Nephilim Quest Book 1: Shadowhunter

17. A Safe Place 2/2

We entered a hall, the size of which one would expect to see in a two hundred year old massive building.  Other than the size, the hall's appearance did not fit with the interior of an old building at all.

The walls were the only thing that were old about this space. It had modern furniture, a reception desk, computer booths and a big, framed screen on the wall. On the screen was a film of a beautiful mountain landscape.

"Layla!" A woman ran to meet Grandma with outstretched arms.

"Lilith!" Grandma hugged the woman, who then turned to me.

She was the same woman I had seen in my lucid dream. The shirt was different, but the hair was in a similar bundle on her neck, she had a few freckles on her cheeks, and reddish blonde eyebrows.

She stared at me, clearly surprised.

"You brought her here?"

"There was no time to let her go through the test and find her way on her own," Grandma explained. "The shadows found her."

The woman, Lilith, looked at me in alarm. Then she collected herself, smiled and extended her hand.

"Well, now that you are here, you are very welcome. Usually anyone who comes through our doors has to find us on their own, following the clues we give to them in their dreams. If they cannot find us, they are not ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To walk through the gates. And it may be that you are not really ready either, not yet. Nor ever, perhaps. But we shall see. Tell me now the sequence of events that forced you to break the rules." She had turned her head away from me to talk to Grandma and Professor Rowan.

"She found the book as was arranged," Grandma said, "but then a shadow appeared, where none should have been. The shadows did not follow me, of that I am certain. They must have been there already for some other reason. But - strictly speaking we are not breaking any rules here anyway. Dana passed the lucid dreaming test, heard your message, and found Professor Rowan as a result – with very little help from me - so the first stages went exactly as they should have done. The problem arose when the shadows followed her when we went to meet our professor here - this made me certain they really were after her. I don't know how they managed to follow us, because I drove at a speed they usually can't keep up with, but they did, and they did so in far greater numbers than I had ever seen. Usually they move alone, but this time there was a group of shadows. And at least one of them must have been especially fast."

"They are after the book?" the professor suggested.

Grandma shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. There is more to this. I don't doubt they have managed to get their hands on the book somewhere along the way anyway. Nothing new there. And not really dangerous to us, even if they managed to find the message hidden in the book, as the way to the gates is not in any way revealed in words. They know about us too. Me and the professor, I mean. I am their old acquaintance already, and they have seen the two of us talking in the past. Also if they have read the book since Professor Rowan wrote his name there, they've certainly done their research and found him on their own. Maybe they guessed where we were headed from the general direction we took." Grandma had turned back to explain to Lilith.

"So you mean they were after the girl? How could they have found that she was..."

Lilith shut up mid-sentence. I looked at her curiously. Found about that I was... what?

"Has to be," Grandma nodded, "that has to be it. But the main thing is we are now safely here, and this time there was no shadow following us."

I have to admit the whole thing felt unreal.  Kitty's death, the book, the lucid dream, the shadow, the stories of people living unchanged while hundreds of years of physical life passed elsewhere. Not to mention the strange young man, whom I seemed to recognize from somewhere, but couldn't remember where. And who obviously knew who I was. Not forgetting that the professor seemed to know who the young man was as well.

And this speeding to a "safe place" because shadows wanted to get to me - what was that about? I had not seen any shadows while we drove here. Had I ended up in the middle of a bunch of weirdos? Some cult, perhaps? What they were talking about did not make any sense to me, but seemed to be normal discussion for them, like the weather or something.

Looking around me it was obvious that if they were part of some weird cult, it was a very rich one. Everything was brand new and glistening.

I stole a glance at the nature film playing on a big screen - its upper frame was twice my height, and the lower frame was at floor level.  Someone was walking across the meadow, approaching the viewer. He looked familiar... There wasn't exactly sunshine coming from anywhere, maybe the sun was hidden behind clouds, but still his hair was glistening golden, as if illuminated. He was very tall and well proportioned. Wide shoulders, muscular arms, narrow hips, long legs.

He walked closer, and suddenly I recognized him. My jaw dropped. The blonde young man from the bookstore! It was definitely him. So he was an actor? That didn't surprise me, not with his looks. And that would explain why he looked so familiar, though it did not explain how he seemed to know me...

While I pondered on this, he walked even closer, until he was facing the camera. I was expecting something to happen that would move the plot forward, waiting for him to start speaking as the camera moved in for a close-up on his face, or that another scene would start.

Instead he stepped through the screen, straight into the hall.    

*****

I shall publish the first 25 chapters of the book on Wattpad- if you wish to read the whole book for free, go to http://www.leenamaria.com and sign up for the email list (open until 31st December 2015). I shall send you the download link in January 2016 a few weeks before the book is published. I only ask you to leave a review on Amazon on the date of publication