Dark Ice (5 page)

The
wendigo
pawed the hard ground in agitation as the stranger scanned the perimeter again, shook his head and then stepped into the hotel. He would wait until the shadows of night would allow only the red of his eyes to be seen. Then he would wait and watch this new outsider with interest. Perhaps he would be the perfect one to infect with the power of the beast.

~* * *~

Sleep blurred her vision, but pleasure hazed her thoughts. Lea stretched out across her bed like a contented cat. Last night’s dream left a warm, safe feeling welling inside her. She fell asleep in Dane’s arms and she’d never been happier. Should a figment of her imagination leave her feeling this way? She was beginning to look forward to the dreams more than her waking life. The psychiatrist in her told her it was wrong. Dreams were for analysis, a way for the logical mind to process the day’s events. Not to make an entire fantasy world including her ideal man. One who just happened to transform into a polar bear at will.

A kernel of worry lodged itself in her brain, taking the edge off her good mood. She needed to get a grip on reality. To get on with her life and leave the trauma behind.

Deciding she needed to go and speak to Brent, Lea got out of bed and went to change clothes. Her pajama top was half unbuttoned, showing the shallow scratch marks which were now beginning to heal. She frowned and ran her fingers across them to make sure they were real. Dreams didn’t leave physical scars.

Dreams were dreams and reality was reality, both dramatically different worlds she reminded herself as she dressed and headed for the door. Hopefully, she’d be able to meet with Brent before he started work. She needed the voice of reason to tell her what she already knew. That she was using escapism as a coping mechanism. Her heart missed a beat at the cold hard logic. Dane certainly didn’t feel like logic. He felt like passion, strength, vulnerability, and power. Everything she wanted in a man. But was he a man?

She stepped outside and the early morning air chilled her face. Closing her eyes she allowed the freshness to invigorate her mind and body. She’d always loved the cold and snow, especially first thing in the morning. It was bright, clean and untouched. It gave the usually drab city a magical atmosphere.

Brent’s office wasn’t too far from her house, so Lea decided to walk. Barely a soul was on the street in this part of town. The quiet was almost meditative and she found her thoughts once again turning to Dane.
 
The way his deep voice vibrated through her entire body, making her shiver in anticipation of his touch. The way he looked at her, the strength of it almost piercing her heart as if he were the only one to ever really see her.

Lea slowed, she had the distinct impression someone’s intense stare on her even now. It wasn’t Dane, she knew the feelings he invoked in her. This sensation was different. The unseen gaze was concentrated only on her. Fear inched itself into her thoughts. Why would someone be watching her?

The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck tingled with anticipation. A surge of unexplained adrenaline surged through her body, making her want to run. Lea cleared her throat nervously and casually looked around. Nobody was on the street. Still, every instinct in her body screamed at her. Someone was there.

Don’t be ridiculous
.
First unexplained dreams and now paranoia
.

 
Lea made herself continue walking into town, even though she had a strange desire to run.

As she made her way into town more and more people filled the streets and still the feeling of being followed plagued at her. She scanned the street one last time before heading into Brent’s office building. The warmth of the room engulfed her. There were no prying eyes here.

She knocked on the door, needing to see a friendly face now more than ever.

“Come in,” Brent called from behind the door.

“Hi. Do you have time for a quick chat?” Lea asked as she entered the room. The small office was cozy and inviting. Warm cream and brown adorned both the walls and the furniture.

“Lea,” he sounded surprised to see her. “Of course, I’ve got time. Why don’t you come in and sit down.” He moved over to an over-stuffed arm chair and motioned for her to do the same. “Are you here as a patient? After our last meeting in the café, I wasn’t sure where we stood. I didn’t think I would see you again.”

“Neither did I.” Lea took a seat opposite Brent. “I, um—”

A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed hard. Now that she was here it seemed more difficult than she anticipated to reveal her dreams. She hadn’t appreciated how deeply personal they were. How much Dane and her visits to him had come to mean to her. True, they may be escapism but they were also a comfort.

“You had another dream,” Brent surmised.

Lea merely nodded.

“It’s not surprising after attending the opening of the youth club again. Being in the same place where the trauma occurred can trigger hidden emotions and memories.”

Brent placed a comforting hand on her arm. Her skin erupted in goose bumps as a wave of icy cold swept over her. She frowned at the now familiar warning and gently disengaged her arm from his grasp.

“I knew it was going to be hard going back to the club. But the dreams I’m having don’t have anything to do with that night.”

Brent’s eyebrows rose in question. “The dreams don’t have any linking factor to what happened at the club?”

They did have one thing in common with the night of the massacre. Dane. But she wasn’t even sure if he was really there or if her subconscious had invented him and then he transferred to her dreams. She wasn’t sure what was real anymore. Not when her dreams were more realistic than her waking life.

“The only thing they have in common are the feelings. The intensity.” She smiled apologetically at Brent. “This isn’t making much sense is it? I just need to know that I’m not going crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Brent said in his calming psychiatrist voice that was used for soothing the mentally unbalanced. “You know that dreams are the mind’s way of processing the data of our day to day lives. It is just different because while your analytical mind understands this, your subconscious believes that the dream state is real.”

He moved forward and balanced on the edge of his chair, placing his hands against her knees. “You’re a good psychiatrist; you know logically what is happening to you.” His fingers started to knead the lower part of her thigh. Lea swallowed and tried to move back. “But you’re also a woman and you have to let your emotions have full reign for a while. Let your vulnerability show once in a while.”

A coldness washed over her and she shivered. She’d known Brent had feelings for her, but she never believed he would act upon them while they were in session. Perhaps he didn’t think this was a session, otherwise she never would have come to him today.

“Brent, you’re making me feel a little uncomfortable.”

“See, this is what I mean.” He smiled and moved closer. “Let yourself be vulnerable. Let your feelings come to the forefront instead of your reason.” His hand moved slowly higher up her thigh.

A chill so cold it almost turned her blood to ice surrounded her. Then she heard it; a low feral growl to the right of her. She whipped her head around, fully expecting to see Dane standing above her. A haze of a huge white paw hovered for an instant and then nothing. Her heart seized with cold and instant longing. She wanted to reach out and feel him, feel that he was tangible. Feeling stupid, she looked back at Brent and she felt her eyes widen with fear.

Brent’s fingers bit into the flesh of her legs in fright. His breathing was erratic, coming in short sharp bursts. His eyes darted in every direction as if trying to locate something.

“Did you hear that? Did you see it?” he almost barked at her.

“What?” She said past the lump in her throat, she wasn’t admitting to hearing anything.

“It sounded like a bear growling. I saw a bear’s paw,” he added almost hysterically.

Her chest constricted in confusion. How could he have heard and seen the same thing she had? She knew it was Dane with every fiber of her being. But she didn’t know how.

“I didn’t see or hear anything.” Lea pushed his hands back with such force he fell back into the chair. “Now I’m leaving and I won’t be back.”

She headed for the door with Brent slowing sitting up, his uncertainty giving way to anger as he pounded the armchair with his fist. As soon as she stepped out of his office, the coldness left her. Lea sighed allowing the warm air to thaw out her body.

She was more confused than ever. Brent’s unprofessionalism surprised her. But she could more than handle him. What she couldn’t handle was hearing or seeing things that couldn’t be there. Her dreams were starting to encroach on her daily life. And what was even scarier was that apparently other people could see them too.

~* * *~

Lea sat in the crowded bar and contemplated having another drink before her sister arrived for lunch. She decided against it. Her mind was playing enough tricks on her without plying it with alcohol as well.

A panoramic landscape painting sat above the bar and Lea stared at its cool blue shades of ice and water. But what caught her attention most was the pure white polar bear standing in the foreground. Why was she dreaming about bears that transformed into stunningly sexy men? And why were those dreams now leeching into her reality? Lea was certain about what she saw and heard in Brent’s office. It was Dane, she knew it. But how? She needed some answers before she really did start going crazy. But who could she ask?

Moon
. The answer was so simple it flashed into her mind on the fragment of a memory. Her dear friend knew Dane’s name. The night of the massacre Lea had been talking to Moon on the phone when the bloodshed began. Flashbacks, blurred and hazy, unlike the clarity of her dreams, sat on the edges of her mind. She remembered a wolf snarling at her, its teeth and hot putrid breath close to her skin. She’d screamed and then a polar bear stood before her. “
His name’s Dane
.” Moons words echoed through the phone. Then the bear transformed into a man. The man she knew in her dreams to be Dane.

Excitement churned in her stomach. It was like long forgotten memories resurfaced to place the missing pieces of the puzzle together. Logically, none of the pieces made sense. But a basic instinct told her they were the truth. Now at least she had someone to call. Lea pulled out her mobile phone and flipped it open. Her hand hovered above the keypad.

Moon had been gone for over a month now. After Moon had left that message on Lea’s phone, she’d tried to call Moon’s mobile number. There had been no answer then or the other times she had tried. Lea’s heart sank. Perhaps her family would know how to contact her. She would go and see them after lunch.

The phone vibrated in her hand and her sister’s number came up on the caller ID.

“Hi, Melody,” she greeted her sister.

“Hi, Lea. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to cancel lunch. Luke is at home sick from school.”

“Poor guy, give him a hug for me. That’s okay about lunch. It’ll give me some time to do some errands.” Lea picked up her handbag from the bar and headed toward the door. “We can arrange for another time later in the week if you like.”

“Thanks. Are you okay, you sound tired?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just haven’t been sleeping very well. Take care of Luke and I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay. Sorry for bailing on you, Sis. Bye.” Melody hung up the phone.

Lea stashed the phone back in her bag. As she turned a vaguely familiar face stood out in the crowded bar. A handsome Japanese man, immaculately dressed stood near the side exit to the bar. Lea furrowed her brow in concentration. She’d seen him recently, acknowledged him somehow, but she’d never actually spoken to him.

He bowed his head slightly in her direction and then slipped out the side door. Curious, Lea pushed her way out into the main street and hurried around the corner. He was nowhere in sight. Was he following her or was she being paranoid again? She didn’t know, but there was no feeling of cold dread when she saw him. No warning of foreboding danger she felt when the previous icy feelings of menace hit her.

A bird’s cry caught her attention, looking up a gigantic hawk, stunningly snowy white, circled overhead. Slowly it spiraled downward, gathering momentum as it descended. The lower it came, the larger it seemed. Its huge wingspan and beauty mesmerized Lea as she watched the bird swoop down. She felt the gust of air as the birds wings flapped above her. It screeched and Lea felt her heart give a jolt.

Lea could almost reach out a hand and touch the bird’s feathers it was so low. It cried again and flew around through the buildings on either side of the small street and out of her view. She heard a thump, a curse and turned back toward the main street. People were hurrying along the street, glancing backward in surprise, tinged with fear.

Lea went to step out onto the street to see what was happening when the warning of an ice cold wind settled over her. Nervous excitement filled her veins and she quickly glanced around for any sign that Dane was near.
 

The side street was empty and slightly darkened by the tall buildings blocking out the hazy sunlight. She turned back toward the street, she needed to step out into the sunshine. The feeling of cold engulfed her, her skin shivered, the intensity of it was starting to scare her.