PROLOGUE
| CANDLES FLICKERED IN the night-darkened room. It was very large and wide with a high ceiling and contained hardly anything except for several big storage boxes along the walls, and it had only one little window, way up near the top. Near the center of the room was an altar--which was just a large, long slab of rectangular stone. That was where the candles were. From the shadows, a woman stepped forward with another--thirteenth--candle--and approached the altar. Not only the altar, but what was stretched out on it. It was a body, clad in a long red robe and wearing a goat mask.
The woman knelt and placed the black candle at the figure's head, whispering something that would have sounded like a prayer had she not been what she was. She backed off and watched the flames flicker, while inside her mind, rage, like the flames, also flickered and grew. She drew a small college snapshot, cut from the university's newspaper, from her pocket, and looked at it. A rather pretty coed with blond hair smiled back out at her. She felt her fists tighten, nearly crushing the picture. Instead she put it back, and turned to the figure on the altar. "I've kept you here this long," she said, "and so I will until I find your slayer and bring her to justice. I know who she is! None of the others believe me but they will soon enough when I bring you back to life! Then they'll never laugh again. I'll find her for you, and then you can do whatever you want with her! And then, Master Luther--" she looked back at his lifeless form "--and then maybe you'll finally accept me." With that, she turned and slowly left. As she did, she looked again at the picture, and for the hundredth time read the name underneath. "Psyche Cooper." |
CONTINUE
OUT OF TIME
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