I was supposed to be watching Frost, I admonished myself sternly. But I kept sneaking glances at Hao.
Then the ghosts came. I knew they were here before I saw them, their presence something the coyote could feel, a prickle down my spine and a tingle on the tip of my nose. I trusted the coyote's senses, tried to open my vision the way I had before, and took a good look around.
The dead spirits clustered against the wall, as far from the vampires as they could get. Ghosts, like cats (excepting my own Medea), don't like vampires. They didn't seem to be doing anything, though I could see the greasy spider-silk magic that tied them to Frost.
Despite the distraction of Hao and the ghosts, I was keeping my eyes on Marsilia and Frost. Who knew that Marsilia was a bruiser - and a trained boxer, from her tidy and agile footwork? Frost had been trained in some sort of hand-to-hand, too. It looked to be a relatively effective if piecemeal style, like the techniques the army teaches its new recruits - a style adjusted for vampiric strength and speed.
Just beyond them was a group of four of Frost's vampiric audience and with my vision changed because I'd been watching the ghosts, I about fell off my wall.
I couldn't see souls. Besides, vampires don't have souls. But something was wrong with Frost's vampires. Something was twisted and shredded that should have been straight and whole. I looked at my vampire then - at Stefan. He was standing a little in front of Honey, ready to grab her if she gave in to the drive that kept her intent on Frost. I still couldn't see his soul, but he looked right, just as he always did.
I found Marsilia. And she was different from Frost's vampires in the same way Stefan was. Hao had said his informant had been broken. I wondered if she would have looked like Frost's vampires.
But I wasn't here to check out Frost's vampires. I was supposed to watch him.
Both Marsilia and Frost were bleeding. Marsilia had found a metal bar somewhere, the kind someone might use to bar a door, and she hit him in the chin with it like Babe Ruth might have hit a ball out of Yankee Stadium.
He flew backward, and when he hit the ground, he fell like a wet washcloth. She pulled the bar back into batting position and watched him. He didn't move - but vampires don't need to breathe, and they can hold very, very still.
One of the ghosts of the Cantrip agents drifted closer to Frost. I thought for a moment that it was just chance. Throw a dozen ghosts into even a sizeable basement, and they have to go somewhere, right? There were ghosts drifting aimlessly all over the basement now - though only the one nearest Frost was anywhere near a vampire. The longer I watched them, the easier it was to see the binding Frost had netted them with.
It struck me as odd that in that dark basement, where every surface was blackened from the fire, I had no trouble seeing the web that held the ghosts captive. But the darkness of the net was different than just the lack of light.
The ghost that approached Frost had one of his sticky strings of magic wrapped around his neck, and that string was pulsing. Marsilia had started to relax, her hand on the bar less tense.
I stood up, but it was too late. Frost struck, his jaw hanging at an odd angle, but he moved so fast it was difficult to track. He grabbed the ghost and ate him. Not with his physical mouth. It was as if his body turned into a giant mouth and engulfed the ghost. To my sight, Frost's body flared - and then he stood up, wiping his own blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. The damage Marsilia had done to him was just gone.
She struck again, but he was faster than he'd been. As if the ghost had more than merely repaired him. He grabbed the bar and ripped it from her hands - and she was the one in retreat.