Nora Roberts - Blood Brothers

“No problem.”

There was one of those beats; she recognized it. Both of them wondering, did they shake hands, just turn and go, or give in to curiosity and lean into a kiss.

“Let’s stay to the safe road for now,” she decided. “I admit, I like the look of your mouth, but moving on that’s bound to tangle things up before I really get started on what brought me here.”

“It’s a damn shame you’re right about that.” He dipped his hands into his pockets. “So I’ll just say good night. I’ll wait, make sure you get inside.”

“Good night.” She walked up the steps to the door, eased it open. Then glanced back to see him standing, hands still in his pockets, with the old-fashioned streetlight spotlighting him.

Oh, yeah, she thought, it was a damn shame.

“See you soon.”

He waited until the door shut behind her, then taking a couple of steps, studied the windows of the second and third floor. She’d said her window faced Main Street, but he wasn’t sure what level she was on.

After a few moments, a light flashed on in a second-floor window, telling him Quinn was safe in her room.

He turned and had taken two steps when he saw the boy. He stood on the sidewalk half a block down. He wore no coat, no hat, no protection against the bite of wind. The long stream of his hair didn’t stir in it.

His eyes gleamed, eerily red, as his lips peeled back in a snarl.

Cal heard the sound inside his head while ice balled in his belly.

Not real, he told himself. Not yet. A projection only, like in the dreams. But even in the dreams, it could hurt you or make you think you were hurt.

“Go back where you came from, you bastard.” Cal spoke clearly, and as calmly as his shaken nerves would allow. “It’s not your time yet.”

When it is, I’ll devour you, all of you, and everything you hold precious.

The lips didn’t move with the words, but stayed frozen in that feral snarl.

“We’ll see who feels the bite this round.” Cal took another step forward.

And the fire erupted. It spewed out of the wide brick sidewalk, fumed across the street in a wall of wild red. Before he could register that there was no heat, no burn, Cal had already stumbled back, thrown up his hands.

The laughter rang in his head, as wild as the flames. Then both snapped off.

The street was quiet, the brick and buildings unmarred. Tricks up his sleeve, Cal reminded himself. Lots of tricks up his sleeve.

He made himself stride forward, through where the false fire had run. There was a strong acrid odor that puffed then vanished like the vapor of his own breath. In that instant he recognized it.

Brimstone.

UPSTAIRS IN THE ROOM THAT MADE HER BLISSFULLY happy with its four-poster bed and fluffy white duvet, Quinn sat at the pretty desk with its curved legs and polished surface writing up the day’s notes, data, and impressions on her laptop.

She loved that there were fresh flowers in the room, and a little blue bowl of artfully arranged fresh fruit. The bath held a deep and delightful claw-foot tub and a snowy white pedestal sink. There were thick, generous towels, two bars of soap, and rather stylish minibottles of shampoo, body cream, and bath gel.

Instead of boring, mass-produced posters, the art on the walls were original paintings and photos, which the discreet note on the desk identified as works by local artists available at Artful, a shop on South Main.

The room was full of homey welcoming touches, and provided high-speed Internet access. She made a note to reserve the same room after her initial week was up, for the return trips she planned in April, then again in July.

She’d accomplished quite a bit on her first day, which was a travel day on top of it. She’d met two of the three focal players, had an appointment to hike to the Pagan Stone. She’d gotten a feel for the town, on the surface in any case. And had, she believed, a personal experience with the manifestation of an unidentified (as yet) force.

And she had the bare bones for a bowling article that should work for her friends at Detour.

Not bad, especially when you added in she’d dined sensibly on the grilled chicken salad in the hotel dining room, had not given in to temptation and inhaled an entire pizza but had limited herself to half a slice. And she’d bowled a strike.

On the personal downside, she supposed, as she shut down to prepare for bed, she’d also resisted the temptation to lock lips with the very appealing Caleb Hawkins.

Wasn’t she all professional and unsatisfied?

Once she’d changed into her bedtime flannel pants and T-shirt, she nagged herself into doing fifteen minutes of pilates (okay, ten), then fifteen of yoga, before burrowing under the fabulous duvet with her small forest of down pillows.

She took her current book off the nightstand, burrowed into that as well until her eyes began to droop.

Just past midnight, she marked the novel, switched off the lamp, and snuggled into her happy nest.

As was her habit, she was asleep in a finger snap.

Quinn recognized the dream as a dream. Always, she enjoyed the sensation of the disjointed, carnival world of dreamscapes. It was, for her, like having some crazy adventure without any physical exertion. So when she found herself on a crooked path through a thick wood where the moonshine silvered the leaves and the curling fog rippled along the ground, a part of her mind thought: Oh boy! Here we go.

She thought she heard chanting, a kind of hoarse and desperate whisper, but the words themselves were indiscernible.

The air felt like silk, so soft, as she waded through the pools of fog. The chanting continued, drawing her toward it. A single word seemed to fly out of that moonstruck night, and the word was bestia.

She heard it over and over as she followed the crooked path through the silken air and the silver-laced trees. She felt a sexual pull, a heat and reaching in the belly toward whatever, whoever called out in the night.

Twice, then three times, the air seemed to whisper. Beatus. The murmur of that warmed her skin. In the dream, she quickened her steps.

Out of the moon-drenched trees swam a black owl, its great wings stirring a storm in that soft air, chilling it until she shivered. And was, even in the dream, afraid.

With that cold wind stirring, she saw, stretched across the path, a golden fawn. The blood from its slit throat drenched the ground so it gleamed wet and black in the night.

Her heart squeezed with pity. So young, so sweet, she thought as she made herself approach it. Who could have done such a thing?

For a moment, the dead, staring eyes of the fawn cleared, shone as gold as its hind. It looked at her with such sorrow, such wisdom, tears gathered in her throat.

The voice came now, not through the whipped air, but in her mind. The single word: devoveo.

Then the trees were bare but for the ice that sheathed trunk and branch, and the silver moonlight turned gray. The path had turned, or she had, so now she faced a small pond. The water was black as ink, as if any light the sky pushed down was sucked into its depths and smothered there.

Beside the pond was a young woman in a long brown dress. Her hair was chopped short, with the strings and tufts of it sticking out wildly. Beside the black pond she bent to fill the pockets of her brown dress with stones.

Hello! Quinn called out. What are you doing?

The girl only continued to fill her pockets. As Quinn walked closer, she saw the girl’s eyes were full of tears, and of madness.

Crap. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to go Virginia Woolf. Wait. Just wait. Talk to me.

The girl turned her head, and for one shocked moment, Quinn saw the face as her own. He doesn’t know everything, the mad girl said. He didn’t know you.