Frozen: a ParaNormal mystery

by Amsden, Christine

  “I told you. We’re on vacation.”

  Shawn and the sheriff weren’t backing down, and this conversation was getting us nowhere. The Bakers were definitely hiding something, but what? Had little Haley caused the cold and the mist?

  Her small head peeked out of the sheets and I caught sight of two wide, frightened eyes that looked just like her father’s, even down to the emotions swirling within them.

  The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I felt something – it reminded me of last night, when I’d felt that hint of danger just before the hell hound attacked.

  It was dark outside, once again. But we weren’t in Eagle Rock. So surely …

  “Where were you on Saturday?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “We were … we were taking some tourists out on a charter fishing trip.” Shawn didn’t look the sheriff in the eyes; he was a terrible liar, although I believed him about being on a boat.

  “So where was Haley?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  “With us on the boat,” Sydney said, speaking for her husband. She was a much better liar, but it didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have wanted a three-year-old on a charter trip with fishermen and Nadine would have been happy to watch their daughter – she’d needed the money, after all.

  “Someone can corroborate that?” Sheriff Adams asked.

  I glanced at the door, trying to figure out what was triggering my feelings of alarm. If only Evan were here. I felt for the crystal in my pocket, taking comfort in the reassuring bulge, but did not activate it. The second I did that, Evan would break the door down and our conversation would be over.

  I drew in a deep breath, then wished I hadn’t. The mildew was a bit overpowering, as was another scent … rotten eggs.

  “Um, Sheriff,” I said.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Do you smell something?”

  But before he had a chance to answer, I saw something too. The room was growing hazy with mist, partially obscuring the faces of the Baker family and fully obscuring the terrified eyes of little Haley Baker.

  Chapter 15

  “IT’S HER,” SHERIFF ADAMS SAID.

  “Get out!” came a frightened, little girl cry. “Go away! Go away!”

  The fog thickened and I shivered.

  “Mrs. Baker,” Sheriff Adams said, his voice pleading, “calm your daughter down before someone gets hurt.”

  “How can I, with you standing in the room?” Sydney’s face was clouded over with mist by now, but the wringing of her hands gave me a clue to how she felt.

  I backed up to the door and opened it, deciding against using the crystal. If I did that, Evan would probably blast the door apart and frighten the child more. But I needed him, and he was standing right outside, staring at me as if he’d been looking in through the door. X-ray vision wasn’t something he knew how to accomplish, as far as I knew.

  Fog escaped from the room through the open doorway and I coughed. I have no idea what I looked like to Evan, but before I had a chance to speak he was striding forward, yanking me outside, and taking my place within the room.

  “Please,” Sheriff Adams was saying. “This precedes the cold.”

  “It wasn’t Haley!” Sydney wailed.

  I couldn’t see anything in the room now, but I could hear just fine. Someone was crying – probably Haley. The sheriff and Shawn started yelling so loudly I couldn’t understand what they were saying. And underneath it all came the low tones of Evan chanting.

  I held my breath and watched. For a minute or so, the fog continued to thicken and roll out the door. I tried to imagine how long it had taken Haley to produce enough fog to cover a square mile by the lake, or how scared she must have been to do it.

  Then, suddenly, the fog dissipated. The rotten egg smell lingered, but was already far less potent. Evan stood between the sheriff and the Bakers, arms raised in what probably looked like a threatening gesture.

  Sydney screamed.

  Evan lowered his arms. “I was just dispelling the fog. It’s okay.”

  “Haley didn’t do anything. She wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Shawn’s voice sounded weak now, almost hollow.

  “I don’t think she did anything on purpose,” Evan said gently, “but she can’t control her gift and neither of you can help her with it, can you?”

  Sydney flung herself on her daughter, as though planning to use her body as a shield for whatever Evan had planned.

  “A binding won’t hurt her; it will protect her and everyone else.” Evan said.

  The Bakers weren’t listening, though. They just kept sobbing that Haley was innocent, that she hadn’t done anything. How they could be so blind in the face of overwhelming evidence baffled me. I mean, it had hurt to think for even a second that the twins might be involved, but I would have accepted it if it had come to that. These two weren’t even willing to listen, to entertain the slightest possibility. Yet they had run, so they had to have suspected something.

  The hairs on the back of my neck still stood on end. I’d almost forgotten my earlier sense of foreboding, given the danger that had already passed. Now I stiffened and glanced from side to side, looking along the brightly lit row of little motel rooms.

  There, at the furthest end from the office, a dark shape crouched in a pool of lamplight. I couldn’t see its form from here, but I could see the twin red, glowing eyes.

  “Evan!” I cried.

  He whirled and came out the door without a backward glance, standing by my side within seconds. No question. No argument. I called him and there he was.

  “Get to the car!” Evan called.

  I didn’t wait to be told twice, though I did shout for the sheriff over my shoulder. A moment later, I heard his footsteps pounding the concrete outside the motel room and we both sprinted for our vehicles – his slightly closer than mine so that we each reached our driver’s doors at about the same time.

  A low, menacing growl filled the night. Once again, I felt the piercing sensation in my skull that was becoming all-too familiar. Goosebumps erupted on my skin and I recalled the feeling of having my arm trapped in its jaw, of dozens of knives piercing my skin.

  “Evan!” I got the car started then reached across to push open the passenger door so he could easily get inside.

  The car in front of me – the sheriff’s SUV – peeled out of the parking lot and I pulled forward, watching the tableau before me through the windshield.

  Evan had both arms upraised and was staring at the hell hound, as if sheer force of will could hold the creature at bay.

  I couldn’t immediately see the hell hound. It had left the pool of lamplight and lunged forward so that it was now mere yards from Evan.

  Sweat beaded his brow. He couldn’t hold the thing for long; I could tell. He had trouble holding vampires too.

  “Get in the car!” I yelled.

  “Go!” he yelled back.

  I was facing the wrong way. He had to go around the car to get to the passenger side. So I pulled forward, did a quick three-point turn in the grassy area at the end of the lot, then returned to Evan’s side.

  “Get in!” The door had closed slightly, but I reached out and pushed it open again.

  He let out a noise like a war cry. His concentration broke as he flung himself into the car and slid inside just as the hell hound bashed itself against the car, rocking it onto two wheels. For the space of a heartbeat, I thought we would topple. Then the world righted itself and I peeled out.

  “I told you to go!” Evan cried.

  “Can we fight about this later?” I glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting the hell hound to be following us. It wasn’t; apparently it didn’t have vampire speed.

  “It could have killed you!” Evan was clearly not backing down.

  “It could have killed you,” I retorted. “Don’t I get to save you every once in a while?”

  He didn’t answer. For a minute or so, I could hear only the sounds of his heavy breathing as he wrestled with what
ever internal demons tormented him. Finally, he spoke. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” It was my turn to draw in a deep breath. “We still have to bind her powers.”

  Evan nodded. “We could do it tomorrow. The hell hound only comes out at night.”

  “I doubt they’ll stay at the motel; we’ll have to hope they use their credit card again.”

  “Or we can use this.” He held up a hand and I saw, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a lock of dark hair.

  “How did you get that?” I asked.

  He lifted his eyebrows in an isn’t it obvious sort of way.

  “Right,” I said. “But there’s a more important question: When did you get it?”

  “A split second before the hell hound attacked.”

  “That’s what I thought. Evan, you do realize that we have bigger problems than one overpowered little girl with a strange gift?”

  “Yes. Which is why we have a White Guard meeting tomorrow night.”

  * * *

  We spent the night in a hotel just outside Kansas City – close to the interstate in case we needed to get moving in a hurry. The sheriff wanted to return to the motel in St. Joseph and stand guard all night, but I talked him out of it. There was a hell hound ready to attack anyone who got too close – and the parking lot could easily be considered too close. So could the convenience store across the street.

  “It could attack a civilian,” Sheriff Adams argued.

  “I don’t think it will. I haven’t entirely figured it out, but I don’t think it attacks at random.”

  “We’ll lose the Bakers. You know they’ll run.”

  “Evan can track them,” I assured him.

  That ended the argument. He took rooms in the same hotel, but on a different floor, and we agreed to meet downstairs at sunrise.

  There was very little comparison between the room the Bakers had rented and the suite Evan reserved for the night. It had a king-sized bed and living room area, separated by a half wall. While I unpacked our small overnight bag and called Kaitlin, Evan pushed the furniture aside to allow space for a casting circle.

  “Of course we’ll watch Ana tonight,” Kaitlin said. “Will she be okay on a toddler bed? Jay can sleep with us.”

  I hesitated, torn between needs and wants. I needed to be here tonight, ready and able to track down and deal with the Bakers in the morning. I wanted to be with my daughter, especially if she was going to move into a big girl bed for the first time. She was one. She was ready. She could do it. I was the one having trouble.

  “I’ve never left her overnight,” I said aloud, even as the enormity of the fact struck me.

  “She’ll be fine. I promise. Moms can’t always be there for their kids. It’s not even good for them.”

  “I know. Maybe this would have been easier if I’d planned it. When I kissed her goodbye this afternoon, I told her I’d be back tonight.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Kaitlin repeated.

  I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I let Kaitlin go so she could finish fixing dinner. Evan was going to be a while, so I snuck out of the room and grabbed dinner for us as well – pasta and salad from a local place the hotel clerk recommended. Evan was just finishing his spell when I returned with food.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “They moved, but not far. They’re actually closer to us than they were originally, about ten miles east. There are more hotels and motels in that area, so I think it’s safe to assume they simply changed addresses.”

  “That’s good. We can deal with this in the morning.” I handed him a Styrofoam container full of pasta and watched him cringe as he took the non-biodegradable box from my hands.

  “Were the Bakers telling the truth about their ancestry?” Evan asked, apparently choosing to let this relatively minor eco-disaster pass.

  “I think so. I ran a background check this morning; I didn’t get far before we had to come here, but I’m sure Sydney’s family is new and Shawn moved to town five years ago. Of course, Eagle Rock isn’t the only place in the world where magic exists. It’s impossible to trace anyone’s magical ancestry for sure, which is why you get magic users popping up in the most unlikely of places. The Magical Underground has a program to deal with that sort of thing.”

  “I bet that’ll come up at the White Guard meeting tomorrow,” Evan said thoughtfully. “Trouble is, despite our increasing numbers – ever since Matthew uncovered the truth about Alexander last summer – we still don’t have the infrastructure to find and train random new magic users.”

  “They had trouble with it too, if I recall correctly.” I thought back to the time I had spent with the Magical Underground in Pennsylvania. It had been an … educational time for me. But ultimately, not where I belonged, and that was before Alexander showed his true colors. “It was always more of an ideal than a reality. Unless you want to out magic completely and go around testing every preschooler across the country for gifts and talents, there’s no way to track it.”

  Evan took a bite of his pasta and chewed thoughtfully. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Right now, we just have one child to worry about.”

  I wasn’t sure that was true, but I didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. Haley had proved herself capable of creating the mist and cold. And she had been with Nadine and Jared on the day they’d died. Still, something about the whole thing felt wrong. Or maybe not wrong, but … incomplete.

  Haley’s powers didn’t explain the hell hounds, for one thing. Where had they come from? How? Why were they here? Were they protectors of children and if so, which children?

  I thought of Michael and Maya as I had seen them that afternoon, strangely linked to one another but apart from the rest of the world. Their magic had slipped its bindings again.

  Evan’s magic used to slip its bindings, when he was a child, but that was because he had twice as much magic as he was supposed to and it kept leaking out all over the place. It had been a difficult childhood, because his parents had feared letting him be around other people.

  Did Maya and Michael have that kind of power?

  “What are you thinking?” Evan asked, drawing me to the present once again.

  “I’m missing something. I don’t know what, but it’s right here … I can almost touch it.”

  “You could try dreaming.”

  I shuddered, remembering my recent dreams. The ones I hadn’t shared with Evan.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Bad dreams.”

  “With a dream catcher?”

  “Okay, good dreams with bad implications.” I hesitated, but if I wanted to bring Abigail into the world, my deadline was tonight.

  Was that what I wanted? What about Henry?

  My heart began to pound as I glanced at the bed, then at Evan, then back at the bed. It wasn’t the bed from my dream. Would that make a difference? Was it already too late for Abigail? For my clever, spirited girl who would take the world by storm?

  I didn’t know. I also didn’t know if either Evan or I felt up to making her. I felt … raw. Not angry anymore, not exactly. Too much had happened and the danger of the hell hound attack had sharpened reality into a single focus for a while: life or death. But now that moment was gone, leaving behind the argument over what I had done and my refusal to learn to use the magic which currently pulsed weakly through my veins – I had only nursed Ana once today.

  None of which was more important than Abigail, who did exist, whatever Kaitlin thought. She existed in my heart.

  So did Little Henry.

  “Cassie, what’s going on?” Evan set his half-empty box of pasta aside on the desk and stood, crossing to the bed where I sat, not touching my own dinner. He hesitated, then took a seat next to me.

  “If we don’t have sex tonight, Abigail will never exist,” I said.

  “Oh.” He withdrew slightly. “Um, well …”

  “Yeah, same here.” I didn’t need for him to stammer out a r
ejection. It would just humiliate me further. “Besides, if we do have sex tonight, Little Henry will never exist.” And I explained about Henry.

  “You know that neither one of them actually exists, right?” Evan said. “They’re just possible futures, two of many yet to be written. We’ll love whatever children come our way.” He hesitated before adding, “and we can create them whenever it feels right. Not when it’s a … I don’t even know what this would be. A duty?”

  He didn’t understand either. Maybe no one ever would.

  “I get it. Forget I said anything.” I stood, not sure where I was going, but knowing I didn’t want to be there.

  “Cassie, look at me and tell me you want me right now.”

  I couldn’t. We both knew it.

  “I’m going downstairs to run on the treadmill for a while.”

  Evan grabbed my hand as I passed and I glanced at him. “I love you. That doesn’t change, just because I’m mad at you.”

  “Yeah.” But unfortunately he’d just said that he was, in fact, still mad at me. So that hadn’t changed either. Which meant Abigail was as good as dead.

  Chapter 16

  I RAN FOR A FULL HOUR. Two other hotel guests came and left the tiny workout room during that time, the second taking one look at my face before backing away slowly and not returning – at least, not while I was there.

  Sweat drenched my clothes, which weren’t actually designed for working out – I hadn’t packed that carefully. The blue jeans began to chafe badly, but still I kept running.

  When I finally stopped and wiped the dampness from my face, I knew it wasn’t all perspiration.

  Evan had ducked out when I returned to the room, which meant I could sneak in and shower in peace. He didn’t need to see my face right now; I didn’t want pity sex anyway. But, as I glanced at my watch and saw the minutes ticking by, I sensed it was too late anyway. That my window had passed.

  I flung myself into bed, hoping to be asleep before Evan returned, but he was back almost before my head hit the pillow.

  “You’re back,” he said. “Did you have a good run?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” There was a moment of awkwardness during which time Evan crossed through the living room part of the suite and paused next to the bed. “Are you all right?”