Rituals (Cainsville 5)

Darkness swirled. When it cleared, I sat on a wooden floor, staring at a wooden wall. A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jumped to see Gabriel on all fours.

"I wouldn't have stayed," he said. "At Evans's house. I wouldn't have stayed."

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. Our first "case." Trapped in the basement by a killer, Gabriel injured, telling me to just go, leave him behind, that he wouldn't stay for me.

"That's not much of a secret," I said. "You told me then you wouldn't have stayed."

"But I meant it. I wasn't saying it to make you leave. I would have found you a safe place and brought help, but I still would have left."

"Okay."

"No, you don't understand. I would have left. I've told myself I wasn't sure, maybe I was just saying that, but that's a lie. I would have left you there."

"The fact you'd have taken time to find me a safe place meant I was making progress. Hell, finding me a safe place and going for help would have been the smart move, the logical move. That's how you do things. I jump in with both feet and end up..."

I looked around. We were in a small timber-framed building, with a fire in the hearth and the smell of cooked meat ingrained in the wood. Simple furniture, all wooden, with cured skins and a homespun blanket.

"A peasant's home, maybe?" I said.

Gabriel said nothing in response, and I turned to see him on his feet. Lighting lamps. Oil lamps. He'd grabbed a stick from the fire and was lighting the lamps as if that was the most natural thing to do.

"Gabriel?"

"We need light," he said. "Quickly."

"Okay..."

"Leave him be," whispered a voice, and I jumped to see a child wearing a peasant's dress. It was the blond girl, another manifestation of Matilda, the one who'd been my early guide in this new life.

"Haven't seen you in a while," I murmured.

Gabriel turned. "Hmmm?"

"Nothing." I watched as he resumed lighting the lamps.

"Gwynn is fine," she said. "He's not--"

"Right now he's Gwynn. Let him do what he needs to do. Trust him."

The scene faded into another cottage, the one in that terribly wrong forest where the rogue Huntsman had been keeping Lloergan. I'd been walking through those woods with Ricky and caught a snatch of a vision, peasants bolting up the house against the falling dark, rushing about, terrified of that darkness and the horrors it held. A primal fear of the unknown, from a time where one couldn't simply switch on a porch light to see what lay beyond.

Something's out there.

Darkness was falling fast. One window had a glass pane, a luxury to allow light in cold weather. The rest had only shutters, wide open, the night air blowing through, bringing a smell that made the hairs on my neck prickle again.

"Darkness is coming," the girl murmured.

"I see that."

"No, you feel it."

Gabriel spun to me. "We need to close the shutters. Quickly."

I ran for one, but he caught my shoulder. "Always start with the west. They come from..." He trailed off and blinked hard, as if waking from a trance. "What was I...?"

"The shutters," I said. "We need to close the west shutters."

He jogged over and pulled them shut as I latched them. One resisted when he yanked and I saw it was latched on the outside. I started to reach through, but he beat me to it. As he fumbled to undo the latch, darkness rolled through the trees.