CHAPTER 4

 

 

 

The clock on the wall ticked the seconds away. Morgan watched the iron hands move steadily around the clock in perpetual motion and stifled a groan.

He was at the restaurant, prompt and on time. He’d made it a point to arrive early to have the opportunity to observe Karsia Cavaldi. A lot could be learned from a person by studying their actions when they weren’t aware of being watched. No, that made him sound like a creeper, when he considered himself the opposite. A scholar.

Though normally prompt to any social event—in order to maintain the upper hand—Morgan had extended his buffer time by a considerable twenty minutes. That way, she would have no chance of getting the jump on him. It always paid to be prepared.

He’d lain awake the night before with the bulk of his responsibilities heavy on his shoulders. It went beyond the schoolwork, which demanded his blood with the petulant cries of the underaged and overprivileged. The papers still sat on his desk, ready for the red pen and the low grades. Forgotten for now.

Instead, there were dreams to bestow.

He’d been in charge of the subconscious images of mankind since his birth. It was his duty. The dream messenger of the gods, bequeathed with communicating a divine message through stories and visions. His skill of mimicking the human form better than any of his brothers was not the gift of his father, the God of Sleep, but rather his mother. The one who told him he could be anything, anyone, he wanted. She’d believed in him and pushed him to follow his passions until she passed away. Old age. Something he would never experience unless he chose the shape.

He was not the god the legends wrote about, or what the pantheon of immortals wanted people to believe. Morgan himself helped perpetuate the lie saying that Pasithea, the Goddess of Relaxation and Rest, was his true mother. Only a select few knew better.

Legends lied.

Like the whole thing about sleeping in a cave full of poppy seeds. It had happened one time, one, on a dare from his brother. Damned uncomfortable things, he remembered, though he’d managed to stay the entire night without making a fuss. He was stubborn.

Once he’d finished with the dreams of mortals and lay in his own bed, Morgan’s thoughts shifted from errands to the face haunting him from behind closed lids. The sweet little witch with the tormented soul.

He’d done his homework on her, of course, sending her name into the infinite abyss of Internet search engines and scrolling intently through the results. There he determined several facts. Karsia originally hailed from Chicago, from a family of immense affluence and social standing, and was a frequent user of social media up until a month ago.

Everything he learned seemed at stark odds with the woman he’d met. Her happy, laughing face staring at him from the collage of selfies was not the same one begging for his help amidst a funnel cloud of shattered sheetrock.

The contrast strengthened his resolve to help her.

Morgan went through an entire basket of bread waiting for her to arrive for their date. He checked the clock again. No, he still had a few more minutes before he wrote her off. Crunchy crust stuck to his gums. He stared out the window. Glanced down at his watch. Took a sip of water and stared up at the clock. Waited.

As February marched on, the weather declined from those intermittent days of chill to the colder, robust tones of winter. Morgan didn’t mind. It reminded him that life, like everything else, went through cycles of death and rebirth. Each year the earth hibernated, only to be renewed in spring. He cherished the seasons for what they represented. Through darkness there is light, through bad times there are good. In his many years of existence, sometimes it was easy to forget.

Then his attention snapped to the street. Morgan blinked twice. Surprising. She’d actually come.

Karsia had appeared out of the dark as though by magic. Morgan smiled. Watched her take shape and step forward from the shadows. He liked the look of her, he decided. This was a woman with a secret. It added weight to her slight frame. Beyond the dark stain she carried in her blood, he noted the beauty. Her good looks were real. Raw. She marched with the purposeful stride of someone on a mission.

Even in the bitter air, made worse by the wind off the lake, she wore hardly anything. A simple wool scarf and a coat were the only outer clothing separating her from the weather. How peculiar. He knew she was an earth witch, capable of manipulating flora and tapping into the healing powers of plants. She shouldn’t be able to access the atoms of air around her body to keep her warm. So why wasn’t she freezing to death?

He didn’t know the exact reason why, but he found himself intrigued by her even more. Something tugged at him and drew him forward. He knew better now than to ignore any subconscious summoning. She had a part to play in his future and he was determined to be there to see it through. For whatever reason.

He waved her over the instant Karsia walked through the door. “There you are,” he called, standing and straightening his jacket unconsciously.

A flash of color and movement caught her attention. Morgan stood alone at a corner table with a sad basket of crumbs and a bottle of red wine open and breathing. She took him in for a moment, dressed in the archetypal professor garb, with the glint of candlelight reflected off his glasses. Today he’d managed to ditch the cardigan and chose to go with a classic tweed jacket complete with leather elbow patches.

Oddly enough, seeing him had the corners of her mouth tugging up in a grin.

He was attractive in an odd sort of way. Odd in that his features fit together too perfectly. If not for the clothes and horn-rimmed glasses, he might have stepped off the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine. Flecks of silver had begun to grow from his temples and lent a distinguished air to the already put-together picture.

He waved her over, his lanky frame nearly upending a hanging plant when he gestured.

Karsia scoffed and shook her head. She’d noted the moment he spotted her, a smile rising to crinkle the skin around his eyes. He shouldn’t do that. Shouldn’t smile at her like she was someone worth knowing. Like finally seeing her had made his night.

She’d found the place with ease by accessing the minds of the people around her for directions. The restaurant was exactly as Morgan described: a small, dingy place with limited seating and a delicious aroma flavoring the air.

“You made it. And only ten minutes late.” Morgan maneuvered to pull out her chair before she sat.

Karsia pushed him away. “I can do it myself, thank you.”

“If you insist.”

A server appeared within seconds holding a fresh basket of breadsticks and a sweating glass of water. Morgan thanked the man and sent him off.

“I’m glad to see you. Happy you decided to come. I most certainly wasn’t checking the time waiting for you to make an appearance.”

“I almost didn’t come.” Karsia stared at her feet, embarrassed for telling him, and grabbed a piece of bread to break the tension.

His gaze roved the length of her and up again. “You’re in the same outfit you wore yesterday,” he noted.

She cracked the breadstick in half and stared at him. The look on her face made it known she could do the same to him. Easily. “Sorry, I’m not the type of girl with an entire wardrobe to choose from. I travel light these days.”

“No,” he countered. “That’s not true.”

“Excuse me?”

“I see you as the type of woman to have anything at her disposal, be it clothing, jewels, or pretty things. You could have anything you wanted. You did, once, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You’ve done an investigation.” She gave a bark of laughter. “Once again, it seems you don’t miss much. That used to be me, okay, professor? She’s gone.”

He poured wine for the two of them, having waited for her arrival to imbibe. “I pride myself on my observational skills. A historian has to be on top of his game. I hope you don’t mind, I already ordered the wine. This is a house red, something to go well with anything you want to eat. I wasn’t sure what kind of drink you prefer.”

“What? Your research didn’t tell you? I’m surprised.” Karsia raised the glass to her nose and inhaled the familiar aroma. Swirling the liquid, it tempted her. She’d been known to go through a few bottles a month. Back when her life made sense.

Now the risk seemed too great. Any small slip could eat away at the tenuous control she held.

She pushed the wine to the side and turned her head. “I can’t have it. Sorry.”

Morgan took her statement in stride, removing the glass. “That’s fine. No insult on my end. Would you like me to order for you?”

“Would you like me to smash your face into the table?” Karsia snapped her menu open and perused it amid Morgan’s slow-to-come chuckle.

“No, I thought we could have a nice evening together instead of engaging in physical violence. Although that option always stands open for later. It depends on how you’ll feel after you eat.”

He noticed the whites of her knuckles as she clutched the menu, her black eyes scouring quickly, too quickly.

“Find something you like?” he asked for lack of anything better to say. “I can tell you a few of my personal preferences.”

She waved him off. “You got me here, didn’t you? If we’re done with the chitchat I would really like to get back to the matter at hand.”

“You’ve said.” There went his plan to woo her into letting down her guard.

The waiter returned with only the slightest hesitant look toward Karsia and scratched their orders down on a pad of paper. She sent him on his way with a carefully worded demand.

Morgan didn’t seem to care. He shook out his napkin before returning it to his lap. “Tell me a little bit about yourself,” he requested.

“What is there to know? As far as you’re concerned, I’m a woman who needs your help to rid herself of a burden. Got it?”

Most people turned away when she got tough. Morgan continued to stare straight at her, and his gray eyes, she hated to admit, held real depth. “I was thinking more along the lines of you telling me what you do for fun.”

She folded her hands on the table. “I don’t have fun. I thought that was obvious. Or maybe you’d enjoy telling me what I do for fun, you with your awesome powers of observation. After all, I’m sure my poker face could use a little work. Go on, professor. Tell me what you see.”

“Does your sarcasm mean we’re past the point of pleasantries and ready to get on with business?” he quipped, hiding his mirth in a sip of wine. Teasing her.

“You know, this isn’t one of your college classes and I am not your student. Get on with it or I will leave and find someone else to help me,” Karsia barked.

“If that were true, then you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”

She could not stop the emotions from flashing across her face at the statement. There was the anger, of course, a sort of fury one did not often see. There was also sorrow and guilt and despair.

“All right. If you can try not to give in to the urge to strangle me, I’ll tell you a story,” Morgan said, leaning back in his chair and studying her. “In the 1600s, there was a Greek philosopher by the name of Morpheus Oneiroi who was intrigued by the written and oral history of several obscure tribal nations that fell out of power during the end of the Dark Ages.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me this man was you, and you’re some kind of immortal knowledge seeker?”

“There are some secrets a man keeps to himself on the first date.”

She barely reacted, but he saw a muscle clench in her jaw.

“One of the tales he found was the creation of a wall between this world, earth, and some sort of ancient wellspring of magic. Being a curious and intrepid fellow, Morpheus set out to gather whatever information he could on the subject, leading to little but rumors and dead ends over the years. Until a tablet appeared. Enter present day Morgan Gauthier and his archeological connections.”

“Now we’re talking.” Karsia busied herself with her bread and tried not to wring his neck in her impatience.

“While much of the Cyrillic script etched into the stone remains a mystery, one part was translated immediately. A location spell. And to where, you ask? The original creators of the stone dubbed it the Telos Amyet.” Morgan took a moment to let the information sink in before continuing. “According to lore, the stone appears in times of need and has the singular ability to determine what lies in the hearts of men and grants them phenomenal power. From what I’ve managed to translate, around 1200 AD, two came by choice to find the stone. Their fate was sealed. The Telos Amyet placed one for good and one for evil, locked in an immortal embrace and tasked to forever keep the balance between the worlds. A physical manifestation of the barrier.”

“I’m familiar with that part of the legend,” Karsia said. “I need to know how to reverse it.”

“Assuming it’s real, of course.”

She grinned. “Of course.”

“I’m not sure there is a way,” Morgan admitted slowly. He glanced up and thanked the server when their food arrived. The steaming baked flounder beckoned him with smoky goodness, and it took every ounce of restraint and manners he possessed to let Karsia take the first bite from her own dish.

“No,” she said, swallowing hard, the food like ashes in her mouth. “There has to be a way. Does the tale say anything about what happens if the veil wears out? If there have to be two new and not-necessarily-willing people to seek the stone and keep the balance?”

“I would have to go back and read the texts again. Off the top of my head, I would say none of it’s true.”

Karsia grasped her fork until it screeched across the plate. “You know better.”

Morgan stared at her. “What happened to you?” He closed the distance and steadied her long, narrow hand in his. She felt too delicate, as though if he squeezed too hard, she’d fragment into a million pieces. “What happened to make you so afraid?”

“I’m not afraid. I’m damned.”

Instead of condemning her or writing her off, Morgan retained his grip on her. “Talk to me. What’s really going on?”

“Maybe it was the girl’s choice,” she began, telling a story of her own. “The girl knew the consequences when she started and knew there was always a possibility that things would not end in her favor. It came for them. The One Who Walks in Darkness. It whispered in the night, made them do things, horrible things. They sought it out, needing a way to stop her before she devoured their souls.”

“She?”

Karsia continued as though he hadn’t interrupted. “Darkness wanted one of them, wanted the girl’s sister. She failed the first time but instead of backing down, she became stronger. She came for them a second time. The girl was terrified it would take them all.”

“What did the girl do?” Morgan prompted.

Karsia ripped her hand away from his. “She jumped in front of the blast meant for her sister and sacrificed herself.”