Secretly Sam (3 page)

“I suppose I should have gone a bit easier on you,” came a familiar voice. “After all, you’ll be me soon. Or vice versa.”

Dominic pushed air past his lips in a half-hearted attempt at speaking. “Alec?” It came out as a whisper, but it was heard all the same.

“Sort of,” came the reply.

A few seconds more and Dom’s vision was completely cleared. Alec Sheffield stood before him in a small clearing in what appeared to be a cornfield. It was night. The moon was high and waning at one-quarter. Two six-foot tall torches had been constructed and posted at opposite ends of the clearing, their flickering flames casting the space into eerie orange light.

Dom’s arms and legs had been strapped to some kind of metal frame, and what smelled and felt like straw tickled at the exposed skin of his face and neck. He craned his neck to peek over his shoulder, confirming his suspicions. He’d been tied to a scarecrow.

When he looked back down at Alec, it was to find his best friend watching him with knowing, blue eyes.

“Sam, then,” Dom said. Only Sam Hain would have been sick enough to string him up on a scare crow in a cornfield.

“Your suspicions were correct,” Sam said, shrugging. “It’s me, in the flesh… more or less.”

Dom couldn’t help but ask what he asked next. “Is he dead?”

“Sheffield?” Sam asked, raising a brow. He laughed, shaking his head no. “Nah, he’s in here kicking and screaming, believe me.” He paced around Dominic, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “You’ve earned more loyalty than you deserve with this one.”

“She’ll never love you,” Dominic told him. The pain he’d felt earlier in his arms and legs was clearly from the ropes that now dug into them. His right arm was wet at the wrist; he wondered if it was soaked in his own blood beneath his leather jacket. “She would never love someone sick enough to do the things you’re doing.”

“Never?” Sam asked, again raising that brow. His manipulation of Alec’s expressions was disquieting as he made faces that Alec would never make. “Have you any concept of how long that actually is?”

Dom didn’t reply. The ropes held him fast. The cornfield he was in was probably the one well beyond the edge of town. No city lights were visible. They were cut off, he was alone, and he was just beginning to realize how dire the situation really was.

“You’re a goddamned child, Maldovan. You have no clue.”

Sam moved away from him to pull one of the torches out of the ground with one strong arm. As he did, Dom realized he smelled gasoline. He looked down and noticed where the dried grass and dirt beneath him was darker, as if it were wet. His head spun. His gut clenched and his stomach sank into his legs.
This is it,
he thought.
I messed
up. And now I’m going to die.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sam said as he returned with the torch and held it out to the side. “You smell the gasoline and you see this flame and you think you’re about to go out in a blaze of glory.” He smiled a horrible smile. “Am I right?”

“Go to hell, asshole.”

“You’ve almost got it,” Sam said, ignoring the outburst. “But not quite. You see, any minute now, the cops should arrive on the scene. They’ll see me standing here with the torch, see you trussed up in a mess of gasoline and straw, and they’ll do what they think they have to do.” He shrugged. “Kill me in favor of saving you.”

Dom’s skull felt as if it were splitting apart at the seams.

“Why?” he asked.

“I have to tell you, you made things quite difficult for me the other night at the high school dance,” Sam told him, idly conversing as if he wasn’t a few inches away from turning Dominic into a wicker man. “But you did enlighten me on something rather important. You see, the only way I can leave a body I’m currently inhabiting is to have that body die. Believe me, I tested the theory,” he laughed, shaking his head. “But your friend remained wrapped around me like a cocoon. And I can’t tell you how many times I tried to kill
myself
. But no doing. Anything I did just healed up or had no effect. As long as I’m stuck here, the heart keeps beating.”

He looked down, making a rather disgusted face, and sighed heavily. “Alec Sheffield is a disappointment. He’s ineffectual.” He looked back up and pinned Dom with an ice colored stare. “I need my powers back, and for that, Logan needs to start writing again. I just need her pen to scratch paper. There’s power in a bard’s words, Maldovan, no matter what those words are. But she neither knows nor trusts Alec Sheffield enough for him to get her to write.”

Dominic sensed the horrific puzzle pieces sliding into place, but a part of him nudged them away from one another. He didn’t want to see the picture they were forming. It was a nightmare.

“I’m afraid Alec has to go,” Sam said. “But someone else has to kill him. And that’s where the cops come in. And you, of course.” He smiled. “After all, when he dies, I’ll need another body to inhabit. What better body than the one belonging to the young musician Logan clearly cares so much for? Who could possibly influence her more than you, Dominic?”

Dom stared at Sam, dumbstruck by what he’d just been told and unsure of what he should be most upset by. The puzzle was whole now, and it was as terrible as he’d thought it would be. Sam was going to kill his best friend – or
have
him killed, rather. And though he wasn’t actually planning on burning Dom to a crisp as he’d originally thought, the Death God was intent on possessing his body to get to Logan.

The medallion
, Dom thought suddenly. He glanced down and caught the Celtic silver shimmering in the firelight.
He can’t do this. He can’t possess my body
if I have
this on
.

Low laughter drew his attention back to Sam. He was watching Dom through Alec’s now-blue eyes, and they twinkled knowingly. “That?” he said, grinning. He chuckled and closed the distance between them, suddenly reaching out to wrap his fingers around the cool silver. He held it up in a closed fist. “The original would have posed a problem, I’ll admit. But I cut it off you with no more than a dagger and a pair of gloves. And this one?” He let it drop, and it thumped ineffectually against the muscle in Dominic’s chest. “It’s a lovely replica, but otherwise worthless.”

Sam stepped back, still smiling. “I’m
death
, Maldovan.” His blue eyes felt depthless, like abyssal oceans, churning and promising and cold. “If there were anything in the world that could keep me at bay for long, everyone would have figured out immortality by now. But they haven’t, have they? I adapt, and I always find a way to win. You should know that better than anyone.”

Dominic looked into those oceans and saw his dead mother’s beautiful face reflected in them. And his simmering fury boiled over into a hatred unequaled.

“The scarecrow and fire bit is probably not the easiest way to go about this,” Sam went on, ignoring the murder that Dom could feel in his own green gaze. “But Logan gave me the idea and I just had to honor it. It was in one of her stories; a werewolf tale, I believe.” He smiled a hungry smile. “She’s got one hell of an imagination on her.”

Dominic finally found his voice. “You do this, Sam,” he said; his voice so laced with malice, it didn’t sound like his own. “And know that you will never be able to let your guard down. Not with me. Because I swear to God I will never stop fighting you.” His teeth were bared with a determined sort of wrath. If Sam Hain attempted to take over his body, the Lord of the Dead would have a war of epic proportions on his hands. Dom would not at all give in quietly.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt,” Sam said. “But never underestimate the strength of a determined god, Maldovan.” He looked Dom in the eyes. “I’m ready for you.” His smile became a dark smirk. “I’ve even made certain my eyes won’t give me away this time.”

Dominic blinked.
Shit
, he thought.
Contacts
.
That’s what I feel in my eyes. The son of a bitch
put green
contacts
in them.

“Now, you’re probably wondering how all of this is going to go down,” Sam said next. The fire on the end of the torch crackled and spit, burning merrily as if it knew it was seconds away from the meal of a lifetime. “I used your phone to put in a call to the police. I gave them our location and told them I was about to set a student on fire.” His cold eyes glinted in the fire light. “They’ll be here any second, armed and ready.”

Just as he finished saying this, Dom began to make out the sound of sirens. A second later, he saw a light flash through the stalks of corn long across the field. Headlights. They were still very far, but he could tell there were two sets.

“Ah,” said Sam as he glanced over his shoulder at the approaching vehicles. “Speak of the devils.”

Dominic prepared himself. As soon as they came close enough and any of the officers got out of their cars, Dom would do his best to yell out, to warn them before they could do anything life-altering.

But Sam captured his attention again as he slammed the end of the torch’s stick into the ground in front of him, leaving it standing firm between them. He then pulled a roll of duct tape out of the inside pocket of his leather biker jacket and noisily ripped a strip free.

Dom inhaled sharply, hoping to get even one warning out. He failed. Alec Sheffield wasn’t a weak man and Sam put the strength in his stolen body to quick use. Though Dom struggled as much as he could, with his arms and legs strapped down tight, the only part of his body he could move was his head. It wasn’t long before Sam had the tape over his mouth. He used several pieces, layering them over each other and completely cutting off one of Dom’s airways.

When he was finished, he dropped the duct tape to the ground and stepped back to admire his handy work.

“You! Freeze!”

Dom turned his head, causing the skin to stretch beneath the tape on his face. Across the small field and from between two tall rows of yellow corn stalks, several police officers carrying flashlights stepped into view.

“It’s show time, axman,” Sam said as he reached out and yanked the torch out of the ground.

“I said don’t move!” one of the police officers warned. He pulled the gun from his belt and aimed it at Sam. At
Alec
.

From behind the duct tape and rope that held him so uselessly in place, Dominic screamed. He yelled and bellowed and tried with all of his might to dislodge the quiet that would surely be Alec’s death sentence. But it did no good.

Sam turned to look at Dom, eye to eye, through a pivotal moment. “Say goodbye to your pal, Dom.” He lowered the torch toward the ground at Dominic’s booted feet.

The sound of a gun going off split the night.

Chapter Five

She’d just started her car back up and headed out onto the road again when she’d received the call. It was from Dominic.

Since the fourth grade, she’d almost painfully hungered for some kind of contact with the boy that her entire school thought of as a rock god. Dominic Maldovan: Green eyed, raven-haired, incredibly tall, draped in leather, and absolutely perfect. He seemed out of place in the school, as if he’d come from some city far away and much more important. His fingers moved with idle perfection across the frets and strings of his guitar, and when he thought he was alone, he sat beneath his locker after school and played.

It was then that Logan would listen to him. Around the corner, out of sight, she would happen upon the lyrics floating like magic on disturbed air, and she would stop. She would lean against the wall and close her eyes as she felt his music somewhere deep inside. His voice crooned. When he played with his band, it was Alec that sang the songs; Dom was the guitarist, the mute musical genius.

But in the hollow silence of the school’s skeletal inner walkways, Dominic Maldovan sang softly. Of pain. Of longing. Of things nobody could possibly understand.

Now Logan stared down at the phone in her hand. His voice still echoed in her head. He’d called her personally, like a prayer both whispered and answered on the wind. Unfortunately, the things he had to tell her were anything but musical.

Alec Sheffield was dead. The police had killed him.

Logan let her hand drop into her lap and looked up through the windshield. A fat drop of water slapped the glass, making a circular design like a crown. She thought of Samhain, a king in his own realm. Her mind spun as a few more drops followed the first, and it began to rain.

Night had fallen since she’d left her house earlier that day. At the moment, she was in a deserted tennis club parking lot on the outskirts of town. A few years back, a developer with buckets of money had come into the city and begun construction on what was supposed to have been a major establishment. He’d gone to jail for embezzlement before he’d been able to finish the development, but what he’d created lent the area the perfect, eerie feel for Logan.

The giant neighborhood would have boasted two dozen tennis courts, three outdoor Olympic sized pools, the largest fitness center in three states, a three mile indoor running and walking trail, and an eight mile outdoor trail that wound through both natural and unnatural forested land.

What was left behind was a piece of carved ground that had become a ghost town before it actually had a chance to be a town. Weeds grew through cracks in the peeling paint of the tennis courts and the parking lot was riddled with pot holes. The smooth white cement back alleys were dotted with the brown metal housings for wiring that had rusted together and gone bad years ago. Cul-de-sacs rounded before houses that weren’t there, and the trails reminded Logan of something Alice would have followed in Wonderland. They were always empty. No one ever came out here. She supposed it felt a little too sad for most people. Like a promise that had been terribly broken.

But she loved it here. To her, it was perfect, right down to the railroad tracks that abutted the back end of the development. In the middle of the night, the whistle could be heard for miles.