“O’Munster?” Clare’s teeth chattered harder, and the creeps crawled all over her skin like hairy spider legs. “Aren’t they the weirdos who own The Four Hallows?”
Several decades ago, a creepy gothic mansion had been converted to a high-class nightclubcatering to billionaire Goths, druid, and vampire wannabes. It was intricately decorated in horror-film chic and featured several bars, lounges, dancefloors, an underground torture chamber, and private dens. It was a landmark tourist attraction of the dark sort, and rumors abounded about people going missing after visiting the underground tombs.
“They’re the dirty, rotten underbelly ofthe Irish mob scene, and you’re their dirty, rotten, trashy spawn.” Spittle spouted from between Seamus’s teeth, and his voice was hard with hatred.
“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” All of Clare’s bones rattled, and she couldn’t get the icy, itchy feeling from her skin. “Am I the human sacrifice?”
“Ah, I knew you read the Green Notebook,” Seamus said. “You women are like cats,too curious. No more yakking.”
They were approaching the cistern and beehive hut entry point. Clare took a huge breath and screamed as shrill and loud as a banshee. “Help, someone, help.”
Seamus fished a stinky rag from his pocket and tied it around Clare’s mouth, cutting off her screams.
He was cold, too cold, so cold he was sure he had been locked inside an icebox. A persistent buzz saw rattled in his ears, and his teeth chattered like a swarm of hailstones attacking a window. He cracked his eyes open, but the darkness was so heavy it oozed like black tar.
Who was he, and why was he, whoever he was, able to articulate such concepts ascold, dark, and blind? The buzzing sound intensified, swishing through his head, and hammering him with spikes of pain.
Didn’t pain mean he was alive? Able to feel? To think?
He breathed, although raggedly, and pain sizzled through his teeth. Sticky wetness covered his face, and a nasty, coppery odor fried through his nose. The taste in his mouth was electric and stale.
Heraised his hand to the pulsing pain on the back of his head. Sticky and wet. Blood.
He was hurt.
His entire body ached with each shift in position, and his face rubbed against gritty, dank, gravel.
It was cold, dark, damp, and rough.
Was he in a dungeon?
A prisoner?
Groaning and huffing at the heavy pain clamping like a vise over his arms and legs, hestruggled to a sitting position. His head swam, and his neck wobbled as a distant thought vibrated like an approaching subway train.
He was in danger, and he had to get out of the place he was at present. If the cold didn’t get him, the bleeding and dizziness would.
He stretched out his numb fingers, thawing them creakily by extending and clutching, hissing through the sharp stabsof his nerves. Pushing himself, he managed to roll up against a rough stone wall.
He gathered his shaking knees and pushed up, but the sudden movement toppled him, and his hand landed on a hard, egg-shaped object.
It jolted like hitting a funny bone up his arm.
Catching his breath, he closed his hand around the object and brought it to his face. It was a rock of some sort,dull and smooth, and a thought implanted inside of him.
This stone was the key. To what?
He didn’t know, so he squeezed it into his trouser pocket.
Maybe there were other important items in his vicinity. Whoever he was, he was lost, and he needed clues.
Clues.
That was it.
He needed clues, and the best thing to do is to sweep the area around him. He reachedout to the right and patted the ground. Something sharp stabbed him, and he sucked in a breath. It was a small rectangle covered with broken glass.
A mobile phone?
