Where Lost Things Dwell: Night Creatures Book Two

Chapter Two - Freeze to Death

An unfamiliar rumble woke them in the early hours of the morning, sending recruits and instructors scrambling from their shelters to find a wall of snow racing down the mountainside towards them. The trees around them were too sparse and slender to slow the racing, tumbling snow, and so they abandoned their bivvies and sleeping bags. They panicked as they tried to outrun the avalanche, desperate to avoid being swept away or crushed under the advancing tsunami of ice.

Most were lucky. Most of them had supernatural strength and speed, and while the vampires quickly outpaced the rest of them, even the wolves, lycans, dryads, and fae managed to beat the snow, only slowing once they were out of its path. Unfortunately, the humans and dwarves didn’t stand a chance, and as Kalyna skidded to safety, she looked back to find Brandr, Chris Neville, and two others trailing behind, with no hope of catching up with those who'd reached safety, still in front of the freezing flow of ice.

There was no way for anyone to help those who’d fallen behind, nor even return to them, but that didn’t stop Alauda screaming and trying to dive back towards Brandr. She might have hurled herself into the path of the avalanche, except that Kalyna grabbed her, pushing her into the arms of Max Caldwell.

“Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid,” she hollered at the lycan Sergeant, before making the only decision she could. Magic flared in her chest, and as she’d done several times in the past, she sent her molecules flying apart, travelling instantly to the first of the stragglers as they desperately struggled through knee deep snow.

The moment she retook her corporeal form, she channelled her magic into a portal instead. Bright streamers of gold and silver light left her fingertips, weaving into a translucent curtain, about the size of a door. The ethereal curtain billowed and rippled as she folded the veil – the permeable force field that divided worlds – so that the pair of mortals could reach safety in a mere step. Behind that curtain, the Gate Room of the OTF compound came into view; a place Kalyna had started training herself to locate instinctively, for exactly this sort of emergency.

She grabbed Neville and an unfamiliar woman, and shoved them in front of her, towards the gateway she’d created in the air. Neville tumbled through the portal first, landing hard on the concrete floor, and the woman followed, falling on top of him. Kalyna ignored that. They were safe from the avalanche, and that was all that mattered.

Once the first pair reached the compound, Kalyna shifted again, sealing that first portal and then sending her molecules towards the two dwarves who had fallen still further behind, their statures built for stamina rather than speed. The racing snow loomed closer as she reformed, so close that the first shards of ice pelted against her side, but she couldn’t afford to worry about that when she had people to save.

At the slightest thought, a second portal glimmered into existence. She shoved Brandr through it, along with a dwarf she didn’t know the name of, propelling them both into the Gate Room, where they collided with the two mortals who hadn’t yet picked themselves up off the floor.

She intended to follow.

She intended to leap through the portal after the dwarves.

She didn’t make it.

The avalanche hit her with the force of a truck, travelling at similar speeds. The pain of tumbling amongst the snow and ice, and the rocks and branches it had picked up on the way, obliterated her ability to think about anything else. Her magical connection to her portal snapped, closing the door, and then she didn’t know what way was up, or what way was down. Even when her body collided with something – something which cracked on impact, like the trunk of a young tree or sapling – still the disorientating tumble continued.