Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy) (8 page)

Now, however, as Meagan looked upon her two classmates and realized she didn’t recognize them, she wondered if not killing
them was really going to be an option.

Shawn Briggs gave her a
deadly smile. “Surprised to see us, Angel Eyes?”

She didn’t respond, of cour
se. She was too busy backing up and weighing her options. She could feel her magic pulsing in her palms, invisible, ready and potent. It felt even stronger than it had the last time she’d noticed it, as if it were angry and waiting to be unleashed.

But she could feel Shawn’s
power too. His appearance had changed even more since the last time she’d seen him. She could actually feel a sort of…
wickedness
radiating off Shawn now, as if he’d sunk so deeply into his character, he’d actually
become
him.

His
skin was so pale now, it was nearly translucent. His normally brown hair was black, shunning light as if it would have nothing to do with it. His eyes glowed red, but it was a blood red, deep and sultry like the difference between red in the spring and red in the fall. And his clothing had gone dark as well, all the way down to his black leather gloves.

He’d become Logan’s vampire, draped in the color
s of night, wrapped in its shadows like their king.

Shawn’s red
eyes pulsed to her hands, as if he too knew all too well there was magic there. But his expression wasn’t one of fear. If anything, he looked slightly amused.

“Havi
ng fun, Angel Eyes?” he asked, cocking his head to one side and raising a brow. He walked toward her, smooth and tall. A predator. He and Nathan reminded her of lions in a field of gazelles.

On the other side of the clearing, the portal zapped closed, popping as it snapped the door shut on any form of escape they might have had. Meagan jumped at the sound, but kept her eyes on the vampires in front of her. She was well aware of which was more dangerous.

Again, she stepped back. She needed to know where her teacher was before she let loose with any magic. “Where’s Lehrer?” she demanded. They’d taken him. She knew that now. They could fly – because that was the way
stupid
Logan had
stupidly
written them! She swore to herself then and there that she would never again give Logan a pen and journal for a holiday present.

Nathan laughed. “A writer will always find a way to write.”

The vampire was reading her mind. He and Shawn
both
were.

There was no point in asking them to stop. Logan had defi
nitely made these guys too powerful.

“Jealous
of that power?” asked Shawn. “I can fix that, Meagan.”

Suddenly, he was standing before her. There had been no warning. Just a quick, sudden breeze, the scent of charcoal or smoke, and Shawn Briggs the vampire was looming over her, tall and dark and deadly.

“I can make you one of us.”

She reeled back, trying to backpedal, but his ri
ght hand shot out with blurring speed, encircling the silver chain of her Celtic life pendant and ripping it from her neck in a single, harsh tug.

She’d forgotten she’d even had it on.

What he’d done defied logic. Meagan couldn’t believe that had just happened! It was too easy!

Meagan
inhaled sharply and reached up, instinctively attempting to retain the medallion, but Shawn tossed the necklace into the distance, his arm so strong and his throw so hard, she knew she would never again find it.

She saw a blur of motion to her right
as Draper moved toward them, and the wizard was suddenly spouting a string of cryptic words into the clearing with practiced vehemence.
A spell. Thank the gods,
thought Meagan frantically. She was an idiot for not casting something sooner herself.

Nathan shot
toward the wizard with vampire speed.

Meagan
tensed, preparing for Draper’s spell. She had no idea what was going to happen, but she hoped the wizard knew enough to try to keep from catching her and Katelyn in whatever he unleashed.

It happened so fast, time slowed down.

Shawn’s tall frame recoiled as if he had been slammed in the stomach with a baseball bat made of rebar. The leaves in the field all picked up at once, filling the air with a whirling yellow and orange tornado, and the roar of a massive wind whipped through the clearing.

Shawn’s body
lifted, was airborne for a split heartbeat, and then disappeared into the leaf-strewn hurricane. Nathan went spinning into the debris after him; Meagan caught the blur of him as he shot past, following Shawn into the unknown.

“Run!” Katelyn yelled,
pulling on Meagan’s arm and shouting to be heard over the magical gale.

For a fraction of an instant,
Meagan felt torn. She had no clue where the boys had gone or what Draper had done with them, and they were the only ones who knew where Mr. Lehrer was. Did they survive? If they did, would they kill Lehrer now?

She
spun around, choosing to follow her friend’s lead.

Draper lowered his hands
, which were still crackling and rippling with yellow-orange light.

“Run!” Meagan instructed, grabbing his elbow as she raced past him.

“Right!” he replied before he did the same and the three of them sped through the apple orchard for everything they were worth.

Chapter Eleven

Logan had never felt more out of touch with reality.

She was a s
tranger in a strange world. Somewhere, in another dimension, her brother was probably beating up on someone. Holes were being punched in walls. Her mother was drinking.

Alec Sheffield was dead.

But here, in the rabbit hole, Logan stood before a tall, ornate mirror and gazed at a beauty she barely recognized.

Dominic Maldovan was possessed by the Lord of the Dead.
Samhain wanted her soul. She didn’t know where she was, or where the man who had brought her here was.

But midnight hues shimmered with stardust in that looking glass.
And Logan had never felt more like letting go of everything she’d once known.

“Well, I think we can settle this
once and for all then,” said Mabel breathlessly from where she stood behind Logan, also staring into the mirror. “Men know nothing. Not buxom enough, indeed.” Mabel’s small hands were clasped before her, her old gray cheeks flushed with pink dots of warm excitement.

The gown seemed to have been threaded together using pieces of night. Deep sapphire blue sleeves gave way to an ametrine twilight corset, which melted into the velvet black skirts of a starry sky, complete with miniscule shimmering sparkles that caught the light and reflected the heavens.

Every portion of Logan’s figure was hugged, silhouetted, and flattered. Bare skin on her shoulders peeked temptingly through ribbons of satin blues
that crisscrossed down her arms, the contrast of dark and fair bewilderingly attractive.

Logan had never felt so beautiful.

She had never felt so confused, or frightened. But she had also never felt so beautiful.

“And now for the finishing touch.”
Mabel turned around, took the matching mask from the bedside table, and held it out to Logan. “No one attends the masquerade without something to hide behind.”

It was a small strip of a ma
sk composed of blue satin. Along either far edge, it was encrusted with dark blue and black gems in the shapes of roses and thorns. The craftsmanship was beyond anything that anyone in the mortal realm had ever created.

Logan
reverently took the small piece of shimmering material from Mabel’s fingers and lifted the long satin ribbons around her head. Mabel stepped forward to help her tie it in place. Waves and curls of golden blonde cascaded over her shoulders and down her back and framed her hidden face, presenting a picture of alluring mystique.

Logan realized, suddenly, that the bite marks Sam had left in the side of her throat had completely disappeared. She frowned and touched her neck.

“What’s wrong dear?” Mabel asked.

“Uh… nothing. It’s just, there was a bite on my neck earlier,” she explained, figuring that the old woman would most likely attribute “bite” to a mosquito or spider. “But it’s disappeared.”

“Oh well, that’s no surprise,” said Mabel dismissively as she continued to tie the mask in place, curling the ends of the ribbon around her bony fingers. “All wounds heal eventually in October Land.”

Logan blinked. “They do?”

“Of course! This is the realm of renewal. October marks the beginning of the new year! All things are fresh here, all things are healed. Here, we can start anew.”

Logan stared at her reflection and got lost in he
r own gaze as Mabel’s words moved through her. There was quite a lot to like about October Land.

Since
Mabel and her husband had taken her into their home, she’d been ushered into and out of the kitchen, her jacket had been hung up, and she’d been stuffed with pastries and cocoa as the couple chatted about bards and how nice it was to have a visitor. There had been little time for questions, but what time there had been, Logan used.

She’d asked where she was, but all they’d told her was that she was in “The Village.” Apparently there was on
ly one in all of October Land. The Village was where the “Harvesters” lived. Mabel and Henry were Harvesters, people who had been born and raised in October Land in a never-ending string of generations of Harvesters. The couple had had children, but according to Mabel, that was “so very long ago.” Logan had no real idea of how long it had actually been, but from the tone of Mabel’s voice, she would wager on centuries rather than decades.

Logan
asked why it was light in the forest but then suddenly dark when she approached the town. They’d explained that it was always night in The Village. When Harvesters grew tired of the darkness, they simply left and visited another of October’s lands. There were six. Another thing Logan had learned.

Most importantly, she’d worked up the courage to ask how a mortal could leave October Land once they’d entered.

Immediately upon asking the question, she’d known it was a mistake. She’d been avoiding any talk about Samhain. It felt as if the subject might somehow prove volatile. She had no evidence to this effect – it was just a feeling, a hunch.

But with this question, they were confused. They had
asked her why she needed to know. Surely the magic user she’d entered the realm with could get them back out again? And then Logan had been forced to shrug it off: “Oh, right.”

Now she felt like she was right back where she started, in a foreign, magical place without any means of escaping it. She w
ondered where her friends were…. She wondered whether the tiny note she’d left scrawled into the tree had done any good. Had it had even been noticed? Probably not.

It was
going to be up to her to find a way out of October Land.

If that’s really what you want to do….

“Now then,” said Mabel, pulling Logan from her thoughts, “The Masquerade is set to begin. You’re fine to attend alone if you wish. I’ve got to dress, yet.” She moved back, her job finished, and took a deep breath of completion.

“Where do I go?” ask
ed Logan. The idea of attending a party just then seemed ludicrous to her. But then again, in a crowd full of people who’d lived here their whole lives, it was possible she could find the answers she was looking for while still maintaining her anonymity. There was a lot to be said for a mask.

“Just follow the lights
,” Mabel replied. She turned away from Logan and gestured toward the door to the bedroom. Logan took the hint and followed her out, lifting the skirts of her gown as she walked. The movement seemed natural to her, almost instinctive.
I was made to wear this dress
.

They entered the dining room where Henry sat hunched over
the table. An oil lantern rested nearby on its surface, shedding light upon something that Henry seemed busily working on. Little tiny pieces of wood were flying out from whatever it was he was busy with, and Logan guessed he was whittling.

At the sounds of their footsteps, Henry turned in his chair
, and Logan could see that he was in fact whittling. A nearly completed masquerade mask rested in his left hand, a small sharp knife in his right.

Henry’s strange glowing gaze landed on Logan, and the old man
froze for a moment in his chair. Then he slowly stood, his rickety body at once seeming older than it had before – as if he were stunned.

“I take back me word,”
he whispered. “The Dearg she may well be.”

“Would serve you right,”
Mabel harrumphed. “Such rudeness directed at a visitor.” She tsked him and shook her head. But Henry seemed to barely notice. He was humbler now, standing there, beholding her. He seemed smaller.