I cast a furtive look up at Eric as we passed by one of those lampposts. His handsome face was impassive, but with a twinkle in those eyes and the corners of his lips turned up in a smile. I couldn’t help but be drawn to such an enigmatic man, so old even ancient vampires remembered him in their early years.
That brought to mind a question. “So how old are you exactly?”
I regretted asking it the moment some of his good humor fled. He turned his face slightly away from me. “Some would call me very old.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Some humans or some vampires?”
“Both.”
“And you’ve been hunting for these roots ever since Vanar found you?”
There was a tension in his voice that squeezed my heart. “Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Always.”
There was such weariness in that single word that I felt it in my soul. Eric jumped a little when I slipped my hand into his, and he looked down at me with a quizzical expression. I gave him a broad smile and gave his hand a squeeze. “Not anymore.”
He studied my face for a long while before a smile slipped onto his lips. “So it would seem.”
His mesmerizing gaze gave a blush to my cheeks, and I turned my face away and cleared my throat. “Anyway, aren’t we almost there?”
“Almost,” he agreed as I glimpsed a three-foot high wall about twenty yards off.
The wall belonged to the well, an ancient edifice of rounded stones and cracked mortar. We stopped in front of the well and I grasped the top to lean over. Thanks to the moisture a thick blanket of moss covered the interior walls and ran down twenty feet to the deep water. I could barely make out the black surface of the bottomless pit. A slight stench of rancid water floated up and made me wrinkle my nose.
I looked up at Eric who stood beside me examining not the well but my face. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, though the way down isn’t obvious.”
I leaned a little farther over the edge and squinted into the darkness. “So, what is the way down?”
“Close your eyes.”
I tilted my head to one side and cast a suspicious look at his devilishly handsome face. “Why?”
“There’s something I want to show you.”
I sighed but closed my eyes. He stepped up behind me and his strong arms wrapped around my waist. Eric drew me against his warm, solid chest and I couldn’t help but exhale a little bit of breath at the feel of him against me.
He leaned his face beside mine and his warm, whispered breath brushed over my ear. “Don’t open them until I tell you to.”
One of his arms moved away me and I felt his hand settle down close beside mine atop the wall. A strange warmth rippled through me, and through my eyelids I glimpsed a brilliant light that danced about us.
“Now open them.”
I flung open my eyes and beheld a swirling beauty of strands of light that floated up from the depths of the well. The bland, dank interior now blossomed with beauty as flowers sprung from the moss and showed off a rainbow of colors. Their petals flew up and mixed with the strands of light to surround us in their warmth.
Part of the stone wall parted, and the strands wove together to create a curved staircase that led down into the depths of the well. The waters in the bottom were lifted by the tiny swirling petals and lifted up, one droplet at a time but with such swiftness that the water was quickly drained. The empty well revealed a small metal doorway in the part of the wall closest to the parking lot.
I gaped up at Eric. “How’d you do that?”
He tapped one of the stones with the tip of his finger. “A magic stone.”
I shook my head. “But I’ve never seen magic like that. It’s-” I paused and furrowed my brow. “It’s different than what Strega and the other witches can do.”
He nodded. “This is ancient magic, one brought up from the earth long before it had to worry about her weight being on it.”
I cast a quick look at the shadows around us. “So, it’s something that Vanar can do?”
“Something like that,” he confirmed as he slipped past me and into the gap in the wall. He turned and offered me his hand. “But we shouldn’t stand here for long. The spell wears off.”
I took his hand, and he guided me down the winding stairs. We reached the bottom, and I couldn’t help but brush my hand over the water line. I put a foot down on the well bottom and felt the ground shift beneath my shoe. A quick look down showed that the floor was covered in thousands of coins, mostly pennies.
“And me without a bucket...” I murmured as Eric grasped the ornate metal handle and opened the door. I couldn’t help but notice that the design on the handle resembled a globe split by strands into three equal parts. Brilliant white light blinded me for a moment, but I heard Eric’s voice call to me. “Welcome to The Well.”
I blinked against the harsh brilliance and after a moment my eyes adjusted to the bright lights that lined a long, winding hallway. The passage was so winding, in fact, that I couldn’t see around the first bend some ten feet in front of us. The walls themselves were also rather odd. Slabs of carved stone made up the walls, and the pieces were strangely chiseled. Most of the sides were square, but every now and again there were curved sides. There were also many etchings in the stones that had been worn by time, as though they’d seen the light of day and weather for many years.
Eric shut the door behind us, and I detected a strange noise on the other side. He noticed my perked ears. “The well is being refilled.”
My heart skipped a beat. “But there’s a way to empty it again from this side, right?”
He nodded at a large round stone in the wall beside the door. “That will activate the magic from here.”
With my plan of escape mapped out, I returned my attention to the walls. I stepped in front of one of the strange stone markings and set my hand against an image that appeared to be an angel. “What is all this?”
“Tombstones.”
I jerked my hand back and whipped my face to Eric. His expression was stoic as he examined the morbid masterpiece. “Why the hell did they use that to make the walls?”
“Three hundred years ago the park was a cemetery, but over a century and a half ago the city decided to create a park here,” he explained as he pressed a palm against another angel. It was then I realized the strange etchings were in fact the names and dates of the deceased. “The proprietor of The Well offered to remove the bodies and headstones for a very low price, and the city couldn’t resist such an offer.”
I lifted an eyebrow as I jerked my head toward the wall. “It looks like they didn’t move them much at all.”
He pointed at the ground. “Only lower, and the bodies, too, were lowered to beneath our feet.”
I followed his finger and stared at the hard-packed dirt. “But how’d they do that?”
He grinned. “Ancient magic.”
My face drooped, but soon swooped into a scowl. “What kind of ancient magic?”
Eric tapped a rare spot where the dirt shone through the tombstones. “Nature. They merely forced the earth to swallow her dead a little deeper than she already had.” He drew out the compass and revealed its soft glow. “But we should get going. We’re expected.”
“I wish you’d tell me who’s expecting us,” I scolded him as I followed him down the winding path.
The tunnel was well lit with bright electric lamps that resembled gas ones like those used in jolly old England around the turn of the twentieth century. A fleeting thought made me wonder if we were going to be guests of Jack the Ripper.
Some strange sensation struck me. It felt as though a shadow had passed over my body, and I was left feeling both warmer and colder. I wrapped my arms around myself, and Eric paused to half-turn to me. “Are you alright?”
I rubbed my hands over my arms. “I don’t really know. Does this place have some weird drafts?”
He lifted his eyes to one of the lamps and frowned. “What you’re feeling is Vanar. His shadow doesn’t travel any farther than the doorway.”
I lifted an eyebrow before I looked over my shoulder. The lights illuminated the entrance, and I swore the shadows swayed in a strange fashion. “Why not?”
“More ancient magic,” he mused before he continued on his way.
I followed, and we rounded a corner where I paused beside a large wall where the headstones had been so worn by time that I could barely read the lettering. The age of the stone sparked a memory inside me which my current surroundings enhanced.
I jumped when a hand clapped on my shoulder, and I whipped my head up to find Eric looking down at me with a worried look. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head before I returned my attention to the headstones. “No, I was just remembering the time I was in Germany.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “In Germany?”
I kept my eyes on the stones as I snorted. “Yeah. That was when I was with Strega. She goes to the Oktoberfest every year and she dragged me along. I’d had my fill of beer for the night, but she had a lot more to fill than me and kept going, so I wandered around the town on my own and found this creepy old cemetery.”
“How long ago was this?”
I shrugged. “About five years ago. Why?” I didn’t receive an answer, so I looked back at Eric and was surprised to see him glaring at the wall. “What is it?”
Eric shook himself out of his reverie and smiled at me. “It’s nothing. Let’s get going.”