Page 21 of Heart of a Dire Wolf
Nic glared at Tinsel. “You sent Skyla to aghost town?”
Tinsel shook her head. “No. Someone in Fort LeBlanc redirected her.” She climbed into the sleigh and sighed. “That’s why we need the council. Fort LeBlanc was founded by arctic elves. I’m a polar fairy. Interfering with my portal could be an act of war.”
Nic sucked in a startled breath. The last war in the early nineteen hundreds had decimated both races and flattened a huge chunk of Siberia for thousands of kilometers. “Shit.”
Pendragor snorted. “Elegantly put.” He patted Tinsel’s sleigh. “You go on ahead and call Guivre.” He turned to Nic. “I’ll ride with you and navigate.” He looked pointedly at the bundle of Nic’s clothes. “Better put those on. Otherwise, the tourists will take pictures.”
* * *
Skyla-the-wolf walked through the open doorway of a brick building that had apparently once housed supplies. Sunlight from the high windows left striped patterns on the floor from the thick exterior wrought-iron bars. A gust of wind blew past the wooden desk and chair to dance with the faded papers that littered the floor under three rows of empty metal shelves. The musty smell made her sneeze.
The snow mound she’d slept in for several hours turned out to be in the center of an abandoned cluster of buildings somewhere in cold snow country. The square, utilitarian architectural style suggested it had once been a research station or a military base, but it had been untouched for decades. A faded Edmonton, Canada newspaper from 1931 relieved her fear that she’d ended up someplace really far away, like Mongolia or Antarctica. She liked that whoever planned the base had situated the buildings in among the thick, tall conifer trees, rather than clear-cutting them.
The storehouse was the smallest of twenty brick buildings, and the only one with its thick metal door and glass windows still intact. It was newly opened, or the floor would have a thick layer of dust and tree debris like the other buildings she’d investigated. She’d approached it cautiously, because she hadn’t been the one to open the door, but the building was as abandoned as the rest. The only difference was, in this building, there was a jacket draped on a standing carved-wood coat rack.
Her jacket. The shiny, shocking magenta jacket she’d bought on sale in Las Vegas, and should have been in the back of her car.
She could practically hear her sister’s voice screaming “trap” and “run,” but Skyla wasn’t so sure. Why lure her here? Anyone with the ability to rip her out of a fairy portal could have easily killed or captured her the moment she’d tumbled into the snow bank.
Still, shifting to human to put on the jacket made her vulnerable to magical attack. Her own free reserves were low, with maybe enough power for one or two defensive spells. Lerro’s whispered question echoed in her memory.Have you nothing to live for? No mate?
She backed away from the coat rack. As much as the enticing mystery begged to be solved, Nic was more important. She turned tail and bolted outside. If whoever brought her here wanted something from her, they could damn well send her a text message.
A glimpse of the sun overhead cheered her, reminding her of sunny Southern California, and Nic’s sexy smile. She’d made a deal with him not to give up, so she wouldn’t. She trotted west, beyond the farthest building, and eyed the trees and snow. As a dire wolf, she could run for hours, and even days if she had to, but to where? She had critical needs—food, shelter, internet.
She shifted to human and hunched down quickly against the cold. The tiny magic in the air wasn’t enough to keep her warm. She drew a crude circle in the snow, then pulled a button off her sleeveless blouse and carefully set it in the center. She visualized the outcome of the spell she was about to cast.
A shadow crossed the snow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an almost human form, but when she looked, it vanished. Whistling sounded with no wind behind it. Fingers danced lightly across the back of her neck, through her collar and drooping bun.
Her temper broke. She stood and faced the buildings, hands before her, robbing from her maned-wolf illusion to form twin spheres of magical explosives. “Any ghost that doesn’t want to be splattered across the cosmos better show itself right now, or leave me the fuck alone.”
A spectral figure wavered in the shadow cast by a tree.“S-s-s-o-o-o-r-r-y-y-y…”
Two more appeared, then three, then five, and in moments, too many to count. Ghosts, specters, and banshees crowded together in the shadows, some crying, some laughing, some howling. Most had lost their living shapes, but a few had vestiges of facial features and clothes.
She defused the spell and dropped her hands. She knew what she had to do, but it scared her. She’d only done it once, for one person, not dozens. But if not her, then who?
Skyla trudged through the snow toward the center of the base, where three tall trees created a permanent shadow and a small pool of nature magic. She knelt in the snow, shifted enough so her dire-wolf could keep her warm, and held out her arms in invitation.
“I will be your witness. Tell me how you lived and died.”
