Chapter Three
The old hotel was haunted.
I was sure of it. Then again, I had ghosts on the brain these days.
Actually, the hotel looked haunted. There's a difference. The long entry hall consisted of an ornate marble floor, wing-back chairs, antique bureaus and elaborately-designed wallpaper. Fresh-cut flowers were everywhere, and the hotel, I felt, had a decidedly turn-of-the-century feel to it. Heck, it had a decidedly turn-of-the-millennium feel to it. As in, one thousand years ago.
Then again, I grew up in Southern California, and any building older than, say, fifty years was deemed an important historic monument.
Anyway, an old man behind an older front desk smiled at me warmly, his teeth surprisingly straight. I gave him my name. He punched it in, found my reservation, confirmed my credit card info, and told me where to find my room.
Following his directions and fumbling a bit with the key card, I soon found myself standing in an ornately decorated room, complete with a fireplace, loveseat and a massive, decorative curtain hanging just beyond the headboard. I wasn't sure what the curtain was all about, but it looked nice enough. I happened to know that this was called the Winston Room. As in Winston Churchill, who had not only stayed here but had even lived here for a brief period.
Yeah, I felt special.
I generally don't immediately unpack and hang my clothes on hangars. I'm on vacation, after all, right? Granted, an alleged research vacation, but a vacation nonetheless. And when I'm on vacation, wrinkled clothing is acceptable.
Who are you kidding? I thought. I'm here to see what the dreams are about. Plain and simple.
And then it hit me all over again, harder than ever, perhaps because I was here. I was finally here:
I had traveled halfway around the world because of a few crazy dreams.
No. Not a few crazy dreams.
Wildly incessant dreams. Persistently haunting dreams.
Sighing, I dropped my bags and did what I had been itching to do since first touching down in England. I jacked in my laptop, went on-line, and checked my email.
There were a few dozen Facebook notifications (someday I'll figure out how to stop those from blasting my emails). There was an email from a publisher in Turkey interested in buying the Turkish rights to one of my vampire books. I tried to remember if the book had been published in Turkey but for the life of me, I couldn't. I forwarded the email to my agent. He would deal with it. There was an email from an up-and-coming writer wanting to work with me on a project. I politely declined. I have more books to write than I have time.
And there was an email from my editor, Rita, asking me if I had arrived safely. I replied that I had not, that, in fact, the plane was currently spiraling out-of-control. She would be my last email ever, and did she feel privileged?
My editor liked me. I liked her, too. We had a nice working relationship, probably because I mostly stayed on deadline and she didn't edit the crap out of my books. I also made my publisher a lot of money, and that reflected positively on her, even while it reflected damn positively on my bank account. Making lots of money smooths a lot of wrinkles.
With the advent of the persistent dreams, something interesting started happening to me creatively. I started losing my taste for mystery novels. In particular, for death and destruction. So much so that it affected my writing output and I had to stop work on my ghost thriller.
Rita my editor hadn't been pleased. Especially when I informed her that I was thinking of writing a different kind of book, one that featured a decidedly lower body count. Now, the book idea had been brewing since the dreams began plaguing me. No surprise there. Any writer who suddenly starts dreaming of Christ, King Arthur and the Holy Grail is bound to start thinking about plot, structure, and theme.
Yeah, I was thinking about writing a King Arthur novel.
"King Arthur?" said Rita. I noted the mild hysteria in her voice.
"But not just any King Arthur book," I said. "A spiritual King Arthur book."
"Spiritual?"
"Yes," I answered. "A sort of spiritual adventure."
"What, exactly, do you mean by spiritual adventure?" she asked. She enunciated each word slowly and carefully.
"You know, something in the tradition of The Alchemist or The Celestine Prophecy."
"Those books were flukes."
"The authors would beg to differ."
"I mean publishing flukes. It's like hitting the lottery."
"I'm not looking to hit the lottery," I said. "I'm looking to write something that heals, rather than hurts."
Rita snorted. I didn't blame her. This was a lot to absorb, especially coming from a guy who's last book featured a machete-killing high school teacher and his cult of honor student followers.
"Your audience will never go for it," she said. "They want murder mysteries, James. They want a thriller. They don't want God on Harley, or whatever the hell you're thinking of writing about."
"The Holy Grail."
"Oh, Lord."
"Deep breaths, Rita."
"Will you at least consider putting some sort of murder mystery in it?" she asked, nearly pleading.
"I'll see what I can do."
"Please, James. One corpse."
"Probably not."
"Oh, sweet Jesus...."
"Keep breathing, Rita."
And it had gone on like that for some time: her begging for bodies and hyperventilating and me holding my ground. She finally hung up when I promised to at least add some blood.
But before she hung up she asked, "Any chance King Arthur can be a vampire?"
"No."
"Damn."
Now in the hotel room, I finished my email to Rita by telling her that the plane had miraculously pulled out of its dive and that, after this near-death experience, I had had a vision of me writing historical romance novels. I typed a winkie face and could almost see her fainting. Poor thing.
I dashed off a few more emails, snapped shut my laptop and took a brief nap.
Big surprise, I dreamed of Christ hanging from the cross, a bloody goblet, and, just to mix things up a little, a surging underground river. I woke up and checked the time on my cell phone. I had been asleep for just under twenty minutes.
A lot of dreaming for just twenty minutes.
Surprisingly rested, I pocketed the hotel room key and headed down to the dining room for some dinner.
A surging river?
Lord help me.
Chapter Four
The dining room was small but elegant.
I was seated next to a window that looked out upon the western gardens. A young waiter dressed smartly in a long-sleeved shirt and apron gave me a leather-bound menu. He asked if I wanted a drink and, despite making a concerted effort not to drink lately, I decided that a locally brewed ale couldn't hurt.
Just one, I reminded myself.
I don't drink for a number of reasons but top on the list is that I tend to get belligerent when I consume alcohol. I think everyone is a jerk and everyone needs to be put in their place. Except I'm really not a fighter and I tend to get my ass kicked by just about everyone.
Anyway, the waiter returned with a frothing mug of brown ale (think Newcastle). Some of the froth bubbled over his hairy knuckles, but he didn't seem to mind, although I did. The hairy knuckles, that is. I next ordered a broccoli quiche. He asked if I wanted chicken with that, and I said no. He wanted to be sure he'd heard me right and I mentioned that I was a vegetarian. He looked at me strangely, nodded uncomfortably, smiled weakly, and headed off, absently sucking his knuckles.
I sipped my foaming beer, no doubt sporting an equally foaming mustache. Attractive. A man with a wife a few tables away belched loudly. Asshole. Someone should teach him some manners.
Down boy.
As this was mid-June, the late evening sun still had a lot of warmth left in it. The gardens beyond the window were immaculate and perfect with flowers and plants that I should know the names of but didn't. Still, I appreciated their beauty.
The reality of my situation struck me again: Here I was in England, alone, because of a dream. A dream.
A persistent dream, granted. Still, a dream.
I must be crazy, right?
Right?
And just as I was doubting my sanity - heck, just as I was wondering if I was actually dreaming this whole damn trip - a strikingly beautiful woman was shown to the table next to mine.
Oh?
As she sat, she removed a Kindle ebook reader and a writing journal from her oversized purse. She set the Kindle off to one side, opened the journal and unhooked a plastic, leopard-print pen.
Well, well, well....
Was she a writer? Could I possibly be so lucky?
As I watched her, drinking my beer and doing my best to ignore the too-loud man behind me, I decided that she had a most perfect nose. It was small, but not too small. Straight, but not too straight. Upturned, but not too upturned. She also had lovely, rounded cheekbones that reflected the dining room light. Her black hair was ruler straight, just the way I liked it, and she wore a snug, sleeveless sweater that took my breath away with each breath she herself took. Oh, and she had a cute little mole on her left forearm.
God, I needed to get a life.
As the sky beyond darkened, the dining room filled with patrons. Overflowing beer mugs streamed out of the bar area. There was much clanking of glass and laughter. Too much laughter. Someone on my left was irritating the crap out of me. Seriously, did she have to laugh so loudly? Sweet Jesus, she sounded like a rabid hyena.
Easy James.
And all the while, the woman with the perfect nose and leopard-print pen wrote away. I ached to see what she was writing. I also ached to punch the douche bag waving to someone across the dining room.
She can see you, asshole. We can all see you. Sheesh.
I was getting hot. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I was halfway done with the beer and already I itched to do something about the guy belching. He'd let loose with another nauseating burp that even had some warble in it. Where the hell did he think he was, anyway? Seriously, someone needed to teach that s.o.b. a lesson....
I continued sipping from my beer. The trapezoid muscles along my neck and shoulders felt tight. I was going to blow a gasket any minute now.
I pushed my beer aside.
Enough, I thought.
I virtually inhaled the glass of water sitting on my table...and nearly wretched. It was lukewarm. Where the hell was the ice?
It was about that time my quiche arrived. I dove in. I needed to take the edge off the alcohol, which I had consumed on an empty stomach. I didn't come all the way to England only to get thrown out again.
And why did you come?
But I ignored my own question and dove into the quiche. As I ate, I noticed the beautiful, black-haired woman was still writing, and furiously. She turned a page, smoothed it out, and started anew at the top of the next. The pink tip of her tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth as she wrote. I thought it looked adorable.
When she finished the third page, I finished my quiche.
Synchronicity at its best.
She finally set her pen down just as the alcohol all but left my system and I was once again at peace with the world. The laughing, the waving, the clanking and the belching had little effect on me. That had been close. I had been moments away from getting into someone's face.
Anyway, the woman next reached inside her oversized handbag and extracted a small, plastic container. She uncapped the container and brought it to her lips and inhaled deeply from it. She held her breath for a few seconds, then exhaled. She replaced the cap and returned the container to her purse.
Medicine? Did she have asthma? I didn't know, but I did know one thing: I wanted to talk to her.
Then go talk with her, I thought. Ask her about her writing. Mention you're a writer, too. Couldn't be easier. Heck, just say something to her, anything.
But at the prospect of talking to her, complete with the many potentially humiliating outcomes, I broke out in a cold sweat. Talking to random women just wasn't my thing. Especially gorgeous random woman.
I took a deep breath, then reached over and finished off the last of the beer, hoping it was just enough alcohol to give me liquid courage but not so much that I might dive across someone's table at the smallest sneeze.
You can do this, James.
But I just sat there with the setting sun. I couldn't do it. She was too pretty. She was too perfect. I was far from perfect. I was so damned flawed.
I pushed aside my beer mug in shame and decided to pack it in for the night. Defeated, I left some pounds on the dining table, hoping it was enough, and as I walked past her, I couldn't help but glance down at her open notebook.
And nearly tripped.
Covering the page was a single word repeated over and over. A word I was quite familiar with. After all, it was my name.
James.
And it was written perhaps a hundred times. Perhaps many hundreds of times. In fact, she was writing it again now, over and over, her hand flowing quickly across the page, the pen a blur:
James. James. James. James...
I made a small, squeaky noise. A noise I couldn't control. The woman's head snapped up and I was moving so quickly that I nearly slammed into another waiter. I apologized, embarrassed. And as I left the dining room, my face red, I was certain her eyes followed me all the way out.
Or was that just wishful thinking?
