There were spells to make the person someone cast it on do what the caster said. All instructions and commands would be followed regardless of the feelings of the victim. Samuel thought she may have used it on her husband, but such a spell was short-lived, and the victim would remember being under the influence of it. Although, you didn’t necessarily have to make the spell to cast it. It was one of many a witch could charm an item or tincture with, and an uninitiated person could use it on another.
Perhaps that was how the witch trials started. Samuel heard rumors there were witches in the area from underground sources. If they were spreading information about witches, who was to say regular people weren’t also catching on. The witches would have to deflect suspicion somehow, and what better way to do so than to make the villagers think an innocent person was bewitching children.
He found a few different hexes, one or two curses, and a jinx. The one spell which confused him was a translocation spell. He always thought of translocation as moving an item from one place to another, but what if that wasn’t what the witch used it for? Samuel fisted his hands in his hair, pulling the sandy blonde locks in frustration.
Suddenly he remembered Sara joking about a few gray hairs she noticed. He’d replied that it was impossible, he didn’t go gray, but when he looked in the mirror, there they were. Samuel ran the crucial items through his mind over and over. One, there was a stasis spell in the circle that trapped him. Two, the witch had a powerful translocation spell amongst the other rubbish in her spell book. Three, he was sprouting gray hairs. Last, the witch taunted him, saying she had something he would sorely miss.
Samuel gasped, drawing in the sharp breath as his mouth fell open. Rebecca had somehow managed to take his immortality. Now he was out of the stasis spell, he would age as if he were human.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he repeated the word several more times as he flipped through the pages with desperation. “There has got to be a way to undo this. I can’t be mortal!”
Coming across two pages stuck together in the back of the book, something he hadn’t noticed before, he peeled them apart with care. Spread across the open sheets was a crude diagram that looked like two cones with their flat ends smashed together. One tip of the cone was denoted with the letter D, which he took to stand for a demon. On the tip of the other side was the letter R, which he assumed signified Rebecca. Around the circumference where the two bases met, were thirteen points set equal distances apart. Arrows moved from the D to the center, then from the center to the R.
This must be how the power transfer worked. The descendants drained power from him and funneled excess energy to Rebecca. She wouldn’t be able to tap it directly from him because if someone ever freed him, he would know exactly where she was through the cords. If that were the case, it wouldn’t take her long to find out he was no longer trapped.
She would feel the extra power from the energy he gained during their trip, energy that was draining from him now he didn’t have the unlimited source from the city to tap into. It would only be a matter of time before she tried to find him. The first place she would look would be here at the house built over the foundations of her old workroom. If he wanted to locate her, he would have to remove the pawns in the middle.
A crash and scream from the kitchen above had him jumping out of his chair and running for the stairs. His heart thudded as fear ran loops through his mind, specters of the things that could happen to Sara if Rebecca found them running through it.
Samuel couldn’t run fast enough, rounding the bend in the basement towards the stairs that led up to the main room. Flying through the basement door, he ran into the kitchen to see Sara hopping on one foot, cradling the other in her hands. A large stainless-steel pot rolled on the floor next to her as she cursed.
“What happened?” He ran over to her, scooping her up in his arms and placing her on the counter.
“I dropped the stupid friggin’ pot on my foot,” Sara huffed with exasperation while still cradling the abused appendage.
He bent down to examine her foot, gingerly turning it one way then the other. “I don’t think it’s broken.”
“No, it just hurts.” She pouted, and Samuel smiled up at her.
“I’ll get you an ice pack. Maybe we should order in tonight. I’ll call, I don’t want you to sprain your thumb.” He went to the freezer and pulled out a small ice pack, wrapping it in a kitchen towel before handing it to her.
Sara glared at him but couldn’t help smiling. “Sometimes I really hate you.”
And sometimes I really love you. It was on the tip of Samuel’s tongue, ready to come out, and the realization shocked him. He had never, in his extensive existence, loved anyone. The thought scared the life out of him. Sara was vulnerable. Any day the witch could come here and take her away from him.
He had to keep her safe.
She smiled at him, her eyes alight, and pecked him on the lips before jumping off the counter and limping towards the couch. “You can use my phone. I’m in the mood for plain cheese tonight I think.”
Samuel watched her walk away, speechless, before gathering himself and joining her on the sofa. The moment had passed, but he knew the feelings wouldn’t.
32. SARA
Sara stretched in her computer chair and closed out the application she had been working in. Within days after coming home from the city, she started working again. Someone had to pay the bills. She laughed to herself. Ash had sent the first wire transfer from the preliminary sales of the coins she debuted at the convention’s auction.
After setting up a bank account for Samuel, and depositing the money into it, she printed out the paperwork he would need to manage his own funds. He would have a lot of wiggle room to figure his life out and be able to live well in the meantime from the amount he received from those sales.
The account was the last piece of the puzzle he needed to start his new life. Sara’s contact had come through and supplied him with a birth certificate, social security number, passport, and ID card. She had provided him with a digital trail to show he had a past in the states if anyone were to look up his history. Samuel Smith was now a legitimate person according to the government. She had rolled her eyes when she saw the last name, her friend had a cringe-worthy sense of humor. Still, common names were best when creating new identities. They were harder to pin down and research.
With the envelope in hand, Sara went to find Samuel and present his new identity to him. She wandered into the living room but didn’t see him there watching television or playing with the dog. Figuring he must be in the cellar again, she walked to the basement door only to find it locked. That was odd, he left it open when working downstairs.
He’d holed himself up down there for the past several weeks which suited her as she had a lot of work to finish. It relieved Sara when she found she didn’t have to invent anything to amuse him with, it was one of the things that worried her.
Frowning, she called Samuel’s name with no response. He never told her he was leaving, but then, he’d been acting strangely over the last few days. She thought back over the time. He’d become increasingly protective since she dropped the pot on her foot.
At first, he wanted to take another trip, rent a condo by the beach, or a cabin in the mountains. He was upset when Sara told him she couldn’t leave again, that she had too many things to do, but he relented and started to pace around the house.
After that, he’d tried to not let her out of his sight which was disconcerting. Lucky for her, he’d grown bored with that after several hours and moved to the living room to watch television. Although, when she took a break from work, he was staring out the windows towards the lake with a worried expression. Sara tried to get him to open up to her, to tell her what he was so concerned about, but he would merely shake his head and tell her not to worry which made her anxiety about the situation worse.
At night they would eat dinner and spend time together, cuddling on the couch and watching telev
ision or playing board games. She tried introducing him to computer games, but he had no interest in them. Samuel needed a job, or something, to occupy him during the day.
Which brought her to the current dilemma of trying to find him. The more she thought about it, the more she realized he disappeared every day around this time. Growing suspicious, Sara did something she thought she would never do - she tracked his phone’s GPS through the computer. She felt horrible about it until his location popped up on the map. Why would a grown man be standing in a park outside of an elementary school just after class let out? That was never a good sign.
Grabbing the car keys and the envelope with his items in it, she locked the door behind her and walked to her car. The school wasn’t far away, and she was done with his attitude. Sara slammed the door and revved the engine, pulling out of the driveway and trying not to let anger cloud her judgment. She couldn’t help but think he had better have a damn good reason for his behavior.
When she pulled into a spot along the road next to the park, she looked around and spotted Samuel sitting on a bench along a gravel patch facing the playground of the school. His back was facing her, but he slumped slightly with his arms crossed over his chest. Several young students were playing together under the watchful eyes of two teachers.
Sara got out of the car and walked towards him, her gait slow so she could take in the whole scene in front of her. She slipped onto the bench next to Samuel, not saying a word. He took several seconds to look her way, and he started in surprise.
“How–” He frowned, his eyebrows drawing together.
“Your phone.” She interrupted him, not turning towards him, but rather watching the children play. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s personal.” His demeanor was indignant as he slumped further into the seat.
“That’s not good enough this time.” Sara turned to him, watching him with steady eyes. There was no merriment in her tone, only a firm resolve to hear the truth.
“She’s one of them.” He nodded towards the women wrangling children around a slide.
“Which one?”
“The redhead. Emily Collins. She teaches special education preschool classes, is happily married with two sons, and teaches Sunday school at the local church. Her co-workers say she has infinite patience with the children and can make even the unruliest ones do as she says, almost as if she can control their minds if you believe in that sort of thing. I’m just glad she doesn’t have a daughter.”
Sara frowned, Samuel’s words seemed like such an odd thing to say. “Why are you glad she doesn’t have a daughter?”
“Because I’ve never killed anyone before and I’d hate to start with a child.” He leaned forward, covering his face with his hands, and bracing his elbows on his knees.
Sara did a double take. That was the last thing she would have expected him to say. Samuel didn’t strike her as a killer. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.” She turned towards him, folding one leg under the other with her arm on the back of the bench.
His hands dropped to dangle between his legs as he turned his head towards her, his green eyes piercing under long black lashes. He hadn’t shaved in several days, and the dusting of stubble across his jaw gave him an almost villainous look.
“I was finally able to decipher what Rebecca did to me.” His tone was low as he glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear them. “Not only are her descendants draining my powers but she took my immortality as well. I’m as mortal as you are now.”
“Welcome to hard mode.” Sara sniffed, her demeanor unsympathetic. Samuel raised an eyebrow. “It’s a video game thing, where you only have one life, one play through. If you die, it’s game over. You make the most of what you have.”
“That doesn’t help.” He leaned back again, his hands still limp in his lap. He turned back towards the school, just in time to see the teachers lead the children into the building.
“I don’t think you want to hurt any of those women.” Sara followed his gaze, catching the redhead go through the door. She glanced back, and she knew she was looking at them. “I don’t get a killer vibe from you.”
“Says the woman with the ex who tried to kill her.”
Sara shrugged, examining him. “You live, and you learn. I’m not the same person now that I was all those years ago.” She was silent for a long pause before she continued, “If you really wanted to kill them, you wouldn’t have waited this long.”
Samuel grunted and crossed his arms over his chest, still refusing to look at her. “It’s the only way to gain my full powers back, to regain my immortality.”
“As for your powers, you seemed to be in full command of them while we were in the city. You said you didn’t even feel the drain of energy you suffer from now.”
His eyes flicked towards her. “I’ll give you that one. But it still doesn’t help my immortality.”
“From what I’ve seen, read, and heard from you, immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Samuel was surprised, finally looking at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you said yourself you’re forced to move every ten or so years. You can’t stay in one place for long, set down roots, or people will become suspicious. It seems like it would be a hard way to make friends, real friends. Moving around all the time sounds exhausting, and hiding who you are in today's world with facial recognition software and universal access to documents seems like a monumental task.
“There are so many instances in television and movies where the immortals grow tired of life and fade into the background as crazy recluses, trying to live in the past. At some point, they stop living and just exist. Life, events, have more meaning when you might never get to experience them again.”
“So, if there was a way for you to become immortal, say being turned into a vampire, you wouldn’t do it?” His eyes were unreadable as he watched her, but his expression said he didn’t believe her.
“No. I can see you don’t believe me, but immortality is never one of the things I’ve wished for. I could never leave Ash and her family, people who are closer to me than my own family, behind. I want the opportunity to get married, have children of my own and grow old with my husband. To live life’s successes and failures knowing I only get one shot, so I have to make every moment count. I want to pass on, surrounded by loved ones, who will remember me with fondness and carry on with their own lives.” Sara shrugged, cocking her head to the side. “Life doesn’t come with any guarantees, but that’s the one I dream about.”
Samuel said nothing in reply. Instead, he sat there watching her until she stood and placed the envelope on the bench next to him. “I refuse to stand by you and watch you kill innocent women. Honestly, from what I gather from the two I’ve seen, they’ve used your powers for much better purposes than you have.” She waved her hand at the envelope. “There is everything you need to exist in today’s world. If you continue down your current path, there’s no future for us. You don’t need me anymore.”
Sara shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket, balling them into fists, and turned away. As she walked back to her car, with her head bent against the crisp fall air, she repeated to herself over and over not to cry.
33. SAMUEL
Samuel sat on the bench as the world around him grew dark and cold. He watched everything around him yet saw nothing. Were all humans as difficult as her? Trying to remember back to his last human lover, he frowned as the nameless faces drifted through his memory, blurring together. Soft brown eyes kept haunting his thoughts as he strained to remember anyone but Sara.
Through the long years of his life, he watched the rises of empires and the falls of others. He had associated with great men and horrible men. Samuel had amassed vast fortunes and lost said fortunes when powers changed hands. He was always moving, and the world was constantly shifting around him, but it was cyclical. People came into his life, and they left his life, never amount
ing to more than a blank face.
Even the immortals he knew never stayed within one another’s company for long. Granted, it was a much longer association than a mortal, but even they grew tired of each other after a few decades. He wondered what happened to the immortals he associated with in the past. He’d tried to look them up using the internet, but he knew most, even in the sixteenth century, frowned upon technological advances.
Sara was right, even before his capture, the older ones had shied away from society and hidden in their holes. In all honesty, he hadn’t been far behind, having grown weary of always moving, even before he found his way to Salem.
A couple walking down the path away from a small playground in the middle of the park drew his attention. The parents were laughing with one another as a small child skipped between them, holding their hands. With great animation, she pointed towards a group of bushes as a little rabbit ran from beneath them. Her father swooped down and picked the giggling girl up, swinging her around before placing her on his hip. Samuel felt a pang of something he couldn’t describe as he watched the love flow between the members of the family.
Standing, he wandered towards the sidewalk, the envelope Sara gave him tucked securely into his jacket pocket. She was right that he didn’t need her anymore, he could make his own way in the world now.
Perhaps he would go back to New York and take over Wall Street. The other demons there would bow to his skill and power and he would be in charge again. It wouldn’t take him long to make his way to the top and once there it would be impossible to get him out until the next coup. Well, until he would have to move and start over in another country in ten years or so. The thought of building an empire to have to reset over and over again was depressing.
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