Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy) (5 page)

A red light flashed momentarily brighter in Shawn’s vampire gaze. He nodded as well.

Sam raised his chin, taking a slow, deep breath. It felt good. “Fortunately for you, you’ll be more powerful here. This is something else you need to understand about October. Here, magic is amplified. On the down side, theirs will be as well, so you’ll need to strike before they realize as much and figure out how to use it.”

Shawn and Nathan exchanged looks.

Sam closed his eyes. He could feel the others out there… waiting before a portal. He could sense the exact location where they would arrive.

October Land was one massive ring-like realm consisting of six different environments. There was the Forest, a seemingly never-ending thicket of overhanging branches dripping with red, orange and gold. There were the Patches, field after field of pumpkin patches brimming with perfectly round pumpkins of various sizes and colors. There were the Falls, a watery place c
onsisting of little swimming holes connected by babbling brooks, streams, and falls. There were the Villages, where the Harvesters resided; they were the natives of October Land. There were the Fields, otherwise known as Fall Fields – the graveyard that went on forever. And then there were the Orchards, acre upon acre of sweet, ripe apple trees where Logan’s friends were just now arriving in October Land.

“The goblin is about to appear in the Orchards.” He opened his eyes. “Take care of them.”

He waited as they took to the skies, disappearing with vampire speed. He didn’t actually have much faith that they would be successful. But it didn’t really matter.

Because he had a plan B.

Chapter Six

Logan ran. She had no idea where she was going; the forest moved around her in an orange blur as she kicked up leaves and took in heaving lungs full of cinnamon and spiced air. There was no pain in her body any longer, only an intense and driving, all-encompassing need to survive.

Run
, she told herself.
Run, or you will die
.

While
she ran, her mind spun as quickly and erratically as the rest of the world around her. She thought of Dominic, of her parents, of Taylor, of October Land, and then of Dominic again.
Run!
She thought of James, of Beth, of Meagan and Katelyn, and of Dominic again.

Dominic Maldovan… who was somewhere else in this forest, left
behind, possibly permanently damaged. Bleeding, unconscious, alone.

Everything she had ever enjoyed
in her life, everything she’d ever looked forward to or hoped about or dreamed of in her teenage existence was injured and maybe dying, possessed by evil and trapped in a world so far removed from her own, it was in another universe.

Her heart ached, but it wasn’t the running that caused it.

Logan ran, one foot after the other, each boot crunching layers of fallen leaves beneath its tread. After a while, so long it felt surreal, Logan realized she wasn’t reaching the end of the multi-hued forest. It wasn’t changing at all, in fact. She slowed a little, jogging as she looked left and right, her long golden hair flying. Finally, she began walking.

The forest
seemed to stretch for miles. Its canopy of amber was stunningly beautiful; the kind of image one would
almost
pay to have as their screen saver. Streams of light peeked through the leaves like angel beams, highlighting circles all along the thick carpet below. They blinked in and out of existence in the gentle breeze, adding another dimension of quiet life to the forest. It was peaceful here.

But there was no food, as far as Logan could see. There was
no water. She had no idea what direction in which to turn next. She could very well die in this peaceful, sun be-speckled orange and yellow place.

I can try the
open
thing again
, she thought. She could scribble the word “open” in something and see if speaking it aloud would have any effect. She doubted it. She was a bard, not a witch. But it was worth a shot.

She crouched down, ran her finger in the soft, moist soil, and then stood back up again. “Open,” she said aloud, startling a touch at the sound of her own voice in the relative silence.

Nothing happened.

She sighed.
I can’t see anything from down here
. She was about to begin looking around for a tree with branches low enough to climb, when she caught the scent of something new on the air. It smelled like wood smoke.

There was barely a hint of it
, mixed and mingled with the fall scents of the forest. But it was enough to draw her up short and bring her spinning around. She sniffed, trying to find it again. She took a few steps in the opposite direction, her head up, her eyes closed.

There it was again! It was stronger this time, and Logan’s heart hammered with hope.
She followed the scent, moving carefully on a new path through the gem-like woods. The scent grew stronger, and eventually the air thickened a touch with the ash of expelled wood smoke.

She
rounded several more trees until they thinned and separated and she found herself at last at the edge of the forest, overlooking a hill. At the bottom of the hill sprawled a village.

There were
several rows of two-story houses, three or four on either side of a single, long cobbled stone road. The houses were built of weathered and hand-shaped stone, had thatch or tiled roofs, and wooden crossbeam windowpanes. They were painted in somber tones, but the paint looked new and neat.

Small front yards sported bright grinning
jack-o’-lanterns and trees that bore sparse, bright colored leaves. Rows of lit candles were placed along the front windowpanes.

At the center of the town, there was a structure
of some kind. It was very large and reaching, but terribly dark and indistinct. There appeared to be a round white pool at its base, suggesting it might be a fountain, but it was hard for Logan to tell from this distance.

Each house had a chimney, and each chimney smoked. The clouds of ash swirled and climbed, crossing the white face of the full moon to form images and visages that came and went with the breeze.

Logan started – and blinked.
It’s night?

Only a moment ago, it had been daylight! Only seconds ago, in fact!

She turned around to face the forest she’d come from. But it had changed. Suddenly it looked deep and dark and uninviting, completely different from how it had been when she’d been in it.

Logan hugged herself and spun back around to face the village. The full moon had a bluish tint
to it above. It was bright and enormous, and it illuminated the town with incredible clarity. Now that Logan took a better look, she could see some differences in the buildings below. Some of them were larger than others and seemed to have stables attached, or barns perhaps. There didn’t appear to be any sign of automotive industry, no cars, no trucks, no gas stations.

Some of the windows in the houses seemed to be emitting light but they were
either curtained or boarded up; she couldn’t tell. The yellow glow coming from them was very faint.

Logan looked down at the hill she stood atop. A trail began a few feet away. It was dirt, but appeared hard-packed, and where it reached the bottom of the hill, it had been immediately cobbled with stones.

She screwed up her courage and started down the hill. It was an easy trek; her boots made a firm clicking sound as she walked. She normally loved that sound. It was the entire reason she wore boots with leather soles – the
sound
. She was an aesthetic person, enveloping senses, processing them, and placing them upon paper in her stories. They were like fuel to her.

However, at the moment, her boots echoed loudly in the night, making her feel conspicuous. She tried to walk softly, but that
had never been something she was particularly good at.

As she drew closer to the first houses of the village, she moved more slowly, a chill running through her. There was a bite to the air her
e that she hadn’t felt before. That promise of cold she’d noticed earlier had delivered, and the crispness was now very slightly painful. She pulled her jacket more tightly around her and approached the first house.

It was a medium-sized cottage constructed of strong ston
es and thick, hard wooden crossbeams. The window appeared sealed up airtight, the workmanship careful and exact. Small orange and black tea candles lined the bottom windowpane, flickering warmly from the other side of the glass. Melted wax and stains from previous candles marred the wood, suggesting this was a common custom.

The light coming from the inside of the cottage flickered as well, suggesting it was cast by more fire, perhaps a large hearth and several oil lamps. The door to the cottage was thick
and reinforced with metal bands. There was no way of opening it from the outside, which made Logan wonder how people got in.

There was a knocker on the door, composed of brass that possessed a light green verdigris aging. The knocker had been artistically drawn in the shape of a
fat, grinning jack-o’-lantern, its stem an attractive curlicue that rose in ringlets off to the side.

Logan rais
ed her hand, and her fingers stilled, poised over the metal ring that dangled from the carved pumpkin’s mouth. She could hear something coming from inside.

It was music. Violin music.

It was a sad and low melody, heart-breakingly sweet. Logan instinctively began to lower her hand again. It was an impulse; she didn’t want to interrupt such beautiful music.

But when she realized what she was doing, she forced herself to grasp the metal of the knocker and slam it down with resolute firmness. She knocked three times.

The music from inside stopped. Footsteps left one room and drew closer and louder, heading for the door. Logan stepped back as she heard something being scraped along wood from the other side.

Then she gasped as the grinning jack-o
’-lantern suddenly had glowing violet eyes and they were staring directly at her. She took another step back, tripping a bit on the ledge of the cottage’s walk way.

But the jack-o
’-lantern’s eyes narrowed. They blinked.

Logan heard a woman’s voice timidly but
fiercely ask, “Is it the Dearg?”

A man gruffly replied, “Nah. This one’s not nearly buxom enough to be the
Dearg.”

Logan
stood several feet from the front door of the cottage when it was unlocked and began to swing outward. An old man appeared in the doorway. He had gray skin and purple eyes so light they seemed to glow as they gazed out at her from the threshold of the cottage.

“Well lass, what be ye then?”
he asked, narrowing that violet gaze on her again as he raised his hand and placed a smoking pipe between his thin lips. From his left side crept a frail looking woman with the same dark gray colored skin but eyes of gold-orange that glowed like the centers of candle flames.

“Is she a witch?” the woman asked.

“Nah. There’s no’ that kind of magic about her. Come closer lass, so I can make ye out.”

Logan stayed where she was. It was taking a good bit of her faculties to
process the couple’s appearance, including their accent, which was a bizarre combination of what sounded like a brogue and a Gaelic lilt and something else she couldn’t even begin to place.

“Och, mortals,” grumbled th
e old man. “Never listen.” He stepped past the threshold and moved toward her instead. The woman at his elbow let him go, but with reluctance. As he drew nearer, Logan’s heart pounded faster.

The old man stopped a foot away, lowered his pipe, and looked at her as if he were looking straight down into her soul.

“Ah then,” he smiled, showing her two rows of strong, if slightly yellowed teeth. “Ye be a bard.” He nodded, grinning, and the woman on the doorstep behind him sighed heavily in relief. “Please lass,” he said, gesturing to the cottage. “Come inside. The masquerade’ll be startin’ soon and ye don’t want to be out in it without a mask.”

Chapter Seven

For some length of time, Dominic floated. It was terribly nauseating. His surroundings were like smudged and blurred paint, indistinct and immaterial. He had nothing to hold on to. There was no ground, no sky, and he was afraid he was going to throw up in his sleep and choke on his own vomit like Jimi.

But then, in the most gracious kind of mercy, the nausea faded. The nothingness beneath him began to feel more solid, and the blurry, smudged-paint sky pixelated itself into different shapes that started to make sense.

He could feel other aspects of his body again, his head, his hands, his legs. He blinked, and his eyes responded. Things cleared a little more. He did it again, and then again, until everything had more or less returned to focus.

He was still in the forest he’d
ended up in after separating from Samhain in the portal. His left cheek was pressed to fallen leaves. He could see his fingers a few inches away; he was laying on his stomach, his head turned to the side.