Haunted by Hazel Hunter Page B

with a dirty white burial shroud. Whipcord thin and pale, her hair was white and her pink lips dry and stretched. But she had no eyes. Where they should have been there were only black hollows, hellish and empty. Goosebumps sprang to Gillian’s skin and her heart began to hammer. It felt as if there was a hole opening up inside her.
    “You’re waking us,” Mina said.
    Though far away, Gillian reached out to her. As though the spell had been broken, Mina disappeared. Gillian dropped her hand.
    “What is it?” Shayne demanded. “What did you see?”
    “A thin woman with pale hair. She was standing at the gate. It was Mina.”
    Shayne frowned, and stepped in front of her. When Mathias had touched the water of the submerged lake, he had become Mina, before he’d tried to kill her.
    “I don’t see her,” Shayne said.
    “She’s gone.” Gillian glanced at the city. “She said we were waking them up.”
    “Well maybe we can just walk right back out that entrance,” Shayne said. “Dead things should stay dead.”
    “I don’t think we have a choice,” Gillian said.
    “Oh?” Shayne said. He took her hand. “Let me show you.”
    “It’s not that I want to wake the dead,” Gillian said, “but look around.” She turned to look for herself. “Where’s the portal?”
    “The what?”
    “On the other side, there was the Magician’s gate, a portal, some type of launch point. There’s nothing like that here.”
    “But if there was a gate on the other side,” Shayne said “there has to be a way to go back.”
    “I agree,” she said. “But not out there. I think it has to be in the city.”
    Shayne thought, and nodded reluctantly.
    “How likely is it that I can convince you to stay here while I try to locate it?”
    She stared at him.
    He nodded. “Didn’t think so. Do you still have the dragon’s eye seeds?” She patted the pouch in the pocket of her tunic. “All right. If necessary, we might both need some.” Gillian arched her eyebrows. In the Midnight Market, Shayne hadn’t even wanted her to find them. “I can’t fight what I can’t see. But if we can get to the portal without either of us needing to poison ourselves, that’d be my choice.”
    In the wrong dose, dragon’s eye seed was lethal. Though she hadn’t forgot that, it was the key that had unlocked their journey here. She nodded.
    “Shall we?” he said, gesturing past the statue.
    But as they turned to go and move farther into the city, it was clear something had changed.
    “Are you seeing it too?” Gillian asked.
    “I think I am.” The buildings were more whole, the streets in better repair. “Like you said, it’s waking up.”
    As they moved down the main thoroughfare, the buildings became more dense as well as varied. Though Gillian didn’t see them changing, they had to be. Each time her gaze moved from one side of the street to the other, the structures changed in subtle ways she couldn’t name. Though the statues had reminded her of ancient Rome and Greece, the city itself seemed more modern, though not much.
    “It’s like walking through the Italian Renaissance,” she said quietly.
    Majestic domed structures with colonnaded fronts seemed to dot the growing skyline. Elegant, open villas were visible in the distance, when they could look down the longer streets. Waterless fountains, not unlike the one in Göreme, occupied the larger intersections. Plain masonry buildings of multiple stories were interspersed as well. Apartments?
    But as they crossed yet another intersection, Gillian realized they were approaching a building with an enormous round, stained-glass window. Unlike the myriad structures they’d passed, in various states of disrepair, this one looked almost whole. The window was a beautiful profusion of greens, blues, and purples, creating an abstract image. The light reflecting from it was almost blinding in its beauty.
    “I want to go in,” she said softly.
    Somehow, with all the strange dreams and