coffee dates

When she still had not turned around he tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around nearly dropping the stack of astral projection books. She smiled bright, like a child finding their favorite stuffed bear.

"Hi there, what are you out doing?"

"I came to see you, it's my day off." Neil replied to her.

"How thoughtful of you. I can see if Katie will watch the store for me."

"Sure, would you like to go out for lunch with me?" Neil offered to her.

"That sounds delightful. I'd love to." Jenna walked to the register and talked to the cashier. In a few moments she was ready to go to lunch. While Jenna was out to lunch with Neil, Katie nervously ran the store without any problems. She was quite proud of herself. Jenna had only been away a few hours. When Jenna had returned to the store she was in a wonderful mood. She seemed like nothing could ever go wrong with her day. Katie smiled; she knew what was going on. That guy must have taken quite an interest in Jenna. Her boss seemed to be floating on air. Katie thought it was great. Even though she had only been working under Jenna for less than a month, she liked to see the boss happy like this. Jenna was a good boss; she deserved to have a nice guy in her life.

"How was lunch?" Katie inquired with intense curiosity. Jenna blushed slightly before answering Katie.

"It was great, how were things here?"

"Oh, just fine, I had a few customers come in. That's all." Katie informed her.

"Okay, thank you for watching the store. I really appreciate it." Jenna was having a perfect day. She had an amazing lunch with Neil, the two of them talked about everything. Neil had told her what he could remember about the nightmare. She had told him to let her know if it happens again. Suddenly Jenna's thoughts were interrupted.

"Jenna... Jenna... Earth to the boss, Are you there?" Katie couldn't help but giggle; it was an automatic reaction, hard wired into every teenage girl on the face of the earth.

"I'm sorry Katie, I wasn't paying attention, what is it honey?" Jenna asked her, feeling bad for not paying attention to her.

"That fellow that you went to lunch with who is he?"

"His name is Neil; his office is close to the store. We have been out for coffee twice. He's nice, but just a few dates."

"Jenna that is wonderful! I'm really happy for you." Katie exclaimed. Jenna smiled then gave her a brief hug.

"Thank you, I don't know if it will be more than dates, but it's nice to not have coffee alone so often." Jenna admitted to the young girl.

The two women went back to stocking shelves and dusting until it was finally time to close up for the night. Katie told Jenna goodbye before she walked home after her shift at Merlin's Trunk.

Jenna waited after she closed the store. She had planned to meet with Neil. Jenna knew what his nightmare meant, but she was not sure he was ready for the truth. The creatures in his dream were underworld spies. She knew far more about the underworld than she cared to. She was not an underworld creature no, but she had dealt with them enough in the past. She had long ago, gotten in with a rough crowd. They weren't as evil or satanic as they wanted other people to think. They found out the hard way that black magic was not a toy to play with, but something to be avoided at all costs. She did not know how, but she was able to escape. Others weren't so lucky. She did her best not to think of it any longer. It was over a decade ago, in the past. She needed to leave it there.

She had not paid attention, Neil was at the door. Jenna grabbed her purse and headed out to meet him for their coffee date. She had been so lost in thought that she had forgotten he was coming. She shook her head. She couldn't believe she had nearly forgotten him! She walked out of the front, locking the door behind her. She greeted Neil with a soft kiss. He smiled at her, he was so glad he had offered to take her out last week, she was very good company. The last few times they went out, she had made him very comfortable.

"Are you ready to close down the coffee shop?" He asked, making a little joke.

"Sure, why not?"

"How was the store this afternoon?" He asked to be polite and get the conversation going.

"It was slow, that's okay with me, and the store was more than busy all morning." He nodded yes, to show he was listening to her.

The two of them made it to the coffee shop. They found a booth in the back corner of the café. Neil got the coffee while Jenna went to the booth to wait for him. It was not busy, so it did not take him long to return with the two large cups of java. He sat across from her as the two of them sipped coffee together as if they were old friends.

"That nightmare I had last night was strange." Neil then took a long healthy gulp of the coffee, and waited for Jenna to reply.

"I bet it was, but its okay now." Jenna commented.

"It felt so real; I could feel the heat of the flames." He admitted to her before taking another sip.

"If nightmares weren't so vivid and intimidating we wouldn't be scared." Jenna was trying to keep from telling him what that nightmare really meant for him, not until he became a little more open minded. What was she supposed to do? Actually tell him, but how do you word that? By the way you're destined to hunt demonic creatures on your off time? That was not a conversation for the first few dates, not until she could read him more than this. She really liked to be around him but she did not want to scare the crap out of the man.

"I suppose you are right... It was just a nightmare." Neil did not think it was just a nightmare. The critter called him the hunter in the dream. He did not understand what it meant. He hoped with enough research he would figure it out. Neil politely waited for her to finish her cup before he went to get another for each of them.

I really don't want to be the one to tell him, Jenna thought. I hope he'll figure it out on his own, but she knew better than that. She would probably have to tell him, but not today. She feared that he would think she had lost her mind. She had not been seeing him that long. She worried that when he did figure it out, he wouldn't be able to handle it. She needed to try and think of something else to keep her mind off of it. Within a few minutes Neil had returned with the two hot steaming cups of coffee.

The two of them had a nice evening at the café, discussing their jobs, hopes and what they wanted for the future. It was a nice time for the two of them. When the coffee house closed, Neil being a gentleman walked Jenna back to her apartment building. He held her for a moment before saying goodnight to her. He then turned and walked back to his own apartment. He had a nice day off; he had spent time with Jenna. That was better than anything he could think of. He made it back to his apartment, tossed his keys on his small table next to the couch. He grabbed his dream meditation book and began to read through half the book. That was until he happened to look at the time, past eleven p.m.

He headed to his bedroom for the night, with his new dream diary in hand. He climbed in the bed and got comfortable. It did not take him long to fall asleep. Soon, the dreams began again. This time it was the beach again. The white mist appeared. He stood there waiting to see if the unicorns would be there. It seemed to take longer for the mist to clear. He looked around the empty beach. The unicorns appeared, with the fire red haired vixen. He waited to see what was going to happen. The woman looked at him and began to speak.

"You are the hunter; I know it to be true... The demons will take over... if you don't accept your destiny... we all die too..." She repeated it over and over again. Then suddenly the unicorns started to grow huge wings, expanding twice the length of the unicorn's body. Next he saw their teeth grow and transform into these huge sharp fangs. When his unicorn started to grow horns out of its head, black as the night.

Neil shuddered in fear. He did not know what was going on; in the dream he screamed in horror, at the sight of the unicorns changing into something dark, something he could not believe that he had the ability to imagine. When he screamed terrified of what seemed so real in the dream he had woke in the darkness. He grabbed his dream journal, flipped it open and wrote down the changing unicorns, the mantra that the fire red haired woman had repeated in his dream that turned into a nightmare. When he finished writing down the notes, he checked the time the clock on his nightstand read 3:13 a.m. He yawned and then turned back over after turning off the light.

Jenna could not sleep at all that night. She normally did not suffer from insomnia but this night was a different story. Each time she tried to sleep she had horrific nightmares of death, flames and demonic control over the earth. She would wake sweating and shaking violently enough, she vomited. Once her stomach and her nerves had calmed down, Jenna tried to sleep, she saw Neil transform before her very eyes into an unholy darkness like she had never seen. In the dream it broke her soul, to see him like that. She woke from a dead sleep screaming in horror. She had woken a few neighbors, but not one checked on her. A nice and compassionate world we live in.

She needed to sleep she knew that, but she wasn't sure. She had a glass of water and tried once more. It took some tossing and turning before she began to drift off to the land of dreams, and the valley of nightmares. She soon found herself alone in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly this black and dark purple mist surrounds her. She begins to fear the dark smoke may be toxic. She froze where she stood. When the smoke cleared, there was a creature standing before her. It resembled a zombie or ghoul; quite possibly a combination of the two. Jenna's eyes grew wider by the second. She jumped back a few feet out of the most intense and frightening experience she ever had. She began to panic, what if I don't wake up from this? What if that thing attacks me and I fall into a coma? She thought of Neil once more. She didn't know what to expect. The creature's eyes burned a bright and glowing orange, the color of bright flames at a campfire. It looked dead at her. Jenna didn't know what to do, so she spoke to the dark creature in front of her.

"Why are you here?" She asked in a firm tone." The creature then growled at her, before responding.

"The blood of the fallen ones, the blood of the doomed." It replied in the creepiest voice imaginable.

"I don't know what that means."

"That is probably a good thing, human." It then disappeared into the shadows of the hills and Jenna had woken from it, completely confused as to what the hell was going on.

to put it to him. She did not have to pace much longer. For a change of pace, they were having dinner at his place.

She just hoped that after she revealed the dark prophecy of his life path, he would still talk to her. She looked outside of the store. There he was poor, clueless fellow. People say they look for the truth; knowledge was exactly like Pandora's Box. Once you let the secrets of the universe out, they can never be put back and forgotten. There is a reason for secrets of the cosmos to exist. We may not know why, but maybe it's better to know a little less.Neil tapped on the glass to get Jenna's attention, after a couple of tries he succeeded. Jenna jumped startled.

"There you are, I was wondering if you had forgotten." He teased her a little.

"No of course not, I am ready."

"Let's go, my apartment is that way." He pointed west from her book store. It wasn't that far away. The two of them made it past the now quiet city streets, it was near dusk. Jenna had been keeping the bookstore open late during the book signing days, it really help the business. She booked a few of them this month. It did not take the two of them long to reach his apartment.