The Dark Gate. Pamela Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ miles too big for her as if she, and not they, had gone through the dryer and shrunk. Her skin was a deep tan in color, her head shiny and bald like a chemo patient’s.

      Larsen’s heart twisted with sympathy and she took a step toward her. “Hi, there. May I bring you a piece of cake?”

      The girl started and turned to Larsen with a guilty, wide-eyed gaze. “I…nay, m’lady.” The words stumbled out in a charmingly accented rush. “I should not have…nay.”

      “It’s all right,” Larsen assured her. “There’s a piece for me and I really don’t want it. I’d be happy to bring it to you.”

      The girl cocked her head as if pondering Larsen’s offer…or Larsen herself. The girl’s eyes, an amazing shade of violet, looked suddenly older than her years.

      “My thanks,” she said shyly. “But I cannot.” Then she turned and fled into the kitchen.

      Larsen sighed, sorry she’d chased the girl away. She turned back toward the festivities, but as she took a sip of the too sweet punch, her vision suddenly went black.

      Pain shot through her head and she grabbed for the wall, cool punch splashing her bare legs even as her sight returned. Except…she wasn’t seeing with her eyes.

      She could feel the hair on her arms leap upright, her heart beginning to pound with a terrible dread. For the first time in fifteen years she was about to watch someone die.

      The scene unfolded in front of her—the same, yet altered. Though still in the fellowship hall, she watched from above now, as if she’d been plastered to the ceiling. Time had lurched forward. The cake was gone, the bride and groom stood near the door, ready to leave. Women gathered around the bride, preparing to catch the bouquet.

      Mouths moved, shoulders shook with laughter, but Larsen heard none of it—like watching a silent movie. Then suddenly everyone went still, their expressions sliding off their faces, leaving them looking like mannequins…or wax figures.

      No, not everyone. A man, the strangest man she’d ever seen, appeared to be talking. He was dressed like something out of a medieval play. His tunic was a shimmering forest-green, his leggings brown with metallic gold flecks that caught the light. But the strangest things about him were his long, lank hair and his skin—both a matching, startling white.

      As she watched, he motioned to one of the bridesmaids. The plump young woman left the throng of women and went to him, her dark ringlets brushing the shoulders of her cobalt gown. When she reached him, she turned her back to him, pulled up her tea-length skirt to her waist, and bent over. The odd-looking man started to untie his leggings.

      Shocked realization jolted her. Larsen opened her mouth to yell at him, but nothing came out. As she watched in helpless frustration, two people strode angrily into the premonition—a man in a suit and a woman in the same apple-green sheath dress Larsen wore even now.

      It was her! She was watching herself.

      The albino in the tunic stared at the two of them with surprise, even as he pulled his distended penis from his leggings. He scowled, then flicked his free hand. Like an army of well-dressed zombies, the wedding guests surrounded the pair and attacked. Without hesitation. Without mercy.

      With horror, Larsen watched her other self crash to the bare floor and disappear beneath a barrage of kicking, stomping feet, her apple-green dress turning a sickly, purplish bloodstained brown.

      The attack ended as suddenly as it began. Like puppets jerked upright by a dozen sets of strings, the guests stood at attention, blank-faced and splattered with gore. At their feet lay Larsen’s and the unknown man’s mutilated remains.

      They’d killed her. The blood roared in her ears.

      He’d killed her. The pale, evil puppet master who’d controlled the others.

      His thin face wore an expression of fevered satisfaction as he thrust his hips against the bridesmaid, taking her from behind. White hair whipped around his head as if a small whirlwind attacked him alone.

      He suddenly looked up at the point from where Larsen watched the premonition, like an actor staring directly into the camera.

      With a frown, he looked at her body and then back at her.

      He saw her. The hair rose at the back of her neck and she mentally jerked back. He saw her watching him. Eyes narrowed with a malevolent light, he leveled his index finger at her menacingly, then shook his head and the vision was gone.

      “Miss, are you okay? Miss!”

      Larsen blinked, pulse pounding. The room swam back into view, exactly as it had been before, the wedding festivities still in full swing, the guests eating cake. A woman she didn’t know was pushing her onto a chair.

      “Sit. I’ll get you some water.”

      “No.” Terror tore at her lungs. Pain exploded in her head. He’d killed her.

      “I—I’m not feeling well.” Her stomach rolled and clenched, and she lurched to her feet. She was going to be sick. “I’ve got to go.”

      Larsen stumbled from the room and pushed through the outer door to the empty playground at the back of the church. She clutched at the rough brick wall and vomited onto the dirt.

      He’d killed her. And she’d seen it. She’d seen it.

      Dear God, her death visions were back. Larsen sagged against the wall and swiped a trembling hand across her mouth. Not again. She squeezed her eyes closed. Not again.

      She pushed herself away from the wall and started across the parched yard on legs that suddenly felt too long for her body. The curse that haunted her life had lain dormant for more than fifteen years. She’d thought the nightmare was over. Every night she prayed her devil’s sight would never return. Now it was back. People were going to die.

      She was going to die.

      Chapter 2

      Jack felt like a lovesick teenager, though he was acting more like a stalker as he sat on a bench under a large oak across the street from the All Saints Church and waited for Larsen Vale to emerge from the wedding reception.

      He had to see her again.

      He had to know if she’d really quieted the voices or if the gut-kick reaction he’d gotten from touching her had somehow short-circuited his brain so much that he simply hadn’t heard them for a moment. And if she really could quiet his head? Then he had to convince her to stay by his side for the rest of his life. That simple. That impossible.

      He leaned back against the uneven bench slats and stretched his legs out in front of him as the Monday afternoon traffic passed under a hazy summer sky. On the sidewalk in front of him, tourists walked by with their guidebooks and fanny packs.

      Sweat rolled down his scalp as the ever-present voices conspired to further destroy his sanity. As a kid he’d barely noticed the noise, the voices little more than static in the background of his thoughts. Not until he was in high school did the sound escalate and distinguish itself as a mob of individual, though unintelligible, voices. But even that he’d learned to deal with until these past couple of weeks, when they’d begun to grow louder, more numerous, more СКАЧАТЬ