Blood of the Hunt

Blood of the Hunt - Chapter 6

Sera opened her eyes into her dream world and found the same haunting landscape she had encountered every night for nearly two weeks.

Morgernstern Manor rose out of the gloom behind her. It was neither day nor night, not truly, not here, but somewhere in between. Everything was washed in grey tones that sucked the life out of everything around her. The once-beautiful dogwood and birch trees lining the drive were bare and skeletal, and the rolling lawns were hard-baked earth. The windows of the manor house yawned back at her, empty, silent witnesses to the desolation around her. The buildings were untouched, but it was as if the land itself had died.

"This is bullshit," she muttered to herself. A weak breeze stirred the hem of her short, white negligee against the backs of her thighs and she ran her fingers back through her dishevelled hair distractedly.

She had been trying to bend her gift toward searching out the scattered remnants of the Wild Hunt, but every time she laid down and tried, this is what she found. It was a waste of time.

"What's bullshit?" A voice whispered out of thin air.

Sera whirled around.

Nothing.

She tested the air carefully, feeling with her dream sense to try to learn what was out there.

Nothing.

Frustration crept in around the edges of her control. She had been the master of her dreams for years, especially once Seraphine had started helping her learn to hone and control her gift, sharpening it into a razor edge that she could wield on the other side of sleep to find her way. Now she just felt lost.

She closed her eyes and prepared her mind to pull away from the useless tableau. There would probably still be more than enough time to get some real sleep once she woke.

"That's right, run away," the voice teased again.

"Hey," she snapped back. "Shove off. This is my dream. You don't get to tell me what to do."

The nothingness didn't react.

"... and I can talk to myself if I want to," she finished indignantly when it became clear that no one was there.

"You're making a mistake."

"So are you, if you think you can take me on here. Show yourself." A hint of uneasiness bloomed in her heart. She had read about demons that wormed their way in through the connection that joined the dream world to her realm and others beyond. Seraphine had lectured endlessly about them over the years, and Sera had learned how to defend against their attacks. She worked on building up an armoured wall around her consciousness and then used her friend's lessons to tie her defenses into the lingering protection of the spells laid over her by Brother Isaiah and Sister Philomena all those years ago before her mother had murdered them.

Sera waited expectantly, unknowingly holding her breath, though it hardly mattered here.

Nothing.

"That's what I thought," she muttered.

Behind her, she heard faint crying from the manor. Sera turned again and saw row upon row of darkened windows looking back at her, concealing the secrets within, daring her to come closer. The noise was unsettling; every time she had ended up here she hadn't seen or heard anyone.

A second cry joined the first and she started jogging forward without thinking about it. Her bare feet found hidden rocks in the barren scrub that had been the front lawn, and they tore at the soles of her feet in stinging flashes as she ran faster.