Rock Star (Dream Weaver #2) (13 page)

             
“No!” New heat fueled my body and I struggle against his iron grasp. I forced away all thoughts of Nick and Sabre—as if not presently thinking about them was a strong enough memory-camouflage for a Wraith as powerful as William. As if my feeble, budding—alleged—Caphar abilities had anything on this ancient. I ravaged my brain for memories to bury any thought of them, but my life had been so consumed by them of late, it was hard to find enough ammunition.

             
William cackled. “Pathetic,” he hissed in my ear. “I have more power in my little finger than both of your boys combined.”

             
“Yeah? Then why are they still alive after all these years?” The manacles of his fingers pressed the cool metal of my charm bracelet into my wrist.

             
Mom and Dad.
Images of smiles and laughter stoked my heart, and calmed my raging fear. William shifted, momentarily confused. Like a meat grinder, he pressed into my brain, brutally pillaging my memories, scavenging for Sabre and Nick.
Mom and Dad.
That was it. Those memories were so passionately strong. Maybe those memories could shield and protect my guys.
My guys
, I smiled inwardly at the thought.
No. No. Mom and Dad.

             
William shook with rage, but I resisted the crush of him in my head, and pulled on my most glorious and most painful memories. Everything that built me up, and broke me down. The joy. The grief. The smiles and the tears. The conflicting, passionate reminiscences filled me and spilled into his magic. His spell guttered and pitched, and he thrust his thoughts into my soul and savaged my mind. My world darkened with exhaustion and shredded recollections.

             
A brilliant blue-white light sparked to life back along the river walk. A second joined it. I stared, mesmerized by the radiant glow as my vision faded at the edges. Maybe I was going to die. Maybe this was that ethereal light that guides the dead to Heaven.

             
William roared, his grip on me slackened, and he retreated from my mind, lacerating memories on his way out. The blue-white orbs, twin comets blazed across the water. William roared again as the lights collided with us. His body jerked away from me, but his iron manacles were melded around my wrists. A whirlwind of dark and light raged around me and my back was slammed against the bridge rails. The sound of cracking ribs swirled in my brain, but it didn’t hurt much—not yet. Thank God for endorphins—I’d be feeling this later—if I survived. The storm battered me, but in the midst, Nick’s warm touch grazed my heart, and just as I began to believe in my salvation, William’s body wrapped around mine and launched us over the rail.

Chapter 15 Perseverance

              We hung suspended over the rocks, two of my worst nightmares rolled into one…falling from a great height and the deadly current of the infamous Spokane River. William’s fingers clawed into my calves and we swung like a pendulum. Sabre’s face hovered above me, and over his shoulder, Nick held fast to Sabre’s jacket and belt. The fear and grief in his eyes was almost as painful as William’s talons in my flesh.

             
“Emi! Hang on, honey!” Nick screamed down to me, and his words were met by cynical laughter from below. He eased his body against Sabre’s and the rail, and extended his hand toward me. But he was still miles away. He shifted his upper body over the rail to close the gap…And that’s when I saw it. The churning chaos that was Thomas scrambled around Nick and pitched his body over the rail.

             
“Nick!” The two collided with William in their fall, and his nails gouged furrows in my skin. Sabre grunted and his grasp slipped farther up my arms. Nick shifted into ethereal form and swirled away with Thomas. William continued to swing below me, and laugh as though this was some grand game. And he was winning.

             
“I’ll take her with me, James!” William raged. “A life for a life.”

             
“No! Take me. Let her alone,” Sabre bargained.

             
William chortled and his fingers slid another couple of inches down my legs. “Not a chance, James. I’ll have her. And then you and your little sidekick.”

             
“No!” Nick materialized at Sabre’s side and leaned over the rail to get a handhold on me; but, again he fingers were shy of the mark. My life was in Sabre’s hands.
Oh, great. Just great.

             
“I’m sorry, Emari, this shouldn’t have involved you.” And a rarefied Sabre tear fell on my hand, hot and heavy. In my panicked, hysterical state, I imagined acidic vapors rising from my skin as the tear ate through the tissues.

             
“She has to die,” raged William.

             
“No!” Nick yelled and redoubled his efforts reach my hand.

             
I don’t want to die.
If only Nick could phase down and get me, but he said they couldn’t hold corporeal bodies while in their ephemeral state.

             
“She has to die,” agreed Sabre, as if under compulsion. The vampire comparison might’ve amused me at any other time, but my life was hanging in Sabre’s hands over the rocky bed of the Spokane River. And his grip was slipping.

             
A light flashed on in Sabre’s eyes, an understanding of something that remained dark to the rest of us. “She has to die,” he whispered to himself. “That’s how it works. Death brings immortal life.…Emari? Do you trust me?”
WTF?
His eyes met mine, bored into me with a knowing look.
Trust? Sabre?
The words were not mutually synonymous. What the hell was he thinking? “Emari…please…” The tissues over my ribs stretched and tore. William’s weight jerked my body and I screamed as muscles in both of my arms ripped away from the tendons as the two men ripped my body apart. “Do you trust me?”

             
Panic widened in Nick’s eyes at his mentor’s words. “Sabre?”

             
Another rare tear shattered on my arm. “Emi,” Sabre moaned. “Please. Do you trust me?”

             
What Sabre had ever done, or thought he’d ever done, to garner any kind of trust was unfathomable. The man had stolen my memories to scare the hell out of me in the name of ‘science’ and stuffed my head full of memories that weren’t my own, sent me on a journey through someone else’s life, again in the name of ‘science.’ Although, it was a pretty cool life, being a rock star. Now, my life dangled over the jagged rocks of the riverbed, and Sabre begged my trust. As though my life depended on it. And for some reason I believed—maybe it did—that somehow he knew something I didn’t. Yet with Sabre, there was always a hidden agenda. Did he want me out of Nick’s life? Badly enough that he’d let me die? Or at least suffer mercilessly?

             
Nick scramble and stretched to reach me, to no avail. “Sabre…”

             
“Say it, Emari!” Sabre screamed into my face.

             
“Yes!”

             
Something akin to grief, or reluctance, flashed across his face, but the decision was made. His hands eased their grip and a stricken sob escaped his hard heart as his fingers trembled away from mine. The Wraith’s weight dragged on my body and we plummeted. I watched the anguish as Sabre’s brown eyes drifted away in the darkness and breathed in relief that the pain was gone. I could hear Nick shouting my name, saw vague images of Sabre grappling with him, trying to keep him from plunging headlong after me.

             
“It’s the only way!” Sabre screeched back at him, subduing him. “She has to die!”

             
Relief quickly vanished into terror. I was falling. Fast. This was gonna hurt. William’s body evaporated into a cloud of black mist and disintegrated beneath me just as my body impacted the rocks. It only hurt, though excruciatingly, for a moment, as my body collided with the river bed. My heart had shattered with grief at the death of my parents; but now, as my bones crumbled within me, I truly knew the meaning of pain.

             
The late winter chill seeped into my skin and supplanted the heat of my body. It trickled out of my pores and dissolved into the hard, jagged rocks beneath me. Two glowing lights materialized into Nick and Sabre, who fell to their knees at my side. Tiny wisps of air jerked from my lungs, but breathing seemed so pointless. No breath, less pain. Nick clasped my hand, though I couldn’t feel it—my fingers already turned to ice. Crazed tears dropped like rain from his inky eyes. He lifted my hand and pressed it to his trembling lips. The world darkened and I closed my eyes.

             
“Emi! Please! Come back.” His voice broke.

             
“Nick…” Sabre whispered. Nick’s throat rumbled in warning.

             
I opened my eyes to Nick’s sight. He gazed, lost and damaged, down at my body laying on the snow-dusted river bed; my body so broken I was a pile of discarded rags. My hair stuck to rivulets of crimson that drained from my ears, nose and uncountable contusions. My body was as frozen and still as the rocks beneath me. My mouth locked open in a soundless scream. I couldn’t speak a word, not even the words I yearned for him to hear. He lifted his eyes to show me the frosty night. Lights from the Flour Mill sparkled and danced with moonbeams across the ripples on the water. The cloying smell of sand and dried algae drifted into my brain. I closed my eyes to his sight.

             
“Emi. Don’t leave me.” His strained voice, barely audible. My heart heard his words, his pain, his sorrow and constricted in my chest—the only real pain my body registered was his.

             
Please don’t cry. I’m happy.

             
“Please…” He imprisoned my hand against his chest that heaved with racking sobs.

             
The deep, numbing freeze inside me trickled out onto the rocks with the flow of my blood. My adrenalin/endorphin high clouded my thoughts, inebriated my brain, my body hardened and turned to lead. In my numbness, I groped for a memory; the last words I wanted his heart to hear from mine. Five little words that took all my effort to corral and stitch together in one cohesive thought. But he had to know. I closed my eyes to concentrate, mustered the energy to thrust the words out where his broken heart could find them.

             
Goodbye, Nick. I love you.             

Chapter
16 Mad World

Sabre

              Nickolas’ body rippled in and out of phase. Tremors of grief and rage pulsed through him; the sound that ripped from his throat was ineffable, and echoed off the high river walls as though the canyon of a great river.

             
“No. No.” Denial was fast and unyielding. I grabbed Nick’s shoulder, but he shrugged me off. His fingers slid to the girl’s neck, hopeful for a pulse, but found none. Impulsively, he placed his hands one atop the other, laced his fingers together, and began compressions on her already-crushed chest. He cringed, whimpered as a child at the sound of further-breaking bones and withdrew his hands in panic. “Emi…” He prayed her name.

             
I hated him at that moment. Hated and loved him both, as he sobbed over her. Her body lay shattered at his feet, along with the love he’d pledged to her. I envied him for his love for her, her love for him. And I hated him for his weakness as far as she was concerned. My beloved son and brother, for whom I wanted nothing more than everything and the best. And I loved her, for herself and for loving him and giving him his heart back that for decades I’d feared buried in the cold earth with his lost family. Afraid he would become too much like me; cold, dark , hard and alone—teetering on the edge of darkness and light.

             
“How could you do this to me?” he asked, though I doubted he’d wait for my explanation. But he needed to ask it anyway. He’d never hear, never listen. Not now. Not like this.

             
“She’s Caphar…” I began and his body rippled in and out of phase. “What if death is the catalyst?”

             
“What if? You gambled her life on ‘what if?’” he raged.

             
It was no use. He would not hear me. His whole world was focused on the small crumpled heap before him. I mumbled a warning to him, but he scowled at me and, quite literally, growled. He shrugged off my attempts to assist. “Nickolas. We must move her.” My words finally penetrated the armor of his grief.

             
“Don’t touch her. Don’t
you
touch her,” Nick seethed. “You’ve done enough.”

             
“I certainly hope so,” I muttered, but Nick disregarded me as he scooped the girl’s shattered body into his arms. “This way.” I took his elbow but he shied from my touch. I knew he didn’t understand. I would have to
make
him understand. And with everything in me; love, hate, hope, I prayed—if God still listened to the likes of me—that I was right.

             
As we approached the head of the path, we were met by a man in rumpled pajamas, who had witnessed some of our commotion. Agitation pitched his voice loud, and it echoed off the walls of the brick condos the hovered over the river.

             
“What are you doing?” He gripped Nick’s arm trying to stop him. “I called 9-1-1 when she fell. You shouldn’t have moved her. They can get Life Flight to transport her.” He was frantic, only desiring to help. Finally, Nick’s eyes met mine, so sad, so tired, so broken, it hurt me to witness. His plea screamed into my mind. I placed my hand on the man’s arm, and dove swiftly into his head. I found the memories, pulsing a bright frenzied red, and extricated them. Then, after inducing sleep, I eased his body to the ground to sit against the wall. He’d awaken presently, when paramedics arrived at the scene, confused and wondering why he’d chosen here to fall asleep. There was no more time to conjure anything better. Already, the sirens blared in the distance.

             
Upon reaching the car, Nick slid the rumpled form of the girl into the rear seat and climbed in after her.

             
“Where…” I began.

             
“Home.”

             
He was silent, cradling the poor, limp body of his beloved in his arms. I wondered if thoughts of Felicia crowded his mind, in remembrance of his other lost love; or if all his passions were consumed with his love for Emari. My own thoughts drifted to my Sarah Rose but their edge was still too cruel, even after two centuries, and I quickly chased away the ghosts. I could claim the loss of but one love, and that so long ago. But Nick had the blood of his loves upon his hands, now twice. How could my single loss and anguish compare? And how could he not hate me ever more if I was wrong?

             
Why, Sabre?
The crushing of his heart accompanied the words into my head. I closed my eyes, and released the weight with a measured breath.

             
“William said, ‘She has to die.’ At that moment, I knew…” But his hatred, that coursed through the vehicle in palpable waves, silenced me. Of course. Had I allowed William’s mind contortions to sway me?

             
We argued, when he wasn’t seething in silence or scorching a hole in the back of my head with his glare. He’d said to take her home so I headed for our house. But that wasn’t his intention. He wanted her in
her
home. Not ours. When she woke up—if she woke up, he wanted her in familiar surroundings so she wouldn’t be frightened. I thought it best to go to our home. It was more secluded, less chance of company coming by while we had a corpse on display inside. And though I didn’t tell him, easier to dispose of her if she didn’t awaken. In the end, I relented. He would just take her there himself if I didn’t.

             
This night felt like the darkest night of my life. The light that surrounded her home seemed lit by the faintest of candles. Nick fished her keys out of his pocket and I extracted the alarm code from his memory. He cringed at my touch. Once inside, he shuffled to her bedroom as though he was barely able to lift her tiny body, and placed her on the bed like brittle china. Her bed became a funeral pyre where his rage at me consumed the air. He tucked a soft blanket around her like a small child, then, as he’d done after our battle there with Thomas, he lovingly washed the blood from her wounds.

             
Her pup smelled the death as it saturated us all, and skittered and bolted, content to remain in his crate. The poor creature balked at my touch, and I set upon a desperate campaign to win his affections, as it seemed that was all I could possess. When not coaxing the dog, I wandered the house, touching her things, memoryprinting her life.

             
“You could leave,” Nick barked after my third circuit of the house, his first words to me in hours. I could leave. But I couldn’t. He refused to look me directly in the face and his grief and anger were palpable.

             
“Nick, I…” I tried once again.

             
“Just don’t, Sabre. This is one experiment I hope to God you don’t fail. Now, leave me the fuck alone.”

             
Nick wasn’t prone to swear much, even at me. His more traditional ways found the coarse language of today somewhat offensive. But I couldn’t fault him for a few maledictions. What had I done? Had it been the right choice? To let her fall to her death and in the process destroy the heart of the one person I loved above myself. What if I was wrong? Would he hate me eternally? Would he leave? Abandon me and leave me utterly alone? Decades with him at my side could be irretrievably washed away by this one rash decision. I left the room in silence. His weeping soon filtered through the house and permeated my soul where they shattered what remained of my heart.

             
I forced myself to slumber, to rejuvenate myself, but the screams of the girl lacerated my dreams. Worse yet—his cries eviscerated my soul.
What have I done?
Had it truly been for her? Even for him? Or was it just another of my ruthless experiments for the sake of knowledge gained? Information to know the quantifications of the Caphar ability?

             
She lay upon her bed. A pedestal of worship. And he bowed his knee and worshipped.
No.
From the day of his rebirth I was his father. His brother. His friend. Everything. And yet he bowed his knee at the altar of ‘the girl’. Could I stand that she was now more significant than me? That his life and breath were hers to own—if only she would awaken. If only she’d open those glimmering emerald eyes and flutter those lashes at him.

             
Strange heat flushed my body. Rage? Hatred? Toward who? Him? Or her? Or perhaps, myself. Jealousy that I now had to share his devotion with her? And yet, I knew the joy, the respite he felt at her presence. The voltage that charged his being at her touch. But part of him was mine. Still mine. Though the girl apprehended his heart and held it under lock and key.

*          *          *

             
As the hours ticked by, the grey lifeless day eked by as slowly as a month. Heavy fog engulfed Emari’s cottage, like the sky itself had fallen in woe. Even the little barn at the border of her property was lost in the mire. Inside, the oppressive layer of grief socked us in. The door to her room clicked softly as I opened it to check on Nick. He knelt on the floor at her side, his head rested on his arms. He raised his head and sliced a dangerous look my direction. With a snort of disgust, he rose to his feet and charged me. My hands remained at my side, defenseless. I would not defend myself against anything he believed I deserved. But just as his fist swung at my face, with the roar of a savage beast, he evaporated from the room.

             
I could only stand and stare at her prone form. Fear that I’d jinx the magic, that my touch would taint her soul, left me fixed to the spot. My chest throbbed, my throat tighten with sorrow. My fingers ached to touch her, to feel for a pulse or a breath, yet I knew there would be none. My gaze traveled the grayscale décor of her room, memorabilia of famous movie monsters plastered the walls. Yet none was as monstrous as me. My picture should adorn these walls as the evilest, most vile monster of them all. I turned to go, left her in the dim, shadowy room alone and pulled the door quietly closed behind me as though I might awaken her from her slumber.

             
Hours later, I heard the quiet rustle of Nick’s clothes as he sat at her side like a funeral watch. As two a.m. slid into three, and marked the first twenty-four hours, her bedroom door swung quietly open and Nick stepped out.

             
I stood to meet him. “Nick…” I tried again.

             
“Sabre. Just don’t. There is absolutely nothing you can say that will fix this,” he said, his voice heavy and slow. I’d never heard his voice so burdened with defeat.

             
“But if I’m right…”

             
“If? Don’t you get it, Sabre? You can’t risk lives on an ‘if’,” he yelled. The pup, who I’d finally coaxed out of his crate, tucked his tail and retreated to safety.

             
I nodded in concession. “But she could be immortal, Nick.”

             
“Again, ‘could’ sounds just like ‘if’.”

             
“But you felt it in her as much as I did. And when William said she had to die, it just clicked in my head. You died and became Caphar. I died and became Caphar. They thought William was dead for two days until he shambled out the woods, alive and well. It just made sense,” I explained.

             
“It was a hunch, Sabre. That’s all. Why would you do this to me? Because you lost Sarah Rose, so I shouldn’t have anyone either?” I staggered back from him as though, this time, he’d truly struck me. Emari must have learned more of my past than I’d realized—during, yet another of my ‘damned experiments’. But, Nick couldn’t possibly believe I would intentionally wound him. “It was impulsive and you took no thought to anyone but yourself when you let her go,” he continued his tirade.

             
“But she’ll be Caphar,” I said like that explained and excused everything.

              “That wasn’t your call to make. It was hers. What if that’s not what she wanted? What if she didn’t want to be immortal?”

             
“But she did,” I defended.

             
“She told you that?”

             
“Not exactly.” This meek thing was getting old. “But she understood when I released her.”

             
Another growl rolled from his throat, he turned his back on me and returned to his vigil at her bedside.

*          *           *

             
As the second day slipped into darkness, headlights bounced off the windows. Lamps from the yard illuminated blue and red lights on the top of the car. Panicked, I phased into the bedroom to Nick. “There’s a cop here,” I hissed.

             
“Good,” he said.

             
“Good? What if they come in? How do we explain a dead body in a house that’s not ours?”