Phantom Eyes

by Scott Tracey

  “You’re sitting on my shirt.”

  I slid off the barstool I’d sat down at, and avoided his eyes, a little blush of my own coming on. “Sorry,” I said, but my voice was a little rusty.

  “There,” he said, relieved, once he’d grabbed the shirt and stuffed onto what was a laundry basket crammed full of clothing. “Come on,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “This isn’t even what I wanted to show you.”

  “Not your dirty laundry?” I teased. “Because I do declare, Gentry Lansing, that I’m positively shocked. Waving around your unmentionables. I’m an impressionable young boy!”

  He shot me a level-eyed look that nearly wiped the smile from my lips. And it reminded me, in an instant, that if Trey was staying here, then his bed was here. Trey’s bed. A bed with Trey in it. Suddenly, I was back to nervous again. Tell him you need to go. Make up an excuse. But try as I might, I couldn’t think of anything. Nothing plausible. Trey would see through anything I said.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about sex, or more specifically sex with Trey. But the problem wasn’t so much about whether or not I wanted to have sex with Trey. I was more concerned with not wanting to have sex with Trey and have it be bad. I mean, he was most likely not a virgin. He’d done this before. And he’d know in an instant that I couldn’t say the same.

  “Come on, moron,” he said affectionately, tugging on my arm. It was hard to say whether he’d seen the look of panic on my face, and decided to distract me, or if he just hadn’t noticed. “You haven’t even see the fireplace yet.”

  He pulled me towards the back of the cabin, waffling his fingers with mine. The log cabin vibe of the house reminded me of Montana, and the house that John and I had lived in. That was as perfect a distraction as anything else I could think of. Nerves and anxiety were dwarfed by equal parts of nostalgia and regret.

  “I grew up in a house like this,” I said softly.

  Trey squeezed my hand, showing he was listening. The cabin wasn’t huge, but the kitchen and the living room took up a majority of the floor space. I could understand the kitchen—it was set up to entertain. And the same for the living room, and the fireplace that dominated the corner.

  The first time I’d set foot in the kitchen at the Lansing home, I’d been caught off guard by the culture shock. I expected a woman like Catherine to have a kitchen that looked like it could double as a torture chamber, and instead I’d gotten Martha Stewart. Which was still a bit of a torture chamber, but I had the feeling that Martha did that a lot more than Catherine did.

  But the fireplace in the cabin, that was exactly what I would have expected. It was a fitted structure of dark old stones and slate, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a few human skulls wedged in there for atmosphere. The rounded interior of the fireplace was an almost solid black, also serving as the stunt double for a portal to Hell. There was even an iron bar running along the top of the interior where Catherine could hang her cauldron while brewing up a batch full of poison.

  “I take it back; you would plan a terrible first date,” I said, almost laughing.

  “What?”

  I remembered that none of the first date stuff had been out loud. Trey was watching me, his eyes on mine. It was a lot easier to deflect when I wore sunglasses. Not for the first time, I missed them. He was looking at me like he expected an explanation, but I just shook my head.

  “I thought we could hang out here for a while, watch the fire.” There was something wistful in his tone. He might not have many of these, I realized. Memories. Or nights where anything could happen. Tonight Trey had banished a ghost. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  “Do you even know how to start a fire?” I asked with a smirk. I dropped down onto one of the couches, acting as though I couldn’t be bothered.

  That was just the opening Trey had been waiting for. He sat down next to me, and pulled himself up along my back. “You’re easy to please, aren’t you?” he asked, as he flicked his wrist towards the fire. Of course he’d want to show off a little. Trey’s power was still new to him, like a gift he’d forgotten he’d been given, and he was proud. And I knew I should be mad, but I just couldn’t deal with it right now. Sitting on the couch, with his arms around me and his forehead pressed against my neck, was all I could handle. All I wanted to.

  Just one night, that’s all I need.

  I seriously expected Lucien to storm in through the front door at any moment. Nervous tension kept me on edge, but the longer we lay on the couch, quietly talking, the more I started to relax. By unspoken agreement, we didn’t talk about anything important—our conversation ranged from places we wanted to see one day, favorite movies, and all the things that we probably should have known about each other by now. Sometimes I turned into him, or he into me, and the kisses that replaced conversation were just as slow and calm. For all my worries, nothing felt pressured.

  seventeen

  Hours passed, and the fire started to dwindle down. “I should get you home,” Trey said, running his nose along my cheek.

  Leaving the house would break the spell and bring it all back. I played with his fingers, splaying his hand out and tracing all the different lines on his hand. “This was perfect,” I said quietly. I was afraid that if my voice carried, if the world heard me admitting that I’d had a nice time, something would happen to ruin it.

  He put out the fire the same way he started it, with a little magic. It was interesting to see him work, because it wasn’t just the knowledge that Lucien had given him, but it was also a bit of practical application as well. It wasn’t enough to just put out the fire, which Trey willed away with very little effort. The ashes and embers were still going. I watched his face narrow in concentration as he held out a hand over the metal pan of old ashes next to the fireplace. He transferred the heat out of the embers and into the ashes, and then carefully carried the container outside. As he tossed the ashes into the air, he focused again and a wave of warmth swept out as the air was heated quickly.

  It wasn’t just how to make magic work that he’d learned, but the principles to apply, like how to transfer energy from one source to another. It was like he’d downloaded a lifetime of knowledge in just a few minutes. Whatever the terms of the bargain, Trey hadn’t gotten screwed on the basics. At least not yet.

  On the drive back we were both quiet. We both knew that reality waited on the other side of tonight. “Thanks for saving me,” I finally said, once Trey pulled into Jason’s driveway.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said, offering me a slow smile. His expression changed as we reached the house, though. There was a car in the driveway, a car I recognized.

  “Is that … Jade’s?”

  Trey looked at the clock in the truck’s console. “It’s almost midnight. What’s she doing here?”

  We were both thinking the worst by the time Trey cut the ignition and we hurried into the house. “She’s upstairs,” Jason called out from the kitchen as we walked down the hallway. I detoured us towards him, though I didn’t fully walk inside.

  “You decided to stay,” Jason said, an unusual frown on his face. He thought I would go, and I surprised him by staying.

  “FYI, your brother-in-law is a dick,” I said, letting that be the end of it.

  Jason recovered quickly, I’ll give him that. There was only a moment of frustration and worry on his face before he regained his composure. “If I’d known I was running a home for runaway Lansings, I could have applied for a tax credit,” he said, trying so hard to be casual as he sipped his coffee. He eyed the two of us, but thankfully I was spared the awkward moment of having my father and boyfriend try to make small talk.

  “Is she okay?” Trey asked.

  “I think she just needed a friend,” Jason replied, a hint of reproach in his tone. “She said something about no one answering her calls.”

  Trey looked at me with guilt in his eyes. He’d turned both of our phones off in the truck on the way out of town. I hadn’t thought to
turn mine back on. Clearly neither had he.

  “I take it you asked Gentry to take the ferry with you?” Jason asked. Skirting the issue about why I’d decided to stay, I noticed.

  “That happened later,” I said quickly, distracted. “Bennett Armstrong.” The name caused Jason’s head to snap up fast enough that he could have whiplash. “Was he always a total psycho? Because he’s one sadistic box of crazy now.”

  “What happened?” Jason’s face went smooth and blank, even though I could see the calculating ferocity behind his eyes. Trying to figure out what had happened, how he could handle it. How the feud was involved.

  “Someone brought his ghost back,” I explained. “Not sure why. But he decided revenge was a better option. He tried to kill me, and when Drew got in the way, he started torturing him.”

  “He hurt his son?” Jason’s tone was venomous and sharp. Interesting. There were lines that even Jason thought were too abhorrent to cross. “Is he okay?”

  “I think so,” I said, awkwardly shrugging my shoulders. “He didn’t want to talk and I wasn’t going to push. His dad was like … seriously disturbed. I don’t know if that was a Bennett thing or a ghost thing. But he was enjoying himself way too much.”

  “You should have told someone!” Jason yelled, looking between the two of us before deciding to turn his rage on Trey. “You just let him wander off with you? Where I—where no one knew where he was? Anything could have happened to the two of you. What if Bennett had come back to finish what he started? What then?”

  “Bennett’s gone,” Trey said, in a cold tone. “He’s not coming back.”

  “But there will always be an Armstrong in Belle Dam,” Jason said, his expression sour. “I should have known better—”

  “Don’t blame Drew for what his father did,” I interjected quickly, failing to stamp down on my fury. “You of all people don’t get to do that.” There was too much on my head already for the things that Jason had done.

  “You told me he said that before,” Trey said, trying to be both the voice of reason, and a distraction. “’Always an Armstrong in Belle Dam.’ I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Old family legends,” Jason said, waving it away. “Most people have forgotten them by now. But the important thing is tracking down where Bennett’s gone to lick his wounds. Something summoned with magic can only—”

  “—be sent back by magic,” I interrupted. “This isn’t my first day.” I debated how much to tell Jason, but figured he needed to know at least some of it. “Trey sent him back.”

  Jason scoffed, but I stepped between them before tempers could flare any worse. “Trey protected me. It’s fine. Besides, I walked away with just a couple of bruises. Way better than the last time.” The words were out of my mouth before the klaxons could go off in my head. All it took was the look on Jason’s face as he processed “the last time.” I hadn’t told him about any of it. At the time, it had seemed easier. But now, the look on Jason’s face had me second-guessing that.

  It was like there was a great, pressing weight on him that was invisible to the eye but crushing him nonetheless. In all the time I’d known Jason, I’d seen him with mask after mask, feigning emotions and saying only what people wanted to hear. And seeing him like this now, looking broken and completely out of his depth, I felt more shame than I’d ever felt before in my life.

  “You’re never going to trust me, are you?” he whispered, and the knife inside me twisted just a little bit deeper. It wasn’t a question. Not really.

  “Jason … ” I said, but he got up from the table and calmly walked from the room. I remembered the first few weeks living here, the way that Jason would walk out of the room in the middle of our conversation. It hurt to think that we’d slid back to that place. But I couldn’t change who I was.

  I watched the hallway he’d left through for a long time, wishing that somehow things could be different. Maybe Jason and I had gotten off on the wrong foot, and maybe he wasn’t the heartless monster I’d assumed him to be, but … that still didn’t mean I could be the kind of kid he deserved. He’d never be John. I’d never be the son he dreamed up in his head. No matter how many times I wished it.

  I pasted a smile on my face and tried to pretend everything was alright. What was one more trauma? “Come on,” I said to Trey, leading him through the house. When we came to my room, we found Jade curled up on my bed, already fast asleep.

  Her short, caramel-brown hair was spread around her like a halo, and if I didn’t know any better I would have expected that she’d arranged herself just like that so she’d look perfectly photogenic when we walked in.

  “She almost looks sweet and innocent,” Trey said, leaning against the door frame.

  I bumped into his side. “She’d kick you in the balls if she heard you say that,” I said, looking at her closer. “She looks tired. I’ve never seen the circles under her eyes before.”

  “So you want to let her sleep?” Trey’s voice had gotten suddenly stiff. “In your bed? All night?” But even his weird bit of jealousy couldn’t stop his eyes from curiously roaming over everything in my room, taking it all in.

  “I’ll sleep in one of the guest rooms,” I said, trying to hide a smile. I closed my door quietly behind us and headed across the hall to one of the many spare rooms in the house.

  Trey tried to stop at the door, again, and I dragged him in behind me. The beds were fully made, but I didn’t know how often the sheets were changed, so the first thing I did was pull the comforter off and leave it in a puddle on the floor. I went into the closet, fairly sure there’d be a stack of blankets just like there was in my room. Jackpot. I pulled a couple of them out, and cracked the window.

  “Okay, well,” Trey started.

  “Stay,” I said. I looked up to see my own nerves expressed on his face, too. “Just until I fall asleep? Please?”

  Trey gave me an inscrutable look, but he kicked off his shoes and closed the door behind us. He cut the lights, and I was thankful for the darkness as I started undressing. Trey sat at the edge and slid across, making room for me. It was surprisingly easy, jockeying for position on the bed. We moved with a comfort that I didn’t expect, and when I laid my head down on his chest, Trey adjusted his arm so that it curled around behind me.

  It wasn’t until I started to unwind, until my body settled against the warmth of Trey’s, and I could hear the low and steady beating of his heart through his chest that everything really started to hit me. I wouldn’t cry—I refused to break down, but again, Trey reacted like he just knew, and tightened his arm around me.

  “I’ll be here until you fall asleep,” he whispered, and it was the balm I needed. Everything started to slip away, and I fell asleep to his heartbeat.

  “I own him now. And that means I own you, too.” Lucien stood next to me, standing on the pier.

  I don’t want this, I tried to say, but I lacked a voice. A mouth. There was a smooth lump in the front of my face where my lips should have been. My fingers were clay digits, thick and unwieldy. With every movement, I saw the flash of golden strings. In my wrists, my feet, my head.

  “I promised not to kill you. I promised not to torture you. But I never promised not to teach you the error of your ways,” Lucien said with relish.

  My head was pounding, a legion of winged creatures trying to burst through my skull. My shell was cracked, breaking apart. Everything I was had become something less, and now I was being torn apart by the pain, my skin split tore shredded screaming pain—

  This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a nightmare.

  My skin was filled with fire, sculpted by a thousand suns. There was light in my veins, and if I opened my mouth even a little, it would start to escape and then everything would be blind.

  It was coming. I could feel it, breaking my bones in all the best ways. I screamed in triumph. I screamed in torment.

  Eyes like molten fire twisting and violated claws scratching at your mind and rending apart your
power savage like all bad things to boys who sin and sing melodies instead of dirges because that’s where traitors dwell in the spaces between holy and hell angels spirited against rising tides and demons quake below your rage this power that was yours, boy, was never really yours only pillaged and stolen back now all of it mine mine mineminemineMINEMINEMI—

  The screams woke me. My screams. I’d soaked through the sheets, my body was dripping sweat like I’d spent the month in a sauna, and worst of all, I was alone.

  It took me precious seconds to catch my breath and remember how I’d ended up here. Trey. The ghost. The bargain. Jade. I closed my eyes and counted to a hundred. Anything to focus on, to not think about what I was going to do. By the time I left and headed back to my room, I’d managed a good facsimile of control. It was a simple plan. Figure out how to engineer a conversation with Grace. Convince her to give me my powers back. Use those powers to wipe the floor with Lucien. Get Trey out of his deal. Pray that I survived.

  Jade wasn’t in my room anymore, and the bed was made. Maybe Trey woke her up before he left. But she was in the kitchen waiting for me, in a shirt that I recognized from my own closet. She was alone, seated at the table in the same seat Jason had been in last night. Lost in thought looking out at the backyard, she didn’t hear me come in until I made a beeline for the coffee maker.

  “Trey left already?” I don’t know why I assumed he’d stayed the night, but I did.

  “Gentry was here?”

  I nodded. “It was a Lansing slumber party, but I wasn’t allowed to cuddle with you.” I pretended to pout.

  Jade laughed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She pulled one of her legs up onto the chair, and hid half of her face behind her knee. “Sorry about falling asleep. I figured I’d just wait for you to get home, and then the next thing I knew it was morning.”