of molten metal. The creature was eight foot tall, with arms longer than they should have been and his body was a naked, slimy red thing, bunched with muscles, steaming with heat. "Oh my God..."
"Go to sleep, Frank."
Frank fell back first with fear that suffused his whole brain and then he fell to the floor when his brain went black, taking his consciousness with it.
#
Room 12 began to sparkle, little firefly lights winking in and out, spreading across the surface of the walls, creeping across the carpet on the floor, covering the windows, changing the bed to a rack and the entire room to a dungeon. There were no windows now and no doors. This was a place where imagination could not perform to make comparisons to anything earthly and reality was warped beyond thought. Shadows slipped from the dank walls to slink around the rack, their forms as tall and forbidding as that of their master.
Abaddon lifted the unconscious Frank from the floor and carried him to the rack. He situated the man, clinking shut an iron collar around his neck, iron cuffs on each wrist and ankle. An iron bar went across his midsection and, thusly, he was held fast.
Standing back to look at his handiwork, Abaddon grinned with a grin that would have frozen the heart of any human being. "Keep him quiet," he said to his shadow helpers.
He went through the wall and in the bathroom he scooped Dina into his arms to carry her downstairs. As he moved through the hallway to the stairs, he changed, and was once again the host of a bed and breakfast inn.
He lay Dina on the velvet settee before the fire in the great room and caressed her cheek until her eyelids fluttered and she came to herself. She struggled to sit up. He helped her by taking an arm and lifting. "What? What happened?" she asked, fear making her voice high and reedy.
She looked down at herself and saw she was dressed in the red sweater and black jeans she had brought in her bag. She had on her coat and her boots. Her purse lay next to her.
"I was...but, I was..."
"Yes, dear, but now you're ready to leave Stonyhart, aren't you? You're awake, you're dressed warmly, and it's time to leave."
She looked at him in pure terror. Her eyes were so round the white showed all around her pupils and her mouth hung open.
"You must listen to me now," Abaddon said, leaning forward and staring into her eyes. "This young man of yours--you don't love him, do you? You don't even like him. He's become a burden to you and you don't know how to rid yourself of him. You know him for what he is, don't you? He's a bad human. A corrupt soul. You know that."
She wanted to nod, but she couldn't move. She remembered being in the bath, wearing her pajamas and terrycloth robe, her fuzzy slippers.
"How do you know what I think?" she asked finally in a small, child-like voice.
"It doesn't matter how I know, just that I know. I want you to take the keys in your purse and go to the car and leave now. The snow has stopped, but it will return. It will come so hard and be so deep it will cover this house, it will completely submerge it so it won't exist anymore. You don't want to be here when that happens."
Dina jumped to her feet, her head twisting on her neck as she looked all around the room. "Where's Frank? What have you done with Frank? This is insane..."
Abaddon sighed and reached out one thin hand to take her wrist. Upon his touch Dina calmed and her breathing slowed. Her eyes glazed. She said,
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