Keva was about ready to protest more when the man stood up. Keva watched him go to the door and pick up a small bundle that he must have dropped on the way in, something that she was too shocked to notice. The man picked up the bundle and withdrew a syringe from it with a lightly colored liquid inside.

  Keva’s eyes narrowed as the man approached her. “What the hell is that?” she spat.

  The man’s smile never slid from his face as he expertly withdrew the needle from the plastic covering and very deftly plunged it into Keva’s arm. Keva had no time to react at all. She could feel the contents of the syringe being pumped into her body. She could feel the warm fluid coursing through her body almost immediately.

  She gathered her strength; she brought all of her antibodies to bear to combat what was in the shot. She was an Enforcer and her natural gifts from the Lunar Mother were that of biofeedback, she could enhance and flood her body with adrenaline, or endorphins at will.

  But she must have been too tired, or too hungry, or both. She looked shocked and surprised as her eyelids started to close of their own accord. The last thing she saw was the bright clear blue eyes of the large man turning away from her, before the void of the drug induced sleep over took her body and mind.

  *   *   *   *

  Javier could feel her, he could feel all of them, except for Erato. This troubled him greatly. He was a member of Keva’s pack and they were able to sense where each other were, anywhere in the world just about. Of course, the farther away they were from each other the only thing he could really feel was a general direction.

  Yrsa had brought them back to the place where he and Huan Li had passed out, at least that’s where she said they were. There had been so much snowfall since they had passed out in the snow that he couldn’t tell the difference between one grove to the next.

  Yrsa looked up anxiously towards the sky. Javier knew why. It didn’t take a naturalist to know that those ugly dark clouds rolling in alarmingly fast carried another foot of snow, or more. This was the only break in the weather that they had had in over a week, if Yrsa was to be believed, and right now, the two outsiders had no choice but to trust her. Javier knew where his pack was. But they were still a long way away. He couldn’t be sure how far but it was going to take a while to get there.

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  “I have brought you back to where I have found you. Now find your friends like you said you could. The snow comes quickly.” The impatience in Yrsa’s voice was unmistakable.

  Javier glanced at Huan Li. The old man was defiantly showing all the signs of his age. He looked tired and cold and miserable. Javier couldn’t really blame the man; he felt all those things as well. Javier pointed in the direction that he felt the majority of his pack.

  Yrsa grunted and scoffed, shaking her head. “No, no you must be mistaken. There is nothing that way but deep forest. Not even villagers live out past this point. We killed the wolves many years ago and good riddance,” she shot them both a dirty look as she turned to face Javier completely, “But there are still bears and some even believe that trolls live in these woods. We never go deeper into the woods than this.”

  Javier shook his head in frustration, “Look, I don’t mean to insult you or your beliefs but there is no such thing as trolls.” Yrsa looked at him without changing her expression at all. Javier eyebrows lowered over his eyes as he glanced off to the side. “My friends are that way. Don’t ask me how I know…I just know. Now are you going to take us there or do we go by ourselves?”

  The question came out harsher than he had intended for it to. The tone was lost on Yrsa as a single snowflake fell between then. Yrsa looked up and that one snowflake seemed to be the break in the proverbial dam. As Javier looked up as well his face was almost instantly coated in snow.

  Yrsa grabbed Huan Li and Javier and pulled them behind her. Huan Li stumbled and Javier had a hard time keeping up with their fleet footed guide. Javier saw the trees around them almost instantly go white as sheets of snow and wind pelted them from every direction. Javier had a feeling that if he and Huan Li had been caught out in this alone, they would die.

  Yrsa dragged the both of them around the trees, and through the rapidly building valleys in between, finding her way by instinct, it seemed. She had lived out her long enough to know that if you tempted Mother Nature herself, you would lose. People always lost against nature.

  She dragged the two hapless men through the long road that had taken them hours to trudge. She stuck close to the trees and found her way by the markings, some of which were her own, some were made by others that she had learned to read and use as guide posts. It wasn’t magic, but she would let her two charges think what they will. Right now, if they didn’t get back to shelter, then they would all three of them die out here. And she wasn’t about to die for these two.

  She dragged them through the snow and around the trees. She could easily pick them both up but she wasn’t that desperate just yet, and if they always came to rely on her and her strength, then they wouldn’t gain any strength of their own. And the one thing that nature did respect was strength.

  She could feel the strength of the two men behind her ebb. Their feet were dragging more and more, using her to lean on just to take a step. Yrsa pulled the two through the rapidly building snow banks. The snow piled onto her arms as she pulled the two along.