Nora Roberts - Blood Brothers

She threw out her arms, and her slight body, weighed heavy with her cache of stones, tipped, tipped, tipped until it met the black water. The pond swallowed it like a waiting mouth.

Quinn leaped-what else could she do? Her body braced for the shock of cold as she filled her lungs with air.

There was a flash of light, a roar that might have been thunder or something alive and hungry. She was on her knees in a clearing where a stone rose out of the earth like an altar. Fire spewed around her, above her, through her, but she felt none of its heat.

Through the flames she saw two shapes, one black, one white, grappling like mad animals. With a terrible rending sound, the earth opened up, and like the waiting mouth of the pond, swallowed everything.

The scream ripped from her throat as that maw widened to take her. Clawing, she dragged herself toward the stone, fought to wrap her arms around it.

It broke into three equal parts, sending her tumbling, tumbling into that open, avid mouth.

She woke, huddled on the lovely bed, the linens tangled around her legs as she gripped one of the bedposts as if her life depended on it.

Her breath was an asthmatic’s wheeze, and her heart beat so fast and hard it had her head spinning.

A dream, just a dream, she reminded herself, but couldn’t force herself-not quite yet-to release her hold on the bedpost.

Clinging to it, she let her cheek rest on the wood, closed her eyes until the shaking had lessened to an occasional quiver.

“Hell of a ride,” she mumbled.

The Pagan Stone. That’s where she’d been at the end of the dream, she was certain of it. She recognized it from pictures she’d seen. Small wonder she’d have a scary dream about it, about the woods. And the pond…Wasn’t there something in her research about a woman drowning in the pond? They’d named it after her. Hester’s Pond. No, pool. Hester’s Pool.

It all made sense, in dream logic.

Yeah, a hell of a ride, and she’d die happy if she never took another like it.

She glanced at her travel alarm, and saw by its luminous dial it was twenty after three. Three in the morning, she thought, was the dead time, the worst time to be wakeful. So she’d go back to sleep, like a sensible woman. She’d straighten the bed, get herself a nice cool drink of water, then tune out.

She’d had enough jolts and jumps for her first day.

She slid out of bed to tug the sheets and duvet back into some semblance of order, then turned, intending to go to the adjoining bath for a glass of water.

The scream wouldn’t sound. It tore through her head like scrabbling claws, but nothing could tear its way out of the hot lock of her throat.

The boy grinned obscenely through the dark window. His face, his hands pressed against the glass bare inches away from her own. She saw its tongue flick out to roll across those sharp, white teeth, and those eyes, gleaming red, seemed as bottomless and hungry as the mouth of earth that had tried to swallow her in her dream.

Her knees wanted to buckle, but she feared if she dropped to the ground it would come crashing through the glass to latch those teeth on her throat like a wild dog.

Instead, she lifted her hand in the ancient sign against evil. “Get away from here,” she whispered. “Stay away from me.”

It laughed. She heard the horrible, giddy sound of it, saw its shoulders shake with mirth. Then it pushed off the glass into a slow, sinuous somersault. It hung suspended for a moment above the sleeping street. Then it…condensed, was all she could think. It shrank into itself, into a pinpoint of black, and vanished.

Quinn launched herself at the window, yanked the shade down to cover every inch of glass. And lowering to the floor at last, she leaned back against the wall, trembling.

When she thought she could stand, she used the wall as a brace, quick-stepping to the other windows. She was out of breath again by the time all the shades were pulled, and tried to tell herself the room didn’t feel like a closed box.

She got the water-she needed it-and gulped down two full glasses. Steadier, she stared at the covered windows.

“Okay, screw you, you little bastard.”

Picking up her laptop, she went back to her position on the floor-it just felt safer under the line of the windowsills-and began to type up every detail she remembered from the dream, and from the thing that pressed itself to the night glass.

WHEN SHE WOKE, THE LIGHT WAS A HARD YELLOW line around the cream linen of the shades. And the battery of her laptop was stone dead. Congratulating herself on remembering to back up before she’d curled onto the floor to sleep, she got her creaky self up.

Stupid, of course, she told herself as she tried to stretch out the worst of the stiffness. Stupid not to turn off her machine, then crawl back into that big, cozy bed. But she’d forgotten the first and hadn’t even considered the second.

Now, she put the computer back on the pretty desk, plugged it in to recharge the batteries. With some caution-after all, it had been broad daylight when she’d seen the boy the first time-she approached the first window. Eased up the shade.

The sun was lancing down out of a boiled blue sky. On the pavement, on awnings and roofs, a fresh white carpet of snow shimmered.

She spotted a few merchants or their employees busily shoveling sidewalks or porches and steps. Cars putted along the plowed street. She wondered if school had been called or delayed due to the snow.

She wondered if the boy had demon classes that day.

For herself, Quinn decided she was going to treat her abused body to a long soak in the charming tub. Then she’d try Ma’s Pantry for breakfast, and see who she could get to talk to her over her fruit and granola about the legends of Hawkins Hollow.

CAL SAW HER COME IN WHILE HE CUT INTO HIS short stack at the counter. She had on those high, sharp-heeled boots, faded jeans, and a watch cap, bright as a cardinal, pulled over her hair.

She’d wound on a scarf that made him think of Joseph’s coat of many colors, which added a jauntiness with her coat opened. Under it was a sweater the color of ripe blueberries.

There was something about her, he mused, that would have been bright and eye-catching even in mud brown.

He watched her eyes track around the diner area, and decided she was weighing where to sit, whom to approach. Already working, he concluded. Maybe she always was. He was damn sure, even on short acquaintance, that her mind was always working.

She spotted him. She aimed that sunbeam smile of hers, started over. He felt a little like the kid in the pickup game of ball, who got plucked from all the others waving their arms and shouting: Me! Me! Pick me!

“Morning, Caleb.”

“Morning, Quinn. Buy you breakfast?”

“Absolutely.” She leaned over his plate, took a long, dramatic sniff of his butter-and-syrup-loaded pancakes. “I bet those are fabulous.”

“Best in town.” He stabbed a thick bite with his fork, held it out. “Want a sample?”

“I can never stop at a taste. It’s a sickness.” She slid onto the stool, swiveled around to beam at the waitress as she unwound her scarf. “Morning. I’d love some coffee, and do you have any granola-type substance that could possibly be topped with any sort of fruit?”

“Well, we got Special K, and I could slice you up some bananas with it.”

“Perfect.” She reached over the counter. “I’m Quinn.”

“The writer from up in PA.” The waitress nodded, took Quinn’s hand in a firm grip. “Meg Stanley. You watch this one here, Quinn,” Meg said with a poke at Cal. “Some of those quiet types are sneaky.”

“Some of us mouthy types are fast.”