Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy)

  Dom glanced past the fountain and down the road he hadn’t yet traveled. The lights along its edges grew fainter and fainter as they neared the other side, until they all but disappeared beyond the wall of a forest.

  His gaze narrowed. From deep within that forest, it looked like a second light glowed, sort of reminding him of the faint glow you see over a city in the distance after a long night’s drive.

  His vision adjusted to the darkness a little more, and at once he could see faint clouds of smoke. They were a slightly lighter gray than the night behind them, and they drifted off into the sky to be joined by what looked like a building storm head.

  A bonfire, he thought. He and his friends had built plenty of them for parties over the years; he recognized the signs of one when he saw them.

  He left the fountain and ran down the cobbled street toward the light.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Allow me, good people, to spin you a tale,” said Sam. His deep, melodic voice carried crisply across the crowd. They were quietly taking their seats around the bonfire, their eyes on their lord, their expressions keen.

  Sam gently guided Logan to a smooth part of one of the large logs that had magically appeared around the massive bonfire. He met her gaze before releasing her hand. She sat down.

  Sam walked backward toward the bonfire, and the hushed crowd of masquerade dancers waited with baited breath. Sam’s gaze skirted over their faces. He raised his hand. “Once upon a time,” he began – and then he turned, and the bonfire parted, crackling madly as it did so.

  It became two pillars of flame framing an empty space between them.

  The crowd gasped in collective surprise as an image appeared in that in-between space, filling it like a movie screen.

  There was a forest, deep and dark and nearly devoid of color. The forest spun away to reveal an overgrown and surreal graveyard that seemed to stretch for eternity. And finally, there was a mighty castle, carved of the blackest stone, with spires that pierced a storm-torn sky. And at the top of this castle, in a tower that overlooked forever, was a throne.

  Upon the throne sat a tall, dark figure, but the angle of the view and the crackling of the fire made it hard to see his face.

  Still, Logan knew who he was. Everyone there did.

  “A king sat upon a lonely throne,” said Sam.

  The figure on the throne stood and walked to a window. The scene switched, sharing his view. Gray and darkness stretched to the horizon. Indistinct shapes shifted here and there, ghosts in a ghostly world.

  “The king had been crowned before time began, and he tired of his throne. He dreamed of things he could not name, but wanted desperately.”

  The scene changed again, shifting from grays to blurred greens and pulling way from the solitary king and his solemn land.

  “But he had no faith in fortune, and believed it never granted kings their dreams.”

  An aerial view of a very green land skirted by. The camera drew closer to the ground until finally, it was focused upon what must have been an ancient – ancient – village.

  “Until a child was born whose soul was marked,” Sam continued.

  The bonfire view skirted through the archaic village until it focused on a woman with long red hair who was seated beside a campfire. She was dressed in a simple blue dress and a cloak of white. In her arms was a swaddled infant.

  “The moment the child cried out, the king heard it in his realm so far away. And he felt the first hope his soul had ever known.”

  Ciara, Logan thought.

  Sam looked down at her as if he’d heard the name spoke aloud, the acknowledgement in his stormy gaze all the confirmation she needed.

  “He waited,” he continued. “And over the years, he watched her grow. Until the child was a woman, and he came to call upon her while she slept.”

  The scene shifted and became the nondescript, blurred-edged world of a person’s nightly dreams. Summer trees, their branches heavy with green became fall trees, and the leaves turned and then fell. A carpet of them covered the ground of a trail beneath the tree’s overhanging branches. It looked very, very familiar to Logan.

  “In the witching hour, in the twilight, and in that in-between realm where the living remember the dead….”

  On the bonfire screen, a girl walked through the woods. She was dressed in a long white gown and her red hair cascaded down her back in a gorgeous strawberry waterfall.

  “And the dead can dance with the living.”

  The beautiful girl entered an Autumn clearing. There, a tall figure dressed in black was waiting for her. She approached slowly, cautiously, and he offered her his hand. She took it.

  They began to dance.

  The image between the pillars of fire spun. Music whispered through the crackling flames to become discordant and cacophonous. A distant wind howled. Suddenly, the bonfire closed with a rush, shooting thousands of sparks straight up into the sky.

  Logan gasped and looked up, as did everyone else. Above them, a darkening mass of clouds began to turn, swirling into themselves in a building tempest.

  The storm, Logan thought.

  But the story teller was not finished yet.

  “War came to the woman’s world, hot and red,” Sam went on, drawing everyone’s attention once more. He gestured to the fire, and it again parted, this time showing them a field of crosses.

  Roman crosses, Logan thought, her heart sinking. She’d learned about them in Mr. Lehrer’s class. She would never hurt Mr. Lehrer’s feelings by admitting as much, but it had been yet one more aspect of history that she’d disliked. She was just one of those people who would never understand the appeal of history, as to her, it seemed to be nothing but bloodshed, torture, disease, and death. In contrast, relatively little of positive consequence was ever recorded. Either that, or relatively little of positive consequence ever occurred.

  When she’d learned about how Romans had used crosses for hundreds and thousands of their victims, stringing them up to litter the countryside with these garish aspects of torture, she had found it both odd and disturbing that so many people would choose to wear chains displaying these Roman torture devices around their necks. To her, it was no different than choosing to wear a guillotine. Or an iron maiden. Or a rack.

  In the bonfire, the world was painted red with the blood of innocents. It stained the grass on islands in what was now known as Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Logan wanted to look away, but she knew it would do no good.

  She’d seen this before. It was there, in her memory – in Ciara’s.

  “The woman was struck down,” Sam told them.

  The image went black. The crowd looked down, as if in mourning. Even the bonfire seemed to settle.

  “And in the wake of this final journey, her marked soul made the promise it had been born to make,” said Sam.

  His gaze returned to Logan, pinning her to the spot.

  “But there is much fear of the unknown, and the woman’s spirit was strong. A secret within a promise – this was the web she weaved. A spell so powerful, it required the sacrifice of blood.”

  Logan knew what he was talking about. Ciara had been promised to Samhain upon birth. Fate had finally granted him his companion. When she took her final breath, she was to join him.

  However, when that final breath arrived, she spurned him, casting another spell instead. With her final magic, she managed to turn herself into a ghost, casting half of her soul into that incorporeal state from which even the Death God could not retrieve it.

  The other half of her soul was snatched up by fate and sent forward in time, with the intent that the Lord of the Dead might be given a second chance. The soul would enter a new mortal, and there would be fresh hope.

  That new mortal was Logan Wright.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dominic quietly watched from beyond the tree line. He crouched low in the shadows, his green eyes burning with fear and fury.

  It had taken him a momen
t to process what he was seeing: The bonfire, the masquerade costumes and masks, the floating candle flames that flickered unaided high above the grounds. Even the musicians were something out of a fairy tale dream. He’d seen paintings like this, and book covers. But seeing it firsthand was another experience altogether. Being surrounded with magic that defied reality was getting to him a little. He realized that he could be certain of nothing. And that was an uncomfortable sensation. He felt stunned.

  But what stunned him the most about the scene before him was Logan.

  She was an impossible vision that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. The gown she wore appeared to have been made for her – and he would have bet his blood that it was. She was wrapped in the colors of every aspect of darkness, and the deep, silk hues were a stark, tantalizing contrast to the creaminess of her skin.

  She was regal and graceful and… she was beyond beautiful.

  Every nerve ending in his body hummed to life at the sight of her. Every ounce of adrenaline he had was dumped into his blood stream. He felt awed. He felt protective. She was magnificent.

  Magnificent.

  And he had no idea what the hell she was doing wearing a gown like that at a time like this, in the middle of this crazy-ass situation. It boggled his mind.

  Dom blinked and squinted, re-focusing his gaze.

  She wasn’t wearing her Celtic life pendant. Her neck was bare.

  He pulled the pendant out of his pocket and stared down at it. Now he recognized it for certain. There was a tiny nick in the silver that he remembered seeing on hers earlier.

  Dom looked back up at her. Had she taken it off of her own accord? Willingly?

  He couldn’t accept that. Someone there in that crowd had taken it from her. It wasn’t broken, so it hadn’t been ripped away.

  None of this made any sense.

  But in this realm, nothing could be taken for granted and everything was pretty much insane, so Dominic closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to take it in stride. He was good at that. He was fast at making adjustments. You had to be when your mother died on you and your father was overwhelmed. That was life.

  He slipped the pendant back into his pocket and continued to listen and watch from where he knelt beneath the low-lying branches. Information was power. The more he had, the better his chances of getting Logan out of there and getting them both out of October Land.

  The people with gray skin were everywhere, and they separated Dominic from Logan, who sat at the front near the bonfire. She was also decidedly close to the man who was beginning to tell a story. It was no ordinary story, as became exceedingly clear when the bonfire split in two and a movie screen of sorts appeared.

  Dom’s gaze narrowed on the tall, dark figure doing the talking. He had to admit he’d never laid eyes on a man so imposing. There was no hint of humanity to him. This was not a man, but a monster.

  Or… a god?

  Dom straightened a little.

  It would make sense. Something had to have happened to Sam when he’d been expelled from Dom’s body. And that man up there before the bonfire most definitely had what it took to be the Lord of the Dead.

  Dom continued to listen as the story unfolded, all but confirming his theory.

  The man’s voice carried clearly and beautifully across the distance, and with each word, each damning sentence, a well of dread opened up deeper and wider inside Dominic.

  Logan was promised to him? According to the tale, her soul had been marked more than two thousand years ago.

  Dom felt a constriction in his chest, and realized he wasn’t breathing. That dread was spreading, seizing his body in its fearsome grip.

  There she sat, Logan Wright, the story telling student he had helped off the ground during recess in the fourth grade. The girl he’d secretly watched and longed for over the next eight years. The one he felt a connection to and had gone through so much with. She just sat there all wrapped up in that gorgeous dress as if she were some sort of material present to be ribboned and handed over.

  It was almost impossible for him to accept.

  And the people around her with their glowing eyes and gray skin didn’t help matters. It was clear by their behavior that they adored Samhain. They gazed at him, rapt in attention. Like obedient little pets.

  Dominic had no idea how he was going to defeat Samhain, much less his several dozen minions.

  But what perhaps frightened him the most – once he allowed himself to even dwell upon it – was that Logan wasn’t fighting them. She wasn’t glaring at Sam. She didn’t look upon him with any kind of hatred. Instead, she listened quietly, and the looks she exchanged with the Death God were deeper than hatred or fear. They were the kinds of looks you exchanged with someone you’d known forever. They were the looks of memories.

  She fits in here, he thought. It was a disturbingly illuminating thought. But it was there, and he couldn’t ignore it. Logan had always loved fall, loathed summer, hidden from the sun, adored the night. Halloween was her favorite season by miles and miles.

  And as much as he would hate to admit it, Samhain’s story had struck a nerve with Dominic. There was a bitter sweetness to it that begged for a happy ending. It was only more bitter, and only more sweet, that it would require the sacrifice of a young girl who had a life to live elsewhere, who was needed in her own world… by so many.

  A flash of an image passed before his mind, and Dominic stilled, closing his eyes. It was his mother’s smile. He distantly heard her laugh. It was a memory, faint but clear.

  Dom opened his eyes as the image faded, and a steel resolve shot through him. No, he told himself. He couldn’t let this happen. However “perfect” she would be as Samhain’s queen, Logan had a family. She had younger siblings who looked up to her, and she had a father and mother who loved her.

  She has a mom. Logan had a mother, and that mother had problems, but what human being didn’t have problems? Her life hadn’t been an easy one. And at least she was alive. Logan needed her more than she could possibly know. And her mother needed Logan more than words could possibly say.

  And… Dom needed her too.

  A crack of thunder drew his attention from the bonfire. He glanced up. Heavy clouds had gathered, dark gray and imposing. They swirled together as if the sky had turned on a mighty blender. Lightning split the darkness in two, and thunder rolled low after, raising chills along Dominic’s arms despite his heavy leather jacket.

  He looked back down at the gathering.

  The story had come to an end. Sam moved toward Logan, and she rose, coming to her feet.

  Lightning arced directly overhead. This time, its thunder rumbled low and menacing, scraping along a trembling ground and filling the surrounding forest with thoughts of primordial fear. Above the masquerade floor, the flickering flames began to go out, one after another.

  At once, Dominic realized that this was his chance.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Not again.

  Agony reached right through Dietrich’s lungs and pierced his soul. He was losing this fight. It wasn’t a fight for his life, but for his sanity.

  Not one more time, he thought. I can’t do this even one more time.

  If he did, he was certain he would lose his mind.

  He’d already inhaled seventeen times. It was impossible not to count. There was nothing down here in this darkness but the sadistic passage of time and the pressure of the water – and the death.

  Nothing….

  Nothing… except clouds?

  Dietrich would have groaned if he’d had the breath for it. He would have whined and whimpered like a dying animal. He’d thought he’d had one more death in him before this would happen, but the vision materializing before his eyes proved otherwise.

  Wisps of what looked like clouds were coalescing in the darkness of the water. They swayed for a moment, like the steam rising from a cup of coffee, and then drew together to form the image of a beautiful woman. Her long w
hite hair waved around her like a mermaid’s mane. She reminded Dietrich of a bansidhe.

  I’m hallucinating.

  It was over now for sure. From now on, his mind would commit acts of ever worsening insanity, and interlacing that madness would be pain. Always the pain. For eons to come.

  You must pay attention, wizard, said the woman in the water.

  Dietrich blinked. It did no good in the water, of course, but it was a natural reaction. The pressure outside his lungs longed to even out. He was sheer moments away from inhaling.

  Withdraw from your self-pity, the woman told him. Her voice was beautiful, melodic and clear, but her words stung. He had the sudden impression that if she could pop him upside the head, she would have.

  My hallucination is badgering me.

  Remember! The woman in the water insisted. Remember who you are!

  The image faltered, suddenly disintegrated, and then re-coalesced, like a dust devil dissipating and then re-forming into its twisted shape. This time, it was not a beautiful woman Dietrich hallucinated.

  It was a goblin.

  Oh gods, he thought, feeling his heart pound like mad. I forgot.

  He kept forgetting. What was it going to take for him to remember that he was no longer human? That he was a monster a full two feet taller than normal and twenty times as strong?

  As soon as he remembered, the image was gone, dissipating once more and this time staying gone. The fragments of its wisps melted into the water, darkening until they were no longer visible.

  Dietrich gritted his teeth so tight, he was sure they would crack, but this time he remembered they weren’t human teeth. They weren’t capped or crowned or just plain old middle-aged teacher’s teeth. They were goblin teeth, and they were even tusks.

  He reached down to the rope tied around his waist. It had prevented him from swimming away, from trying desperately to reach the surface before he had to inhale once more. He’d given up on it because he couldn’t reach the knot behind him, much less undo its intricate loops and ties. It had never occurred to him that he would be able to simply tear the rope apart with his bare hands.