This was bad.
“You don’t want to drive in this, son,” Sheriff Adams was saying. “I can’t even describe exactly where I am.”
I grinned, despite myself, at the sheriff calling Evan son. It was the sort of term men used affectionately, but also to put younger men in their places. Evan didn’t do other people’s places.
I reached the driver’s side door and my hand brushed against the sheriff’s. Pausing, I drew in a deep lungful of air.
And wondered at the strange odor.
Had it been there all along? It reminded me of rotten eggs, but that wasn’t quite right. Whatever it was, I didn’t normally smell it here by the lake.
“It’s getting worse.” But how much worse could it get? I imagined the fog getting so thick I couldn’t move in it, let alone see. Was that even possible?
It’s magic, I reminded myself. Anything’s possible. Nadine and Jared had frozen to death on a fifty-degree day, after all.
“Did Janie or Evan say if there was fog around them?” I asked.
“None by them. Seems to be pretty localized.”
“Think we can walk out of it?”
“I was just going to ask you the same question. Magic fog is your department.”
“Yes. Yes it is.” I tried to gather my thoughts and my wits about me. This was unnerving. My heart was beating more rapidly than it should and I was drawing in shallower lungfuls of air than usual. Of course, there was still that smell …
“We have to move!” I grabbed the sheriff’s hand, not wanting to get separated from him.
He resisted for just a moment, perhaps because the contact was unusual or because he wasn’t afraid enough. But he must have sensed the urgency in my tone and manner, because he relaxed his grip.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I think it’s poison.” I wasn’t sure what made me think so, since I hadn’t felt any effects yet, but I’d been hit with poisons before that were so subtle I never knew I’d taken them.
I walked until I sensed I’d found the edge of the road, then began following it back the way we’d come, the sheriff a silent presence by my side.
“Say something,” I said. “I can’t stand the silence right now. I can’t see anything. I don’t want to think I’ve gone deaf as well.”
“All right. What should we talk about?”
“Anything. Who’s causing this?”
“The Bakers’ daughter?”
That was my guess as well, but it was just a guess. And since we had no proof, I decided to change the subject. “Let’s talk about your date with Jessica.”
His grip on my hand tightened for a moment. “Who said it was a date?”
“What was it, then?”
“I just went to her place to ask her more questions about her brother. She was pretty upset when I arrived. Crying.”
I tried to picture the woman I’d seen in tears, but the image wouldn’t form.
“Anyway, she said she couldn’t show weakness in front of you. Actually, I get the impression she doesn’t think she can show weakness in front of anyone. She finished crying inside five minutes and then seemed to be trying to prove she was okay.”
“Did she have anything interesting to add about her brother or Nadine?” I asked.
“Told me where she learned basic witchcraft seven years ago.”
“Oh?” I kept walking, trying not to sound too interested. Failing.
“A group calling itself the Magical Underground was offering free seminars on-line.”
I winced. The Magical Underground, run by Alexander DuPris, was attempting to unify the magical world under a single government. On the surface, it sounded okay. They had some good ideas. I’d even joined up for a while. But Alexander had gone too far and in the end, turned out to be a hypocrite.
Hopefully, Matthew had destroyed all the blood. I didn’t like to think that I still had a sample on file somewhere. The harm a sorcerer could inflict on someone when he had access to their blood was beyond imagining.
One of the many things Evan was looking into now was how to destroy a link between a person and their blood. So far he had learned that the strength of the link diminished over time, although it was a matter of years, not months or weeks.
“That’s awfully brazen of them,” I said, thinking of the consequences of such a move rather than the fact that I still couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.
One foot in front of the other. I felt my connection to the sheriff as the only solid thing in the world.
“It makes me wonder how magic isn’t more widespread if they’re putting it up on the Internet for anyone to see.” The sheriff squeezed my hand, probably in reassurance. I didn’t ask if he felt nauseous too.
One foot in front of the other.
“People stopped believing in magic a long time ago,” I said. “After the persecution of the Middle Ages, sorcerers were quite content to help them stop, even to help them forget in some cases. And despite what you see around here, there’s very little strong magic in the world. It’s mostly smaller, more easily dismissible things. If a woman says there’s going to be an earthquake tomorrow and there is, people think she’s just lucky. That kind of thing happens all the time.”
“So why are people so strong here?”
I didn’t reply. The node was still a secret. So instead I changed the subject. “There’s a lot of misinformation on the Internet too. I think it has to balance out. And while some of the herbalism can work for anyone, the magic itself only works for a select few. Anyone else who tries a spell will just think it was a joke.”
“Is this fog getting thicker?” the sheriff asked.
I hadn’t wanted to say it, but yes, I thought it was growing thicker too. It didn’t seem possible, but I could almost feel the mist, not just see it.
And that wasn’t the worst thing.
“Is it colder, do you think?” I asked.
Chapter 10
SHERIFF ADAMS STOPPED DEAD, PULLING ME to a halt at his side. With my free hand, I tugged my jacket closer around my body, but I wondered how much good it would do.
“Should we try to get back to the car and drive hell for leather out of here?” he asked.
I didn’t know. We’d been walking for a good ten minutes. Another ten minutes could get us out, or get us killed.
“What does your intuition tell you?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away. He drew in a deep breath, coughing once. “I think we’re screwed either going forward or back. We need to find another way.”
“What, like up?” I looked heavenward, seeing only mist.
“Or down.”
“The lake!” I turned my body, taking him with me. I couldn’t see the lake through the mist, but it was maybe a hundred yards away. “It’s December.” I was thinking out loud. “It hasn’t really gotten cold yet, and water takes longer to heat or cool than air.”
“It’ll still be damn cold in that lake.” But the sheriff wasn’t arguing, he was just stating a fact. He coughed a couple more times.
“You got a better plan?” The air was definitely below freezing now. And the temperature was dropping fast.
“Let’s go.”
We felt our way across the street then stepped off the other side, feeling our way blindly and hoping we weren’t going in circles.
“You should call Evan before we go in,” the sheriff said. “Tell him where you are.”
“No need. He’s got my blood. He’ll find me anywhere on Earth.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Right now? Yes, it is.”
The ground began sloping sharply downward and I found myself wondering where, exactly, along the shoreline we were. This part wasn’t exactly friendly to swimming, although there weren’t tall cliffs we might fall from. There was just untamed wilderness, especially …
“Ouch!” The sheriff’s hand fell away from mine and I stopped suddenly.
“Sheriff? Sheriff?”
>
“Here! I ran smack into a tree. Might have a bloody nose.”
I followed his voice with my hands raised, carefully testing the air until I found him … and the tree, though I didn’t run into it. “We need to be careful. There’s a lot of undergrowth too. Would be easy to trip on a root.”
“We also need to hurry. My fingers are numb.”
I tried not to think about the fact that the tips of my ears felt like ice. My teeth began to chatter and I could barely feel my fingers.
“Hands out in front,” I managed. “Slow and steady.”
We continued to move, our joined hands and our free ones raised in front of us to feel our way. We found a few more trees, their bark iced over, but didn’t have another collision.
Then my foot found a root and I went down, hard. My hand was wrenched once again from the sheriff’s and I cried out before landing with a slight splash in weed-ridden water.
“Cassie! You okay?”
“Found the lake.” And compared to the air temperature, it felt positively balmy, reassuring me that I’d made the right decision. Even if it was a desperate one.
“Keep talking. I’m going to crawl to you.”
I guided the sheriff to the edge of the lake. He found my foot first, and I winced in pain when he put pressure on it.
“Cassie? You okay?”
“Might have twisted my ankle or something. Don’t worry about it right now. We gotta move.”
I offered him my hand and together, we crawled forward into the weeds.
The water was cold. But the air was colder. We half crawled, half swam until the lake floor fell out from beneath us. My teeth chattered so hard I thought my teeth would break but I pushed on. We dog-paddled, still clinging to one another’s hands, still unable to see, although I thought the mist might be thinning here.
“We have to dive,” Sheriff Adams said.
“I’m not sure I can swim holding onto your hand.”
“Try.”
We went under and kicked. Pain lanced through my bad ankle and for a second, I thought it would take me under. I tried to toe off my shoes, which were weighing me down, causing a pain so sharp I saw stars. The next thing I knew, I’d lost both the shoes and the sheriff’s hand.
I scrambled to find him again, panic finally settling in where cool resolve had served me before. I’d let the sheriff be my rock, and now I had to stand alone.
My head broke the surface of the water and I gasped for breath. The air entering my lungs felt weaponized, like little shards of ice. And was the top layer of the lake starting to freeze? My toes were certainly warmer than my shoulders, although the water had to be about fifty degrees down there too.
“Sheriff!” I called.
No answer.
“Sheriff!” I dove again and kicked, just trying to move. To get away from the shore and the fog.
When I emerged, I once again called for the sheriff.
“Here.” He sounded weak; the chattering of his teeth almost louder than his words.
I tried to follow the sound of his voice, but I kept having to dive to escape the worst of the cold and every time I came up for air, I lost him again.
“Sheriff!”
We were going to die. Right here, in this ice-cold lake, we were going to become human ice cubes. Just like Nadine and Jared. I’d never see Ana again. Or have a chance to meet her sister.
What would her gift be? Would she be a fire starter like two of my brothers? It ran in my family. If only I’d already conceived and had access to that gift now.
You have magic. You could pull off a heat spell. You know the theory.
“I can’t create enough heat to warm the lake.” I actually spoke out loud, but I was thinking too. Evan had struggled to get warm on Saturday, using a simple spell to warm himself. Could I even do that? Basic heat spells did little more than light candles, which wouldn’t help me here.
You don’t need to focus. You don’t need restraint. Just make it hot!
I closed my eyes, found my quiet place, and spent a moment simply looking at the dancing lights filling the once pitch-black refuge. There had been more light when I was pregnant, but there was still quite a bit now. And also, there was the node beneath this very lake. I sensed it now, practically below my feet, offering me strength beyond my own.
The node called to me. I could hear it, almost like singing. It wanted me to take hold, to use it, to find the raw power I would need if I had any hope of survival.
“Hang on, Sheriff,” I said.
Then I opened myself up to the node and let the magic pour through me, out of me, and into the world around me.
I didn’t know what I was doing. Not really. There is a big difference between theory and practice, whatever the little voice in my head wanted to make me believe. Which meant that what I actually did was open a floodgate when I had no shutoff valve.
Power. Intense. Hot. Electric. I could no longer feel my body at all. I was the power.
Some dim part of me that retained awareness tried to will the power to form into heat, but I was simply overwhelmed. The power went out into the world to do whatever it would, with no form or focus.
I was at the center of an explosion. No. I was the explosion.
Pain crackled through me until I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t …
* * *
I was warm. That was the first thing I noticed. Also, I was dry. That was the second thing I noticed.
“Come back to me, Cassie.”
I was pressed against something firm and hot, but yielding. I nuzzled my face into it and tried not to think.
“Cassie.”
Something touched my back, then began rubbing in slow, gentle circles. I relaxed further into the firm, hot, yielding thing.
“Come on, Cassie. Come back to me so I can yell at you properly.”
Awareness returned in that instant, and I pulled away from Evan’s chest even as my eyes blinked open to stare into his crystalline blue eyes. They were full of … anger?
“Where’s the sheriff?” I asked.
“I’m here.”
I turned my head to see Sheriff Adams leaning heavily against a gnarled, burned-out tree. He was alive. I was alive. The thick fog was gone, replaced with a faint mist.
My eyes were slow to work for some reason. There seemed to be a lot of blackness around us, like a fire had swept through the area. We were at the edge of the lake, not far from the road. Evan sat with his back against a large blackened tree stump, cradling me in his arms.
I thought about asking what had happened, but Evan’s anger had me wary of that line of inquiry. So instead I ignored Evan and spoke to the sheriff.
“We definitely need to talk to the Bakers.”
“Not without backup,” Evan said firmly, returning my attention to him.
“I’m going to head back to my car.” The sheriff pulled himself upright, away from the tree, with apparent effort and began walking a little unsteadily toward his vehicle.
“Can’t you help him?” I whispered.
“He asked me not to.” Evan turned his head and watched until the sheriff was out of sight and probably out of earshot.
“Well, that was different.” I pulled myself away from his chest, or tried to. He kept me anchored there with one arm and possibly the force of his will. Hazard of being married to someone as powerful as Evan: If he didn’t want me to move, I didn’t move.
“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?” Evan asked.
“No. I decided to assume I magically saved the day and then you came by just in time to save me.”
“Wrong.” His hand stilled on my back, and his eyes went cloudy. Even angrier.
“Oh.”
“Almost two years,” he began. His tone was hard. And as cold as the mist had been. “I haven’t pushed you. You have your reasons for not wanting to use the magic you’re channeling and I tried to respect that. But I also told you – more than once I told you – to come
to me if you changed your mind. To learn how to truly use it and control it.”
“The sheriff and I were about to freeze to death.” I once again tried to pull away, and I felt my own anger rising inside me in an answering tide, particularly because I still couldn’t move. “Let me go!”
He removed his hand and instantly, the pressure on my back eased, allowing me to sit upright and meet him as an equal. I suspected he hadn’t realized what he was doing; his gift often acted up when he was feeling strong emotions. Unnatural winds were the surest sign of his distress, but it wasn’t the only sign.
He’d never hurt me, though. When I was angry, like I was just then, I wondered if that meant he had more control over himself than he let on.
“We were about to freeze to death,” I continued, speaking through clenched teeth. “I didn’t have time to stop and consult with you first.”
“Then you should have done it last week or last month or last year! Or hell, how about this afternoon? You want to work on it this afternoon?”
“Of course not! This was a one-time thing. You know how I feel about using this … this … temporary temptation.”
“I know you’re not your mom!” The wind began to stir, whipping my hair around my face and stinging my cheeks. As if I needed a reminder of his feelings.
“Why are you so mad? I’m alive. The sheriff’s alive.”
“You don’t even realize what you’ve done, do you?” He laughed, the sound hollow and mirthless. “How can you not get it? Look around!”
I did, blinking up at the leafless trees and the clear blue sky beyond. I’d seen a few blackened trees before and assumed they’d been burned, but now I saw things differently.
They were black. All of the trees. Completely black. But not like they’d been burned, more like they’d been inked over.
I drew in a deep breath and took another look around, this time scanning the forest floor. Dead animals, also black as ink, littered the ground. By the lapping shoreline, I spotted dozens of dead fish washed up on the bank. The weeds that had tangled our legs when we’d first entered the water were now black tendrils, floating at the water’s surface. More dead fish floated among the debris.
Frozen: a ParaNormal Mystery (Cassie Scot Book 7) Page 9
