Frost Burned

folded together. I grabbed the top two sets.
    No one came boiling up the stairs, so either they hadn’t heard the chair go—or they thought it was part of the interrogation.
    Stefan helped Kyle up and steadied him when he was a little wobbly on his feet. I handed over a pair of bottoms. Stefan continued to hold him upright while Kyle pulled the sweats on with great concentration. Once Kyle had the pants on and both feet on the floor to steady himself, Stefan took the rope and started to tie up the bald man.
    “How often do the people downstairs come up?” Stefan said.
    “The only time anyone has come up here was a few minutes ago,” Kyle told him. “Could be back in a minute, or next week.”
    I handed Kyle a sweatshirt. He shook his head, and said, “That’s the wrong top for these.”
    “Fashion princess.” I rolled my eyes and gave him the other top, noticing only as it unfolded that it proclaimed, “I’m prettier than your girlfriend,” in purple glittery script. I recognized it because I’d given it to him for his birthday.
    “I have news for you, Kyle, it’ll be a while before you are prettier than anyone’s girlfriend. Bruises are not your best color. Are you sure you don’t want the other top?”
    He glanced at me and gave me a crooked smile. “You look worse than I do. These goons get to you, too?”
    We were all keeping our voices as quiet as possible.
    “Car accident.” I pulled on the sweatpants. They were tight, but Warren’s would have been tighter and left me with a foot of material to trip on.
    “They have Warren,” Kyle said, his eyes, briefly, looking as terrified as I was.
    “I know,” I told him. The top that matched the sweatpants I wore was a spiffy teal. “They have the rest of the pack, too.”
    “So I gathered.” Kyle indicated with a tip of his head that his information had come from the bald man. “Are we on the side of the angels?” Kyle pulled on his top, though not without wincing.
    Stefan looked up from the bald man, and said, “The first one I killed because I don’t let people who hurt those I care about live. He is dead in such a way that a human could have killed him. Since Mercy has been so concerned with the body count, the second man is merely out—and I made certain he did not see me. If you choose to call in the police, there is nothing that can be used against us—werewolf or vampire.”
    “So our halos are nice and bright,” I told Kyle. I looked at Stefan. “Is calling the police smart? Won’t we be putting pressure on the bad guys to get rid of their hostages?”
    “No.” Stefan turned his gaze on me. “If this is a government operation, having the local police involved will force them out into the open, and they cannot afford the bodies any more than the werewolves can. If it is something spearheaded by renegade agents—which is what it sounds like—involving the police will alert the agency involved and bring us new allies. That’s how we’ll do this, Mercy. If we can, we trap them in their actions until the only move they have left is what we want them to do.”
    He took a breath—which he doesn’t have to do unless he wants to talk, though he usually does if only out of consideration for we breathers who get distressed if the people we’re around don’t breathe for a few minutes. “You were right, Mercy. I was thinking like a vampire before. These people want to separate the werewolves from the protection of society. So we’ll get society on our side instead. It helps that Kyle is human.”
    Kyle smiled like it hurt. “Quite human. I am a black belt—got it ten years ago and haven’t practiced much since. But it could explain how I took down two trained men with Mercy and Ben’s help.” He looked at the dead man, and nodded sharply. “Thank you for that, Stefan. He’s no loss to the world.”
    “Will you get in trouble for his death?” I asked Kyle. He was a lawyer—family law—but he should still know.
    He shook his head. “Self-defense in a slam dunk.” He looked at Stefan. “Do you know who is responsible?”
    “Renegade Cantrip agents is our working hypothesis,” I said. FBI agents would have had too much experience to react out of fear the way Mr. Jones had. Homeland Security, I didn’t know enough about. But Cantrip—short for Combined Nonhuman and Transhuman Relations Provisors—had attracted a number of anti-nonhuman zealots. I knew that they had training but not much field experience—and