Microsoft word winterb.., p.35
Microsoft Word - Winterborn_final-ADRoland, page 35
him away from Tam. He bumped against the counter and his elbow whacked a tall bottle of cleaning
solution. The bottle flopped off the surface, ejecting a long stream of clear fluid. He hit his knees hard, a wad of paper towels in hand, grabbed on the fly.
Darien rounded the corner. Mel gaped at him. Still not sure what had been about to happen, Tam
figured she had a similar expression on her face.
Minus the sudden, absolute fear in Mel's eyes. Why is he so scared?
And why did Darien's eyes narrow? His body language screamed tension, a warning.
Mel really did know something, something serious.
“What're you doing on the floor?” Darien scowled at Mel.
Tam forced a laugh. “I dropped the bottle. Ya'll got this kid trained!”
****
“Tam!” Felix's bellow from the front counter broke her concentration and startled her. Her entire
body jerked and her pencil left a deep graphite gouge in the tracing paper, so deep it marked the
surface of the lightbox.
“Ugh.” She grabbed a plastic eraser and scrubbed the mark away. “Yeah?”
“Customer coming back.”
Tam sighed and shook her head. Twice today she had to tell Felix and Clem not to send back walk-
ins. Appointments filled her days for the next two weeks, with a couple of off-hours commissions to
boot! Meant long days, but it was a good thing. The more money I make, the quicker I can find a nice, quiet apartment or whatever.
She heard footsteps approaching, so she swiveled around in her chair.
Sean stepped around the corner.
Her heart seized, skipped half a dozen beats. The hairs on the backs of her arms and her neck
stood straight up. Her stomach plunged to the soles of her feet. After all the crazy fears that afternoon, seeing his face left her weak and woozy with relief.
“Sean.” Is it crazy that I do love this man? After all the shit he’s put me through?
He favored her with a little, crooked half-smile. “Hey. I tried to call, but...”
“My cell phone broke. Haven't had a chance to get a new one.”
Maybe he couldn't see her hands shaking. She tucked them into her back pockets. Sean's eyes
roamed from her face, to her chest, to her hips. Their eyes met. “You look amazing,” he whispered.
The pain in his voice cut her in two. She opened her mouth to respond, raised a hand to reach out to
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him.
Movement behind Sean caught Tam's eye. Darien stood there, hands on his hips. He wore a dark
expression on his face. Another layer of unease and distrust for her landlord and employer spread
itself across her soul.
“Darien,” Tam said. “This is my husband, Sean.”
Darien bobbed his head in a curt nod. “Hey. You got people waiting, Tam.”
“The appointment isn’t for fifteen minutes, Darien.”
“I've got a walk-in for you.”
“I can't do a walk-in. I have to finish this up for my appointment.” She snagged the sheet of
tracing paper off the lightbox and waved it. “I have an hour after my next appointment. I was going to
take a break, but if you want to schedule it then, it's okay.”
Darien grumbled something and stalked out of sight.
Sean looked ready to go to war. He gestured toward the front of the shop. “You don't have to do
this. Nobody should treat you like that.”
“It's okay. He's having a bad day.”
Sean stuck his hand into the front pocket of his pants. “I don't want you to get into trouble.”
“I won't. What did you come for?”
“I wanted to give you this.” He held his closed hand out. Tam extended her own, palm up, and he
placed something on her palm. She knew what it was, right away.
“Sean...” A heavy sense of weariness rolled over her shoulders, her heart. She wanted this, this
reconciliation, but not on his terms. “Sean, I won't go back to that house, whether Kevin is there or
not. That house was making me sick.”
He nodded. “Fine. We'll move. Right after D'Argento's thing. We'll move anywhere you want.”
“I want you to sell that place to D'Argento. Get rid of it. I don't want any ties to your past left.”
“All right. I'll go to his office as soon as I leave here.”
Tam frowned, suspicious. “You're really going to do that? You'll sell your house for me?”
Sean startled her with a sudden, tight hug. He spoke into her hair. “Anything for you. Tam, I'm
not going to spout off all that crap I used to.”
“Good. Because the second you did, I'd probably shove this ring up your nose.”
Sean emitted a sharp laugh. “You know, I don't doubt it for a second.” He touched the tiny scar on
the back of his left hand—the result of pissing Tam off while she held an X-Acto knife.
Darien reappeared in the entry. “You ready for your appointment, Tam?”
His weird, hostile attitude left Tam puzzled, on edge. “Yeah, Darien. Send her back.”
The customer breezed back, an ethereal, thin blonde in a tiny tank top and jeans cut so low it was
obvious she did some major grooming. She launched into a monologue about how important peacocks
were to her family, yadda yadda, blah, blah, blah. Tam took the reference photos and directed the woman to her station. To Sean's credit, he didn't even glance at the blonde.
Tam mouthed, “Hold on,” to Sean and turned her attention to the customer.
“Where do you want it?”
“My shoulder. Right here.” She reached back and tapped the spot on her right shoulder blade.
“You think it’ll look good right there?” She fluttered her eyelashes at Sean.
Sean stammered, “Um, sure. Tam, I'll be back in a minute.”
“'k.” To the customer, she said, “Give me just a minute to draw this up, all right?”
“Sure.” Rather than staying seated, the chick slid off the chair and followed Tam to the lightbox.
“That guy’s hot. Is he a customer?” Her breathy, porn-star voice grated on Tam’s nerves.
“No, he’s my husband.”
“Oh wow…that’s awesome.”
Ignoring the woman, Tam leaned over the desk. The drawing consumed her. The reference photos
were pretty good ideas of what the woman wanted. Quickly, she sketched out a design that made the
blonde burst into tears and sob about how perfect it would be. Tam guided her back to the chair. Chill, woman! What does she think, she’s on one of those train-wreck tattoo reality shows?
Tam made the stencil and prepped the customer. Luckily the woman wore a teensy bathing suit
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top beneath her top that left her shoulder bare. Mel watched her apply the stencil and prep her
ink.
The woman’s random chatter turned to tears when Tam touched the needle to skin.
At least she’s not babbling anymore.
Sean returned, breathless, just as she finished up the outline and started on the feathers.
“Got you something.”
Tam raised an eyebrow. “What is it?” She sat back on her stool while he pulled a box from the
white plastic bag.
“New phone. You said yours broke.”
Tam stared at the box, eyes wide. “That's an iPhone, Sean.”
“Yeah. I know you wanted one.”
“We couldn't afford the bill.”
“It'll be okay.”
The woman on the table chuckled, a vapid sound. “iPhone's are so last year.”
Sean's face fell. He looked so heartbroken that Tam put down her machine, stripped off her
gloves, and gave him a hug. She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder, absorbing his
warmth, his smell. For a second, she saw herself twelve years younger, clinging to him outside the
student union building, seconds after he stammered out a proposal.
“Come to D'Argento's party,” Sean whispered in her ear. “One last evening at the Estate.”
“Sean, I swore I wasn’t going back to Railley for any reason.” She pulled him away from her
station. “I can’t go back there.”
“Please. I’ve worked so hard. I want you to see what I did.” The puppy-dog look in his eyes
chipped away at her resolve.
“Sean, please don’t ask me to go back.”
“Just for a few minutes. I’ll have my stuff packed and ready and the second after I show you the
main floor, we’ll leave.”
“Sean—“
“It’s important to me, baby.”
But my resolve not to go, and my absolute phobia of that place isn’t important?
“I’ll think about it,” she said, even though there wasn’t any way in hell she would step foot back in
Railley.
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Chapter Twenty-Five
Deep, rhythmic thumping pulled Tam out of a sound sleep. Darien left the stereo on again.
No, the beat sounded closer, alive. Though the sound wasn't unusually loud, it seemed impossible
to ignore. She closed her eyes and rolled over, but the drumming pulled at her mind and refused to let
her drift back to sleep.
The clock read two AM.
With a groan, she slung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, stretching, yawning. It
wouldn't be rude to ask him to turn it down, would it? She did pay rent, and that gave her some rights,
right?
Either way, he had been such an ass to her earlier; he owed her one little favor, even though he
offered an apology.
The house felt hot, steamy-hot, almost like a bathroom after a hot shower. Tam sniffed the air and
smelled something strange, like herbs and marigolds. A gentle breeze caressed her face in the dark
like ethereal fingers. Tam shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She wore only a thin white
T-shirt and a pair of short pajama bottoms. The dampness in the air clung to her skin and her
clothing. When the breeze brushed over her body again, the moist layer chilled almost unbearably.
The gauzy utilitarian curtains that hung over the sliding glass doors gusted inwards, a phantom's
garb that glowed silver-blue under the moonlight. Entranced, Tam extended her hand into one of the
vibrant moonbeams scoring the floor. Perhaps her mind played tricks on her, or it was the surreal half-waking, half-dreaming state she in which she drifted, but the light felt cold, like tepid water.
She took a step closer to the door and the light-headedness increased. I'm dreaming.
The moonlight washed over her like icy spring water. Rather than waking her, it closed up the last
few avenues to reality that existed. Tam waded through the light, lost in the unreal realm of gentle
brilliance. Far off, something roared.
The monster from the Estate.
Low, thick clouds that kissed her skin like a fine mist rolled across the surface of the moonlight-
lake. Her shirt clung to her body and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. She plucked the damp
shirt away from her flesh. Her shorts did the same, darkening over her curves and shadowing around
the junction of her thighs. She brushed her hands over the sodden fabric, aware she should be
embarrassed.
But modesty meant nothing in this place.
I'm hallucinating again. Why now, after so much time?
Another voice wrapped her inner thoughts. Because this is more than some chemical imbalance
in your head. So much more...
The quiet voice trailed off and those narrow streams back to consciousness closed off once more.
Far off, the Estate monster reared its head from the low, thick clouds and roared at the
fathomless, pewter-gray sky. Tam did the same, screaming her own challenge.
Someone chuckled, low and deep. Darien?
“It's me.”
Streams of motion like musical notes accompanied his voice. She followed the faint design until it
faded from sight.
The monster roared again, closer. Tam heard the threat in its roar. Her blood angered it, insulted
it on a level it didn't comprehend. It screamed promises of blood.
“Shh.” Darien silenced it with one hiss. His hand cupped her elbow and led her onward. The
surface beneath her feet changed from the solid, metal-like state to something less stable. Things
brushed against her ankles and calves, and her toes tangled in leathery growth.
“Where are we going?”
“Some place.”
“Where?”
“Hush. Walk.”
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“I'm scared of the monster.”
“She won't touch you. You are meant for something more important than her dinner.”
Realization dawned on Tam and spread like an oil slick through her limbs. “You aren't a good guy,
are you?”
“I'm the best.” She felt his Cheshire-cat grin behind her. It glowed like a beacon. Rather than giving off warmth, he radiated a vicious chill, permeating every cell.
“I need to go back. I'm cold.”
“You'll be fine. Keep going.”
She tried to fight, but his hands on her upper arms and his insistent urging from behind pushed
her forward, through the moon lake. Terror so deep it left her bowels weak and her knees shaky, so
strong it numbed her mind and her senses, poured from her head to her toes. Those sparkling
corridors of reality opened up before her. She froze and dug her feet in.
“This isn't real.”
Darien stepped around and got in her face. He changed. His handsome features sharpened,
narrowed, and an inky blackness spread through his eyes, swallowing the brilliant blue and the
whites. “Little girl, it's more real. More real than you can possibly understand.”
“Let me go.”
“I can't. Even if I could, I wouldn't. What's happening is bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger
than anything you can understand. What we're going to accomplish will be big enough to swallow
your universe.”
“My universe?” Tam shook her head and struggled to escape Darien's iron grip. He spun her
around. The shore rose from the moon lake, gray and mossy. The moss squirmed and writhed with a
life of its own. Darien shoved her forward so hard she stumbled and fell into the worming
groundcover. Instantly, it covered her hands and her arms. Tendrils snaked up her thighs, into her
shorts. She shot to her feet, slapping at the growth that pricked her skin and sucked dainty drops of
blood from her flesh. Darien remained at the shoreline, arms crossed over his chest. That horrible
grin creased his face.
Run!
Tamsyn took a few sprinting steps away from him, across the moonbeam moor. Beneath her feet
the earth shuddered, thundered. The living moss shivered and vanished into the ground, sucked down
like spaghetti noodles. Tam hit the ground hard. The pain shot up her thighs and into her pelvis.
A great crack shot through the rocky terrain. Dread coursed through Tam's body. In her haste to
get away, she scrabbled along backwards, propelling herself with her feet and her hands like a
demented crab. She flipped around and crawled as fast as she could go, her attempts to rise to her feet
thwarted every time by a strategic quake that would send her sprawling. She scraped the hell out of
her chin and chest. Blood ran down her neck, thick and sticky.
A roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the heavens sent Tam sprawling once more.
Darien laughed, his voice mingling with the groan of the tortured land. “You see? You see? So much
bigger than anything you could ever comprehend.”
Tam whipped around.
From the gap in the earth rose something huge, pulsating, gleaming with its own dark light. Red
hide shimmered under the everywhere-and-nowhere moonlight. Tentacles, massive and thick, freed
themselves from the bulk of the body and whipped around, creating minor earthquakes when they
struck the ground. A fang-lined mouth opened and turned to the sky. It wailed a banshee cry of death,
pain, suffering. A single eye, black and white and stark against the dark red surface of the being,
opened.
Tam turned her head away. The thing sent out waves of agony and evil that crumpled her will to
fight. Darien dropped to his knees behind her and grabbed her face, forcing her to look.
“It screams for freedom, Tamsyn. It needs blood. We feed it as much as we can, but it needs
more.”
A giant cartoon octopus monster wants my blood. Did I hallucinate myself into some crappy
anime?
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Darien gave her a vicious shake and threw her down on the rocky ground. “You have no idea
what this is! This is the form your mind gives this new god waiting to be born. Do you want to know
what the abomination truly looks like? Do you?”
He snagged a handful of her hair and snatched her to her feet. She cried out and flailed for his
hand. One final shove cast her to the ground on her knees, facing the abomination.
Though fiery streaks and clouds still arched through the sky and a great chasm remained, nothing
moved. Not the wind, not the hungry moss.
Tam looked around, warily, for any more video-game demons.
Her eyes fell on a small white bundle on the ground.
A baby. Tiny pink fists waved in the air, and a foot managed to kick off a fold of the blanket.
