The Grail Quest (The Avalon Book 1) Read online

  Lots of legends for what amounted to nothing more than an unusually-shaped hill.

  Anyway, Glastonbury the town was quaint and charming and provided a great introduction to English life for someone on their first trip to England. That someone being me. Indeed, so far, the town was everything I imagined England to be: decidedly medieval in feel, with cobblestone streets, rock-and-mortar homes, and ancient street lamps.

  I dug my hands a little deeper into my jacket pockets, hung a right on High Street, and looked for an English pub. I had heard all my life about English pubs. Well, let’s find one and see what all the fuss was about.

  The late evening sky was so purple that it was nearly black. The light rain now angled straight into my face. God, I love the rain.

  I came upon a side street called Northload, and there, sitting within a small row of small shops, was my first English pub. The sign out front read: The Who’d A Thought It.

  I went straight up to it, pulled open the heavy oak door, and found myself in a very warm and cheery old-school tavern. Glasses clanked merrily. Laughter issued forth. And sitting on a stool closest to the door was the same dark-haired girl I had seen earlier.

  And she was still writing in her journal.

  Unbelievable.

  As I stood there, dumbfounded, my mouth hanging open, she looked over at me and...smiled. I took in a lot of air, and this time, without hesitation, I walked straight up to her.

  Chapter Six

  With each step, my head felt lighter and lighter, to the point I thought I was going to topple forward into her lap. Or, more likely, hit the corner of the bar and kill myself.

  Somehow, I kept from passing out, and before I knew it I was already standing in front of her. Too late to back out now. My heart was pounding somewhere up near my throat, making speaking nearly impossible. Which didn’t matter, since my mind was blank, anyway.

  She was even prettier up close. Her eyes were exceptionally large, lashes exorbitantly long, lips achingly full. She was looking up at me, smiling curiously, her eyes searching my face.

  I noticed that the other men in the bar were watching me with shit-eating grins. No doubt they were looking forward to seeing me get shot down, since she was easily the prettiest girl in the room. Heck, any room.

  Here goes....

  “Um, hi,” I said lamely.

  “Hi,” she said. Her eyes continued to roam over my face, and as they did so her smile disappeared, even while her eyes widened. Her strange reaction gave me a modicum of hope. Meaning, there wasn’t an obvious lack of interest.

  “My name’s James,” I said.

  I’ve never really seen the blood drain from someone’s face, but it sure did with her and it was a sight to see. One moment her rosy cheeks were full and lush, and the next she went dead pale.

  “James?” she repeated.

  “Yes, last I checked.” Okay, that was really lame.

  I was about to say something else, something decidedly unlame, when she motioned to the stool next to her. “James, would you like to have a seat?”

  * * *

  The bartender came right over. The dark-haired girl had his attention, too, and I was the beneficiary of that attention. He asked what I wanted. I glanced over to see what she was drinking. It looked like cranberry juice and so I ordered something else in the juice family. Orange juice. The bartender shrugged and stepped away to pour my drink.

  My first time in an English pub and I order orange juice?

  Lord help me.

  “So you don’t drink alcohol, James?” she asked. She had a strange accent. I’ve never been good with accents. Heck, half these English blokes sounded Australian to me.

  “I’m trying to stay away from the stuff,” I said.

  “Are you a recovering alcoholic?”

  “No, no. Just don’t, you know, think I handle the stuff very well.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, you were drinking ‘the stuff’ earlier tonight. A beer, if I recall.”

  Holy crap. She’d been watching me?

  “Right, and I nearly started a half dozen fights. I tend to get, um, feisty when I drink.”

  “Belligerent drunk?”

  “A belligerent drinker. Give me one beer and I want to take on the whole room.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Interesting how?” I asked.

  “It’s almost like someone, or something, is trapped inside of you and is aching to get out.”

  “Yeah, an asshole who likes to fight.”

  “A fighter, yes. But probably not an asshole.”

  “Say that to the old man I yelled at a few months ago for talking a little too loudly to his hard-of-hearing wife.”

  She laughed behind her hand, her eyes lighting up like two stage lights. I liked the way she laughed. I also liked the way she looked at me with those amazingly round eyes. Her apparent interest in me was giving me some courage.

  “So what’s your name?” I asked.

  “Marion.”

  “I love that name.”

  “Really?”

  “Reminds me of Maid Marian from Robin Hood.”

  “Except mine is spelled with an ‘o’.”

  “As it should be,” I said for no reason at all.

  She smiled as if I’d said something witty. And still she didn’t take her eyes off me. The bartender came over and set a frothing mug of orange juice down in front of me. Okay, it wasn’t really frothing. It was just a plain glass of orange juice. In my first English bar. Hey, on the bright side, at least I wouldn’t be sporting any embarrassing orange juice mustaches or get into needless fights.

  Okay, so how do guys hit on girls, anyway? I’ve never been much of a ‘hitting on’ type. I’m more of a we-just-happen-to-cross-paths type. Granted, my type gets a lot fewer dates, but I have accepted my lot in life.

  “So are you from around here?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Where are you from?”

  Lord, this had to be the world’s worst pick-up ever. Heck, I would even hesitate to call this a pick-up. More like a prelude to utter humiliation.

  “Iceland,” she said.

  I almost made a stupid Icelandic joke. Hey, I heard it’s pretty cold there. Hey, the land of ice. Hey, I’m retarded.

  Somehow I kept my mouth shut. And sadly, I know from past humiliations that when a girl only gives one-word answers, well, she’s probably not that into you; otherwise, she would give you more material to work with, right?

  And so, with her curious yet beautiful eyes still searching my face, I took my drink and stood. I tried to smile as I said, “Well, enjoy your time here in Glastonbury, Marion with an ‘o’.”

  With that, I turned and left and found a small booth in the far corner of the far side of the room, far away from the happy gazes of the other men, and far away from her. Once seated, I did the only thing I could think of to save face: I pulled out my cell phone and pretended to receive a text message.

  God, I need to get a life.

  I had just scrolled through some old messages when someone sat across from me at my table. It was Marion, of course.

  “Sorry if I seemed rude back there,” she said. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting to meet you so quickly.” She paused, took a deep breath. A deep, ragged breath. As if she had jogged to my booth.

  I set my cell phone aside. “Did you say expecting to meet me?”

  Still breathing deeply, Marion reached inside her purse and removed a book: A tattered copy of my very first published novel, a mystery thriller called Unwanted Dreams.

  She held it out to me. “This is you, is it not?”

  I nodded dumbly, too stunned to speak.

  “Good,” she said and shoved the book back into her purse. “Finish your orange juice, James. We have someone to meet.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Who’d A Thought It was hopping.

  People were smoking and drinking and having a grand old time. A warm fire crackled in a s
tone fireplace nearby, rain streaked the smoky windows, and sitting directly in front of me was a crazy woman. Beautiful, admittedly, but crazy nonetheless. And crazy trumps beautiful every time. At least, in my book.

  I said, speaking slowly, “What exactly did you mean by ‘we have someone to meet’?”

  “Exactly that,” she said.

  “Look,” I said, “I’ve had a long flight from Seattle and a two and a half hour cab drive from Heathrow. I’m a little slow on the uptake here. Not to mention I just had my first English ale and it was a little stronger than I’m used to—”

  “Holy smokes, you’re long-winded, James. Good thing your books aren’t. Anyway, tell you what, ditch the orange juice and I promise to buy you another one when this is all over.”

  “When what’s all over?”

  Nothing was making sense. Had someone spiked my juice? Or was this another crazy dream? After all, I was in the land of dreams, right? Heck, the Faery King’s underground kingdom was allegedly within a nearby hill.

  As these thoughts raced across my mind, Marion surprised the hell out of me by grabbing my orange juice and knocking it back in three big gulps. She slammed the empty glass down on the table, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, and burped quietly.

  I gaped, too stunned to speak.

  “Come on,” she said, offering me her hand. “I have a lot to tell you.”

  I stared down at her tiny, proffered hand, somehow sensing that my life would forever change if I took it. How exactly it would change, I did not know. I also sensed that every decision and choice I had ever made in my life had led me to this very moment. How I knew this, I didn’t know, but the feeling was a strong one.

  “Well, James?” she said. “We don’t have all night.”

  “We don’t?”

  “No.”

  She was crazy. I knew that. Beautiful and crazy, and suddenly I was finding it hard to think straight. The music seemed a little louder. The laughter seemed a little louder. And Marion seemed, somehow, even more beautiful. Her hand was tiny and white and it was waiting for me. And before I realized what I was doing, I was reaching out for it—

  She snatched my hand like a mongoose. The brightness in her eyes instantly turned mischievous, and it turns out her hand wasn’t so delicate after all. No, it was iron-like, and it promptly yanked me out of my cushioned seat and onto my feet.

  “Hey!”

  But she wasn’t listening. She turned and, still gripping my hand, led me through the pub and toward the open front door, where I could see it was still raining steadily outside.

  At the door, I heard a scream behind, followed immediately by a grunt and the sound of a glass crashing to the wooden floor. I gasped and spun around and saw something I would not soon forget.

  On the far side of the tavern, three men dressed in full medieval garb—chain mail, tunics, hoods, high boots, and what appeared to be very real swords strapped to their backs—were pushing their way roughly through the bar, scattering men and women and ale. All of them were staring at Marion and me, and all of them looked utterly insane. They appeared to have entered the bar from a back entrance.

  “Um, Marion, are these friends of yours?” I asked, pointing.

  She turned, and when she saw the three approaching Medieval Times castoffs, she did something that surprised the hell out of me.

  Still holding my hand, she yanked me out the door and into the night, where we ran as if our lives depended on it.

  Which, I was beginning to think, they very well did.

  Chapter Eight

  Fog hung low over the ground, swirling ominously. We had only gone fifty feet or so, when Marion hung a hard right and we headed back toward High Street. She released my hand and now we were really running.

  Yeah, I’m dreaming. Any minute now I’m going to wake up.

  “Hurry, James!” she shouted ahead of me.

  Sure, what does it matter? No doubt I’m making a tangled mess of my bed sheets as I pantomimed running. For all I knew, I was back in my condo in Seattle and the trip to England was just one long, surreal dream.

  But I played along. After all, I had seen Inception, too. Maybe there were more to these dreams.

  Unless, of course, I wasn’t dreaming at all.

  I put my head down and did my best to keep up with Marion, who was apparently part cheetah. I heard a noise behind me, and if I had to guess, I would say it sounded looked the clank or clink of armor. The three Renaissance fair rejects, no doubt. I looked back over my shoulder, and sure enough, the three lunatics just rounded the corner, too. Their boots echoed loudly along the quiet street. I saw that they were now brandishing their swords.

  Brandishing. A word I never, ever thought I would use.

  Ever.

  A word meant for pirate movies and medieval romance novels. Not in real life.

  You’re dreaming, James. Remember that. It’s all a dream. Just like the dozens and dozens of dreams before this one.

  Only this one had a fresh spin on it.

  Men brandishing swords.

  Rain drove straight into my face. The street was empty. The street lamps were mostly obscured behind the rain and fog and displayed spectacular golden halos.

  We rounded a corner and headed down a dark side street. A small chapel was to our right and a low brick building was to our left. I was sucking wind. I felt a stitch in my side. I needed to stop. I needed to double over. I needed air.

  Behind me I heard the three men round the same corner. No time to double over. No time to even breathe.

  Lord help me.

  We crossed another empty street and Marion plunged under an ivy-covered arch and straight into what appeared to be a spacious park. A dark and spacious park. Like a lamb to the slaughter, I followed right behind her, through the archway.

  The stitch in my side was now something more than a stitch. My new pal Marion dashed along a curving concrete path and I dashed right along behind her.

  My breathing was loud to my own ears. My chest heaved. My heart pounded. My side burned. Adrenaline flooded my bloodstream.

  Sweet Jesus, I couldn’t do this for much longer.

  Adrenaline would only last so long before reality set it. And the reality here was that I’m a full-time writer who occasionally plays street basketball and even more occasionally takes his mountain bike out for jaunts around town. The reality was this: sooner or later I was going to drop dead.

  The trail curved to the right, toward the park exit. Marion, to my utter surprise, hung an abrupt left, and plunged headlong into some bushes and trees and along what might have been a game trail. Like an idiot, I followed right behind, blindly dashing into a tangle of branches and leaves and thorns. I covered my face with my arms, fully expecting to run headlong into a very wide and very hard tree trunk.

  But I didn’t. At least not yet. We were on a trail. A very narrow trail that was almost not a trail at all. We followed it for another hundred feet or so before Marion ducked behind a large moss-covered tree and stopped. I stopped right behind her, about a second too late.

  “Sorry,” I said, holding her up. The bump into would have been more memorable if there hadn’t been three goons waving swords behind us.

  We waited. While we waited, I tried catching my breath. I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. White and yellow spots blurred my vision. I was certain that I was on the very brink of passing out.

  Water dripped down from the branches above. A cricket chirped. I held my side, wondering if the pain would ever leave.

  So far, it hadn’t.

  And through the sounds of my own ragged gasping, I could hear the three men approaching down the park’s main concrete path. Marion shushed me and I did my best to quiet my breathing. The running footfalls came and went, and when they were gone I collapsed against the mossy tree trunk.

  “You okay?” Marion asked.

  “No,” I said. “I think I might die.”

  She grinned, then reached down and took
my hand and hauled me to my feet. I almost cried.

  “No resting,” she said. “C’mon.”

  And she led me deeper into the woods.

  Chapter Nine

  We were still holding hands when she led me to a leafy hollow of some sort, surrounded by tall trees with interlocking branches. The branches nearly blotted out the rain. Nearly. Cold, fat drops doggedly found their way down, to splatter on the back of my neck. I shivered with each drop.

  I didn’t mind holding her hand. Mostly because I was scared shitless, and any human contact was welcome. That is, any human who wasn’t brandishing a sword.

  Brandishing. There it was again. Sheesh.

  Besides, her hand seemed to fit nicely in mine. A perfect match, if I do say so myself.

  The rain continued beating a steady staccato on the leaves surrounding us. Other than that, there wasn’t much else in the way of sound. I was still breathing hard, and so was Marion. The three sword-waving throwbacks seemed to be long gone. My heart was still racing. A part of me still believed I was back in the pub, drinking my orange juice and pretending to be reading text messages.

  This all happened so fast. Too fast. One moment I was tongue-tied around a beautiful woman, and the next three men with swords were chasing us through a park.

  Too weird. Too flippin’ weird.

  The silence continued and we continued holding hands and moving through the hollow, stepping through puddles and over soggy twigs. With each snap, Marion winced. I shrugged, apologizing. Working my way quietly through a wooded trail wasn’t one of my strong points. My eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see Marion’s face fairly clearly.

  She led me over to a rotted, moss-covered tree log. I was beginning to think everything out here was moss-covered. As we sat, she released my hand. I’ll admit, I was sad to let her hand go.