Waking Dreams (A Soul's Mark Novella) (9 page)

“You are not going to die.  I won’t let it
happen,” Eric said with fervor.  Now that he had her, he was never letting go. 
Never.  No one would harm her again.

“What can you do?  You’re only a dream.  A
figment of my imagination.  Something I have conjured up to ease my fears.”  A
small tear glistened as it snaked down her cheek, and she dropped her gaze to
the wooden floor.  “I’m not naive, Eric.  They said I was marked for a devil,
so my imagination constructed the devil in my dreams.  You are only my mind
playing tricks on me, giving me the love that I need before the end and showing
me my fears all at once.”

“You’re sleeping,” he breathed, his heart
shattering in a burst of sharp-edged pieces.  “Megan, you need to tell me where
you are,” he said desperately, grabbing her chin in his hands and forcing her
to meet his eyes.

But she didn’t answer.  Instead, she rolled
up onto the tips of her toes, and kissed him.  It was full of longing, rough
and deep, and in that moment, Eric was powerless to her touch.  All reason left
him, everything melted away.  It was just them, lost in each other.

It wasn’t until morning dawned, and Eric
woke up alone, that he realized she had never told him which mountain she was
on, or what cave she had crawled into.

****

Eric stood on the lawn outside his house. 
It looked so daunting, a glaring reminder of his failure.  It had been a month,
thirty long days, since the last time he had heard Megan’s voice or seen her
loving eyes and her blood red spiral locks.  The vision that had felt so real,
now felt like nothing more than a dream.

For the first time in a month, he felt
awake—alive.  And being alive was mind numbing and empty.

Eric couldn’t say how long he stood in
front of his house, debating on whether he should enter or leave.  Now that he
was back, he wasn’t so sure that he would be welcomed, or forgiven.  Not that
he deserved forgiveness.  He knew he didn’t, not after the way he had treated
Mitchell, but a small part of him hoped …

Eric heaved a sigh and turned his back on
the house, ready to leave, when he heard the door creak open.  Glancing over
his shoulder, he saw Mitchell step out onto the front porch.

“Eric?” Mitchell asked, squinting his eyes
against the sunlight.

“Hi, Dad,” Eric said with a little—and more
than a little awkward—wave.

“Are you leaving?” Mitchell asked, as he
jumped down the steps and raced over to him.

Before Eric could so much as offer a word,
Mitchell wrapped a firm arm around his shoulder, and started ushering him up
the porch steps.  “Eric, you look awful,” he said.  “And you smell horrid.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Eric said, because he really
didn’t know what else to say, and Mitchell didn’t seem to expect anything else.

He gave Eric’s shoulder a squeeze and said,
“I’m glad you’re home.”

Mitchell never asked about Megan, none of
them did, and Eric never spoke of her.  At first, it was too painful, but then,
as time went on, she became a distant memory, feeling more and more like a
dream every day.  Maybe they were right and someday her spirit would find his
again.  He knew she was out there, starting a new life.  She had to be,
because, well, if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have a link to humanity, and he did. 
He felt compassion, and empathy, and he knew it all stemmed from her.  And all
he could hope was that this life would be kinder to her than the last.

Willowberg, 121 years later

Who would have thought that finding green
hair dye would be so hard?  Eric hadn’t.  Not that he was complaining.  The
distraction couldn’t have come at a better time.

Today was the day.  Mitchell’s search was
finally coming to an end.  After hundreds of years, he had found her.  Amelia. 
It was supposed to be a happy day.  But … for Eric, not so much.

Jealous.  That’s exactly how Eric felt. 
Well that and angry.  For the last one-hundred and twenty-one years, Eric had
somehow managed to slowly let go of Megan, burying the memories deep within
him, and now … now Mitchell had to go and ruin it, resurrecting the love and
longing Eric felt for her so long ago.

Mitchell had decided, like this morning,
that he was moving out until Amelia settled in, because for some retarded
reason that Eric couldn’t understand, Mitchell didn’t want her to know that
they were vampires—yet.  But that wasn’t even the worst part, not only was he
moving out, but he had also given Eric the job of “Amelia’s chaperone.”  Eric
had agreed, of course.  Really, what choice did he have?  Except, the last
thing he needed right now was to surround himself with a lovesick teenage girl.

Eric flipped down the visor and opened up
the mirror, inspecting his new hair.  The color turned out better than he had
thought it would, and it matched his eyes perfectly. 
Note to self: next
time just go to a hair place first,
Eric thought, realizing how much time
he would have saved if he hadn’t spent two hours driving around trying to find
the right shade (or any shade for that matter) of green.  It had been a spur of
the moment decision, something to get his mind off Megan, and as he checked
himself out, he was glad he did it.

With another quick inspection, he closed
the visor and started up his Corvette.  The engine purred to life, and he
popped the car into gear, pulled away from the curb, and headed towards home.

The drive home took less than ten minutes,
and before he knew it, Eric pulled his car up to the gate.  He rolled down his
window and grinned, when he caught Joe’s muffled laughter.  “What’s so funny?”
he asked, innocently glancing at the portly, balding guard in full uniform,
except, he was pretty sure Joe was laughing at his hair.

Joe’s eyes sparkled with amusement, and he
grinned.  “The color suits you, Mr. Carter,” he said with a chuckle.

“How many times do I have to tell you, call
me Eric,” he said as sternly as he could, and then he wrinkled his nose.  “You
make me feel so old.”

Joe shrugged, as if to say
get used to
it already,
and then he flipped the switch, and the big iron gate clanked
open.  This had been a daily conversation for years, and still, for some
reason, the guard insisted on calling him Mr. Carter.  Eric was pretty sure he
did it for a laugh, but man, it really
did
make him feel old.

“They here yet?” Eric asked, looking at the
road before him.

“Not yet, Mr. Carter.”  Eric grumbled something,
and Joe’s smile widened.  He rolled up the window, and thrust the car forward
through the opened gate, climbing up the hilly street.

When he turned onto the driveway, and the
house came into view, he clenched his jaw.  It was all arches, turrets, and
balconies, with a brown tiled roof and gray stone walls.  A present for
Amelia.  Mitchell had the castle built after one of their dreams.  It should
have been magical.  Seriously, he lived in a bloody castle, but with the way he
was feeling, it looked more like a wicked witch’s castle than his home.

Eric tried to push the turmoil that was
brewing inside him away, because really, he wasn’t one of those guys.  He liked
people.  People liked him.  Having Amelia around could be … fun.

He glanced at the clock on his dash. 
Twenty
minutes.  She’ll be here in twenty minutes.
  Megan’s bright eyes surfaced
in his mind, and his stomach clenched with anxiety. 
Pull it together,
he coached himself. 
She’s been gone for more than a hundred years.

With that little pep talk, he maneuvered his
Corvette around the west side of the house and into a motor court with large
carports on both sides and parked in the empty lot.  He hastily turned off the
car, jumped out, and then he ran up the stone-covered terrace steps and threw
open the French doors leading to the kitchen.

Eric needed to calm his nerves.  He padded
over to the cherry-wood island. 
I need pancakes.
  Pancakes made
everything better.  It was in that moment that he clued in that the driveway
had been empty.  No one was home.  And if no one was home, there was no Mabel
to yell at him for cooking.

He set about the kitchen, pulling out a box
of pancake mix and a frying pan.  After reading the directions, and figuring
even he couldn’t screw up pancakes, he turned on the stove and added some olive
oil to the pan.

Eric carefully measured the mix, added the
recommended amount of water, and began to stir, but no matter what utensil he
tried, it looked … lumpy.  Was it supposed to look like that?  He shifted
through the cupboards, looking for something else that might work, and he
spotted the blender. 
Perfect!
  He grabbed it, quickly dumped in the lumpy
mix, and plugged the blender in.  He was just about to push the button when
Mabel walked in, arms loaded with groceries.  She dropped them at the door, put
her hands on her round hips, and gave him one of her stern
grandmother
looks.

“What are you doing in my kitchen?” she
asked, narrowing her eyes further.

Eric grinned.  “You weren’t here, so I
thought I’d make pancakes,” he said.  The oil in the frying pan began to
crackle as it heated.

“With a blender?” she asked, clearly not
amused, and she started towards him.  She was wearing her favorite flowery
apron, and her gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun, making the dirty look
she was shooting him appear more severe than it really should have been.

Eric glanced at the blender. 
It’s a
good idea,
he thought.  He looked back up at her and grinned, his finger
hovering over the button.  She was overreacting, he was sure of it.  It was
just pancakes.

“Eric, no!” she hollered, just as he pushed
down, and the blender roared to life.

Okay, maybe, just maybe, Mabel wasn’t
actually overreacting.  As soon as he pushed down, Eric clued in as to why she was
yelling.  Turns out, blenders have lids, or if they didn’t, Eric figured they
should.  The room exploded in a mess of yellowish pancake batter, coating Eric,
and splashing onto Mabel.  It dripped from the ceiling and covered the floors. 
It was a sticky, gooey mess, and Eric laughed.

Well, he laughed until the first strike
came.  Mabel screamed, a shrill sound that ruptured through him, and then she hit
him on the backside with what felt like a stick.  He spun around, his foot
caught on the cupboard that he had left open, and a bunch of pots and pans
clattered to the floor.

“Stop it,” he yelled, raising his arms as
Mabel swung a broom at him.  He jumped back, knocking a glass off the counter,
and it crashed to the marble floor, shattering into pieces.

Mabel kept coming at him, screaming unintelligible
curses about ruining her kitchen.  “Ouch,” Eric groaned with amusement, trying
to stifle his laughter, which was on the verge of exploding.  He raised his
arms in an attempt to protect himself from the blows of a broom swishing
furiously at him.  “It was an accident!” he cried out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw
Angelle fly through the door, looking furious and right on her heels … He
blinked, and his jaw dropped—literally. 
Megan.
  Her hair was different,
brown, not red, and her eyes … blue-gray, but everything else was her. 
Suddenly, she darted over to the fridge and whipped it open, and then Mabel hit
him again.

“What the hell is going on?” Angelle
yelled, jumping in front of Mabel.  She snatched the broom and tossed it.  It
flew across the room, and slammed into the wall before clattering to the marble
floor.  “That’s enough.”  She turned to Eric, grabbing him by the shoulder, and
shoved him away, hard.  Hard enough that his shoulder popped out of its joint
and he had to bite back a growl as he snapped it back into place.

It’s not her.  It’s not her.  It’s not
her.  She’s Mitchell’s.  Amelia. 
But even if he
knew it …
dammit!
  How was he going to survive this?  Eric watched the
girl run over to the stove, and that’s when he noticed the fire.  She dumped a
box of something on the burning grease-lit frying pan.  The fire
extinguished
in a billowing cloud of smoke, and she
started to cough.

 “He’s ruining my kitchen.  Look at this
mess!” Mabel cried in a tizzy, surveying the mess. 

Eric was rubbing his shoulders, looking at
Angelle, because he seriously couldn’t look at the girl any longer.  “I was
just trying to make pancakes for Amelia,” he said.  The name felt wrong on his
tongue; he thought that the little lie might smooth over the mess, and then,
because he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of her, he gave the girl a
bashful smile.  Then he looked back over at Angelle and said, “And in case you
missed it, she was hitting me.  Why did you shove me like that?”

Angelle rolled her eyes in a dramatic show
of annoyance.  “I’m sure you deserved it, Eric.  You usually do.”  She looked
over at Mabel, who was now scurrying around the kitchen, trying to clean up the
mess.  “What did he do, Mabel?”

“He used a blender without the lid,” Mabel
said.  Her voice was stern and a touch motherly.  And she looked absolutely fit
to be tied.