“Then what are we waiting for?” I asked. “Let’s go.”
I helped Nathan load another snowmobile onto the back of the truck. I wasn’t exactly eager to get back on the damn thing, but if it would help me track down Nicola, I wouldn’t hesitate to ride it right back to where that cougar had attacked us. I wasn’t dressed for a trip into the backcountry, but Nathan assured me we wouldn’t have far to go. He then handed me a rental jacket that was only slightly too big.
We hopped in the truck and made our way north again, driving past the turnout for the Bloedermeyer development, and continuing north along the highway. After half an hour, we turned off onto a little-travelled side road. The way became a lot rougher, and the combination of rattling around in the old truck, the heat blasting in my face, and the lack of sleep the night before made my face and eyes burn with the need to just rest for a little while. My body and brain competed for which was the most exhausted. Even my magic had been annoyingly depleted after wasting so much of it trying to keep myself warm throughout the night.
“What makes you think Nicola is out here?” I asked. “This seems like the middle of nowhere.”
“Something my friend told me,” Nathan said. “There are a bunch of hot springs out this way. It’s a long shot, but there’s a chance the Black Fog is seeping out through the hot spring vents. As I understand the legend, the Protector was imprisoned deep below the earth. Unless it’s found a weakness through some kind of tectonic plate somewhere, this seems like the only realistic spot for it to send its influence to the surface.”
“I still don’t get why it would bring Nicola out here,” I said, staring out the window at the remoteness of the decommissioned logging road we were barreling down at recklessly high speed. “If the Protector’s aim is to stop Bloedermeyer, what would be the point of bringing his daughter all the way out here where no one would ever find her?”
“I honestly couldn’t say,” Nathan said. “It was once The Great Protector, after all. Maybe it’s not as insane as we think it is. If it has any compassion whatsoever, maybe it doesn’t truly want to kill Nicola. This could be nothing more than a final desperate act to scare her father into backing off for good.”
“I guess.” I thought back to what Charles had said about the ancient beings feeling neither love nor anger. It didn’t make sense to equate human emotions and rationality to an entity like this. “Are we getting close at least?”
Nathan nodded. He drove a little farther down the road, then swooped into a small snowy pullout. He dug a spare pair of heavy mittens out of the glove compartment and handed them to me.
“Help me get the snowmobile down,” he said before stepping out of the truck.
We climbed onto the flatbed and I began unhooking straps. Nathan pulled the ramp down, then climbed up to join me so he could start up the snowmobile and back it off the truck. He didn’t bother turning the machine off when he hopped down and slammed the ramp back in place.
“Get on,” he said. “We’ve still got a bit of a ride ahead of us. I’m not going to go as slow as I did last time, so hold on tight.”
I threw my leg over the back of the snowmobile. The vinyl seat was bitterly cold with only the thin fabric of my jeans as insulation. I hugged Nathan’s waist to keep from sliding backwards when he roared off down the trail. True to his word, he didn’t hold back on the throttle. He took obstacles at a much higher speed, launching the snowmobile clear into the air several times when he hit the gas instead of easing the machine over small bumps. I still had to get off and walk a few times while he navigated through little creek beds or deep sections of snow. My jeans were encrusted with snow and ice to above my knee. My socks were wet and on the verge of freezing into icy blocks from all the melted snow that had slipped down inside the cuff. I wasn’t remotely dressed to be out in this kind of weather, but I hadn’t wanted to waste any more time going back to the chalet to pick up a pair of snow pants.
“You okay?” Nathan asked when he saw me shivering after I helped him dig the snowmobile out from a hidden deep spot where we’d tipped it over onto its side. “Your lips are a little blue. Is there anything you can do with your magic to keep yourself warm? It’s a long way back to town, and I don’t want you getting hypothermia out here.”
“I’d rather save my energy,” I said. “It’s been a long night already, and I’m not sure how much I have left.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think we’ll have to actually fight anything,” Nathan said. He motioned to the shotgun strapped to the side of the snowmobile. “If the Black Fog took control of someone to kidnap Nicola, I should be able to take them out just like I finished off the cougar. You won’t be able to help if you’re so far gone you can’t think straight.”
We climbed back onto the snowmobile, and the first blast of icy air on my cheeks when Nathan picked up speed was enough to make me change my mind about that warming spell. I burned the lowest possible amount of magic I could. Filtering just a bit of extra warmth into my bloodstream, hoping to keep my core warm even if my fingers were numb beneath my mittens. Despite the flush of warmth, my nose was still so frozen it felt like it might fall off at any second.
Nathan dropped the snowmobile down into a little valley. An open river, wide and flowing furiously, carved a path through the snow. Several pockets of steaming water were visible at the river’s edge. Rocks had been carefully stacked into curved walls in order to create makeshift bathing pools of all sizes.
“This place is pretty popular throughout the rest of the year,” Nathan said when he slowed the snowmobile to a stop. “No one comes out here in winter, though. There are other hot springs that are much easier to get to, but this is where my friend thinks the Black Fog might be seeping into the world.”
Nathan stepped off the snowmobile and walked towards the nearest hot spring. I followed him, reaching out with my senses and activating my mage sight.
“I don’t know,” I said. “This is so far away from the Bloedermeyer development. If that was the trigger for aggravating the darkness, why would it be coming out here?”
“Maybe the machinery set something off deep underground,” Nathan offered. “If the Protector is trapped in some kind of metaphysical underground prison, it could have been awakened anywhere in the region. This might just be the easiest place for it to access the surface. If the earth is its prison, maybe this is one of the few cracks it can use to escape.”
“This doesn’t feel right,” I said, walking up to the edge of the nearest hot spring. “Shouldn’t the Black Fog feel more intense here? I’ve been able to sense it for the last couple of days, and I’d have expected it to be overwhelming this close to the source. It feels pretty neutral, though.
“And besides,” I added, glancing around the secluded area. “If Nicola is being held out here somewhere, shouldn’t we be able to see her?”
Nathan gave me a strange look. He glanced into the waters of the hot spring, then looked back at me. He seemed reluctant to say what he wanted to say, so I told him to spit it out.
“Well,” he began, “this is where it gets weird. My friend thinks that maybe the hot springs are a kind of… portal. It’s really just speculation, but he thought maybe between the two of us we might be able to figure out how to access The Protector’s prison domain by using the weakness in these hot springs as a doorway.”
“Are you freaking serious?” I asked. “I have absolutely zero idea of how to accomplish something like that. Teleportation and trans-dimensional portaling are way outside the scope of my abilities. I wouldn’t even know where to start with something like that. I mean, do we just dump our energy into the hot spring and hope to conjure a bunch of steps leading us into a dungeon where Nicola is chained to the wall?”
“That’s why I didn’t want to say anything about this until we were out here,” Nathan said. “It sounds just as ridiculous to me. Don’t you think we should at least try, though? I may know how to identify the doorway. I just don’t have the
kind of power resources you do. If we combine our abilities, maybe we can break through this thing together. We’re running out of time and options, Alex. If this doesn’t work, I have no idea what will.”
I stared into the murky depths of the spring. The stink of sulfur wafted up to my nose, and I wondered idly how hot the water was. This was the topmost in a string of pools that stretched down to the river. It was clear that people had walled off different sections, forming pools of varying temperatures from ice-cold all the way out to near boiling hot. I wasn’t sure if anyone could actually sit in this pool without scalding themselves, and the idea of trying to use it to build a portal was intimidating, to say the least. But Nathan was right. What other choice did we have?
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “You’re going to have to take the lead here.”
Nathan nodded solemnly, then pointed down towards the hot spring. “Start feeding raw energy into the water. I can’t shape magic the way you can, but I’m not without my own skills. I’ll try to harness your energy flow to power my own efforts. The important thing is that we figure out how to break through. Don’t hold back, no matter what.”
I took a wide stance and put my hands out in front of me. Using my fingertips as a focus, I began pouring energy into the spring waters. I’d never really tried to send raw energy into another object before. Normally when casting a spell, I was shaping the magic into something else. The magic itself had no physical form. It wasn’t until I used my focus and will to convert it into something like a kinetic blast, an electrical attack, or mage fire, that it would actually influence the real world. I’d also never fused my ability with someone else this way. As with the healer, there had been times when I joined my will to a magic user to shape the energy with two minds acting as one, but dumping my magic out into the aether felt like siphoning gas from a car only to dump it onto the street.
I risked a glance at Nathan, distracting myself from my efforts to try to get an idea of what he might be doing. I’d felt nothing coming from him, and as much as I wanted to give myself over to the process, I couldn’t afford to be wasting energy like this. I was exhausted beyond belief, and I had little left to give.
“Is anything happening?” I asked. “I’m not feeling any kind of shift. Are you able to tap into my energy?”
Nathan looked at me with dead eyes. “No. But that was never the point, now was it?”
The flat of his hand landed between my shoulder blades, knocking the wind from me as I tumbled forward into the scorching hot water. My face stung, and my throat burned when I accidentally gulped a mouthful of hot spring water. The pool wasn’t so deep that I couldn’t immediately roll over and claw my way to the edge. But before I could drag myself completely out of the pool, I saw Nathan already sitting on the back of his snowmobile.
“I am truly sorry I have to do this, Alex,” he said. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but there are more ways than one to stop the Black Fog. Even if it does mean sacrificing Nicola to save everyone else. I know you don’t have it in you to do what needs to be done, so I’m going to do it for you.”
Shaking with pain and the onset chill of being soaked to the bone in below-freezing temperature, I thrust my hand out and tried to fling a spell at Nathan’s head. A tiny spark crackled from my fingertips, fizzling into nothingness before it had traveled even a few feet. Before I could gather myself to try again, Nathan had started up the snowmobile and was already on his way back up the steep ridge.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alone, soaked, and exhausted; I collapsed on the snowy edge of the pool. Seemingly unable to decide between being too hot and too cold, my body simply shivered its way towards full system failure. I twitched uncontrollably. Gasping for air, my brain worked feverishly to figure out some way to keep me alive. If I didn’t do something to warm myself in the next few seconds, I’d start succumbing to the mental confusion stage of hypothermia. From there, it would be a rapid decline towards giving up and letting death overtake me.
Priority one was getting dry. Ignoring the pain of my burns, and pushing past my growing inability to control my body, I dug deep into my magic reserves. There in the darkness, flickering like a candle in a thunderstorm, was the thinnest thread of energy. With so little in the tank, I didn’t want to waste it by doing the wrong thing. Eyes darting wildly around me, I settled on a desperate move. I had to regulate my body temperature before I even thought about doing anything else. If I had just a bit more energy, I could warm myself with a simple spell, dry my clothes, and even use magic to jolt myself to alertness, but with how little I had available in that moment, none of those options were realistic.
Forcing myself to my hands and knees, I scooted towards one of the lower hot spring pools. One of my mitts had fallen off when I’d climbed out of the water, and my palm burned and stung from pressing it against the crunchy snow. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I pushed onwards, completely focused on reaching the next pool of water only a few strides away.
Without checking the temperature, I rolled into the pool. Since I was already soaked completely through every stitch of clothing, I had nothing to lose by getting wet again. As I guessed, the water in this pool was a more tolerable temperature. My nearly frozen hand burned from the sudden influx of intense heat, but after a minute of bobbing in the steaming water, my internal body temperature began to stabilize. I still had no idea what I was going to do when it came time to leave the pool, but with Nathan already long gone, it seemed like I had nothing but time to figure it out.
I decided to stay in the spring for an hour or two while I regained whatever strength I could. My fingers pruned quickly, and I had to keep dunking my hair underwater to prevent it from freezing. Bit by bit, my magic reserves replenished. After how much Nathan had tricked me into wasting, my gains were slow. Even a little would be just enough to help me survive, though. I didn’t know how long I had until the sun would set. Once darkness fell, I’d be in serious trouble. I didn’t know if I could make it back to town before that happened, so I focused all my energy on making a plan for getting through the night.
As I rested in the pool, I thought about Nathan and how he’d double-crossed me. Judging by what he’d said about Nicola and the need for her sacrifice, the only logical conclusion I could draw was that he’d been the one to snatch her from the bar. If everything he’d said about the Black Fog seeping through these hot springs had been a lie, it followed that he hadn’t actually gone to visit a friend for information. The reason he’d looked so tired was that he’d been out all night kidnapping Nicola then dragging her off somewhere in preparation for whatever he was about to do next.
I remembered Ada’s pentacle and plucked it out from beneath my shirt. I held it by the cord, the small wooden charm hovering just above the surface of the water. Even the slightest ripple of movement would indicate it had locked onto Nicola, but as I’d feared it would, the charm hung dead and motionless. I sensed magic still working within it, but its failure to locate Nicola was a solid indication she was being shielded from detection. Wherever Nathan had brought her, he’d made sure she would be nearly impossible to track by magical means.
I turned the pentacle over in my hand a few times. The light buzz of its enchantment hummed between my fingers. It wouldn’t be much — like eating a single raisin while on the verge of starving to death — but at this point, any little bit would help. I scanned the area surrounding the pool until I found a dead tree. Several of the branches had snapped and fallen to the ground. Covered with little ridges of snow, they were far too damp for a normal flame to catch. Luckily I had just the thing for that.
Using the pentacle as a mini battery, I drew energy into myself. When I’d absorbed every last ounce of magic, I flung it towards the densest pile of branches, shaping it into a tiny gout of mage fire no bigger than a pea.
The miniature ball of flame hissed when it hit the snow. Tenacious as it was, it clung to a branch and began burning. The flame grew gr
adually, drying the wood while it spread down the length of the branch. Feeling about as recovered as I was going to get, I climbed out of the pool and stumbled over towards the flames. Working quickly, I dragged a bunch of deadfall towards the fire. Within minutes, I had a tidy little bonfire burning. At the heart of it was a little glop of mage fire, already dripping down to the snowy ground where it burned through to the frozen earth below. It ignited dead leaves and grass, sending thick waves of eye-watering smoke up into the air.
The natural flame that had spread out from the mage fire was now burning hot enough that I could risk extinguishing the source. I would have loved to have been able to use the burst of energy to do literally anything else, but left unchecked, even a small amount of mage fire could eventually burn down the whole forest. I focused my will on the little supernatural flame burning below the pile of branches, suffocating it with a thought.
Already shivering, I rotated in a slow circle, exposing my front and back to the heat of the fire in an effort to dry out my clothes. Every time I felt a bit of magic energy build back up again, I used it to dry my clothing a little more. Starting with my boots and socks, I forced accumulated moisture to evaporate, eventually drying myself from the inside out.
By the time I’d finished ridding my clothing of the last of the hot spring water, the sky had grown dark. It wasn’t full night yet, but I knew I only had a precious few minutes of daylight in which to make my move. If this had purely been a matter of staying alive through the night, I would have hunkered down and started building myself a shelter. I didn’t know much about wilderness survival, but I did know it was stupid to start a journey just as darkness was falling. I didn’t know how far I’d make it, but I had to try. Nicola was out there somewhere. I didn’t know exactly what Nathan had planned, but at this point I was afraid I’d be lucky to find her alive even if I did make it back to town before sunrise.
Black Ice (Black Records Book 3) Page 20