The Gathering
Page 32
Glancing up at him, he looked paler than usual. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone wishes to see us.”
“Who?”
“A friend.”
“A friend makes you pale like that.”
“He’s just very colorful. I can only take him in very small doses. I just saw him two hundred years ago. I’m not ready to see him again.”
Yikes. Two hundred years wasn’t enough time. “Would you rather we go without you.”
“You can’t. He will bar your entrance until I join you.”
“What is he?” I asked.
“A demon who has gotten a taste of the good life.”
“What’s happening?” Josiah joined us seeing our heads together.
“We’re being summoned,” I offered.
“To where?” he asked.
“Not where, when. He doesn’t have a physical location. You will it, and the portal opens,” Jareth replied.
“Opens to where?” Josiah asked.
“The in between.”
“The what?”
“He lives between this world and that of the underworld, but on a conscious level, not a physical one.”
Josiah and I shared a look before he said, “Here we go again.” We felt the stir in the air. “Wait, are we leaving now?”
Jareth looked out at the party happening around us. “They won’t even know we’re gone.”
And on those words, one minute we were in our courtyard, and the next, we were looking at a huge gilded door belonging to an estate that was impossibly large. Looking around, there was nothing. It was like we were in a snow globe, this place being the only thing that existed.
“This is the in between?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jareth answered.
It was peaceful.
The huge door opened. No one was there until I heard, “Jareth.”
I glanced down to the demon who was only about a foot tall. Bright green skin and rainbow colored hair that was braided down his back. What was it with demons and leather? The thought brought pain, but we’d be seeing her again.
“It’s been too long, my friend,” the demon said before his yellow eyes took in the rest of us.
“You’re all here. Good. Come in.”
The place was amazing. Huge, but everything was scaled for his size. The stairs were gold, the ceiling encrusted in gemstones, the floors looked like polished silver. He walked us to a huge room with a fireplace that looked like diamonds. “Please sit, I’ll have refreshments brought in.”
He pulled a rope that rang a bell then looked at his scaled down furniture and the size of his visitors. “Oops,” he said and snapped his fingers. The furniture grew. “That’s better.”
A table appeared, shimmered into existence, a cloth, china, utensils, stemware, silver candelabras with white tapers already burning, huge arrangements of flowers ran down the center. Jareth wasn’t kidding; the man really did like the finer things.
“We were in the middle of something, so if you could just tell us why you summoned us,” Jareth requested.
“Very well.” As quickly as the table appeared, it disappeared. He took us through the great hall before waving his hand at a pair of ornately carved wooden doors. It was a library, the most massive library I’d ever seen. Four levels high, balconies ran the perimeter, library ladders on all the balconies to reach the higher shelves, a fireplace that was two stories high already burned a roaring fire.
I noticed a book on the stand, one I had seen before. “You are S. Steiner?”
“Sanus Steiner at your service.”
I couldn’t stop the grin. “You were helping me.”
He blushed; a shy smile curved his lips. “We all have to do our part.”
It was me who smiled before I asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m the keeper.” At my lost look, he added, “All the stories, the legends and the myths that have been passed down. I’m the one who keeps them safe.”
He waved his hand, and a book came flying from the shelves, floating down to a long table set up in front of the fireplace. It was called The Ivy Blackwood Chronicles.
“What is that?” Josiah and I shared a look.
Sanus’ eyes twinkled. “’Tis the beginning of a new legend.”
Bain and my eyes met. Sanus was right; we were only at the beginning.
“It’s why I summoned you.” He opened the book to a new page and as we watched, a script appeared. “It would seem there’s something brewing in your birthplace, Jareth.”
That village from so long ago, it had darkness even then.
“Do you have a sense of what?” Josiah asked.
“No, but it’s growing stronger.”
Jareth glanced around the room, knew he had our agreement when he said, “Looks like I’m going home.”
Sanus studied the vampire, the human, the lycan and the woman who had brought them all together. The protectors of the world…oh yes, their story had only just begun.
The End…for now
About the author
The Beautifully series…
Beautifully Damaged
Beautifully Forgotten
Beautifully Decadent
The Harrington Maine series…
Waiting for the One
Just Me
Lost Boys Series…
Devil You Know
Demon You Love: Coming 2019
Shipwreck Series…
Elusive
Standalones
Our Unscripted Story
Savage: The Awakening of Lizzie Danton
His Light in the Dark
A Glimpse of the Dream
Always and Forever
Collecting the Pieces
Anthologies
Incognito
Ten Things I Love About You, A Love in the 90s Anthology
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