Bloodstone Heart (22 page)

"Thanks, man.
 
That means a lot, but I can't stop thinking I should have trusted Darby. That problem, however, is out of my hands. OUR problem is what we need to focus on. Any word from Melanie?"

"No. Did you expect her to call?"

"No. I figure if we don't hear from her, then she's not worried and all is well. Any more astral journeys?"

"Astral what?"

"Were you able to project yourself to Melanie again?"

"Oh, that, yeah, no problem."

"Really?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I don't know. You make it seem easy, like it's no big deal."

"Oh. Is it a big deal?" Josh asked.

"Yeah! It's huge. Not many people can do it and definitely not like you can."

"What do you mean, like I can?"

"I mean, if what you were describing to me before is true, there are very few minds that can do that, especially over such a long distance."

"Half the time I think I'm just dreaming it all. I'm not sure I believe it's really happening."

"When was the last time you projected yourself to her?"
 

"The night you left for the east coast, but I dream about it every night."

"You dream about it? Did you write down what you dreamt?"

"Yes. I wasn't going to at first, but I thought maybe it was significant, like maybe in the dreams I was remembering things I had forgotten the first time."

"Can I see your notes or would that make you uncomfortable?"

"Well, you were the one who told me to write them down so I figured eventually you would want to see them. Here," Josh said and handed Blake the notebook. After a few minutes, Blake took a big sip of coffee and sat back in the chair. His silence was making Josh worried. He couldn't stand it anymore. "What?"

Blake looked back at the notes and then up again and said, "I don't think you've been dreaming. I think you are visiting Melanie."

"What? That's absurd."

"No. I don't think so.
 
You're notes are in such detail, scents, touches, things you've seen. I think you taught your brain how to visit her, now your brain takes you there every night. I think you miss her so much that you are subconsciously sending yourself to her every night to watch over her, be near her, maybe just to sleep with her."

"What? I'm not sleeping with her..."

"No, no, not having sex, no. Didn't you tell me once that one of the first things you noticed about her was that you felt calm - comfortable in her presence from the very beginning?"

Josh nodded.
 

"With all this stress, I think your subconscious is seeking some comfort and your comfort is her, so when you fall asleep, your mind searches for her and finds her because it's so powerful. You project yourself where she is because you are comfortable there with her. You may be asleep and she probably is sleeping when you arrive, but I think you stay with her the night as your way of trying to protect her. Of course, the only way to know for sure is to talk to Melanie."

"To what? You're not going to tell her I'm sleeping with her every night are you?"

"No. Not like that. But wouldn't you want to confirm what I think is true? My guess is she has been having a strong sense of your presence in her dreams. Maybe even the sense of you holding her at night. This is the coolest thing ever."

"I don't know. It sounds a little freakish to me. Like some kind of creepy stalking."

"Do you know how much I would love knowing, seeing, maybe even touching Rowan if I had to go away on business or whatever, yet I could still be near her at night? That is so cool."

"Don't you think a woman might not like a guy sleeping with them without their having a choice in the matter?"

"Well sure, if you were a psycho killer or something, but you and Melanie have a very strong connection, you know, with you being in love with her."

"What?"

"Oh. Sorry, man. I didn't mean to blurt that out, but it's so obvious."

"It's obvious? To whom?"

"To everyone around you. I mean, you knew you were in love with her, right?"

"Umm, I...hadn't really thought about it. You mean, Rowan knows?"

"Dude, women know it well before we do. They live for that stuff. Rowan and Sally probably knew the instant they saw you two. It took me a little longer."
 

"Geez! Does that mean Lanie knows?"

"Not necessarily. I think she's been hurt a lot, at least that's the sense I got from her. That often tends to mess up their radar, so to speak.
 
No, I don't think she knows how you feel about her."

"Whew! Finally some good news."

"What? How can that be good news? And how can being in love be bad news?"

"Well first, I'd like to be the one to tell Lanie how I feel, not have her knowing before me and secondly, I'm not sure how I feel about it. For that matter, I'm not sure how she feels."

"So you didn't know you were in love with her?"

"I, well, I...I'm not sure? Now that it's been said, I guess maybe I did know, or at least should have guessed. The bigger question is does she?"

"Does she? Oh, love you? I couldn't say for sure, but she did take off on the back of a motorcycle with you to help you. Not a lot of women would take off with a guy like that if there wasn't something there. And she's put herself in danger to keep you safe while we try to come up with a plan. I'm guessing whether she knows it or not, that the answer is probably yes. I'm guessing if you look back over your time with her on the road, that your answer is probably there staring you in the face. Rowan tells me I don't catch on very quick, but I would venture to say that you might be in the same boat with me."

"Hmmm," was all Josh said. He didn't look happy, but then again, he didn't look sad, so maybe he just had a bunch of things to think over. Blake figured he'd given him enough to think about for a week or more, so he grabbed another cup of coffee for himself and a cup for Rowan along with a bagel and headed for the living room to give Josh some alone time.

Blake took Dean's advice and put all his thought into trying to figure out what to do about Melanie, Josh, Dimitri, and the bloodstone heart.
 
He had noticed that Josh had the stone in his hand a lot; rubbing it much like you would a 'worry stone'.
 
He had a lot to think about after their conversation.
 
Blake felt goofy for being the one to tell Josh he was in love with Melanie and he was reprimanded by Rowan later. He understood her concerns about getting involved with their personal stuff, but he thought sometimes it took a smack in the head from his brother to realize things that should be obvious, and maybe Josh needed a little push from someone who cared to help him understand.

Either way,
what's done is done
, Blake thought.
 
He started reading through all the information that Dominic had given him.
 
If nothing else, Dominic was thorough. It took him the better part of the day before he had read through all of it.
 

Even though Dominic had provided them with a ton of material, the only pertinent thing Blake learned was how the bloodstone had evolved.
 
Like the original information they had gotten from Dominic, Blake remembered that the bloodstone was made by the crone to protect her true love, but he never really understood why it was associated with the Order of the Black Orchids.
 
After today, he understood.
 

Originally the temple that was used for the Order was the crone's secret place where she worked most of her spells and potions.
 
It was she and her love that pushed for an organization to bring humans and supernatural beings together to work and learn as one.
 
The actual bloodstone heart had been chiseled out of the altar stone where there was a perfect heart shaped indentation in the slab. When the stone was not worn, it was placed in the indentation of the altar where it glowed and pulsed with light much like that of a true heartbeat.
 
The room protected them both and their love beat all around them and the heart thrived in this loving environment. Because their love was so strong, the stone became that much more powerful and in turn made them that more powerful too.

When the Order corrupted, so did the bloodstone heart. With so much evil power around, it turned from an instrument of love and endurance to just a cold stone battery to enhance the evil. The leader of the Order wore the stone almost all the time to keep other members with sticky fingers from taking it, as the vampire that Josh had killed had done to Dimitri.
 
However, when it was not worn and new members were added to the order, the bloodstone heart would rest in its indentation in the altar as each member would rest their right palm on the altar around the heart.
 
The leader would say a few ancient words from a scroll locked in a secret room in the chamber and a blinding light would emanate from the stone. Radiating like tiny laser spokes of a wheel, each person around the altar would be burned with an insignia of a black orchid above their thumb near their wrist.
 
This insignia looked from a distance to be a tattoo.

Along with the insignia branding, each member of the Order would receive power from its leader and its members, with the power being distributed equally among all the members.
 
Of course the one who hailed the stone was always more powerful than his minions, but this equal distribution of power among all of the members made for a very strong army without weak links. The stronger the members were to start with, made the rest at least as strong.

Today Melanie had a lot of driving to do.
 
Some days she drove more than others and when she had light driving days she would try to do a little sightseeing.
 
She also tried to learn a little something about each place she went to.
 
This somehow made the whole situation more bearable.
 
She wasn't making light of her predicament, just trying to enjoy what she could despite all the doom and gloom.

She would be driving from Manchester, New Hampshire to Providence, Rhode Island to run a credit card then drive to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was raining today and that made everything just a bit gloomier.
 
Rain never bothered Melanie - she loved the rain, especially driving in it, however this was a blustery rain where a person could barely see twenty feet ahead of them.
 
This was not the kind of rain driving Melanie liked. She liked the consistent splattering on the windshield of spring rain, where you could crank the heater on your feet and roll the windows down about a third of the way and the wipers somehow kept in time with whatever music you were listening to.
 
Today’s driving would be stressful.
 
She purposely avoided going through New York, New York, as she knew the driving would be even more stressful with the traffic.

She concentrated hard as she headed south and slightly west. She was more than ready for sleep when she pulled into Lancaster. She called the airline and made a reservation for Danny and Ellen to fly out of Birmingham to Orlando, Florida.
 
She also had tickets and a hotel set up for them at Disney World. She thought if anyone needed a vacation from reality it was those two. She had the tickets and info sent to Debbie at the diner who had promised to make sure they would get the package.
 

Tomorrow she would head north running the credit card in Utica, New York and staying in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but for now her head hit the pillow and she slept hard, dreaming, as usual, of Josh watching over her.

Chapter 18