Nora Robets - Key of Light

Chills crawled along her skin as she turned to the right. She wished for a jacket, for a flashlight. For her friends. For Flynn. She forced herself not to run, not to rush blindly. The room was a maze of impossible corridors.

It didn't matter. Just another trick, one meant to confuse and frighten her. Somewhere in this house was the key, and her friends. She would find them.

Panic tickled her throat as she walked. The air was silent now, even her lonely footsteps were smothered by the blue mist. What was more frightening to the human heart than being cold and lost and alone? He was using that against her, playing her with her own instinct.

Because he couldn't touch her unless she allowed it.

"You're not going to make me run," she shouted. "I know who I am and where I am, and you're not going to make me. run."

She heard someone call her name, just the faintest ripple through the thick air. Using it as a guide, she turned again.

The cold intensified, and the mists swirled with wet. Her clothes were damp, her skin chilled. The call could have been another trick, she thought. She could hear nothing now but the blood beating inside her own head.

It hardly mattered which direction she chose. She could walk endlessly in circles or stand perfectly still. It wasn't a matter of finding her way, or being misdirected now. It was, she realized, nothing more than a battle of wills.

The key was here. She meant to find it; he meant to stop her.

"It must be lowering to pit yourself against a mortal woman. Wasting all your power and skill on someone like me. And still, the best you can do is this irritating blue-light special."

An angry red glow edged the mist. Though Malory's heart plunged, she gritted her teeth and kept moving. Maybe it wasn't wise to challenge a sorcerer, but aside from the risk she realized another side effect.

She could see another door now where the red and blue lights merged.

The attic, she thought. It had to be. Not illusionary corridors and turns, but the true substance of the house.

She focused on it as she walked forward. When the mists shifted, thickened, swirled, she ignored them and kept the image of the door in her head.

At last, her breath shallow, she plunged a hand through the fog and clamped her fingers around the old glass knob.

Warmth, a welcome flood of it, poured over her as she pulled the door open. She started up, into the dark, with the blue mist creeping behind her.

* * *

Outside, Flynn navigated through the mean-tempered storm, edging forward in the driver's seat to peer through the curtain of rain that his wipers could barely displace.

In the backseat, Moe whimpered like a baby.

"Come on, you coward, it's just a little rain." Lightning pitchforked through the black sky, followed by a boom of thunder like a cannon blast. "And some lightning." Flynn cursed and muscled the wheel in position when the car bucked and shuddered. "And some wind," he added. With gusts approaching gale force.

It hadn't seemed like more than a quick thunderstorm when he'd left the office. But it worsened with every inch of road. As Moe's whimpers turned to pitiful howls, Flynn began to worry that Malory or Dana or Zoe, maybe all three of them, had gotten caught in the storm.

They should have been at the house by now, he reminded himself. But he would have sworn that the rage of the storm was worse, considerably worse, on this end of town. Fog had rolled down from the hills, blanketed them in gray as thick and dense as wool. His visibility decreased, forcing him to slow down. Even at a crawl, the car fishtailed madly on a turn.

"We'll just pull over," he said to Moe. "Pull over and wait it out."

Anxiety skated up his spine, but instead of easing when he nudged the car to the curb, it clamped on to the back of his neck like claws. The sound of the rain pounding like fists on the roof of the car seemed to hammer into his brain.

"Something's wrong."

He pulled out into the street again, his hands vising on the wheel as the wind buffeted the car. Sweat, born of effort and worry, snaked down his back. For the next three blocks he felt like a man fighting a war.

There was a trickle of relief when he spotted the cars in the driveway. They were okay, he told himself. They were inside. No problem. He was an idiot.

“Told you there was nothing to worry about," he said to Moe. "Now you've got two choices. You can pull yourself together and come inside with me, or you can stay here, quaking and quivering. Up to you, pal."

Relief drained away when he parked at the curb and looked at the house.

If the storm had a heart, it was there. Black clouds boiled over the house, pumped the full force of their fury. Even as he watched, lightning lanced down, speared like a fiery arrow into the front lawn. The grass went black in a jagged patch.

"Malory."

He didn't know if he spoke it, shouted it, or his mind simply screamed it, but he shoved open the car door and leaped into the surreal violence of the storm.

The wind slapped him back, a back-handed blow so intense that he tasted blood in his mouth. Lightning blasted like a mortar directly in front of him, and the air stank with burning. Blind from the driving rain, he bent over and lurched toward the house.

He stumbled on the steps and was calling her name, over and over like a chant, when he saw the hard blue light leaking around the front door.

The knob burned with cold and refused to turn under his hand. Baring his teeth, Flynn reared back, then rammed the door with his shoulder. Once, twice, and on the third assault, he broke it in.

He leaped inside, into that blue mist.

"Malory!" He shoved his dripping hair out of his face. "Dana!"

He whirled when something brushed his leg, and lifted his fists, only to lower them on an oath when it turned out to be wet dog. "Goddamn it, Moe, I don't have time to—"

He broke off when Moe growled deep in his throat, let out a vicious bark, and charged up the stairs.

Flynn sprinted after him. And stepped into his office.

"If I'm going to do a decent job covering the foliage festival, then I need the front page of the Weekender section and a sidebar on the related events." Rhoda folded her arms, her posture combative. "Tim's interview with Clown Guy should go on page two."

There was a vague ringing in his ears, and a cup of coffee in his hand. Flynn stared at Rhoda's irritated face. He could smell the coffee, and the White Shoulders fragrance that Rhoda habitually wore. Behind him, his scanner squawked and Moe snored like a steam engine.

"This is bullshit."

"You've got no business using that kind of language with me," Rhoda snapped.

"No, this is bullshit. I'm not here. Neither are you."

"It's about time I got treated with a little respect around here. You're only running this paper because your mother wanted to keep you from making a fool of yourself in New York. Big-city reporter, my butt. You're a smalltime, small-town guy. Always have been, always will be."

"Kiss my ass," Flynn invited and threw the coffee, cup and all, in her face.

She let out one short scream, and he was back in the mist.

Shaken, he rounded once again toward the sound of Moe's barking.

Through that rolling mist, he saw Dana on her knees with her arms flung around Moe's neck.

"Oh, God, thank God. Flynn!" She sprang up, wrapped herself around him as she had the dog. "I can't find them. I can't find them. I was here, then I wasn't, now I am." Hysteria pitched and rocked in her voice. "We were together, right over there, then we weren't."

"Stop. Stop." He yanked her back, shook her. "Breathe."

"Sorry. I'm sorry." She shuddered, then scrubbed her hands over her face. "I was at work, but I wasn't. I couldn't have been. It was like being in a daze, going through the motions and not being able to pinpoint what was wrong. Then I heard Moe barking. I heard him barking, and I remembered. We were here. Then I was back, standing here in this—whatever the hell this is— and I couldn't find them."

She fought for calm. "The key. Malory said the key's here. I think she must be right."

"Go. Get outside. Wait for me in the car."

She breathed deep, shuddered again. "I'm freaked, but I'm not leaving them here. Or you either. Jesus, Flynn, your mouth's bleeding."

He swiped the back of his hand over it. "It's nothing. Okay, we stick together." He took her hand, linked fingers.

They heard it at the same time, the hammering of fists on wood. With Moe once again in the lead, they rushed through the room.

Zoe stood at the attic door, beating on it. "Over here!" She called out. "She's up there, I know she's up there, but I can't get through."

"Get back," Flynn ordered.

"You're all right?" Dana gripped her arm. "Are you hurt?"

"No. I was home, Dana. Puttering around the kitchen with the radio on. Wondering what to fix for dinner. My God, how long? How long were we separated? How long has she been up there alone?"

She was afraid. It helped to admit it, accept it. To know that she was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, and to realize she was determined not to give in.

The warmth was already being eaten away as the light took on that harsh blue hue. Fingers of mist crawled along the exposed beams on the ceiling, down the unfinished walls, along the dusty floor.

Through it, she could see the pale white vapor of her own breath. Real, she reminded herself. That was real, a sign of life. Proof of her own humanity.

The attic was a long, wide room with two stingy windows at either end and the ceiling rising to a narrow pitch. But she recognized it. In her dream there had been skylights and generous windows. Her paintings had been stacked against walls done in soft cream. The floor had been clean of dust, and speckled with a cheerful rainbow of paint drops and splatters.

The air had carried a summer warmth and the scent of turpentine.

It was dank now, and cold. Rather than canvases, cardboard boxes were stacked against the walls. Old chairs and lamps and the debris of other lives were stored there. But she could see— oh, so clearly see—how it could have been.

As she imagined it, it began to form.

Warm, washed with light, alive with color. There, on her worktable with her brushes and palette knives, was the little white vase filled with the pink snapdragons she'd picked from her own garden that morning.

She remembered going out after Flynn had left for work, remembered picking those sweet and tender flowers to keep her company while she worked.

Worked in her studio, she thought dreamily, where the blank canvas waited. And she knew, oh, yes, she knew how to fill it.

She walked to the canvas waiting on an easel, picked up her palette, and began to mix her paints.

Sun streamed through her windows. Several were open for the practical purpose of crossventilation, and for the simple pleasure of feeling the breeze. Music pumped passionately out of the stereo. What she intended to paint today required passion.

She could already see it in her mind, feel the power of it gathering in her like a storm.

She raised her brush, swirled it in color for the first stroke.

Her heart lifted. The magnitude of the joy was almost unbearable. She might burst from it if she didn't transfer it onto canvas.

The image was burned in her mind, like a scene etched on glass. With stroke after stroke, color blended on color, she began to bring it to life.

"You know this was always my deepest dream." She spoke conversationally as she worked. "For as long as I can remember I wanted to paint. To have the talent, the vision, the skill to be an important artist."

"Now you have it." She switched brushes, glancing at Kane before she faced the canvas again. "Yes, I do."

"You were wise, making the right choice in the end. A shopkeeper?" He laughed, dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "Where is the power in that? Where is the glory in selling what others have created when you can create yourself? You can be and have whatever you choose here."

"Yes, I understand. You've shown me the way." She slid him a coy look. "What else can I have?"

"You want the man?" Kane shrugged elegantly. "He's bound to you here, a slave to love."