As the Watcher eyed Rachel Willingdon’s hotel, he realized it was time to meet her. After all, they obviously had similar interests. She could be useful, he told himself. That’s what he’d tell the specter should he receive a visit.
The Watcher shuddered. He’d survived several visits, but each only intensified the terrors. His mind flew back to that first hideous meeting, and the events leading up to it.
For much of his career as a trader on Wall Street, Harry had been in the hunt. Possibly more in the middle of the pack than out front, but certainly not ragging up the rear. Problem was, he went through money as though he were a top gun. It was hard not to, surrounded by the mega-traders who spent much of their time regaling the ‘losers’ in the bull pens with their trophies: the handpicked wines, the fastest automobiles, the sexiest women.
It made all the guys drool, and some, like Harry, squandered substantially more than they earned. After all, image is everything in a world defined by the artifice of dollars, pounds and yens. He wasn’t alone in fiddling with clients’ accounts to cover some of the losses—always expecting to be able to pay it back—but he was the only one who was about to get caught.
No longer the hunter, now the quarry, Harry bolted.
And very quickly found himself staring into the abyss.
Slumped on the ground, Harry was given a choice. Eyelids fluttering, sweat beading across his narrow forehead, his breathing slowed. He was seconds from death—her dazzling pull strong and sweet—when a jagged rumbling blasted his brain. Eyes and mouth flew open in panic. His body experienced enormous pressure, as though pulled quickly under water. Unexpected thoughts and emotions coursed through the fiery explosions in his brain. So deafening, so compelling were the unknown commands that he strained back from the tunnel of light to listen.
It took a while to understand, decode really, as noises inside his head sputtered in an unfamiliar tongue. Slowly, as he became accustomed to the heaviness, the crackling, snapping sounds merged into a single driving pulse.
The darkness shifted, as though caressing an uneven pattern. His hands flew to his stubbly throat as a putrid stench filled his nostrils. Something blacker than death reared above his body.
He leapt up in terror, comprehension exploding in his head.
The choice: eternal damnation or eternal life.
A no-brainer.
