Briannas Prophecy (10 page)

Brianna swallowed the nausea that rose when the elevator started its downward trek. Leaning her head back, she rested it against the wall, gripped the handrail and squashed the absent thought that perhaps she’d left her stomach on the eighth floor.

When she entered the brightly-lit breakfast room, her first instinct was to run from the light. She cupped her hand over her eyes. “What? Am I some sort of vampire now?” She shook her head and wished for a pair of sunglasses. She slowly walked to the to-go counter and requested a menu.

“Might I suggest our double chocolate mocha latte?”

“Um…yes, I’ll take two of those. I would also like some doughnuts, hmmm…let me think. Two jelly filled, two custard filled and two eclairs.”

He rang-up her purchases. “Twenty-one ninety-six, please.”

Brianna swallowed thickly and paid the man. When what she really wanted to do was shout,
Nearly twenty two dollars for a half dozen doughnuts and two coffees?
She bit her tongue. The last thing she needed to do was draw attention.

Amber was just emerging from the steam-filled bathroom when she returned to their room. Apparently, as usual, her friend had felt guilty about even thinking of using all of the hot water she wanted. She always said she could never bring herself to stay in the shower more than fifteen minutes because it was a waste of water, and if she even thought about wasting any natural resource, she felt guilty.

“Ten more minutes, and I’ll be ready to go.” Amber said around the doughnut she’d just crammed into her mouth. She ran back into the bathroom, her hands full of clean clothes.

Brianna glanced down into the box. That donut was already Amber’s second, and she hadn’t even taken the time to dry off yet. She shook her head in disbelief. She’d never understand it. The woman was a tiny little thing, but she ate like a horse.

Sitting down with her breakfast, Brianna sipped her coffee and nibbled a doughnut. Looking around, she wondered who decorated hotel rooms. The green carpet was okay, she supposed, if you liked the olive drab puke look. The beds were standard for hotels, with the headboards screwed into the walls. The big flowered pattern on the bedspread was too much. It almost made her want to barf, which probably wouldn’t be a problem if she aimed it at the floor. She shook her head, that wouldn’t work. She didn’t remember eating an abundance of greens yesterday. Looking up, she sighed as Amber breezed out of the bathroom looking refreshed. How did she do that anyway? She scowled. “You make me sick! How do you do that?”

Amber grinned. “Do what?”

“How do you look so stinking perky when you stayed out half of the night?” Brianna’s head was still filled with cotton and the taste on her tongue made her wonder exactly what she’d eaten the night before. Wanting to get the horrible taste out of her mouth, she took a big bite of her doughnut and tried not to gag. She looked down at the box. One doughnut left. Amber had eaten four already? “How much did I drink last night?”

Amber sat at the desk, slipping her shoes on. She straightened in her chair, looking puzzled. “You only had one that I know of. Then you had something to eat and a few more cokes. I was going to ask
you
what you’d been drinking. Boy, were you drunk,” she said as she bent to fix her sock inside of her shoe. She eyed the box Brianna still held. “Are you gonna eat that?”

Brianna stood, passed her the box and gave the doughnut another ten seconds to exist.

Amber crammed the last doughnut into her mouth. It lasted about five seconds. She chased it down with the last of her coffee. “Do you remember the guy that kept following you around all night?”

“I remember he gave me the willies.” Brianna shuddered.

 
”I don’t think either one of us could enjoy ourselves because of him.” She pressed her lips together, clearly upset. “He gave me the creeps. The man was evil, I could feel it. It emanated from him.”

“Me, too.” Brianna frowned. “I wonder why he was even there. It was obvious he didn’t care about having a good time. He was too busy following us around.” She took a small sip from her cup.

“He followed
you
around, Bri. His kind won’t usually attend happy go lucky parties like the ball. They can’t stand all of the positive energy or something.” Amber was on her knees, looking under the bed.

Brianna’s brow wrinkled slightly with worry and fear filled her eyes. “You’re going to think this is weird, but I can’t remember last night. I remember the kooky Limbo contest. Now I know why everyone was staggering around last year when we got there.” She grinned. “It makes me glad I didn’t make the finalists. I don’t know if I could have slammed down a shot of liquor every time it was my turn.”

Amber fanned her face. “Yeah, I remember,” she giggled.

Grinning, Brianna was glad for that memory at least. “I remember the vampire with the oversized codpiece got it hung up on the limbo pole and staggered around with it, making suggestive remarks.” She squinted up at the ceiling and thought for a moment. “And I remember the guy dressed as Pan won. I think the skin-tone tights were a good move,” she chuckled, “a bit disappointing maybe, but still, a good move.”

Amber raised a brow, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You don’t remember talking with him? His name is Ethan by the way.”

“Talking with who, the weirdo?” Brianna shuddered at the thought. His whole manner had made her skin crawl. “I can’t imagine talking with someone like that. Did you slap me?”

“No, silly. You actually talked with
Pan
.”

“Get outta here! I did not.” Brianna was stunned, her mouth dropping open with shock.

Amber nodded, looking like she was enjoying this just a little too much. “Yes, you did. I went to get the room and told you to stay away from the creepy guy. When I came back, you were talking with him and his buddies. They even ran interference for us so we could slip out through the bathroom. They didn’t seem to like the way the other guy was following you around, either.” Her full lips thinned with anger. Her sparkling green eyes filled with contempt. “You know, that man could have slipped something into one of your drinks.” She looked thoughtful. “Though, I have no idea why he’d want to do such a thing. Or how he could have done it, for that matter.”

Brianna shot Amber a nervous glance. They both knew that sometimes the ball attracted people with strange ideas of what it was to be a witch. It was said those people had chosen the left-handed path. They didn’t follow the Wiccan Rede, which was to harm none. That there was a chance she could have fallen into the clutches of someone that perverted the craft in such a way was terrifying.

They gathered their things together in silence, left a generous tip for the maid, and closed the door behind them. Brianna was glad that she’d had the forethought to leave a change of clothes with Amber. She’d forgotten to pack some in her rush to get to the ball last year. She’d had to travel home wearing her costume. What looked great on Halloween always looked goofy the day after, especially if you were still wearing it in broad daylight.

She wondered briefly about her new neighbor, with his sun-bronzed face. He was classically handsome, as if some unknown Goddess had created him, chiseled his perfect features from smooth bronzed marble with her own divine hands. He was a perfect specimen to be a consort for a goddess or a member of the court of divine blood.

Brianna really hated the way she’d run off the night before. Her new neighbor had been nothing but kind, and she’d all but snubbed him. Maybe if she invited him over for dinner or something… She shook her head slightly. No, it was too soon for that. She didn’t want to seem pushy. Or worse yet, desperate.

Niklas’s handsome face flashed in her memory, the vivid recollection of him came unbidden. He left a burning impression on her mind. She frowned. It was strange how she could recall everything of the night before she arrived at the ball.

Brianna wondered if she
had
been drugged. The thought frightened her. She knew people could do things when stoned that they ordinarily wouldn’t do sober. Once, years ago, her best friend had disappeared at a party. Someone slipped a drug into her friend Karen’s drink, then bragged, laughing about how they’d easily dropped the drug in her soda. They thought it was hilarious.

Her eyes misted and she shuddered. A single tear trembled from her lash and fell to her cheek. She found Karen lying naked on her back. In a stupor, so stoned, she didn’t even recognize her best friend. When Brianna helped her dress, she found bruises and bite-marks all over her body. When they went to school the following Monday, everyone was whispering about Karen. How she’d
serviced
several different boys at the party. It didn’t matter that they gave her such a high dose of drugs she hadn’t known what she was doing. She hadn’t even known her own name. After that, no one wanted to talk with her, and she was branded the school slut. The thought that something similar could have happened to her nearly made Brianna ill. With her thoughts spinning, the ride back home was a short one.

Amber dropped Brianna at her door, so she wouldn’t have far to carry the costume and the few things she’d picked up the night before from vendors. She waved as Amber backed out of the driveway and left, tires squealing against the pavement as her car raced down the street.

Brianna wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell of burning rubber and unlocked her door. She greeted Killer warmly and let him out into the backyard. He started yapping almost immediately. What in the world had upset him now? She shrugged. No matter, the yard was fenced, and he couldn’t get out. She wasn’t going to worry about him until she made some coffee. She needed more of the strong drink than the one small cup she had gotten from the hotel—about a gallon more. She set a pot to brew and checked her mail. There was nothing but bills and junk. If they weren’t trying to sell her something, they were demanding payment.

“There’s supposed to be so much more to life,” she sighed. “Whatever happened to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? It seems it’s more like live poorly, work constantly and the pursuit of debt management.” She twirled around the kitchen, her hands held out from her sides. “What I wouldn’t give to have the man of my dreams sweep me off of my feet and take me away from all of this.”

“Cow cookies.” She stopped spinning and frowned. That was another thing. It appeared her spell hadn’t worked after all. “Figures. What happened to a spell usually worked within twenty-eight days?”She sighed, dejected. “Mine never work.”

There
were
exceptions. Some spells could take two months. But mostly, the time frame was a pretty constant twenty-eight days. One full moon cycle. Yesterday had been day twenty-eight. “So much for all that energy I saw leaving my body. I was sure it was going to work this time, too.”

Brianna always knew she’d never find her actual dream man. Ever since she’d been a little girl, the man of her dreams had come from outer space. “Like that’s ever gonna happen.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. She would have accepted a close facsimile though. There was a lot to be said for a flesh and blood human male. Especially if said human male was approximately six foot six and a tower of extreme male perfection. She sighed again as she thought of her new neighbor.

Brianna put her hand to her head, nearly overcome with a sudden wave of dizziness. Maybe someone
had
put something in her drink last night. She’d never felt so worn out in her life. Forgetting about her coffee, she dragged herself to bed to lie down for a moment. She really wasn’t feeling well.

Rap, rap, rap.

“Ton que’lla ist tu bai!”

“Huh?” Brianna sat up with a frown. She definitely wasn’t going to get any rest with the work going on next door. The sound of hammering carried across the yard into her bedroom. She got up to close the window just in time to see a man fall off a ladder.

He screamed something in a foreign language and hit the ground in a cloud of dust. Another man tripped over a pail of paint. The entire five-gallon bucket tipped over, spilling royal blue paint across the weed filled lawn. There was more cursing. At least she assumed it was cursing, since it, too, was in a foreign tongue.

“It’s like watching an episode of
The Three Stooges
,” she muttered, her chin in her hands, elbows resting on the sill.

One man would pick up a two by four, turn and knock someone else off a ladder. Or conk someone on the head. Another man stepped on a hoe. The handle flipped up and struck him in the chest, he was just lucky he was tall. It was hilarious. If Brianna didn’t know better, she would have believed they were cursed. Although she was sure incompetent was a better word.

Crouching, Brianna watched with morbid curiosity for a few more minutes. It wasn’t everyday you got to see a comedy show like this. Searching the yard, she noticed Killer wasn’t making a sound. That, in itself, was remarkable. He barked at
everything
. Yet, there he sat, in the middle of the yard, staring through the fence watching the comedy of errors construction-company next door, his head tilting from one side to the other as he watched.

Brianna was startled when the man she’d met the night before came out of the house and called to the people in the yard. “English, remember to speak English here.”