intended to come here, so she couldn’t blame it on visions, spirits, or anything else. She had to come. Because the only vision she’d had last night had come from touching Blair there. A blur of swirling red-tinged darkness, far more intense that what she’d just experienced in the maze and yet curiously similar. The same redness. But with Blair came a veil, beneath which she’d sensed a huge blackness, a jumble of wild and terrible emotions, memories, hungers…
Had he really spoken only to her? Only in her mind? There was no other explanation, but she didn’t want it to be true. Because she hadn’t recognized a fellow psychic? Because her pride didn’t want to acknowledge psychic powers stronger than her own? Because she hadn’t sensed anything different about him at all until he’d touched her, and yet he might, just might, be the stuff of legend.
The crackling of leaves and twigs under her boots seemed to grow louder. She trailed her hand across tree trunks, leaves, nettles, brambles, oblivious to the pain of stings and jags, absorbing everything into the memory, the feel of Blair.
Prepared this time, she didn’t throw it off immediately. Dark didn’t necessarily mean evil; red didn’t necessarily mean blood. She clutched the intertwined trunks of the apple trees, resting her cheek against the rough bark, her eyes closed. The swirling mist began to resolve into shadows.
She could see the intertwining trees, and two figures coming together. One was Tam, staring at the other man who wore a kilt and suddenly swept across her vision in a blur. Tam was held in his arms, just as she’d seen them last night. Only this time, she glimpsed long canine teeth, like something from a Dracula movie, before he bent and sank them into Tam’s throat. Tam moved at last, clutching his attacker, but it didn’t look like violence. It looked like an embrace. The air was thick with hunger, with some profound pleasure that felt a lot like sex.
Vision or imagination?
With the interfering thought, her mind picture vanished into blackness. She hung on grimly, keeping her eyes closed and pressing her whole body into the tree trunk. Physical desire washed through her, powerful, sweet, and distracting. Whether it was her own or someone else’s, she accepted it, forced her mind to keep thinking of Blair, and again the mists began to recede.
The blackness became dark cloth only slightly illuminated by pale sunshine beyond.
Curtains!
Black curtains across high, old-fashioned windows—three of them along one wall; not bays. Large, antique furniture, a faded carpet, bare, male knees, a flash of tartan. Despite the excitement, she hung on, looking for more. The room was large, with a big, high ceiling and intricate cornice. New Town, she guessed. She tried to concentrate again on the window to learn more, but the vision wouldn’t go that way. Already it was fading.
She came to herself, slumped against the tree, gazing upward at the gap in the gray clouds, through which a small patch of pale sunlight shone down on her cold, damp face.
“Got you,” she whispered.
****
Of course, she hadn’t got him. But it was a start. After calling in to give Jilly and Jack the hint to concentrate their efforts in the New Town area, she walked around the Bells’ house and street looking for any further visions or “feelings.” She got a couple of shivers in the street that might have been more memory than anything else; then, abandoning the older Bells’ property, she drove back into town and called into Jason Bell’s office around lunchtime. The doorman enquired if she had an appointment, and since he began to check his computer screen, she swallowed the lie and admitted she didn’t. Obligingly, he picked up the phone and, after a quick conversation, told her Jason was in a meeting. There was nothing to do but leave a message for him to call her when he had a moment.
Dissatisfied, she drove back to the office, where she spent a frustrating afternoon failing to find a trace of Blair or any connection between the Bells and prank or criminal behavior. Their reputations were apparently spotless. They even went to church. On the other hand, ten years ago, Mrs. Bell had publicly defended a disgraced medium whom she claimed had contacted her late mother; and Ferdy was a long-standing member of an online paranormal study group.
“I suppose it’s been brewing for a long time,” Jilly observed. “He probably does believe this stuff. Though how you make