CHAPTER 37
Frost looked out through the bank of windows that stretched around the edges of the dining area. The sky was sullen, like the onset of a troubled dusk or a rainstorm, but it was hours before sunset and he knew it wasn’t rain but ash that fell from the sky and darkened the atmosphere to a gloomy charcoal gray.
He could smell it, too. A sooty smell, slightly sulfurous, touched by the brimstone of hell. Even inside the building the odor pervaded, seeping and insidious. Outside, the lake stretched between stands of pine and scattered houses, dark and still, undisturbed by the geese he’d seen winging above them during their walk through the neighborhood. A shiver feathered over his shoulder blades, teasing at the hairs on the back of his neck.
The name spoken by the awakening woma
