Chapter 21
T he helpers shoved Nick into the humid darkness of the barn, and it sounded as if they slammed bolts over the doors. They hadn’t bothered to remove his restraints. He staggered, wove drunkenly, and with a rattle of chains, finally collapsed onto what felt like a pile of hay.
The barn wasn’t entirely dark. In his peripheral vision, he sensed a window above the doorway, high and out of reach. A shaft of gray afternoon light came through the gap and brightened a section of the floor nearby.
Fatigue got the best of him; he didn’t understand why he was tired, but it was impossible to resist, his eyelids sliding shut almost automatically. He faded into sleep . . .
He dreamed of Grandpa Lee. They were riding in the pickup truck, just the two of them, and his grandfather was driving.
They were rolling down a wide dirt lane, the sun at their backs. The dilapidated plantation mansion loomed directly ahead of them.
“Welcome to Westbrook,” Grandpa Lee said. He winked. “It’s not much to look at during the day, son, but at night . . .” He whistled and shook his head. “It’s a sight to behold.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place before?” Nick asked.
“It wasn’t your time,” Grandpa Lee said. “I wasn’t sure you wanted to take on the duties, anyway. You never come around to see me.”
“What duties?”
“I’m the Caretaker, son,” Grandpa Lee said. “This ground is cursed with old magic, but someone’s gotta take the weight.”
Nick didn’t understand his grandfather’s remarks, and in the fluidly shifting nature of dreams, he was suddenly somewhere else. In a barn, at dusk. He was naked, and felt hay bristling at his back.
Amiya was on top of him, nude like he was, and she was riding him with an enthusiasm that bordered on desperation.
A “W” was branded on her cheek, like a tribal scar.
“We don’t have much time—gotta make every second count,” she whispered.
She raised her arms above her head, her breasts hanging in his face like sweet melons, and he saw that shackles bound her wrists. He reached up to caress her breasts. Chains linked his wrists, too.
“I love you, babe,” he said, thrusting into her.
The scene dissolved. He was still in the barn, but on his feet. Amiya was gone. He was alone.
Well, perhaps not completely alone.
The barn door had been opened. Full dark waited outside. He heard the clop-clop-clop of a horse’s hooves striking dirt, the sound drawing closer to the doorway.
He wanted to run and hide, but his hands had been chained to a thick wooden post. He pulled against it, and the metal bands bit into his wrists, didn’t let go.
The horse arrived at the doorway. Its rider sat atop, his face cloaked in darkness, but Nick had an impression of immense size and power.
Raw terror came over Nick like a tight hood.
“It’s your time,” the Overseer said, and his voice was in Nick’s head, echoing in Nick’s blood.
The Overseer dismounted and approached the doorway, moving like a shadow. In one gigantic, gloved hand, he held a whip. The whip writhed across the ground like a living serpent, and Nick saw, incredibly, that it had a hinged mouth embedded at the tip, and that mouth was full of razor-sharp fangs.
In his other hand, he held a branding iron that glowed like the sun.
“You will never leave . . .”
Nick came awake with a cry bursting from his parched throat.
Panting, he looked around, blinking. While asleep, he had rolled onto his back. He saw dusty rafters far above, a wood ceiling, and a square of gray light.
He was still in the barn.
He shifted, the shackles clanking with his movement.
He was still restrained, too.
“No,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. He shook his head. “No, no, no.”
He’d wanted to believe it had all been a dream, that he would awake in his home in Buckhead, perhaps dozing away the afternoon on his plush sofa, and he would get up and text Amiya and she would say she was on her way, and couldn’t wait to see him.
He screamed. The sound came out as a hoarse, ragged shout.
He was dehydrated. His tongue felt like sandpaper, and his lips burned.
Groaning, he sat up. His hands tingled, and he wriggled his fingers to restore his blood circulation.
He had to find some water, somewhere.
He had to get out of here, take off these shackles, find Amiya and Grandpa Lee, return to civilization, and report what was going on.
The possibility of selling this property, which as early as this morning had seemed within his grasp, now felt like a pipe dream, as unlikely as him winning a multi-state lottery jackpot. No one would ever want this land once the truth broke out.
This ground is cursed with old magic . . .
The figment from his dream spun through his thoughts like a scrap of windblown paper. Was it something cooked up by his fear-blasted subconscious mind? Or a hint of a deeper truth?
He struggled to his feet, needing to take his time lest the shackles throw him off balance. His joints ached and crackled.
The humid air was still. The smells of hay and sweetly decaying wood permeated his nostrils. A lone fly orbited his head.
The afternoon light sifting through the window relieved some of the shadows in the chamber.
He was alone in the barn. A rickety wooden ladder led to a loft area, but the window, which had no glass, was far out of reach above the doorway.
Scattered bits of straw covered sections of the floor.
The back wall was solid wood, leaving him with only the front door as a possible exit route.
A steel pail stood beside the doorway. He shuffled toward it, his chains clinking.
The bucket was half full of cool water. Carefully, he lifted it off the floor, levered the cold rim against his lips, and sipped.
He didn’t know how long the water had been standing in that pail, but it tasted great.
He drank deeply, until his throat was lubricated and the coolness had spread throughout his limbs.
As he bent to place it back on the floor, he inadvertently tipped it over.
The remaining water spilled across the dirt.
“Dammit.”
He set the bucket upright but it was a pointless effort. He could hope only that the long drink he’d enjoyed sustained him?—
—until the Overseer comes ? —
—until he found a way to get out of the barn.
The sliding barn door had a long, rusted handle. It didn’t budge, despite him pushing against it with both hands and leveraging all of his weight. He remembered seeing bolts on the exterior. They had secured it in place.
He kicked the door, out of sheer anger. It barely rattled in the frame, and for his outburst, he was rewarded by losing his balance. He dropped to his butt in the hay, the impact banging through his tailbone. He cursed, tears of pain leaking from the corners of his eyes.
It was tempting to lie back in the hay and wait this out. Eventually, someone would open the door and let him out of here, possibly this Overseer guy. Perhaps he could talk sensibly to the Overseer.
But he remembered the fear that had flashed in the bearded man’s eyes at the mention of an audience with the Overseer, remembered the ugly brands that all these people had been forced to bear. Would a man who applied a hot iron to bare flesh be willing to talk sensibly?
And where had they taken Amiya? I think you just his type , the old woman had said to her.
Nick forced himself back to his feet.
He shuffled around the perimeter of the barn. He searched for weaknesses in the walls: a loose board, a gap he could exploit. Although the barn was old and in generally poor condition, he didn’t see a way out, not without the aid of some kind of tool.
He looked up. The window was out of range. Was there anything useful in the hayloft?
He approached the ladder. A couple of rungs were missing, but enough were within his reach for him to climb. He began to ascend. It was a challenge with the shackles. He had to coordinate the movements of his hands and feet or risk tumbling back to the floor.
Straining and grunting, he finally reached the loft.
The wood creaked under his weight. The air up here near the ceiling was so thick and hot it was difficult to draw breath; it wrung fresh perspiration from his pores.
The area measured perhaps ten feet wide and eight feet long. He discovered another pile of hay, gathered together in the shape of a crude bed. A tattered, soiled pillow bleeding tufts of cotton.
Someone else was here, too.
He lifted the pillow, but underneath found only more strands of hay.
What did you think you would find, Nick? A conveniently hidden crowbar?
He laughed at the fatal absurdity of his predicament. Salty sweat rolled into his eyes, mingling with the tears that had begun to stream down his face.
Keep moving, Nick; keep looking. Or go to sleep and wake up when it’s time to get branded.
Descending the ladder was harder than climbing it, and on the way down, when he was about seven feet above the floor, he missed a rung. Luckily, he landed on his feet a few feet away from the ladder, in a bed of straw—and thought he heard something metallic shift in the thin stalks.
He bent over and searched the area, snatching away straw like a kid tearing wrapping paper off a gift.
He couldn’t believe what he found, buried at the bottom of the pile.
An old, rusted claw hammer.