Dead Spots

by Rhiannon Frater

  “Mackenzie!” Grant called out again.

  Clenching her hands, she steeled herself. She would not shirk from Grant or any other monster. If this was the world of dreams and nightmares and she was a shaper, she could and would defend herself. She was sick and tired of feeling like a victim. It was time for her to stand up for herself. Seizing hold of the doorknob, she opened the door and scooted outside.

  The boards were smooth and cool beneath her bare feet and the wind chilled her as it lashed her body and whipped her hair about her face.

  “You look so beautiful,” Grant said in awe.

  “How did you find me?” she asked boldly, trying not to give in to her wilder emotions, but to remain calm and resolved.

  Grant stepped closer, but his loafers remained firmly on the ground a few feet beyond the edge of the revitalized bungalow’s porch. “The car.” He motioned to Lucas’s fancy car gleaming in the moonlight. “I saw it from the road.”

  “We’re miles away from where the shark killed you, Grant.” Mackenzie’s voice was more accusatory than she had planned it to be, but she was hurt and angry. Maybe she had cared more for him than she had realized. Seeing him now it was difficult to believe he was a wraith. Maybe she had put all the pieces together wrong. Hadn’t she seen his sorrow and pain throughout their short journey? His loneliness and compassion? “How did you find me?”

  “Maybe my final thoughts of you before I died drew me here. I resurrected just a short distance away.” He held out her purse. “When I awoke I had this in my hands. In my final moments, I used what was left of my spark to bring it with me when I returned. I know it’s important to you.”

  Mackenzie stared at the purse with longing. It held Joshua’s little blanket, his photos, and her journal. She was tempted, but Grant was far enough from the porch that she would have to step off to claim it. She wasn’t certain, but she suspected there was an invisible boundary around the restored bungalow that she should not cross.

  “Please, take it. I know the importance of what’s inside.”

  Running her hands through her hair, Mackenzie fought to clear her thoughts. “You found me at the cemetery, too.” The rest of the pieces were falling together faster now, the puzzle picture becoming clearer. “No one else who died that night was there. Just you and me.”

  Grant stared into her eyes with an earnest expression. “Mackenzie, I love you. I know that hearing that sounds ridiculous, but in this world, every good thing I discover is worth cherishing. You’re a wonderful, beautiful woman. I want to protect you and keep you far from the monsters of this world. I have always been the kind of man who knows what he wants and needs when he sees it. I look at you and I know I need you. I want you.” Taking a small step closer, he lingered at the base of the stairs.

  “You don’t know me!” Mackenzie protested, but she felt unsure of his motives now that he had spoken in his defense. Confusion began to muddle her thoughts, making the puzzle pieces in her mind start to disconnect and scatter.

  “I know you’re a woman who has lost too much and deserves good things. Not this death and destruction, but a dream palace filled with love. I can’t make one for you, but I can help you create one. We can live in it together, Mackenzie. We can be happy.” Grant’s eyes shimmered in the moonlight. The passion in his voice stirred within her the need to be loved and wanted. “I can help you be safe in this world. We can find a way to be happy. I know you want a child again. That little boy wraith and his minion wouldn’t have been able to take you from me if you didn’t want to be a mother so badly. We can have a child, Mackenzie. I have always wanted to be a father. We can create a perfect life in this world.”

  Mackenzie’s hand closed around the porch railing to steady herself. Grant’s words painted a beautiful picture that she craved. She missed the unity, love, and beauty of the first year of her marriage to Tanner. The dream of a blissful life was alluring.

  “Grant, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me truthfully.”

  “Always,” he said, his voice rich with yearning.

  “When I went to sleep the other night, did you come to me while I slept? Did you…” The words clogged her throat.

  “Did I what?” His eyes did not stray from her face.

  The memory of the dream both aroused and sickened her. “I was dreaming about Tanner making love to me, but it was all wrong in the end. It felt different and…”

  “Are you asking me if I made love to you?” Grant tilted his head, his eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  “No, I’m asking you if you raped me,” Mackenzie finally managed to say.

  Grant extended his hand and lightly brushed the air over her fingers where they rested against the rail. Her skin bubbled with gooseflesh. “I would never do anything against your will. You let me in, remember?”

  Mackenzie, let me in. Before it’s too late. Let me in, Tanner had whispered in the dream.

  Horror filled Mackenzie. “Oh, my God!”

  “You need me like I need you. Think of all the times I saved you.”

  “You tricked me!” Mackenzie shouted.

  “No, Mackenzie, we made love,” Grant replied. “You knew it was me, didn’t you?”

  There had been moments when the dream had seemed wrong, when Tanner had blurred into Grant. Had she known? Mackenzie’s thoughts again devolved into chaos.

  “Always playing the goddamn hero, aren’t we, Grant? Trying to be all heroic so the damsel in distress falls for you? You’re a fucking waste of space,” Tanner’s voice said cruelly. He sauntered out of the night and glared at Grant.

  Mackenzie stepped away from the rail, frightened by Tanner’s appearance. Every time he appeared things tended to go horribly wrong.

  “Go away!” Grant ordered. “You’re not wanted here. You’re an illusion.”

  “Oh, I’m a little bit more than that, aren’t I, Mac?” Tanner was clad in jeans and a tight T-shirt. His muscled arms crossed over his chest as he stood with his feet set apart. “I’m what she believes me to be. And right now, she believes that I can see through your fucking bullshit lies. You just want to get into her pants. You’re a sad, lonely, pathetic pansy.”

  “Go away!” Mackenzie said sharply to Tanner. “The real Tanner was an idiot, but not cruel. You’re not real.”

  “And he is?” Tanner pointed accusingly at Grant.

  “I don’t know,” Mackenzie confessed, pressing a hand to her chest in confusion. “I don’t know.”

  “This is what you get for not paying attention to your mother’s guidance, you know. This is all the shit I tried to protect you from all your life.” This time it was her mother, Estelle, who strode out of the darkness. Dressed in tight jeans, a pink sequined top, and her favorite cowboy boots, Mackenzie’s mother looked beautiful and severe. “When your daddy left me high and dry, I did everything in my power to keep you safe. To keep you from being hurt like I was. And what did you do?” With a mocking laugh, her mother flung out her arms. “You ended up here.”

  “And now she has this asshole in love with her, begging her to be his princess in his dream castle. Is the castle pink, Nancy-boy?” Tanner snorted.

  Estelle rolled her eyes. “When I think of all the time I wasted trying to bring you up right.…”

  “You’re not my mother!”

  “Ignore them,” Grant said urgently. “They can’t enter the bungalow. They’re trying to tap in to your fears so they can tear down your defenses.”

  “It’s not going to work,” Lucas said, slipping out the door. “She’s not the one who shaped this bungalow. I did.”

  The apparitions grew silent and eerily still. Grant lowered his head, his fingers playing with the strap of Mackenzie’s purse.

  Lucas set his elbows on the railing and leaned toward Grant. “It was a good try though, Grant. Dredging up apparitions to attack you while you play the wounded party.”

  Mackenzie shivered, her gaze shifting to Lucas. “He’s doing it?”

/>   The phantasms of her mother and Tanner remained unmoving, their eyes not even blinking. Grant gently ran the strap of the purse through his hands, rocking the bag.

  “He’s controlling them. It’s a setup.”

  “You’re cleverer than I thought,” Grant said at last. “Constructing these replicas and pretending they’re mine so you can keep her in your power.”

  Lucas guffawed. “Are you really going to play that game?”

  “You’re the one playing a game with the woman I care for,” Grant said sharply.

  “Oh, no, Grant. I got your number. I know the games you play and what you want from her. I see your mark on her and what it’s doing.” Lucas glanced over his shoulder at Mackenzie. “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to manipulate you. Muddle your mind.”

  “I have done nothing but protect her since she stumbled into a dead spot. I made sure she knew how to feed herself, protect herself, and guard against creatures like you,” Grant answered defensively. “I never dreamed a wraith would use the guise of a child to appeal to the shattered heart of a mother.”

  “Damn, you’re good. Are you believing any of this, Mac?”

  “Her name is Mackenzie,” Grant said tersely.

  Pressing a hand to her chest, she found it hard to take a breath. “When Lucas saved me at the amusement park, you said he was dangerous. That he hunts humans and kills them.” Her voice cracked slightly, but she took a step forward, her hands rounded into fists.

  “That was you?” Lucas looked at her in surprise.

  “Yeah. That was me. You saved me and afterward Grant told me that you were dangerous.”

  “He is,” Grant said simply. “Look what he’s done to us.”

  “Grant, what did you do to me?” Mackenzie shouted, losing her temper. “You’re not giving me answers!”

  “All you need to know is that I love you, and he is ruining everything that was building between us!” Grant yelled in response. “Why can’t you see that?”

  Lucas stared at Grant evenly, rubbing his hands together slowly. “Should I show her what you are, Grant? I am a seer. That’s why you fear me, isn’t it?”

  Grant didn’t answer. His eyes flicked toward Mackenzie, appealing silently.

  Lucas turned about, inclined his head toward her, and whispered, “Do you want to see what he is?”

  “You can show me?” Mackenzie met his worried gaze, seeking out the truth.

  “Yes. But you’ll also see what this world is really like, too,” he warned her.

  “Mackenzie, don’t listen to him,” Grant said sharply.

  “She’s a dumb-ass bitch. That’s why the baby died,” Tanner grunted.

  “She never listens to sense,” Estelle added.

  Mackenzie ignored them. The apparitions no longer even sounded like Tanner and Estelle, but terrible facsimiles. She nodded to Lucas.

  “This is going to be shocking,” he said in a hushed tone.

  “Mackenzie, please, come to me! Don’t let him blind you with illusions and lies!” Grant’s body was tense, but he was obviously held back by an invisible force.

  Lucas gently pressed his hand to her forehead and whispered in her ear, “See the reality of this world.”

  Their surroundings exploded into myriad colors and shapes. Purples, blues, reds, and silvery fire swirled together in the sky. Massive plumes of pink and yellow filled the horizon. Rainbows of many colors shimmered above, and the trees vibrated with energy that sparkled in a variety of green hues. The wind sounded like whispers, the air smelled like ozone, and the world itself sang with sounds that vibrated through her soul. Even though their surroundings were filled with color, it was tainted with a miasma of black swaths that pulsed and seeped into everything.

  “Oh, God,” Mackenzie whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

  Finally, she shifted her gaze to rest upon Tanner, her mother, and Grant. Tanner and Estelle were black human-shaped blotches, their jagged edges constantly whirring like chainsaw blades. Grant stood in sharp contrast, appearing like he always did, except his eyes and mouth were black blots. It was as if someone had taken a photograph and smudged out his eyes and mouth.

  Fearfully, she looked toward the man standing next to her, terrified at what she would see. To her relief, both the bungalow behind him and Lucas looked exactly the same. In fact, they looked oddly out of place in the fantastical world around them, like photo cutouts set against a surrealistic painting. A bright halo of light edged Lucas’s form and she finally understood what she must look like to the wraiths.

  “What he’s showing you is a lie,” a distorted version of Grant’s voice growled. “It’s all a lie.”

  Studying herself, Mackenzie saw that she, too, had the same oddly hyper-realistic appearance as Lucas and the glowing halo, but there was a red mark slashed over her left breast and a black, writhing murky haze covered her chest above her heart.

  “Lucas, what is it?” she cried out in fear.

  “The red mark is your death. The other cloudy thing…” Lucas hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “That’s Grant’s mark. He left it on you when you were … uh … intimate.”

  Mackenzie slapped Lucas’s hand away and surged forward. He barely caught her arm before she launched herself off the porch at Grant. The world looked vividly real again, but she knew it was all a lie. Grant’s soulful eyes and kind words were all lies.

  “You fucking asshole!” she screamed at him. “You fucking invaded my dream and my body!”

  Lucas hauled her from the end of the porch. Grant stood silently watching, impassive and unmoving. The mirages of Tanner and her mother vanished into a swirl of inky blackness.

  “She’s mine. She has my mark. I will reclaim her.”

  The words dripped with ice and hate.

  “Fuck you! Fuck you!” Mackenzie felt crazed with the fury enveloping her.

  “Mac, calm down!” Lucas ordered. “We’ll find a way to remove it!”

  Choking on her words, Mackenzie stopped fighting Lucas. Grant watched with fierce, smoldering eyes. In that moment, she feared him more than anything else she had experienced so far.

  “Take it off me, Grant!”

  “No, you’re mine.”

  “We’ll find a way to get it off,” Lucas vowed.

  “Do you think that will stop me?” Grant sneered.

  “No, but I won’t let you hurt her again,” Lucas responded.

  “She’s mine!” Grant’s face twisted into an ugly mask, his fury tangible.

  “You know what I love about wraiths?” Lucas asked.

  Grant didn’t respond, but stared at Mackenzie with a desire that terrified her.

  “When you take on human shape, I can kill you.” Lucas drew his gun and fired four shots into Grant’s chest. The wraith collapsed, blood staining his pressed white dress shirt. With a final gasp, the creature that had worn the guise of a friend died and dissolved into black mist.

  “He raped me,” Mackenzie said, the words foul and horrible on her tongue. “I was dreaming and he raped me.”

  Lucas swiveled toward her, the gun still clutched in his hand. “I promise he won’t touch you again, Mac. But we have to go now before he re-forms and heads back here with friends.”

  Nodding, Mackenzie turned toward the door. “I’ll get Johnny.”

  “Mac,” Lucas said in a softer, gentler tone.

  She hesitated, her hand on the doorknob.

  “I meant what I said. He won’t touch you again. I promise it. I’ll protect you.”

  Mackenzie shook her head dismally, her long hair falling around her face. “No, Lucas. I don’t want that. I want to protect myself. I want you to teach me everything you know about this place. I want you to teach me to shape things out of thin air like you do. I want you to show me how to kill that fucker. I don’t want you to be my knight in shining armor. I want to save myself.” She meant every word. She was tired of being a victim.

  Lucas stared at her for a
long moment, then nodded. “You got it. Absolutely.”

  “Good.” She opened the door and saw Johnny standing near the door with a worried expression on his small face.

  “Is the bad man gone now?” he asked.

  “Yes, he is. Let’s get on the road,” Mackenzie said.

  CHAPTER 26

  The refreshing early-morning breeze wafted through the crack at the top of the driver’s side window ruffling Mackenzie’s hair and drawing her out of a light doze. Running her hand over her mussed hair, she stretched in the backseat, which was a little awkward since there wasn’t much room. Johnny was curled against her, his head resting on her lap, buried beneath the pale yellow blanket Mackenzie had made for him. The car rumbled beneath her, a comforting sensation for it meant they were putting many miles between them and where Grant had last manifested. When they’d fled the bungalow, they had decided to travel toward San Antonio, then follow I-37 into South Texas. Grant had planned to take a path that would have taken Mackenzie and him south of Houston toward Corpus Christi, so it seemed only wise to avoid that area.

  “Where are we?” Mackenzie asked, cocking her head to look out the windows.

  “We’re on 1604, heading southwest. Circling San Antonio right now,” Lucas answered. He sipped hot coffee and the silver rings on his hand glittered as he lifted the cup to his lips. “How you doing?”

  Mackenzie could see Lucas’s eyes checking the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of her. “I’m okay considering.” Her fingers lightly combed through Johnny’s dark blond hair. His small frame resting against hers was decidedly soothing.

  “I didn’t realize he had … you know … uh … most of the time people just fall for the seduction.” Lucas shifted in his seat, obviously feeling awkward.

  “Would it have mattered if he’d seduced me? It still would have been a lie. He’d still be a monster deceiving me. It would’ve been coercion of another kind.” Mackenzie’s voice sounded more tired than agitated. She had spent too much of the night thinking about Grant’s deception and the grievous acts he had committed against her.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Totally right. I just feel…” Lucas tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I just wish I had chased after you and Grant after I shot that psycho that was trying to kill you at the amusement park. I saw the balloons and knew they were bad news. I caught a glimpse of your struggle and managed to get a clear shot of the wraith. By the time I fought off the balloons and made it back to Johnny in the car, I’d lost you and Grant. I had two chances to get you away from Grant and I failed. It makes me feel a bit like shit. My mother raised me to always respect women and protect them from assholes. It’s been ingrained in me since childhood. I guess I feel the need to apologize to you.”