Winter Lost

At the far table, Peter rose to his feet in a measured movement that spoke to his training. He kept everyone else in his pack—his group, since they weren’t werewolves—seated with a short gesture of his left hand. He didn’t move quickly, but he pushed the chair out of his way in case he had to move. Standing, he wasn’t tall, but that didn’t matter. He owned the ground he stood upon in a way that reminded me of Adam.

I was pretty sure Elyna’s police officer friend was carrying a weapon from the way his right hand strayed a little farther back along his side than was natural. But his real power was in his shrewd, cool eyes and his trained calm. I had no doubt that he was, outside of my husband, the most dominant person in the room.

The hiker pair, Victoria and Able, moved at the same time as Peter stood. Their movement was more subtle. If I hadn’t been on high alert, I might not have noticed how the woman, Victoria, turned so she had a better view of Peter, or maybe Peter’s table—though I knew which way I’d vote on that. While she did that, her brother turned more fully toward Adam and me.

At the table nearest us, Dylis Heddar surged to her feet, accompanied by the crash of her chair.

“I know you,” she declared, her glassy eyes fixed on my husband. “I know who you are.” Her voice was soft, but it cracked on the beginnings of the words and sometimes in between. She sounded like a drug addict, pushing through lethargy with something that seemed like panic—or a very bad actor in a mid-century horror movie that probably featured a guy in a rubber monster costume. Her eyes were an even lighter shade of blue than her husband’s, but equally unusual.

Heddar’s expression sharpened. I could see he was still offended by Adam’s words but was rapidly rethinking his initial reaction. His peripheral vision must have been terrific, because he didn’t look over when he grabbed his wife’s arm with an unkind hand.

“Enough, Dylis.” To Adam he said, “I asked you. Who are you?”

Heddar had tried to assume control of the room and failed. I was pretty sure that at least some of his irritation with his wife was because she was holding the room’s attention without appearing to seek it. And his second attempt wasn’t doing any better than his first.

Dylis jerked her arm in an unsuccessful attempt to free herself. Like her voice, her movement was off, a little convulsive and awkward, the most effort put into the motion at the least efficient time.

“No,” she said breathlessly, still struggling. “No. He’s here to get it. The thing I hear in the walls. He’s here to save us all.”

“Dylis,” Heddar said sharply, his voice louder than the situation called for. “Stop.”

None of the other people in the room looked surprised at her outburst. At Peter’s table, Tammy Vanderstaat started to get up, her face concerned with a hint of anger ascending, eyes locked on Andrew Heddar’s hand. Her father said something in a low voice and she sat back down, but she wasn’t happy about it.

“The music,” Dylis said.

A clue! I thought in my best Inspector Clouseau imitation, caught up in the half-histrionic spell of the woman.

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.