CENTRAL VIRGINIA-HOTEL
The Present
Clarion jolted awake. His breathing was ragged as he searched his bag for the item he was looking for. Finding it, he pulled out a jagged piece of glass.
Using the edge, he sliced open his palm. The blood oozed from the wound and splattered down onto the glass, slowly turning into objects moving underneath.
Suddenly, he could see inside his ancestral home. The one he was taken from when he was but a bairn. A woman was there and a dog. And someone else. Someone intent on harming the other girl. He could feel it radiating through him from the glass. “Bloody Hell!”
Closing his eyes, he chanted the ancient tongue of the druids as he absorbed the image, making it move to the victim’s advantage.
The Past, Greystone Castle
Halfway up the stairs, I heard, rather than saw, the sound of Elvis’s nails scrapping on the stones as he spun around fighting for purchase to follow me.
I wanted to turn around, to cheer him on, but I was afraid that if I did, I would not get away.
Hitting the landing on the upper floor, I broke into a dead run. The hall before me blurred in and out of focus and seemed to get longer instead of shorter as I fought my way to the door of Gavin’s room.
Losing my footing. I stumbled forward to the ground. Everything turned a murky shade of gray, and then to black.
The Present
Holding tightly to the glass, Clarion shook, chanting, fighting the pain in his head as beads of perspiration dripped steadily down his face. He forced the vision as far as he could take it and then, suddenly, everything turned black and he could see no more.
Shakily, he released the grip he had on the glass and set it carefully back down inside his bag.
Unsteadily, he moved back to the bed and lay down, spent.
As the pain slowly faded, his breathing returned to normal. The spell he just conjured was only a short reprieve.
Time would tell if it was enough to stay the beast until he could return to his home and end the bloody curse once and for all.
The Past, Greystone Castle
My body felt oddly rested and it took a moment for me to realize I was on the floor in the hall. Sitting up, I tried to remember how I got here but nothing came to me. I didn’t feel bad. Actually, I felt like I had just taken a nice catnap, the kind I used to take at home on rainy afternoons.
“Weird.” Once again, I tried to remember but my mind was not cooperating.
Pushing myself up, I stood and waited for my brain to start working. But nothing came to me. Not one thing. “Huh, that’s odd.”
“Oh well.” I walked to the door of Gavin’s room and let out a yelp of surprise.
.