The Amber Lee Boxed Set

by Katerina Martinez

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  We were in our own bubble now, alone. A cozy bubble full of candle light and warmth. "Yeah, I'm fine... why?” I said.

  "I don't know. I get the impression something's on your mind."

  He wasn't wrong. The whole night I had been gnawing at the memory of my encounter with the man who tried to kill me. I was like a dog still chewing on a bone she had had since she was a pup.

  "Just stuff," I said.

  "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

  "Not really."

  Damien leaned over me and with a light push nudged me to my back. I rested on my elbows and watched as he lifted my top and exposed my bare stomach. His lips descended like a feather falling from the sky, landing upon the scar in my abdomen from where the knife had gone through. It was a simple scar, a thin line of discolored, bumpy flesh, but I wore it with pride and loved the tingle-jolt which came with every kiss.

  I sighed, elated, and melted into the pillows, limp. Flaccid. Trembling under Damien's touch.

  My man.

  My gentle man.

  His lips found mine. I pulled the back of his neck closer to me, flicked his tongue with mine, bit his lower lip, and then broke the kiss. "We have class," I said, though my hips arched toward his.

  "You should have thought about that before you chose to wear such a low cut top for me."

  Damien plunged his tongue into my mouth. It didn't take long for him to start undressing me, and when his lips explored the landscape of my breasts and stomach I floated away to a cloud of drunken passion and desire. From up there I would be able to see him pleasing my aching womanhood with his tongue. I would be able to watch myself pull his shirt over his head and enjoy the taste and smell of his skin. There would be nothing and no one to stop me from enjoying the show going on beneath me.

  And when he entered me, and we rocked together, and the steady rhythm brought us both to a blissful orgasm, I would come back down to experience the intensity of it. To feel the warmth of him, taste the sweat on his shoulders, and exult in the pleasurable sensation that came from letting him fill me.

  I wouldn't get enough sleep, but that didn't matter. Nothing mattered but Damien.

  Nothing.

  Chapter Three

  I stopped writing in my dream diary a few months ago, not long after my near death experience at the Ever Dark Mesa. It was as if the dream-tap stopped flowing one day and I had no way to fix the pipes. More often than not I would wake up in the dead of night in a cold sweat with the residue of a dream clinging to my mind like a warm breath on a cold window. But the window would clear just as quickly as it had been steamed, and I would be left with vague impressions, tastes, and sensations.

  Running. Knife. Magick. Fear. Stab. Bleed. Flying.

  These themes were always the same.

  I was no stranger to recurring dreams, but this felt somehow different and almost urgent. For a while I thought my near death experience had something to do with the dream block. The last dream I could remember with any clarity was the Raven—Lily—flying into the sunset. At least the dream was a sweet one. But sometimes I wished I wouldn't dream at all. Maybe the attack had left some kind of trauma in me after all.

  I fell awake without warning. It wasn't the smooth transfer from sleep into consciousness, but much more like falling and hitting the ground hard. My entire body shook from the impact. They say if you hit the ground in a dream where you're falling, you die. But what if you didn’t know what you had been dreaming about?

  The bedroom was still dark when I awoke, but daylight was breaking from beyond the window while swallows sang their morning song. The faint sound of distant cars and horns sailed on the back of the wind and kids chattered as their parents walked them to the nearby pre-school. Damien, fast asleep next to me, hadn't felt me catapult into the waking world.

  What time is it?

  I reached for my phone on the bedside table and the display read 8:37 am. Late. Class was due to start at 9. And to make matters worse, the sudden jerk for my phone had pulled a rush of blood into my head and elicited a dull throb. I pressed my fingers to my temples and closed my eyes, but the headache persisted.

  "I'm never drinking again", said everyone who had ever had a hangover.

  Damien stirred, and I turned to kiss him on the lips despite the pain in my head pan. His lips were soft and warm and I could still taste the Sambuca on him.

  "Hey," I said, "We're late."

  He groaned and shuffled on to his side without a word, but this half-assed acknowledgment meant he would be up in five minutes. Damien was good at waking up. Better than me. But he liked to snooze and, late or not, he would have his snooze.

  "I'm going to go shower," I said, kissing him again. And then I turned away to let my bare feet descend upon the warm carpet, standing upright and testing my balance before taking any steps. When I was confident that I wouldn’t fall over I hurried across my bedroom toward the adjoining bathroom—naked—and picked out a towel from the rack. The throbbing in my head persisted even as I stepped into the shower.

  Gods. Why did I drink so much?

  Temperance wasn't my favorite virtue. I would always tell myself to stop and attempt to put up some kind of mental resistance, but I could never manage to hold fast against the ravages of temptation. One more drink always turned to a few more, at least when I had company. I wasn't an alcoholic and didn't drink more than a glass or two in my own company, so I would justify my behavior by telling myself I didn't go out much, didn't drink much, and only did it when people were around. But maybe I was only being an enabler to myself, and if that was the case I deserved the headache I had been given.

  So, pain or no, I climbed into the bathtub and drew the curtain. It sucked that there wasn't enough time for a bath, but I enjoyed showers too. And as the warm water from the shower head washed the smell of alcohol and cigarettes from out of my copper hair—cigarette smoke being one of the less appealing side-effects of hanging out with Frank—I thought about the day ahead; the long day of class, having to go to work, and—urgh—sunlight.

  "What do I really have to do today?" I said to myself, enjoying the millions of tiny fingers massaging my scalp and back. "Go to school. Learn. Lunch. Lean some more... that's not so bad. But then I have to go to the bookstore and work. Gods-dammit. Maybe pills will help with the hangover?"

  As much as I enjoyed class the idea of leaving the house, facing the sun, and engaging in cognitive functions didn't agree with me. My head still felt several sizes too big, and the tasks waiting for me throughout the day started to look like mountains I had to scale with my bare hands, no pick-ax, and no safety rope. Pressure descended upon my neck and shoulders and prickles raced down my spine. I considered using Magick to clear the discomfort, but all I could hear was Frank’s voice in my head, scolding me.

  Ass.

  "Fuck!" I yelped and recoiled as the warm water falling from the shower transformed into icy crystals of pain! "What the hell?"

  My chest was heaving, my body freezing, and my head still throbbing. I reached through the stream of arctic ice water and shut the faucet off, rubbing my forearm to warm it up again. I learned, then, that being hit with ice cold water hurt as much as the water had been scalding hot. More, maybe!

  I peeled back the curtain and stepped out of the shower, naked and dripping, then grabbed the towel on the rack and ran it through my hair and over my shoulders. The bathroom door jiggled, as if someone had walked into it, but it didn't open. Did I even close it on the way in? I couldn't remember. But then a cold feeling settled into my stomach and my extremities started to go numb.

  "Damien?" I called out.

  No one answered, but the door started to jiggle again and now the knob was turning too. I went for the door, grabbed the door knob to turn it open, but contact with the metal burned my hand. It was scalding hot! I withdrew and cradled my hand, staggering back a few steps. The jiggling stopped for a moment, but then it started again.<
br />
  Someone was trying to get in!

  "Damien!" I said.

  I watched the knob turn and turn and turn until, finally, the yielded and croaked open at a snail's pace. I backed up against the wall on the far side of the room, my heart hammering against my temples sending pulses of pain through my head. The door opened, but there was no one on the other side of it; only darkness.

  With my eyes shut, I concentrated and summoned the Goddess' light to protect me, but from the darkness of my bedroom a huge black mass came rushing toward me.

  It was blacker than night and had no features I could identify; a tall, writhing mass of ink spreading through the air like blood through water. I raised my arms and shook my head, screaming at the top of my lungs to keep the thing away.

  “No, no, no!” I said, and the shaking woke me up.

  I had my head propped up against the wall and I was still standing in the tub with lukewarm water cascading around me. My surroundings were still, but I yanked the curtain hard and fast and pulled it aside. The door to my bedroom was open, but I could see into the room and… no black mass, just the foot of an inert bed. My breathing relaxed. I bent over to pick up the bottle of shampoo and told myself it was only a dream.

  A daydream, sure, but still only a dream.

  But Damien’s sudden appearance when I straightened back up made me jerked so hard I dropped the bottle into the tub.

  “Hey,” he said, “Are you okay?”

  "Hi," I said, shaking. “Yes, I’m fine.” I wasn't, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Did you sleep okay?”

  “I slept like a drunk person, so no.”

  "Tell me about it. Mind if I join you?"

  I nodded, and Damien stepped into the bathtub. He wrapped his arms around me as the water washed the previous night off his skin, but we didn't get up to any funny business. We were too late for that. Besides, my little mid-shower nap had made sure the water wasn't running quite as hot anymore and I was still shaking like a fig leaf from the daydream I had just had.

  I couldn’t free myself from the dream, either. I was less a stranger to daydreams than I was to not dreaming at all, but I had never quite had one like this before. My daydreams were never terrifying—I would dream of mountains and fields, fantasize about going back to Europe, or imagine what it would be like if I learned how to fly—but I didn't go a day without one, and they were always vivid.

  This daydream was no exception to the vivid rule, and I so wished it would leave my thoughts.

  "Listen," I said, "I think I'm going to skip class today."

  Damien gave me a concerned stare. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

  It wasn't. The last few months hadn't been good to me and I was feeling the sting of sleeplessness harder every day. But what could I have done? No one knew the reason for my inability to find sleep. And I didn't think 'bad dreams' were a reasonable excuse to be late on assignments and skip class, but sleeping in class would have been worse than skipping it. Professor Simmons had his pride and he didn’t take well to students sleeping during his lectures.

  I didn't have an excuse, but I didn't have energy either. Coming up with either would have been good, but today wouldn't be the day.

  "I feel terrible," I said, "And I've got to cover Eliza's shift in the bookstore later. I'm already behind on my assignments; one more day isn't gonna do me any harm."

  "Alright, but only if you're sure," Damien said. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me to him.

  "Yeah, I'm sure. I just don't know if I can face class today. I figure if I can get some sleep, and the bookstore is quiet tonight, I can get the assignments all done and hand them in on the weekend."

  Damien nodded. "I'll pick up any extra work you missed."

  I pursed my lips together and stared into his eyes. "I don't like saying this, but it's probably better if you stayed at your place tonight… so that I can get to bed early."

  "That's gonna suck, but if it means you'll be able to get a good rest..." I could see the disappointment on his face. It felt like I was rejecting him, but he understood.

  "I will,” I said, “I promise. Just, call me in the morning to make sure I'm up okay?"

  I stood on my tiptoes and pecked Damien on the lips before stepping out of the shower and wrapping myself up in a towel. Having permission to skip class, even if it only came from Damien, was like being dipped in a lake of warm relief. I watched him from my bed as he put his clothes on for class and left. I would have checked my emails and messages, but I knew I didn't have any worth reading.

  Finding sleep, though, after Damien left, proved to be a little harder than I thought. So I had the idea of slipping out of bed and pulling shutters closed to block out the light, but when I spotted someone in the back yard I found I couldn’t move. A man, I thought, in my back yard. Inside the back yard! Or maybe I was hallucinating again?

  That’s it. I was hallucinating. There was no one really there. Only when I closed my eyes and blinked, hard, the man remained, partially hidden by the tree jutting out from the snow covered grass. I was about to call out to it—him—when the shape darted out of sight and disappeared around the side of the house.

  As I analyzed the situation in my mind, in the split second following the stranger’s disappearance, I decided that this didn't feel like a hallucination. I could feel the cold on my skin, the bite of the December chill, and could see my warm breath before my lips. But more importantly, I wasn’t waking up.

  When I finally snapped out of it I shut the window and sat at the edge of my bed, but something didn't feel right. Dammit. Damien wasn’t around so I took it upon myself to go around my house and double check the doors and windows. If there was someone in my backyard I wanted to at least know who it was but there was no one around, and when I stepped into the cold wearing my robe I found no footprints in the snow and no trace of any theft or tampering.

  Satisfied that my house was, at least now, secure, I headed back to bed and allowed myself the two hours of rest I would be able to get before needing to get up for work. But the idea someone may have been in my backyard stuck with me like a bad cold. What if I had imagined it—him—just like I had imagined the black shape lunging at me in the bathroom? That in itself was something to investigate, maybe even make an appointment with the doctor about.

  But… what if I hadn't imagined it?

  Any of it.

  Chapter Four

  By the time 2pm rolled along I was dressed and ready to get to work. I had picked out a black dress, long at the sleeves and the hem, and a pair of black boots. I wore a lot of black, but I liked black. Against my fair, freckled skin and copper hair black looked a kind of awesome in a way few other colors did. Except for, maybe, green and purple—also colors I loved. But I didn't own a lot of green and my purple clothes weren’t warm enough for this time of year. So I slipped into my clothes, slapped on Damien's leather jacket—which I had commandeered after he insisted it looked better on me than it did on him—and headed toward the bookstore.

  A brisk walk in the crisp December air helped reel me into the day. I hadn't noticed until now how white everything was; we must have had a whole foot of snow fall on us since late the night before. Stopped cars and buildings were covered in blankets of white, powdery snow, huge plow trucks worked to clear the streets, while pedestrians walked along the sidewalks, hugging their many layers of warm clothing. I was lucky that the walk from my house to the bookstore was a short one; the cold didn’t really bother me.

  When I woke up I detested the idea of having to go to class and then go to work, but in truth Tuesdays were quiet at the store. This meant that, if the trend held, I would be able to get some of my work done in the still hours of the evening, and today I had no intention of slacking off. I had done enough of that already.

  Armed with my cup of coffee, a Philly cheese steak, and a box of baked goods—tribute for the little pixie living in the bookstore and the even tinier pixie living i
nside of her—fresh out of the oven, I would get myself back on track. At least, that was the plan. My energy levels had started to fade as I arrived at the store, and I couldn't stop the tiredness from being plainly visible on my face as I stepped inside.

  "You're late," Eliza said.

  "Late?" I asked, dropping my stuff at the reading area. I kept the jacket on, though. "I'm, like, fifteen minutes late."

  "Yeah, that's late."

  "Oh, screw you. You've been late a ton of times! Anyway I got your favorite: Raspberry jelly.” I presented the box of baked goods and waited, hoping she would approve. I had intended the sweet treats as a kind gesture to a pregnant woman, but given her mood, it appeared that the role of these treats had been reassigned from kind gesture to peace offering.

  She examined the box with narrow eyes, but then cracked a smirk. "Alright, I accept your apology. And what's that I smell in your bag?"

  Eliza's appetite knew no bounds, now. In all our years I had never known her to be anything other than slight, but I had started to notice the weight gain which accompanied her pregnancy. It was part bump, part indulgence, but I enjoyed her new size and appetite. Her cheeks were rounder, fuller, and warmer. She had a nose like a bloodhound, though.

  "Philly cheese steak," I said, producing the wrapped sandwich from its bag. “Hungry much?”

  "Famished. Have you ever thought of putting jelly on that sandwich?"

  "No, but then I'm not a weirdo."

  It was ironic that those words should have come from my mouth.

  "It's these hormones," Eliza said, grabbing a warm doughnut and taking a deep bite. Sweet, red jelly dribbled down the side of her mouth. With her pale skin, jet hair, opalescent cobalt eyes and the faux 'blood' dripping down her face she could've posed for a Vampire magazine or something.

  Pregnant Vampire Models Magazine.

  Was that a thing?

  "I'll tell you what," I said, "How about we split this? I should have got you one."