At length, the sound of her boots, alone and ominous on the hard ground, gave way to other sounds: An owl hooting, some kind of night bird singing.
And music.
The melody was faint, but clearly haunting. It instantly enchanted. It was the sound of mystery, of lamentation, and of hope. Violins and cellos ached and wept, and drums steadfastly beat out a soul-deep rhythm.
It sounded like… October.
Logan picked up the pace, following the hypnotic, beautiful music on instinct. It grew louder and more distinct, and eventually she could also make out the sound of people talking and laughing.
There was conversation and movement. And… there was fire.
The night grew lighter around her as she moved deeper into the forest. A crackling warmth drew her in and illuminated the path before her. At last, she ducked beneath one final, thick, low-lying canopy of trees that acted almost as a gate to her destination – and entered The Masquerade.
Chapter Thirteen
They ran until they couldn’t hear anything but the rush of blood through their ears. It felt as though the entire world had turned into amber forest, blurred and unending. Fire pushed its way in and out of Meagan’s lungs. There was a spell somewhere in her memory that would help a person run faster and longer, but she couldn’t think of it. Maybe she’d never learned it; maybe Lehrer thought she’d use it to her advantage and join track as a cheater or something. She had no idea.
She felt like she couldn’t think of anything at all. Her mind was almost blank but for sporadic, senseless thoughts and the sensory input of what her eyes took in – the speeding mix of reds, yellows, and oranges of the fall leaves around her.
She did eventually notice, however, that the wizard Draper couldn’t move as fast as she and Katelyn could. He began to fall behind, and she slowed down to allow him to keep up.
This is far enough anyway, she thought. It was a desperately hopeful thought, but it also made sense. Whatever Draper had hit the vampires with had been mega-watt powerful. The running was just instinctive. Just in case.
Meagan slowed down further. There was a small clearing up ahead, perfect for a rest. “We need… to stop,” she started, talking in-between deep, gasping breaths. “I think we’re safe… for now. And we need to… find Mr. Lehrer.”
The other two slowed down and then stopped as if they had been waiting for an excuse to do so. Both bent over at the waist, Katelyn holding her side as if it had a stitch.
“Yes,” she gasped.
Draper’s head bobbed up and down in a nod of agreement.
“You… have a spell… for finding things?” Katelyn asked.
Meagan did, actually. Sort of. It was really a very low level spell for finding lost socks or car keys, but it was worth a shot, especially since Mr. Lehrer happened to be wearing a pair of cashmere socks Meagan had given him for Winter Solstice last year. She’d accidentally gotten him a pair that were far too large; she was horrible at stuff like that. But as luck would have it, now that he was a goblin, this was the perfect opportunity for him to wear them – and they were stretchy.
For a brief period of time, after purchasing them and before she’d given them to Mr. Lehrer, they had technically belonged to her. She could try to find those, and she wouldn’t have to change the spell. “Maybe,” she said. “I’ll try my best.”
She waited a few minutes to allow them all to catch their breath, and then began to draw a circle in the leaves with her boot. This particular spell required no physical components, but a circle of power always aided to a magic’s strength, no matter what.
“By the way,” Katelyn said as she watched Meagan making the circle. “Do you feel up to this? I mean… what happened to you back there? I thought you had a spell ready or something.”
“What?”
“In the forest,” said Katelyn. “With Shawn and Nathan. I thought you were going to wail on them. You seemed ready to when we stepped through the portal.”
Meagan felt herself blush and a hard point of hollow shame opened up in her stomach. “I did. I don’t know.” She turned to Draper, who was busy looking down to make sure he didn’t trip on any outcroppings. “You did well, though. That was one heck of a spell you cast,” she told him.
He looked up. “Yes, well…” he said modestly. “I was fortunate. It was much stronger than I’d imagined it would be. I seem to have developed more power here.”
“You’re not the only one,” said Katelyn. “Did either of you notice that Nathan and Shawn are more powerful too?”
Meagan and Draper looked at her.
“It was broad daylight, and two vampires were standing right out in it, not turning to ash.”
Meagan felt even worse now than she had a minute ago. She hadn’t noticed that. She’d been too wrapped up in… in Shawn. In whatever it was he’d become and whatever it was he was doing to her. She wanted to strangle her best friend for ever writing up characters as gorgeous and evil as he was.
“Okay,” she ventured, trying to get her mind off her recent failings, “so we’re all stronger here.” Or at least they are, she thought. I have yet to cast anything.
She could feel her magic there, though, waiting for her to use it. She just needed to focus. Focusing had always been a weak point with her.
Meagan stepped into the circle and closed her eyes. She called to mind an image of Mr. Lehrer’s socks. My socks, she corrected her thought. And she imagined them to the best of her ability.
“Quod amissum reperi,” she whispered.
The magic that had pooled in her hands began to spark. She opened her eyes.
A well of power drew itself from her core, hotter than normal and stronger than she was used to. It rolled out of her body and over the leaves in the forest, kicking them up as it radiated outward. Some, it even left smoking.
“Whoa!” Katelyn cried out, having nowhere to run to and nothing to duck under or hide behind as the ring made its way out from Meagan and rolled right over her.
Meagan realized Katelyn expected the bright, white rolling ring to burn her or something. But when all it did was blow like a fierce wind through her hair and then roll on by, a breathless, crouching Katelyn gazed up at Meagan with wide eyes.
Draper had less of a shocked reaction. Perhaps he had seen the spell before, though Meagan had to admit this wasn’t what it had done the last time she’d cast it. For whatever reason, Draper kept his calm and simply covered his face with his arms to protect it from flying leaves and debris. They watched the ring move over and past him and out into the forest, where it disappeared.
The small clearing was very, very quiet in its aftermath. For several long seconds, no one knew what to say.
Meagan waited for something to happen. They all did.
Normally after casting this spell, she would either just remember where she’d left her car keys, or she would open all her drawers to find the missing socks stuffed inside or she would open her jewelry box to find the matching earring she’d lost was sitting right on its cushion like it should be.
Now, she didn’t know what to expect. There were no drawers she felt a compulsion to open, no pockets she felt the urge to peek into, and it was odd because she’d always actually known where the socks were – on Mr. Lehrer’s feet.
What she did feel was a strange aftermath running through her, like the buzz one gets after being electrically shocked on a carpet or trampoline. But it was bigger, expanded throughout her entire body. It wasn’t painful, just stronger. Her fingers and toes tingled, her head crackled a little, and her vision was in sharp focus. She felt energized, like Frankenstein’s monster after the lightning.
“Keep going,” she told the others, not really knowing why she suddenly told them that. “This way.”
She moved out of the circle of power and set off through the forest, going in a direction only slightly different than the one they’d been originally running in.
When she didn’t hear the others following, she stopped an
d turned around.
“Are you sure?” Katelyn asked hesitantly. “I mean, don’t get mad or anything, but do you know where Mr. Lehrer is now?”
Meagan wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Um….”
“I believe what the young witch means is, ‘yes,’” said Draper, saving Meagan from having to reply. He nodded with finality and moved with haste toward Meagan.
Katelyn shrugged and followed after.
Chapter Fourteen
What was it his niece used to say? She’d always been outwardly honest. Even as a kid, way too forward. As a young adult now, she was a blunt weapon. And she had a few sayings for times like this…. Dietrich wracked his brain trying to remember any of them, but the pain was an eraser, dulling his thoughts as if they were hastily scribbled in pencil, and all too soon forgotten.
This blows… harder than a bulimic after Christmas dinner…. No, that wasn’t it…. This blows more than a whore in a wind tunnel…. Ugh, can’t… think.
The ache was so bad, it would have been indescribable, even for someone like Logan Wright.
Just get it over with, he told himself. Inhale.
Again.
Dietrich winced terribly and gritted his teeth, whining a muted, hollow whining sound as he fought not to open his mouth wide and inhale. If he did, water would once more come gushing in, fill his lungs, and his head would explode behind his eyes before he mercifully passed out.
Normally, it would have killed him. But in October Land, apparently you couldn’t really die. Not permanently, not like that. According to a gleefully informative Shawn Briggs, if you wanted to die in October Land, Samhain had to kill you himself.
Kill me, he thought desperately. Right now…. Please.
I want to die.
Because Shawn and Nathan the vampires had stabbed him through repeatedly until he’d finally, mercifully, fallen unconscious. And while he’d been passed out, they had strapped him to the bottom of a very deep pool of water.
A thick rope had been securely tied around his waist, knotted at his back so many times and in so many ways, it would take him forever to undo it, if he could even reach it properly or concentrate enough on it in the first place. The rope then stretched taut to something very, very heavy further down in the dark of the water beneath him. It seemed endless, the deep.
There was not enough air in his lungs with which to speak the words of a spell that could save him. They were all but empty and had been from the moment he’d opened his eyes in that underwater hell. A single pitiful bubble escaped him each time he gave in to the pressure and opened his mouth. And all that remained was for him to let in the liquid death once more.
He guessed that when Nathan McCay had told him he’d always hated history class, the vampire had really meant it.
*****
Meagan, Katelyn, and Draper walked at a good, brisk pace, not wanting to meander while two vampires were on their tails. They followed Meagan, who allowed the spell she cast to guide her.
Katelyn and Meagan continuously glanced over their shoulders. It was that kind of place.
However, the forest was at last thinning out. The carpet of leaves was making way for the occasional rounded stone or clear patch of hard ground. The trees became increasingly sparse, allowing more light in from above.
“Do you think we lost them way back there?”
“I believe we have a temporary reprieve,” said Draper. “The spell I cast was a returning spell.”
“You mean you returned them to the mortal realm?” Meagan asked.
“No, no. Not that kind of returning. It’s a state of being spell. I turned them back into mortals. But as I said, it was temporary. Their vampirism will return, and I suspect it will do so much more rapidly in this realm.”
“Do you guys hear that?” asked Katelyn. She’d come to a full stop and had lifted her head, chin out, listening.
“What?” Meagan asked. But no one answered; everyone was listening. At last, she heard it. It was a faint sound that reminded her of a slowly filling toilet.
“Running water,” Katelyn supplied.
They moved toward it together as the ground turned to nothing but rock. There were large, smooth pits in the stone as if liquid had puddled in it and created natural dips over time. The sound of running water grew stronger. Accompanying the higher-pitched trickling sound was the rush of something bigger.
“A waterfall,” Meagan said aloud.
Within short minutes, they’d left the forest completely behind them and were walking through what amounted to one massive, unending light gray rock pitted with hundreds of smooth holes, almost all of them containing water. The carved out pools came in every size, and their depth seemed to vary as well. Some were at slightly higher levels in the rock than others, resulting in small waterfalls that trickled like fountain run-off. Some even abutted steep cliffs in the smooth rock, and the waterfalls they created were responsible for the roaring sound the group had heard upon approach.
The water everywhere was crystal clear, taking on a sapphire hue in the deeper pools. Nothing at all seemed to swim in its depths. In fact, if it weren’t for the brisk temperature of the air, it would have looked incredibly inviting.
“This place is amazing,” whispered Katelyn. “Now I wish I hadn’t listened to Mr. Lehrer. I could so use my iPhone right now.”
“No one would believe the pictures were real,” whispered Meagan.
“Oh shi-!”
Meagan spun to find Katelyn bent precariously over one of the pools, her boot having slid down the slope of the rock she’d been on. Fortunately for her, she was wearing hiking boots with thick tread. Like four-wheel-drive, it had only been a moment before rubber connected with solid ground once more, saving her from taking a bath. “Watch your step,” Katelyn warned soberly. “Some of these rocks are like ice.”
Meagan looked at Draper, and the two nodded in understanding. They moved more slowly over the rocks, watching their steps as they went.
“Do you think your grove leader is here?” Draper asked.
“I don’t….” Meagan’s gaze narrowed. Yes I do, she thought. I do know. He is here. “Yes,” she amended. “He’s here.” She looked around at the endless pools and felt a small sense of despair. But where? There was nowhere at all out here to hide. There were no trees, no massive boulders, no buildings. There was only smooth, flat rock and water.
“Then you’d best point him out quickly,” said Draper. But there was a note to his tone that alarmed Meagan. She glanced at him, this time to find him looking at something over her shoulder, a dour expression on his face.
She turned, and then stepped back, almost slipping on the rock behind her as she did.
“Playtime is over,” said Shawn decidedly. “We’re going to talk business now.”
Meagan felt the blood drain from her face. She could barely believe it. The two vampires had not only found them and caught up with them in almost no time at all, they seemed to have recovered completely from whatever Draper had thrown at them.
“What do you want, Shawn?” she asked, frustration fueling her words.
“It’s not only what I want that matters, little witch,” said Shawn. “It’s what the boss wants. So here’s how it’s going to go down.” He moved – blurred – and was standing in front of them. He spun on Draper, pointing a warning finger at the middle-aged wizard. “Not a word from you, old man. I promise you’ll regret it. It isn’t your life at stake now,” he said, turning to look at Meagan again. “It’s Lehrer’s.”
Meagan’s eyes widened. “What did you do to him?”
“Nothing the history teacher in him won’t appreciate,” said Nathan, who decided to come down to meet them the old fashioned way. He walked along the stones, not bothering to be careful or go slow, and apparently not needing to bother. His grace and skill were mind-boggling. It was as if he not only possessed fangs by magic, but moved and breathed by it as well.
And that wasn’t all. Meagan may have missed
the daylight thing earlier, but she did notice that the vampires could now easily cross running water. Yet another weakness they seemed to have overcome in October Land.
“You know how history is,” Nathan continued as he approached them. He looked up and smiled. “Painful.”
Meagan felt something drop inside her, something heavy and slimy and terrible. “Is he alive?” she asked, looking back up at Shawn. “Or did you turn him into a blood sucking goblin?”
Something like amusement passed through Shawn’s eyes. Now that he was close again and she wasn’t yet being attacked in any physical fashion, she was able to get a closer look at those eyes. They were not flat red. They were actually bi-colored. The pupil was deep, deep blood red and almost black. The iris, however, was a flickering orange like fire opal.
In some bizarrely surreal fashion, she thought they were very beautiful.
“Do you know, we hadn’t actually considered that?” Shawn said. He glanced at his companion and nodded, smiling.
“But now that you mention it,” Nathan said, “a vampire goblin sounds promising.”
“Just,” Katelyn threw up her hands in aggravation. “Enough with the head screwing. What the hell do you want with us? What exactly do you want us to do? And where exactly is Mr. Lehrer?”
Meagan watched her friend with a mixture of awe and guilt. Leave it to the blonde to tell it like it was and finally demand answers. As long as she lived, Meagan would never understand the source of blonde jokes. The only blonde women she’d ever known had either been very smart or very talented or both.
Shawn and Nathan eyed Katelyn in silence for a moment. Then Nathan turned to Shawn, eyebrow raised, and Shawn laughed. “Are we ever going to have fun with you girls.”
“Damn it, Shawn, she’s right!” Meagan exploded. This was the last straw. She was not going to leave her own friend hanging. “What the hell do you want, and where is Mr. Lehrer?”
Shawn’s expression grew serious. “All right, this is the deal,” he began. He looked at Draper first and pointed. “You are going home. Home as in wherever it was you came from.” He looked at Meagan next. “And you’re going to join us – yes, as a vampire – ” he looked over at Katelyn, “Both of you.” He raised his chin a touch, took a deep breath, and let it out calmly, looking back down at Meagan. “If you don’t, Dietrich Lehrer will die an eternal number of painful deaths, and each time he dies, he’ll know it was because you would rather save yourself than save him.”
Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy) Page 7