Preston W. Child
The Medusa Stone
Chapter 1
“He looks like Jesus.”
Abbie glared at her dark haired college roommate and gasped in astonishment. “Excuse me?”
“I said ‘He looks like Jesus.’ I could never date a guy like that,” the mousy-faced bulimic scoffed modestly. “I think it would be…” she hesitated as Abbie gawked.
“It would be what? I will tell you, Jessica. It will be fucking hot!” Abbie exclaimed as the two students rounded the wet street corner where the dangling sign of the pub creaked eerily in the wild night wind.
“No, it would be… sacrilegious. Imagine getting all hot and heavy with this bloke and in the throes of passion you look at him, and you see Jesus hovering over you, all panting and sweaty,” Jessica explained her aversion for the man they were less than clandestinely following through the streets of Edinburgh.
“Jesus!” Abbie recoiled. “Uh, so to speak.”
“See? It would just be weird. So if we can get up close and personal, you can close the deal. I mean, he is delicious, but he looks way too close to those pictures in my mother’s house,” she told Abbie, still grossed out by the unfortunate resemblance that confronted them both on this night of man hunting and pub crawling.
“Your loss. I don’t spend time overthinking stuff, especially with an arse like that! Check it. I would follow that tight fitting buttock bulls eye to the ends of the earth,” Abbie vowed dreamily. “Or wherever we end up.” She winked at her friend and dragged her aside when the man turned and looked around for a moment.
“At least out of Blair Street, I reckon,” Jessica muttered as they left the lovely joviality of the student haunt at the infamous vaults.
“Wonder who he is looking for?” Abbie nudged Jessica.
Jessica whispered with no small measure of suspicion, “Maybe he can feel you fucking him with your eyes, you cheap bint.” Abbie giggled at her friend’s chastisement, but she did consider that maybe the attractive stranger could feel the presence of his two adolescent stalkers. He had a peculiar look about him; that was no maybe. She loved the image he portrayed. The tall, slender man with the bears and almost feminine features had long black hair that fell to his shoulder blades, ending in kinks that coiled lazily against the virgin glow of his loose buttoned shirt.
“He reminds me of Duncan McLeod, actually,” Abbie told her friend. “Not Jesus!” she frowned at Jessica, still trying to dismiss the obviously subliminal or spiritual vexation between them.
“I don’t think he is a Highlander, love,” Jessica remarked as she plastered her thin lips with lip gloss that made her mouth reek of strawberry and Jägermeister with that faint hint of garlic she exuded from the light meal they shared at a cheap restaurant near South Bridge earlier. “He does look exotic, though. Are you seriously going to follow him all night?”
Her friend slapped her playfully, “Only until we catch him. Look at him! He keeps moving. I mean, fuck, can he not pick a place and be done with it?”
The two 20-year-olds stood in the shadow cast by the irregular placement of building corners, waiting for the tall, dark stranger to make a decision. It felt like an eternity, but it took him less than 20 seconds to figure out where he wished to go next. As soon as he turned, the two girls were on his trail again, ceasing their randy discussions long enough to concentrate on remaining undetected.
Although being way too cavalier with her taste, Abbie felt especially attracted to the oddly out of place man they had been following out of sheer fascination. It was unlike her to do this. Normally, she was the one being chased down. Jessica, though, could not care less about her friend’s exploits. Being a business major, she realized that her life was bland, even by party standards, to resort to stalking a bloke with her erratically minded best friend.
The light breeze was mild in this part of the city, which was already a tad alien this time of year. Just like the appearance of the interesting looking stranger in the night club, the climate seemed to have come with him as if he wore it like a cloak. Even the sky bore fewer clouds than usual, giving Edinburgh a roof of occasional fleecy shapes that drifted lazily across the shimmering street lights.
Below, the calm heavens the city streets twisted as the night drew on toward the wee hours of Sunday morning. Utterly inebriated from the evening’s drinks, Abbie and Jessica stayed out of sight as their ankles suffered under the torment of the cobbles. While they navigated on stiletto heels with the motor skills of timid fawns in the maze under the castle towers, the two girls noticed that the stranger was leading them to less populated areas where the shadows felt darker, and the stench of the sewers was more prominent.
“God, I am going to yak!” Jessica complained as they ducked under a foot bridge off Cowgate. “Is all this worth it, Abs? Jesus, grow up.”
“You will not believe this,” her friend whispered, sounding alarmingly sober-ish to the nauseous business student whose hand she was holding too tightly. “But I am not just following him because he is so dreamy. I think this beautiful specimen is actually up to something shady.”
“Aye. Exactly my point,” Jessica groaned, tugging hard at Abbie’s hand to urge her in the opposite direction. “I am beginning to get a very bad feeling about all this, mate.”
“You are just paranoid because you feel like shit, babe. Keep it down or puke it out, but stop trying to talk sense into me, alright?” Abbie insisted. “I am hell bent on seeing where he is going. It is evident that he is not out to pick up babes or drink his troubles away. Something really intense is going to happen, I bet you.”
“Betting your life, perhaps?” her friend persisted.
“Shut up!” Abbie rasped as quietly as she could. Her feet were killing her, throbbing from her calves down to her toes with a fiery sting she could not ease. But she had to see what was ensuing with the attractive stranger with his long locks and almost marble perfect features. “He is heading to Chambers Street. I wonder what he is thinking. He keeps looking behind him.”
“Aye!” Jessica scoffed. “He is smelling your bloody pheromones, you skank. Come on, babe, let’s go home. Please, let’s just get out of here.”
“No! Just a few more minutes, just to see what he is up to,” the other girl whispered, her face now totally obscured by the shadows out of reach of the street lights. She sounded utterly spellbound. “Look, he is checking his phone.”
“Probably a drug deal,” Jessica burped, fighting to hold her liquor.
“Come,” Abbie said as the man moved on towards the next block of buildings. On their left, the National Museum of Scotland lurched like a lonely giant while ahead of them the lean figure of the stranger danced over the pavement like a black specter.
Suddenly Jessica stopped dead in her tracks, almost jerking her friend right off her feet. Abbie was furious, fearing she would lose sight of the man she was adamant to meet before going home.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she seethed through her rapid breathing.
“Look!” Jessica pointed ahead in terror. “He is going towards Greyfriars, Abs! Grey… friars… Kirkyard! There is NO way I am setting foot on the world’s most haunted graveyard.”
Abbie had not realized. She took a second to look past where the stranger’s silhouette was dangling farther and farther away. Blossoming into full view was the infamous Greyfriars Kirkyard, reputed to be the home of various wicked phantoms reminiscent of the ancient history of Scotland. Behind the entrance where the man was headed the black trees swayed solemnly over the antique gravestones underneath. Abbie thought of thinking twice, but her curiosity for the gorgeous mystery’s end game was overwhelming.