Token of Darkness (19 page)

Cooper resisted the impulse to take a step away from both of them. “So, we’ve got the room to ourselves,” he said. “What now?”

“Now … now,” Delilah said with a shaky breath, “I try
to remember that, if something goes wrong, at least I’m already in a hospital.”

Cooper felt alarmed and shamed as he asked, “How dangerous is this for you?” He understood that they needed Delilah’s help to get Brent back where he should be, but as far as he knew, Delilah didn’t need
them
for anything. Yet she was still here.

Delilah looked nervous, as she crossed her legs to sit on the hospital floor, but she flashed a bold grin as she said, “Like I told you earlier, Coop, sometimes this work requires a little risk. People without the guts to face that shouldn’t get into sorcery.”

She closed her eyes, and tossed her hair back as she lifted her chin rather than bowing her head.

Cooper shifted his weight from foot to foot, wondering what was supposed to happen, and if he should be doing anything in particular. Delilah had promised the nurse that there would be no incense or candles or loud noises that might disturb other patients, but Cooper had still expected a little ritual and pizzazz.

After a minute, he whispered to Brent, “Has she started?”

Brent laughed out loud, though the raspy sound quickly turned to a cough. “I don’t do this stuff, remember?” he asked. “I’d feel a lot better if I had any clue what was happening, or if it were just about anyone but Delilah we had to rely on.”

“If you two would just be quiet …,” Delilah started to say, but trailed off.

Cooper sat back down.

The first indication that
anything
was happening was the sweat that seemed to gather on his skin despite the steady hum of the air conditioner. The room didn’t get hot exactly, but rather stifling and muggy. He shivered.

Twenty minutes passed without anyone speaking or moving. The air continued to thicken, until condensation built up on all the surfaces. Drops ran down the inside of the window-panes. It was so foggy Cooper had to move his chair inward to keep both Brent and Delilah in sight. He hoped that whatever Delilah had done to the nurse would keep anyone else from responding to the change in atmospheric conditions.

He realized Delilah’s lips were moving, as if she were speaking without sound, and it was becoming harder and harder to breathe. Suddenly the room seemed to constrict. He dropped his head, trying to pull air into his lungs as the edges of his sight turned from white fog to black mist. He tried to make it to the door, to get out and somehow break the effect, but succeeded only in falling to his knees on the floor.

Thank God
, he thought, as the door opened with a
bang
.

The sound was followed by Samantha’s petulant accent, coming from Brent’s body, as she said, “I have Brent’s
phone!
Did it not occur to anyone to
call
me?”

The fog started to clear, and Cooper drew in deep, gasping breaths. Ryan helped him to his feet.

“Would you have come?” Delilah asked. She sounded winded, but not as badly as Cooper.

Samantha hesitated, before saying, “Maybe.”

“What are you doing here?” Brent said, looking up at Ryan.

“Samantha needed a ride,” Ryan replied nonchalantly.

Brent’s voice was choked as he demanded, “What did you do to my
car?”

“Your
mother
took the keys!” Samantha shouted back. “I didn’t know how to stop her without hurting her.”

Cooper’s head had finally stopped spinning, and the air had returned to normal, when a nurse walked by and looked into the room. “What is going on—”

“We’re fine,” Ryan, Samantha and Delilah answered in unison. The nurse literally rocked back on her heels before nodding, her gaze unfocused, and continued down the hall.

Ryan closed the door.

“Did you even have a plan for what you were going to do next?” Ryan asked.

He looked exhausted, which made Cooper pause. Ryan acted so much older then the rest of them, but it occurred to Cooper that he was probably young enough to still be in college. He had the type of responsibility Cooper hoped to avoid for a long time.

Delilah and Brent both hesitated, Delilah visibly bristling at the scorn in Ryan’s voice.

Cooper faced Samantha. “Brent and Delilah think they’ve figured out who you are.”

“You mean
what,”
she said bitterly.

He shook his head. “No, I mean who. I mean, yes, I guess
we’ve all figured out that you’re not human, and that you never really were. That you used to be some kind of massive, formless power. But you’re more than that. You’re …” He looked from Samantha to the figure on the bed. “I know you don’t have a lot of memories, but I also know you sometimes
do
remember things once you see them. Look at her, Samantha. Do you recognize her at all?”

Samantha stared at Margaret’s body. Brent’s hazel eyes widened, and then flashed silver, but then Samantha shook her head. “Not … really. It’s like I almost remember.”

“I don’t understand it all,” Cooper admitted, “but she created you in the image of someone she cared about a great deal. She’s the one who made you Samantha.”

“If you’re willing,” Delilah said cautiously, “the rest of her memories, and the memories she would have given you, are still locked in her flesh. I know you’re probably very angry with her. You probably don’t even really understand why. But if you give Brent back his body, and use Margaret’s instead, then it will help you be—”

“Excuse me?”
Ryan protested. “It was bad enough when Cooper suggested it, but did I just hear you offer up someone
else’s
body to—”

“To
Samantha!”
Delilah interrupted, shouting over Ryan. “I was only in her memories for a short while, but I can tell you, Margaret would have given
everything
to save her sister. If you worked with her, you must know how close they were.”

“This isn’t Samantha,” Ryan insisted. “It looks like Samantha, but it’s—”

“And this isn’t Margaret. It’s a shell. It’s a body. And Samantha is all that’s left of either sister.”

“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” Samantha argued. “I like
this
body. It’s loud, but if Brent could learn to control that, so can I.”

“Samantha.” Cooper stepped toward her, and took her hands, trying to get his mind past who she
looked
like and remember who she was. “We’ve spent most of the past few months together. You’ve gotten me through hard times. And no matter what anyone says, I know you’re a good person. You’re giddy to have a body at all right now, but you have to remember that this one isn’t
yours
. You’ve stolen it from someone else. Someone who was doing everything he could to help us.”

Samantha chewed on her lower lip. “What if I don’t
want
Margaret’s memories?”

“Remember how scared I was?” Cooper asked, still holding Samantha’s hands. “You helped me get through everything that happened to me. We’ll get you through this now.”

“Can’t I just keep this body for a little while?” Samantha asked. “So I can, I don’t know, get used to having a body before I need to deal with
her?
I want to go out dancing. I want to … God, I want to run
away
. I’ve never been as scared as I am when I look at her, and I don’t even know why.”

“The longer you’re in Brent’s body, the more of a permanent effect you might have on it,” Delilah said. “You
don’t realize how much power you possess, Samantha. You limit yourself by claiming flesh at all.” Ryan cleared his throat, and Delilah snapped, “What? It’s true!”

“I don’t want power,” Samantha said flatly. “I know Ryan’s afraid of what I might do if I actually decide to be what I am, but I don’t want to be some kind of immortal
thing
. I just want to be … alive, a person.” She drew a breath. “Isn’t there another choice?”

“You’re not powerful enough to create your own body,” Ryan said with a sigh. “And your consciousness as Samantha is too restricted to allow it to survive long without a mortal form.”

“Then … then I guess there’s no choice.” With a lopsided smile, Samantha said, “Brent, I guess we’re swapping. And … I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

“I’ll leave you crazy kids to your games,” Ryan said, turning away.

“You’re not going to help?” Delilah asked.

“I’m going to cast a secondary circle outside this room, to keep the hospital staff and scavengers out, and any other power inside. If you screw up, I won’t let it hurt anyone else in the building. That’s my role in this. You’re all too old for me to hold your hands. Delilah …” Ryan paused, and shook his head. “Be careful.”

He closed the door softly behind him.

C
ooper could taste his anxiety as Delilah, Brent and Samantha looked at him hopefully.

“This is all you, Coop,” Delilah said. “The only thing I can do is try to temper Samantha’s power so it doesn’t go crazy again.”

“I got scared before,” Samantha said. “In the woods. I got so scared.”

“I guess you’ve got an excuse for it,” Delilah said grudgingly. “The last time anyone around you tried to work with an elemental, you kind of died in a raging inferno. I’m going to have to ask you to try
very
hard to stay calm this time.”

“I feel better about this already,” Brent said dryly.

“Remind me what I’m supposed to be doing again?” Cooper asked. “You know I’ve only ever done this body-swap thing accidentally, right?”

“Yes?” Delilah said slowly, and looked at Brent. “I know with my kind of power, a lot of it is just thinking through what I want to happen, and kind of
willing
it.”

“‘Focused attention’ is what Ryan calls it,” Brent said. Despite the barbs Delilah and Brent kept throwing at each other, it was obvious they worked well together when they had to. Cooper could see for the first time how they might once have been involved.

“Think about … okay, here, Coop,” Delilah said. “Think about what it feels like when you tackle someone twice as big as you are. You’ve certainly done that before, successfully. Only you’re doing it in your head instead of with your body.”

“Touch can help focus, too,” Brent offered. “At least, that’s the way your ability seemed to be triggered in the past.”

Cooper put a hand on Brent’s arm … or Margaret’s arm, more accurately, even though Samantha was the one they were giving it to.

Thinking too hard about those details was too much for him, so he just set his hand on the slender arm and shut his eyes. Much as he hadn’t enjoyed it, he tried to remember what it had felt like when Brent had hijacked his so-called power to try to stop Samantha earlier. Then he tried to recall how he pushed Brent when they first met in the library.

He had been panicked at the time, overwhelmed by those dark memories of the accident that he had tried so hard to
keep from surfacing. … Memories which, strangely, he had started to be more at peace with since facing them.

Focus, Cooper. The worst you can do is make an ass out of yourself, and it would hardly be the first time you had done that
.

He realized he had tightened his grip when Brent let out a small pained sound.

“Sorry,” he said, but it was too late. A single, horrid moment came to mind: a car grill meeting a human body.
Human flesh on hot pavement
, Cooper recalled vividly, despite his best efforts not to,
smells like barbecue
.

He heard Samantha let out a sob, and realized that Brent’s telepathy must have passed the image on to her.

He
pushed
.

Samantha shouted,
“Wait!”

He could feel something tearing and struggling. Something cold and dark seemed to lash back at him. Cooper’s head reeled and he fell to his knees, retching, beside the bed. Delilah had caught Brent’s body, and Cooper heard him moan, then whisper,
“Thank God.”

From the hospital bed came a choked sob.

Holding on to the rail of the bed, Cooper struggled to his feet. He knew instantly that Brent was no longer behind Margaret’s brown eyes. Even with her dark brown hair, this was unmistakably Samantha.

“It’ll be okay,” Cooper told her. “We’ll take care of you, and—”

“I remember,” she whispered. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, my God, I … I remember it all. What I used to be.
What happened.” She began narrating the tale with the same horrified expression, as she nervously twisted her short hair between shaking fingertips.