Meadow's Keep (The Gatekeepers Series) (25 page)

“That’s where you went last night, isn’t it.”

“Yes.” The word was soft, like a balloon deflating.

She reached over and touched his arm, jerking back her hand as the current slammed into her. Her brows furrowed. That hadn’t happened since Ruthorford.

He didn’t look at her. “I guess I’m strung out. Sorry.”

“I would have thought all that work on stage would have taken the edge off.”

“I guess not.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really. What’s the address?”

She tapped the GPS and he glanced at it and slowed into the left turn lane
, the tires splashing through puddles of water. They turned and drove away from the shore. The sand and dunes were quickly replaced with a smattering of small homes, their frequency thinning as they moved inland. Out of nowhere, the road narrowed and ended at twin stone pillars. They moved through and, about a hundred feet in, a tall black iron gate loomed in front of them. It reminded Jasmine of the Abbott House in Atlanta.

Eryk pulled to a keypad and entered the code Bask had given them. They watched the gate
s pull back, not as quiet as Abbott House, but this place had been pretty much untended for over a year. They still didn’t see Meadow’s Keep. The road took a sharp right and wound around through heavy pines.

“This must back up to Seashore State Park,” Jasmine stopped with an intake of breath. Before her rose an honest
-to-God castle, albeit smaller, but with all the features she’d ever imagined for a castle: pediments, turrets, and stone. She leaned forward, staring through the late afternoon deep gray mist. “Boy, does the weather fit this place.”

The
drive wound around in front of the mansion. A stone and wood walkway crossed over what looked to be a moat surrounding the castle, leading to the entrance. “Holy cow,” she said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Eryk concurred. He got out of the SUV, gr
abbed the camera and took shots, backing up to get a better view. Jasmine waited by the vehicle, not quite willing to go up to the entrance alone.

“I bet this place would be a blast on Halloween,” she found herself whispering.

“Yeah, can you imagine the fun we could have,” he said from across the drive, tapped his ear, and smiled at her as she rolled her eyes. He took several more shots before heading to the front door.

Eryk punched in another code and the massive door lo
ck released. He stepped in. The place smelled of dust and vacancy, its interior shrouded in shadow.

Jasmine hit the lights
, startling him.

“What?
” she asked. “Bask said the electricity was on. This is not going to be like one of those TV shows where the guys go into a dark room with flashlights when there’s electricity available. Those things never end well.” Having said that, she hit every switch on the wall panel. The place blazed with light. The enormous hallway stretched quite a distance toward the back. Massive stairs started about halfway down the corridor and went up to another floor, leaving an arch with a closed door in the back.

“That must be the way to the kitchen
,” he said.

When he started forward, she grabbed his arm. The shock wasn’t as sharp but it was still there.
“I’m not going back there until I’m sure there’s no one up here.”

“Good point.” He grinned at her. “Got your gun
?”

“Don’t be snide,” she retorted. “Besides, I have you.” She let energy pulse between her fingers. “And me,” she added and smiled.
Not quite convinced that their combined abilities would be enough to stop whatever would threaten them, she squelched the sense of foreboding that wanted to wrap itself around her.

She stepped to the left through an arched doorway.
A formal parlor, the room contained exquisite furniture from another century. A thin layer of dust had settled on the top of the mahogany pieces. She walked through the parlor to another side archway and into a dining room. The massive table had chairs to seat eighteen people. Heavy brocade drapes pooled beneath a massive window. Another door circled back into the hallway.

They walked across the hallway toward a pair of
ornately carved doors that stood partially open. Jasmine halted. Eryk turned and looked at her, half expecting her to say she’d heard something, which confused him since he hadn’t. Instead, she pointed to the wall. Deep black scorch marks marred the wall.

“That was either done with
some hellacious energy—or a blowtorch,” Eryk commented.

“Apparently, there was quite a battle between Dorian and Ian here in the hallway
.”

He stepped over and let his fingers run over the marks. “I’d say,” he
let out a low whistle. Then, seeing her expression, he turned and moved to another room.

They glanced in
to a small study in the front of the hall and then moved back to the partially closed doors. Eryk pushed them open, keeping Jasmine behind him. Before them lay a library the likes of which neither had ever seen. It was straight out of a historical novel with deep tapestries, heavy drapes over leaded windows, and ornately carved massive furniture. The scent of rich leather covering hundreds of books permeated the room.

Jasmine walked toward the window and stopped at the indentations in the carpet.
“I bet this is where the case was that’s now in the library at Abbott House.”

Eryk remembered the huge
book encased in glass and nodded. He ran his hand along the tooled leather back of the large master’s chair. He wouldn’t be surprised if this had come from some Scottish castle.

So far, they
’d heard nothing. Felt nothing.

A quick tour of the upstairs revealed a child’s
lavishly appointed bedroom, easily befitting a little girl’s fantasy of a fairy princess. A master suite connected by way of a bath to a smaller wife’s bedroom. Two more huge guest rooms were on the other side of the hall, one of which was a replica of a turret room with tiny windows spiraling around and a cone shaped ceiling. Given the undisturbed dust, it didn’t look like anyone had been in the rooms for some time.

They went back downstairs and stopped outside a small room at the bottom of the steps. Eryk heard Jasmine’s intake of breath as he
pushed open the door. He flipped on a single overhead light. The room was vacant except for a small cot positioned across from the door, a manacle dangling from the iron head-rail. A sink stood in one corner, another manacle hanging from the pipe. “What the hell?”

Jasmine spoke quietly, a slight quiver to her voice. “This is the room
where Ian kept Morgan. Later they handcuffed Ian to the sink to ground his powers.” She stepped backward from the room.

“You okay?”
He asked and quickly turned off the light and closed the door.

She nodded, not quite willing to trust her voice.
She wasn’t the only one who deserved nightmares, she realized, and thought of Morgan’s smiling face. Jasmine hoped she would reach that place one day, where nightmares were just memories. For now, it was one day at a time.

Careful to dampen his energy, Eryk reached for her hand
and led her to the back, through the archway, opening a heavy door that led into the large kitchen. The island alone was stunning, its length easily covering eight feet and topped with black granite. The room had enough appliances to accommodate a large staff. They moved around the island and stopped at a small door in the back. Bask had said the lab was downstairs. “You ready?”

Jasmine nodded, swallowing her fear.
“Let’s get this over with.”

He flipped on a light inside the doo
r, revealing steep, narrow steps. At the bottom landing, a cold dank wall of stone faced them. They made two sharp turns before Eryk could find a switch embedded in the stone. He hit the switch and the room ahead flooded with fluorescent light. Dry erase boards sat against two walls and stainless steel tables stood in the middle, outfitted for experiments—he couldn’t imagine what kind and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Jasmine stood at the door, not stepping into the room.

“Jas—”

“I’m okay. This was Rob’s lab, from what I’ve been told.
” She was staring at formulas slashed in red across the boards, some ending with a hand smears and others with scribbling written right over the first.

Anger moved through him, surprising him with its intensity.
“Then, why in the hell—”

She stopped him with a look. “I’m not that girl
anymore. We have a job to do. Let’s get on with it.”

Eryk
promised himself to have a discussion with Bask about sending her in here. He didn’t care if she’d never been here before or not. That monster had been. Swearing under his breath, he walked over to heavily reinforced, arched doors. It looked as though the lock above the handle had been torched.
Dorian.
The handle moved easily in his hand.

The
y stepped into a cave. If they hadn’t known it sat directly off the lab, they would have thought they’d traveled through an underground tunnel. He looked for a light and, finding none, pulled a small, wide-beam flashlight from his pocket. He knew, with his eyes, he could see easily in the dark, but he wasn’t sure about Jasmine. His beam, with the light from the lab flooding in, brightened the place. The floor was mixtures of dirt, sand and stone. The walls, a mix of stone and concrete, sparkling as the beam of light moved across them, as though gems were embedded in them.

Jasmine pointed at the floor. A faint
mark ran in a line about four feet long in the dirt. “I think that’s where the fissure is.”

E
ryk knelt and shined his light, gingerly reaching out and pushing a finger into the line. It felt solid underneath. He stood and turned to Jasmine. Her nearness caused a tingle to race across his skin. “Do you think Bask expects us to give it a try?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.
” She stepped back from him.

“You feel it, too
?”

She
rubbed her arms. “Ever since we entered the lab. I thought it was the eeriness at first. But every time I get close to you, I tingle—not that I don’t…” she let the words die off.

He smiled at her. “I know.
But, this is different. I wonder if it’s intentional. If somehow they made it so that people with our traits would be drawn to one another.” He shrugged and tried to smile. “Makes it easier.”

She
walked back into the lab. He followed and closed the door.

“I think we need to call Bask.” Her voice seemed deeper.

He stepped up to her, his breath teasing her face.

Her eyes were black
and heavy lidded, her mouth full and inviting.

She
breathed him in. His scent was one she would never forget. Every time she smelled him she wanted to rub up against him like a cat. She looked up into his glowing green eyes and stepped back. “Your eyes,” she whispered. “They’re glowing.”

He rubbed his hand across his face. “Upstairs. Now
!”

She didn’t have to be told twice. She fled up the
narrow stairs. He followed close, through the kitchen and down the corridor, until they reached the front door. He yanked open the door and stepped into the cold heavy mist, taking several deep breaths. “Call Bask,” he said, not looking at her.

She leaned back against the narrow stone sidewall that protected the entrance and pulled out her phone. Bask answered before the first ring stopped.

“What took you so long?”

“Geez, old man, it’s a fr
eakin’ castle.” She tried to sound nonchalant.

“Well?”

Jasmine swung away as Eryk’s hand snaked out to grab the phone, barely keeping him from snatching it out of her hand. With the look she saw on his face, she had no intention of letting him talk to Bask until he calmed down.

“From the untouched dust, it looks like no one’s been inside since your people closed it up.” She hesitated before asking. “Where we supposed to
try to open—"

“Good God, no!”
Bask yelped into the phone. “Not without a lot of back-up.”

“I’m really glad you said that,” she
spoke into the phone and shook her head at Eryk, who smirked and tapped his ear. Seeing that his eyes had returned to normal, she stuck out her tongue, but stepped back when he stepped forward. She found herself against the wall.

“Then
, we’re outta here,” she tried to sound chipper, expecting him to just hang up, as was his practice.

“Jasmine
…are you all right?” he asked softly.

The sound of his concern was almost her undoing
. “Yeah, I’m okay. But a small FYI. That downstairs is really creepy.”

“I
’ve heard. I know I shouldn’t have sent you. But with Morgan—”

She interrupted him, “Hey, old man, you aren’t going soft on me, are you?”

She heard a grumble and the phone disconnected.