Frostfire

Once she signed off, Lilah went to the kitchen and made a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a mug of hot chocolate, both of which she carried back into her bedroom. She switched on the Weather Channel and curled up on her bed, nibbling at the sandwich as she watched Jim Cantore offer details on a massive snowstorm moving inland from the Rockies, and the various ways in which the residents of six different states would be affected by it.



“You should tell them to move to Florida, Jim,” she said to the television. “Just don’t mention the hurricanes, the tornadoes, or the floods.”



The ancient chenille bedspread she’d found at a church rummage sale kept her warm, and the hot drink and the food made her drowsy. Although Lilah suspected her sleepiness was more from depression and mental stress than real exhaustion, she resisted it. She still had some chores and lockup to do before she went to sleep. She didn’t know why she felt so exhausted, but her body didn’t even want to twitch, much less move.



She still had …



The dreams she had that she remembered were sometimes a little odd but never frightening; if Lilah had ever had a nightmare, she’d forgotten it the moment she woke. Mostly she dreamed of walking through different places, like through city streets and garden parks, across broad fields, and along empty roads. Wherever she went, it was always night, and she was always alone; no one else populated her dreams. She’d often wondered if it was some subconscious way of retreating from the world of people, the only creatures she really did fear.



What made the dreams seem odd was not the locations but the emotions Lilah felt as she moved through them. Once she passed the front display window of an art gallery, and stopped to examine the featured painting, a lovely and minutely detailed landscape of a vineyard with sun-gilded dark grapes. Normally it would have given her pleasure, as she preferred realistic art, and the artist had done an amazing job, almost to the point of making it look like a photograph. Yet while she stared at it, she felt a surge of uncharacteristic hatred welling up in her, and at one point felt like smashing in the glass with her fists.



Another night she walked through a school yard, and passed some swings that were swaying in the wind. She thought of ghost children, playing in the night, and began to smile at her own whimsy. A wrenching grief struck her then, so hard she almost doubled over. She ended up running away from the playground as if she couldn’t bear the sight of it.



Both times the emotions went almost as quickly as they came over her, but the feeling of wrongness lingered. She had no reason to hate vineyards or kids. She enjoyed a glass of wine now and then, and while she didn’t plan on having any children of her own, she thought they were one of the few universally wonderful things in life, like puppies and kittens.



Because Lilah trusted the safety of her dreams more than she did a bank vault in the real world, the rectangular cube of white walls that closed in around her didn’t alarm her. She reached out to touch one of them and discovered the whiteness was not paint but hard-packed snow. When the icy crystals burned her fingers, she drew back her hand and turned around, looking for a way out.



A black wolf stood watching her, its light gray eyes steady, its muzzle pulled up around long, sharp white fangs. It didn’t make a sound, but its muscles bunched under its frost-covered pelt as if it was prepared to spring.



Lilah reached out with her ability, trying to find a way in, but the wolf’s eyes were as impenetrable as their prison.



“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said out loud. “I’m trapped here, too.”



The wolf lowered its head, sniffing at the ice beneath their feet before regarding her again, this time with slightly less aggression. It still didn’t trust her, but it wasn’t going to attack unless she provoked it.



Lilah slowly dropped down, crouching before the wolf so that she appeared smaller and less threatening, and held out the back of her hand in silent invitation.



The wolf moved then, circling to her right, showing off the lean, strong body of a male in his prime. As he moved behind her, it took all her nerve not to glance back. She could feel the heat of his breath on her neck, the brush of his icy fur against the thin fabric of her nightshirt. Then he moved in front of her, his cold nose first sniffing and then nudging her extended hand.



She turned it palm up, moving her fingertips through the rough silk of his fur. Although he was caked in frost, he felt deliciously warm, and smelled of woodsmoke and cedar. The rare privilege of being able to touch such a creature gave her so much pleasure she almost purred with it.



Finally the light gray eyes lifted to her face, and Lilah tried again to reach into his mind, but this time something pushed her back and then kept coming, passing through her eyes and reaching into her own mind, as if the wolf was doing the same to her.



The presence became a dense shadow, blocking out her senses to everything but the wolf’s eyes. Who are you?



Hearing speech-thought from an animal shocked and delighted her into replying with the same. Lilah. My name is Lilah.



I am Guide.



Guide. She knew animals didn’t think of themselves or others as named creatures; even dogs responded to names only as a command word they were accustomed to. What are we doing here, Guide?



You came here. You are like me.



I’m dreaming of this place, she told him. It’s not real. Are you asleep somewhere?



Asleep. He seemed to struggle with the word. No. I do not sleep. I am injured. Captured.



She hadn’t seen any wounds on his body, and had no sense of pain, but she could feel his emotions. Like a human, Guide felt bewildered and vulnerable, unable to understand what was happening to him. But beneath that confusion was something much darker, a vast and snarling rage, unlike anything she’d ever felt from another living thing. It roiled in him, twisting in the cage of his control, struggling to free itself. If it did, Lilah sensed, he would attack anything that moved, even her.



It’s all right. She tried to soothe him with her hands, stroking his bristling ruff. Can you wake from this sleep? Can you get away and hide until you heal?



I am trapped here. Guide lifted his head. There were others. Men. They chained me. They did things to me. But not enough. Not nearly enough.



What things?



They put things in me. Changed me from what I was. I have lost myself.



He had wanted to die, and Lilah couldn’t blame him. To be captured and experimented on was the worst fate for anything born in the wild. If you’re alive, you still have a chance to get away.



What is there to live for?



She looked around, suddenly understanding why she was dreaming of this frigid, featureless box. This must be how the wolf saw his cage—somehow Guide was projecting his subconscious view into her mind. You know there is more to the world than this.



Once there was.



The walls of snow melted away, and Lilah found herself standing on a cliff overlooking the sea.



She didn’t recognize the place, although it stirred something inside her, something she didn’t want to think about now. Is this your home?



It is where I was before … His thoughts dissolved into a wordless tangle of anger and regret.



She knelt down beside him, curling an arm around his neck. Is there another place you can show me?



The cliffs darkened and rose even higher, stretching up toward the sky. At the same time the rock they stood on dropped, flattening and spreading into a flower-speckled meadow. Although it was night, and the meadow appeared deserted except for some fireflies, Lilah felt another presence, one that remained out of sight while it watched them.



She stood and turned around, and while she saw nothing familiar, she had a definite sense of déjà vu. I think I know this place. She glanced down at the wolf. Where are we?



I have no name for it. Guide lifted his head and sniffed the air. There were others here. Outcasts like me. They gathered here to be safe. But they would not let me come near them.



He was lucky that he hadn’t been killed. Pack animals like wolves rarely welcomed rogues into their territory. Maybe you were meant to gather your own pack.



He stiffened, and the mountain valley shrank in on them and became the snow cage. They have come for you.



Me? The abrupt transition made her a little dizzy, and she sat down on the floor beside him. Why?



I am not all they want. Guide nuzzled her hair. They come for you. You must wake now. You must escape before they take you.



In her mind Lilah saw through his eyes again, this time through an open rectangle of dark space. She glimpsed the back door of a house, and the two figures standing outside it. The smaller of the two was fiddling with the lock while the other whispered to him. The bigger one was holding what looked like a shaving-kit case and a large black plastic garbage bag. The stock of a handgun protruded from his waistband.



Lilah watched as the big man unzipped and opened the case, revealing a syringe and a bottle of clear liquid. This isn’t happening. This is a dream.



I am not dreaming, the wolf told her. But I cannot move yet. I am too weak. I cannot stop them. He nudged her urgently. Lilah. If you do not wake now, they will have you. Hurry.



Lilah tried to wake then, the terror of what was happening only too real, but she couldn’t escape the wolf’s prison. The taste of the hot chocolate she’d drunk came back to her, sweet but chalky, and the way she’d fallen asleep in the middle of the day. They must have been watching her, long enough to learn her routine, to guess she would make herself a cup of hot chocolate when she came home as she always did. The gun was for if she hadn’t.



I can’t wake up, she told the wolf. I’ve been drugged.



The image of what he was seeing vanished from her mind, as if he’d closed his eyes. Then we are both lost.



She refused to believe that. We’re alive, and we’ll be together.



Here, where there is nothing. Guide seemed bitter. Where we will die.



We’re not alone anymore, she assured him. We have each other.



You are human. His gray eyes glittered. I am not.



She nodded. But I’m not all human. I’m like you. I’ve been changed. Something stung her neck, and she flinched as burning sensations spread through her upper torso, turning her heart into a lead weight.