Knight Casefiles Book 1: Revelations

Revelations [Chapter 30]

Chapter 30

Sleep was a welcome and well-deserved escape. I slept hard and dreamt harder, hoping that somehow my dreams and reality would merge and I’d be able to wake up from both. It didn’t happen. Well, it wasn’t the first thing that didn’t go my way that day.

I started to hear voices, sharp and crackling. After a minute, I identified them to be coming from a radio. Someone whose voice was clearer cursed as the crackles turned into wild static and sound.

There was a sigh. “So much for that,” I heard Robert say. “Damned blizzard’s making too much interference.”

“It’s probably not just the blizzard,” Elaine said. I was suddenly intensely aware of her scent near me. Warm, soft hands caressed my head and with that awareness came the pain. My head throbbed with memories of what had happened in the past few days, jumbled thoughts and emotions threatening to burst out of my head. I let out a sound of distress and Elaine cooed, her hands pressing harder. How long had she been doing that? Trying to soothe me.

The pain wasn’t centralized to my head either. It spread all across my body, most prominently my injured foot. Whatever patch was put on there had worn off completely. I gritted my teeth and willed the pain away, putting up mental barriers against it. Several minutes passed before I could move without the pain pushing me to the brink of unconsciousness.

When I tried to get up, Elaine’s hands moved to my shoulders. “Don’t get up yet, honey. You’re hurt.”

“I’ll manage,” I said in a raspy voice. She resisted for a moment more before finally giving way.

We were still in Robert’s van, the interior of which was larger and snugger than I expected. It must have been a van with three rows of seats in the past. Now, the middle row had been ripped off to give way to equipment. There weren’t much anymore, just two cardboard boxes worth. The rest must have been left at the Lodge. I was lying in a futon with David and Robert’s friend. Elaine was seated behind me. Robert himself and his friend were at the front, fiddling with the radio. The heater must have been in full blast because I was sweating.

“Elaine’s right,” I told them. “Marzanna won’t let us get away that easily.”

Robert looked at me with tired eyes. “So it’s true then? All those things you said back there. We’re really dealing with a…a-“

“Goddess,” I finished for him. “One of the Old Ones. Happy birthday.”

“Oh God. I knew there was more to this world but I never imagined. Oh God.” It was difficult to place his tone of voice probably because he wasn’t sure what he was feeling himself. There was pain, despair yet at the same time there was jubilation, excitement at the prospect that what he’d been following his entire life was true.

I hated to snap him out of his reverie but there was work to be done. Sigrun and Gram were still in enemy hands and…I wasn’t sure what was going on anymore. Had Margaret saved us? Then, why the threat? And why couldn’t we escape? I needed answers.

“Robert, I need you to tell me what happened tonight.” I had to repeat myself before he noticed and even then, he just stared at me for several seconds before responding.

“We were setting up in the attic. We wanted to record any and all supernatural phenomena that would occur in the Lodge that night. You see, contrary to popular belief, we don’t just go reporting things without a lick of evidence.” As he spoke, he momentarily turned a cold gaze to Elaine. “One minute, we were firing up the equipment and the next, Margaret stormed in and…she did something. She waved her hand and all our monitors exploded. The lights went out, we tried to fight back but then, these shadows appeared and started tangling us. Jenna managed to avoid getting caught and was going after Margaret but she...” he swallowed audibly. “You saw what happened.”

I nodded, absorbing everything he’d just said. “Anything else?”

Robert pursed his lips in thought. “Nothing that stands out. When Adam walked in, they were talking about something but all we could here were the shadows. They were…screaming. Anyway, they had an argument and then Adam and Margaret walked off. Soon after, you came in and I’m sure you can fill in the blanks from there.”

“And before I woke up?” I prompted.

“We tried to drive back to town. You know, escape. But the blizzard started getting stronger and by the time we were halfway down, the roads were too slippery to navigate and we barely managed to keep from driving into a tree. We parked on the side of the road and tried to call for help. No dice.” He took a deep breath. “Does that help anything?”

“No, actually,” I said quietly. I was hoping to pick something up from what had happened, some obscure thing that nobody but me would’ve noticed. Sadly, that wasn’t how the world worked.

“Oh…sorry…”

“Don’t be,” I said. I didn’t know what I was expecting, really. “It was a longshot.”

“What do we do now?” Elaine asked in a somber tone.

I closed my eyes and tried to think. There was only one thing left to do. I opened the van’s door and got out. It really was a blizzard out there. Sleet poured

“What are you doing?” she asked, getting out with me.

“No, I need you to stay with the van.”

“You’re hurt, Chris. I’m not letting you walk out into the storm-“

I sighed and looked at her imploringly. “Elaine, please…I need to do this.”

Elaine bit her lip. I’d never ever taken her to be the kind to back down on anything, and I’d been right. What Elaine had been doing in the past few hours, putting her faith in something unknown, had taken a lot out of her, more than I’d hoped what with the less than ideal way she’d discovered my secret. I moved closer to her and pulled her into an embrace, breathing in the scent of her air, savoring the warmth of her closeness.

“I love you, Elaine. So much. And I need you to trust me. Just one last time.”

She didn’t respond for a long time. Finally, she buried her head deeper into my chest. “I do.”

We held the grip for a while longer until I let go. Without another word, she got back into the van and watched me earnestly, her eyes haunted. I nodded to her, turned and walked out into the wilderness.

The pain in my foot increased, coupled with the weather that was getting colder and colder. I shuffled through the snow, soldiering through the falling flecks that all but blinded me. My leather jacket offered far too little in the way of retaining heat and soon, my teeth were chattering, my skin prickling with numbness. When I was far enough away from the van, in a space that was relatively less dense with trees, I started to gather whatever morsels of power I still had left.

It had been a huge risk walking out into a blizzard that Marzanna had surely been a part off. There was no telling how easily she could find me and set her wolf-beasts after me. But some small voice in my head told me that I’d be okay somehow. That I was protected. And now, out in the open, I was sure of it.

What I was about to do was something I only ever had to try with Sigrun. Up until then, she was the only one I ever needed to Call. But now, I had to put my faith into something else.

“Huginn,” I said, lacing my words with the smallest grains of power. Not enough to bind the one I was summoning; merely enough for them to take notice, to be curious of what could be there. “Muninn.”

I only said their names three times. It should have been enough. Anymore and it would have just annoyed them, maybe destroy any chance of them coming. If they wanted to heed my call, they would. Plus, it was the only thing my power could take. I fell on one knee, heaving, and the pain in my head increasing. I’d never had to exert myself this much. Sigrun had always been there. And maybe that was the reason why everything had gone to hell.

I waited, counting the minutes. On what I think was the thirteenth minute, something changed. The howling wind went silent and the blizzard around me completely vanished. The stillness was a shock to my senses and I felt myself scrambling for purchase. I looked around me. The trees that encircled the clearing I was in were serving as a border. Beyond them, the flurry continued. Where I stood, the air was still.

On top of that, the silence wasn’t an empty one. I wasn’t alone.