When Arik Beltrán checks into a hotel on business, he expects the tedium of unfamiliar beds and boring meetings. He expects to meet a financial client and be home before the solitude of being a stranger in a mundane land becomes too much to bear. Instead Arik finds Blaze: a mysterious man with an inner fire that lives up to the name. Nothing in Arik's life, not his deranged father nor even his faint brushes with the magic only Arik can see in the woven web of life could have prepared Arik for the man in the hotel lobby who casually invites Arik to room 1109 for late night ... Well, anything at all. Blaze Zaituc, on the other hand, knows exactly who Arik is and what Arik needs: Blaze. He has crossed land and sea to find the man who has appeared in Blaze's Visions as the next target in the Quest that comprises Blaze's life. Arik is someone for whom the Universe has plans, and Blaze must make sure Arik complies. Or else. Unaware of the lives and risks hanging in the balance, Arik untangles himself from the sheets in the silent hours of the morning. He wonders if he will find the door to 1109 open and waiting. He's not a risk taker, but this one time, just this once, maybe he'll take a chance ... And seal both his and Blaze's destinies forever.

Vision Quest

“I…” Arik blinked. “What did you have in mind?”


Blaze sat back in his seat. “Head north on the Interstate, past the exit for the Parkway, and take the one for Manhurst.”


“That’ll take us out of the city.”


“Impressive nav skills you’ve got there.”


“Not going to tell me where we’re going?”


Arik rolled his eyes but dropped the transmission into reverse. “Richard Gere never had to put up with this shit.”


“You’re right. He just had to eat pussy on a piano.”


Arik pulled a face and made gagging noises, and they headed out of the garage, through four lights, across three lanes, and onto the Interstate. Morning traffic had thinned, and the car hummed at ten over the limit.


“The one I miss is Heath Ledger,” Blaze was saying, staying on topic of movies and actors for as long as possible.


“Which one’s he?” Arik asked, taking the exit with a smooth tilt of the wheel.


Chapter 9