"Tell me something, Eden sweetheart." Samuel took her hands in his. "If you don't think it's too petulant for me to ask. Did you actually see us getting out of this plan? Nowhere have you mentioned how we get back? Do we?"
Eden blinked. Damn it. No, she hadn't.
Chapter Eleven
Samuel couldn't believe he'd agreed to this crap. Or, rather, he could because Eden had asked it of him and it was becoming increasingly clear to him that he would never deny his woman anything. Ever. He loved her and apparently that meant agreeing to her crazy plan just to prove to the others she could have a true vision.
He closed his eyes. Truth was—he'd never used his power like this before. Maybe this was the way he was supposed to use it. Storing and keeping identities and then pulling them out to use them when he needed to. That wasn't how it had ultimately worked for him but that was probably how it should have happened.
The problem? Since he'd never done it this way before he hadn't a clue how to go about making the transformation. Usually he just tapped someone, got their face, and then scrubbed off his old skin until he had his new face.
But, Eden was telling him he was actually capable of storing faces over time and aging the features when he took on the look. He closed his eyes and laid his head back against the bedframe. This was impossible.
Is it? He jumped at the sound of Eden's voice in his mind. Samuel looked right and left. The woman wasn't anywhere near him. A grin spread across his face. She'd done it. She'd been in his mind and he'd had no idea.
Now, see. If I can do that then you can become the demon.
He shook his head. Where was she?
I'm not telling you until you shift into that demon form so we can get this behind us.
Now that was motivation. Not seeing Eden wasn't something he could live with anymore. In the brief time they'd been together he'd become addicted to the woman that he would always love and who would never be able to love him exactly the same way.
I do love you, Samuel.
I know you do. He closed his eyes. Now get the fuck out of my head.
He'd wanted her to learn how to do it, so they could be mentally close, at least. But now he was going to have to pay attention to his musings. There would be drawbacks to her knowing his every thought.
Samuel closed his eyes and reached out in front of him with his arms. He didn't know if this pose would work or not but it seemed as good a position as any. Maybe if he reached out to the universe, the Fates would help him. Or not. He had no idea what was going to happen.
He took a deep breath and tried to picture the demon as he'd seen him that day. They'd been young. Or at least they'd both looked young. He didn't know exactly how the demon aged.
Samuel's parents had placed him in a summer program that brought together kids from all over the country to work in community projects. They'd thought it would be a good socialization project for him. He'd known they'd thought he'd gotten weird. As much as it pained him he couldn't really explain to them that he'd been contacted by the ghost of an Outsider who explained to him who he was and what was expected of him.
Hearing that news, in his bedroom at midnight when he was eleven years old, had thrown him off his game. However, nothing would ever sideline him like the fire did that day.
It might be fair to say he was still trying to come back from that experience. Sebastian, as he'd called himself, had been at the conference too. Was that just coincidence? Samuel didn't believe in such things anymore. Whether it was Fate or some kind of maneuverings by Sebastian himself, they'd both been at the same place at the same time.
He'd looked up and known that Sebastian—the boy garnering so much praise from the directors of the program—was an evil son-of-a-bitch and no human. Demon. For one minute, he'd had the unbelievable urge to rush forward and strangle the creature.
But no one there would have understood and he'd have been pulled off him. How would he have explained what he did to anyone in a way that a sane person would understand?
Then Sebastian had turned and regarded him. That's when his body had gone on full alert. The already handsome, slender, high-cheekboned, aristocratic features of the boy in front of him had screamed evil from every pore on the other boy's body.
The voices in his head had started talking to him then. The only time they had ever done that—most of the time if they spoke at all it was to sing. That day they'd been clear: they wanted him to run.
So he had. He'd turned and run like his life depended on it. He should have continued until he'd run clear across the state and back to Seattle. Except he hadn't. For reasons he couldn't understand even as an adult, he'd hightailed it into the closet and closed the door. The demon hadn't been anywhere around. He'd assumed he could hide.
He'd been wrong. Nearly dead wrong. Sebastian had locked him inside by somehow jamming the door shut from the outside. The details were fuzzy to Samuel. All he could see were the red flames coming at him as they melted the door, the smell of the smoke, and the pain he thought would never stop tearing into his skin, burning the flesh from his body.
Then blessed nothingness until the beeping of the hospital machines had awoken him to the truth of true agony.
He'd been luckier than most. For five years he'd watched his parent's pity turn silently into pain every time they regarded him. Finally, at seventeen he'd left home to spare them his presence. Although he could never again go back to his parents—how could he explain his new faces?—He hadn't had to live with the stares and the quick looks of horror on the expressions of strangers. Samuel could change his appearance any time he wanted to.
But could he become the demon?
He held the image of Sebastian's young face in his mind even as he kept his hands out in front of him. What was he hoping? That the universe would somehow fill him up with the ability he needed. A slight weight on his upturned palms jarred him and he opened his eyes. To his utter surprise, a glowing ball of light sat in his hands. While it weighed just enough to garner his attention, it didn't feel like anything at all. The ball didn't burn, didn't hurt, it simply sat there in his open hands waiting for him to do something with it.
"All right."
He spoke aloud because it seemed like the thing to do and, maybe, because he needed to hear his own voice in order to steady himself. The slight sound of chanting began in his ears and he looked upward at the ceiling.
"I take it you guys approve of whatever this is."
The chanting continued and Samuel decided to take that as a nod that they did, indeed, want him to use that shiny ball of light in some manner.
Drawing his hands closer to himself, he placed the ball in front of his face; he closed his eyes once more before he brought the shiny ball to himself. Going on instinct alone, he drew the ball into himself covering his face with it.
For one second, nothing happened and Samuel wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake. Was he not supposed to do that? Had he wasted the ball of light?
Then his face started to tingle. It felt different from the throb that usually accompanied his change. This one didn't hurt. It felt downright pleasant. He laughed aloud as the image of thousands of little fairies dancing on his face appeared in his imagination. He pushed away the thought. If he kept that up he might become downright deranged.
His face got tight and then the pain started. He'd been foolish to think there wouldn't be any. Only it wasn't his features that hurt. No, they'd taken the shift remarkable well. It was the rest of his body.
Flung back on the bed by a force he couldn't see or control, his muscles and bones began to reshape. He screamed, unable to bear the wrenching and tearing going on inside of his body. Samuel hadn't known pain like this since he'd been burned. Stars floated in front of his eyes and then blackness.
* * * *
Samuel came to all at once. The light in the room was bright and he groaned as it assaulted his vision. How much time had passed? He forced himself to sit up. After a moment, when the room st
opped spinning and life seemed to have righted itself, he noticed something strange.
Raising his arms for further inspection, he saw that his initial reaction had been correct. The hair on his arms was a darker shade of brown. His hands looked different. Whereas, Samuel always had large knuckles, thanks in part to breaking a few of his fingers over the years, the hands he regarded were smooth and unbroken. Male hands, certainly, but not the tools of a man whose work depended on their use. Maybe they were even regularly manicured.
He jumped to his feet, his heart pounding like he'd run a marathon, and rushed to the mirror. The face that stared back at him was that of a total stranger. Except that he knew him—he was the boy, Sebastian, nearly two decades later. Dark haired, he had aristocratic features that included a long nose and high cheekbones. His dark eyes stared out, seemingly dead to any true emotion, even as Samuel could feel himself beginning to panic.
No way had he expected this to bother him like it did. Facial features were facial features. He'd had hundreds of them over the years. But these? This was the stuff of nightmares he'd hoped never to see again. He looked like the person who had tried to kill him when he'd been but a child.
He was also two inches taller as Sebastian than he was as Samuel. It felt weird to be higher up in the world. In the past, it had only ever been his face that had undergone change. Now, his whole body seemed different. He was no longer comfortable in his own skin. Even his rush to the mirror had made him nearly stumble over his now bigger feet.
There was only one thing to do—he needed to find Eden and tell her this would never work. No way could he pull off existing in this body. Not successfully, anyway.
* * * *
The humidity hit him first as he stumbled out the door of the motel room onto the street. Eden sat back on a bench talking to Isabelle. The other woman said something and Eden laughed, covering her mouth as if she didn't want to show her mouth. It was an odd little quirk he'd seen her do before and he wondered for a second why she did that.
"Eden." He called out her name. "This is never going to work."
Eden jumped to her feet at his call, her eyes getting huge the longer she looked at him. "Samuel? That is you, right?"
He ground to a halt. If even Eden was unsure then the transformation must have gone well. "It's me." His voice still sounded the same. Northwestern Washington State born and bred, he knew his normal tone made him sound like a news reporter. His lack of an accent was almost an accent unto itself.
Eden visibly swallowed as she rushed forward. She grabbed his hands and the softness of her skin did something to loosen the tightness in his jaw. Eden calmed him.
"That was fast. You've only been in there ten minutes."
He shook his head. "Ten minutes?"
It had felt like hours and he'd lost consciousness. How could so little time have passed?
"That's right." Eden's eyebrows furrowed in clear confusion.
"I can't do this. We have to come up with another idea."
"What?" She backed up so she could look him up and down. "Obviously you can do it. You've already done it. To perfection."
"All right, that's true." He stared into her blue-green eyes, wishing he had all day to do so. But I don't like it. It's making me feel horrendous to look like this. I've never had a panic attack in my life and I'd rather not start now.
She reached up to stroke his cheek. It's just a costume. Just something you're wearing temporarily until we get through this.
It's so much more than that. She would never understand, none of them could. They'd never have to exist actually as someone else. No one could grasp the significance of looking like the most evil creature on the planet. Unlike the faces he'd stolen in the past, this get-up made him wonder if he could actually absorb some of the bad vibes simply by looking like the person.
"Won't work." Gabriel's voice caught his attention and he turned to look at him. The other man leaned against a black SUV parked to the right of the nearly deserted parking lot. Samuel wondered why there weren't more people staying at the hotel.
"Why won't it?" Eden swung around to look at him.
"Why aren't there more people here?" Samuel didn't mean to interrupt the flow of conversation but the lack of population ate at his gut. Winter everywhere else meant prime travel season in New Orleans.
Gabriel scratched his head. "That's a good question. Kal, why aren't there more people here?"
From behind him, Kal spoke. "Not sure. But now that you've mentioned it, I don't like it."
Terror traveled up his back and he grabbed Eden's hand. "Run."
"What?" Her eyes got huge as he pulled her along. "Run." He shouted so everyone could hear him. No way did he want everyone hurt but Eden would always be his number one priority.
He had no idea if anyone followed him and his own body didn't work as well as he would like. Running in Sebastian's body proved to be harder than in his own. There was more of him to manage. Still, more winded than he might have liked, he'd managed to get a distance away when the first car exploded in the parking lot.
Shoving Eden in front of him, he knocked her over and covered her with his own body seconds before the heat from the explosions pressed into them. Samuel had been burned before. He knew he could survive it. Eden would never be hurt. Not on his watch.
His back heated up but his hair didn't catch on fire and he didn't feel any flames on his legs either. So far, so good. He raised his head to look around. Kal and Gabriel lay in similar positions covering their respective soul mates.
Gabriel groaned before lifting his head to stare at him. "Good instincts, man."
"Yeah." Kal laughed. "We owe you one." He rolled off Isabelle who cursed, loudly. Samuel couldn't help his grin. He never would have thought the little woman would swear quite so profoundly.
"I'm okay, Samuel. Could you move?" Eden's voice jarred him and he moved off her body. Lying on the hot ground, he stared up at the sun above him. Looked like he'd live another day. There was something nice about going through this with others, as opposed to on his own.
"Marina and Leonardo? Charma and Jason?" Eden sounded panicked as she rose. She grabbed her cell phone out of her pocket but it started ringing before she could dial. "Hello? Oh thank god. No, we're fine. We were worried about you." She covered the speaker as she informed the group. "Their side of the building shook but didn't fall. Everyone is fine."
Samuel loved how Eden concerned herself with everyone else's welfare.
"Really." Kal patted him on the back as Gabriel and Loraine approached him. "We owe you. Big time."
He shrugged. This was new, too. He'd gone through something, come out the other side, and he wasn't alone. There might be something to this 'team' thing he hadn't considered.
"No one owes me." He stretched as he stood. "I was lucky. I've been blown up by him before. I might be attuned to it or something."
Eden hung up the phone. "Why didn't I see this coming?"
"Because it wasn't set by the demon and that's where your messages come from." Samuel stared at her as he spoke the words. He wanted her to really hear what he said and not get lost in the moment.
"How do you know that?" Eden put her hands on her hips.
"It's what he yelled at me when I was trapped in the closet burning to death. Without me, the prophet would never be able to see what he did."
Loraine stroked Gabriel's arm. "So who set this?"
"His group. The one Eden wants to infiltrate."
Gabriel laughed. "You look so much like him. It really is freaking me out. But the way you talk, the way you move. It's not working. It's not Sebastian."
The group fell silent. Even Eden who had been so sure of herself earlier seemed deflated.
Samuel clapped his hands together. "Then I guess you're going to have to show me how to be him."
Gabriel nodded. "I could do that." He pointed to the rubble. "But first I'm going to suggest we all move to someplace safer. The group might come to see the damag
e they've done. I don't want them to find us here."
"Actually." Kal grinned. "I might like them to find us. I feel like kicking a little ass."
Isabelle groaned. "I'm with Gabriel on this. Kick ass later, move locations now."
Eden nodded. "What about the others? Jason, Charma, Leonardo, and Marina?"
Samuel took her hand. "They're going to have to move, too."
"This is so much more complicated than I thought it would be." Eden bit her lip. "I thought we'd get in, we'd get out, we'd save the day."
"We still will." Samuel didn't know when he'd started to believe that. Maybe when they'd all made it through the explosion. "Simple is not our destiny."
Eden nodded. "I'll go help the others move Leonardo and Marina."
"Be careful." Samuel watched her scurry away, enjoying the way her ass looked as she ran. He wanted to reach out and squeeze it. Kal walked up next to him, deflating the sexual urges that had started—temporarily.
"What are you thinking? That this group has some sort of Outsider tracking going on? That's how they knew we were here?"
"I don't know but I gather we're going to find out when we get in there." They needed to save Leonardo and Marina. Two people he had never met but whose lives seemed very important to him all of a sudden.
"I get it, you know. He tortured me, as well."
Samuel stared at Kal. To look at him, Samuel would never have guessed the man had ever been through anything harder than chopping wood. Even after running from an explosion, he seemed cool and collected.
"Really? When?"
"Almost a year ago." Kal patted him on the shoulders. "Gabriel can teach you how to be him. Back then, he used to work for Sebastian. Grew up in the same house. Yeah, I'd say Gabe will have you in Sebastian shape in no time."
Samuel didn't know what to feel more horrified about—that Gabriel had once worked for Sebastian or that it was going to turn out to be a really good thing that he once had.
Chapter Twelve
Love Beyond Sight Page 11