To life.
Now he had a new and more thorough understanding of existence. Of what it meant to draw breath, to think with a human mind, to reason and dream and want and lose – even to bleed. With this new understanding, this impossible comprehension, came a renewed and revived sense of tenacity. He was not going to give up what he had been given.
Ciara might not be corporeal. But Logan was.
That would do nicely.
It will, he told her at last. Time will change everything.
With that, and with a plan in mind, Samhain shot through the last of the parting mists of the barrier and entered his own realm. The King of the Dead had returned.
Chapter Four
Dietrich Lehrer glanced one last time at his student. Meagan Stone had her shoulders rolled back, her mass of dark hair pulled into a ponytail, and her backpack firmly strapped to her back. Her hands were free at her sides, prepared to gather magic and hurl it at whatever dangers they encountered. He’d taught her well. He realized, in that moment, that he could be secure in the knowledge that Meagan Stone was officially a witch. She had come full circle and crowned herself a queen. She’d earned her right to use the magic flowing through her veins.
To the right of Meagan stood her good friend, Katelyn Shanks. Lehrer had always known there was much more to Katelyn than she allowed the world to believe. For the life of him, he would never understand why she hid her intelligence from her classmates and teachers. She had the makings of a polyglot, if she allowed herself to be one. She could be an A student if she cared, but she purposefully “forgot” her assignments and missed the easiest questions on tests. He wondered. Maybe she was a being of such substance, she felt the need to hide it from those around her. Perhaps she felt that her intelligence would push her further away from the rest of the world. And maybe she was right. The world was a rather shallow entity, after all. It never really cared to wade into the deep end of much of anything.
Katelyn, too, stood at the ready. Her chin was up, her shoulders rolled back, and her eyes were steady on the swirling portal before them.
Dietrich took a deep breath and looked to his left, where Hugh Draper stood. Draper was the stranger among them, the newcomer. He was a wizard from another time. Having disappeared from the Tower of London hundreds of years ago and reappeared in the here and now – and just in the nick of time to save Meagan and Dietrich, the wizard had decided to stick around and lend further aid wherever he could before once more jumping time. According to Draper, his own grove had cast the time travel spell long ago in the hopes that he would locate a moment in chronology when magic was accepted in the world and witches and wizards were no longer prosecuted. So far, he’d had no luck.
Draper had been a good sport about “suiting up” for whatever adventures might lay ahead for the four of them in October Land. He’d learned quickly what was what, and taken his cues from the others. Whatever they packed, he packed, and if he didn’t know what something was, he simply asked. It was interesting to Lehrer how quickly the man seemed to adapt to a new time. It was as if he existed outside of each time, and time had no influence on him.
That was so rare, it seemed a near impossibility. People were a product of their time. The day and age dictated everything to most people. In fact, both Meagan and Katelyn had attempted to pack their iPhones before Dietrich reminded them there probably wouldn’t be great reception in October Land.
Now the four of them stood together before the pulsing portal through which Logan and Dominic Maldovan, possessed by the spirit of Samhain, had disappeared.
The portal had been opened by Logan, more or less. Before she’d been taken through, she’d written in her own blood the one word that would allow Dietrich, Draper, Meagan, and Katelyn to go through after her. With a raw fingernail, she’d carved “open” into the trunk of a tree. And because she was a bard, it was a powerful word. Meagan, being a witch, had spoken the word out loud, bringing the spell to life.
“Ready, set, go?” Meagan asked.
“I would say ‘ladies first,’ however in this particular instance, it may be better to send a man through with priority,” said Draper, a short balding man with twinkling eyes and a crisp, clear voice. “Or better yet, a monster.” He looked at the girls and then looked meaningfully up at Dietrich.
And once more, Dietrich was reminded of the fact that he was no longer human.
Hours earlier, he’d had an unfortunate run-in with a Hell Hound. Apparently, the beast’s bite was not your ordinary kind of venomous. Specifically, the venom turned a mortal into a goblin.
As it turned out, goblins were not the small, green, big-eared creatures with jagged teeth and a mischievous nature that mortal lore would have you believe. They were, in fact, very large, very strong, and very deadly. According to Hugh Draper, who had an amazing amount of knowledge on the magical and mystical, goblins were so dangerous, they had at one time been separated from all the other magical creatures and exiled to live in their own realm, like prisoners sent to an island in the middle of nowhere. There, they were ruled by an equally powerful Fae king.
Or so the story went.
All Dietrich knew was that he had been bitten by a Hell Hound, and he was now a goblin. He’d grown at least a foot and a half, his body was covered in fur, his lower incisors had become tusks, and his eyes were glowing. As far as his strength was concerned, it had multiplied twenty-fold. He’d managed to wrestle two vampires into submission and come out of the battle still standing.
Draper’s suggestion that he go first through the portal really made a good deal of sense. Not only was he the one among them with the highest constitution, he was still also a very accomplished wizard. Whether he met up with magic or might on the other side, he should be able to handle it and clear the way for the others to follow.
He nodded. “How long will this doorway stay open?” It wasn’t his spell; he had no idea how powerful it was.
“Not long,” said Meagan. Dietrich glanced down at her. It was her magic that was keeping the door open. She was hiding it well, but now that he looked closely, he noticed a furrow in her brow and a set to her jaw. “A minute or so for sure, but I wouldn’t bet on much longer.”
“Okay, give me forty-five seconds,” Dietrich said. “Then come through after me.” He took a deep breath and stepped through.
Chapter Five
Sam stood tall and still before the massive mirror. It rose from the damp earth in the foggy clearing and towered to a height of ten feet, seemingly unsupported – just a lone mirror with a frame of dark gray carved marble in faces and grotesques of all manners and dispositions. Mists shrouded the edges of the looking glass, cloying and unnatural. There were fingers, limbs, and wisps of hair in those mists, floating and passing, remnants of every person who had ever peered into this glass. It was more than a mirror.
It was a looking glass. This was Sam’s window to the mortal world, through upon which he could view every visage or article reflected in every surface in everyday life.
Death was the opposite of life. It was its reflection, in this respect.
And through this reflection, death looked upon life as it occurred day-to-day. Every once in a while, a mortal would peer into his bathroom or hallway mirror and pause, suddenly disconcerted. This mortal would see something there, reflected in the depths of his own eyes. Something troubling. Something even frightening.
It was Death looking back at them. Only there, visible for a fraction of a moment, before the mortal pulled back, blinked, or looked away.
Now, however, the looking glass in Samhain’s realm showed the Lord of the Dead something it never had before.
In the in-between, he had been as ghost-like as the souls that waited there. There was no choice, for nothing of substance could pass through that barrier. It was the sole reason he had not been able to bring Logan back to his realm while she still breathed. Only death could cross through the in-between and into Samhain’s world.
However, on
ce he had left the in-between and entered his realm, he began to take solid form. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
There was substance to a pair of lungs, a living brain, a set of hands and teeth used to manipulate and hold and bite and drink. That substance Logan’s words had given him in the mortal realm had stayed with him. It made sense; a body was adhesive when it came to a soul. How else to keep them attached?
And now as Sam peered into his looking glass, for the first time in eons, there was no window to the mortal world. Instead, he was faced with his own reflection.
Sam raised his hand and watched the mirror do the same. Never before in the Realm of the Dead had he possessed a solid reflection.
Sam touched his cheek. Stubble greeted his fingers. It was what the mortals called a five o’clock shadow. His cheek bones were defined, his chin strong. He stepped closer and gazed into his own eyes – eyes a silver gray, like the lining of a cloud or the mists hugging a tombstone. He ran his reflected hand through his hair, hair as dark as the night, utterly devoid of color, thick and wavy and real.
She had given him this. She hadn’t even come into his world yet and already she was changing it. Logan.
A presence niggled at him, drawing his attention. They were here.
Sam smiled. A flash of fangs reflected at him, and something dark and fleeting passed through the gray of his eyes. It was an unsettling smile; the kind Logan so often wrote about in her stories.
He turned away from the mirror and faced the edges of the clearing, where mist and fog curled heavy, thick enough to block out the rest of his realm. Something dangerous waited in those mists, restless and blood-thirsty. It had taken them a while to traverse the borders between the mortal realm and the Realm of the Dead, but as he’d known they would, they’d managed.
“Welcome,” he greeted.
Sam’s voice rang out with crystal clarity, deep and unnaturally melodic. It was the first time he’d spoken since his immaterial form had coalesced into this new body.
The mists along one edge of the clearing parted, and what appeared to be two very young, fairly handsome men stepped forward. The fog curled around them, hugging and wanton, clinging to the boys as if they belonged to it.
These two were the only creatures ever to walk the Earth that he could viably pull from the mortal world into his own. They could pass through the barriers that separated the living from the dead because they themselves were neither.
Shawn Briggs and Nathan McCay were vampires. Vampires were not alive, but they yet possessed working material forms.
Briggs stood a little ahead of his companion, his jaw set, his razor-sharp fangs sitting easily atop his bottom lip. He sported shoulder-length black-brown hair, darkened by the terrible wrong Sam had committed against his soul. Now it shunned light and color, just as did the rest of him. His pallor was pale, starkly empty against the contrast of his sable locks. He’d become a black and white photograph of himself. Except for his eyes. Where once they had been the greenish hazel of a troubled sea, they were now lit up like simmering embers, angry and red.
They had been friends of Dominic Maldovan’s once.
Just like the late Alec Sheffield.
“Lehrer and his students have recruited the help of another wizard. They’ve found a way into October Land,” Sam said.
“We’ll see to them,” Shawn replied at once, his own voice amplified by his vampirism.
“Wait,” Sam warned, drawing them both into absolute stillness. “There are some things you need to know. Most importantly – I am the only one who can kill in October Land. All other wounds, mortal or not, will be healed by the land.”
“This realm is a doorway to mine,” he continued. “Spirits of the dead gather here in a place called Fall Fields. There, the harvesting portals open. The dead are sent through a portal to enter my realm. The living are returned to the mortal realm. Like Logan.”
They were running a race against time. All Logan and her companions had to do was find their way to Fall Fields, and the portals that sent spirits to their designated realms would take care of the rest, at once sending them back to the mortal realm.
Sam could of course follow them back – except that it was already Halloween in Logan’s realm. The door between the realms would close at midnight. And his time would be up.
If they made it to Fall Fields, Sam’s only hope would be to distract them, keeping them from entering the portals long enough for Sam to get to Logan.
A thought drifted and uncoiled in Sam’s mind…. He pressed it back, hanging on to it like an ace up his sleeve.
“So all we need to do is keep the others away from Logan,” Shawn suggested, “and keep them all away from Fall Fields.”
“So you can finish whammy-ing the bard and get her to join you,” finished Nathan.
Sam smiled. It appeared they understood perfectly.
He nodded, just once, and he could feel his eyes glint inhumanly in the low light. “This is your final chance,” Sam warned. “If I have to kill them, I will. Fail again and I will tend to it myself, and I won’t bother sparing the witch. She’s too much of a liability.”
A red light flashed momentarily brighter in Shawn’s vampire gaze. He nodded as well.
Sam raised his chin, taking a slow, deep breath. It felt good. “Fortunately for you, you’ll be more powerful here. This is something else you need to understand about October. Here, magic is amplified. On the down side, theirs will be as well, so you’ll need to strike before they realize as much and figure out how to use it.”
Shawn and Nathan exchanged looks.
Sam closed his eyes. He could feel the others out there… waiting before a portal. He could sense the exact location where they would arrive.
October Land was one massive ring-like realm consisting of six different environments. There was the Forest, a seemingly never-ending thicket of overhanging branches dripping with red, orange and gold. There were the Patches, field after field of pumpkin patches brimming with perfectly round pumpkins of various sizes and colors. There were the Falls, a watery place consisting of little swimming holes connected by babbling brooks, streams, and falls. There were the Villages, where the Harvesters resided; they were the natives of October Land. There were the Fields, otherwise known as Fall Fields – the graveyard that went on forever. And then there were the Orchards, acre upon acre of sweet, ripe apple trees where Logan’s friends were just now arriving in October Land.
“The goblin is about to appear in the Orchards.” He opened his eyes. “Take care of them.”
He waited as they took to the skies, disappearing with vampire speed. He didn’t actually have much faith that they would be successful. But it didn’t really matter.
Because he had a plan B.
Chapter Six
Logan ran. She had no idea where she was going; the forest moved around her in an orange blur as she kicked up leaves and took in heaving lungs full of cinnamon and spiced air. There was no pain in her body any longer, only an intense and driving, all-encompassing need to survive.
Run, she told herself. Run, or you will die.
While she ran, her mind spun as quickly and erratically as the rest of the world around her. She thought of Dominic, of her parents, of Taylor, of October Land, and then of Dominic again. Run! She thought of James, of Beth, of Meagan and Katelyn, and of Dominic again.
Dominic Maldovan… who was somewhere else in this forest, left behind, possibly permanently damaged. Bleeding, unconscious, alone.
Everything she had ever enjoyed in her life, everything she’d ever looked forward to or hoped about or dreamed of in her teenage existence was injured and maybe dying, possessed by evil and trapped in a world so far removed from her own, it was in another universe.
Her heart ached, but it wasn’t the running that caused it.
Logan ran, one foot after the other, each boot crunching layers of fallen leaves beneath its tread. After a while, so long it felt surreal, Logan realized she
wasn’t reaching the end of the multi-hued forest. It wasn’t changing at all, in fact. She slowed a little, jogging as she looked left and right, her long golden hair flying. Finally, she began walking.
The forest seemed to stretch for miles. Its canopy of amber was stunningly beautiful; the kind of image one would almost pay to have as their screen saver. Streams of light peeked through the leaves like angel beams, highlighting circles all along the thick carpet below. They blinked in and out of existence in the gentle breeze, adding another dimension of quiet life to the forest. It was peaceful here.
But there was no food, as far as Logan could see. There was no water. She had no idea what direction in which to turn next. She could very well die in this peaceful, sun be-speckled orange and yellow place.
I can try the open thing again, she thought. She could scribble the word “open” in something and see if speaking it aloud would have any effect. She doubted it. She was a bard, not a witch. But it was worth a shot.
She crouched down, ran her finger in the soft, moist soil, and then stood back up again. “Open,” she said aloud, startling a touch at the sound of her own voice in the relative silence.
Nothing happened.
She sighed. I can’t see anything from down here. She was about to begin looking around for a tree with branches low enough to climb, when she caught the scent of something new on the air. It smelled like wood smoke.
There was barely a hint of it, mixed and mingled with the fall scents of the forest. But it was enough to draw her up short and bring her spinning around. She sniffed, trying to find it again. She took a few steps in the opposite direction, her head up, her eyes closed.
There it was again! It was stronger this time, and Logan’s heart hammered with hope. She followed the scent, moving carefully on a new path through the gem-like woods. The scent grew stronger, and eventually the air thickened a touch with the ash of expelled wood smoke.
Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy) Page 3
