Winter Prey

Chapter 40

"It's Caleb," he said. "Look, Kymbria and I have at least a half-baked idea about where we should look for this windigo. We're out here where Keoman wrecked, and we've got two snowmobiles with us. We're going to do some exploring."

"Well, you better not explore too long," Hjak said. "Have you listened to the weather reports lately?"

No, he'd been doing something a lot more enjoyable than worrying about the weather. He glanced at Kymbria, but she was intent on the map. "What's happening weather-wise?"

"We've only got a few hours," the sheriff responded. "Maybe more or less. Definitely before nightfall. Canada's gonna stomp us with another Arctic front. A blizzard will dump a foot or two of new snow."

"How long is it supposed to last?" Caleb asked, his thoughts on Nodinens.

"A day, maybe two."

"Jesus," Caleb breathed, and Kymbria looked up when she caught his tone. "Where are the other search parties?"

"All over," Hjak replied. "But not one of them has reported any hint of a trail or a place that could possibly be this thing's lair. If we don't find anything before this blizzard hits, Gagewin's planning a ceremony. Tonight, at the tribal building."

Caleb scanned the tree-and-underbrush glutted landscape around him, mentally interspersing this mass of wilderness on the map laid on the dash. It was nearly enough to make a person give up hope before they even began.

"McCoy?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Look, we just wanted to make sure someone knew where we were. We'll report in now and then, and we'll be out of the woods long before dark."

"Do that," Hjak said, then hung up.

"What?" Kymbria asked.

"We don't want to waste time calling your mother," he informed her. "We've got a blizzard on the way. We've only got a few hours before we need to get out of the woods and find shelter."

"A blizzard," Kymbria mused "At about the same time of year that all this started so many years ago. Are there more storms forecast behind this one?"

"Hjak didn't say."

She stared through the windshield toward the sky. "I'll bet there are."

"Forces coming together to reenact previous history? The blizzards that started all this."

"Yeah."

After a moment's contemplation, Caleb said, "Hjak also said that if no one finds Nodinens before dark, Gagewin's doing some sort of ceremony at the tribal building tonight."

"Not a ceremony. A...well, you whites would call it a séance. It will be an attempt to contact Nodinens, if she's passed on. Or maybe the windigo. It might be successful, too, if all the patterns and elements line up just so." She stared at him. "Do you want to go?"

Caleb replied in a grim voice, "My ventures into this other world stuff, and my experiences, have had more to do with how the ghosts and entities are effecting the now and what we can do about it. What sort of countermeasures we can take if they're causing havoc. I've never delved into how circumstances can come full circle and explode. For good, or for bad. Which sounds like what your tribe is looking for with this ceremony."

"Yes, it is, because that's exactly what can happen. Good...or bad. And to understand how to handle things, we draw on the past. How the past has effected the present in other various situations."

Caleb reached for his door handle. "We don't have a whole lot of time - "

"Wait." He turned to her, but she had her hand on her spirit bundle, her gaze on the map. "Patterns," she murmured. "It's very possible that the same weather pattern is forming, but I don't think that's the most important part of all this. I think the most important part is...."