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What on earth?

The fiery light expanded and became an arced outline fizzing and crackling like a child’s sparkler. The outline formed an irregular circle, growing rounder and rounder and bigger and bigger, revealing a dark, smoke-filled center.

All the breath left my body.

What’s happening?

Am I dreaming?

I watched, paralyzed but fascinated, until the circle of fiery light and darkness filled the corner of my bedroom from the floor to the tops of the windows. It hung there, like an archway, the surrounding light shimmering and the dark brutal storm clouds within it swirling and folding in on themselves. The stench ripened, growing stronger and stronger, while all I could hear was the crackle of the sparkling light, Dylan’s gentle snores, and my thundering heartbeat.

Then the storm clouds started to change, spinning and whirling but getting lighter and lighter until it was no longer black but a misty gray.

Oh no.

The mist thinned, exposing the barren landscape that had become so familiar from my dreams, and there in the center across the moor, but gliding toward the arc of glimmering light, was a black-robed figure.

Shit!

Scrambling up, I shook Dylan’s arm.

“Wake up. Wake up.”

Dylan blinked, and out of nowhere, Tristan appeared, but he fell, sprawling down beside the bed. “What the fuck,” he exclaimed as he fell, disappearing through the floor before reappearing a nanosecond later.

“What?” Dylan muttered, rubbing his eyes.

“Tristan. Run. They’re here!” I shouted.

Tristan was suddenly standing upright, alert and glaring in horror at the phenomenon occurring in the corner of my bedroom.

Dylan gazed wildly around him, his face freezing as he stared at the gaping hole to another universe that had sprouted by the window. “Where am I? What the fuck is going on?” he whispered, utterly bewildered.

“You can see that?” I asked as blood thundered with adrenaline through my veins.

“Yes,” he said.

“Beauchamp, get behind me,” Tristan exclaimed, keeping his eyes trained on the entrance to the Land of Ghosts.

“You have to go!” I shouted at Tristan as I clambered over Dylan.

“Go where? Emily. What’s going on?” Dylan stood up beside me. He didn’t look at me but stared in alarm at the portal in the corner of the room just as the tall black-robed figure shimmered at the threshold to the other world.

Time stopped.

The Custodian stood, its face unseen, shrouded by the robe’s voluminous hood. From behind the fiery circle of light, it surveyed the room.

I had to put my hand to my mouth to quell its stench. Even Tristan’s sweet scent was no match for it.

“Go, Emily, go,” Tristan whispered from far away through gritted teeth. “Take Dylan with you.”

Dylan! Not “the son of a bitch.”

I couldn’t move, and neither I suspected could Dylan. We were both rooted to the floor, terrified. My heart pounded in my chest, and I thought I was going to faint from fear.

Dylan suddenly recovered himself and turned sharply, pushing me toward the door.

“No!” I shouted and struggled out of Dylan’s grasp. “Tristan, it’s after Tristan.”