“You guys have a howitzer?” Dean asked, incredulous.
“Hell yes, we do. But we have to have a Forest Service snow ranger fire it, and we’re still waiting for him to show up.”
Grace shifted uncomfortably. “I really need to get into some dry boots. You got anything?”
“Sure. Down in the equipment room under us. Just go down those crew stairs there,” Don said, pointing to a wooden door marked “Employees Only.”
“Great. My feet feel like blocks of ice.”
He frowned. “That’s not good. Oh, and food services is all shut down, of course, but you can help yourself to what’s in the fridge.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been here before. I remember where that is.” She looked up at Dean. “See you in a bit.” She headed off.
“It’s pretty bad out there, son,” Don told Dean. “You’re lucky you’re okay.”
Dean heartily agreed. He couldn’t wait to shuck off his boots and warm his toes up, but first he had to reach Sam and Bobby. “You got a place where I can recharge my phone?”
“Sure. You can use my office. I’ll show you the way.”
Dean followed the little man through the elegant ski lodge. Artful chandeliers decorated with pine tree and bear motifs hung from high cathedral ceilings. On the walls, old-fashioned skis and snowshoes hung next to watercolor paintings of mountain meadows filled with wildflowers. In the main foyer, a waterfall cascaded over stones, landing in a small pool.
They passed behind the front desk and entered a room marked “Private.”
“Here it is,” Don said. “Help yourself.” He pointed out an outlet next to his cluttered desk. “I have to see how the avalanche boys are doing.”
He left hurriedly.
Dean slipped off his pack, happy to be free of the weight. He got out his phone and plugged it in, pressed the power button and felt good just to see the boot-up screen. He called Sam.
His brother picked up on the second ring. “Dean?” He sounded amazed and relieved.
“Hey, Sammy. Good to hear you.” Dean could hear the wind howling on Sam’s end. The reception was terrible, cutting in and out.
“Where… been?”
Dean could barely make out his words. Then the call dropped.
“Damn it!” Dean cursed, and called Sam back. It went straight to voicemail. He remembered how terrible reception was out there. He would wait for Sam to climb up something high and call him back.
Dean paced in the small office, willing the phone to ring. Three minutes later it did.
“Sam?”
“Dean!”
“You okay?”
“As well as can be expected. Where have you been?”
“In snow up to my ass. Where are you?”
“Ditto. We’ve been trying to track you.”
“Is Bobby with you?”
“Yeah, he’s here.”
“What about Jason?”
Sam hesitated. “We thought he was with you.”
“We got separated. I think something may have taken him. I tracked him for a while, but lost the trail in the snow.” “Dean, listen.” The wind howled even louder, and for a second Dean thought he’d lost Sam again.
“Sam?”
The connection crackled, went silent, then came back on. “…not a ranger.”
“What?”
“… doesn’t work for…”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Hold on.”
Dean waited, hearing Sam breathe as he walked, probably climbing to a higher location.
“Can you hear me now?” Sam asked. The connection was much better.
“Yes.”
“Grace is not a ranger.”
“What?”
“We went to the ranger station. She doesn’t work for them.”
“Then who the hell is she?” Dean asked.
“The better question might be what.”
Dean couldn’t believe it. “But she just helped me get to this ski lodge.”
“Is that where you are now?”
“Yes. Tahoe Summit Ski Lodge.”
Sam relayed the information to Bobby. “We can backtrack to the car, try to get through the roadblock to reach you.”
“Won’t do you any good. The mountain manager here said the last avalanche took out the road.”
“Then we’ll hike to you. Is Grace with you now?”
“She’s here at the resort.”
“Don’t let her leave your sight.”
Too late. “Okay. Tell Bobby I found some aswang eggs.”
“You’re kidding. Did you destroy them?”
“I couldn’t. So I hid them.”
The phone crackled again, and Sam’s voice went in and out.
“Hang… be there soon.”
“Okay. Be careful. It’s hell out there.”
“You’re… me,” Sam said and gave a sad laugh.
Then the connection blinked out. Dean waited for the phone to ring again, but knew it wouldn’t. At least they each knew where the other was now. Just in case, Dean hid his phone behind Don’s file cabinet while it recharged.
Rummaging through his pack, he grabbed his Bowie knife and his bottle of the spice concoction. Then, leaving the small office, he stalked off to find Grace.
FORTY-THREE
Sliding the spice concoction into his jacket pocket, Dean descended the stairs toward the employee area and equipment room. In a small crew room with lockers, he found five men milling around, suiting up.
Dean stepped inside. “You guys seen a short woman with blonde hair?”
One of the men turned to him. His face was covered with exposure wounds. Strips of raw flesh were exposed on his nose and cheekbones. Bloody cracks covered his lips. “Sorry, man,” he said.
“Anyone else?” Dean prompted.
Distracted, they looked at him briefly and a murmur of “no” went through the rest of the group. Dean left them getting their gear on and made a circuit of the entire understory of the lodge. Except for the crew room, the place was abandoned, most of the lights shut off.
Dean ascended the lodge’s stairs to the upper level, which held a kitchen and food court. He grabbed a couple of sandwiches out of the fridge and stuffed them in his pocket. Wide patios opened up onto balconies with vistas of the mountain and ski lifts. All Dean could see through the windows was blowing snow and hazy white.
Grace was not in the kitchen or the dining area. While he ate a sandwich, Dean searched through the pantries, meat lockers, and larders.
As he started down the stairs again, his eyes spotted movement outside in the snowstorm. He walked to a window, staring down, and saw a figure in white snowshoeing toward the lodge doors. For a second he hoped it was Bobby or Sam, but soon realized the person was far too slight to be either.
He jogged down the stairs as the person entered. A man clomped ice and snow off his snowshoes, then unbuckled them. Don rushed down the hall and greeted him. “Steven! Thank you for coming up. That must have been one hell of a hike with the road out.” The newcomer stripped off his hat, balaclava, and snow goggles, revealing a lean man in his early thirties with a tanned face and black hair. Snow clustered in his goatee. He wore a National Forest Service uniform.
Steven looked at Dean. “I thought this place had been evacuated.”
“It was, it was,” Don insisted. “But two hikers came out about half an hour ago. This is Dean, and Grace is one of yours.”
Steven held his hand out and shook Dean’s. “What do you mean ‘one of mine?’” Steven asked.
“A ranger,” Don clarified.
“Oh. She must be new.”
“Steven’s the snow ranger,” Don explained to Dean. “He’s the one who can fire the howitzer.”
“If I could see where the hell to aim it, anyway,” Steven said, gesturing at the whiteout beyond the windows.
“We can guestimate,” Don said.
Dean laughed mirthlessly. “Guestimate. Just the w
ord you want to hear when firing a seventy-five millimeter shell.”
“You know about howitzers?”
“Weapons are… a hobby,” Dean said.
“Well, it’s a mess to fire the thing,” Steven told him. “It shoots backward. Usually lands in a snowdrift. Then we have to dig it out and do it all over again.”
Steven brushed the snow off his coat, then asked Don where the ski patrol was.
“Waiting for you in the crew room,” Don told him.
“So you don’t know Grace?” Dean said as Steven walked away.
Steven shrugged. “I’m a snow ranger. I don’t usually get to mix with the others.”
Dean turned to the mountain manager. “Have you seen her since we arrived?”
Don frowned. “Nope. I assume she’s still in the equipment room, changing into dry clothes.”
“Let me know if you see her.” Dean stared out into the storm, worrying about Bobby and Sam. Before Steven left, he asked, “Do you know if this will work? Will we be able to leave?”
“It’s hard to say. We’ll give it our best shot.” He glanced out at the grey. “But with no visibility, and the winds barreling down from the slopes, it’s going to be dicey. Right now the winds are cross-loading the slopes with snow much faster than it’s actually falling. That and the fluctuating temperature makes for bad avalanche conditions.”
Steven headed for the crew room, and Dean resumed his search for Grace.
He searched the public areas, including another circuit of the food court, the bar, two restaurants, the skating rink, the ski rental rooms. Nothing. Another round of the employee areas didn’t yield anything, either. She wasn’t in the break room, the locker room, or the equipment check-in room. He searched the outbuildings, including the ski lift mechanism shed, and the weather and avalanche forecasting station. He even checked the bathrooms and changing rooms.
Grace had vanished.
FORTY-FOUR
Heading steadily toward the ski resort, Sam and Bobby worked their way upslope, reaching a section where they had to cut around a ridge. The route continued upward, and Sam saw that they had to climb across a relatively open area of granite. To get to the next elevation level, they’d have to scale a nearly vertical wall, walk along a ridgeline for about twenty feet, and then enter the forest again.
Bobby looked at his map, then stared up at the cliff. “Climbing this is a necessary evil. Once we cut across the top, we’ll be back in the trees.”
“How narrow is the top?”
“Let’s hope wider than it looks.”
“Won’t we be a little exposed up there?”
“Not as exposed as we’d be if we’d taken the avalanche route.” Bobby pulled a rope out of his pack. “It’s going to be windy up there. We should rope ourselves together in case one of us falls.”
As they tied themselves to each other, Sam stared up at the vertical wall. Bobby noticed his worried look. “It’s still better than the route back to the trailhead. A single avalanche could wipe us off the mountain.” Bobby stooped over and unbuckled his snowshoes. “We’ll have to take these off. Make it easier to find toeholds.” He eyed the ascent. “It’ll be easier if we stick to the big boulders going up. Just be careful not to slip down any cracks and break a leg.”
“You paint such a cheerful picture.”
They strapped the snowshoes to their packs. Instantly Sam sank up to his thighs, and he knew it was actually a lot deeper than that. They struggled through the drifts to the edge of the boulder field, and stepped up onto large granite rocks. Bobby pulled out an ice axe from his pack and Sam did the same. If either fell, the other would dig in with their ice axe to arrest the descent.
Bobby took the lead, creeping upward, using his hands to steady himself. The rough granite was a lot easier going than the snow had been. Sam jumped from boulder to boulder, gaining altitude a lot faster than they’d been able to do slogging through the snow. He watched the rope between them go slack and taut as they gained and lost distance between each other.
Within a few minutes, they were a quarter of the way up. It grew steeper then, and the boulders smaller. Progress slowed a bit. When they’d climbed halfway, Sam looked down as they moved above the height of the trees. The layer of cloud stayed low, and for the first time, he could actually see more than thirty feet.
In the near distance were steep granite cliffs. Clouds hung in front of them like shawls made of spider webs. Fresh snow covered the slopes, collecting in all the crags.
Now outside the forest, exposed on the rock face, the wind hit them.
They were almost all the way up, and Sam could see the crest of the cliff above them.
Bobby reached the top first and started making his way along the ridge. A sudden gust of wind kicked up, pinning Sam momentarily to the rocks. He gripped the stone in front of him as it blew even harder, almost knocking him off balance.
“Wooooo!” Sam heard Bobby call out in surprise. “That was a hell of a breeze.”
As it died down, they both straightened up. Sam reached the top of the ridge and could see down the other side of it, a dizzying two hundred foot sheer drop onto a pile of rocks below. They walked along the narrow line of the top, only two feet wide in places and full of loose stones.
A blur of movement flashed up the side of the cliff they had just climbed. Sam saw a dark shape leap to the top of the ridge and slam into Bobby. Bobby cried out and fell backward, plunging over the sickening drop. Instantly, the rope cinched up on Sam, and he lost his footing. He slammed down hard on his tailbone, then spun around to his stomach, clutching the ice axe. He held it tight to his chest, letting his weight drive it down into the rock. The axe dragged through loose soil, and Sam felt his legs swing free as his lower body went over the edge. The weight on the rope tugged him downward. He gritted his teeth, pressing on the axe as he felt his elbows go over the edge. Then, suddenly, the axe found purchase and Sam hung, swinging on the end of it.
As he hung there, he dared a look down and saw Bobby on the end of the rope, suspended above the two hundred foot drop.
Something slammed down onto Sam’s hands where he gripped the axe. He looked up into the face of a black-haired man in his thirties, dressed in a long, black wool overcoat. The man’s mouth parted into a smile full of sharp teeth. His eyes glinted reflectively as he stared down at Sam with utter contempt.
Not a man, a vampire.
The vampire smashed his foot down again, crushing Sam’s fingers, but Sam refused to let go of the axe. Sam’s flailing feet kicked the rock face below him, trying to find a place to stand. He looked to his left, seeing a handhold in the granite. Just as he brought his boot down a third time, Sam’s foot found a small ledge. He let go of the axe with his right hand, knowing the wrist strap would keep him connected to it. With his left, he grabbed the handhold. The wounds from where the aswang had pierced his chest muscles throbbed in agony.
The vampire’s combat boot landed harmlessly on the ice axe, and as he stepped back off it, Sam grabbed it, swinging it up into his thigh. He felt the axe bite through muscle and yanked downward, hoping to pull his assailant off the mountain. But as the vampire pitched forward, another, a female with bright blue spiked hair, ran up and grabbed him. She reached down, yanking the axe head out of his leg. Sam nearly lost his balance as she tried to snatch the axe away from him. He gripped it, but Bobby’s weight threatened to yank him backward. His left fingers started slipping in the handhold, and he could feel the granite tearing through his glove and cutting his skin.
She crashed her boot down on Sam’s left hand. Instantly, they went numb from the blow. He felt his hold slipping further. With a sickening feeling, he dipped backward. Instinctively, he swung forward with the axe, catching a lip of stone as he fell. He pulled himself back flush with the cliff, his left hand finding another nook to grip. Now he hung just below the summit where the vampires couldn’t stomp on his hands.
Sam’s heart thudded in his chest. He took a momen
t to catch his breath. He looked down, seeing Bobby swinging below.
“You okay?” he shouted down.
“Never better.”
Sam angled his head up, seeing the two vampires leaning over the edge. Black Overcoat pointed out to his partner a narrow ledge they could move down to in order to reach Sam and knock him loose.
As Sam searched the rock face for another position to move to, the creatures slid over the top of the ridge, moving closer to his precarious position.
FORTY-FIVE
Dean walked another circuit of the ground floor, then stopped before one of the large windows that looked out over the parking lot. The ski patrol were out there, gathered around a small cannon on a wheeled cart. He saw the hooded parka of Steven, the snow ranger, who bent over the howitzer. Five others clustered around him, but there was a sixth member in a red parka who was very short. Dean realized Grace had probably changed into dry clothes, and he might not recognize her in new outdoor gear.
Donning his winter jacket and hat again, he ventured out into the storm. As he approached the group, they watched while the snow ranger looked at a map, then manually adjusted the sights on the howitzer. Dean reached them. Steven didn’t look up from his task.
“Hey,” Dean said, hoping they would all turn. The wind carried his voice away, and almost tore the map from Steven’s hand.
One of them turned and saw Dean standing there. “What the hell are you doing out here?” he demanded. He was in his early twenties, long blond hair encrusted with snow. Dean recognized him from the crew room.
“I’m still looking for the person I arrived with. Grace.”
“You shouldn’t be out here. There’s extreme avalanche danger.”
A second man turned around, the exposure victim from earlier. “Don’t be rude, Ambrose. Dude lost his friend,” he admonished. He sized Dean up. “I’m Hank. Everyone’s been evacuated.”
Dean felt a flush of impatience. “I know. We just hiked in together about an hour ago.”
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