Before the Dawn (18 page)

He wasn't exactly looking forward to
interacting with costumed grade schoolers, but he wasn't so
heartless as to shut the door in their little faces when they came
asking for treats. So, with a little bit of a resigned sigh, he
grabbed his jacket and keys and prepared to do some late minute
candy shopping. After this errand was done, he killed some time by
checking out the state of the basement because he had yet to set it
up properly, and he made up some notes on his plans for the space.
Then, finally, he left the house again and dropped by a Chinese
restaurant to get some takeout before he headed back to the
hospital.

To his relief, his mom was finally conscious
and sitting up in bed when he arrived. He learned that the doctor
had said she and George were both well enough to go home tomorrow,
so a huge load was lifted off his shoulders right there. He spent a
pleasant hour having dinner and chatting with them, assuring
himself that they were okay, then it was time for him to go
home.

Trevor wasn't all that sleepy yet, so he went
back to working on his book. He became so absorbed in it that when
he glanced at his computer's digital clock again, he saw that it
was forty-seven minutes past eleven already. His long day was
finally starting to catch up with him so he collapsed into bed and,
just like last night, almost immediately felt a sense of great
lethargy sweep over his body. He was getting sleepier by the second
without any effort at all and, before he completely closed his eyes
and drifted off, he saw the glowing digits of the clock beside his
bed mark the hour of midnight.

***

Chapter 19

"
Where the bloody hell is she?!
"

A sharp pain jolted him awake and Trevor
realized that he had somehow ended up being hurled off his bed.
Then he hit his head against the wall. Stunned, he opened his eyes
and saw only darkness for a second, then his vision adjusted to the
dim light and he saw that a shadow was hulking over him. There was
a little illumination coming through the open window, however, and
it was enough to allow him to make out some details about the
stranger in his bedroom.

He was huge, dark, and feathered. Trevor saw
a terrifyingly inhuman face with a sharp beak and burning eyes, and
he opened his mouth to let out a yell, but the creature suddenly
picked him up with hands that were more like talons and slammed him
against the wall again. His panicked mind then tried to tell him
that he must be having some kind of nightmare. He wasn't really
being held in the grip of a monstrous bird-like creature with the
rough voice of a man. He was only dreaming. This was all a
nightmare. It had to be.

But then the creature brought its face very
close to his until Trevor could peer deep into its glowing gold
eyes and smell its hot, moist breath. And it was then he had the
thought that he had looked into those eyes before. He wasn’t able
to make any sound though because the thing spoke first.

"Where is she?" it growled out through a
throat that was not meant for human speech. "She was not in the
Prince's Court and I followed her scent and I smelled
you
!
You found her. But where is she now?"

"What—are you talking about?" Trevor managed
to choke out the words through the tight grip the monster had on
his throat.

It sniffed then snarled like something
ravenous and threw him to the floor. Its entire body seemed to
throb and grow leaner while its feathers fluttered and shifted into
different shapes until it was wearing a tattered-looking coat and
punkish clothes. Its face changed form too as the black feathers
retracted and sank underneath the pores of its pale skin while its
beak grew shorter and shorter until the whole thing disappeared and
everything reformed into a handsome face that Trevor immediately
remembered seeing before.

"You!" It was the weird young man who had
bumped into him in the park halfway across the country. How the
hell did he get here inside his house? "Who are you? What are
you?"

He shot Trevor a very annoyed look. "Oh, shut
up," he snapped. "You're lucky I do not kill you where you stand. I
would have done it, but then I caught the barest whiff of my
mother's stink on you. Of course, I should have known that she'd be
meddling in this. She's waited seven years to do so." After saying
that, which did not make any sense to Trevor at all, the stranger
sat down on the floor and took out a shiny silver cup that should
not have been able to fit in his coat pocket without a huge bulge.
He spat into it and, to Trevor’s disbelieving eyes, it began to
fill with a sparkling liquid. He then moved the cup in a circle
until the liquid swirled around it and began to cast a pale glow
that brightened the room. He looked into its contents for a long
while, frowning in concentration as he did so, and he made an angry
noise at one point before he snorted and put the cup back into his
pocket, liquid and all. Then he stood up, snapped his fingers, and
light flooded the room.

"Well," he gave Trevor a measuring look, "it
seems we have both been caught up in this stupidity again. Damn
Benwyr. And double damn my mother for not just leaving things be! I
told her time and again I wanted nothing to do with the Kingdom.
But she just will not listen and would have things her way at all
cost!"

Slowly, Trevor got to his feet while
massaging his throat, moving very warily. He still wasn't convinced
that he wasn't dreaming. "Who the hell are you?" he asked the
stranger again, getting angry now at his question being
ignored.

"Oh," the young man who had been a monster
just minutes ago shrugged and looked completely unconcerned. "I had
forgotten. You've got that spell still working on you. Of course,
you don't remember a thing." He then busied himself by brushing off
imaginary dirt from his clothes without bothering to even answer
Trevor’s oft-repeated question.

"What are you talking about?" Trevor
demanded. Right now, he was completely convinced that he was still
dreaming, so he decided to just go with it. Or maybe he had gone
insane. Either way, he was not going to panic over how weird all of
this was.

"The spell of forgetting the Princess agreed
to in order to save your life," the guy explained, which just made
Trevor more confused. At the completely baffled look on the
mortal’s face, the stranger sighed. "All right then. Here is what's
going on. You, my friend, have been under a spell these past seven
years that has repressed all memories you have of a certain young
lady who is currently the Princess of Silverhaven. Unfortunately, I
can't restore those memories to you because it wasn't my spell that
got rid of them. Now we all would have gone on living our lives
without any of the tiresome intrigues of the Courts if my mother
had not influenced events to make the two of us come back here.
But, here we are."

Trevor frowned. "That still didn't make any
sense at all."

The stranger huffed. "I'll try explaining it
all again. Later," he promised. "For now, you will take me to
Meran."

"Who?" Trevor knew he was speaking in
English, but he had no idea what the hell the other guy was
saying.

"The girl. The one you met last night."

"The one who looked like she had been held
hostage?" He was suddenly wary again. What did this stranger want
with that poor girl?

"Yes. I could not free her from the Prince's
spell, but at least I made sure she'd be safe from the enchantments
of other Lords when I left Silverhaven’s Court. However, I've
recently learned that the Prince found other ways to amuse himself
and his friends with her, but now she has been released from his
spell, no doubt due to something my mother did, and she's wandering
around somewhere probably wondering why everyone's older and no one
seems to remember her. You will take me to her."

"And then what?" Trevor was still wary, and
very confused. He must have hit his head really hard. "What do you
intend to do to her?"

"Help her, of course!" the young man snapped.
"Haven't you been paying attention to anything I've said?"

"But why do you even need me to help you find
her? You found me!" he pointed out.

"I never said I needed you to help me find
her!" he exclaimed, looking totally exasperated as if Trevor was
being deliberately obtuse. "I said I want you to take me to her. No
doubt, she's surrounded by other mortals and, though I can just
bring her to me, that requires a use of power that I'd rather not
expend. So we'll do this the human way as much as possible unless I
really have to start throwing magic around. Which is likely how
it's going to end up, if I know my luck," he finished darkly.

"All right. Whatever you say. But it's the
middle of the night. No human would let us into a hospital at this
hour just to walk away with a patient. Plus, I don't even know
which hospital she's in exactly." Trevor could not believe that he
was agreeing to help this weird guy. Nothing made any sense in
dreams.

The stranger nodded. "That's fine. If that's
how it has to be done, then that's how we'll do it. I'll wake you
up when it's daylight and we can go then." He then crossed his arms
and went very still, his bright unblinking eyes on Trevor.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Trevor asked
suspiciously.

"Waiting for daylight," he replied. "You may
go to sleep if you wish."

"While you just stand there watching me?"

He blinked at that. "Of course."

"No!" Trevor exclaimed. "That is all sorts of
creepy, and weird. There is no way I can sleep when I know you're
just there looking at me." Honestly, this insanity had gone on long
enough. Trevor was incredibly sleepy and tired, but this
whatever-it-was was keeping him from getting the rest he wanted.
"You get out of my room!" He pointed at the door. "Squat anywhere
else in the house if you like, but you never come into my room
again. Now leave!"

The black-haired stranger looked at Trevor
for a moment like he was incredulous that a mere man would dare to
talk to him in that way. Then he huffed and sort of threw up his
hands in annoyance. In a split second, he disappeared from
view.

"Hello?" Trevor looked around wildly for him.
Where had he gone off to? What if he had just turned invisible but
was actually still in the room? What the hell was going on in this
incredibly strange dream?

There was a pounding on the wall from the
room beside his. "I'm right here waiting!" He heard the guy yell
through the wall. "Satisfied?"

"Yes!" He yelled back. When the guy didn't
say anything more and there was total silence for several minutes,
Trevor decided to get back to bed. What a very odd, little scene.
As soon as he laid his head on his pillow, he closed his eyes and,
without any effort at all, he slept again.

And woke up to see daylight flooding his
room. And a face peering down at him.

"Holy crap!" He screamed and frantically
scrambled out of bed. It was all real. The strange dream of last
night was actually real because the evidence was staring right at
him looking irritated. Or was it real? Maybe he was still dreaming.
He couldn't be sure of anything anymore.

"Well, are you sufficiently rested now?" the
man demanded. He even tapped his left foot impatiently. "Can we
please go fetch Meran today before my mother decides to put her
under another spell just to get to me?"

Trevor stared at him while still trying to
wrap his mind around the fact that the guy was really in front of
him and very real. Which meant that the strange, frightening
creature he saw last night—

"Stay back!" He moved as far away from the
intruder as he could. For the first time, he wished he kept a gun
in the house, or took karate lessons, anything that would help him
protect himself from this possible ax murderer. "If you go away
now, I won't call the police," Trevor promised, then mentally
added,
not right away anyway
.

The man’s expression looked very annoyed now
and he rolled his eyes. "I am honestly getting tired of having to
deal with all this human skepticism." He took a step towards Trevor
and Trevor backed up in an almost panic against the wall. His gaze
traveled to his bedroom window and, for a mad moment, he considered
jumping out of it so he could get away from this guy. But then he’d
probably only break a leg and that would not help him at all.

"Would you please be still?" the man snapped
right before Trevor realized that he had come closer while he was
still considering his escape options. Before he could let out a
yell of fear and try to avoid him, the stranger’s right hand
reached out and his fingers touched the very center of Trevor’s
forehead. Then it felt like his brain caught on fire.

He was seeing things, images rushed past his
eyes. It took a while before he realized they were memories, and
they were about a younger him. He was looking through someone
else's eyes at his gangly teenaged self while he talked to a pretty
girl in his old high school. She looked familiar, but he couldn't
quite remember who she was. Then the scene shifted and he was in
the old Ballroom where he used to work after school. Only it didn't
really look like the Ballroom much because it seemed bigger and
grander, and he was standing on a balcony overlooking a lake that
he was sure should not have been there. The same girl from the
earlier memory was there, too, and she looked very beautiful and
very confused as she stared at him. Then the black-haired guy who
had broken into his house appeared and led her away, and the scene
changed again. He was standing with the girl in a black ballroom
and everyone seemed to be looking at the two of them. A pale guy
with white hair was talking to the girl, calling her Rosamund, and
she looked scared and angry. Then he saw his younger self reach out
and take her hand as silvery light suddenly flashed and the two of
them disappeared. In the next memory, he was with the girl in the
woods then something felt like it flipped the world on its ends and
he was looking on as the black-haired guy and the girl were
talking. He could not clearly hear their words but he understood
exactly what they were talking about. The stranger was telling her
a story about something that happened a long time ago, and Trevor
understood that it was
their
story, and he watched as the
events came to life around him and he finally learned the secret of
the mystery that enveloped them. Then it was just him and the girl
again and they were in his stepfather’s house somehow, and he was
staring at them through the window as the younger him held the girl
close and kissed her. And though he still could not remember these
things happening to him, he saw the look on his younger self's face
when a sweet, haunting tune started playing and the girl began to
disappear in his arms. When he cried out her name, Trevor cried out
too and then he looked on as he was spirited away by something
black and feathered, and they were all back in the black ballroom.
The white-haired man was talking to the girl again and she was
looking stubborn, but then the man pointed her attention to
something behind a curtain and, suddenly, he saw the young him
holding a knife against the throat of a younger-looking George.
That seemed to finally break the girl and he wanted to scream at
her and beg her to run away when he saw her take the hand of the
white-haired man, and then they were dancing round and round the
ballroom while the girl looked more and more lost until, at last,
there was only blackness and he didn't have to see her eyes
anymore.