Page 577 of Flirting with Darkness

Why would anyone go to so much trouble?

The room wasn’t exactly easy to access.

His eyes returned to that circle in the center, the obvious focal point of the cave.

A stone archway stood in the exact center, directly under the highest part of the steep cavern’s ceiling. Not far from that arch, a stone pedestal had been left, with a thick book open on the flat part on top, roughly at reading height if one were to stand in front of it.

A lectern.

Unlit candles surrounded each of the arch’s stone pillars.

More of those thick white candles surrounded the base of the pedestal.

From the look of all of it, and the lack of dust, all of it had been used recently.

Then Ghost saw it.

What he had somehow missed when he first stared at the circle in the center of the room. As he continued to approach, he realized his view had been partially blocked by the stone legs of the arch, which threw the object in shadow. But now, as Ghost reached the stone lectern with its black, leather-bound book, he realized something else stood directly between the lectern and the opening in the archway.

It was a clock.

It had a stand unlike any he’d ever seen, a narrow spire with a thick base that rested on the rock with small feet. He couldn’t discern exactly how the clock was attached to it.

The clock’s face glowed a pale blue.

Now that Ghost stood directly in front of it, he found himself mesmerized by that glow. It looked like it had been made of moonstone and starlight. The more practical side of his mind tried to puzzle that light out. He could not discern the source of that blue glow. He could not see anything else in the room reflecting it, not even the polished stone.

The numbers covering the clock’s glowing blue face were not numbers at all, but strange, elongated symbols he couldn’t read. Whatever they meant, they were set roughly in the same places as the numbers on a regular clock.

It looked exactly like the object depicted on the card he’d found on the dining car table.

The hand-painted card that remained in his overcoat upstairs.

Something about looking at it hushed his mind.

Something about it positively pulsed with unnatural power.

As Ghost stood there, everything in the room grew preternaturally silent. Something about the arrangement felt more and more like an altar, perhaps even a type of church. The enormous book, the glowing blue clock face, the stone archway, the flickering of the reflecting, diamond-like stones in the ceiling… the candles left everywhere.

It definitely had meaning.

Ghost couldn’t have put a name to the thing he felt, not then.

All he knew was, his skin prickled.

The hairs of his arms and the back of his neck rose. His body’s muscles clenched, as they did when he sensed a fight might be about to start.

His hand gripped the ivory cane he’d somehow managed to keep with him all that time.

He held the handle tightly, his heart thudding louder in his chest.

He fought with what to do.

He could just leave here. Forget he saw all of it.

But the woman had given him that card for a reason.

She had told him to stop his father for a reason.

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