Page 68 of Professor and the Seer
A golem. Now hurry or I won’t be responsible for what happens.
I had no doubt the man in the hall would kill my sleeping lover. I rushed out of the bedroom, almost slamming into the murderer. I had to get him out of here before it truly happened.
“Let’s go, asshole.” I never said I’d be nice about it.
He made me walk ahead of him. Whatever. I didn’t need to see him to try poking at his paths, only I didn’t see any for him. He was a blank slate. Actually, more like a wall. Impenetrable.
“You can’t mess with my future,” he grumbled as if sensing my attempt.
“Why not?” No point in denying it. The front door loomed, and I feared what would happen once I stepped outside.
“Because I don’t control it.” A bleak statement. “Put on your shoes and get outside.”
We exited to dawn lightening the sky. I glanced in the direction of the garden and Gram’s hut, wondering if she’d foreseen this happening. At least I could be reassured by her prediction John would live to be an old man. It also occurred that she’d never told me I’d be the woman he spent his life with.
“Where to now, killer?” I had no other name for him.
“To the fortress. She’s waiting for us.”
Ominous. “Where’s your car?” A glance around didn’t show any but John’s parked in the driveway.
“We’re not taking a vehicle. Too easy to track.” He grabbed my forearm and with his other hand pulled free, from under his chainmail, a brooch dangling on a chain.
My stomach sank. Reaper, he’s using magic to teleport us.
No reply.
Could Reaper follow?
A bright light enveloped the brooch then me in the grip of my captor. I shut my eyes against the dizzying sensation of my body moving from one place to the next. When I opened them, I stood in the courtyard of a castle, a place of great age that didn’t speak to me, even though my mind wall remained down. No hint of a future or a past.
“What is this place?” I asked as I glanced at the sky, gray with clouds. The chill in the air had me hugging myself. My light shirt was no match for the weather that left frost on the stone ramparts.
“It is her seat of power, and our prison,” was his bleak murmur. “There is no escape. Even if you make it outside the walls, the mountain is too steep to descend without wings or climbing equipment.”
“Our prison?” I couldn’t help my sarcastic reply. “You seem to have no problem coming and going.”
“I must do her bidding. I have no choice.”
“Speaking of this mysterious captor, where is she? Let’s get this meeting over with.”
“You shouldn’t be so eager.”
“Why not? It is why I’m here.”
“I will show you to your chamber. She will call for you when she’s ready.”
“Why not now?”
“Because.” One word and he didn’t say another as he walked toward the castle door.
More like a palace, I revised as I followed him inside. A castle made me think of a cramped and dark place of stone, made for defending. But a palace was about beauty. Fluting minarets. Large windows. Marble floors. Exquisite paintings and expensive-looking furniture. My room was lavish even by five-star hotel standards with its four-poster canopied bed trimmed in lace, the carpet on the floor thick and new. Even the furniture, solid wood and intricately carved, screamed quality.
But everything in the space remained silent. As if nothing in here had a future or a past. It just existed.
And so I waited in my luxurious quarters, pacing, bored, anxious, hoping I’d not made a huge mistake, because I’d not heard or seen Reaper since my arrival.
What I tried to not think about? John. How he must have freaked when he woke without me by his side. I consoled myself with the fact he lived.