Sign of the Throne: Book One in the Solas Beir Trilogy (24 page)

“We have to go—it’s not safe to talk here.” Abby grabbed David’s hand and started tugging him back toward the inn.

He pulled his hand back and stood staring at her. “Abby, you’re worrying me. What are you afraid of?”

“Please, David. I promise I’ll explain everything,” she said. “
Please
—we
have
to go.”

“Okay.” David looked behind him again. Then he took Abby’s hand
, and they hurried back up the garden path.

She pushed him to go faster, looking frequently behind her and feeling a chill every time she heard the rustle of leaves or crackle of branches behind them. It was no use pretending to be calm—the thing knew she had seen it, and it was coming.

Crossing under the pergola, David could see the lights of the ballroom. He didn’t know what was going on, but he hoped that once they were inside, Abby would be able to explain.

When they reached the French doors by the patio, Abby let go of his hand and tried to wrench the doors open. They were stuck. David helped her pull them open and guided her inside, his hand on the small of her back. Then he pulled the doors shut behind him.

In the light of the ballroom, he could see how pale she was—she was visibly shaken. She was staring wide-eyed out through the French doors, as if she were trying to see if they had been followed.

David eyed her seriously. “Abby.”

Abby turned to him. “It’s gone for now.”

He crossed his arms again. “
What
is gone for now? I need to know what’s going on.” He knew his voice had an edge to it, anger disguising his fear.

“I know you do,” she replied quietly. “We need to go someplace safe to talk.”

“Okay, fine,” David said. He uncrossed his arms. “Let’s go to my house. It’s just a few streets down.”

“No, that’s too close—it could get in the house,” Abby said. “I think once we get out of Newcastle Beach we’ll be okay. Come with me to my house.”

“And if I do, you’ll stop being so cryptic and tell me what’s going on?” David asked, holding out his hand to her.

She took his hand. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

David noticed Abby was very quiet during the car ride to her house. He was too. His mind was on her, trying to figure out what had just happened. Things had seemed so great, and then had gone from zero to crazy in sixty seconds.

He had started it with that stupid identity crisis thing—he probably should have kept that to himself. It sounded so ridiculous now that he’d actually said it out loud. His intention had been to tell her how he felt, that he wanted to be with her, and to find out if she wanted to be with him too. But no, he’d messed it all up, babbling about who knew what.

He was surprised by her reaction to what he’d said. Did she really know what was happening to him? And what did she see in that garden? Was something really there, or was she hallucinating? Her reaction was too strong not to be real. He knew one thing for sure—if she turned out to be simply a paranoid schizophrenic, he was going to seriously question his own mental state, not to mention his taste in women.

Abby sat staring out the window, replaying the scene over and over in her mind. Those red eyes, the dark feline outline of the creature. Was it the shadow boy again? She
cringed. If so, why hadn’t it attacked? How long had it been there, just watching? And how, how could she possibly explain all this to David?

She looked at him. He was stoically silent, eyes straight ahead, focused on the road. He had actually opened up for a moment and made himself vulnerable, and now he seemed locked away in his fortress of solitude again.

As they crossed over the stone circle that defined the boundaries of Newcastle Beach, it began to rain. Listening to the soft patter of rain against the car’s windows, Abby felt a weight lift from her heart. Even though David wasn’t talking to her, at least they were safe for the moment.

David kept his eyes on the road, driving slowly. He turned into Abby’s driveway, stopped the car, put it in park, and shut it off, taking the keys from the ignition. He sat quietly for a moment, and then moved his hand to rest on hers.

He looked into her eyes and smiled weakly.

Please don’t think I’m insane,
she thought, returning his look with a humorless smile.

David followed Abby out of the car and up the porch steps, hurrying to avoid getting drenched. He waited while Abby got out her key, opened the door, and locked it behind them once they were inside. Then, she took David’s hand and led him upstairs to her room. She closed the bedroom door quietly behind her and lit a candle on her dresser.

In the candlelight, she put a finger to her lips, beckoning him to be quiet and not wake her family. She gestured toward the bed and he sat down, waiting for her. She opened her closet door, retrieved a cylindrical cardboard container of salt, and proceeded to pour a line of salt on the windowsill and in the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

He watched, confused.
What is she doing?
he thought.
I knew it. She’s nuts. I need to re-evaluate my choices in women.

“Just in case,” she whispered. “Just in case we were followed.”

Of course,
he thought,
because that explains everything.

She closed the thin metal top of the salt container and placed it beside the candle. Then she sat down next to him. “Okay. So first, let me explain my behavior in the garden. If you’re still here after that, I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

Abby started her story with the creature in the garden, tracing back to her first encounter with it at the Buchans’. She wondered what David was thinking. He seemed to be taking it in, sitting patiently and nodding encouragingly in all the right places. She stopped the story for a moment to gauge his reaction. “Well, what do you think so far? Do you believe me?”

“Honestly?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m…having this battle in my mind,” David said. “It sounds so far-fetched, like something from a horror movie, and yet there’s this nagging feeling within me that insists it’s for real. Remember the nightmare I told you about? The one I had before finding the seashell under my pillow?”

“Yes,” Abby said, feeling a tiny bit hopeful. Maybe he would stay. Maybe he believed her.

“The details of the dream are foggy, but I distinctly remember the monster
,” David said. “A dark, hulking shadow thing with red eyes. And there was something banging at my window. Then I heard this unearthly scream. It woke me up. I sat up in bed and looked around my room, but there was nothing there. So, assuming this is real, why does this creature want to kill me?”

“That’s where things get complicated,” Abby said. “It’s a long story—are you willing to hear me out?”

David nodded, taking her hand, and she continued.

Jon yawned and dragged himself out of bed. He had gotten home well after midnight, and his dreams had been a replay of a rather wonderful evening with Marisol. He couldn’t wait to see her again. He had promised to call her the next day, but he needed advice. He didn’t want to seem too eager. Better to play it cool. Abby would know what to say. He wondered if she was awake yet.

Pulling on a pair of jeans, he walked over to the window and opened the blinds. He glanced across the fence to Abby’s house—her blinds were open too. And she wasn’t alone.

He looked down at her driveway and saw David Corbin’s car. He frowned, and then he grabbed his phone off the nightstand and dialed Abby.

Abby was exhausted. She and David had talked until the candle burned out and the first rays of sunlight illuminated the room. Abby even showed him her journal, where she had recorded her dreams and made rough sketches of the creatures from Eulalia’s stories. It had been a much longer night than she had expected.

“You must be so tired,” David said. “I should go and let you get some sleep.”

“I’m not that tired,” Abby lied, yawning. “You don’t have to go.”

He smiled. “You’re a bad liar when you’ve been up too long. I don’t want to go, but I’d better get myself gone before your dad finds out I was here all night and kills me.”

She laughed. “Good point—he might. So when do I get to see you again?”

“I’ll call you this afternoon, by four at the latest.” He stood up to leave.

“Does that mean you’ll go with me to see Eulalia?”

“Yes, I will,” David promised. He took her hands and looked into her eyes. “I
do
believe you, Abby. I won’t lie to you though. I’m torn—part of me still says this is crazy.” He paused, studying her reaction. “Sorry. I mean, it’s illogical. I’m trying to make sense of everything you’ve told me. But the other part insists that this is real, and everything else has been an illusion. I feel like I’m waking up from a dream.”

“I know the feeling.”

He smiled. “I know you said time is of the essence here, but don’t worry. I plan to go with you today. I can’t
not
go, actually. Not if there’s even the slightest chance this is real. But if I’m really going to leave everything I know and go to Cai Terenmare, I need to at least say good-bye to my parents and try to explain why I’m going. I owe them that much at least. And if it’s true that my so-called adoption was a lie, I think they owe me an explanation, too. The problem is, I have no idea
how
to have this little chat with them. That’s why I need to get home to my own bed. I have a lot to think about, but I think a little sleep will help.”

“No, you’re right,” Abby agreed. “We both need a few hours sleep.”

On Abby’s dresser, her cell phone began to vibrate. She stood up quickly and grabbed it, stopping it from buzzing.

“Somebody’s up early,” David noted.

Abby looked at the caller ID and put the phone back down. “It’s just Jon. I’ll call him back after I walk you out.” She put her arms around David. “David, at the risk of sounding paranoid: what if you go home and something bad happens to you?”

He looked out the window. “It’s daylight now—I don’t
think anything will happen.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

He opened her bedroom door, breaking the line of salt as the door swung open. She scooped up her phone and walked him downstairs to the front porch. David pulled Abby into his arms. “Well, I can safely say that this has been the most interesting night of my life,” he chuckled sleepily.

She hugged him, resting her head against his chest. “For what it’s worth, I had a nice night, David. Thanks.”

“Me too. It was very enlightening. In a lot of ways.” He lifted her face to his and kissed her lips softly. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he pulled her closer, kissing her again, harder. Finally he let her go. “You know,” he grinned, “
if we keep this up, your dad really
is
going to kill me.”

Abby’s phone began to vibrate again. She looked at it like it was some alien object—when David pulled her into his arms, she had forgotten that she was still holding it in her hand. His touch had a very distracting affect on her. “Jon,
again
. I’m so sorry,” she said. “His timing really sucks.”

“He lives next door to you?” David asked.

Abby stopped the phone from buzzing and set it on the porch railing. “Yeah—how did you know that?”

“Because he’s staring at us,” David said, frowning. He let out a long breath. “And I was worried about your dad wanting to kill me.”

Abby looked over at Jon’s house. Jon was standing at his second-story bedroom window, holding his cell phone. His eyes were locked on David. Judging by the dark angel of death look on Jon’s face, it was clear he was focused on one thought: destroying David in the quickest and most painful manner possible. Abby was fairly certain that had Jon been able to shoot lasers from his eyes at that moment, David would have been reduced to a pile of smoking ash.

“I thought the two of you weren’t together,” David said.

Abby glared up at Jon. “We’re not.”

“Does
he
know that?”

“He
does
, but I’ll be sure to remind him.” She turned back to look into David’s eyes. “I’m
really
sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” David said, holding her gaze. “If I was him, I wouldn’t want someone else kissing you either. Not that his reaction deters me in the least.” He grinned and kissed her again.