Shades of winter by Linda Fallon

Author:Linda Fallon [Fallon, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Historical
ISBN: 9780821774328
Publisher: New York : Kensington Pub., c2003.
Published: 2003-03-31T08:00:00+00:00

Ten

The swinging of the door had snuffed out the candle O’Hara had been carrying, and left the room they’d just entered completely dark. All Daisy could see was the outline of the uncovered window. Hysteria bubbled up in her throat and she let it loose. Again.

“Stop screaming,” O’Hara said in a low voice as he tugged at the closed door.

“I don’t think I can,” she admitted.

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. She still couldn’t see much, but the little bit of moonlight that broke through the window allowed her to make out O’Hara’s outline as he continued to pull on the door.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” Daisy whispered. “It’s Scrydan, holding the door closed.”

“Yes,” O’Hara answered. “And I think I heard someone fall down the stairs. It was difficult to tell, with all the screaming going on.”

Daisy lifted her chin bravely. “There’s no need to be testy.”

He quit fighting the door and turned to her. She saw his form, but not his face. “There is every need to be testy,” he said softly. “We should have settled for the few candles we have left and firelight, to pass the night. That would have been sufficient.”

“I know, but the lobby is so dark, without those extra candles …” She’d much rather be in the dark lobby than here. Hadn’t Lionel warned everyone to avoid the third floor? And yet here she was, imprisoned in a small hotel room with no one to protect her but O’Hara.

Someone … something … in the corner of the room giggled. Daisy held her breath. The soft giggle came again, and Daisy was frozen to the spot.

O’Hara walked past Daisy, toward the corner. “Stay here,” he whispered as he walked past.

It was an unnecessary instruction. Where did he think she was going to go?

No moonlight shone in the corners of the room, but O’Hara walked forward without hesitation. When he was close enough, he laid his hand on the wall. The soft, indistinct giggle turned into words so low Daisy had no hope of deciphering them. But they were words. They were words that crept under her skin and grabbed hold of her bones and shimmied.

“Moreen,” O’Hara said in a low voice. “You are Moreen, are you not?”

The answer was a hissing sound. A yes, perhaps?

“Moreen,” O’Hara continued, “you’re dead. You don’t belong here anymore.”

More sharp twittering followed, and even though Daisy couldn’t tell what Moreen said, she suspected it was not pleasant.

“You’re not going to kill anyone,” O’Hara said calmly. “You can’t. You have no body with which to harm us. All you can do is scare a sweet lady who has done you no harm.” He turned his head to look toward Daisy. She couldn’t tell, in the dark, if he was smiling or not. “Don’t let her scare you,” he added in a lower voice. “Don’t let anything that happens here scare you. It’s what he wants.”

Scrydan. He was trying to use the souls he’d trapped here to frighten them all, to produce a tangible fear he could feed on.

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