LITMIR.BIZ

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      Dedicated with deep appreciation

      to Katherine Ware Wolniewicz.

      Thanks for all you do!

       Prologue

       Illusion and Truth

      Mark Valiente slowly became aware of himself, as if he were emerging from a trance where he had forgotten all movement and sense of place. He heard music, the volume slowly rising in his head. It was beautiful music—harps and violins, guitars and an organ playing while a drum kept the beat. He recognized songs, popular and classical, being performed as if for an audience.

      Mist seemed to clear around him, and he realized he was in a church. It was beautiful, old, designed in the Gothic style, with elegant stained-glass windows. As he walked in, he saw that it was crowded with people. The men were dressed in suits, and the women were beautiful in dresses of what he thought of as spring colors, white and pastels, as well as hats and heels. Their heads turned, and they all smiled and looked benignly at him.

      He walked down the aisle. Dead ahead, he saw that Brodie McKay was there, near the altar, grinning sheepishly and watching him as if Mark were about to do something that would change the world. The place, the people, the music, the very vibe…everything was absolutely beautiful, filled with light and promise. Colors seemed to spill through the stained-glass windows and paint the church, the red velvet runner, and everything and everyone around him, in a flow of bright and gentle tones. He glanced to his side, and he didn’t see the people in the pews. Instead he saw a rather pale reflection of himself in one of the windows—which, of course, with the light streaming through, wasn’t really possible. But there he was. Dressed in a charcoal-gray, somewhatold-fashioned tux, red vest with a white shirt beneath. His tawny hair was neatly clipped and his face shaved. He almost smiled, thankful that he had cleaned up well for the event.

      The event…

      It was a wedding. His wedding. He would walk through the church and greet the crowd, and take his place next to Brodie, who was certainly his best man.

      And then she would walk down the aisle.

      Yes, he was waiting for her. He felt as if he were trembling; he had fallen in love. She was beautiful, and he dreamed of lying beside her naked, feeling the softness of her skin and the desire she awakened in him. And the way he felt when they’d made love and when he awoke to see her eyes. He was going to marry her…and she was the dream that had filled his soul. This moment, this marriage, would be consummate magic, an affirmation of all that lay between them.

      He knew that he loved her.

      He just…

      …didn’t know her name. Didn’t even know who she was.

      Somewhere in the back of his mind he mocked himself for the daydream.

      He wasn’t even dating anyone in particular.

      And yet…

      He could feel this; it wasn’t just a vision in his mind’s eye. It seemed to be something that was real to all his senses and in his soul.

      Somehow he knew that they had chosen music from Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet for that moment when she would walk down the aisle.

      But even as he moved forward, the light from the windows began to change. What had been bright now turned to dark, swirling purple and shades of gray. What had seemed like a glow of happiness and expectation filling the church became fear and dread. He saw the people around him, saw the smiles fade and the horror creep onto their faces… .

      And then those people evaporated. Brodie was gone. The music was strident and off-key, quieting to silence as the shadow colors merged to near-total darkness, leaving odd shapes and illusions to creep and crawl in the midst of a gray miasma.

      He was still in the church. The only color that remained was the red runner beneath his feet. Before him, he saw something on the altar. Something in a shimmering mist of crystals and pearls and white.

      His bride.

      He felt his limbs grow heavy with fear and denial. He tried to run, but the fog was like sludge, and he couldn’t reach her quickly enough. She was lying upon the altar, her face alabaster and her hair gold, flowing beneath her head and shoulders and falling in curls as if on a white pedestal at a wake.

      Her eyes were closed and she lay in beauty, as if sleeping.

      But she wasn’t sleeping.

      A red ribbon seemed to adorn her neck, but it wasn’t an accessory.

      And it wasn’t a ribbon.

      It was a line of blood that streamed from her throat to the floor, and then ran and created the very runner beneath his feet.

      He screamed, but his scream was silent, no matter how hard he tried to make it into sound. He fought the mist And shadow mire that held him back, and he tried to run to her, but he kept slipping in the blood. Her blood. And the shadow creatures seemed to be holding on to him, throwing their heavy weight against him, keeping him from moving forward. She was dead, or dying, and he couldn’t reach her… .

      “Mark!” The hushed sound of his name was like an off button for the scene unfolding in his mind.

      He started as someone poked his arm.

      He blinked. It had been so real, that…well, vision was the only word he could think of.

      “Let’s go.” That was Brodie speaking.

      Time, Mark knew, was a deceptive concept. That vision had seemed to go on forever, but, he realized now, only split seconds had passed in which he had either dozed

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