Page 77 of Winter Lost

Dylis caught Adam’s gaze, and when she did, her body quit moving, stilling from her center of gravity out to her extremities. Briefly, the pupils of her eyes were hourglass shaped, like a goat’s, before they resumed a normal human appearance, even if they retained their startling sky-blue color.

Dylis Heddar’s power swirled around her, overwhelming her husband’s faint aura of magic as easily as her presence eclipsed his.

“The music in the walls,” Dylis whispered, as if we might have missed the clue the first time she’d said it.

Silence fell.

Able, the male half of the pair of hikers, broke the spell. “Hauptman?” He stood up, eyes widening in some strong emotion. “Who are you hunting here?”

I took a step closer to Adam—and it was as though the room was bathed in magic. It was hard to breathe, hard to hear—like Uncle Mike’s had been the day before yesterday—as if all of the protections in my mind went down at once.

I closed my eyes and grabbed Adam’s arm, using him, using our link, to center myself. I could feel the power of the Heddars’ magic. His not so negligible as I’d thought, hers far more vast and old—but still wrong in a way that I could not define.

I could feel the power of Elyna’s presence. Not just emanating from the room where she now rested, but in the ties she shared with all the people gathered around the farthest table—the bride’s table. She had been right; they were hers. She’d lent them power—as vampires do. They’d be a little harder to kill, a little faster, and age more slowly.

In the middle, between the Heddars’ fae magic and the bride’s table’s necromancy, were a pair of goblins—I presumed those were the two hikers.

In the kitchen…in the kitchen was—

Then Adam stepped into me, powering up the bonds between us, and I was back to normal.

There were, I thought, a lot of magical folk trapped in a lodge in the middle of a blizzard. What were the odds? There was more going on here than a stolen artifact. What had my brother gotten himself into?

“I am Hauptman,” Adam said. “Have you done something that means you need to be hunted?”

I’d forgotten that one of the goblins had challenged Adam. The spell of Soul Taker woo-woo must have only lasted a second or two. I would have been less surprised to find it had been hours.

Able raised his chin. “Not by the likes of you.”

“What’s going on out here?” asked a congenial voice in an accent even a little more Irish than the one Elyna’s dead husband had used. A man stepped out into the room, drying his hands with a dishcloth. He was tall and handsome yet somehow effacing, like the perfect British butler. The effect was only a little ruined by the Irish accent.

But the magic…

It rolled over the room like a warm wave that calmed and soothed as it drowned its victims. Able sat down, his face relaxing—though I noticed that his companion’s face didn’t seem to be reassured. Dylis sat down, too, and her husband released his punishing grip. Peter stayed on his feet, but he looked less like a policeman ready for anything and more like a mildly interested observer at a high school basketball game.

The green man said, “Ah, new flotsam from the storm. Welcome and more to all who seek shelter.”

Interlude

In the Tri-Cities

Sherwood

The roads were bad. But Sherwood was a good driver. He was also too smart to be driving in these conditions. When Honey had called to ask him to come over and check Gary because something had happened last night, Sherwood had debated just changing to wolf and running there.

But he needed to be human-shaped to deal with the situation with Gary. Without one of his prosthetic devices, he’d be forced to hop around. Just the thought of being that vulnerable made his wolf stir.

So he drove.

The lights began to flash on the railroad crossing just ahead. He eased off the gas and tapped his brakes lightly. The car in front of him twisted a bit but stopped in plenty of time. Sherwood did, too.

The impact, when the vehicle behind him failed to even try to stop, was loud—louder when Sherwood’s car hit the one in front and his airbag inflated, smacking him in the face. He felt the bone in the bridge of his nose go. Something slammed into his legs—and he heard a crack. He ripped the airbag out of his field of vision.

Down the tracks there was a train coming, and the car in front of him had just been forced through the crossing gate and onto the tracks.

Sherwood’s door opened in a protesting squeal of metal and he had to grab the base of the steering column and lift to free his legs. More metal popped and bent.

Behind him a woman shrieked, “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I didn’t see you.”