The Ice Wolves by Mark Chadbourn

Author:Mark Chadbourn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Published: 2012-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

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In the impenetrable dark, it took a few seconds for Lisa to orient herself. She thought she might even have let out a cry of shock when she had found herself back in the Grant Mansion, and that embarrassed her. She knew it was the house because she could smell the old wallpaper and the wood, and the subtle aromas of great age that had settled across it over the generations.

It seemed to be the act of passing through the cottage door in the village that had flung her back ahead of the others, as though she had crossed some invisible barrier now they had been shown what they needed to see. She wondered briefly if there could possibly be some kind of intelligence in the Kiss of Winter guiding them, or if it really was one of the presences in the house, influencing the Kiss. The rules were so obscure it made her head spin; perhaps they’d never find out.

As her pounding heart calmed, she realized she was alone. It was too dark to tell if she’d come back to the floor from which they’d departed, or if she was on a different floor under the house or one of the upper levels. It was too dark to tell if something awful was standing a whisper away from her, waiting to strike, or if she was completely surrounded, malignant eyes seeing where she could not. She wanted the comfort of Hellboy or Brad, but she knew she was strong enough to cope on her own, as she always had coped. Nothing defeated her; nothing hurt her.

Backing against the wall, she spread out her arms and began to edge very carefully to her right. Despite everything else, she didn’t want to allow panic to drive her to run blindly so that she fell down unseen stairs. The trick, she told herself, was staying calm.

Eventually she came to the familiar, smooth wood of the banister and the shift in air currents and resonance that told her she had reached the stairs. But did she go down, or up?

Steeling herself, she decided to gamble that she was in the subcellars and the steps would take her up toward the relative safety of the real house.

I feel like Alice in Wonderland, she thought. The world turned on its head. Or a dark reflection through the looking glass.

The thought was random, but it had an odd resonance that gave her pause. Something in it made her senses tingle. But what? It had to do with the puzzle of the house and the Kiss of Winter, she was sure.

Steadily, she climbed the stairs, hoping she would find herself in the hall. Instead, she was on another landing, just like the one she had left. Wooden floorboards, the smell of old wallpaper, dust, and echoes. Her heart fell, but she told herself she was doing fine.

Don’t think about the ghosts, don’t think about anything; just get up those stairs.

Yet the minute she told herself not

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