The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla 3)

‘You’re not my father . . .’

The wolfish smile vanished and the features melted away. A furious cry, like the howl of an animal, pierced Dorian’s ears and an invisible force hurled him to the other side of the room. Dorian crashed into one of the armchairs, knocking it over.

Still dazed, the boy managed to get to his feet again, just in time to see the shadow sliding up the stairs like a moving pool of tar.

‘Mother!’ Dorian shouted, rushing towards the staircase.

The shadow paused for a moment and fixed Dorian with its stare. Shiny black lips formed a soundless word. His name. Suddenly all the windowpanes in the house shattered and the fog engulfed Seaview with a roar as the shadow continued its ascent to the next floor. Dorian rushed after it, pursuing the ghostly shape as it advanced towards his mother’s bedroom.

‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t you touch my mother.’

The shadow grinned at him and a moment later the black mass turned into a whirlwind that spun through the bedroom keyhole. A deathly silence followed.

Dorian ran towards the door, but before he could reach it, the wooden panel burst outward with such force that the door was yanked off its hinges and dashed against the opposite wall. Dorian threw himself to one side, managing to dodge it by just a few millimetres.

When he got to his feet again, the scene that met his eyes was like something out of a nightmare. The shadow was crawling along the walls of his mother’s room while she lay unconscious on her bed, her own shadow projected onto the wall. Dorian watched the black figure creep up to her shadow and brush the shape of her lips with its own. Simone stirred in her sleep, as if trapped in a bad dream. Two invisible hands seized her and lifted her from the sheets. Dorian stood in the way. Once more, an invisible force struck him and sent him flying out of the room. Carrying Simone in its arms, the shadow rushed down the stairs. Dorian stood up again, trying hard not to faint, and followed it to the ground floor. The spectre turned around and, for a moment, they stared at one another.

‘I know who you are . . .’ whispered the boy.

A new face, unfamiliar to him, made its appearance: the features were those of a handsome young man with luminous eyes.

‘You don’t know anything,’ hissed the shadow.

Dorian noticed the spectre’s eyes sweeping the room, then pausing at the old wooden door that lead to the cellar. All of a sudden, the door burst open and the boy felt a powerful energy propelling him towards it. He tumbled down the dark staircase. Then the door slammed shut, booming like a slab of stone.

The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the shadow’s howling laughter as it carried his mother towards the wood.

As the tide advanced inside the cave, Irene and Ismael felt the deathly trap tightening around them. Irene had already forgotten the moment when the water swamped their temporary refuge on the rock. Now there was nowhere left for them to stand and they were at the mercy of the sea. The cold tore at their muscles, like the pricking of hundreds of tiny pins, and they were losing all sensation in their hands. Exhaustion tugged at their legs, pulling them down. A voice inside them told them to let go, to surrender to the peaceful sleep that awaited them beneath the water. Ismael helped Irene to stay afloat. He could feel her body shivering in his arms. How long he’d be able to hang on, he didn’t know. How long it would take for dawn to break and the water level to start going down, he knew even less.

‘Don’t let your arms drop. Move about. Keep moving,’ he groaned.

Irene nodded.

‘I’m sleepy . . .’ she mumbled. She was almost delirious with exhaustion.

‘No. You can’t fall asleep now,’ Ismael ordered her.

Irene gazed at him, her eyes half open. Ismael reached up and touched the rocky ceiling towards which the tide was carrying them. The current was moving them away from the hole in the roof, sending them into the very bowels of the cave and far from the only possible escape route. Despite all their efforts to remain beneath the entrance hole, there was no way they could keep close to it and fight the unstoppable force of the current. There was barely enough room for them to breathe. And the tide kept rising.

For a moment, Irene’s face dropped into the water. Ismael grabbed her and pulled her head out. The girl was in a complete daze. He knew of stronger and much more experienced seamen who had died in this way, abandoned to their fate in the ocean. The cold could do this to anyone. First it numbed your muscles and dulled your mind, then it waited patiently for you to fall into its arms and pulled you under a shroud of cold and darkness.

Ismael shook Irene and turned her towards him. She mumbled something unintelligible. Without flinching, Ismael slapped her hard. Irene opened her eyes and screamed. For a few seconds she didn’t know where she was. In the dark, surrounded by icy water, with some stranger’s arms around her; she thought she was in the middle of her worst nightmare. Then everything came back to her. Cravenmoore. The angel. The cave. As Ismael hugged her, she could not stop her tears and she whimpered like a frightened child.

‘Don’t let me die here,’ she whispered.

‘You’re not going to die here. I promise. I won’t allow it. The tide will soon start to ebb and perhaps the cave won’t fill up completely . . . We must hang on a little longer. Only a little while and then we’ll be able to get out of here.’

Irene nodded and hugged him even tighter. If only Ismael could believe his words as much as she did.

Lazarus Jann slowly climbed Cravenmoore’s main staircase. A presence floated in the halo projected by the glass turret. He could sense it, smell it in the air, see it in the way the specks of dust seemed to mesh together in the light. When he reached the second floor his eyes rested on the door at the end of the corridor. It was open. His hands began to shake.

‘Alexandra?’

The cold breath of the wind lifted the gauze curtain hanging in the corridor. A dark foreboding came over him. Lazarus closed his eyes and put his hand to his side. A sharp pain which had started in his chest was spreading like wildfire down his left arm.

‘Alexandra?’ he cried again.

Lazarus ran to the bedroom door, but stopped when he saw the signs of the struggle and the cold mist drifting in from the forest through the broken windows. He clenched his fists until he felt his nails digging into his palms.