Guardians of the Portals

by Nya Rawlyns

  He almost regretted sending his men through the makeshift Portal. He'd catapulted them to certain death if he couldn't extricate himself and make it back to Wyoming, and the un-catalogued jump point he and Caitlin had used to escape everyone.

  Damn his abilities. She'd still be alive if he could have created a Portal. Instead they'd suffered through a living hell because he was unable to find or create vortices that would have saved them, saved her from the torment he forced on her. Even a lifetime of 'sorry' would never have been enough. But what ate at his soul was never having the chance to say goodbye.

  Now Kieran waited in the same deathtrap and the only way to get to him was to haul ass to Wyoming and go through that gate, just like he'd done with Caitlin.

  As he zoned in and out of consciousness he thought, look how well that ended. Now I've got her brother's life on my conscience. And Zack, though I'm not sure why I should care. It's the O'Brien family I've fucked. I owe them. For a mother. For a daughter. A sister. A wife. It's a blood debt. My last one.

  Then I'll be free to join Caitlin, my mate, on the other side.

  Chapter Five

  Caitlin paused at the "Y" in the barely discernible trail. To the left, it angled along the shelf, heading roughly southwest, the ambient lightening on the horizon indicating fewer trees and a probable drop-off. She'd always had good night vision, and her internment in the alien dimension had somehow augmented her natural abilities.

  The snow had been coming through in bands, heavy and interspersed with icy showers. They were still in the warm sector, the Nor'easter moving up the coast and stalling off the Jersey shore. The worst was yet to come—wrap around winds with blowing and drifting snow would be the order of the day. She'd been a flatlander, living near the Maryland shore, no stranger to how nature refashioned a typical summer tropical storm into an icy event of stunning beauty and danger. They'd hunkered down like all rural folk, content to wait it out. The plows and salt trucks would keep roads passable, kids would revel in a day or two off from school, and the neighbors would check on the old and infirm.

  Caitlin snickered at the odd memories. She'd painted a mental picture of community, of shared closeness, when the truth was that she and her family had been isolated and alone. They'd been aware of their own differences, acutely so, and it informed everything they did and said—though her brother had breached that unspoken barrier once he'd hit his stride. Popularity remained alien to her, though she never resented her brother's moving into the golden circles, nor did she think it strange that he excluded her deliberately. Kieran was simply Kieran, selfish and self-absorbed, except when it came to her. It had taken a long time but she finally realized that he had protected her—from himself, from his indulgences—and she'd loved him all the more for that.

  Snow shifted on branches higher up in the stand of maples under which she sheltered from the icy pellets. The snow's surface had taken on a glazed appearance as warm, upper level winds dumped bands of rain that froze on contact at the surface. It would make traversing the woods nearly impossible on the slopes as everything would quickly coat with a thin layer of rime.

  Caitlin realized she had made a bad decision venturing into the woods. She'd wanted to clear her head and come to terms with the out-of-control energies consuming, and confusing, her system. Instead she should have focused on the task at hand, using the Althing and Eirik's resources to assist her father since she was convinced he'd rejoined Greyfalcon with a single objective—to rescue Kieran. She needed her powers available at her command, not on some intermittent catch-as-catch-can basis. And she needed to keep her identity secret. If either Kieran or Jake knew she were alive, it would derail all her planning.

  She took an exploratory step, using her heel to punch through the glaze. The effort sent her sliding against a scraggly pine, releasing a deluge of wet snow onto her shoulders and down the back of her neck. Earlier she might have giggled and relished the chill damp, but now she recognized it for what it was—an invitation to hypothermia or worse. Getting back to the cabin meant retracing her steps downhill along an almost non-existent trail. Right now that seemed even more foolhardy than the frivolous need for solitude that had sent her on a fool's quest.

  Does he think of me? Do they know I'm gone? Will he come for me, or just assume I'm getting what I deserve? I could just be in my room. Sleeping. They might not miss me until the morning. By then it will be too late.

  Caitlin listened intently. The weather morphed from the din of rain pinging the branches to the icy clatter of sleet, followed by the soothing blankness of heavy flakes blanketing and deadening all sound. She peeled the watch cap away from her ears but only her rasping breath and chatter of teeth penetrated the dead zone where she crouched. She debated simply waiting for help to come, as uncertain as that prospect seemed, or she could take charge of her situation and find her way down the mountain. Somewhere, off to the right, the sand road awaited. It too would be treacherous to navigate, but much less so than the uncertain footing and the chance of taking a wrong turn and missing the cabin altogether.

  In any case, her knight-in-shining-armor was likely poking away at his bits of wood, not giving her a thought. She settled the cap about her ears and lunged away from the pine branches into a stand of thick brush and deadfall. Using her gloved palms to scrap away the snow, she found a downed branch long enough to serve as a walking stick. The cracks resounded as she broke off smaller branches, echoing eerily in the confined space.

  Caitlin turned right. She wasn't happy that this direction seemed to head into even denser and steeper terrain. Her instincts directed her to head downhill, along the ledge, toward what appeared to be an open area. There was no way to know how the road actually angled up the hill—she'd never driven to the top of the mountain, to the Owens' place—so it was pure conjecture on her part that she'd find the road at all. None of her choices appealed and the increasing numbness in her hands and feet added a level of urgency she hadn't felt earlier. She couldn't conveniently shut down in stasis the way Trey had done to conserve his energy. And her shifting wasn't going to help protect her from the elements, not unless she could conjure a fur coat.

  She gave that a hard thought. If she could do gills, and that had been a purely automatic response when her body determined she was doing the death-by-drowning routine, then why not some other protective 'device'? The only problem was ... the gills had left semi-permanent alterations in her biochemistry and physical structure, changes that kept her from fully oxygenating her blood and keeping her thin and in a seriously weakened state. Who knew what turning herself into a bear rug would do to her fragile system. As dire as her situation seemed, now wasn't a good time for experimentation.

  "Well, my friend. I guess you are seriously laughing your ass off now. Perhaps you could get down off your high horse and lend a little assistance here. I've provided you with a quest. How about keeping me alive long enough to take that journey with you?"

  Caitlin smiled. The nice thing about talking to Revenge was he kept his own counsel most of the time. She wondered how long it would be before her body took over and forced her to change into something more survival worthy. The bear rug image had been a joke, but one she couldn't get out of her head. She'd created the mental template. It was already too late.

  Cautiously punching through the drifts with her makeshift pole, Caitlin forced her way through the trees, her pace slow but steady.

  ****

  "Damnation, where is everyone?" Eirik stomped down the stairs and called out again, "Caitlin! Wolf?"

  He made his way to the front door and peered out onto the landing. Even covered, the porch sat under a deep mantle of snow, undisturbed. He could see past the drifted banks to where swirls of mini-vortices spun wickedly, the downdrafts from the densely packed wall of trees lifting and spinning the lighter surface coating. He flicked on the outside light switch but nothing happened. Cursing, he reached for the interior recessed flood switch, but again ... nothing. This was not a g
ood time to be without electricity. He'd need to get Wolf to start up the generator.

  Eirik used the pale yellow glow from the Vermont stove to guide him past the clutter of furniture. He opened the door and poked at the remains of the logs. He figured he must have dozed for several hours. Wolf had added two sturdy logs earlier in the afternoon. Given it was pitch dark that meant it was well past five o'clock. He should smell dinner cooking and his stomach grumbled noisily at the thought of food.

  "Wolf! We need the generator. Wolf?"

  Using his cane to find his way into the kitchen, he rustled around the drawers seeking flashlights but only came up with a few candles and matches kept for emergencies. Muttering, "Damn birthday candles," he inserted the narrow decorative tapers into the glass votive holders, the weak light barely illuminating the counter.

  The flame flickered and danced as he did a slow sweep of the laundry room, noting that Wolf's jacket and Caitlin's boots and other clothing items were missing. A quick look down the darkened walkway confirmed that they'd forgotten to bring the new generator in from the garage. He sighed with disgust. He'd brought Wolf in for bodyguard duties, not as a glorified maintenance man, so he had only himself to blame for their current level of unpreparedness. But without the generator he wasn't able to run his computers, let alone the lights. They were fortunate to have the wood stove for heat. Without it, they'd be shoveling their way to the bottom of the mountain. It looked too deep even for four-wheel drive.

  Eirik brightened. But, of course, they would be outside shoveling, so that would account for the missing coats and boots. The driveway approached the rear of the cabin, invisible to his line-of-sight, leaving the front devoted to pristine wilderness views. Satisfied that his charges fruitfully engaged in a useful activity, he wandered back into the living room and added more logs to the stove. Settling into his favorite easy chair and staring at the flames, he allowed his mind to blank. He vaguely recalled they had a satnav system if he should need to summon help. That had been his contribution to provisioning their sanctuary—he was not so committed to self-sufficiency as his captain who relied on his wits, strength and cunning.

  Before drifting off he wondered how Wolf, as Petruchio, would go about taming his Katherina. Kate. Caitlin. Could a 'shrew' be any better named? He doubted his captain capable of the reverse psychology necessary to win her over, and to win the day. And their Caitlin would no longer fall for such misogynistic subterfuge. Her experience with Trey had hardened her resolve and hardened her heart. But still, it promised to be high theater indeed.

  ****

  Wolf shouldered aside low-hanging pine boughs and entered a small clearing. He'd been climbing for more than an hour, the going tough as the sleet switched to freezing rain and back to snow. It was going to get worse before it got better, for sure. He'd lost her tracks as darkness closed in and even the night scope proved useless in the periodic deluges. The best he could do was follow disturbances in the snow pack, on branches and low lying limbs, though with the wind picking up that was no longer a reliable indicator that someone, something, had passed that way.

  Frustrated, he cursed her stupidity for putting both of them at risk. What was she thinking for gods' sakes? For all he knew, she could have circled back without him knowing it. And right now she might be back at the cabin having a hot chocolate and chatting with Eirik about the good old days. He wanted to hold onto that thought and allow it to fester until he had a good frenzy going—anything other than the freakish churning and anxiety he'd suffered ever since their little episode in the kitchen would do. He still didn't understand what had happened or what it meant. All he knew was that he had to find her, no matter the cost. His entire existence now linked with hers. He would find no peace, no solace, until he owned her body and soul.

  That thought gave him pause. He'd never thought about 'owning' anything—not his men, not even his few personal possessions. The closest he came were his carvings—and those ties were temporary at best—the figures created for the sole function of bestowing them on others. No, he wanted Caitlin. He needed her the way he needed water, food and air. She was an essence, a part of him, inseparable. He'd shared his energy with her and awakened a demon-devil who had laid claim to something frightening and perverse, needs and desires unimagined, unknowable. Unfulfilled until that moment.

  "Caitlin!" he bellowed uselessly, the gush of air from tortured lungs dissipating quickly in the wind as high-pitched banshees wailed a fearsome melody of frustration and despair.

  Wolf adjusted the shotgun onto his left shoulder, giving his aching right side a break from the weight. Once he was done with this hellish assignment he was spending a month in Gymnasium, retraining his damned weakened body. How Eirik could overlook basic exercise equipment when he set up their hidey-hole escaped him. The man had once been a warrior of some renown but now he was nothing more than a politician, more concerned with gamesmanship with Greyfalcon and Gunnarr than seeing to the well-being of the warriors in his care.

  Wolf pulled out his night scope and peered off to the left. He'd sensed that the trail skirted a ledge or drop off. The scope gave him enough details to determine that no tracks led that direction. She had to be smart enough to remember that the road lay off to the right. The trail petered out ahead, leaving her, and him, only one choice. He turned right, allowing instinct to guide him, still climbing. The stand of trees opened up. Low lying brush had been cleared away and piled helter-skelter on both sides of the clearing. He was no arborist but he recognized them as maples. A network of sluiceways ran from one tree to another, leading eventually to a single aqueduct that had to lead to the road. Someone had come in not long ago and tapped the trees. The construction looked to be recent, the wood hardly weathered, and the boxes had been swept clean of leaves, though at that time of year the sap wouldn't be running. Whoever maintained the system took care to check his construction.

  With a start Wolf thought, why should it be free of leaves ... and snow?

  Caitlin. She'd been working her way along the aqueduct and had inadvertently dislodged whatever the box-like run held. All he needed to do was follow that as it likely led directly to the road. He set off at a trot, lunging through the knee-deep snow, until his thighs burned like they'd been dipped in flaming tar. She was close. He could almost feel her, his gut unreeling an energy probe in every direction.

  When his lungs threatened to burst, he stopped to cover his nose and mouth with the heavy wool sweater and drew in air warmed by his overheated torso. He burned from ice and he flamed with heat—the combination sent his senses reeling, leaving him light-headed and slightly nauseous. He'd never pushed this hard through such conditions, even back home when he and his men had engaged in biathlons competitively. He was starting to appreciate when his father complained he was 'getting too old for this shit'.

  The sluiceway ended abruptly several yards to his right. He removed the shotgun and set it against an upright Y-shaped strut supporting the conduit and removed his wool cap to blow off heat. The snow had finally eased back to flurries though with the wind ramping up it was hard to tell what was coming from the sky and what was kicked up off the ground. The road had to be nearby. She would have found it by now, being an hour or more ahead of him, if she kept moving at a steady pace. He had no reason to assume otherwise. Maybe she'd be there when he got back to the cabin. He closed his eyes and imagined what he would say to her, how he'd chew her out for being so foolish, but he couldn't get past the image of scooping her in his arms and carrying her up to his room and locking the door. Then he'd give her a dressing down they would both long remember. He grinned with feral delight.

  Wolf braced his hands against the sluice box. The gloves were wool, lined with silk, thin to allow for flexibility. It took a few moments before the vibration registered, followed by the whine of Arctic Cats coming downhill, fast.

  Grabbing his Mossberg, he rolled under the sluiceway into a thick area of brush. He needed to stay out of sight until he determine
d who they were and what their intentions might be. To his knowledge this side of the mountain had mostly summer cottages, with the inhabitants long gone for the season. Even the Owens place at the top of the mountain sat vacant for the winter as the older couple did the Snowbird run to Florida. He couldn't speak to whoever might live on the opposite face. Snowmobiles were common up here so it was likely just a couple of teens out joy riding.

  He slithered through the brush and drifts until he came to the edge of the woods, with a ten foot span of what would be a grassy or rocky area that dipped into a culvert. The road was a lane and a half in width, domed, with another ditch on the opposite bank. The plows hadn't been through so he had no snow bank to hide behind. He'd need to stay back in the trees to avoid the headlights when the Cats crested the small rise uphill of his position. They were close enough he could see the lights spiking at crazy angles as the Cats bounced their way along the rough road.

  Wolf pulled his wool gloves off with his teeth and dropped them onto the ground. He felt in his Goretex jacket for a handful of shotgun shells and chambered rounds while listening for the snowmobiles. They seemed to stop at irregular intervals, for whatever reason. If it were just kids they'd be roaring down the road with no thought to looking right or left, just going for speed. It's what he would have done.

  The vibe he was getting said search party. Unless somebody else had gone walkabout in a raging blizzard, that left only him and Caitlin requiring a rescue, but that didn't feel right. He could not discount Eirik having called in the cavalry when he found Caitlin, and him, missing. But for any of their men to find snowmobiles, load them up, then drive all the way north from South Woodstock in the time available simply wasn't reasonable. Plus they wouldn't be coming from the northwest, so it didn't make any sense. As the Cats crested the hill, Wolf extended his shield and vanished from sight.