Page 1 of Nothing Watching

PROLOGUE

There was a sense of threat in the air.

Iris Davies felt it as soon as she walked down the stairs and out of the historic building of the Arts University of Berlin. She shivered, wrapping her jacket tightly around her.

The wind was gusting hard, and she could see clouds massing across the night sky. She watched them crowding in, thick and dark, like a B-grade horror movie being choreographed in the sky.

She grabbed onto the folder with her literature notes, as the gusty breeze almost ripped it out of her hand, her long blond hair whipping across her face and into her eyes. It wasn’t surprising she was creeped out, since the evening discussion for the Master’s students had been on demonic texts, including a study of the German workMalleus Maleficarum, orHammer of Witches, written in 1486.

She stuffed the folder in her backpack, pushing her thick, pale hair away from her face, trying not to think about the seriously demonic-looking clouds.

Was that lightning? Glancing nervously at the sky, she hurried along, heading for the U-Bahn, or underground train station. She hated storms, always had. They made her nervous. And the U-Bahn station she needed was a brisk twenty-minute walk away. She’d forgotten her umbrella and hadn’t thought she’d need a rain jacket.

She was from Arizona, after all. She hadn’t yet gotten into the rhythm of European weather. She was used to months of unbroken sunshine and a long buildup to her area’s occasional storms. Here they just descended.

It was her fault. She’d been careless in forgetting her rain jacket, and she’d stayed in the university hall too late, chatting with two of the other international Master’s students there. The discussion itself had been enlightening, and had centered on the witch trials, prevalent in Europe at the timeHammer of Witcheshad been written, and beyond. Superstition and phobia had seen women tortured, punished, forced to confess. They had been lynched, hanged, beheaded, or burned at the stake.

She flinched as she heard thunder crash. The time was ticking down and it was now mere minutes until this storm hit. Another gust of wind whipped along the street, as if channeled by the tall buildings, and she shivered.

The patio of the bar on the street corner opposite, where usually people would be sitting and drinking at the outside tables, was all closed up tonight, although she could see lights at the windows and hear the thump of music from inside. She briefly wondered if she should detour inside there, have a glass of wine, and wait out this storm.

She could even call a cab from the bar. Perhaps that would be best.

Iris hesitated for a moment outside the bar, glancing up at the sky as another bolt of lightning illuminated the street. The idea of waiting out the storm with a glass of wine was tempting, but she had a deadline to meet. She needed to finish her literature paper by the end of the week, and she couldn’t afford to waste any more time. She’d already lingered too long at the university.

With a sigh, she pulled her backpack tighter and quickened her pace toward the U-Bahn station, hoping that the rain would hold off for long enough that she could get there while still dry.

As she walked, she realized it would be quicker to take the side road down to the U-Bahn, instead of heading along the main road.

Hoping her decision would save her time and keep her drier, she veered to the right, heading down the narrow lane that offered a direct, though dark and narrow, route to the U-Bahn’s side entrance.

It was much quieter here. So quiet that, with witches and witch hunts and superstitions and fears and lynchings still stuck in her mind, she began to feel jumpy all over again. She’d walked this way in the day and it hadn’t felt nearly so threatening. But that had been on a sunny afternoon, and not after a long discussion about the historic evils of humanity and people’s wicked ways, and imagining the terror of being a wise woman, awaiting a brutal fate as an angry mob approached with flaming torches.

Maybe it would be safer to go back to the main road, where there were lights and a few other people?

But, as she had that thought, she saw someone ahead, first just a faraway shadow in the dark, but soon growing clearer. This route was not deserted after all. There was a man approaching her, his walk purposeful and brisk. She slowed down, watching him suspiciously, but as he neared her, she relaxed.

This man was not a threat. Most definitely not. He was a dapper-looking gentleman who could easily have been one of the university professors she’d engaged with just an hour ago. Harmless. Not a threat. Not a torturer or a witch hunter, one of the evil faces crowding her imagination. He was wearing a slightly worn suit jacket, carefully pressed

At that moment, the clouds above her split with a white-bright lightning flash.

She looked across at him, wanting suddenly to share her alarm at the approaching storm, to have a human connection for a moment of comfort.

But now, Iris felt an uncharacteristic stab of fear.

He was staring at her intently. There was a look in his wide eyes that she didn’t expect to see.

He stopped, his gaze pinning her, and for a reason that she couldn’t explain, she found herself stopping too. She felt breathless, and not just from the brisk walk.

“Iseult?” he asked, a look of incredulity dawning in his eyes. His voice was strangely tense.

Iseult? The literature references immediately surged in her mind, perhaps linked even more strongly because of his appearance and her initial thoughts.

“Um, no,” she said. Now, she took a step back.

“You are her? You are!”

Suddenly, Iris reached a snapping point. She was scared, and this was just one issue too many. First it had been the creepy discussion on witches, then the threatening storm, then the temptation to go into the bar and shelter. All she wanted was to get home safely, and make up some lost studying time.

---