by Anna Abner
Not on her, but it existed in cyberspace. “Can I use your computer to pull it off my email?”
“Sure. Make yourself at home.”
David had a small glass-topped desk unit in the far corner of the living room. The computer looked like it had cost a lot more than her secondhand laptop at home. All the components fit into a jumbo-size flat-screen monitor. But the mouse pad had Big Bird on it, and when she wiggled the wireless mouse, the desktop wallpaper was a photo of David and Ryan at Disney World.
Just when she thought it would be impossible to like him more, he proved otherwise.
Dani downloaded a copy of her application, hit Print, and handed David the complete hard copy.
“Okay,” he said, his eyes scanning every box and rectangle, “most of this is standard stuff. What did the rejection letter say? It should have told you ways to fix the troublesome points and resubmit.”
She thought back to when she’d gotten the letter. “It was a boilerplate note from the city. It said something like my application was not approved, and that’s it.”
David flipped to the second, and then the third page. “Everything looks great. You have the financing, the architectural designs, and a business plan. I mean, you really covered your bases.”
“Of course.” This wasn’t just a lark. This was her dream. She’d spent months doing research and finalizing her plans before she ever looked at the application.
David set the pages on the edge of the kitchen counter. “I’ll take it to work with me next time I go. I’ll find out for sure what the issue is, and then I’ll help you fix it.”
His warm, optimistic smile gave her new hope that her dream of owning her own child care center didn’t have to remain on the back burner. It could come true. She teared up like a big baby.
“Hey.” He gave her a squeeze. “We’ll figure it out. Worst case, you’ll open your business in another city. No big deal.”
“I’ve been hoping for this for so long,” she mumbled into his shirt. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”
Embarrassed by her waterworks, she sniffed and headed for the bedroom and those oversize sacks of clothes.
* * *
David didn’t give Dani too much time on her own, but hurried after. As he sidled through his bedroom door, she was sorting clothes. Though she’d fought him, she wore a hint of a smile as she picked through the pieces of cotton, denim, and polyester. Before she found his surprise, he snatched up a bag and thrust his hand inside.
“Did you buy yourself something, too?” she asked, folding a short off-white skirt.
“Sort of.” His hand brushed silk and lace in the second bag. “I bought you a surprise.” Quivering slightly, he shook out the blood-red camisole with lace along the neckline and hem, and then the matching satin shorts. “Will you wear them for me?” Damn his silly, shaky voice. He sounded like a nervous boy.
All humor vanished as she sized him up. What she read in him, he couldn’t guess, but she accepted the garments.
David assumed she’d slink shyly into the bathroom and return moments later dressed in his gift. But, no, he should have known better. Dani may have been a virgin when he met her, but she had never been shy.
She stood and slipped her tank top over her head. It plopped on the floor beside her feet. Next went her white cotton bra. David started mouth breathing like a Neanderthal.
With a gentle smile, she held out her hand for the sexy sleepwear. Once he’d gotten his thoughts in order, he laid the top in her hands. She covered the prettiest, perkiest pair of breasts he’d ever seen with the red cami, and David regretted ever buying it.
She stripped from the waist down, flashing her adorable rear end, and David’s breathing went from ragged to hyperventilating. She stepped into the matching red shorts, and David loathed the stupid satin pieces he’d gone to such lengths to pick out and then secretly pay for. What an idiot he was. He had never considered his sexy witch would strip if he asked her to. He was a moron.
“Never mind.” He groaned. “I hate it. I love your body much, much more.”
She laughed. “It feels wonderful.” She ran her palms up her waist and over her breasts. Her rosy nipples puckered tight and poked against the satin. “Thank you. For everything.” She stepped closer so that they were toe to toe, and David stopped breathing for a moment.
When had she gotten into his head this way? Was it the abduction? The escape? Or the explosive, mind-altering sex? Because in the last few days, Dani had become all he could think about. Maybe he’d been alone too long. But he could not get enough of this woman. Her dark, depthless eyes. Her wicked smile. Her voice. Her body.
David cleared his throat. “You’re so beautiful, Dani. Everything about you is so beautiful.”
She rose up on tiptoe and kissed his jaw. “I think.” Then his chin. “You are.” And then his lower lip. “Sexy, too.”
Moaning, he grabbed her ass and pulled her hard against his erection. “Get that silly thing off you. I want to see your body. I want to touch you. I want to taste you.”
“Slow down,” she said, cupping his face in her tiny, cool hands. “I want to make this last.”
Her fingers trailed lines down his throat. In torturous slow motion, she pulled his T-shirt up his belly, over his chest, and then completely off. It made a soft whoosh sound as it hit the floor.
He had to release her very squeezable ass so she could flick the button open on his fly. His skin quivered under her fingers. And then, in one quick push, his jeans and boxers were wadded around his ankles. He rocked back on his heels. Proud and throbbing, his erection stood at attention, aching for her touch.
“Dani,” he groaned. He wanted her to take her time and savor every pleasure their bodies could create, but God, he didn’t know how long he could stand there without tearing those tiny silky shorts right off her hips.
Dani rubbed her satin covered breasts against his ribs, sliding from side to side. “Doesn’t this feel wonderful? So soft…”
He took her head in his hands, his fingers digging through her dark curls, and kissed her hard. The feel of her lips and the taste of her tongue cranked his engine into overdrive.
Stumbling on his jeans, he carried her to the bed. Thank God his newly purchased condoms were within arm’s reach, or he wouldn’t have even bothered.
He nearly fell on top of her getting her onto the comforter. He kicked off his pants and flipped Dani onto her stomach.
She cried out in surprise, and then raised her hips at him in the most amazing, heart-stopping invitation he’d ever received. David ripped the silk shorts down her thighs, grabbed her by the waist, and entered her from behind in one aggressive thrust.
“Oh,” Dani exclaimed, fisting the comforter. “David.”
He pumped into her wet sheath, his body tightening like a guitar string until he feared his flesh would flay right off his bones. Her body contorted beneath him as she fingered her clit and made high, ecstatic cries.
David wanted to slow down. He wanted to make it last and last, but Dani was so hot and so willing he lost any semblance of control. All he could do was hold on to her as his world shrank to the size of a bed and a population of two.
Chapter Fourteen
Cole came to flat on his back inside a set of soft wrist and ankle restraints. His heart rate skyrocketed. He struggled so hard his biceps screamed. The restraints tore a tiny bit, but nowhere near enough to release him.
Terrified, he sat up in a bed surrounded by a blue-and-pink curtain. On the other side of the fabric, medical-type machines beeped and buzzed, and someone snored softly to his left.
Everything looked, sounded, and smelled real. But so had his comic book shop, and he’d murdered his family in it.
Nothing was real. This was just another imagined setting for his killing spree. He remembered the evil force inside him trying to throttle his friend Dani. Had he succeeded? Or was she hanging around, waiting for him to finish?
He had to g
et out of there.
“Steph?” he whispered. “Please, answer me.”
His spirit companion had been frustratingly absent from his nightmare. No matter how many times he called or how loudly he begged.
He wouldn’t stop trying, though. With her power he might be able to break out of this dream and get back to the real world.
She showed up. Finally. “You’re awake!”
“Not yet,” he said, “but I’m working on it. Can you juice me up in here? Or are you powerless in a nightmare spell?”
“Hon, you’re awake.”
Oh. Okay. She was another dream construct sent to frustrate him. Would the evil inside him force him to kill her, too? How did a person kill a spirit? He wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
“Forget it,” he grumbled, jerking on his restraints. “I’ll do it myself.”
He was starting to make progress on his right side. The more he twisted and tugged at the Velcro, the looser it got. Eventually, something popped inside his wrist, possibly a bone, probably a tendon, but the cuff slid off and Cole was free.
“Where are you going?” Steph asked. “You should call Dani or Holden or someone who can sort you out.”
“I strangled Dani to death,” he said, matter of fact. “At least I think I did. And if I go to Holden, I’ll kill him, too. I’m better off on my own until I figure out how to wake myself up.”
“Oh, hon…”
He changed into clothes from the little dresser beside his bed—black scrub bottoms and a well-used yellow smiley-face tee—and bolted out of the room.
He had to wake up. No doubt about it. But he needed a quiet, private place to cast his wake-the-hell-up spell.
He couldn’t go home. Or to his shop. So many horrors had already happened there. His family’s blood and flesh still stained the floor. And the walls. Even the ceiling. No, he couldn’t go anywhere familiar. So he headed out of the nearest emergency exit, not caring about the alarm screaming behind him, and sprinted across the street, between two buildings, down an alley, and then across the parking lot attached to a Golden Corral buffet. He made it all the way to the next block before he started to tire out. But then, he hadn’t been jogging in what felt like days. He’d soon be a panting flub if he didn’t get back on schedule. Right after he broke out of this never-ending nightmare.
God, he never cast on the fly. Not since Rebecca Powell had needed his help with Holden’s nightmare spell. He’d cast that in a darkened field on the edge of a highway.
But this was different. He was a wreck. And alone.
Up ahead was a Dollar General store. He wouldn’t normally participate in a breaking and entering, but in dreams it didn’t matter if you broke into shops and stole crayons for spell casting. He jiggled the front door, testing the lock and the thickness of the glass, about to kick it down when he spotted a used black Sharpie just lying there on the sidewalk like a gift from heaven. Maybe if he asked for what he wanted in this nightmare, it would appear.
“I want to wake up,” he said to the stars overhead.
No change.
He snatched up the marker and drew a spell circle on the sidewalk in front of the store.
Now for the grotesque part and the bit he disliked the most. He patted his pockets—he always carried a pocketknife—but it wasn’t there. Someone had stolen it. No, wait, these weren’t his pants. He must have left it in the hospital.
He couldn’t do the spell without blood. All of his necromancy powers were borrowed and existed only in his blood. He better get creative, fast.
Bash his head into the wall? Cut himself with a jagged jewel of broken glass?
The handicap sign in front of the store had been rear-ended recently and been sheared off about eighteen inches from the ground. He pushed his wrist against the twisted metal, but his skin didn’t break. He tried again, harder this time. Pop. His skin split and blood bubbled. But it didn’t stop flowing the way it usually did. He’d cut himself deeply.
Well, what was a little more blood in a nightmare flush with it? It wasn’t like it would affect anything. None of this was real.
As blood dripped from his fingertips, the power encoded in his plasma fired up like a highly tuned engine. Woozy, he dropped to his knees and called on Stephanie.
“I need help waking up, babe. Do you have any power in here?”
She appeared in front of the dollar store’s front door. “Cole, you’re awake.”
“No, I need to wake up before any more of my friends show up to die.” He drew four spell marks. “Expergo.”
Nothing happened. No power, no surge. Nothing.
“Steph, send me more power. As much as you got.”
“Cole. Listen to me, my love. You’re awake. Dani and her necromancer woke you up. You have to come back to us.” She sniffled.
No, he was still asleep. Because if he wasn’t he’d murdered his sister and his mother. Then he’d tried to kill Dani. That couldn’t be.
“Cole?”
He saw the parking lot with new eyes. The blood dribbling off his hand felt real. The cold concrete against his knees felt real. The stars and the dollar store and the sound of traffic all felt so real.
“I’m awake?”
Steph stepped as close to him as she could without passing through him. “Honey, you need help.”
He didn’t have a cell phone. Or a wallet. Or keys or anything. What was he supposed to do?
Real? No, that wasn’t right. This couldn’t be real.
“Cole?”
“Go away,” he whispered. God, if Steph was real, what if his sister had been real?
“Darling, please—”
“Go away!”
She vanished.
He’d killed the people he cared about most. The thing he’d dreaded had finally happened. The evil inside him had taken over and torn his world to bloody shreds. What kind of monster was he?
“Call someone.” Steph flickered in and out of sight. “You need a friend. You’re not yourself.”
How much control did the evil inside him have now? Were these his thoughts and feelings? Or its?
Steph said, “I can’t go to Dani. She won’t be able to see me. I’ll bring Holden here. You need a friend.”
“Holden’s not around. He’s on a beach somewhere.”
“Shit. That’s right. Do we know any other necromancers?”
The last thing he remembered was meeting Derek in Richlands. Was it possible that weaselly little dork had cast on him? He’d seemed so harmless at the time. Pathetic, even. Had it all been an act to give Cole a false sense of security before the guy whomped him upside the head with a nightmare spell?
If it was Derek, or even if it wasn’t, the entire plot began and ended with the Dark Caster, the unknown leader of an evil cabal. He’d planned Rebecca Powell’s demonic possession. He’d planned Dani’s abduction. Now he’d turned Cole’s brain to mashed potatoes with a never ending nightmare.
Until the Dark Caster was stopped for good, no one was safe.
“Go away,” he said to Steph. “I don’t want to hurt you, too.”
“I’m not leaving you like this.”
Fine. But she wouldn’t like where he was going. Because with no where left to run, he had to face the horrors head on.
* * *
Tuesday morning dawned like any other Tuesday, except this one felt different. First, David slept in past ten a.m., something he never allowed himself to do. With a four-year-old in the house and a full-time job, he hadn’t slept past seven in years. Even on the weekends.
But with Dani curled into him, warm and soft in his arms, a sense of security had settled over him and lulled him into a long, deep sleep. He opened his eyes, groggy but happy. Arguably happier than he’d been in a long time.
A scowling teenage boy appeared at the foot of his bed, and David startled. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “Please tell me you have not been standing there all night.”
Tony’s scowl deepened. “I’
m not a pervert. But isn’t it time you woke up and got to work? My sister, remember?”
“Mmm.” Dani rolled away and hugged her pillow over her head.
Wanting her to sleep all day if she needed to, David climbed out of bed and dressed in a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. “Do you have a plan this time, or am I winging it?” he asked, leading Tony into the kitchen.
“I got it all worked out,” Tony assured. “Call her cell. I’ll tell you what to say.”
David retrieved the landline receiver and dialed the number Tony gave him. A bored young voice answered.
“Hi, Emi?” David greeted. “I’m Mr. Wilkes from the high school soccer program, and I found some of Tony’s personal things. If you want them, meet me today at five thirty at Q’s Coffee Shop on Highway 24.”
“Hang up,” Tony exclaimed. “Hang up!”
David clicked off the phone. “How do I know she’ll be there?”
“She’ll be there.”
She’d better be. He wanted to fulfill his promise to Tony and help this girl get back on track, but it would be tough if she refused to even talk to him.
Breakfast was becoming a necessity, and as he inspected the contents of his fridge and cupboards, his stomach rumbled.
“Morning,” Dani greeted, sweeping into the room in a clingy black top and a short, full skirt. “I slept so good.” She rose on tiptoe to kiss him. “I hope you don’t mind that I took a shower without you.”
“So long as we make up for it later.” He cracked four eggs into a skillet and whisked them together with a little milk and pepper. “I talked to Tony’s sister again.”
Dani dropped four pieces of wheat bread into the toaster and found a jar of strawberry preserves in the fridge. “What did she say?”
“We’re meeting her today at five thirty p.m.”
“I’m glad. That gives us time to put together the plea to heaven spell. I still haven’t gotten a text from Willow. It might be more complicated than she implied.” She made two cups of coffee and slid one beside him on the counter. “What has Tony told you about his sister?”
“Since he died she’s been acting out in self-destructive ways.”