THE DEVIL'S HANDMAIDEN DARK REALM SERIES BOOK 1

Chapter 19. ILLUSION

Allesandra is in such disbelief after hearing the news about Tyler that she can't move. She sits slumped over, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her face buried between her hands.

She had always prided herself on being such a good judge of character. How did he fool her so easily? The decision she had made to give him a second chance has now come back to haunt her.

After it all begins to sink in, she becomes very emotional and yells out in disgust, "What have I done? Those poor women and now one was murdered because I was so fucking careless!"

She pauses for a moment to collect herself and decides the best thing to do is to go to Vegas and find Tyler before the police do.

Just as she's trying to get up, she's suddenly startled by the thunderous sound of clapping. It echoes off the pavement around her and she's so stunned that she falls backward.

When she looks up to see that it's Sebastian, tears slowly fill her eyes in an attempt to gain his sympathy. She gives him her most vulnerable look and when she's met with no response from him, it surprises her.

As he reaches down to help her up, she is suddenly paralyzed with fear. His usual comforting and sympathetic green eyes turn pitch black and it is instead the cold, dark evil eyes of Satan peering back into hers. The room starts to spin violently and she passes out.

When she comes to, she's lying on a cold, concrete floor in a small room. It is dimly lit and there is something eerily familiar about it.

She's much too weak to get up, so she crawls around in the shadowy room until something catches her eye, but as she crawls toward it, it suddenly disappears.

She's so disoriented and utterly confused at this point but fights back tears, blinks several times until her eyes are able to focus again.

As she gets further across the room, something catches her eye again and she continues dragging her limp body across the floor, scraping her knees and elbows on the jagged concrete floor.

After several excruciating minutes, she finally makes it and when she sees that it's a small table, she uses every bit of strength she has left to steady herself against it and pull herself up to her feet.

Once she sees a leather briefcase lying there on top of it, she gulps and moans out in agony, realizing he has placed her right back where it all began.

Her nerves are so frazzled at this point she has to rest for a bit and once she regains some of her strength, she tries using her powers again. But when she has no luck, she yells out and demands that the lights be turned on at once, but again, nothing happens.

She finally decides to try the briefcase and as she clicks the metal buttons and it pops right open this time, she's really surprised.

As she lifts the lid and looks closely inside, she finds an alarm clock with the time stopped at 3:03, a tattered Bible and a man's gold pocket watch.

She immediately recognizes the pocket watch and knows it belongs to Blaze. She knows how powerful it is too, so she squeezes it tightly between her hands and tries using her powers once again. But she's more discouraged than ever when nothing happens.

She slips the watch into the pocket of her dress for safe keeping and then picks up the Bible. As she thumbs through it looking for clues, she sees that there are several pages missing. She holds it out in front of her and even shakes it upside down to see if anything falls out, but nothing does.

She then turns her attention toward the alarm clock and racks her brain, trying to figure out what's significant about the time it's stopped on.

After several minutes of trying to figure it all out, she's frustrated and finally gives up. She tosses it down and yells out to Satan in desperation.