Chapter 5

“What the hell is going on.” Erin said to herself as she tried to take in the scene before her. It didn’t help any that her vision kept changing the scene. Like some funhouse of mirrors gone terribly wrong, the scene kept shifting between the Plaza garage and some dark, dank cave full of nightmares from a Ren Faire run amok! Even Richard seemed to have changed from the college boy she knew him to be into some medieval warrior dressed in leather and chainmail armor. “This has to be a dream, a very, very bad dream.” Erin whispered to herself. Only Megan, she was relieved to see, looked the same as she always did, except for the glow that cast around her like an aurora when the scene shifted again.

“Whatever it is, it’s starting to make my head ache.” Erin thought as she fought to try to control the shifting of her vision.

“Well, now cousin, what have we here?” said a voice from the shadows that caused Erin to drop her efforts at control and slowly turn her head in the direction of the sound. “You!” she thought she said to herself, but could easily have said it out loud.

With the briefest of nods, Emory acknowledged the three trapped souls, and then turned his full attention to Mordrant.

“So, cousin, you once again seek to take by force what is clearly not yours for the taking.” and the challenge was clear in his tone. “I would have thought you had learned your lesson that last time we met in this manner. I distinctly remember the King having words with you about this same thing not all that long ago.” and Emory too smiled, a smile that never touched his eyes. With the barest of waves, Emory cast a shining cloud of amethyst power over the three young people trapped by the Hunt. Erin clearly saw it as though she were in a soap bubble of pure light.

A heavy silence hung like smoke between the two men, and it was clear to Erin that something was happening outside the world that she was familiar with altogether. Time seemed to stand totally still, and the tension was like that of thunder waiting to uncoil and strike.

“Emory!” Mordrant spat, “You overreach yourself this time. I will not be denied that which is rightfully mine.” and a tendril of black light snaked from his hand toward the circle Emory had cast.

Before it could reach the shield Emory had summoned, a bright blue flame leapt from Emory’s right hand and met the black one halfway. For a brief time, there seemed to be a struggle, but the power of Emory was too much for Mordrant to match, and both bolts vanished with a small clap of thunder.

While the combatants stared at each other, a new rumble broke through the silence, and twelve of the biggest motorbikes Erin had ever seen roared into the Plaza. When the scene once again shifted, Erin noted with less alarm than before that twelve fully armed and armored knights, astride chargers, were making their way across the mossy grass floor of the cave at a gentle trot. Each knight was dressed head-to-toe in shimmering white surcoats trimmed in silver, except for their leader, riding next to a flowing banner of gold with three scarlet dragons that glowed of their own, who was dressed in red trimmed in gold. When the scene shifted again, it sounded as if every car alarm in the garage was howling, beeping or otherwise kicking up a ruckus.

This final assault on Erin’s already frazzled nerves was too much, and she slowly went limp and slid to the ground. Her last physical sensation as she went under was of Emory’s eyes and a gentle mental touch that felt like a warm embrace.