Hooray! A sequel to the Amulet of Phasma Mortuus! Yep, I'm back for another story, this time with the…umm…the necessary experience to write decent fanfiction. Well, here goes:
Summary: Post Ptolemy's Gate, Kitty begins to have disturbing and painful visions of Nathaniel, leading her and Bartimaeus to return to somewhere she's certain she's been before…
Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy. I only own the setting for this story, the Island of Phasma Mortuus.
Enjoy, and please review!
Prologue
"Sometimes you just have to cry,
'Cause sometimes your feelings don't have wings to fly,
The tears come softly, and with them the pain,
Burning, and hurting, and twisting again…"
- Twisting Again (Musica Diabolos)
She stood beside the tall boy with dark hair and a pale face. His clothes were ripped and burned along one side, stained with his own blood. He leaned heavily on a staff of dark wood, but in his eyes a spark still burned.
His lips moved, but she could hear nothing. His eyes were faced straight ahead, towards a black, shadowy being moving steadily towards them. She could see the pain and hopelessness in the boy's expression, but still he remained upright. A voice sounded out, and she knew it could not be his own. As she heard the words, tears rolled steadily down her cheeks.
"I am Nathaniel! I am your master! I am your death!"
The shadow drew itself up angrily, and she could see the anger and hatred emanating from it. The boy's eyes closed, as though he were thinking hard…then he spoke again, in a strange tongue she only barely recognized.
As the last words were pronounced, an immense white light blazed from the dark wood of the staff, and the glass walls around them exploded with a terrible crash…but the boy had crumpled to the ground before the energy incinerated everything within reach. He was dead within seconds, and the demon let out a cry of pain and rage as glass and iron rained down upon them both.
She herself felt nothing…it seemed, quite suddenly, that she was observing it all from a great distance…just watching him die…
The familiar pain welled up inside her heart. It wasn't his fault, she had waited for him outside but he hadn't been there…it wasn't his fault…
Nothing…she felt nothing…from a great distance…
Kitty Jones sat bolt upright in bed, her prematurely lined face drenched with cold sweat. She pressed both hands over her eyes and fought to keep from screaming; the pain inside her head was terrible, much worse than anything she had experienced before.
Gradually, the pain subsided; the nightmare was over. Nathaniel had been in it, Nathaniel…and as she thought of this, her throat became tight and her eyes burned.
It had been two months, only two months since his death and the demons' revolt, and she still saw it every night in her troubled dreams. But tonight was different; it was somehow more intense, more involved…she had dreamt of something she knew she had never witnessed.
The pain she had felt bothered her as much as the dream itself…surely nightmares weren't meant to give you migraines, or whatever it was? Kitty swallowed hard. This was something else, something wrong. And she didn't like it.
Sorry this was short, but I hope it was good for an introduction! Please review, tell me what you think!