if he had left behind the deepest level of his own private Hell, only to have entered a deeper one here.
CHAPTER 12
Still standing inside his chamber door, Quinn decided he needed to know his exact location before making up his mind whether to stay or leave. If he stayed, and his situation became truly dangerous, knowing how far he was from his vehicle, and having a map that showed him how to get there, could be vital information.
He went to his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and pulled out an object about the size of an e-book reader. His most valuable tool in tracking down legends, it was a powerful state-of-the-art GPS unit that had kept him on track in the deepest wilderness. He turned it on and waited for the default map that would show him exactly where he was.
Searching for satellites….
It was a message he was used to getting in heavily wooded areas. A few minutes later he got a message he’d never gotten, even in the remotest locations:
Cannot find satellites….
It didn’t make sense. He’d been in woods as dense as these and never had a problem. Maybe the thunderstorm was interfering with the signal. All that lightning, especially around the castle.… Then he remembered:
Markov’s electromagnetic barrier.
That had to be it. He’d talk to Markov about it later. For now all he could do was extrapolate from what he knew to make a rough guess at where he was.
Markov’s driver had picked him up in the woods a few miles from the small Vermont village of Riverdale, fifteen miles south of the Canadian border. The trip from there to the castle had taken a little over two hours. In a horse-drawn carriage, maneuvering through dense woods, five miles an hour was probably the best they could have done. That would put them about five miles from the Canadian border, more or less. He’d not felt any severe deviations from straight ahead, but they could easily have angled west and gone deeper into Vermont, or east into New Hampshire. Either way, this was all sparsely populated wilderness. Factoring in Markov’s extreme desire for privacy, Quinn leaned toward Vermont. There were fewer villages there than in New Hampshire, and those small outposts were scattered around the edges of fifty square miles of dense, virtually uninhabited forest in the remotest part of the state. His best guess was that he was somewhere in the least populous, northeastern corner of Vermont. It was never good not know where you were, but for now that was the best he could do.
Wanting to clear his head before attempting sleep, he went into the oriel and gravitated to the bay window. As he scanned the night-shrouded landscape, his gaze was drawn to the faint glimmers of moonlight that winked like fireflies on the lagoon. He half-expected a creature to rise up, but nothing stirred, and he began a closer inspection of his apartment.
He went to the suit of armor and smiled at the memory of all the scenes in haunted castle movies, where the halberd would take a swipe at an unwary passerby and just miss. Invariably there would be eyes watching through the visor. He lifted it and peered inside.
The suit of armor was empty.
Above the large fireplace hung a portrait of a man disintegrating into madness. It reminded him of the one from Roger Corman’s House of Usher , which in turn had always made him think of the one from The Picture of Dorian Gray that showed Dorian’s serene expression becoming hideous as the evil within overtook him.
Dorian Gray. A man who had sold his soul to the devil for eternal youth.
Quinn’s gaze automatically went to the eyes, looking for peepholes through which real eyes would follow him around the room. He walked a few steps, then abruptly turned back to stare at the painting.
The eyes hadn’t moved.
He inspected the gargoyle wall sconces, counting as he made his circuit of the room. Thirteen. Each sconce had been meticulously crafted into a different monstrous visage. Almond-shaped holes had been cut out
CHAPTER 12
Still standing inside his chamber door, Quinn decided he needed to know his exact location before making up his mind whether to stay or leave. If he stayed, and his situation became truly dangerous, knowing how far he was from his vehicle, and having a map that showed him how to get there, could be vital information.
He went to his duffel bag at the foot of the bed and pulled out an object about the size of an e-book reader. His most valuable tool in tracking down legends, it was a powerful state-of-the-art GPS unit that had kept him on track in the deepest wilderness. He turned it on and waited for the default map that would show him exactly where he was.
Searching for satellites….
It was a message he was used to getting in heavily wooded areas. A few minutes later he got a message he’d never gotten, even in the remotest locations:
Cannot find satellites….
It didn’t make sense. He’d been in woods as dense as these and never had a problem. Maybe the thunderstorm was interfering with the signal. All that lightning, especially around the castle.… Then he remembered:
Markov’s electromagnetic barrier.
That had to be it. He’d talk to Markov about it later. For now all he could do was extrapolate from what he knew to make a rough guess at where he was.
Markov’s driver had picked him up in the woods a few miles from the small Vermont village of Riverdale, fifteen miles south of the Canadian border. The trip from there to the castle had taken a little over two hours. In a horse-drawn carriage, maneuvering through dense woods, five miles an hour was probably the best they could have done. That would put them about five miles from the Canadian border, more or less. He’d not felt any severe deviations from straight ahead, but they could easily have angled west and gone deeper into Vermont, or east into New Hampshire. Either way, this was all sparsely populated wilderness. Factoring in Markov’s extreme desire for privacy, Quinn leaned toward Vermont. There were fewer villages there than in New Hampshire, and those small outposts were scattered around the edges of fifty square miles of dense, virtually uninhabited forest in the remotest part of the state. His best guess was that he was somewhere in the least populous, northeastern corner of Vermont. It was never good not know where you were, but for now that was the best he could do.
Wanting to clear his head before attempting sleep, he went into the oriel and gravitated to the bay window. As he scanned the night-shrouded landscape, his gaze was drawn to the faint glimmers of moonlight that winked like fireflies on the lagoon. He half-expected a creature to rise up, but nothing stirred, and he began a closer inspection of his apartment.
He went to the suit of armor and smiled at the memory of all the scenes in haunted castle movies, where the halberd would take a swipe at an unwary passerby and just miss. Invariably there would be eyes watching through the visor. He lifted it and peered inside.
The suit of armor was empty.
Above the large fireplace hung a portrait of a man disintegrating into madness. It reminded him of the one from Roger Corman’s House of Usher , which in turn had always made him think of the one from The Picture of Dorian Gray that showed Dorian’s serene expression becoming hideous as the evil within overtook him.
Dorian Gray. A man who had sold his soul to the devil for eternal youth.
Quinn’s gaze automatically went to the eyes, looking for peepholes through which real eyes would follow him around the room. He walked a few steps, then abruptly turned back to stare at the painting.
The eyes hadn’t moved.
He inspected the gargoyle wall sconces, counting as he made his circuit of the room. Thirteen. Each sconce had been meticulously crafted into a different monstrous visage. Almond-shaped holes had been cut out
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