Charade (3 page)

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When the hour finally turned late enough for me to feign exhaustion and slip upstairs, I did so gladly. As I trudged up the stairs to my room, I realized that maybe I really wasn’t faking how tired I felt. Being hunted and unexpectedly attacked by demons all the time was draining.

I shut the door soundlessly behind me and turned, hoping to see Sam lounging across my bed, but he wasn’t there.
Sam?

Yes, beautiful? Is everything all right?

I smiled; his voice in my head was a very good thing.
Yes. How are you?
I didn’t ask (even though I sorely wanted to) where he was and why he wasn’t here yet.

Good. I’m going to be a while yet. Logan and I…
his words trailed off and I understood that he was in a tough place, between his brother and his girlfriend.

It’s no big deal. Gran and I were thinking of playing some cards,
I lied, only because I didn’t want him to feel torn.

Awesome. Have fun, okay?
he said, and I sagged down on the foot of the bed.
I’ll be there later.

See you then.

I glanced around the room, wondering what to do. I couldn’t really go back downstairs after making a big show of how tired I was. Plus, I didn’t really want to. I
was
tired but I knew it would be useless to try to sleep until Sam was here. I glanced down and caught sight of the bracelet hanging from my wrist. The key to the scroll was there, the biggest key on the bracelet. I thought back to the night Sam had given it to me. How thrilled I was to have something from him and how
right
it felt when he clasped it on my wrist. I couldn’t imagine not wearing it. Yet, I promised Sam I would stop walking around with the scroll and the key. Gently, I took it off, smiling a little as I pictured Sam’s large hands laboring over it to fix the broken clasp. I lifted the gift up to examine it closer, wondering how difficult it would be to take off the one key that opened the scroll. Turns out, it was easy to get it off, and before I knew it, the key was lying heavy in my palm. I looked around for somewhere to put it and settled on hiding it between my mattress and box spring. It was not lost on me that I probably got the idea from—shudder—China. It is where she chose to hide the scroll containing the Treasure Map (which we learned is basically a list of all the people that God had assigned to do good in the world, like cure cancer and end wars) after she stole it from wherever she stole it. Fortunately, Sam killed her before she could do anything with it, and then we found it. I glanced over at my bag where the bronze end of the scroll was jutting out. It gave me the willies to think what she might have done with it and all the people who would have been hurt… I shook my thoughts and gathered up what I needed for a long, hot bath. Perhaps the water would wash away some of today’s drama.

The heat of the water coupled with the softness and sweet fragrance of the bubbles was exactly what I needed to unwind.

Unfortunately, my break was short-lived.

My cell phone began ringing and I leapt out of the water and wrapped myself in a towel, hurrying to answer. It was my mother.

“It’s been a while since we talked. How are you, honey?” I paused at the tone of her voice. A tone I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was how she talked to me
Before.
Since she declared me evil and I moved to Gran’s, her voice was always tense and short.

“I’m great, Mom. How are you?”

“Doing great!” she said, and I actually believed it. “I was calling to ask you if you would like to join me for dinner this week.”

“Uh, that’d be great, Mom. I’ll need to check my work schedule.” This call just seemed odd. She knew I was livid over the fact that she refused to sign the permission slip for me to go to Italy and the fact that she was trying to ship me off to some cult-church camp where they could ‘be gone’ with the evil in me.

“Wonderful. And I was hoping that you could bring Sam.”

My body jolted from shock and I almost dropped the phone. I sat there trying to decide if I had heard her right.

Her light laughter on the other end made my head reel. “I know it seems a little strange with me inviting Sam, but I have come to the conclusion that maybe I could accept him as part of your life.”

“Uh,” I stammered. “Yeah. I mean, sure, Mom. We’d love to come for dinner. Can I get back to you though? I’ll need to ask Sam which night he is free.”

“Of course! I can’t wait!”

“So… everything is going good then?” I couldn’t help from asking. Where was this change of attitude coming from?

“Wonderful.”

“Well, all right then,” I said, ready to end the call. I was getting cold, wearing only a towel.

“There is one more thing, Heven.”

This was it. What I was waiting for, the price I would pay for her ‘accepting’ Sam. “Yes?”

“Someone else will be joining us for dinner,” she began. When I didn’t say anything more, she finished her sentence. “I—I’ve met someone.”

I almost dropped the phone again. “What?”

“We’ve been out several times now and I’d like you to meet him.”

My mother was
dating
? Ewww.

“Heven?” Mom said, the first signs of stress entering her voice. I guess I had been too quiet.

“That’s great, Mom.” I cleared my throat and forced the words out. “I can’t wait to meet him. I’m sure he’s very special if he caught your eye.” Gag.

“Well, isn’t that sweet.”

“Listen; I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know when we will be able to come.” It was all I could do not to hang up. I could hardly believe that my mother was
dating.
I never in a million years saw this one coming.

“Great! It will be so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”

My heart softened a bit at hearing this because, really, I missed her too. “Me too.”

“Bye, then.”

“Wait! Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I’m really happy for you.”

“Thank you.” She sounded so happy.

I hit the END button on the phone and dropped it onto my bed. I stood there, numb, in the center of the room, until my toes felt ice cold. I looked down at myself, half dried, dressed in only a towel and a hysterical laugh bubbled out of my throat. It was just too much. My mother had a
boyfriend.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the man would be like and if perhaps, my mother’s new-found happiness might sway her to sign the permission slip for me to go to Italy.

Chapter Two

Sam

The trees were dense this far into the woods, which I liked because it was better to conceal ourselves; we had more freedom to move without fear of being seen. It was dusk and since it had not been a clear day, the clouds in the sky made it darker than what it might have been. It was oddly gray outside and the trees looked black against the sky, making everything appear as though it was a scene from an old black-and-white postcard that has yellowed slightly from age.

I glanced over my shoulder at Logan, who was trailing a few paces behind me. He didn’t want to be here. I had to make him get in the truck and come. He needed this. I just wish he understood that. “I think we’re far enough in,” I said, stopping and turning around.

“Tell me again why we’re here,” Logan said, glancing around at the trees.

“We’re here because you need to get more comfortable with the hellhound inside you. You have to learn some more control and how to shift.”

“I don’t want to shift.” His eyes continued to look at everything but me.

“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. When Logan first arrived, I really thought that he had just been confused, that he was scared and freaked about everything that had happened to him. He had been all alone at fourteen with strange, unexplainable things happening to his body. But the longer he’s with me, the more that I see Logan’s issues went deeper than I realized.

“Why don’t you want to shift?”

His wandering eyes snapped to me. “I told you. I don’t want to be a hellhound. I don’t want to be a freak.”

“I get you don’t want to be a hound. But you aren’t a freak. You just have abilities that other people don’t have. I really think if you learn about them, about yourself, you won’t be so freaked out about who you are.” Logan lifted an eyebrow when I said “freaked.” I shoved at his shoulder, “I wasn’t calling you a freak. Not yet anyway.”

The side of his mouth tilted in a half smile. First smile I got out of him all night—I’d take what I could get.

“Let’s try something,” I said and the smile vanished from his face. “There’s a deer in here, in the woods. I smelled it on the way in; I can hear it too, shuffling around every few minutes. Tell me where it is.”

Logan began looking around.

“You won’t be able to see it. It’s too far away. You’re going to have to use your senses.”

He gave me a ‘yeah right’ look. “You have amplified scent and hearing, Logan. Come on and try.”

At first, I thought he would argue, but he didn’t. He closed his eyes and I could see the concentration on his face. Long, quiet moments passed as we both listened to the sounds in the night. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at me. He cocked his head to the left and made a slight motioning with his hand. “Over there,” he said hushed.

I smiled. “Very good.”

Logan grinned.

“Let’s shift now and use our senses in hound form to find it. This time, though, we will sneak up on it. You’ll have to move quietly so it doesn’t hear us coming.” I pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it on the ground. I reached for the button on my jeans, then stopped and looked at Logan who wasn’t moving. “I’m not wasting a perfectly good pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Come on, Logan. It will be fine; you’ll see.”

He nodded and we both stripped down. My body began to shake; the hound in me seemed anxious to get out. Then I was shifting; I was so used to it, I barely noted the way my bones and muscles seemed to stretch and re-align. The way my back arched up and my spine popped into place. It didn’t hurt like it had the first few times and it only took moments for the transformation to be complete.

I stretched out two midnight-colored paws in front of me and flexed my claws into the earth. It felt good to give in to the hound sometimes, especially when it was because I wanted to and not because I had to (like when a demon was trying to kill Heven). This is the feeling I thought if Logan could experience, he would understand—he would see that being this way isn’t the end of his world.

I stood up and looked at Logan, who still hadn’t shifted and had begun to sweat. It was trickling down his bare chest and beading on his upper lip. I couldn’t talk in this form so I tilted my head to the side, hoping he would understand I wanted to know what was wrong.

He was looking at me with fear in his eyes. I was standing in front of him, accepting who I am and exactly what he fought to ignore. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down and waited for him to shift. To my relief, I didn’t have to wait long. He dropped down onto hands and knees and began to shift.

It was horrifying.

His body seemed to break itself apart; his skin stretched paper-thin and his bones poked at it until I was sure they would puncture right through. The sounds that tore from his throat were gut-wrenching and not at all what I had been expecting. Sure, I knew that shifting might hurt him a little (especially since he fought it so much), but not even my first time had been like this.

He seemed to scream and groan all at once. Sometimes he sounded like a hurt little boy and others like a beast trying to claw its way out of Hell.

I was completely frozen.

I sat there in shock not knowing what to do, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do, and as his body writhed, I felt my instincts sharpen, to identify… a threat. I shut down that feeling immediately. Logan was not a threat to me.

He was my brother.

He let out another shriek, one that raised the hair along my back and I was sickened and mesmerized all at once because the way his skin stretched and bunched just made me think over and over that there was something inside him that wanted out.

And then it stopped.

He looked just like I did in hellhound form—only smaller.

The sight actually made me feel better. While I was watching his body literally rip itself apart, I had begun to regret forcing him to come here. Maybe Logan shouldn’t have to face the hound in him… but looking at him now, sitting there peacefully with all traces of pain gone from his face, I thought maybe things would be okay after all.

I made a sound in the back of my throat, wanting to know if he was okay.

His eyes flashed—not quite gold—like mine, but more of an orange shade, like the color of a flame. I blinked and looked back, but the color was gone. His eyes were once again human-looking, a soft hazel shade, full of vulnerability.

He made an answering sound and stood up. He was ready to go.

Shaking off my doubts, I stood and moved past him to begin tracking the deer. I really doubted that we would find it; he made so much noise shifting that he probably scared every animal in this wood within ten miles. But it didn’t matter if we found the deer. All that mattered was spending time in our hound forms so Logan could become more comfortable.

We moved through the woods as quickly and quietly as possible. I was more experienced than Logan, so I moved with more grace, but he seemed to learn fast, which I thought was a good sign. After a while, I sort of gave up on the deer, decided to have some fun and stopped abruptly in my tracks. Logan, who had been following behind, ran right into me.

I turned around, flattened my ears to my head and narrowed my eyes, giving him time to see what was coming. He seemed to brace himself and then I launched at him, both of us rolling across the forest floor. Because the trees were so dense, we didn’t make it very far before we smacked into one. Logan acted fast and pinned me to the floor, snapping at my jaw. I bucked him off and lunged, grabbing at his tail and pulling him backward, then flipping him onto his back and pinning him down.