Page 78 of Midnight Coven

Nick walkedinto the cavernous foyer. He gazed up at chandeliers, a waterfall staircase that came down on either side of a white marble floor. Despite all the light visible in the windows from the outside, the interior looked surprisingly dim.

Nick was struck again by how gothic it all looked.

Black drapes pulled away from windows, velvet couches, antique furniture.

The rug under his feet shocked his eyes with purple and black flowers interspersed with Victoriana patterns. A black lace tablecloth covered a white marble table in the center of the foyer. The table bore an enormous bouquet of red roses.

The place almost looked staged.

Nick wondered briefly if the Stranger could have done that.

He glanced at Morley, who was staring at the one Japanese thing Nick saw in the entire room, a full set of authentic-looking Japanese armor from the samurai era, complete with swords and helmet. It must have cost a fortune.

Well, assuming they bought it anytime recently and it wasn’t an heirloom.

“You know where we are, right?” Morley asked.

Nick glanced at him. “What?”

“The town. Did you look at the tracker as we came in?”

Nick stared at the old man, frowning. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Amityville. You know. The place with the ghosts?”

Nick didn’t break his stare.

Briefly, his mind went utterly blank.

Then he blinked, and it seemed to come back on.

“How could you possibly have that here?” he asked. “That was beforemytime. Not the story, but the actual occurrence. It happened a few years before I was born.”

Morley looked as surprised as Nick.

After a few seconds where he turned over Nick’s words, he finally shrugged.

“Dunno. It must be some kind of resonance. An echo between worlds, maybe. But if it helps, I think it happened here more recently. Not long before the wars started. You can still find the story all over the archives. Supposedly the ruins of the house still exist.” Morley gave him a wry smile. “We could go look for it after. Not after this… after we solve the case, assuming we can still get past the gate. I think Jordan was pretty keen.”

Nick didn’t answer.

Truthfully, his head hurt again with the connections.

This world… his home world.

He was in the wrong place.

Why the fuck was he in the wrong place? How did he even end up here?

He needed to talk to Brick.

He needed to know more. He needed to know a hell of a lot more. His sire told him basically nothing about how it all happened. He told him nothing about the why. Nick wasn’t even sure if coming to this dimension had been deliberate or some kind of accident.

He also wondered about the seers they found here.

Had they brought those seers with them?

Or had they gotten here some other way?

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