“Pull!” Dietrich commanded, knowing that there was still a certain amount of trepidation in Meagan as far as slamming someone’s body in a door was concerned. She flinched and did as she was told, letting the door go slack for a fraction of a second before they both yanked with all of their combined strength.
A spell might have helped, but in the heat of the moment, what a person needed most often fled from their mind like butterflies on a strong Spring wind. Still, they managed; the door came crashing inward to the sound of terrible cries of pain and yips of maddened agony.
A severed limb hit the floor of the jeep, and a puddle of blood spread across the rubber mat. Meagan and Dietrich sat there a moment, breathing hard into the muffled quiet.
And then one of the creatures jumped up on the car’s hood. Dietrich gasped and Meagan screamed, both of them jolting back in their seats. A second beast followed the first, its claws scraping the paint as it scrambled up onto the car’s hood and glared at them through the glass.
“Holy hell,” whispered Meagan now that they finally had a clear view of what had chased and trapped them.
“Good guess,” said Dietrich.
The massive Hell Hounds crowded the Jeep. There must have been at least a dozen of them, twice the size of mastiffs, black as night, and corded with unnatural muscle. Flames flicked from their be-fanged maws, something like acid dripped from their jowls, and their eyes burned a Satan’s fire red.
Outside, the car alarms died one after another. Porch lights began coming on. It was time to get out of there and get rid of the Hell Hounds before they brought harm to anyone else.
“What are we going to do?” Meagan asked. There were dark circles under her eyes. Healing him really had drained her. But if they wanted to get out of this alive and spare any others in the process, she was going to have to pull some strength from somewhere deep right now.
“Magic,” Dietrich replied. “We’re going to do magic.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
About a mile and a half before the turn-off that would take them to the intersection of the city’s south road and the train tracks, Logan’s phone chimed and vibrated with a text notification.
She pulled the phone quickly out of her denim jacket pocket and read the message on the screen. Sis im wih mom and jsmes ar the er. Tsylor agsin. Sad has him at home.
Logan automatically translated the text speech in her head. Sis, I’m with mom and James at the ER. Taylor again. Dad has him at home.
She felt instantly sick. And then she felt angry. Really angry. What the hell? What had happened? When she’d left the house, every light had been off, every bed full, and the house had been slumbering in peace.
It was the calm before the storm, she realized. We will never have real peace. Her family would never truly know what it was like to get along without the constant, violent struggle. They would never know what it was like to sleep through the night without fear or fury.
She texted back. Is he okay?
She translated the reply. Broken jaw and dislocated shoulder. But the cops are here because of the murder earlier, and they’re suspicious.
Logan stared at the screen as a numb sort of cold stole through her. In the space of seconds, she saw her family torn apart, she saw her sick older brother alone in a padded room or strapped down to a table as apathetic strangers administered electric shocks. She imagined him in a dark place rocking back and forth, tears dried on his cheeks, hair falling out from stress, body gaunt from malnutrition and too many forced drugs. She thought of the silence that would fill the spaces in her home where yelling and screaming used to reside. She thought of the awkward “hello’s” and the unspoken worries and the regrets. She saw her loved ones un-beaten physically, but mentally and spiritually on their hands and knees.
She had often wondered when the authorities were going to get involved in what was happening with their family. She’d also often wondered whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing. Her parents touted the benefits of privacy and dictated that what went on behind their closed doors was their own business. They could handle it. They were blood. Government and family were oil and water. They didn’t mix.
But at the same time, her parents continued to allow their children to be abused by another of their children. And maybe Logan wasn’t trying hard enough, but she just couldn’t ever manage to see how that was too terribly different from her parents doing the abusing themselves.
“Logan?” Katelyn had slowed the car just before the turn-off. There were no other headlights anywhere in sight, so they were alone, and the car came to a crawling near-stop as Katelyn gave her a questioning look. “What’s going on?” she asked, nodding toward the phone in Logan’s hands.
Logan felt the usual shame that came when her family troubles nudged their way into her school or friendship life. She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Personal crap again. Don’t worry about it.” She turned the phone off and re-pocketed it, not bothering to respond any further. What was the point? James would heal, and hopefully without any long-term complications. If the cops interfered… so be it. Maybe it was kismet. And she was glad she wasn’t there to witness the drama for once. She had enough of her own to deal with anyway.
“Keep going,” she instructed softly, nodding toward the turn-off ahead.
She didn’t have a plan for dealing with Sam once she got to the tracks. She’d had no time to come up with one. During the drive down here, though her thoughts had been spinning and her mind had been working overtime, the result had been a jumbled, terrified mess of mental activity without any fruitful outcome. She still had no clue what she was going to do.
She only knew she had to help Dominic.
“Are you okay?” Katelyn asked as they made a right turn and moved down another long stretch of dark road.
Logan stared out the window and licked her lips. Katelyn was a good friend. They’d been through a lot together. When Katelyn had her appendix removed at the age of eleven, it was Logan who stayed with her at the hospital and then slept in a sleeping bag beside her bed at her house for several nights. Almost a year to the day later, Logan had suffered an appendicitis as well. As if it was fate, both Katelyn and Meagan had slept beside Logan for the next week. The three girls were close.
Logan knew things about Katelyn and Meagan that no one else knew. Katie was “that blonde girl” who was so much more than she seemed. Meagan was the outwardly smart girl, the dark-haired one that everyone figured was “deep.” But Katie was the one who said what everyone else was thinking or who came up with an idea that no one else had thought of. There was much more to her than met the eye. And Logan appreciated her beyond words.
So she understood that Katelyn had to ask what she’d just asked. But the question was retarded to Logan. Of course she wasn’t okay. Her brother was a one-man walking genocide, and the Lord of the Dead wanted to kill her and take her home to his land of darkness and despair.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, realizing how easy it was to lie when the world became overwhelming. No wonder her mother drank. No wonder she shrank from reality the way she did. It was just so much fucking easier.
Up ahead, the paved road ran out and potholes began to dominate the grated dirt path. Logan felt sorry for Katelyn’s little VW Beetle; such a vehicle was not created for these kinds of “roads.” She glanced over at her friend.
But Katelyn didn’t seem bothered by the bumps or potholes. She stared straight ahead, handled the swerving and maneuvering with skill, and kept her expression neutral. She was being strong.
Logan kicked herself mentally for her standoffish behavior. Good friends were hard to come by, and because she was in a foul mood, she’d been taking this one for granted.
“The tracks are there,” Katelyn said, pulling Logan from her thoughts. She pointed, and Logan turned to squint through the rain-smeared windshield at the space of ground illuminated by the Beetle’s headlights. Sure enough, a row of metal intersecting with col
umns of wood stretched into the darkness.
“Stop the car,” Logan instructed. Katelyn brought the car to a halt and a few straggling rain drops plopped against the glass. She turned off the engine. Silence filled the night. Darkness pressed in against the windows.
After a brief hesitation, Logan grasped the door handle and pulled it. The door swung open and she got out of the car. The cool, moist air kissed her cheek and left damp drops on her eyelashes. The humid, black expanse was quiet.
On the driver’s side, Katelyn got out, her shoe crunching the gravel beneath it. Logan spared her a glance and turned her attention back to the darkness.
“Dom?” she called out. There was no answer but for the occasional rain spatter and the sounds of the night. She licked her lips. “Sam?” she called with a little less volume.
“Yes, Logan?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan spun. When she did, it was to find that the car was gone, as was Katelyn. All that remained was a moonlit clearing, a long stretch of train tracks, which she herself stood in the middle of, and a young man. He stood maybe fifteen feet away, his wide stance placing a boot on either metal rung of the tracks. She recognized him as one of Dominic’s friends, Nathan McCay.
Nathan’s normally too-long blond hair was longer now, and seemed thicker as well as a little darker. His eyes were different too. They burned like the fires of some god-fearing hell, and pulsed with every beat of what Logan assumed was Nathan’s now unnatural heart.
“What did –” Where was Katelyn? The car? What the hell?
“What is happening between us has nothing to do with Katelyn Shanks,” Nathan told her. Sam told her. “She’s only in the way.”
“Nothing is happening between us,” Logan told him, wondering how he had managed to get rid of Katelyn and the car the way he had. She blinked and hastily looked around, realizing that the area was different as well. There were fewer trees here, as if they’d moved a little more down along the tracks.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Sam said, “if it makes you feel better.”
Logan’s gaze narrowed. She straightened as much as her lack of courage would allow her to and lifted her chin.
Well, now at least she knew whose body Sam had taken over when he had left Alec’s in the cornfield. Nathan must have been somewhere nearby, perhaps already knocked out and tied up by Alec just in case. There was no way of knowing, and it didn’t matter. Not really. Not now.
“I’m here, Sam. Where is Dominic?”
“There,” he said easily. He smiled, flashing the gleaming white set of the fangs he seemed so fond of, the same fangs he’d pressed deep into her throat only a few short days ago. Then he turned and lifted his left hand, gesturing to the stretch of tracks behind him. The moonlight illuminated the expanse, revealing a dark, sprawled form that lay unmoving across the tracks.
Logan blinked, her vision adjusting so that she could take it in. It was Dominic, long and lean, still dressed in the dark clothes and leather he’d worn earlier that night. His eyes were shut. There was a small bleeding gash in his left cheek, and another in his bottom lip. A red-brown bruise was beginning to form on the right side of his chin. Red blotches that looked like strangulation marks had been etched across his throat. His clothes were torn in places, further evidence of massive struggle.
She wanted to run to him, press her fingers to his throat, and check for a pulse. She wanted to lift his head and cradle it – just know that he was okay. But Sam stood between her and the boy she loved.
The boy I love?
She shoved the thought aside and asked, “Is he alive?” Her voice was thin, her throat tight, but she got the words out.
“Of course,” Sam told her. “He isn’t much of a bargaining chip dead.”
Relief washed over Logan, but it was tempered by worry that he wouldn’t remain that way for long – and by anger that he’d been so abused in the first place. “You could always lie,” she said coldly.
Sam gave her a raised brow. “Really, Logan. Do I seem to you the kind of man who would tell such a bold faced lie?”
No, she had to admit. Samhain was an ancient god, as old as life itself. A lie for him would be much more complex. It would be a work of art.
He sighed then, as if suddenly very tired. “I can’t understand why you still fight me. You’re a bright girl. Is it so hard for you to see that I can give you anything you could wish for?”
“That’s just it, Sam,” said Logan. “You can’t.”
Sam’s gaze narrowed thoughtfully. She felt those red eyes cut through her, slice right into her soul like laser beams.
She licked her lips and went on. “What I want is for my life to have less pain in it,” she told him. “My life, Sam. That means living.”
She expected him to laugh then, like some apathetic antagonist who thinks his opponent is a naïve child. But he didn’t. Instead, his expression became strange and unfamiliar. It was hard enough imagining one of Dominic’s friends as Samhain. It was harder now that the slightest traces of Sam’s malign spirit seemed to digress, leaving Nathan’s features softer. The red glow in his eyes diminished until they pulsed weakly.
“You only think you want to live,” he told her softly. “What you actually crave is peace. It’s only that life is all you’ve known, so you can’t imagine a peace of any other kind.”
Logan said nothing; something in his words struck a chord.
He seemed to know this, and he continued, moving toward her along the tracks. “We grow accustomed to what is around us. We’re used to it. We think it’s all that there is, all that there was meant to be. We attach ourselves to it through blood or proximity. But mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers – separate them from day one and they never miss one another. The blood actually means nothing. Knowledge is everything, familiarity is what counts. We’re afraid to lose it. We’re afraid of change.” He smiled and shook his head. “But change can be good, Logan.” He took another step. “It can be very, very good.”
She stepped back and he stopped, his smile disappearing and his eyes flashing with emotion.
“What are you going to do with the others?” she asked, changing the subject. He’d gotten inside of her with his little speech. He’d touched on something very uncomfortable and she didn’t want to dwell on it. She couldn’t afford to, not right now, with Dominic sprawled unconscious across the tracks.
She’d fulfilled her end of the bargain. And if the fact that Sam had taken Katelyn out of the picture was any indication, he clearly had enough power to kill her now. This was the end. It was a numbing realization and one she had not even come close to fully digesting. “What will you do with him?” she asked, gesturing toward Dom’s sleeping form.
“Nothing,” said Sam. He stepped off the tracks, his boots crunching the gravel ominously. “I have what I want.”
A train’s whistle sliced through the night. Logan gasped and jumped off the tracks when they began to vibrate.
“The train, on the other hand, is going to slice him to ribbons,” Sam said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A light cut through the darkness down the tracks. It seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was a locomotive headlight. She’d seen it many times; she was fond of watching the train come and go whenever she could find the time, and a train’s headlight was always on, day or night. The whistle blew a second time.
“No!” Logan sprang forward, her only thought now that she needed to somehow get Dominic’s unconscious body off the tracks.
She knew Sam would try to stop her. She was expecting it when he moved to block her path. What she wasn’t expecting was the second body that came out of nowhere and slammed into Sam – into Nathan McCay – from the side.
Logan came to a hasty halt, eyes wide, thoroughly confused as the two men went rolling end over end in the ground beside the train tracks. The night swallowed their features, but sounds of struggle emanated clearly.
Who had attacked him? What had a
ttacked him? No human could take Samhain, not in his vampire form.
The pebbles on the sides of the tracks now vibrated, skipped and hopped. The whistle blew a third time, and Logan shook herself, rushing toward Dominic once more.
The light was brighter. The train was so close now, she could hear the chsh-chsh-chsh of the engine, and the metal screeching against metal. She could feel the heat of the massive steel beast closing in on them, its breath like iron on fire.
“Dom!” she said as she dropped to her knees in the dirt beside him. Not bothering to be gentle, she grasped his upper arms, feeling the muscle beneath the leather of his jacket. “Dominic! Wake up!” she called, and began to shake him. He was hard to move. He was heavy and unwieldy, and for a moment, she feared he was in some kind of coma.
But as the train blew its warning whistle a fourth time, Dominic’s brow furrowed, and his green eyes blinked slowly open.
“Dom! We have to move you! The train’s coming!” she cried, though it was ultimately unnecessary. Dominic could see the train for himself as his head turned and his eyes focused, and comprehension dawned on his handsome, bruised features.
With some effort, he sat up and got his legs underneath him. Logan maintained a fist in the sleeve of his jacket as the two of them hurled themselves from the tracks mere moments before the whistle blew a fifth time and the world shook and metal screamed past them at the speed of sound.
A fury of hot wind whipped at their faces, hair and clothes, throwing dust in their eyes. Logan shielded her face with her hands, turned away from the tracks, and waited a few seconds. Then she lowered her hands and tried to get her bearings.
Dominic was a few feet away, bent at the waist, his hands on his knees. He appeared to be trying to catch his breath. He swayed a little, no doubt attempting to regain his balance and generally recover from the unconsciousness he’d just pulled himself out of. Logan looked up toward the dark line of night a few feet beyond him where she’d seen Sam and whoever attacked him disappear. There was no sign of either of them. All she could hear was the train, its engine chug-chugging past, its metal wheels scraping against the steel rungs of the tracks.
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