Forbidden (The Seeker Saga, #2) (27 page)

Arthur opened the door, and light streamed into the hall.  To my relief, a lamp was on inside, and gave more than sufficient light to see. 

“After you, m’lady,” he said, motioning for me to walk in.  After a brief hesitation, I did.  I couldn’t back out now.

The room was small, and windowless.  There was a queen-sized bed that nearly overwhelmed the space, and a dark oak desk with papers scattered across it.  The light came from a floor lamp in the corner.  Suddenly, I realized that the door I just walked through – the door Arthur was now closing – was the only way in or out of the room. 

The door closed with a thud.  I jumped involuntarily and twisted around.  Arthur’s back was to me.  He was hunched over the doorknob, doing something I couldn’t see.  Suddenly I heard the distinct click of a lock, and fear swelled in me. 

Arthur turned around slowly, and I saw his face for the first time.  It was smooth, but the way his facial features came together – his deep-set eyes, his prominent brow, his beak-like nose – gave him a look of stunning intelligence.  His eyes pierced into me.  They held an intense, prophet-like focus.  It was…
uncomfortable
.

“I know why you’re here,” he told me.  I blinked in surprise.  His voice did not waver at all – he sounded completely lucid.  There were not a sliver of the stupor from before.  “I know who you are.”

“What?” Quickly I scanned the room, searching for a way out.  Arthur stood menacing in the doorway.  That was the only entrance, or exit, to the room.  Fear swelled in me like a tide rushing into a cove.  Fear, and uncertainty. What had I gotten myself into?  Arthur’s eyes pierced into me with intense focus.

“I don’t know your name,” he continued quietly, “but I know what you can do.  The other girl with you – is she the same?”

“Uhh,” I stalled, desperately racking my brain for an explanation.  He knew?  How could he know?  This was beyond freaky.  “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He just looked at me, but that gaze could split boulders.  His eyes were full with a raw intensity.  Of unmitigated focus.  And it was all directed at me.  It was terrifying.  Was the inebriation  from before just an act?  It must have been. What else to explain the shift to full coherence now?  This was the man I had to talk to, the one who could give me answers.  But his was beyond petrifying.  At least I had the crystal around my neck.  If he tried anything, I could stop him with it.  I could link to it.  I could—

“Ah,” he cooed, “you give yourself away too easily.”

“Give myself away…?” I started to ask. But, the words died in my throat.  I realized I had unconsciously taken hold of my crystal.  With supreme effort, I forced my hand away.  The crystal lay against my skin, and that was enough to use it.  I looked around the room again, quickly trying to figure out my surroundings.  Something about this didn’t seem right.  Something was off.  Something…

Without warning Arthur thrust his hand into his blazer pocket.  My back stiffened.  If he was reaching for a something that could harm me… I readied myself to link to the crystal.

“Do not be afraid,” he said, but those dark eyes did not lend themselves to assuaging fear.  Slowly, and with extreme deliberation, he took his hand from his pocket.  His fist was clenched.  He was holding something small.  I didn’t know why, but it demanded my attention. 

He brought his hand carefully in front of his face, and for the first time, his gaze shifted away from me.  I felt a tiny bit of relief.  Slowly, like a flower blossoming, his finger unfurled.  And in his palm lay a colored crystal that looked much like mine.  It was smaller, however, and was a translucent red, not colorless.  I sucked my breath in involuntarily.

“You recognize it?” he mused.  “Of course you do.  You have one just like it around your neck.”  This time, there was nothing unconscious about my hand jerking up to grip the crystal.  If he thought he could take it away…

“Here,” he said, slowly moving his upturned hand toward me.  “I know what you can do.  Do not deny it.  This is what you came to me for.”  This was a completely different man from the one I encountered in the licentious stupor from before.  “Take it!” he said.  “Take it, and tell me what you
feel
!”

I hesitated only for a moment.  He knew about me.  
How
?  But the red crystal held my attention now.  It called to me, much like mine had when I first encountered it.  There was something different about it, something…
special.
  Something… sinister?  Yes. 
No
.  Maybe—I could not tell.  All I knew was that I could not look away.

Slowly, as if in a dream, I reached out to take it.

“Yes,” Arthur coaxed.  “Yes, yes…”

My fingers brushed against the red crystal. A blast of pain ripped through my body.  Fire surged within me, running from the crystal and back, from the crystal and back.  A thunderous roar sounded in my ears. All sensation faded to black.  I knew heat: the heat of the sun, the fire of the stars.  It pulsed inexorably through me, unrelenting, holding nothing back. 

My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I convulsed uncontrollably.  I wanted to pull away, but my body was no longer mine.  Blood boiled in my skull, and an immense pressure built in my head.  Heat seared the marrow of my bones as waves of fire crashed into me.  I knew heat and darkness.  My insides boiled with pure chaos.  Pain ran through my bones, and it felt like they were being melted in the flesh.  I wanted to scream, to run, to get away, but I could not.  The fire was already within.  I could not get away.

My flesh burned.  All my nerves fired with the purest agony.  I knew heat, and nothing more.  The flesh scorched off my arms, my face, my legs.  A thousand needles pierced my skull in lurid flashes of red.  I wanted to scream, to howl, to shriek against the pain that held me, but sound would not come.  Jolts of agony raced up and down my arms, and I was helpless to stop it.  I felt my soul slowly being turned to ash.

I was on the edge of death.  The heat. 
Oh, the heat!
  I could not breathe, as even the air turned to liquid fire in my throat.  I was in the worst kind of peril.  I opened my mouth to scream, but my lungs found only smoke.  I was on the brink of a fiery embrace.

The world turned to cruel black laced with the red of fire.

Chapter Fifteen – A Shadowy Abyss

My lungs worked desperately to gulp down air.  Warm air came, and I sucked it in greedily through a raw throat.  One last convulsion rocked my body, and I was still.

I was on all fours.  My head was filled with agony.  My heart pounded thunderously in my chest, desperately trying to rip through the flesh.  But every pulse was a victory.  I had been to the edge and survived.

Slowly, sensation returned to the rest of my body.  A dull buzzing sounded in my ears.  The pain from before was gone, but its memory remained.  My body felt like it had been wrecked by a thousand switches. Every muscle was tender and soft.  The buzzing in my ears began to retreat, replaced by odd commotion.  I thought I heard… screaming… in the distance, but it was faint; an echo, a whisper.  Not fully there. 

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids did not immediately respond.  Feeling came back to my hands first.  The floor beneath me felt warm. 
Warm?
  A wave of heat slammed into my back, and I gasped.  My eyes shot open. Vision brought to life the scene that was before me. 

Fire!
  There was fire everywhere.  Flames engulfed everything around me.  They licked the wood, danced over walls of the tiny room.  Flames illuminated the entire chamber.  There was smoke, too, and it stung my eyes.  I tried to breathe, but the air was too thick, too full of smoke.  I took it in anyway, and smoky soot filled my lungs.  I coughed violently.  Screams were coming from far away, but they were drowned out by the crackling of the flames around me.  Waves of heat continued to assault my exposed skin.  Arthur was nowhere to be found.  I was alone, on the floor in the room where Arthur had brought me.  I was in danger.  I had to get out.

I scrambled up into a crouch.  My muscles felt like jelly. Every motion put me in danger of falling over.  The tiny room was completely engulfed in flames.  The papers on the desk were burning. The sheets on the bed were afire.  The door was the only way out, but the whole frame was ablaze.  Waves of heat from the flames slammed into me relentlessly.  For a moment, I stood frozen in fear.  But survival instinct kicked in, and I ran through the door, shielding my face.

Outside, the entire hallway was in flames.  The massive conflagration gave lots of light, but the smoke that had built up smothered most of it.  There was ash and soot everywhere.  I lifted my dress over my mouth to filter the air, but it didn’t help much.  Panic-stricken, I fled forward.

The hallway was not as straight as I remembered.  Doorways lined the sides, and all were completely engulfed in flames.  I ran straight, toward the screaming.  That was where people were.  I had to get to the lower levels.

Heat beat at my face as I ran.  I could barely keep my eyes open against it.  The way I thought I had come in lay open. I raced and reeled toward it.  I burst out the entrance, and found myself in the clubhouse
.
  Nobody was there, but I recognized the charred remains of the couches along the walls.  Flames danced wickedly above me, threatening at any moment to singe my hair, to consume
me
.  I ran as fast as my legs would go.  The main doors were open, thankfully, but the wooden stairway that led up here was engulfed in black smoke.  I remembered the steps were made of wood.  I could not see through the smoke.  There was no way of knowing if they were still intact.  I swung my head wildly, looking for another way out.  There was none.  The stairwell was my only choice.

Keeping my eyes open would make no difference, so I closed them and, praying the steps wouldn’t collapse, sprinted down.  Smoke was building up in my lungs.  Every second I spent here it was becoming harder and harder to breathe.  To my infinite relief, I made it down the stairs in one piece.  But the conflagration was even worse down here.

There were flames everywhere.  Huge flames.  Flames that danced well over my head.  And the air was even hotter.  If I didn’t get out soon, I didn’t know if I could make it.  I had to find a path through the fire, but could not see one.  Flames beat all around me menacingly, wickedly, threateningly. 

Suddenly I remembered the crystal around my neck.  In the confusion, I had forgotten all about it.  It could let me sense a way out!  I grabbed it, and, as I had many times before, opened my mind to its power… and nothing happened.  The crystal might as well have been a lead weight.  Desperate, I tried again.  Again, nothing happened.  The link would not come. 

Smoke billowed around me, fueling my urgency.  Screams continued from far away.  Panic and fear swelled within me.  I had to move, but I did not know which way.  Direction was meaningless in the fire.  Without the crystal, I may as well have been blind.  I did not have time to lose.  Soon, I would choke to death on the smoke.  Standing still was the worst thing I could do.

Picking at random, I began to weave through the flames.  The air was growing hotter by the second.  I did not think I would last long.  There was nobody here, nobody to guide me.  I was on my own.  Dread and hopelessness started to mushroom inside me.  If I couldn’t find a way out—

A pillar crashed to the floor in front of me, and I screamed.  If I had taken one more step I would have been right beneath it.  My heart was pounding out of my chest.   A gust of cold air swept in, giving welcome relief from the heat.  The flames were hampered slightly, and for a split-second I thought I saw the way out.  Joy overwhelmed me, but that joy lasted only a second as I realized what the gust of air meant. The roof was collapsing!

I had to get out
now
.  I heard sirens in the distance, but they were too far away to do me any good.  I could not rely on anyone to come and save me.  I had to save myself.  I turned and ran the way I thought led to safety.

Not twenty paces away, I slammed face-first into a solid brick wall.  Disoriented and confused, I spun around – and all I saw was fire.  Flames were everywhere.  The building groaned, and I heard another pillar crash not far away.  The heat was mounting. The flames were getting closer and closer.  I took a step forward, to try to get away, and a particularly nasty flame gushed in toward my face.  I screamed and fell back, narrowly avoiding being burned.  The victory was short-lived as I came to the horrifying conclusion that I was trapped.  The fire had circled around to trap me against the solid wall.  There was no way out.  Desperately, I tried the crystal again.  And again, it would not come.  I was too tired, too drained to muster the strength to use it.  I sank uselessly to the floor.  This was going to be it.  There was no way out.  Mere seconds from now, I would plunge into the fiery abyss of death.  There’d be no returning after that.  No coming back from that.

I thought I would sob when it came time to die. But that was not what I felt.  Instead, there was a strange… emptiness… inside.  There was no fear, only a vague sort of apprehension about the manner of death.  But after the pain I had experienced from the red crystal, even that wouldn’t be so bad.  The only thing I regretted, I realized now, was that I never had a chance to discover my feelings for…
Rob
.  He was who my thoughts went to now.  I had always known there were feelings there, but I had suppressed them for one reason or another.  I never had a chance to explore them, to find out what they meant – if they meant anything at all.  Rob sparked something within me, and in these last few days, that tiny seed had taken root in my soul and had begun to grow.  Maybe it would have withered and died. Maybe it would have blossomed into something beautiful. Now, I would never know.  That was the only sadness that came with death.  I had never known true love.  And whether Rob was the one to provide that or not, I’d never even had a chance…