Chapter 1
There was nothing the least bit remarkable about the old Underwood Art Gallery located on the corner of Third Street and Pine. And nothing particularly remarkable about the paintings displayed inside. For the most part, the works of art were uninspired scenes of landscapes and seascapes and an occasional still life, except for one rather large painting in the back of the gallery. It depicted a tall, fair-haired man wandering in the moonlight through a heavily wooded forest that bordered a calm blue lake.
The painting was by an artist named Josef Vilnius and was aptly titled Man Walking in the Moonlight. Karinna Adams had never heard of Vilnius, but it was an interesting piece in that the colors seemed to change depending on the time of day: the blues and greens and golds bright and cheerful when she observed the painting during the afternoon, the hues more somber and subdued when she arrived at the gallery in the evening. The changes in hue were especially puzzling since they had nothing to do with the gallery's interior lighting and seemed to be some anomaly inherent in the painting itself. It was most peculiar, and it had drawn Kari back to Underwood's time and time again.
Tonight was no different. Kari stood in front of the mysterious painting, her gaze moving from the old rowboat tied up alongside the narrow wooden dock to the gray stone castle perched high atop a grassy hill. A shaggy black and white dog slept in the shade on the north side of the castle, and a gray kitten frolicked in a bed of flowers. A lamp burned in an upstairs window. Swirls of blue-gray smoke curled up from one of the castle's many chimneys. A white horse grazed in a large grassy field, its coat shining like silver in the moonlight. The horse looked so real, she wouldn't have been surprised to see it galloping across the greensward.
Kari had visited the Underwood gallery every night after work for the last two weeks. And every night, the man in the painting had been either in a different pose or in a different location, first walking in the moon-shadowed woods, next fishing from the boat under a starry sky, next looking out at the night from one of the castle's second-story windows, next resting on a large rock near the water, next sitting on the edge of the dock.
Tonight, he was astride the horse, his head turned to look back at the castle on the hill. Moonlight shimmered in his hair, which fell past his shoulders. He wore a loose-fitting white shirt, snug buff-colored breeches, brown boots, and a long black cloak that fell in graceful folds over the horse's hindquarters. His hair was dark blond, as were his brows, above crystalline blue eyes that were so vibrant and alive, it was hard to believe they were just paint and canvas. He had a sharp nose, a sensual mouth, a strong, square jawline. He was a remarkably handsome creature, and she often wondered if the artist had used a live model, or if the figure had been drawn from the artist's imagination.
Kari moved closer to the painting, trying to determine how the figure of the man moved from place to place. So far, she hadn't been able to determine how the artist had managed such a remarkable feat. At first, she had thought the man might not be a part of the painting itself, but perhaps a cutout figure that could be moved and posed at will. But she had quickly dismissed that idea. He had to be part of the painting, just like the boat, the dog, the kitten, the horse, and the castle. She wondered if the artist had painted several versions of the same scene and the gallery owner changed them from time to time, just to mystify the public, but that hardly seemed likely. Perhaps Vilnius had just used the same technique that made it seem as if the eyes of a painting were following you, like the ones in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.
With a shake of her head, Kari glanced at her watch. The gallery would be closing in a few minutes. She could scarcely believe she had been standing in front of the painting for almost an hour!
When she looked back at the canvas, the man was staring at her.
Startled, Kari took a step backward, then leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as she studied the figure. His lips seemed to be moving, forming the words help me.
That did it, she thought. She was losing her mind; that was the only answer. Painted figures did not move, nor did they speak. Filled with a sudden cold fear, Kari turned and ran out of the gallery.
She was breathless by the time she reached her car. Sliding behind the wheel, she locked the door, then drove home as if pursued by demons. It wasn't until she was safely inside her own house, with the front door securely locked behind her, that sanity returned. She was behaving irrationally, letting her imagination get the best of her. People in paintings didn't move. They certainly didn't speak. Tomorrow, she would go back to the gallery and the man would be walking in the moonlit woods, where he belonged. He wouldn't move, he wouldn't look at her, and he definitely wouldn't speak!
Blowing out a sigh, she went into the bathroom. After turning on the water in the tub, she added a capful of bubble bath, then lit a blue candle. Blue for serenity and harmony and to soothe a troubled mind. And her mind was more than troubled. It just wasn't normal to be so obsessed with a painting. And, as if it wasn't bad enough that the man in the painting dominated her thoughts during the day, he had started haunting her dreams at night.
With the candle glowing softly and the bathtub filled almost to overflowing with fragrant bubbles, Kari stepped into the water for a long, leisurely soak. She had been working too hard. That's all it was, just job-induced stress combined with a vivid, overactive imagination.
She closed her eyes. It was just stress. Nothing to worry about. Lots of people suffered from it these days and it was perfectly understandable, what with the state of the economy, the high price of gas, ever-growing tensions in the Middle East, and the ongoing investigations into the questionable benefits and possible risks of several high-profile, over-the-counter drugs. Add to that the ever-increasing number of floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes that were pummeling distant parts of the earth and it was a wonder the whole world wasn't going quietly insane.
Kari blew out a sigh of relief. Stress, she thought again. Of course, that's all it was. She wasn't going crazy after all.
Chapter 2
The gallery had closed for the night. Now that he was free to move about with no one watching, Jason Rourke roamed through the painting's lush landscape, searching, as always, for a way out, even though he knew there were only two avenues of escape, and both were beyond his power to control. He had been trapped inside this painted hell for three hundred years, cursed to remain imprisoned behind a wall of glass until the wizard who had cursed him died, or until a mortal woman called him forth of her own free will.
Sunk in the depths of a cold and bitter despair, he walked down to the lake and sat on the rock at the water's edge. It was a unique prison, appearing flat to those who viewed it from the outside, yet three-dimensional on his side of the glass. The water, the rocks, the grass, the animals--all were real, giving him an illusion of life and freedom.
He swore softly, plagued by his unnatural hunger, the same unrelenting hunger that had been his downfall. Damn! How was he to have known that the pretty young woman whose maidenhead and blood he had taken had been the only daughter of a powerful wizard? Drunk with wrath, Vilnius had called down a horrible curse upon them both, on Rourke for defiling his daughter, and on his daughter for lying with a man who was not a man at all, though she'd had no idea, before or after, what manner of creature she had taken to her bed. Rourke had pleaded with Vilnius to relent. Ana Luisa had begged for mercy, but to no avail. Rourke had listened in horror as Vilnius had said the words that imprisoned him, watched helplessly as the wizard had pronounced the same horrible curse on his own daughter.
And now he was here, condemned to this hellish existence, denied the pleasures of the flesh, with no way to ease the awful hunger that burned through him with every waking moment. Three hundred years of torment for thirty minutes of pleasure! He slammed his hand on the rock. Dammit, where was the justice in that?
He cursed again, frustrated by his helplessness. He had been trapped in this nightmare for three centuries and only in the last few weeks had he regained strength enough to be able to move around within his pictorial prison.
Much had changed in the last three centuries. Though his view of the world was limited to what he could see from the inside of the art galleries or private homes where the painting had resided, he was well aware that life as he had once known it no longer existed. Automobiles had replaced the horse as a means of transportation. Electricity now provided power and lights, although candles were still used on various occasions. Men and women wore strange clothing, and far less of it! People worried about things that had been unheard of in his time, like the rising price of gasoline and global warming, swine flu, terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction. He had watched scenes of warfare in far-off lands, noting that mankind had learned to kill far more efficiently. In his time, a strong man armed with a good sword might kill half a dozen of his enemies in battle. Today, one terrorist with a car bomb could destroy a building along with every man, woman, and child in the vicinity.
Rourke placed his hands on the thick glass that enclosed his prison and stared into the darkness visible beyond the front window of the art gallery. The silent beauty of the night called to him, teasing him, tempting him. The hunger burned hot and deep in his belly, an insatiable hunger that had not been fed for three hundred years. Had he still possessed a soul, he would gladly have traded it for one drop of rich red blood, for one moment of relief from the constant pain. He curled his hands into tight fists as he wondered how much longer he could endure this existence before he went completely mad.
Pressing his forehead against the cool glass, he closed his eyes. And the image of the woman appeared in his mind. Tall and slender, she was, with hair like fine black silk, and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. She had come to the gallery every night since his painting arrived. And every night she stood in front of it, a bemused expression on her lovely heart-shaped face. He knew, of course, what it was that troubled her. Paintings were supposed to be immutable, unchanging, inert. It bothered her that he was rarely in the same place twice. He might have found her confusion amusing if not for the hunger that tormented him, the anger that plagued him, the never-ending desire for freedom that haunted his every waking moment.