Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (4 page)

 
          
"Can
I help you, lady?"

 
          
Winter
shrieked and spun around.

 
          
"Stay
back!" she cried, brandishing her keys like a crucifix. They flew out of
her hand and fell at the feet of a boy in a
Taghkanic
College sweatshirt and frayed jeans.

 
          
I'm going crazy. Oh, God, I'm losing control
—

 
          
He
started to sidle away, then hesitated, staring at the keys on the ground.

 
          
"I
just wanted to—" he began.

 
          
"Go
away!" Winter screamed.
Before
something happens.
Waves of nausea threatened to drown her; her heart was
beating hard enough to make her teeth chatter; she felt as if she were about to
have a seizure. Winter clutched at the car's door handle, willing herself not
to faint. She had to get out of here before any more accidents happened,
because even though Winter Musgrave was accident prone, around her the
accidents happened to other people. . . .

 
          
The
boy backed off, giving her a frightened look, and Winter darted forward to grab
her keys. The gesture unbalanced her, driving her to her knees, and as she
knelt on the asphalt, she could see the signs on the buildings across Main
Street begin to rock.

 
          
No
—
No
—
Not here; not again
—/
promised. . . .

 
          
A
terror beyond fear galvanized her. Winter clutched the keys so tightly their
metal edges were driven into her palm hard enough to bring blood and she
staggered to her feet with the determination of the desperate.

 
          
The
key left a long scratch in the car's paint before it found the lock, but then
she rammed it blessedly home and turned it, and the door— safety,
refuge—opened.

 
          
Winter
fell across the seat and dragged the door shut, whimpering in torment.
Safe
—
safe
—
safe
—some idiot part of her mind babbled,
but it was too late, she had gone too far, and as her finger touched the button
for the automatic lock, the display panel of the car exploded in a violent
burst of sparks.

 
          
Three
hours later Winter stood beside the smoke-blackened remains of her car, glaring
defiantly at the last of the
gawkers
as the fire
truck pulled out of the parking lot and headed back up the street. Her hands
still ached from battering at the sealed windows and her throat was raw from
screaming.

 
          
Someone—probably
the kid she'd yelled at—had called the police, and the sheriff's car had
arrived to find smoke billowing from beneath the hood and from under the
dashboard of the BMW, and Winter, hysterical, trapped inside. Every electrical
system in the car—including the windows and the unlocking mechanism of the
doors—was dead, and Winter was sealed inside a vehicle whose passenger
compartment was filling with poisonous smoke. The deputy had smashed the window
and pulled her out through it. Then the fire department arrived to spray foam
over the hood and every interior surface of her car, replacing the stink of
burning leather and insulation with the rank wet stench of chemical foam.

 
          
The
only thing that had allowed Winter to hold onto any scrap of self-control was
the repeated pleas of the sheriff's deputy that she go to the hospital so that
they could see if she was all right. The thought that she might be sent to the
hospital—and by extension, back to Fall River— was enough to crush her
spiraling hysteria and drive Winter into a numb emotionless state. She knew
dimly that such numbness was far more dangerous than screams and tears, but
her frigid self-possession had made them leave her alone, had made them send
away the
EMTs
with their threatening orange-and-white
van, had made them all go.

 
          
The
growl of a powerful engine and the clanking of winches and chains roused her.
An enormous blue-and-white tow truck, with Kelly's GARAGE AND TOWING painted on
the side in rainbow letters, lumbered into the parking lot.

 
          
"You
the lady that needs the tow?" the driver shouted over the noise of his
engine.

 
          
Winter
glared at him in disbelief, then turned back to stare at the remains of her
BMW—remembering, belatedly, that its trunk was filled with melting groceries.
The sheriff's deputy had not even bothered to consult her before calling for a
tow truck.

 
          
Without
waiting for an answer from her, the driver pulled his truck up to the front of
her car and set his brake. He got out.

 
          
"What
happened?" He was wearing a gray mechanic's coverall that said DAVE on it,
and he looked open and friendly.

 
          
"My
car exploded." She was ready to weep with sheer exhaustion, but if she
could not manage to cope, she would have failed, and Winter Musgrave hated
failure as theologians hated death and Hell.

 
          
Dave
looked at her car. "A BMW?" he said in faint disbelief. "I don't
even know if there's a dealership this side of the river. . . . Oh, I'm Dave
Kelly; I own the garage." He held out his hand.

 
          
Winter
stared at it blankly for a moment before reaching out and shaking it.
"Winter Musgrave. I live outside of town; all my groceries are in the
trunk. . . ."

 
          
"That's
right; you're up at
Greyangels
, aren't you? Why don't
you come on back to the garage—your car might not be in as bad shape as she
looks, and if she is, I'll give Timmy Sullivan a ring; he and his sister run
the car service."

 
          
"Yes.
All right. Anything," Winter said.

 
          
Dave
helped her up into the high passenger seat of the wrecker. She sank into the
seat and lay back, eyes closed, while he hooked her car up to the winch and
raised the front end up off the ground. She wanted to retreat to the safety of
the farmhouse, to shut out the world, to return to the uncaring oblivion she'd
had before.

 
          
But
she couldn't. It was a seductive trap.
There
is no time.
... It would leave her defenseless against whatever was killing
the animals.

 
          
Whether
it was Winter or something else. She closed her eyes.

 
          
"—never
seen anything like that before," Dave said, climbing into the cab.
"It's almost like the thing was struck by lightning—spark plugs are
melted
into place; don't know how I'm
going to get them out. . . ."

 
          
He
looked toward Winter. "Are you all right, miss?"

 
          
Winter's
eyes flew open and she straightened up hastily. "Fine. I'm fine."

 
          
I'm not fine at all. . . .

 
          
Dave
Kelly's garage was at the edge of town; a square white building that seemed to
combine a service station and a junkyard all in one. There was a large
blacktopped area beside the building filled with cars—some new, some old, some
missing tires or hoods or windows. Deftly, Dave Kelly maneuvered the wrecker
until the car in tow was where he wanted it, then he released the winch and
shut off the ignition.

 
          
"Why
don't we see about getting your stuff out of the trunk and I'll give Tim a
ring? It's going to be a day or two before I have an estimate for you on fixing
your Beamer. I can tell you right now you'd better call your insurance—although
what you're going to tell them, I don't know."

 
          
Winter
awoke in her own bed several hours later, ravenous and lightheaded. The house
was dark; through the open window came the high sweet song of night peepers.
Groaning, Winter rolled over and flicked on the light. The warm, oak-paneled
walls of the bedroom shone with a reassuring solidity. Wincing at the
stiffness of her muscles, Winter tottered to her feet and closed the window.
The demanding rumble of her stomach made it plain that simply going back to
sleep was not an option.

 
          
/
have to have something to eat.

 
          
The
thought triggered another one.
My
groceries. What happened to them?
She remembered reaching the garage, and
her overriding determination not to go to the hospital, but everything beyond
was a jumbled blur. She must have gotten home somehow—but had her shopping?

           
Cautiously Winter explored the
midnight
house, shivering in the cold. The electric
heat would take forever to warm the place; she wondered if she could summon
the energy to light the stove or build a fire.

 
          
Part
of the reason for the cold was explained when she got to the parlor. In the
hallway beyond, she could see the front door hanging gently open, admitting
moonlight and a skirl of last year's leaves. Winter pushed it shut and threw
the dead bolt. She was only lucky not to have had visitors—if not burglars,
then their even more destructive cousins, raccoons.

 
          
In
the parlor, the bags of groceries she'd bought an eternity ago stood like
battered sentinels in their tattered paper sacks. Unwarily, Winter lifted one,
only to have its contents shower from its damp, torn bottom to bounce and roll in
every direction.
How did they . . . ?
She
didn't remember loading them into the taxi. To be honest, she didn't remember
the taxi.

 
          
She
pawed through the bags until she found a jar of jam. Twisting off the lid, she
scooped a dollop out with her fingers and sucked it into her mouth. The fruity
sweetness sent a tingle of craving through her entire body. Still carrying the
jar, she hurried into the kitchen for a spoon, and had eaten half the jar's
contents before she began to feel satisfied. Rinsing her sticky fingers beneath
the tap, Winter returned to the parlor to see what else she could salvage.

 
          
Most
of what she'd bought had been canned or boxed, and only the frozen foods were
ruined. She bundled the soggy melted mass up in a plastic garbage bag for later
disposal and carried the remainder into the kitchen to put it away. Once she'd
done that, Winter opened a can of stew to heat on the kitchen stove.

 
          
The bread would have been good with this.
And the wine.
She winced inwardly at the memory of her expedition to
Glastonbury
. She only hoped that the consequences
didn't extend beyond a few ruined sacks of groceries and a burnt-out car.
Visions of people coming to her house, demanding that she leave with them and
go back to
Fall
River
or to some worse place, haunted her until she angrily banished them. She would
not go—she wouldn't! She'd done nothing wrong. . . .

 
          
But
what
had
she done? What had happened,
exactly? It had been only a few hours ago, but she wasn't sure. She'd gotten
lost, and—

 
          
I panicked,
Winter told herself
brutally.
That's all.

           
And
the car. . . ?

 
          
A coincidence,
Winter told herself.

 
          
But
it wasn't.

 
          
She'd
refilled the
rick
on the mud-porch, and now she
carried logs into the parlor and laid a fire in the fireplace. While it was
kindling, Winter
rilled
the stove in her bedroom and
lit it, ate the canned stew she'd opened, and even found a little brandy to go
in her instant coffee—a forgotten bottle pushed far to the back of the pantry.
She sat in front of the fire, sipping the warming drink, and sleepily watched
the flames dance over the burning wood—the way the signs had danced over the
buildings, the glassware in the windows—