Since she’d been a child, Logan had scribbled about paranormal beings – blood suckers, werewolves, ghosts, the fey, demons, devils and gods. As he’d come through the veritable door that the month of October always formed for the Land of the Dead, Samhain had happened upon one of her journals. He’d been insubstantial, intangible, and without form until that moment.
He immediately absorbed what she’d written, and became the menace that had killed many of Logan’s schoolmates, a few of her teachers, and even the manager at the bakery… whom she hated. But that was beside the point.
Vampires seemed to appeal to Sam’s nature. He was the Lord of the Dead, so this made sense. Samhain became “Sam Hain,” a tall, well-built, terribly handsome, charismatically smirking amalgamation of all of the deadliest vampires Logan had ever penned.
He’d wreaked havoc on Logan’s world, feeding off of several people and brain washing dozens of others before she, Dominic Maldovan, Mr. Lehrer, Meagan and Katelyn had managed to temporarily destroy him.
It was the temporarily part that weighed heavily on her now as she parked her car and got out to meet the others. The spell they’d cast on Samhain hadn’t destroyed him. Sam couldn’t be destroyed. He couldn’t be killed. He was the King of the Dead, was composed of death, built on it, and therefore immune to it in all of its forms. Instead, they had merely managed to destroy the physical manifestation of Samhain – the Sam Hain vampire – and in the process, they’d sent the spirit inside cartwheeling into another unsuspecting soul.
From the moment Mr. Lehrer had realized this, Logan had been paranoid. They all had. They’d been on full alert, always suspecting that the person behind them on the sidewalk or behind the wheel of the car in the next lane might not actually be who they appeared to be.
Lehrer had warned them that some aspect of Sam Hain would have been passed on to the new body. Some bit of him would remain to set him apart from the others. But what? Would he have the same hair? Would he speak the same way? Did he still drink blood?
It remained a mystery, and the longer that Sam went without doing something, the more nervous the group got.
“Logan,” Mr. Lehrer greeted as the four of them met up to make their way toward the hospital entrance. Mr. Lehrer placed his hand supportively on her back and fell into pace beside her. “Can you fill us in?”
Logan looked toward the looming building up ahead, and told them what little she knew.
Chapter Six
There were a few police officers gathered in the reception area just beyond the hospital’s front doors. Some of them were busy scribbling on the note pads in their hands, and one of them was on the phone. The cops glanced up at Logan and her companions and seemed to know exactly why they were there. One of them nodded toward an opening that led into a second waiting room. Another left his station to meet them half-way.
Dominic was sitting alone in the room and on the edge of a bench when they entered. His elbows were on his knees, his hands were tightly clasped in front of him, his head was bent, and his leather jacket was zipped up to his chin. There were red marks on his cheeks. His long black hair hung across his face, adding to the dark shadows around his closed eyes. He looked like a rock star, but a rock star in shock, cold and uncertain, existing second by second in a mixture of pain and numb disbelief.
Logan glanced at her companions. Their faces mirrored the expression she knew she also wore.
“We’ve been trying to contact his father,” the officer informed them as he approached the doorway to the second room where they were standing. “He’s still unreachable; there’s a huge time difference to take into account, and the kid said his father usually leaves the phone off when conducting business. We’ve left a few messages with some of his co-workers and hope to hear something back by tomorrow afternoon.”
Mr. Lehrer nodded his thanks, the officer went back to work, and the three of them turned their attention back to Dominic. Logan squared her shoulders and left the others behind as she slowly made her way to his side.
“Dom?”
At once, Dominic looked up. Green eyes locked onto her, nailing her to the spot. Logan’s chin lifted and her lips parted. As long as she lived, she would never get over the shock of being scrutinized by the emerald gaze of Dominic Maldovan.
“Logan!” Dominic said, breathing her name as if it were a sigh of relief. He stood, coming to his full impressive height, and for a moment, it looked as though he was going to pull her into his arms. But something stopped him. He seemed to pause, to struggle with something unseen, and in the end, Logan moved forward herself, gently placing a hand on his arm. She caught the scent of gasoline as she did.
“Dom, I’m… God, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling right now,” she stumbled.
Mr. Lehrer, Katelyn and Meagan had come up behind her.
“We’re here for you, Dominic,” said Mr. Lehrer. Behind his glasses, his eyes were lined with deep concern. He moved to Dominic’s side and placed a second supportive hand on his student’s back.
All Lehrer knew, all any of them knew to this point, was that Alec Sheffield was dead. He’d been killed by the police, and Dominic had apparently witnessed the entire thing.
“Dominic, what happened?” asked Meagan, giving voice to the question that had been ricocheting violently off the walls of all of their brains.
Dom continued to gaze down at Logan. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since she’d spoken his name. It took him a moment to respond. When he finally did, his voice sounded raw and hoarse, as if he’d been screaming at the tops of his lungs.
“Later,” he said. “Please, later.” He swallowed hard, wrestled his gaze from Logan’s to look over at Mr. Lehrer. “I just… I just want to go home right now.”
Mr. Lehrer’s expression became as sympathetic as Dominic’s father’s might have been had his father been there rather than out of the country.
“Of course,” Lehrer said. “I’ll give you a ride, but you shouldn’t be alone. I’ll stay with you tonight.”
At that, Dominic’s green eyes once more found Logan’s, and the look that he gave her struck her with such intensity, Logan found herself speaking up before she could contemplate what she was doing.
“Mr. Lehrer, I’ll take him home,” she said.
The group grew quiet. Her teacher looked down at her, his brow furrowing. Logan bit her lip. “I really don’t mind.” She tried to give Mr. Lehrer a look that said, Please – I really want to be with him right now and he might be more comfortable with someone his own age at the moment anyway, but in the end, she was pretty sure she only managed a look of embarrassed teenage angst.
None the less, Mr. Lehrer seemed to understand. After a few moments, he nodded. “Alright,” he said. “But keep your phones on and close by, both of you.”
No doubt, he was chomping at the bit to know exactly what had happened; a kid was dead and the repercussions would spread throughout town like violent ripples in an otherwise still pond, and it was sure to have something to do with Samhain. Everything seemed to these days. But he appeared to accept that an explanation would come later and that Dominic was in no shape to give it.
Either that, or Mr. Lehrer was planning on doing exactly what Logan would have done in his situation – ask the police what had happened.
Logan and Dom both nodded and agreed to Mr. Lehrer’s wishes, though Dom didn’t express his out loud. Then Dom took her hand in his.
It was an unexpected feeling. It was an unexpected and wonderful feeling. His skin was warm and dry, and his fingers wrapped firmly around hers as if he were afraid she would pull away.
Logan felt her skin flush hot. “Come on,” she somehow managed. “My car’s just out front.”
Chapter Seven
She’d been quiet beside him, most likely at odds with herself as to whether she should once again ask what had happened that night. He’d been watching her. If he’d had the strength he so desperately needed to get them bo
th back home, he could have taken her then and there. He would have reached over, yanked the steering wheel out of her hands, run them both off of the road, and hastened her away to his realm before she knew what hit her.
But he was not himself and his power was at the tiniest fraction of what it could be, so he remained where he was and bided his time. It was a study in patience, and as far as he was concerned, all of this hype about patience being a virtue was patently false. From what he could tell about humanity and society in general, nothing good came to those who waited. People who waited usually missed out, and someone else took what might have otherwise have been theirs.
That wasn’t going to happen to him. Logan was his.
However, at the moment he had no choice but to bide his time.
A lock of Logan’s golden hair had slowly cascaded across the right side of her face to shield her from his view. Sam’s fingertips itched. His muscles bunched up. He wanted to tuck it behind her ear. He was disguised; she thought he was Maldovan, and he should have been able to do it without repercussions.
But the boy was fighting him tooth and nail. He was pushing at Sam from the inside, seething like a rabid wolf, determined to somehow break free from the hold Sam had over him. It was taking far too much concentration for Sam to keep the young musician locked firmly where he was and maintain the grip he had on this body.
It caused him to hesitate.
Logan tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.
Sam’s gaze narrowed, and teeth that should have been fangs ached a little behind his closed lips. When this was over, he was going to have Dominic Maldovan killed at least fifteen different ways.
*****
So quiet, Logan thought. In her mind ran a flashing film reel of all the emergency room visits she’d made over the years because of Taylor, and she thought of the quiet that always stole over her family afterward. She wondered whether Dom was feeling that right now. It was like being under water. It was silent under there. It was peaceful in an “I’m drowning” kind of way.
Logan glanced at Dominic, taking in his profile. He was a tall boy, broad shouldered, and even under the weight of what he’d seen tonight, he seemed to resist gravity. He was bigger than it was.
Logan blinked, frowning. But he stared out the window ahead and his eyes were focused on something unseen. He ran a hand through his hair, shimmering black locks winding around his fingers as he combed it from his face.
Logan cleared her throat and returned her attention to the road. They stopped at a red light.
“What do you do…” Dom said, breaking the silence. He looked down at his fingers and started again. “What do you do when you can’t handle… things?” His deep, beautiful voice was still hoarse, and she really did wonder whether he had in fact been screaming.
What do I do? She thought. A bitterness welled up inside of her, familiar and nasty. Logan tried to suppress it. This was neither the time nor the place for her to feel sorry for herself. “I write.”
Dom looked up. She felt the weight of his gaze on her, and she glanced over at him. Something strange flickered in the backs of his jade-colored eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Logan blinked. “Oh God,” she said as she realized some of the bitterness had slipped out anyway. “Don’t be,” she told him firmly. “I mean it. Dominic, what you’ve been through is… so much worse.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what to say. And none of this is your fault.”
The light turned green.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered as she moved the car forward. “None of this should have happened to you. It’s all my fault.” It was true. If she had never crushed on him, he wouldn’t be involved, and Sam wouldn’t have gone after him. Alec Sheffield would still be alive. “If I hadn’t….”
The reality of Alec’s death washed over Logan, a rush of liquid verity that coated the inside of her chest like a slushy and actually hurt her heart. He’s really dead.
“Don’t,” Dom suddenly said, cutting through the raging silence of her own inner turmoil with one sharp word. “You’re doing it again,” he said, “shutting me out. Please don’t, Logan.” He shook his head, and the street lights reflected in his eyes. There were shadows under them. He was haunted. “Not now,” he finished with a desperate whisper.
Logan’s fingers clutched tighter on the steering wheel. Every muscle in her body bunched up, tensed and tight and strained. He was right. She had been shutting him out again. It was exactly what he’d asked her not to do a week ago, after the first time they thought they’d rid themselves of Sam Hain.
She returned her attention to the road and licked her lips. “Can you… can you tell me what happened?” she ventured, relieved to have finally asked.
Dominic was silent for a long moment. Logan divided her attention between him and the ribbon of black unwinding ahead. He swallowed hard; she could see the muscles working in his throat. He peered through the windshield as a few fat drops of rain began to beat the glass.
Logan switched on the wipers. She wondered if he was going to answer her. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s too soon.
“Sam attacked me at my own front door,” Sam finally said. “He was in Alec’s body… I didn’t know.”
There was a space of silence, filled by a quickening rain.
“When I woke up, we were in the cornfield outside of town. He had me tied to a post like a scarecrow.”
A scarecrow? Logan thought of a similar scene that she’d painted in a story not too long ago. He read it, she realized. Sam was taking her ideas and turning them into grisly waking nightmares.
“There was gasoline all over the ground and all over the hay and kindling he’d piled up around my feet.”
Gasoline - that was why she’d caught the scent of fuel on him. He must have gotten some on his boots.
“He had a torch, and he said he’d called the cops. He was going to pretend to threaten me with the fire so they would shoot him.”
Why? Logan wondered, bewildered and dismayed. Why would Sam do such a thing? He was no longer a vampire. It wasn’t like he was killing for sustenance now. And Alec hadn’t been trying to stop him. He hadn’t been in his way, had he? What could he possibly hope to gain by having his host body, the only thing keeping him grounded here in the mortal world, murdered?
Dominic turned in his seat, pinning her with his green eyes. Logan tried to pull her own gaze away enough to watch the road, but he was magnetic. He always had been. “He said that by having someone else kill Alec, he would be able to leave his body and enter someone else’s. He wanted to take over mine, and I swear I thought he was going to do just that.” Dom closed his eyes, finally releasing her from their dangerous pull. “But the medallion Mr. Lehrer gave me protected me.”
Logan turned her attention back to the road. The rain was really coming down now; she couldn’t afford not to look ahead.
“What did it do?” she asked softly. “How did it protect you?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dominic shake his head. It was as if he was struggling with the mish-mash of images his memories were supplying. “He went down and I thought for sure the fire from his torch would light me up. But it just rolled away in the dirt instead. The ground was wet with rain, so it went out.”
He paused, stopping between the subjects of a story like she would while writing. “A few seconds later, there was this confusion. Flashlight beams were everywhere, but under all of them, I could see this light come out of Alec. It was like…. It was purple and orange.” He let out a frustrated breath. His voice sounded tight, strained as he went on, like he was edging closer to something dangerous. “And then it came toward me. The pendant got hot; it sort of glowed. Somehow, I knew it was keeping him away. Sam’s light shot off toward the cornfield instead – and there were hands all over me, cutting me down and pulling the tape off me.”
Logan felt cold, colder than she ever had, maybe. She switched the wipers into high gear and shivered,
almost violently. She felt like someone had just walked over her grave.
“It just disappeared in the corn?” She glanced at him. “In the darkness?”
Dominic seemed to consider that a moment, and then he shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know. There were cops all around us. It might have gone toward them, it might have just disappeared in the night. Jesus, Logan….” He sounded suddenly lost, and finally, he also sounded as if he were on the verge of tears.
He’s human, Logan thought. It was a strange thing to think. It made her realize that she’d put Dominic Maldovan on some kind of pedestal for the last eight years. To her, he wasn’t a human being; he was a rock god.
But now? Now Logan studied his beautiful profile, the scruff on his strong chin, his raven black hair, his broad shoulders and leather jacket. Now – he was still a rock god.
He was just a human one.
“Alec’s dead,” Dominic said, and the sound of those yet unshed tears came through loud and clear. “The son of a bitch actually killed my best friend.”
Logan drove, mentally wading carefully around Dom’s figurative whirlpool of what must have been a terrible grief. But as she drove and the rain poured steadily down, a niggling thought began to peck at her brain.
Dom wasn’t the only one to lose someone close to Sam Hain. One of the cheer leaders at their school had been dead too. Only a week ago, Sam had killed her. He’d also killed Logan’s crappy, jack-ass of a manager at the bakery and about a dozen other people. But when Logan and her friends managed to weaken Sam enough that they defeated him at the dance and he disappeared for a while, all of those “dead” people suddenly came back. It was as if they’d never died to begin with. No one remembered what had happened to them; no one thought twice about any of it.
Maybe…. Maybe it was impossible for someone Sam killed to actually die? Perhaps it had something to do with Sam being the Lord of the Dead, stuck here in another realm? Maybe, just maybe, they could bring Alec back as they had the others?
The October Trilogy Complete Box Set Page 19
