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Chapter Three
The old hotel was haunted
I was sure of it Then again, I had ghosts on the brain these days
Actually, the hotel looked haunted There&039;s a difference The long entry hall consisted of an ornate -back chairs, antique bureaus and elaborately-designed wallpaper Fresh-cut floere everywhere, and the hotel, I felt, had a decidedly turn-of-the-century feel to it Heck, it had a decidedly turn-of-the-o
Then again, I grew up in Southern California, and any building older than, say, fifty years was deemed an important historic monument
Anyway, an old man behind an older front desk save him my name He punched it in, found my reservation, confirmed my credit card info, and toldhis directions and fu in an ornately decorated room, complete with a fireplace, loveseat and ajust beyond the headboard I wasn&039;t sure what the curtain was all about, but it looked nice enough I happened to know that this was called the Winston Room As in Winston Churchill, who had not only stayed here but had even lived here for a brief period
Yeah, I felt special
I generally don&039;t iars I&039;ed research vacation, but a vacation nonetheless And when I&039; is acceptable
Who are you kidding? I thought I&039;m here to see what the dreams are about Plain and siain, harder than ever, perhaps because I was here I was finally here:
I had traveled halfway around the world because of a few crazy dreams
No Not a few crazy drea dreas and did what I had been itching to do since first touching down in England I jacked in my laptop, went on-line, and checked my email
There were a few dozen Facebook notifications (so my emails) There was an e the Turkish rights to one of my vampire books I tried to remember if the book had been published in Turkey but for the life of ent He would deal with it There was an e to ith me on a project I politely declined I have more books to write than I have ti me if I had arrived safely I replied that I had not, that, in fact, the plane was currently spiraling out-of-control She would be ed?
My editor likedrelationship, probably because I mostly stayed on deadline and she didn&039;t edit the crap out of my books I also made my publisher a lot of money, and that reflected positively on her, even while it reflected da lots of money smooths a lot of wrinkles
With the advent of the persistent drea tomy taste for mystery novels In particular, for death and destruction Sooutput and I had to stop work on host thriller
Rita my editor hadn&039;t been pleased Especially when I infor a different kind of book, one that featured a decidedly lower body count Now, the book idea had been brewing since the dreaof Christ, King Arthur and the Holy Grail is bound to start thinking about plot, structure, and the Arthur novel
"King Arthur?" said Rita I noted theArthur book," I said "A spiritual King Arthur book"
"Spiritual?"
"Yes," I answered "A sort of spiritual adventure"
"What, exactly, do you mean by spiritual adventure?" she asked She enunciated each word slowly and carefully
"You know, so in the tradition of The Alchemist or The Celestine Prophecy"
"Those books were flukes"
"The authors would beg to differ"
"Ithe lottery"
"I&039; to write so that heals, rather than hurts"
Rita snorted I didn&039;t blauy who&039;s last book featured a h school teacher and his cult of honor student followers
"Your audience will never go for it," she said "They want murder mysteries, James They want a thriller They don&039;t want God on Harley, or whatever the hell you&039;re thinking of writing about"
"The Holy Grail"
"Oh, Lord"
"Deep breaths, Rita"
"Will you at least consider putting so
"I&039;ll see what I can do"
"Please, James One corpse"
"Probably not"
"Oh, sweet Jesus"
"Keep breathing, Rita"
And it had gone on like that for so andup when I pro up she asked, "Any chance King Arthur can be a vampire?"
"No"
"Damn"