With grim determination, Logan sat on the edge of the window seat and leaned over to place the tip of the pen to the white, waiting sheet. At once, a stain of crimson dripped from the pen’s fountain tip to soak into the parchment. It was the color of blood, deep and sensual and wrong because it wasn’t inside someone’s body, but here, in the wide open, staining her page.
Logan frowned.
She watched the red ink spread throughout the paper, curling across the space like a growing beast. As it built and expanded, a sense of foreboding thrummed through her. She straightened, pulling the pen away. But it was too late.
The ink had been spilled. The monster was born.
Logan stood, no longer so certain. As she watched, the red blotch upon the page continued to morph, stretching into the third dimension and taking on mass. The floor beneath Logan’s feet began to tremble. She backed up, bumping into the dresser behind her and reaching out to steady herself. She dropped her pen as the beast on the page grew in form and function, reaching a foot in height. Then two.
Then three.
A heaviness settled in Logan’s gut at the sight of so much blood, but it had taken on a life of its own, and the horror of it held her fast. She was frozen, immobile and rapt as her unwitting creation finally reached six feet and stepped off the page with legs that flowed like rivers of life-giving liquid.
Logan opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Nothing came out.
There was no breath, no movement, only the knowledge of what she’d done.
It came toward her.
With the mercy of a miracle, she awoke and jerked upright in her bed, her hand automatically flying to the small Celtic medallion she wore around her neck. For several moments, she remained still, her hand pressed to the hollow of her throat as she stared through wide, terror-filled eyes at the posters and drawings on the wall in front of her. She could hear her breath, ragged in the night air. The house was asleep but for her.
Slowly, and with real fear for what she might find, Logan turned in the bed to stare at the journal that waited on the window seat across the room. It was just a spiral bound notebook, nothing more. Just a bunch of bound-together paper.
But to her, it was a weapon. She’d pulled it out of a drawer earlier that afternoon and stared down at it, considering her options. For a week, she’d been trapped in limbo. Samhain was out there somewhere, occupying the unwitting body of someone she knew. She had no idea what his plans were other than to somehow kill her and pull her into his world forever. She had no idea what was going to happen to her next. And she had been terrified to write anything further since the Death God had used her words to his very great advantage. Everything she ever wrote into any of her characters – he took. Every power, every grace, every bit of knowledge. He’d absorbed it all.
But earlier that day, it had occurred to Logan that if Sam had been capable of using her words to give him life… maybe she could use them to bring him death.
What if she wrote his untimely demise? What if she just spelled it out, plain as day, and had him offed?
Logan gazed at the waiting book now and swallowed hard. Whatever she’d been considering earlier, she was definitely less certain of it now. If the dreams she’d had this October had taught her anything at all, it was that there was a very thin line between make-believe and reality. Her words had already given birth to one monster.
That was enough.
Chapter Two
He knows.
It was a thought that thrummed through Sam’s mind, droning at the same constant rumble that the bike beneath him created as he sped his way down the city’s streets. Dominic Maldovan knew. He had to. Sam had sensed it as he’d walked out of Maldovan’s garage, still draped securely in the body of Maldovan’s best friend, Alec Sheffield.
He knows because of my eyes, Sam thought. I can’t control the color. Alec Sheffield’s eyes were supposed to be brown. Sam’s were blue. And now that Sam had subjugated his form, Alec’s were blue as well.
Several nights ago, Sam had been magically attacked and harshly drained of the majority of his power. It had nearly killed him – so to speak. His physical form had taken too much damage and could no longer sustain existence in this world. He’d been forced to make a decision: Let it go and return to his realm alone once again and for who knew how long, or take another form.
He’d made the choice in the beat of a human heart, allowing his spirit to leave the body that everyone knew as Sam Hain and enter the body of one Alec Sheffield, eighteen-year-old lead singer of a garage band. Granted, Sheffield wasn’t the worst individual to be trapped within. He was tall and possessed the same rakish good looks that Sam had attained when he’d first absorbed Logan’s work.
In that split second that it had taken Sam to make his decision, Alec had been the obvious choice.
However, Sheffield was also all too human.
And that wouldn’t do.
For countless eons, Sam had existed as an entity without form or substance. He had been very powerful. There was nothing that escaped him. In time, all that had ever been and all that would ever be was forced to come see him.
He could have anything he wanted. Everything he wanted.
The problem was, he’d had no idea what to want. There was no desire in him, no emotion, no life. There couldn’t be. He was the Lord of the Dead, the god of all that had passed, the ruler supreme in a world where life simply did not exist.
He’d been miserable and he hadn’t even known it.
Then, two weeks ago, a young witch by the name of Meagan Stone had misspoken during the chanting of a very important spell. Every year for generations, on the night of October 1st, this spell had been cast. Every year, it had been cast more or less successfully, and Samhain had been trapped within his world of death and shadow.
However, this year, Stone hadn’t been so successful. She was relatively new in her station and at her craft, and she’d gone to the cemetery while under the influence of a nasty cold. She’d messed up. And because this October was also host to a rare blue moon, the door that normally barred Sam’s exit was lodged open. Samhain stepped through to the other side.
Entering the world of the living after so long amongst the dead was indescribable. That he knew of, there was nothing to which it was directly comparable. But if he had to put the feeling to words…. It was like being deaf for an eternity and then awakening to the sound of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Sam liked Beethoven. He always had. But in his world, sound was stilted, as if played through a tunnel or from beneath the gauzy film of funeral wrappings. It was contained, its wings clipped, its notes strapped to the gravity of the past.
But here, music was free. It was fresh and new and born again each and every time it hit the air waves. It was one of the plethora of wonders Sam had been able to experience in the few, precious days he’d possessed since coming to this world. Never in a million years could he have imagined how some of the things in this realm could stir the blood. Music. Lightning. The smell of rain.
Life was wasted on the living.
Except, perhaps, on Logan Wright. Logan was different.
For one thing, she was a bard. There was an inherent magic in bards to begin with. But Logan was even more than this.
Over the years, Sam had come to the deduction that approximately eight percent of the people on the planet were separate from the others. They were divided by something almost intangible. In life, these were the meek, the shy, the sensitive. They were the picked-on, the boat-rockers, the trouble-makers. Sometimes they’d become famous. Quite a few of them were like that. Others were less fortunate, and though they possessed the same special qualities as their well-known counterparts, they were nonetheless alone – unseen, unheard.
It was a shame. It was Sam’s experience that those who were heard the least were very often the ones who should have been listened to the most.
Like Logan. She was wisdom in its infant stages. That’s h
ow he would put it. There was something about growing up in shit that was a basic, necessary foundation for the deepest and most meaningful kindnesses that could come later in life. If you hadn’t suffered it, you couldn’t truly understand it. If you couldn’t truly understand it, you couldn’t empathize with it. And if you couldn’t empathize with it, you couldn’t help others through it. It was as simple as that.
It was this empathy that turned a good writer into a great bard, one whose words stood the test of time and remained true throughout the ages.
Sam turned Alec’s bike onto a side road and pulled over beneath a copse of trees. Here, the town bordered a national forest. It was the same forest he’d taken Logan’s friend Katelyn into several days ago. It was deep and dark and right now, it gave Sam the privacy he needed as an arrow of doubt suddenly ramrodded through him.
If Logan was allowed to live out her full life, she could do a lot of good for the world. What he was trying to do would take that away.
Is this wrong?
It was a question he’d never felt before. The sensation was uneasy and uncomfortable. It was doubt.
A diesel truck roared by on the main road and Sam turned to watch it leave. It jarred him out of his less savory thoughts and into the unpleasant truth at hand. At the end of the month, he would have to go back to his realm one way or another. Three weeks – that was how long he had before he was once more relegated to his throne. He would take it alone, a solitary figure overlooking the Kingdom of the Dead, unless he remained strong now, kept his eye on the ball, and succeeded in his ultimate design.
He was running out of time, not just in the sense that October was finite, but in that Dominic Maldovan would no doubt run to Lehrer and the witch with his suspicions about Alec and his suddenly blue eyes.
Sam needed to act now. He needed to get Logan writing again. He needed the magic that was released when a bard placed pen to parchment. It was a kind of spell, a spark that lit the fire in the chain reaction that would allow him to regain his identity.
He needed a plan.
And he needed colored contact lenses.
Chapter Three
Dominic paced back and forth in the kitchen. He wanted to call Mr. Lehrer and tell him about Alec, but the truth was, Dom wasn’t certain exactly what he would say. He wasn’t so sure that Alec wasn’t actually just Alec.
Dom stopped mid-step and pressed his palm to his shirt, under which sat one of the protective medallions Mr. Lehrer had give them all a week ago. Dom had been jumpy lately. Ever since Lehrer had warned them that Sam was still at large and could be anyone at all, Dom hadn’t trusted his own damn shadow. Twice, he’d been certain that someone was following him on the road only to lose his “follower” at the next turn-off. He thought he saw things in the mirror. In the trees. In the alleys. People looked at him sideways at the grocery store or the library, and he was certain they were evil Death Gods bent on his destruction and Logan’s abduction.
So he thought Alec Sheffield, his band mate and best friend in the world might actually be Samhain. What did he have to go on?
Not much. He was fairly certain that Alec’s eyes were supposed to be brown, and the last time he’d seen Alec, his eyes had been blue.
At least, that was what he thought he’d seen. Could he have imagined it, though? And was it really enough to go on? Enough to bring Lehrer and Meagan down on Alec? What if they cast some sort of spell on Alec that really hurt him? What if Dom was wrong? He would destroy his best friend because of nothing more than a hunch.
But if he was right about Alec and he did nothing, then Sam Hain was parading around in another very strong, capable body, and one that Logan would automatically trust because he was Dominic’s friend.
Dom muttered a vehement curse under his breath. He ran a fierce hand through his thick black hair and squeezed his eyes shut tight. I have to do it, he finally admitted to himself. In the end, it just wasn’t worth the risk. Not for Logan. And because it wasn’t worth the risk for her, it wasn’t worth the risk for him either. He didn’t want to lose her. Not for anything.
With that, Dom pulled the cell phone off of the charger plugged into the wall on the kitchen counter. He pressed the “on” button and a white apple appeared on a black screen.
There was a knock at the door. Dom looked up toward the front of the house and frowned. He was alone today. His father conducted a lot of business travel. Dominic often wondered whether it was at least in part due to the fact that the house and surrounding estate reminded him too much of Dom’s mother.
Dominic took his phone into the living room and made his way to the foyer. The front door had recently been replaced due to storm damage, and this new one didn’t have the glass peep hole like the old one had, so Dom didn’t hesitate before simply unlatching the door and swinging it open.
And he didn’t hesitate in hitting the ground when the surprise blow struck him solidly in his left temple, knocking him out cold.
*****
Logan steeled herself as she entered the kitchen. She felt gritty and raw from lack of sleep, and the shower hadn’t helped much. There were only so many nights one could go without proper rest before the effects layered over each other like a sandpaper onion.
The kitchen was empty. But there was a bottle of wine on the counter, its cork sitting next to it in a small puddle of red liquid. The bottle was three-quarters empty. There was also a crumpled receipt on the floor.
Logan bent and picked it up; it had today’s date on it. It had only been a few hours since the purchase. Her mother had gotten an early start on the day, wherever she was.
The sound of footsteps behind her was sudden and unexpected enough that Logan jumped. She spun, crushing the receipt in her hand as her older brother, Taylor entered the kitchen. He glanced at her, his expression shameful and tired. And then he made his way to the refrigerator.
“I see mom’s got an early start,” he mumbled as he opened the fridge and gave its contents a quick perusal.
“Yeah,” said Logan. She looked him over from behind, wondering how the next few minutes were going to go down. Every new encounter with Taylor was a toss-up. His illnesses were at the reigns in his mind. The moods he could don were as different and colorful as Halloween costumes, from priest to pugilist. He could care like an angel and beat the crap out of you like the bully from your worst nightmares. It was all in the dice.
“What’s your plan for today?” she asked him. It was an unintentional innuendo. But it was also an honest question. If Taylor had a plan, then it would probably mean he was having an okay day; not too many bad thoughts, not too much Tourette’s or OCD or depression. He wouldn’t bother thinking past the way he felt right now if it was otherwise. No one could think past their pain when it was really bad.
“Helping dad get firewood.”
Maybe a good day, then.
Logan nodded. It was Saturday, so there was no school. “You guys want help? I can come along.” She shouldn’t have been offering; Mr. Lehrer might call at any minute and need to meet with her about something having to do with Samhain. Her friends might call, having found some kind of breakthrough. Anything could happen. And if Sam struck while she was with her father and brother, they could get hurt. Or killed.
But she yearned for some semblance of normalcy, and though her father’s and brother’s moods were as un-telling and unpredictable as her own future had become, at least she knew they weren’t actually Sam in disguise. They hadn’t been at the school when the magic spell had destroyed Sam’s body and his spirit had inhabited someone else. So they were clear.
That was worth something.
Taylor shut the refrigerator door and turned to face her. He looked like he was trying very hard not to be very mean. “Why don’t you just let me and dad go this time, Logan. We could use the man to man.”
It wasn’t a question so much as a suggestion, and not really a suggestion so much as a statement of the way it was going to be and a warning that Logan shoul
dn’t try to interfere. She understood. And the truth was, Taylor was right. He and their father could use the time to talk. Things had been rough lately for the both of them.
They’d been rough for her too, but she didn’t expect either of them to notice, much less care. And if that sounded bitter or resentful, then so be it.
“Okay,” she said, nodding and looking away. “I’m heading out then. I have my phone if anyone needs me.”
“Are you working at the bakery today?” Taylor asked as she headed toward the front door.
“No, it’s shut down for a few days so they can replace the ovens.” Logan opened the front door. “Have fun with dad.” She walked out without waiting for a reply and gently shut the door behind her.
The air was crisp and cool and a touch wet. It smelled like fireplace smoke and leaf piles and Fall. It was the most wonderful smell in the world aside from the scent of a coming storm. Autumn was Logan’s favorite season, and if he didn’t succeed in making her his queen in the land of the dead, then Sam Hain was about to at least ruin Fall for her for good.
She wanted to kill him again as she made her way down the walk toward her car. She wanted to turn around, run upstairs, grab her notebook, and scribble out his death with choice, harsh words.
But that wasn’t like her. This anger she had been feeling over the last few days – it wasn’t really her thing. It was just a lack of sleep bringing out the worst in her. Or maybe it was that she hadn’t been able to write anything for fear that if she did, Sam would take what she wrote and use it against her again. Maybe it was this sudden lack of escape for her that was rubbing her spirit like a cat’s tongue, harsh and raw.
Escape? she thought suddenly. There is no escape, Logan, she told herself, realizing the deep truth of it even as she spoke the words in her mind. Whether now or forty years from now, Sam Hain will find you. Samhain will find you. Death will find you. There’s no escape.
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