Page 169 of The Seven Rings
“It goes out now.” Striding to the doors, Sonya yanked one open, shoved through. More screams chased her as she ran to her car. The Gold Room windows crashed open.
She turned with the knife, ready to use it if anything flew out at her.
“But you don’t have that much left tonight, do you?”
She put the knife in the glove box. The screams tapered off as she went back inside and hurried to the kitchen.
“I slept through it, Son. Whatever happened to him, I slept right through it.”
“We all did. I can only think whatever she did targeted him specifically.”
“Because Poole. At least she’s finally shut the hell up.”
“Agreed. Though I like knowing she was really, really pissed off. Let’s do this outside. I’m betting he could use the air, and so could the pets.”
They left the back doors open to the night, set tea out on the deck, and a bottle of whiskey.
When they finally came down, Owen looked steadier, his color back. But his eyes looked haunted.
“Sorry, needed a shower. She was all over me. The smell of her all over me.”
He shook his head when Cleo held out a glass with two fingers of whiskey.
“Better stick with that.” He gestured toward the tea when he sat. “Where’s the knife?”
“I locked it in my glove box. It shouldn’t be in the house. It’s the one she used to kill Astrid.”
“Of course it is.” Owen pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Of course it is.”
“Drink some tea.” Cleo rubbed his shoulders before she sat. “Take your time. Tell us when you’re ready.”
Tea wasn’t something he’d choose to drink, but despite all the heaving, his guts still felt cold. So he picked it up, drank. Since it soothed his raw throat, and all the way down, he drank again.
“I woke up, just bang, awake. I checked the time, and it’s—what? Around one-thirty, something like. It’s blurry. Then in my head, my name. Over and over. I felt something.”
He looked at Sonya. “Not like what you describe with the mirror, but something pushing me to get up, check it out, right?”
“You didn’t wake me.”
“Didn’t even think about it,” he said to Cleo. “Probably wouldn’t have anyway, because, at first, it was more like, what the hell? I went out in the hall, and maybe I thought about getting Trey, but I just didn’t. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, I knew it, but it was like that. Not really real.”
He stared at the tea, trying to bring it back, but it kept going in and out, in and out.
“I know I started up to the third floor, and then it just isn’t clear. Fucking brain fog,” he muttered, and rubbed at his forehead.
“There was actual fog,” Sonya said. “It was thinning, dissolving, but there was a kind of mist on the stairs and up.”
“That was real? Because it felt like that. Like pushing my way through a wall of fog. And the smell… It had me by the balls. Jones was there.”
He looked down to where Jones sat beside his chair like a sentry. “Part of me knew that, but… It just didn’t matter. I had to keep going.”
Closing his eyes, he tried to see it.
“I think the door was open. Her door. I could hear her, I could smell her. Jesus fuck.”
He put his head in his hands.
“I wanted her. Like I wanted to breathe. More. Then I was in there with her. I don’t remember going in, but I was in there. And… there was part of me, not a whole lot, but part, that knew what she was. But the rest? The rest just wanted her. I don’t remember what she said, not at first, or what I said, because it was all just feeling, needing.”
