Roman crosses, Logan thought, her heart sinking. She’d learned about them in Mr. Lehrer’s class. She would never hurt Mr. Lehrer’s feelings by admitting as much, but it had been yet one more aspect of history that she’d disliked. She was just one of those people who would never understand the appeal of history, as to her, it seemed to be nothing but bloodshed, torture, disease, and death. In contrast, relatively little of positive consequence was ever recorded. Either that, or relatively little of positive consequence ever occurred.
When she’d learned about how Romans had used crosses for hundreds and thousands of their victims, stringing them up to litter the countryside with these garish aspects of torture, she had found it both odd and disturbing that so many people would choose to wear chains displaying these Roman torture devices around their necks. To her, it was no different than choosing to wear a guillotine. Or an iron maiden. Or a rack.
In the bonfire, the world was painted red with the blood of innocents. It stained the grass on islands in what was now known as Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Logan wanted to look away, but she knew it would do no good.
She’d seen this before. It was there, in her memory – in Ciara’s.
“The woman was struck down,” Sam told them.
The image went black. The crowd looked down, as if in mourning. Even the bonfire seemed to settle.
“And in the wake of this final journey, her marked soul made the promise it had been born to make,” said Sam.
His gaze returned to Logan, pinning her to the spot.
“But there is much fear of the unknown, and the woman’s spirit was strong. A secret within a promise – this was the web she weaved. A spell so powerful, it required the sacrifice of blood.”
Logan knew what he was talking about. Ciara had been promised to Samhain upon birth. Fate had finally granted him his companion. When she took her final breath, she was to join him.
However, when that final breath arrived, she spurned him, casting another spell instead. With her final magic, she managed to turn herself into a ghost, casting half of her soul into that incorporeal state from which even the Death God could not retrieve it.
The other half of her soul was snatched up by fate and sent forward in time, with the intent that the Lord of the Dead might be given a second chance. The soul would enter a new mortal, and there would be fresh hope.
That new mortal was Logan Wright.
Chapter Twenty
Dominic quietly watched from beyond the tree line. He crouched low in the shadows, his green eyes burning with fear and fury.
It had taken him a moment to process what he was seeing: The bonfire, the masquerade costumes and masks, the floating candle flames that flickered unaided high above the grounds. Even the musicians were something out of a fairy tale dream. He’d seen paintings like this, and book covers. But seeing it firsthand was another experience altogether. Being surrounded with magic that defied reality was getting to him a little. He realized that he could be certain of nothing. And that was an uncomfortable sensation. He felt stunned.
But what stunned him the most about the scene before him was Logan.
She was an impossible vision that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. The gown she wore appeared to have been made for her – and he would have bet his blood that it was. She was wrapped in the colors of every aspect of darkness, and the deep, silk hues were a stark, tantalizing contrast to the creaminess of her skin.
She was regal and graceful and… she was beyond beautiful.
Every nerve ending in his body hummed to life at the sight of her. Every ounce of adrenaline he had was dumped into his blood stream. He felt awed. He felt protective. She was magnificent.
Magnificent.
And he had no idea what the hell she was doing wearing a gown like that at a time like this, in the middle of this crazy-ass situation. It boggled his mind.
Dom blinked and squinted, re-focusing his gaze.
She wasn’t wearing her Celtic life pendant. Her neck was bare.
He pulled the pendant out of his pocket and stared down at it. Now he recognized it for certain. There was a tiny nick in the silver that he remembered seeing on hers earlier.
Dom looked back up at her. Had she taken it off of her own accord? Willingly?
He couldn’t accept that. Someone there in that crowd had taken it from her. It wasn’t broken, so it hadn’t been ripped away.
None of this made any sense.
But in this realm, nothing could be taken for granted and everything was pretty much insane, so Dominic closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to take it in stride. He was good at that. He was fast at making adjustments. You had to be when your mother died on you and your father was overwhelmed. That was life.
He slipped the pendant back into his pocket and continued to listen and watch from where he knelt beneath the low-lying branches. Information was power. The more he had, the better his chances of getting Logan out of there and getting them both out of October Land.
The people with gray skin were everywhere, and they separated Dominic from Logan, who sat at the front near the bonfire. She was also decidedly close to the man who was beginning to tell a story. It was no ordinary story, as became exceedingly clear when the bonfire split in two and a movie screen of sorts appeared.
Dom’s gaze narrowed on the tall, dark figure doing the talking. He had to admit he’d never laid eyes on a man so imposing. There was no hint of humanity to him. This was not a man, but a monster.
Or… a god?
Dom straightened a little.
It would make sense. Something had to have happened to Sam when he’d been expelled from Dom’s body. And that man up there before the bonfire most definitely had what it took to be the Lord of the Dead.
Dom continued to listen as the story unfolded, all but confirming his theory.
The man’s voice carried clearly and beautifully across the distance, and with each word, each damning sentence, a well of dread opened up deeper and wider inside Dominic.
Logan was promised to him? According to the tale, her soul had been marked more than two thousand years ago.
Dom felt a constriction in his chest, and realized he wasn’t breathing. That dread was spreading, seizing his body in its fearsome grip.
There she sat, Logan Wright, the story telling student he had helped off the ground during recess in the fourth grade. The girl he’d secretly watched and longed for over the next eight years. The one he felt a connection to and had gone through so much with. She just sat there all wrapped up in that gorgeous dress as if she were some sort of material present to be ribboned and handed over.
It was almost impossible for him to accept.
And the people around her with their glowing eyes and gray skin didn’t help matters. It was clear by their behavior that they adored Samhain. They gazed at him, rapt in attention. Like obedient little pets.
Dominic had no idea how he was going to defeat Samhain, much less his several dozen minions.
But what perhaps frightened him the most – once he allowed himself to even dwell upon it – was that Logan wasn’t fighting them. She wasn’t glaring at Sam. She didn’t look upon him with any kind of hatred. Instead, she listened quietly, and the looks she exchanged with the Death God were deeper than hatred or fear. They were the kinds of looks you exchanged with someone you’d known forever. They were the looks of memories.
She fits in here, he thought. It was a disturbingly illuminating thought. But it was there, and he couldn’t ignore it. Logan had always loved fall, loathed summer, hidden from the sun, adored the night. Halloween was her favorite season by miles and miles.
And as much as he would hate to admit it, Samhain’s story had struck a nerve with Dominic. There was a bitter sweetness to it that begged for a happy ending. It was only more bitter, and only more sweet, that it would require the sacrifice of a young girl who had a life to live elsewhere, who was needed in her own world… by so many.
A flash of an image passed before his mind, and Dominic stilled, closing his eyes. It was his mother’s smile. He distantly heard her laugh. It was a memory, faint but clear.
Dom opened his eyes as the image faded, and a steel resolve shot through him. No, he told himself. He couldn’t let this happen. However “perfect” she would be as Samhain’s queen, Logan had a family. She had younger siblings who looked up to her, and she had a father and mother who loved her.
She has a mom. Logan had a mother, and that mother had problems, but what human being didn’t have problems? Her life hadn’t been an easy one. And at least she was alive. Logan needed her more than she could possibly know. And her mother needed Logan more than words could possibly say.
And… Dom needed her too.
A crack of thunder drew his attention from the bonfire. He glanced up. Heavy clouds had gathered, dark gray and imposing. They swirled together as if the sky had turned on a mighty blender. Lightning split the darkness in two, and thunder rolled low after, raising chills along Dominic’s arms despite his heavy leather jacket.
He looked back down at the gathering.
The story had come to an end. Sam moved toward Logan, and she rose, coming to her feet.
Lightning arced directly overhead. This time, its thunder rumbled low and menacing, scraping along a trembling ground and filling the surrounding forest with thoughts of primordial fear. Above the masquerade floor, the flickering flames began to go out, one after another.
At once, Dominic realized that this was his chance.
Chapter Twenty-One
Not again.
Agony reached right through Dietrich’s lungs and pierced his soul. He was losing this fight. It wasn’t a fight for his life, but for his sanity.
Not one more time, he thought. I can’t do this even one more time.
If he did, he was certain he would lose his mind.
He’d already inhaled seventeen times. It was impossible not to count. There was nothing down here in this darkness but the sadistic passage of time and the pressure of the water – and the death.
Nothing….
Nothing… except clouds?
Dietrich would have groaned if he’d had the breath for it. He would have whined and whimpered like a dying animal. He’d thought he’d had one more death in him before this would happen, but the vision materializing before his eyes proved otherwise.
Wisps of what looked like clouds were coalescing in the darkness of the water. They swayed for a moment, like the steam rising from a cup of coffee, and then drew together to form the image of a beautiful woman. Her long white hair waved around her like a mermaid’s mane. She reminded Dietrich of a bansidhe.
I’m hallucinating.
It was over now for sure. From now on, his mind would commit acts of ever worsening insanity, and interlacing that madness would be pain. Always the pain. For eons to come.
You must pay attention, wizard, said the woman in the water.
Dietrich blinked. It did no good in the water, of course, but it was a natural reaction. The pressure outside his lungs longed to even out. He was sheer moments away from inhaling.
Withdraw from your self-pity, the woman told him. Her voice was beautiful, melodic and clear, but her words stung. He had the sudden impression that if she could pop him upside the head, she would have.
My hallucination is badgering me.
Remember! The woman in the water insisted. Remember who you are!
The image faltered, suddenly disintegrated, and then re-coalesced, like a dust devil dissipating and then re-forming into its twisted shape. This time, it was not a beautiful woman Dietrich hallucinated.
It was a goblin.
Oh gods, he thought, feeling his heart pound like mad. I forgot.
He kept forgetting. What was it going to take for him to remember that he was no longer human? That he was a monster a full two feet taller than normal and twenty times as strong?
As soon as he remembered, the image was gone, dissipating once more and this time staying gone. The fragments of its wisps melted into the water, darkening until they were no longer visible.
Dietrich gritted his teeth so tight, he was sure they would crack, but this time he remembered they weren’t human teeth. They weren’t capped or crowned or just plain old middle-aged teacher’s teeth. They were goblin teeth, and they were even tusks.
He reached down to the rope tied around his waist. It had prevented him from swimming away, from trying desperately to reach the surface before he had to inhale once more. He’d given up on it because he couldn’t reach the knot behind him, much less undo its intricate loops and ties. It had never occurred to him that he would be able to simply tear the rope apart with his bare hands.
Now he grasped it tightly, feeling his massive hands curl easily around it. Suddenly, it felt like tissue paper.
McCay and Briggs hadn’t considered that he would break free. They were rash and impulsive and never thought things through all the way.
They were boys. Boys always messed up eventually.
Right now, Dietrich couldn’t have been happier about that particular personality fault.
He pulled, using the muscles the poison of the Hell Hound had given him. The rope made a ripping sound that carried easily under the water. It was loud and wonderful, and in sheer seconds, Dietrich was free from the rope’s hellish hold.
He shoved himself upward, aiming in the opposite direction to the rope, having no other indication of which way was up and which way was down.
But a few seconds into his mad-dash swim, Dietrich realized his mistake. His massively strong goblin body was taking him up faster than he should have gone. And he had no way of evening out the pressure.
A dull ache began in his shoulders, but this dull ache increased to a terrible sharp pain within sheer split moments. His skin began to itch – furiously. It felt as if insects were crawling all over him. Then his skin began to sting as if those insects were biting him. The pain in his shoulders spread down his body to his hip joints, his knee joints, and his ankles, and before long he was engulfed in a throbbing disruption in every single joint in his body.
I’m getting the bends, he thought, and it was so much worse than that too – because the pressure in his lungs hadn’t gone away. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to not inhale this long as it was, and now he was falling victim to decompression sickness. He wasn’t going to make it. He had to stop. And he had to breathe.
No. Not one more time!
He was going to die yet again in this hellhole of a water pit. And each time, it was so horrible, it killed a new piece of his soul. Dietrich honestly felt as if his mind had become a cracked vessel, delicate and strained. One more thunk and it would go – shattered into a thousand pieces.
He opened his mouth….
But a hair’s breadth of time before he would have inhaled that killing mouthful of liquid, a white light opened up before him. He froze, temporarily and mercifully distracted from that suicidal inhalation.
The light in front of him spread, becoming the ring of a magic portal. That ring shot toward him, engulfed him, and he was suddenly yanked through the portal and sent hurling through time and space.
In the portal, Dietrich inhaled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lehrer came out spinning end-over-end as if he’d gone in doing somersaults, and water went spraying everywhere as the portal ejected him with exactly the amount of force Meagan and the others imagined it would. They’d prepared for it this time, though, gauging how far he would go and hurriedly throwing down their jackets and outer sweaters where they figured he’d land.
To their great fortune, they’d estimated right on. Meagan watched, wide-eyed, as Lehrer shot through the air in a wet, spraying arc, and then slammed into the ground directly on top of their clothing. He rolled right off again, though, tumbling a few times across the unforgiving rock surface before coming to an absolute stop. He lay still and prone, and the worst k
inds of thoughts cascaded through Meagan’s mind.
She, and the others hurried to his unmoving form, kneeling beside him. She needed their help in turning him over; his goblin body was immensely dense and heavy. But they were rewarded for their efforts when her grove leader let out a low groan and began coughing. It was a wet, wheezing cough that sounded so miserable, Meagan couldn’t help but feel wretchedly guilty.
“Mr. Lehrer!” she exclaimed, breathing hard with fear. “Can you hear me?” She didn’t know why she was asking him that. Perhaps thoughts of water pressure and exploding tympanic membranes. Everything seemed chaotic to her. She wanted to use her magic to heal him, but he was clearly alive, and if he was coughing, then he was expelling the water from his lungs.
He coughed some more, and Katelyn said, “Move him on his side.”
Together, they rolled him back onto his side. She was no doubt thinking he would vomit up lungs-full of water, but it turned out that whatever he’d had in his lungs, if anything, he’d already expelled.
“His lungs are strained,” said Draper. “It will take him a moment before he can speak. But he is going to be well.”
*****
Twenty minutes later, Meagan stood over the unconscious forms of Nathan McCay and Shawn Briggs and shook her head. “They look almost human right now.”
Both boys seemed wrapped in a peace that belied the monsters they’d been half an hour ago. It reminded her of how little three-year-old hellions could suddenly look like angels once they were unconscious and tucked into their beds.
She’d done a lot of babysitting.
“In sleep, we revert to what we once were,” said Draper.
“And they were once human,” said Katelyn. “But I seriously can’t believe they’re still out cold. That was one hell of a spell.” She looked over at Meagan, her eyebrows raised. “You think it’ll last much longer?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. We should do something to protect ourselves,” Meagan replied.
Mr. Lehrer came up beside them. “I have an idea.” His voice was scratchy and raw. He tried to clear his throat, failed, and swallowed hard instead.
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