Page 71 of Destined for Dreams
“Good.” Bartol envisioned the place in his mind, found the area he sought was empty and dark, and flashed away.
When he arrived, he found the path clear of snow and ice, though it was built up at the edges. He stood next to a juncture point where more than one wall met, and there was a taller stone structure that may have once been a lookout tower. Caius was right that nothing had changed. Even through the darkness, Bartol could identify the marlstone used to build the place with a mixture of light, cream-colored bricks and darker brown ones. How long had it been since he last visited? The best he could recall, it must have been the early seventeen hundreds.
In a bright flash of light, Caius arrived with Tormod in tow.
They broke apart, and the nerou frowned deeply as he took in their surroundings. “Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Bartol asked.
Tormod shivered. “I have a very bad feeling.”
“Let’s get to the hotel.” Caius led the way down the hill toward the city streets and hopefully a taxi. “Perhaps your bad feeling will lead us to the demon soon.”
Bartol was ready for the search to end, but like Tormod, he was starting to get chills up his spine. Compared to all the other places they’d visited in recent weeks, this one felt…darker, more ominous. He just couldn’t put his finger on the reason for his alarm.
They didn’t get far before that feeling became overwhelmingly strong. All of them stopped in their tracks, staring around into the darkness. The trees were bereft of leaves, the wind whipped around them like a ghost’s touch, and the clouds covered the moon.
A man appeared before them. He looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies, mostly bald except for tufts of gray at the back. His skin was wizened and pale, leading one to believe he rarely saw the sun. His stooped appearance might have made one think he was perfectly harmless—except for the malevolence surrounding him and his red eyes.
“I wondered when you would catch up to me,” Haagenti said in a voice much stronger than one would expect from an old man’s body.
Bartol struggled to cry out a warning. “Flash…away…now!”
Except their powers were gone. He reached for them, but there was no magic to use.
The demon held up a familiar black stone with silver veins running through it, about the size of a baseball. “I’m afraid you aren’t going anywhere.”
The three of them struggled to back away from Haagenti, but it was like trying to walk through thick mud. Their feet weighed heavily. The demon had a stone much larger than the one Bartol had seen Cori’s former husband using not long ago, and this one seemed to be even more potent.
The old man lifted his other hand, and a sphere of dark energy emerged from his palm. He blew it hard. The sinister ball flew toward them, growing larger as it traveled. Bartol wanted to duck, run, or anything to get away from it. His gut churned, knowing it was something very bad.
It hit him like a tidal wave—a sickening, cloying wave that wrapped around his skin like a sheath. It tightened until he couldn’t move at all. His body was rendered weightless, and then it was as if he was being sucked into some sort of vortex. He tried to fight it, but it was no use.
The darkness took over, and he knew no more.
