He gave me a look.
“Okay,” I admitted. “That was really fun.” I held up my hands to show him how much they were shaking. “But you still get to drive on the way home.”
He gave me a laughing look and turned to lead the way forward. There were no trees or cliffs to indicate where the road might be. The road was flat, and the ground to either side seemed to be flat, too. We traveled slower because even Adam was having trouble finding the road.
I knew what flat, treeless ground in the mountains meant. Chances were that under the snow on either side of the road was swamp or lake. Probably we wouldn’t sink through—it was really cold, and frozen water was as good as asphalt for driving on. But considering we were heading for a place with hot springs, I’d just as soon not risk it.
The sound of the roadway changed as we crossed a bridge. My eyes didn’t see it, but I could feel the flow of water beneath me. It tasted like magic. My foot came off the gas pedal, but I didn’t notice until the SUV slowed to a stop as the power beneath the vehicle dragged at me. Called me.
A sharp sound by my left ear interrupted the water’s song. I turned to see Adam’s face right on the other side of the window. The sound had been his claws scoring the side of the door.
I blinked at him, then put my foot down on the accelerator. When the SUV pulled forward, a sharp pain slid through my chest, a pain that stopped as soon as we were off the bridge. The frost giant had been right that there was a Power here. The grip of the water, whatever the cause, had felt impersonal—like an avalanche. It was simply a barrier, designed to catch creatures like me.
I concentrated on Adam after that. We’d entered some kind of fog bank; between that and the driving snow, the first inkling I had that we’d reached our goal was when I realized that the lump of snow on my right was in the shape of a truck. Beyond it, now that I was looking for it, was a huge building, almost lost in the storm and the fog.
Following the wolf, I piloted the SUV into a space between two snowed-in cars and parked, steaming water about five feet in front of my bumper. I opened the door and slid to the ground. Adam leapt inside the open door to begin his change.
Through the snow beneath my feet, I felt it, a queer sort of warmth that was magic and not magic. Something nearly sentient, a guardian.
“Refuge,” I said out loud. Then chose a different word. “Sanctuary.”
Power swept through my chest as if in agreement or warning before sliding away and taking with it the taste of warmth, leaving behind a cold night and the smell of sulfur from the hot springs.
I went to the back of the SUV to open the rear hatch and grab our gear—and stopped.
On the other side of the parking lot there was a lake, or at least a very large pond—it was hard to be sure in such poor visibility. It was bitterly cold but the water at the edge of the parking lot was not frozen. A vast wall of mist rose up, like a great white dragon obscuring the view of the shoreline nearest the resort as well as the edge of that giant old building.
I waded through the parking lot snowdrifts and almost bumped into a sign that told me I stood on the shore of Looking Glass Lake. It also advised me not to swim in the lake, as the hot springs could be dangerous.
In my experience, hot springs were usually just that. Small pockets of water bubbling up from the ground steaming hot. Sometimes there were lots of pockets of water. Here, apparently, those pockets were underneath the lake.
The resort—which is what the locals had called it at the gas station in Libby—had been built on the edge of the lake. The building was half-obscured by darkness, storm, and mist, but it didn’t look like a resort to me. It had the spare, efficient lines of something erected with an eye to efficiency—probably at least a century ago.
And it was haunted.
I tried to pretend that the wisps drifting between me and the building were just an effect of the hot springs, but I could hear their quiet, ghostly voices. A lot of people had died here at one time or another. I eyed the rectangular building and thought sanatorium or hospital—and the label fit.
A random swirl of wind allowed the bare bones of a wraparound porch to emerge briefly from the mist and shadows, hinting at a past or possibly future attempt to soften the stark lines as the narrow white boards it was sided in did not. The roof of the porch was completely gone, but from the winter-dormant wood that draped over the structure, some kind of climbing plant grew over the frame in the summer.
Maybe if it had been daylight or if the numerous lights around the parking lot and building were lit, it would have looked more welcoming. As it was, three floors of blank windows stared out at me in a way that did not feel friendly. I could not imagine seeing this place and thinking, “This is where I want my wedding to be held.”
Hrímnir had called this a holy place and a refuge. I’d been given the word “sanctuary” by whatever being claimed this location. Sanctuary, in the medieval meaning of the word, had been both holy and a refuge. Historically, a person who had been given sanctuary could not be arrested as long as they stayed upon the holy ground. In real life, of course, this had been more true in some times and in some places than in others. But the tradition still lingered in modern times, culturally if not legally.
It didn’t look like a safe place. Unease finally got the better of me and I retraced my path through the snow to the SUV, putting it at my back so I could watch the lake.
I wondered what the clear warning I’d been given that this was a sanctuary would mean for our quest. Recovering stolen property shouldn’t be a problem. Hopefully, we wouldn’t need to hurt anyone. I tried not to wonder what Hrímnir would do after he got his harp back. Somehow, I couldn’t see him just letting the thief go—even if we did have a bargain. The frost giant wasn’t fae; maybe he wasn’t bound the way a fae would see themselves bound. What would I do if I brought the harp back to Hrímnir and he didn’t take the spell off Gary? Maybe if I proved Gary hadn’t done it?
He was my brother. I wanted to think he would never have been so stupid as to steal an artifact from a frost giant, but I couldn’t manage that.
I rubbed my face with cold hands. If I wasn’t going to use my gloves, I should have just left them at home. I remembered that I’d intended to grab our luggage, but I couldn’t make myself turn my back on the hot springs. Something out there was watching us. I squinted, but I couldn’t see anything.
I put my hip against the quarter panel of the SUV for the connection to Adam—it felt like it was taking him forever to change. In the dark, with the SUV’s tinted windows, I couldn’t see him, but the subtle rocking of the vehicle told me he was in there.
I pulled out my phone, but was unsurprised to see that I still had no reception. I couldn’t look this place up on the Internet. Or contact Honey or Mary Jo to check on Gary. We weren’t cut off, I reminded myself. We could use Adam’s sat phone.
Cold seeped up from the damp legs of my jeans and into my bones.
Eventually the door behind me opened and shut. Safely back in his human body, Adam nudged my shoulder with his own.
“Let’s get you out of the cold,” he said.
He grabbed his duffel and my backpack and took the lead on the way to the main entrance. I was braver with him, so I could take my attention off the lake and look at his backside instead. The jeans he wore weren’t as good as the ones he’d destroyed, but the view was still nice. I trekked behind him, in the path through the drifts that he made, humming an old carol softly to myself.
He laughed. “Not a king or a saint,” he said. “No heat lingers in the very sod where I tread.”
“But the winter bites less coldly,” I said. “You make a pretty good windbreak.” And keeping my eyes on him meant I didn’t have to notice the ghosts. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice me, either.