Sam I Am

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Mr. Lehrer wore a necklace just like it himself, and had retrieved two more from somewhere unknown, specifically for Katelyn and Meagan. Dominic, however, was a wild card and Lehrer hadn’t planned on him being involved. He didn’t know how to protect him other than to tell him that he needed to stay out of the way.

  “Dominic, Samhain obviously has something against you,” Lehrer told him, glancing nervously at Logan as he said it. It was clearly obvious to him that the “something” Sam had against Dominic was jealousy over Logan’s affections.

  Dominic’s gaze flicked to Logan’s and he held it. Logan felt something spark to life inside of her and wondered what it was.

  Hope?

  “Frankly, if he personally dislikes you,” Mr. Lehrer continued, drawing Dom’s attention back to him, “then you’re incredibly fortunate to still be alive. I imagine he will look for any excuse to harm you, so I don’t want you to give him one.” He gave Dominic a hard look. “Go home.”

  Dominic’s eyes got very big and he straightened, glancing at Logan quickly before turning back to Lehrer and shaking his head. “No way.”

  Lehrer sighed, nodding. “I knew you would say that. Very well - get on the stage and play your numbers and whatever you see, whatever you hear, don’t come down off of that stage.” His tone hardened to match his gaze. “Do not interfere.”

  Dominic stared at him for a long time. “Seriously?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “You seriously expect me to just stand there and let just anything happen?”

  Logan felt a thrill as that hope that had sparked inside of her caught a warm wind and spread like wild fire. Why was Dominic so upset? Was it for her sake? Could it possibly be?

  “I’ve never been more serious,” Mr. Lehrer insisted. He stood and made his way to the drama room door. He opened it. “Now go, Dominic. And remember what I said. We have work to do and any meddling on your part, no matter how well-intentioned, can become an insurmountable obstacle when it comes to defeating the Death Lord.”

  Dominic watched him for a moment, his jaw tight, his body very still. And then he stood and made his way to the door. Logan’s heart pounded as he reached the exit – and turned back to face her.

  They shared a look, that was all. But it was enough to make Logan suddenly feel better than she had ever felt in her life. Despite her family and her brother and the blood loss and the Death Lord – something had just gone her way. The boy she had been looking at for eight years had finally looked back.

  As he left, she found herself smiling.

  The smile wasn’t lost on Mr. Lehrer, who appeared distinctly worried about it. However, he chose not to mention it any further, instead focusing on what was to come that evening.

  Twenty minutes later, Logan stood alone at the end of the long, dark hall that led to the gymnasium. She had never been so nervous in her life. She also doubted that she would ever be this nervous again. Her stomach was in knots, her head ached, and there was the taste of metal in her mouth. Her tongue was dry, her fingers shook where she grasped them before her, and she was pretty sure she was sweating into her costume.

  She glanced down at herself and experienced another rush of something between embarrassment and pride. She’d never worn anything like this before. She just wasn’t this kind of person.

  But her jeans and sweater had been stained with mud and grass; and they weren’t exactly appropriate for a Halloween costume dance.

  Fortunately, the three of them - Katelyn, Meagan, and herself – had chosen their costumes months ago and left them in the drama room so that they could change together after the decorating was completed.

  Naturally, none of them had suspected, at the time, that something the likes of what they were going through now would occur. If they had, they would have chosen costumes that were more appropriate to the occasion. They would have been warmer. And possibly armed to the teeth. Like G.I. Joe’s.

  Meagan and Katelyn insisted that, since they had arrived at the school first with Mr. Lehrer, they should get first pick of the three costumes. Despite the relative unfairness of the “democracy,” Katelyn snatched up the Gryffindor schoolgirl uniform in the blink of an eye. Meagan easily claimed the Ravenclaw.

  Which left Logan as the Slytherin.

  In the space of the few short minutes it took her to change, she’d effectively become the “bad girl” of the group – and the slightly shorter length of the gray pleated skirt she wore only added to that image. The button-up shirt was a tad too tight and pulled taut across her breasts. She had to admit that she felt strangely attractive. Most boys had never seen her in anything but blue jeans or sweats. But she was also uncomfortable.

  In fact, the only comfortable thing about the costume was that it came with a soft gray and green scarf, which she hastily and surreptitiously wrapped around her neck to once more hide the bite mark that Sam had left upon her.

  Once Katelyn and Meagan had “fixed” Logan up to their satisfaction, the team split up. Meagan and Katelyn took their places behind the scenes, Mr. Lehrer became one of the teachers there at the dance as a chaperone – and Logan waited.

  Now, she could hear the music pouring from the dance below and she quietly marveled at Dominic’s ability to play so flawlessly when he was probably more than a little shaken up. After all, Mr. Lehrer had just introduced him to the world of make-believe, and told him it was anything but.

  The dance committees had agreed to go retro for tonight. It was an eighties Halloween, which was probably part of the reason behind Dominic’s band deciding to go as The Lost Boys. Right now, Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party” poured from the gymnasium. From up here, the sound was muted and distant and called to Logan in a way both enticing and terrifying. Light flashed through the dark windows behind her – lightning. She waited.

  Thunder rolled by a few seconds later. A storm was coming.

  Logan took a deep breath and glanced around her at the rows of gray painted lockers, the empty garbage cans, and the shadowy doorsteps of closed-off classrooms. The rooms beyond were pitch as night. The air was cool and hollow, caressing her exposed legs.

  She felt conspicuous; almost naked, her long legs bare but for her short skirt, green and gray knee-high socks, and her black combat boots.

  Considering the situation, she felt downright ridiculous. She’d just stolen and wrecked her brother’s truck, survived a vampire attack, and run from a werewolf. More or less. And here she was, dressed like a Quidditch cheerleader.

  Although…. She had to admit to herself that she kind of liked the idea of Dominic seeing her in the costume. She wondered what he would think.

  Katelyn had even made Logan wash her face, gargle some Listerine, and brush her long hair until it was shimmering. The mouthwash and brush, she’d carried in her purse. There was no beauty emergency Katelyn Shanks wasn’t prepared for.

  The entire ordeal had eerily reminded Logan of some sort of sacrificial virgin preparation. She felt like bait at the end of a hook. Which made sense.

  Because that was what she was.

  Mr. Lehrer said that Sam would be back. He would go somewhere, regroup, and return stronger – more determined – than before. There was something he desperately wanted and, knowing now that his time here may be short, he wouldn’t be playing by the rules. Not that there were any rules. He would strike hard and fast and try to leave weakness and confusion in his wake.

  He was a little like the lightning that drew ever nearer. It lit up the hallway, flash-photography that exposed the foreign exchange Germany trip posters and dance team try-out sheets on the walls and embedded them behind her eyes.

  Logan hugged herself.

  Lehrer had made no bones about the fact that he knew it was Logan that Samhain wanted. For her part, Logan was supposed to wait for Sam – and then hold his attention long enough for Meagan to direct her spell and get through the entire rite without being attacked again.

  That was bad enough. Logan was terrified of the prospect of being th
at up close and personal with Sam once more. He’d already proven that he had a certain amount of control over her. He was too enticing. For her, what he offered was too tempting. It was an end to the pain and the embarrassment and the uncertainty.

  And the way he made her feel….

  To add to her fear was the fact that, although Logan had little doubt Sam would find her no matter where she went, she wasn’t so certain that he wouldn’t know what was going on. He could read her mind, after all. And even if he couldn’t, he wasn’t stupid. She should know. She’d written him out to be a very insightful, very, very clever man. He was quite literally scary-smart.

  He would recognize their plan from the very start; she was sure of it. And what would he do? Would he kill them all? Would he go after her family? Dominic?

  Logan squeezed herself tighter against a worsening chill. “Easy, Logan,” She told herself. “You can do this.”

  She made her way slowly and steadily down the hall, moving toward the music that grew louder and louder. Behind her, more lightning flashed and, at one point the low, vibrating drone of thunder drowned out the music.

  But then Logan was leaving the hall and entering the gymnasium. She passed a pair of students kissing beside the double doors; one was Jack Sparrow and the other wore Keira Knightley’s massive, corseted London dress. Logan passed them by with barely a glance, her gaze scanning the gymnasium’s interior.

  If it had appeared transformed earlier that day, it was now completely unrecognizable. The cemetery around the stage looked real. It looked really real. She could almost smell the wet soil, and the tombstones appeared genuine, their dates faded and scratched, the names authentically nineteenth-century.

  The lighting was dark and yet frantic, as teenagers seemed to prefer. And the band looked amazing. Logan couldn’t help standing just inside the doors to peer up at them from across the room.

  Alec had done an impressive job on his hair. He was blonde, but the way he’d made it spiked and added highlights made Logan feel as if he were going to sprout fangs and begin a feeding frenzy on the crowd of costumed dancers below him. His voice crooned; he’d always been an excellent singer. And his black garb, completed by the floor-length trench coat and gloves, was truly authentic.

  He was David.

  Logan had to smile. In spite of everything, she just had to.

  The drummer, Nathan, had teased his blonde hair to appear like Paul and he was wearing the exact same jacket. She imagined he wanted to take it off right about now. Drumming was very hard work.

  Marco was played by Shawn Briggs, who alternated between bass guitar and keyboards. He must have been wearing a wig, because in everyday life, Shawn had short brown hair. And right now, he could have passed for Alexander Winter’s vampire character without flinching.

  Logan stood there, admiring them for a moment. She was surprised when the guitarist looked up from the frets he’d been so expertly manipulating and locked gazes with her. His jade colored eyes glinted beneath the crazy lights; his jaw was tight, his expression tense. A world of meaning passed between them in that moment.

  And then lightning flashed again.

  And the power went out.

  Chapter Nine

  Seconds after the lights went out, the music stopped. Hushed whispers became audible voices raised in mild panic or alarm.

  Then the teachers were there; Logan could hear them in different parts of the gym, issuing orders to remain calm and not move. They didn’t want anyone getting trampled. Logan stayed where she was, still as a statue, and listened.

  Two teachers nearby were concerned that the backup generator hadn’t come on. Someone was deployed to check the breakers outside of the library, while another was sent to the boiler room.

  The only light in the massive, darkly decorated space was the occasional bout of illumination as lightning flashed outside of the construction-papered windows and leaked from the open windows in the adjoining halls. During these flashes, Logan tried to see who was around her.

  But it took more time for her eyes to adjust than she was afforded, so all she really caught were costumed spirits, masked haunts, and storybook figures in gowns and capes and crowns.

  But for the familiar uttered name and the distinctly non-accented voices whispering terribly modern colloquialisms, she would have been able to believe that she had traveled to another realm; one of magic that could not be explained away by science. Knights who actually longed for princesses, kings willing to die for their queens. It would be a world where music played when people kissed. Or wept.

  Or died.

  And speaking of music….

  The sound of voices raised in chant, at first quiet, but progressively louder, emanated from some unknown place. It caused the mildly panicked crowd to hush, and Logan could even tell that they had stopped moving by the fact that cloaks were no longer rustling and shoes were no longer scuffling.

  At first, Logan couldn’t recognize the chanting. It was too quiet.

  But as it grew in volume and was joined with music, her stomach knotted and her fear ratcheted up a few notches. She loved the song, personally. She had it on her iPod at home. She loved the words and what they truly meant.

  But she was no fool. She knew that it was played in every epic action or thriller or horror movie when something really bad was about to happen. And she knew that was the message that Sam was trying to relay.

  Something bad is about to happen.

  O Fortuna.

  She expected people to freak out – to try to run or scream or hide. Instead however, as the music rose in volume and reverberated off of the walls, Logan felt a buzz go through the crowd. It was excitement. They think this is part of the dance, she thought. Part of the show.

  So, when the enormous room suddenly exploded with light as rows and rows of orange pumpkins burst into flame along the walls, it was exclamations of surprise and glee, not terror, that emitted from the dancers in the crowd.

  “Oh no,” Logan muttered.

  The jack-o-lanterns floated in the air, hovering impossibly, several feet off of the ground. They grinned flaming grins, their eyes blazing, the tops of their heads like campfires on a winter’s night. They hadn’t been there moments before. The other students most likely thought it was a trick of invisible strings and pyrotechnics. Logan knew it was magic.

  She could see her classmates’ faces now, their expressions bearing wider grins than the pumpkins. She looked up at the stage to find that the band looked surprised at what was happening, but the dawning smile on Alec’s face said that he didn’t necessarily mind the interruption – as long as it was good, and as long as it was over-with relatively quickly.

  Dominic was the only one not smiling. His expression was grim. He looked at the pumpkins and glanced up at the ceiling above the band as if searching for some sign that it wasn’t magic. And then he looked back down again and found Logan in the crowd.

  His eyes were filled with questions. The biggest of them was most likely, “Is this Sam’s doing?”

  So, she nodded.

  At the song’s crescendo, the air in the room felt positively charged with anticipation and excitement. The students gasped and turned to look, almost as one, when the giant double-doors at one end of the gymnasium flew open so hard and fast that they slammed against the wall on the other side. The night greeted them all from beyond the doorway. It was filled with lightning and thunder and an ominously thick fog that rolled in through the doors like a living thing – eating up the ground and curling hungrily around the students’ legs.

  Logan’s hands curled into fists as she waited. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands.

  On the stage, Dominic Maldovan slowly took the guitar strap off of his shoulder and set down his guitar. The others in his band didn’t see him do this. They were too focused on the scene unfolding before them.

  After a few more tense moments, the song ended and the fire in the jack-o-lanterns went out. The room once more fell int
o a chaotic hush, filled with nervous whispers and the sound of shuffling taffeta and scuffing shoes.

  And then someone nudged someone else and that person nudged another, insisting that there was something moving outside. Soon, everyone was straining to see what it was that had drawn everyone else’s attention.

  The light was incredibly dim at first, wrapped in fog as it was. It swung slowly back and forth, a dim bluish-white light that illuminated the fingers of mist separating from the ground. Within a few seconds, it was obvious that the light was emanating from a lantern, not unlike one that would be found in some spooky movie, in someone’s outstretched hand as they traversed a grave yard or haunted mansion or a crocodile-filled swamp.

  Someone was holding the lantern.

  Logan’s throat felt tight. She found herself taking a very tentative step back. She knew who was holding the lantern. The sound of his boots, drawing ever nearer, echoed in the different darknesses that entombed the gymnasium and its captive audience.

  As the tall figure entered the gymnasium, the students moved back out of the way, giving him an enormous bubble of space. Logan could barely see him through the sudden denseness of the crowd in front of her, but what she could see of him filled her with bitter fear.

  He was draped in the blood red robes of a high inquisitor. His dark brown hair looked almost black in the light shed by his lantern, and his pale blue eyes looked otherworldly. His appearance was ominous in the extreme.

  “You’ve a witch among you,” he said, speaking very softly. His voice carried across the gymnasium, despite his quiet tone. Somewhere in that shadowed darkness, the music began to play once more. It was background noise now, an accompaniment to the menacing figure in red robes and the portentous words he spoke.

  “She has cast a spell on you all,” he said, smiling then. His fangs were gone. He was playing the part of a human now. A horrible, evil, deadly human. His eyes glittered maniacally as he lifted his lantern and peered at a space above the students’ heads. “Her servants haunt the halls!” he bellowed.