Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  “It’s nice to see you too,” I replied.

  “I slept so late, I’m sorry I missed you guys this morning,” Bethesda apologized. “I had the day off. I would’ve gone with you.”

  Yeah, Katie would have LOVED that… “I didn’t know we were leaving that early myself,” I admitted. “But I picked you up a few things while we were out.” Hopefully hearing that would sever her essence-sucking death-grip before I choked on my diaphragm.

  Bethesda pulled back, totally stunned. “For me? Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s just a couple of tops I thought would look cute on you. And some jewelry. And a set of nail polishes. And a journal . . .” The scorch from Katie’s stare seemed hell-bent on welding my lips shut. She thought I’d bought some of that stuff for myself after her little spendthrift lecture. “And just a few other little things,” I grinned and then quickly handed her all the bags I’d brought up.

  “Thank you, Shiloh.” Bethesda clutched the handles firmly and quivered out a sweet smile. “Truly.”

  I bounced a stare off her open bedroom door. “Are you alone?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how else to ask, but I didn’t want some dude walking out here buck-naked.

  “Yeah, is Cassie here?” Katie asked.

  Bethesda turned to her cousin slightly confused. “No. Why would you think that?”

  We were about to start playing-off her suspicions when something darted out of her bedroom and charged towards me like a tiny black & white bullet. I dropped my purse a slim-second before the feisty little dog jumped into my arms.

  Bethesda placed her bags on the floor. “Our other houseguest wanted to wait up for you too,” she grinned and gave the Boston Terrier’s head a frisky rub.

  Katie’s head fell into a heavy tip. “You got a DOG?”

  “No,” Bethesda replied. “I don’t know . . . Maybe? He followed me home this evening. The tag on his collar didn’t have any owner information. I thought he could stay the night.”

  “And then plaster some flyers all over the neighborhood tomorrow?” Katie posed, with a dubious raise of her brow.

  Bethesda flashed a smile and averted her stare. “Yeah . . . Whatever,” she shrugged.

  Neither of us bought that one, and I sensed the argument brewing between the two of them — no cauldron needed. “He’s cute,” I said. And boy was he a lively thing. I hadn’t been licked and pawed at this much since tangling with the imp the other day. But these claws I didn’t mind.

  Katie’s arms fell into a foul cross. “A black and white Boston Terrier named Tux? That’s kind of corny, don’t you think?”

  Bethesda threw her cousin a scowl. “I think it’s fitting. He looks like he’s wearing a cute little tuxedo.”

  Katie shoved her finger into her mouth, pretending to gag. “If you name it, that means you’re planning on keeping it,” she fussed.

  The shift of Bethesda’s stance was more than telling. “Don’t you like dogs?” she asked.

  “I like them just fine — outside and away from my shoes.” Katie shook her head. “I hope he’s house-broken. And for the record, I’m not taking him out!”

  “He wouldn’t go with you anyway,” she insisted. “Animals can read people better than humans. Tux followed me home for a reason, and look how he’s acting with Shiloh.”

  She was right about that. Every time I tried to hand him over to her or put him down, he fought like the dickens to hold on even tighter.

  “He really likes her,” Bethesda raved.

  Katie turned and started strutting towards her bedroom. “All bitches do,” she simpered.

  “Tux is a male,” Bethesda corrected as she reached for the dog. As soon as she pried him off me, she turned him around to parade his freakishly large proof-bearing package.

  Katie never looked back. “That wasn’t the bitch I was referring to,” she assured and then disappeared into her room.

  “Takes one to know one,” Bethesda countered.

  I patted her cousin’s back. “Good-night, Bethesda.”

  “You’re not leaving early in the morning, are you?”

  “Nope. I’ll be here,” I confirmed and headed to Katie’s room. My BFF was standing there waiting to snatch me in there too. She even slammed the door as soon as my rear had cleared the threshold.

  I removed my ruby cuff with a testy jerk and pitched it into my purse. “For someone who wants to play ‘coven’ so badly, you sure are going about it the wrong way.”

  “Are you suggesting I bury the hatchet?” Katie cooed, devil-eyes gleaming. She picked up a scarf and started twisting in her hands like a rope. “Maybe kill her with kindness?”

  My palm went airborne automatically. “Scratch everything I’ve said about how profound you are. You have the emotional sensitivity of a sack of nails.”

  “Uh!” Katie grunted and slung her scarf down on the bed.

  “I seem to remember someone saying only yesterday how they wanted to be a ‘better person’ after finding out how harmful bad thoughts and actions were,” I stated. “I’m surprised karma doesn’t rain down on you more often.” I truly was. I couldn’t get away with that crap. I was at the front of that lunch-lady’s cafeteria line. That bitch wanted me served quickly.

  “Maybe I’m immune?” she shrugged.

  “Believe me, whether you get back what you give immediately or your offenses pile up in a bottomless pit, karma always tags you with the bill in full — eventually.” That I firmly believed.

  “You know I’m just kidding,” she rebutted.

  I pulled the hilt out of my purse and tucked it under my pillow. “Still, there’s always a little truth behind any teasing,” I said.

  “I’ll try to be nicer,” Katie puckered and fell back onto the bed with a dramatic faint. “Now that you’ve shamed me.”

  I sat down on the bed beside her. “Katie, I don’t think there is a soul out there who doesn’t think or say hurtful things now and then. Human nature makes it impossible. But trying counts. That’s all any of us can do, and then striving to go forward with a more considerate heart. I know you have a heart of gold. I see it all the time. You just need to let it shine for others a little more.” I gave her head a rough rub. “And if that doesn’t work, think of how hard you’re making it for me. I have to fight every one of those creatures you’re feeding.”

  “All right,” Katie smiled, “ . . . but Shi, all those negative emotions you’re carting around are just bad thoughts turned inward. I’m not the only waitress serving those creature’s bellies.”

  I sat there quiet and rightfully pensive while her words cast a spotlight on my own soul. I really hadn’t considered those. I’d only been concerned with keeping a running score of my silent lies and grumblings, especially the ones about Silas. Now it seemed I was left with one of two options: pull the pessimistic-plug once and for all or mark off a whole new column. And I knew which one sounded easier.

  Katie propped herself up onto her elbows, smirking. “Did I redeem myself?”

  I blew one of the pillows straight at her face. “Yes, wise one.”

  “Careful, karma’s watching,” Katie mocked telepathically, lacking the clarity her muffled words craved.

  Soon the sound of scratchy “taps” battered her bedroom door nonstop. I headed for the door and swung it open, thrilled beyond measure. “Well, look who it is,” I teased and let Tux into the room.

  Katie wrestled the pillow off her face as she sprang up. “No! He’s not sleeping in here! He’ll chew up every pair of shoes I own.”

  “Then I guess we’ll get to see just how close of buddies you and karma truly are,” I grinned and gave her cheeks a squeeze.

  Katie ran around the room slinging her shoes into the closet and then closed the door. “Can we go to bed or do you want to punish me some more?”

  I would’ve loved to have taken a shower like I did last night before bed, but I was way too tired. “Sure,” I said. I whipped off my tee and then grabbed a fresh nightshirt out
of my suitcase. My head shot up as soon as I heard Katie gasp out an abrupt, “WHOA!”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Katie held the gape of her mouth a bit longer. “I could tell you looked more in shape, but . . . when the hell did you get so cut?”

  I angled my frame towards her mirror, taken aback by her comment. I really hadn’t spent that much time focusing on my appearance this summer. My naked-time observations were limited to treating wounds in the bathroom, not checking them in the mirror or letting my stare linger any longer than it had too. But she was right, now that I’d scored a chance to look virtually injury-free. As I stood there peering at my reflection, I could clearly see that my muscles had a lot more definition everywhere.

  “I hadn’t really noticed,” I muttered and then turned to her, insecurity blazing. “Do I look too butch?” My mind flashed with the cotton-candy crack about her hair. “I want total BFF truth.”

  “No,” Katie laughed and stripped down to her underwear. She pointed to her flat tummy. “I’m kind of jealous. You’ve got a damn six-pack. I couldn’t get one of those if I ran to the fridge and taped a run of Cokes to my belly.”

  “You wouldn’t want them the way I’ve had to earn them,” I assured, thinking only of my loveable iron-wielding coach and his numerous torture chamber resistance-machines.

  The two of us were reaching around our backs to unhook our bras when the sound of heavy breaths halted us in our tracks. We followed the panting noise over to the bed where Tux was sitting alert on its edge, shifting his tongue-wagging mug between us. A thick glop of slobber was streaming from his fangy mouth that ended up on the floor with a disturbing “splat”.

  Katie shook her head, sneering. “Oh, that’s not the least bit sick.” The two of us exchanged a few creepy glances and then turned our backs to the pooch. Feeling a little less irked, our bras hit the chairs and then we quickly whipped on both of our nightshirts.

  “Get down!” Katie ordered, motioning Tux towards the blanket I was fixing for him on the floor. He still hadn’t budged by the time she’d taken off both of her diamond necklaces and placed them in her jewelry box. In a fit of frustration, she finally resorted to picking him up and removing the pooch herself. Katie squeaked out a whimper when she placed him on the blanket. “I think he bit me,” she huffed, eyeing her finger and squeezing it firmly.

  I inspected her wound with a squint, less than impressed. “You mean those little red dots?”

  “Well, it’s at least a nip,” she argued.

  I lifted up my hair and flashed her the bandage at the base of my neck. “Call me when you’ve got something more than a paper cut,” I said flatly.

  Katie shot Tux a fiery glare as she jerked up the window. “That better be the only thing you take a bite of tonight,” she warned and pushed open the drapes. “Or I’ll drop you out of here like a furry water-balloon.”

  “No, she won’t,” I promised him.

  With the room already feeling more airy, the two of us climbed into bed. Katie hit her customary left side, and I piled up on the right, like we’d done throughout countless sleepovers.

  Katie noticed me staring up at the dreamcatcher that I’d hung over the bed. “So where did you get the claws for that thing?”

  “They’re Tanner’s,” I said. “Souvenirs from a dragon he fought.”

  She pulled the blanket up to her neck with a theatrical shudder. “They make it look creepy.”

  “Be glad I brought it,” I insisted. “Who knows what would be crawling around in bed with us if it wasn’t up there.” Fortunately, I hadn’t been kidnapped and carried off to The Darklands for the past two nights. And with that officially acknowledged to the universe, I quickly reached around and knocked my knuckles on the wooden headboard twice — just to be on the safe-side.

  “I just thought of something,” Katie announced.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You have to mark your corners,” she insisted.

  I smiled as I thought about the first time she’d issued me that order, the very first time I’d stayed over at her house, and pretty much every time we’d slept in a new room together. Katie’s grandmother had told her that if you assigned boys names to every corner in an unfamiliar bedroom, then the first one your eyes fell on in the morning would be the guy you would marry. I used to think it sounded so Little House on the Prairie, but now I was leaning more towards Charmed. It sure hinted at some old wives-tale with possible witchcraft roots to me.

  Maybe Katie’s had a little witch in her all along?

  “It won’t count,” I argued. “I should have done it last night.”

  “Humor me,” she pleaded, sounding like she was seven instead of seventeen.

  “I could name them creatures I need to banish,” I suggested. Sadly the prospects of that miraculous feat seemed a heck of a lot brighter compared to the dismal landscape my romantic horizons were projecting.

  “You said there were five,” Katie asserted. “You’ve only got four corners.”

  “I can’t name it, if I still don’t know what the heck it is,” I argued. The thought of what was lurking behind that last door was really starting to get to me. Hell, at the rate I was going, I would never see the daggone thing swing open. What could possibly make Tanner so standoffish about that creature? I’d been through volumes of books detailing some pretty fierce half-human baddies, but whatever it was, his cause for alarm made me more than a tad leery to find out.

  “Just name them all Tanner, then you’ll finally have the odds on your side,” Katie ragged.

  I roused my surliest of glares. “How about I wrap the blanket around you this time?”

  “No thanks,” Katie laughed. “I can tuck myself in.”

  My hands forged a thoughtful path to my chest. I left both of Tanner’s stones on like I had last night. I wouldn’t dream of taking off the phantom crystal, but it was killing me leaving the amethyst on. And I honestly didn’t know which torture was worse — knowing that blinding bliss was merely a command away or the waiting-by-the-phone feeling that wouldn’t let go.

  Katie scooted closer. “You know, calling works both ways.”

  “I’m aware,” I muttered.

  “Have you ever thought that him not calling shows trust too?” she suggested. “Considering how much he likes being in control, I’d say giving you that phantom crystal was a breeze compared to not knowing what you’ve been up to.”

  My lips barely lifted as I tucked the two stones under my nightshirt. “Possibly,” I acknowledged.

  “That has to be it,” Katie added. “If he knew you were hanging around witches, you couldn’t get his voice out of your head.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I groused and reached over to turn off the lamp. The room fell into somber darkness, lighted only by the beams streaming through the window from the half moon.

  “Shi, I can’t believe your visit is almost over. You just got here.”

  “Me too,” I said, getting a little misty. “But I won’t head off until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good . . . and if I haven’t said it enough already, thank you for all the clothes . . . And I LOVE my car.” She planted a kiss on my cheek, grabbed a hefty wad of the blanket, and rolled over with most of them like the cover-hog she was.

  Some things never change, I grinned silently.

  I’d no sooner rolled over into a nice comfy position when Katie abruptly remarked, “You know, you never said what Damiec was like?”

  My lids flew open like a screen door. I flipped the lamp back on and pushed myself up against the headboard. “Where the heck did that come from?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled, eyes glassy. “It just kind of popped up in my head.”

  “Un-pop it,” I snapped and started to turn off the light.

  “You’ve never said what he was like,” she continued.

  Seriously? NOW? “Yes, I did. I told you he was a blood-sucking Son-of-a-Bitch,” I reminded. “Oh, and an
extorting bastard.”

  “He hasn’t extorted anything from you,” Katie contended. My stunned glare forced her to add uneasily, “ . . . Not yet.”

  What she’d said was true and for some reason, my gut found that extremely unsettling, even for BFF honesty.

  “What does he look like?” Katie asked.

  I sucked in so much air I almost gagged. “WHAT?”

  “He’s the holder of my parents’ memories of me. I guess I’m curious about him,” she confessed, “ . . . and then knowing about that crazy dream you had—”

  “You promised me you would never bring it up,” I fussed, feeling two-seconds away from shoving my fingers into my ears.

  “I know, but just tell me a little about him,” she requested. “You never know? He may try to contact me one day. Don’t you think it would be helpful if I had a visual to warn me in case he does?”

  I pressed my back against the headboard and crossed my arms firmly. “All right,” I relented, nostrils flapping out a stream of warm air. I lay there for a moment trying to be as unbiased as humanly possible — or supernaturally. I shot straight through my mental list of cons: traitor, self-serving, vindictive, killer, half vampire-like creature, insatiable blood-lust, and a hideous-looking fangy mug that rivaled a gargoyle. With those affirmed, I moved on to the pros: he’d given me a howlite that I desperately needed to find Katie (though I suspected it wasn’t strictly out of generosity). He used to be close friends with Tanner, so there had to be a decent guy hiding behind his monster-mask somewhere — however I’d doubted a diamond-dusted pickaxe could scratch its surface. He honored his deals. He could have very well kicked my ass on that beach hands-down after getting his phantom crystal back, but he didn’t. He resented his curse and hated what he’d become. Then just to be fair, I supposed I had to include a few of the Bloodstone Talisman’s physical attributes — his more human ones. Damiec’s domineering swagger let you know that he wanted to be feared. And I was almost certain that those sandy-blonde silken tresses of his looked just as flawless messy as they did when styled to perfection. His muscular frame mirrored Tanner’s like a set of Herculean bookends. His lips were nowhere near as perfectly sculpted as my mentor’s, but he definitely got props for that full, surly pout propped above that GQ cleft in his chin. And then there were his dewy forest-green eyes. They were the kind that’s slightest gaze left a smoldering trail of broken hearts and could willingly drown a gal to their death with a stream of lusty thoughts if given the right chance.