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He landed on one palm and a knee and instinctively started to get back on his feet. His fingers skidded through the little river of blood.
“Get up, Mr.Drake,” Fenner ordered. “You should not be out here. We must get you back to your room.”
“Something’s wrong,” Ambrose said, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “I heard a woman scream.”
“No, you did not,” Fenner said. “You are dreaming. Sleepwalking. Here, let me assist you.”
Ambrose started to tell him about the blood on the floor but was interrupted by a sharp stinging sensation in the curve of his shoulder.
“What?” he mumbled.
He wanted to ask another question, but he was going back down into the depths, and this time there were no shadows. No light at all. A great weakness was overtaking his senses. He was vaguely aware of Fenner urging him to his feet and steering him back to his own room.
“Hurry,” Fenner snapped. “I can’t carry you.”
The next thing Ambrose knew he was slumped in a chair. Fenner was leaning over him, working swiftly to clean his hand, the one that had slipped into the crimson stream.
“Blood on the floor,” Ambrose said. He stared at his fingers but he could no longer see the red stain.
“There was no blood,” Fenner said. His authoritative tone was infused with anger and anxiety. “It was just a dream, Mr.Drake. Trust me, you won’t remember it in the morning.”
When he was finished, he helped Ambrose get out of the chair and stumble onto the bed.
The darkness was closing in fast, but Ambrose managed to open the window in his mind one more time. Fenner’s aura pulsed in a way that indicated he was telling the truth. He was certain that Ambrose would not remember what had happened tonight.
“A woman screamed,” Ambrose said, not because he believed he could convince Fenner of that fact but because he hoped repetition would anchor the memory in his brain. “A woman screamed. A woman screamed.”
“It was just a dream,” Fenner insisted. “You experienced a brief sleepwalking episode. Nothing more. You won’t remember a woman screaming.”
The last thing Ambrose saw before he fell into the oceanic trench was the small indicator light on the camera that was aimed at the bed. It glowed bloodred. That was good, he thought. In the morning the video recording would tell him the truth.
If he woke up.
CHAPTER TWO
Carnelian, California. Six weeks later...
The snakes spilleddown the old staircase, coiling, unfurling, seeking prey. Pallas Llewellyn’s fingers flew across the page of her sketchbook. She had to work quickly. She could not risk remaining in the trance too long. It was like dropping into a dream—in this case, a nightmare—an interesting place to visit, but you would not want to live there. Her greatest fear these days was that she would slip into her other vision and get trapped.
And yet there were too many times now when she could not resist the temptation to slide into her enhanced vision. She needed to see the images concealed in the small storms of energy that she frequently stumbled into.
She had gotten much better at controlling the automatic drawing trances; at least, she told herself she had more control. She saw things when she was in this other vision, sometimes terrifying things—snakes falling down a staircase, for example. But there were answers to be found here, too. It was the promise of discovering the secrets concealed in the visions that was irresistible.
The snakes were closer now, reaching for her. If she had any senseshe would get out while the getting was good. Her intuition was shrieking at her.
As if detecting her presence, two of the snakes stretched out to grasp her and draw her deeper into the trance. She could have sworn she heard them hissing. That was new. In the past the visions had never had an audio component.
“Okay, okay, I’m gone,” she gasped.
With an effort of will she came out of the trance, riding a senses-disorienting wave of panic charged with a giddy thrill. She had done it. She had once again leaped into the abyss and made it safely back to the surface.
The triumphant elation receded swiftly but the panic did not. It was growing stronger. She realized she was too close to the scene. She needed to put some distance between herself and the now-invisible snakes spilling down the staircase.
She snapped the sketchbook shut and tossed it and the pencil into the well-worn messenger bag. Later there would be time to try to interpret whatever the episode of automatic drawing had revealed. The answers might elude her, though. They often did. Her intuition told her there were truths to be found in the pictures she created while she was in her other vision, but she was still learning how to see those truths. She had discovered she needed context in order to figure out what she was looking at.
Her pulse was still beating too rapidly. She cradled the messenger bag in both hands, holding it as if it were a shield, and headed for the front door of the abandoned asylum. Her instinct was to run, not walk, to the nearest exit, but running was not a good idea. There were too many obstacles in her path, and she had never been the most coordinated person on the planet.
She had always been easily startled. For as long as she couldremember, the tiniest flicker of light or the slightest sense of movement at the edge of her vision had been enough to make her flinch and send her veering off-balance. The unfortunate tendency to overreact to the slightest surprise had gotten markedly worse after the amnesia episode seven months ago. She had learned to compensate by moving slowly and deliberately whenever she was in unfamiliar surroundings. The ruins of the old asylum definitely qualified as unfamiliar. The hidden storms of bad energy were scattered everywhere.
