Dominic mulled this over. Logan watched as a muscle twitched in his jaw. “So, what you’re saying is that he… possessed someone else? Someone nearby?” he asked.
Lehrer nodded.
“Probably someone else in the gym,” Meagan supplied. “Which narrows it down to almost every senior student in the school and quite a few of the teachers as well.”
“You’re telling us that somewhere in this school, Sam Hain is walking around dressed as someone else? In someone else’s body? And it could be anyone?” Dom asked.
“Any senior,” Lehrer corrected with a nod. “But yes.”
Dominic swore softly under his breath and ran his free hand through his hair. “It could be one of my band mates, for Christ’s sake.”
“It could.” Lehrer sighed again and pushed himself up and out of his desk. “Which is why you need to be aware of a few very important things.” He moved back to the big desk at one end of the classroom and walked around it. Logan watched him open his top drawer and pull out several small leather pouches. Each was a slightly different color, but it was clear that the discoloration was due to aging.
“We have twenty-five days until the Blue Moon, at which point, I believe Samhain will be forced back into his own world, regardless of what happens in this one. In the meantime, each of you will wear one of these amulets. It will protect you from his influence to a certain degree. I have one here for Katelyn as well. Logan, will you give it to her when you see her next?”
Logan nodded.
Lehrer came back around the desk and handed a pouch to each of them. Meagan immediately opened her pouch and tied the leather pendant around her neck. The silver disc that dangled from it was the same Celtic symbol that they had all worn before, but there seemed to be something scratched into the back of the disc.
“A few new protection spells have been woven into each necklace,” Mr. Lehrer explained as they followed Meagan’s example and tied their own medallions on. “As it is possible that Samhain will have adapted to the strength of the necklaces on their own, I thought it prudent to weave something stronger into them.”
They nodded their agreement, but remained silent so that he could continue.
“I also want you to keep a few things in mind when dealing with your fellow students and with the teachers that were at the dance Saturday night. If his previous form was any indication, Samhain has little control over his own appearance and almost no ability to hide his inherent power. Therefore, whoever possesses the body he has inhabited will most likely go through some kind of change; be it eye color or hair color or even mode of dress. Something about Sam Hain will show through. So, keep your eyes peeled and be vigilant.”
Epilogue
Logan sat at the windows of her bedroom and gazed out into the dawning night. There was not a cloud in the sky, which was actually depressing to her. It was all too perfect and too beautiful. She felt like a storm – so she wanted one.
It would have been preferable to the silence and the hooting of an owl in the distance. That quiet, calm dark seemed to press in on her, a heavy weight that made it harder to breathe. She wanted lightning. She yearned for thunder. It would have taken her mind off of things, if only for a few delicious seconds.
With a heavy sigh, Logan looked down at the notebook in her lap. The pages it was open to were blank. They’d been blank for close to an hour and a half. She so badly wanted to empty her mind of the worries and doubts swimming within it. She wanted to create another fantasy world to escape into, at least for a little while, until she had to go to work at the bakery and put up with the once-dead and unfortunately alive-again Randy Hodges.
She needed the diversion of her words so badly. But she was scared.
She had no idea what would happen to what she created. What if she made up another werewolf or a vampire and he came to life? What if she gave someone in her story a power that Sam could somehow absorb and use against her?
Logan groaned with the inner pain it caused to not be able to write. She just wasn’t willing to take the chance that what she penned might become real. Sam was powerful enough as it was. Who knew where he was, or what he was doing even at that very moment? He could be out there in that darkness right now, she thought suddenly. He could be looking in at me.
Logan blinked and jumped up, the notebook on her lap skidding to the floor in a pile of cardboard and paper. Without hesitation, she pulled the cord that closed the blinds over her window. Then she yanked the white, gauzy curtains shut after them. She felt edgy. Uncertain.
She looked down at the notebook on the carpet and pondered it in silence.
What if…. She blinked, kneeling beside it. What if I wrote something else? Something about James and Taylor – something that would make them stop fighting? Could it come true?
In her heart, though, she knew it didn’t work that way. Life simply wasn’t that fair. She knew that it wasn’t her words alone that had caused the terrifying, otherworldly events of the last week. It was a combination of October, Meagan, Samhain, and Logan’s words. All of it.
With a heavy heart, Logan lifted her notebook, gently closed it the right way, and stood. She walked to her dresser, set the notebook down, and glanced up at the calendar that hung on the wall. It was October 8th.
Twenty-three days to go….
It had been two days since Mr. Lehrer had told them about Sam’s continued threat. In the hours that had spanned during that time, Dominic had become truly paranoid. He’d found himself studying everyone so closely that several people had wondered whether there was something wrong with him. One of his teachers thought he might be on drugs.
He wished he was. He wished it were that easy. But it wasn’t.
After Lehrer had given them their protective medallions and warned them of the danger still out there, Dominic had given Logan a ride to the pharmacy and then to the hospital. He hadn’t wanted to leave her side, even when she went into her brother’s ward and the nurses had told him that only family members were allowed to visit at that time.
So, Dominic had camped out in the car in the parking lot and waited.
Nothing had happened. The hours had passed and, by the time Dom had run through every one of the songs on his stereo at least twice, he began to wonder whether Lehrer might be wrong about Sam still being out there. Maybe Sam was done. Maybe Logan was safe after all.
Then Logan had come back out of the hospital to make her way across the parking lot toward his car. Her long golden hair fanned around her beautiful face in the slight breeze, and her bright gold eyes glistened with unshed tears. As he’d gotten out of the car to open her door for her, he’d admitted to himself that Lehrer couldn’t be wrong. Because if Dominic were Samhain, he wouldn’t give up and go home either. Not where Logan Wright was concerned.
“You can’t have her,” he whispered now as he stared off into space and distractedly fingered the strings of his guitar.
“What, man?”
Dominic blinked and glanced up. Alec Sheffield was watching him with a bemused expression, his hands wrapped around the base of a plugged-in microphone. “You say something?”
“No.” Dom shook his head and smiled. “Never mind. I’m talking to myself.”
“Well, so long as you don’t talk louder than me when the speakers are on, we’ll be okay.” Alec smiled at him and Dom nodded, giving him a quick salute to show he understood loud and clear.
“Right.” Alec turned to the other two boys in the band and checked to see that they were all set up and ready. “Let’s get started.”
It was the first time the band had met since the dance Saturday night. In fact, the truth was, Dominic hadn’t seen much of his friends at all since that night. Things had been rather crazy for everyone. Alec’s parents had gone out of town, leaving him with responsibilities that had even kept him out of school. Shawn had been busy at the mechanic’s shop where he worked after school.
Nathan McCay, the drummer, had simply skipped most of his classes,
as he was wont to do. All in all, Dom hadn’t had a chance to talk to any of his friends much over the last week. He hadn’t even thought about their music until tonight.
This was nice.
Music had always been his way out of the world. He wondered if he felt the same way about playing as Logan felt about writing. It was his escape.
On the upside, Alec had new music for them to try out tonight; it seemed he’d been on a creative streak while stuck at home watching over his parents’ estate. And now they had a new song.
Dom was grateful for it. The challenge would take his mind off of things for a while; keep him from going mad.
“From the top,” Alec said. Nathan began the drum beat. A second later, both Dominic and Shawn kicked in with guitar and keyboards.
Two hours later, Dominic could feel that the tension had more or less completely drained from his body and he was smiling again. As he packed up his guitar, Shawn waved goodbye and he and Nathan hopped into his diesel truck. The monster revved to life and squealed out of the lot.
Dom nodded at them both as the truck passed by and out of sight, and then he turned back to his instrument.
“Hey, you sound good,” Alec told him as he pulled on his leather jacket and grabbed the key to his motorcycle from where it rested on the tool chest in the garage. “I gotta admit I was a little worried that your head wouldn’t be in it enough to catch everything the first time around.”
Dominic stopped what he was doing and looked up. Alec was leaning against the door that led to the kitchen beyond. He had shoved his hands into his pockets and was watching Dominic with a knowing smile. “So….” he started easily, “I’m guessing that you’ve finally made your move with Wright, then?” he asked, his brows raised questioningly.
Alec had long been privy to Dominic’s crush on Logan Wright. It was no wonder that he asked about her now, with the way he’d come to her defense at the dance on Saturday night. Of course, Alec and the others all thought it had just been an act. They thought it was an elaborate play put on by the principal and a few chosen insiders. Even so, however, it was obvious that Dominic had paid special attention to Logan’s “character.”
Dom chewed on the inside of his cheek. Had he made his move with Logan? Strictly speaking?
Yes, he thought to himself. She knows how I feel. That’s more than we’ve ever had before. It’s a start. “I guess you could say that,” he said.
Alec smiled a winning smile, his light blue eyes twinkling in the overhead garage lights. “I’m proud of you. Took you long enough.”
“Shut up,” Dominic said. But he smiled too, and continued packing up his guitar.
“You goin’ out with her tonight?” Alec asked as he made his way toward the garage exit.
“I don’t know. She has to work. I might pick her up afterward, though.”
“Right. Take care, man.” Alec stopped in the garage doorway, the night outlining his tall frame from beyond. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said as he shot him one last meaningful smile over his shoulder. Then he left the garage and strode to his bike, mounting it with practiced ease and grace.
Dominic watched him go for a moment before he buckled down his case and propped it up in the corner of the garage.
It wasn’t until he’d pulled down the garage door and gone back inside to take a soda from the fridge that it hit him.
Blue eyes…. Light blue eyes. Alec had been looking at him through blue eyes – the color of ice.
But Alec Sheffield didn’t have blue eyes. He had brown.
THE END
(This series is continued with Secretly Sam, to be released October, 2011)
Sam I Am Page 16
