Kelly awoke from the nightmare bathed in perspiration. She let out a moan of terror and sat up, looking around her, trying to convince herself that what she had experienced had been the work of her imagination.
The room was silent.
Blake slept soundly beside her, his chest rising and falling slowly.
She let out a long, almost painful breath and ran her hands through her sweat-soaked hair.
As she did so she became aware of a slight tingling in her hands and feet so she pulled the sheet back and glanced down.
Kelly stifled a scream.
On both her wrists and ankles, the flesh was puffy and swollen. Ugly, vivid red welts disfigured the skin.
They were very much like rope burns.
The sound of the alarm shattered the silence and shocked Blake from his slumber. He shot out a hand and silenced the insistent buzzing before lying back for a moment to rub his eyes. He took two or three deep breaths and blinked at the ceiling before easing himself slowly out of bed.
Beside him, Kelly did not stir.
The writer gathered up some clothes and crept out of the room in an effort not to wake her. He paused once more when he reached the bedroom door, satisfied that Kelly had not been disturbed.
He showered and dressed, returning to the bedroom once more to retrieve the Magnum. He then made his way downstairs where he slipped the revolver into his attache case and clipped it shut.
Blake ate a light breakfast then he got to his feet and, case in hand, headed out to the waiting XJS.
The drive to Oxford should take him a couple of hours.
Kelly watched from the bedroom window as Blake climbed into the Jag and started the engine.
She remained hidden in case he looked round but she need not have worried. The sleek vehicle burst into life and the writer guided it out onto the road.
Kelly had heard the alarm clock earlier but had lain awake, eyes still closed, while he had slipped away. She had feigned sleep, aware of his presence in the room. She had heard him moving about downstairs and then, finally, she’d listened as he had walked out to the car. Only at that point had she clambered, naked, out of bed and crossed to the window to watch him leave. Now she returned to the bed and sat down on the edge.
First she inspected her ankles, then her wrists They were unmarked.
She told herself that she should have woken Blake immediately after she’d had the nightmare but it had frightened her so much that she had decided to remain silent. Even now, in the light of day, she could not find the courage to Speak to him about it. That was why she had chosen to give him the impression she was still sleeping when he left.
The dream had been so vivid. Too vivid. Parts of it still burned brightly in her mind like a brand. Ugly and unwanted.
Kelly dressed and made her way downstairs where she found a note propped up on the kitchen table.
SEE YOU LATER, SLEEPYHEAD. It was signed with Blake’s sweeping signature.
She smiled, folded up the note and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. As she waited for the kettle to boil she put two pieces of bread in the toaster and propped herself against the draining board, waiting.
Should she tell Blake about the dream when he returned? She ran a hand through her hair and decided that she shouldn’t. After all, it had been only a dream, hadn’t it?
She looked at her wrists and remembered the rope burns which she’d seen the
previous night.
Kelly sighed. She wasn’t even sure she had seen them.
The toast popped up and she buttered the slices, chewing thoughtfully.
!
She heard a noise from the front of the house and wandered through the sitting room in time to see the postman retreating back up the path. Kelly walked through into the hall and picked up the mail he’d pushed through. As she straightened up she glanced across at the door which led to Blake’s underground workroom.
The key was in the lock.
Kelly placed the mail on a nearby table and wandered across to the cellar door. She turned the handle and found that the door was unlocked anyway. She pushed it, reaching for the light switches inside. Kelly slapped them on and the cellar was bathed in the cold glow of fluorescents.
Apart from the steps which led down to the work area itself, the floor had been carpeted. She scurried down the stairs, the coldness of the concrete on her bare feet giving her added speed. Finally she stood at the bottom, glad of the
warmth from the carpet. The cellar was large, stretching away from her in all four directions. A huge wooden desk occupied central position and she noticed that there was a typewriter on it. A small waste bin, overflowing with scraps of balled up paper stood nearby. There was a telephone too. The entire cellar had been decorated in white; it positively gleamed and, as she moved around, Kelly detected the scent of an air freshener. Bookcases lined two walls, huge, dark wood creations creaking with hundreds of volumes but, unlike those which Blake displayed on his shelves upstairs in the sitting room, these books were more in the manner of research material. A great many were bound in leather and, as Kelly drew closer, she realized that most were very old.
She reached up and took one.
The gold leaf title was cracked and barely readable so she opened the book and scanned the tit\e page: inside the Mind, She checked the publication date and saw that it was 1921. Replacing it she found another, this one even older: Psychiatry and the Unknown. It was dated 1906.
No wonder Blake kept these books hidden away, Kelly thought, scanning more titles. They must be worth a fortune. She ran her index finger along the shelf, mouthing each title silently as she went.
She came to a shelf which consisted entirely of ring binders, each one labelled on the spine. She recognised Blake’s writing on the labels.
‘Dreams,’ she read on the first and took it down, flipping through quickly.
Some of the pages were typed, others hand-written. Here and there she spotted a photograph. There was one of Blake’s house and, beside it, a rough drawing of the same building. It was almost childlike in its simplicity, drawn, as it was, with a thick pencil. However, the similarity was unmistakable. Kelly replaced the file and reached for another.
‘Hypnosis,’ she murmured.
There was a photo of Mathias inside.
Kelly turned the page and found one of Blake himself but apparently he was sleeping. It must, she reasoned, have been taken with an automatic timer. She was puzzled as to why he should have taken such a shot though. Kelly scanned what
was written beneath the photo but saw only a date. The photo, it seemed, had been taken over a year ago. She wondered if Blake had, perhaps, asked someone else to take it but she still couldn’t understand why he would need such a photograph.
She reached for another file marked ‘Astral Projection’ and skimmed through that.
There were more photos.
Of Mathias. Of Blake himself.
Of Toni Landers.
She turned a page.
There was a newspaper clipping which featured Roger Carr.
Kelly swallowed hard and perched on the edge of the desk as she read one of the typewritten sheets in the file.
‘December 6th,” she read, keeping her voice low, as if she were in a library.
‘The Astral body is a separate entity. I am sure of that now. From what I have observed and read, but, more importantly, from experimentation upon myself, I know that it can be summoned in tangible form. By a long and tortuous process I have actually managed to separate my Astral body from my physical body at will. To unlock the part of the mind previously unexplored by scientists and psychologists. I now feel confident enough to use this process on others.’
Kelly swallowed hard and read on:
‘In order to confirm that tangible Astral projection is possible, I conducted the following test. While in a self-induced trance, I inflicted injury upon my own Astral body and discovered that this injury was subsequently manifested on my physical body.’