’t be possible without our lovely editor, Alissa. It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The ancient ice stretched into the horizon with no sign of cracks or fissures. Sergeant Charlie Weller knew better. She heard it first. A low hum deep in her ears, creating pressure behind her eyes and in her sinuses.

  “Three o’clock.” Theo Maigny drew her attention to the right of their glider. A tall figure loomed over the ice, its silhouette twisted, its head too large for its body, its arms almost touching the ground. They were too far away—and the sun was too bright—to make out the details, but Charlie didn’t need them. Regardless of what the thing looked like, she only had one objective.

  Their sentry had warned of two heat signatures. That meant two creatures on the ice, but visible or not, she didn’t worry about a second monster shooting off in a new direction. Soren would have told them. They each had a job. None of them slacked. Right now, hers was to get the state-of-the-art glider close enough for Theo to take a shot.

  Thirty yards away, they rocked hard to the left. Her hand tightened convulsively on the sidestick, and she righted them almost immediately, but her pulse raced in time with the glider’s engine.

  She decelerated to better navigate through the shock waves. “What was that?”

  “We were hit. I don’t think we took any damage, but I think that big fucker up ahead is meant to serve as a distraction. I can’t find the second creature.”

  “Soren!” She jerked hard on the stick, banking toward where the shot had to originate from. They needed to be able to see the enemy. “What’s going on? We only see one creature!”

  The connection crackled in her ear. “It’s there. It has to be.”

  “Where?”

  “With the other one.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “The sensors say—”

  “I don’t care what the sensors say! My eyes are telling me something different!”

  The glider rocked again. Theo’s growl of frustration rumbled in her earpiece, and they shifted slightly as he brought the gun up to his shoulder. Her shoulders and neck ached from additional strain as she braced herself for the shot. They practiced this as much as they could—which wasn’t much since every bullet was precious. But no amount of preparation could ever be enough.

  When he fired, she wrestled with the glider, stopping it from going into a spin from the force of the bullet exiting the barrel.

  The rear jackknifed over the ice. Her fingers flew along the trim, compensating for their speed, while she tried not to yank the sidestick and flip them over. Even with the glider’s high sides, a roll was the surest path to death. The force against the ice upon impact would either snap their necks or decapitate them, and she liked her head exactly where it was.

  Though it took seconds to straighten them out, it felt like an eternity. “Tell me you got it, Theo.”

  “Pretty sure I hit it but the bastard didn’t even flinch. You got to bring me closer.”

  As soon as Theo finished speaking, the glider lurched again. For a brief, horrible second, she knew they were going to flip. She wasn’t strong enough. She wasn’t fast enough. She couldn’t fight the basic laws of physics. Her shoulders screamed in protest and a part of her recognized she wouldn’t even be able to move the next day. If they survived at all. It may have been nothing more than sheer force of will that straightened the glider, but she wasn’t going to question it.

  “Come on, come on, come on…you fucker.” The gun’s report exploded over the ice.

  The rift’s hum reverberated through Charlie’s body. Her last circle had brought them closer to it, unintentionally so. She hit on a plan and, without thinking about it twice, veered toward the first creature, the one she could see. Not even Theo’s, “What are you doing?” slowed her down.

  “Doing this the hard way.”

  She jammed the speed, foregoing navigability for sheer power. Her fingers itched to pull back, but this maneuver required careful timing. The creature might dodge out of the way or it might charge, and then she’d be up shit creek. She counted off in her head, her gaze unwavering from the monster as it loomed larger and larger.

  “Get ready to sho
ot when I say so.”

  Theo didn’t question her. Thank God.

  The weapon in the creature’s hands was nothing they’d encountered before, but a head-on attack made her a much smaller target. Ten feet away, she swerved to the left.

  “Now!”

  Theo took the shot as they zipped by. He had been trained as a sniper before being sent to the end of the world and they had relied on his skills more than once. She had no choice but to trust him now. The shot still echoed off the ice when the creature roared. The microphones in their helmets picked up the sound, creating a feedback loop that threatened to blow their eardrums out. They might be entirely alien monsters, unlike anything Charlie had ever seen before, but pain still sounded the same.

  So did dying.

  “Found the second one,” Theo said. “It’s on the bastard’s back.”

  “Tell me what you want from me.”

  “I injured the big one. But we have to stop the glider. I need your firepower.”

  She made a broad sweep back, circling the rift and coming around its opposite end. The glider eased to a stop. Theo jumped out of the craft first, running far enough away to ensure their vehicle wouldn’t get hit. She followed seconds after him, the weight of her gun against her palm frighteningly comforting.

  Theo dropped to one knee and rested the butt of his rifle against his shoulder. Everything froze for a moment. There wasn’t even the sound of Theo’s breath through the speaker or the crunch of ice beneath her boot. She could finally make out the details of the monster they fought. Green fluid—it might have been blood—flowed freely from a wound in its neck, but that didn’t stop it from swinging its arms in wide arcs. The ice vibrated from the force of its roars, but they were thick and wet, too, as if blood welled up in the back of its mouth.

  It swung its head, allowing her the chance to see what Theo had noticed. A creature, not quite a man but not quite a monkey, clung to the larger thing’s shoulders. It held a weapon with a long, discolored barrel. The monkey-thing saw her, too, and its lips pulled back in a silent growl.

  Neither one of them wasted time. Charlie shot at the smaller creature while Theo went for the larger. Twin death cries pierced the crisp air, blood splattering onto the ice to bounce and then steam. The monsters separated like an amoeba dividing and Charlie swung her gun around to track the monkey-thing where it sprawled on the ice. Its weapon extended forward, the muzzle resting on the ground. She pulled her trigger at the same time the weapon jerked.

  Theo must have seen it, too. The air rippled from the sudden rush of heat and they both rolled out of its path, diving in opposite directions. The signature of whatever the weapon discharged blasted between them, warming her in spite of the chill from direct contact with the glacial earth. By the time she was back on her knees, her gun was already in place and she emptied her clip into her target.

  Its weapon fell limply onto the ice. A few yards away, Theo’s monster finally crumpled to the ground.

  “Jesus Christ.” Theo straightened and approached the fallen creatures. “I don’t like the fact they’re getting smarter.”

  “Are they?” She holstered her weapon as they walked. “Or were we just lucky until now?”

  “I especially don’t like the fact that they’re armed now.” He put the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, though he was still tense, ready for a fight. “Steward? Guliyev? How are you doing over there?”

  “We brought down the third creature, but we have a problem.” Lisa’s voice. It seemed like it came from the other end of a long tunnel.

  “There’s a hole in our fuel tank,” her partner, Eduard, interjected.

  “Shit,” Charlie muttered. “Who’d we piss off today to deserve this kind of luck?”

  Soren’s voice cut through. “Can you patch it up?”

  Charlie didn’t like the long pause before Lisa’s answer. “I’m going to try. It’s not big yet. We haven’t lost too much fuel.”

  “How far away are they, Soren?”

  “About two miles.”

  Not so far on the glider. “We’ll retrieve these weapons and be there as soon as we can. We’ve got enough juice to share in case you lose too much.”

  “Is the rift clear?”

  She glanced back at the fissure. “Yeah, there’s nothing…”

  Her voice faded away. At the edge of the crevice, dark shadows smudged the ice. A trick of the glare, most likely, or something on her goggles. But though she didn’t move, the shadow lifted and then promptly collapsed against the icy plain.

  Those weren’t optical illusions.

  The smudges were gloved hands and the shadow, the unmistakable shape of a man.

  Chapter Two

  “Theo.” Charlie didn’t dare look away from the figure on the ground, afraid if she blinked or glanced at Theo, it would completely disappear. Or maybe it would change. Maybe it would evolve into some fearsome, gun-toting, slippery monkey-thing. “Theo. Look.”

  “What?” Her partner spun around. “Is there another creature?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She checked the clip in her gun, and then took a step toward the rift. Each step made her eyes vibrate, but she didn’t let that stop her. Theo’s boots crunched behind her. He had her back. Like always. “It looks like…are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “I’m seeing it.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It might be a trap.”

  She squinted. “I don’t think it’s a trap.”

  “What’s going on over there?” Lisa asked. “I thought you were going to come and rescue us.”

  “We’ll be there in a minute.” Charlie was distracted by the way the man’s black hair fluttered in the wind. Without a hat to stop his body heat from escaping, he wouldn’t last out there for more than an hour.

  “What’s going on?” Lisa prompted.

  With another step, the color of the man’s skin came into view. A deep brown. Too much of it was exposed to the subzero temperatures and the icy, unforgiving wind.

  “Forget about being a trap. Maybe he’s not even alive,” Theo said.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Though their pace remained even, she kept an eye out for anything else that might emerge from the fissure. They’d never encountered anything remotely human since their arrival nearly eight months ago. In its original incarnation their base had been a portable lab for American scientists, but those researchers were long dead. Torn apart, their limbs strewn over the ice, their blood staining the hard crust pink. She didn’t dwell on them very often. There had been no way to make any positive identification of the remains. Had one of those researchers been taken hostage and only now escaped? Or maybe he’d run when their base had been attacked, taking refuge in the only place he could?

  She quickened her steps. She wouldn’t let him survive those monsters just to die on her watch.

  Somehow, he had managed to climb completely clear of the crevice that cut across the ice like a gaping wound, but he didn’t even twitch as they approached. Within ten feet, smaller details became clear. His fur coat was the light tan color of a lion, striped with a vibrant shade of white.

  The pelt didn’t come from any animal on earth. She’d killed a creature coming out of the rift with those exact same stripes just the week before.

  “How’s your fuel tank coming, Lisa?” She and Theo reached the man at the same time, each bending over to hook a hand beneath an armpit to haul him to his feet. “You need us right away?”

  “Why does that even matter?” Eduard growled.

  The stranger was only taller than her by a few inches, but being unconscious made him dead weight. She grunted as she slipped her arm beneath his shoulder, grateful Theo had come with her.

  “We’ve got a man here. Soren, get Julius on the horn.”

  “Copy.”

  She recognized their dilemma only after they had the man hanging between them. Theo recognized it, too. They looked back to wher
e the glider waited for them. From the outside it looked a lot like a bobsled. High, curved sides kept it sleek, while the engine rested beneath the seat. Its smooth ride countered the vibrations it created since the gliding components were tucked against its undercarriage. Though she could do the most rudimentary of fixes in the case of an emergency, she didn’t completely understand how the thing worked. It was a British design, and Lisa was the primary mechanic when things went really wrong. Charlie only cared about how it felt flying over the tundra and the sense of weightlessness that came with the speed.

  She matched Theo’s long strides with her own. “I don’t want to put him back in the ice.”

  “Hey, guys?” Lisa’s voice. “Where the hell did a man come from?”

  “I’ve got his heat signature now,” Soren said. “Whoever he is, he’s still alive.”

  “Not for long if we don’t get him out of these winds.”

  “Is anyone going to tell us what’s going on?” Eduard snapped.

  “Yes, if you don’t get the fuel tank fixed, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer for me to come rescue your ass.” She didn’t want or need Eduard’s crap right now. “Someone crawled out of the rift.”

  “So you kill it. You don’t take it back to the shelter and tuck it into bed.”

  “He’s not an it!”

  “Guys!” Soren interrupted. “One at a time. Charlie, is there any way to identify him?”

  “If you want me to go through his pockets to find his wallet and driver’s license, you’ll have to wait until I’m not dragging him across the ice to the glider. Except…he doesn’t have any pockets.”

  “Male, black hair, race unknown, though he might be Indian.” Despite her annoyance and Eduard’s demands that they kill the stranger, Theo’s voice was calm and even. He recited the facts as though they weren’t hauling the man in question away from a rift that spewed forth monsters on a regular basis. “I’d say he’s about two meters and weighs around eighty kilograms.”