Chapter 3
SHORTLY BEFORE SUNRISE, Aegis kissed me again and quietly slipped into his coffin. He looked at me before shutting the lid. “You know how much I trust you, don’t you?”
I nodded. “You have to, in order to let me see where you’re sleeping.”
He blew me another kiss, then softly lowered the lid.
I shuddered. How he managed it without getting claustrophobic, I had no clue, but at least the inside was lined with quilts and a soft pillow instead of a shroud or anything quite so gothic. At home, I knew where his coffin was safely hidden in the basement, but it seemed so much more secure and private. I hated the idea that he would be sleeping in the open, but there was nothing we could do about it. As I crawled into bed for a couple hours sleep, I prayed that nobody would manage their way into our room.
BUBBA PATTED MY face and I opened my eyes, yawning. The clock read three hours later than when I had fallen asleep.
“Hey, Bubba. I take it you want breakfast?” I slid out from beneath the comforter and gathered him into my arms. He snuggled against my shoulder, purring as I fixed his breakfast and then my coffee. I had no more than sat down at the table with my mug and a box of cookies when a deep rumbling sound like a freight train began.
“What the hell? There aren’t any big trucks out—” I stopped as the room began to shake. “Crap, earthquake! Come here, Bubba!”
I staggered to my feet, but quickly ended up on my hands and knees. Bubba raced over and hid beneath my stomach, pressing against me, obviously terrified as I did my best to shelter him. The room swayed—which meant the entire chalet was swaying—and then, in slow motion, it seemed—Aegis’s coffin fell off the saw horses it was sitting on, landing on the floor and popping open. He rolled out, dead to the world, and I thanked my lucky stars we had thought to black out the windows the night before.
“Crap. Great Arianrhod, please let us come through this in one piece.” As I prayed to the goddess of the Silver Wheel, it calmed me enough to recover some sense of my wits.
I envisioned a sphere of protection filling the room, encasing Bubba, Aegis, and me. I forced energy into the walls of it, managing to hold my panic at bay as I drove the sphere firmly into a tangible field. As the bubble finally “took” and I released it, I slumped to the side. Bubba licked my face, and I let out out a choked cough, then forced myself to sit up.
The room was dark. The power had gone out and with the windows blacked out, I couldn’t really see much of anything. I crawled across the floor and Bubba followed me, sticking by my side.
“M-row,” he said plaintively.
“I’ll be careful, little guy. I promise.” I finally ran into the wall—though since I was crawling at slow speed it was more like a gentle bump—and, bracing myself against it, managed to stand. Feeling my way along the wall, I finally came to the drapes covering the windows. I slid behind them, making sure the room was still bathed in darkness before lifting one of the blackout shades.
We were on the third floor, but all around me, I was staring at a level field of snow that reached the bottom of our window. Fuck Avalanche. At least the chalet wasn’t buried. Not yet. I glanced up at the mountain. There was still a dangerous amount of snow up there, overhanging the chalet, and it could come tumbling down at any moment.
“What the hell do we do now, Bubba? Maybe I should crawl out and see what I can find out? Or go downstairs?” I paused, trying to figure out what I should do. But I couldn’t leave Aegis alone.
“Maddy? You okay?” Sid’s voice floated through the door.
I slid from behind the curtains and felt my way over to open the door. “Sid, is everyone okay? There’s been an avalanche.”
Sid, Jorge, and Keth entered. Sid was carrying a flashlight. “Is Aegis all right?”
“Yeah, but the coffin...he fell out.” I motioned toward the floor. “I haven’t had a chance to get him inside again.”
“We’ll tend to that.” Keth and Jorge hurried over. They straightened out his coffin and then cautiously carried the sleeping vampire back to it. This time, they left it on the floor so it wouldn’t fall again if we had another jolt.
Once Aegis was in the coffin, they covered it with the comforter from the bed, blocking out all light, and then, we opened the drapes and the blackout shades.
Light streamed in the window, pale and wan from a thin sliver of sun that gleamed down. I opened the window, breathing deeply as the sharp cold air pierced through the stuffiness. The realization that we had been buried by snow had thrown me into a fit of claustrophobia and I only now realized how big of a knot had formed in my stomach.
“What do we do? I thought about crawling out on the snow to see whether the cars are buried too, but I was afraid to leave Aegis.” I leaned out the window, testing the snow. It was compacted, though I’d probably sink up to my knees in it.
“I’m not sure...” Sid frowned, shading his eyes as he looked over the field of white. “There’s something odd about the mountain. Look and tell me what you see.”
“What? What do you think is wrong?” I followed his gaze, squinting. And then, I saw what he had been talking about. A field of sparkles across the snow, tiny silver flashes that were magical in origin. “Wait. I see it. There’s magic in the snow. Heavy magic.”
“Hardcore weather magic, Maddy.”
“Then this avalanche didn’t just come out of nowhere.” I pointed to the far end of the glimmering trail. “See how it narrows up toward the mountain? The fact that it widens out as it sweeps down toward the chalet means that the initial origin point was up high on the peak. Somebody went up there, cast a spell and loosened the snow to thunder down and wipe out the resort.” I paused. “Do you think it’s related to the attack on Aegis last night?”
Sid frowned. “That I can’t answer, but it seems too much to be coincidence. So what do we do next?”
I glanced back at the covered coffin. “One of you stay here with Aegis. Two of you make your way downstairs to find out if everybody else is all right. I’ll climb out onto the snow and see what I can find the parking lot. With a little luck, it will have been out of the target zone.” I pulled out my cell phone. “Damn it, reception got cut off. The snow must have taken down a cell tower or something. Maybe it will work out there.”
Keth and Sid headed out the door. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes. Don’t start worrying till half an hour’s gone by. If anybody needs help, we’ll pitch in.”
“Keep your eyes open,” I warned. After they left, I found a clean pair of blue jeans and a warm shirt. “I need to change. I’ll use the bathroom.” I carried my phone with me. Reception might be out, but I could still use the apps like the flashlight.
As I quickly hauled ass into my clothes, I tested the water faucets. Nothing. Coming out, I found a bottle of water and took a long drink, then ate a handful of cookies. With Sid watching over Bubba and Aegis, I slid into my jacket, pulled on gloves and boots, and then, warily, crawled out the window onto the snow.
Immediately, I sank knee deep, but the snow field had compacted as it flowed toward the chalet, and there was between twenty-five to thirty feet of snow below me. It made me queasy to think about. If anybody had been outside near the hotel, they were now buried beneath tons of the cold frozen water.
Sid popped his head out the window. “Here, tie this around your waist.” He held out the end of a sheet. “I made a rope out of your sheets so that if you start sinking in the snow, I can pull you out again.”
“Good thinking.” I would have giggled if it hadn’t been so serious. It reminded me of what kids did—tying sheets together to climb out the window in a pretend fire-drill.
I wrapped the end around my belt and solidly knotted the sheet. I double checked that my belt was secure and in no danger of fraying, and then gave him a wave and began to wade through the snow toward the right. The parking lot had been to the east of the resort. Our room was facing north, toward the peak.
The trees directly above the chalet were bare of snow—during the deluge that cascaded down the slope, it had all been knocked off. But a fresh field of powder blanketed the hill and everything was crisp and still in the early morning air. A silvery-blue light promised that we might have a little sunlight later on, and I shaded my eyes from the glimmer as I struggled to wade through the snow. Ten minutes later, I was nearing the edge of the inn. I peeked around, looking toward the parking lot. The hotel had an unloading zone and valet parking drove the cars about two hundred yards over to the lot.
From where I was standing, I could see that that the eastern edge of the avalanche was thinner than the main slide, and I thought I could make out some cars, though from here I couldn’t tell if ours were any of the ones still exposed. But it was worth the chance to find out. With an uneasy glance upslope at the remaining snow, I worked my way back to the open window and half stepped, half fell into the room.
“There are some cars that are free down there. I don’t know if ours are among them. But Sid,” I stripped out of my boots and, aching from the work it had taken to plow through the snow, eased myself down in a chair. “There’s a lot of snow still up there. What if whoever’s behind this decides he needs to finish the job?”
“Then we’d better get out of here.”
“We need to evacuate the building pronto.” I glanced at the clock on my phone. “How long have Keth and Jorge been gone?”
“Twenty minutes. They said not to worry until it’s been half an hour.”
I frowned. If we didn’t move and fast, something awful was going to happen. I knew it as sure as I knew that my name was Maudlin Gallowglass.
“I’m going looking for them. Stay with Aegis and Bubba.” I found a secondary flashlight, not wanting to use up my phone’s juice, and knelt by Bubba. “Listen Bub...you need to pay attention to Sid, all right? If he has to get out of here with Aegis, you go with them. I know you’re a cjinn and you can probably pull off more magic than anybody in this room, but...” I paused.
Bubba was a cjinn. Granted, his nature was to twist wishes in that insane feline delight of his, but when the chips were down, he usually came through. Although, I had found that when he volunteered to help—without messing things up—his magic tended to be a lot more subtle.
“Bubba, can you help me? I mean...things are bad right now.”
Bubba let out a purp. “M’rrow.”
I cocked my head. Bubba was gazing into my eyes, looking serious—even for a cat. “You sure?”
“M’rrow.” Said more definitely. And then, he rolled over, exposing his belly.
I considered my words carefully. What did we want? I knew better than to wish for something big—like having us all pop over back to our house. And nebulous wishes left so much room for the imagination and interpretation. How was I going to frame this?
I was about to say something when the door burst open. Glancing up, I expected to see Jorge or Keth, but instead, a shadowy figure in a dark cloak burst in on us. Sid leaped to his feet, but the figure held out his hand and a bright flash rippled through the room, concentric rings of light focused directly on the bass player. He stumbled back, trying to cover his eyes with his hands, then tripped over Aegis’s coffin and fell backwards.
“I can’t see, damn it. Maddy! Maddy?” Sid was groping around in a dazed manner.
“Sid? Are you all right?” I whirled on the intruder. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Immediately, I gathered my anger, coaxing into a pale flickering light in my hand.
“Maddy Gallowglass. The infamous Mad Maudlin of history. Somehow I didn’t expect you to look so...mundane.” The voice was thick and low, and as the man spoke, I could see the pale shadow of his lips moving beneath the heavy shadow of his cloak.
“Who are you and what do you want?” I knew that I was facing Aegis’s attacker, but had no clue who the hell it was. But I was quickly calculating how long it would take to coax the flames into a weapon that would make a difference.
Sid had struggled to his knees, and he was feeling for the sofa, for something to brace on while he got up. I caught a peek of Bubba, who hiding behind the sofa and peering out. I couldn’t do much from here—I’d need to rub his belly, but we could do with a proxy.
Bubba seemed to read my thoughts and he leaped over the sofa, landing right by Sid’s hand. He rolled over, catching Sid’s fingers in his mouth.
“Rub the belly!” I took that moment to cast the fireball toward our unwanted stranger. It wasn’t fully formed, but it would make a good distraction.
The ball of flames soared directly at him, and the intruder tried to jump out of the way, but like any good witch-driven missile, the fireball turned and followed him, landing against his shoulder blade. The flames flared up, catching the edge of the cloak on fire and our attacker let out a curse, scrambling to remove the robe before it fully caught fire.
Meanwhile, Sid—who had heard me—rubbed Bubba’s belly.
“I wish you would take yourself, Aegis and Sid somewhere safe. Go!”
Bubba let out a squeak—an angry one—and glared at me, but the next moment, their images wavered. I could barely see them, and then—pop, they were gone. But my senses told me they were still around, just invisible.
However, the assailant didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he let out another curse as he threw the flaming robe to the side.
“Fine, you want to play this way? I can play this way, too.” Without another word, he lunged toward me, grabbed my arm, and squeezed. A dark wave raced over me. Even as I tried to pull away, I went down, hitting the floor. My last thought before losing consciousness was that at least my favorite boys had been saved.