Token of Darkness Read online

  Delilah tried to lift her head to look at herself, but would not have succeeded if Ryan hadn’t cranked the bed up. Even covered by a sheet, she could still tell that this thin and wiry body was not her own. She struggled to lift her arm, and saw that her nails had the remnants of chipped, mauve nail polish on them. When she touched her head, she found dark hair barely long enough for her to pull it forward to look at it.

  “Why am I here?” she asked Ryan.

  “Your exposure to Cooper probably made you vulnerable,” he answered. “When your body was stressed, you lost control of your tie to it. You’re lucky you were able to protect yourself long enough to find another vessel to keep you alive, since I imagine it would have been impossible to return to your normal form while it was still on the verge of death. I had a hard time purging the extra power from you long enough to clear the water out of your—oh, there they are. Cooper! Brent!”

  She managed to turn her head enough to see the guys respond to Ryan’s call. Both were dripping wet, and Cooper was as pale as the sheet covering Margaret’s body.

  “They said Delilah is in room—”

  “Delilah’s right here for the moment,” Ryan interrupted. “Cooper, would you check Delilah’s room to see if Samantha is there?”

  “Wait,” Delilah objected. “What exactly do you mean by that?” It was one thing for her to be accidentally and temporarily in someone else’s body. It was another if the power she had attempted to harness had helped itself to her body.

  “Just check, Cooper,” Ryan said. “Brent, tell the nurse on duty that Margaret is conscious.”

  Brent and Cooper exchanged confused glances, but then hastened to obey the command. Delilah wasn’t surprised. Brent always did anything Ryan ordered, most of the time without bothering to even ask why.

  She hated to ask Ryan for anything, especially given how often she ended up doing so, but she swallowed her pride. “Can you help me stand?”

  “No.”

  “Just help me up already,” she grumbled. “I want to see my own body, and make sure it’s all right.”

  “Given this body has been unconscious for months, I’m not even going to let you sit up completely until a medical professional assures me it’s safe. After that, we’ll need a wheelchair. Or have you not tried to move your legs yet?”

  She hadn’t. In fact, she hadn’t even thought of them. The rest of her body was in pain, so her legs had been the least of her worries. Once he had pointed it out, though, she realized the obvious. “I can’t feel them.”

  “Margaret’s back is broken,” Ryan answered. “The doctors have told me that it’s a low break, so it doesn’t affect any major systems, but the paralysis of her legs is probably total.”

  Cooper returned, and reported, “Samantha isn’t there, and Delilah is still unconscious. They’ve got her on some kind of breathing thing. So, who is this?”

  Before Ryan could answer, Brent returned with the nurse, who had a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Ryan or Brent or both of them had probably done a number on her mind, convincing her to let them all in here outside visiting hours.

  The nurse checked Delilah’s … no, Margaret’s vitals. Delilah refused to think of this body as herself. She was borrowing it for a little while. That was all.

  “When can you get me out of here?” she asked Ryan. “And back in my own body?”

  Ryan nodded, though slowly. “Cooper should be able to knock you out of this body. I can keep the shadows at bay so you are not damaged without your flesh. With your own power to guide you, you should be able to reinhabit your own body without trouble now that it is no longer drowning.”

  Cooper seemed less calm. “Wait, I can what? Who says I can do this intentionally?”

  “You were going to come back to study with me, weren’t you?” Ryan asked. “Consider this your first lesson.”

  “I’m not entirely comfortable with having my ‘first lesson’ involve another person,” Cooper said.

  Delilah found herself smiling, impressed to see Cooper, who she had always thought of as something of a teddy bear, standing up to Ryan. He did so in his own mellow way, but it was still more than she had ever seen Brent do.

  At that moment, for example, Brent was leaning against the far wall with his eyes closed. She could recognize the tension between his brows as a sign of one of his ever-present headaches.

  “It’s all right, Cooper,” she assured him. “Sometimes you have to risk a little to learn a little.”

  Cooper looked like he was going to continue to argue, but before he could, a flicker of shadow caused them all to turn toward the other side of the room. Samantha’s colorful form looked like crystal as the afternoon sun streamed through it. There were tears on her face.

  “I didn’t mean it!” she cried. “I didn’t know what was going on. I got scared! I just—I mean, I—” She broke off as she noticed the figure on the hospital bed, and her face took on an expression of cold horror.

  “Samantha. Nice of you to join us,” Ryan said. He looked wary, but to his credit, he stepped between the elemental and the three humans without hesitating. “I gather you have benefited from Delilah’s experiments, since the four of us can all see you clearly now. Delilah didn’t fare quite so well, but she’ll be fine in a few minutes. Cooper, is that the face she has always had to you?”

  Cooper nodded, and pushed past Ryan, heedless of any danger the elemental might represent. “Samantha, are you …” She lifted a hand as if to grasp his, but her hand passed through his. They both frowned. “I believe you that it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Then you’re the only one in this room who does,” Ryan muttered under his breath.

  “What happened to the person who was in this body?” Cooper asked, looking at Delilah.

  Ryan swallowed tightly, and for a brief moment, Delilah thought he might actually display a hint of emotion. His words, however, were blunt. “She’s gone. Once Delilah’s essence is returned to its rightful place, this body will once again be inert. Margaret has no blood relations left, so her guardianship has fallen to my family, since we were her mentors. I have been pursuing the process of having her body taken off life support.”

  “There’s no possibility of her recovering, even with your magic?” Cooper asked.

  Ryan shook his head, though he was looking at Samantha, who had crept toward the bed. Having her so near made Delilah nervous. She might have looked like a pretty teenage girl, but the expression in her eyes as she stared at Delilah was very far away, and not entirely human.

  “Then …” Cooper drew a deep breath. “Is there … I mean, this sounds horrible to even ask, but if she’s really gone and there’s nothing else …” He trailed off, and looked to Ryan and Brent for help, but neither offered it. Cooper managed at last to put the words together. “You thought Samantha might have been in Delilah’s body, right? That means you think she could do something like that. What about this body? Once Delilah is back in her own, could this one maybe make it possible for Samantha to be alive?” He winced. “I know this girl was a friend of yours or something, but—”

  “Samantha’s an elemental,” Delilah said. “She doesn’t need to use another body to have form. She should be able to create one, once she is bound to a mortal being.”

  “She obviously isn’t powerful enough to maintain that kind of connection, or she would have done it already,” Ryan said. “Using another’s form is probably the only option she has, and it is not acceptable. Delilah, if you knew Margaret, you would realize—”

  “Stop talking like I’m not here!” Samantha’s shriek made the panes of the windows rattle. “I don’t want that … that thing!” She reached forward, and Delilah tensed for a blow, but she could not have expected the sensations that followed.

  Samantha didn’t hit Margaret’s body; she actually hit Delilah. Delilah felt herself shoved outward and upward. Disoriented, and fighting to regain some kind of control, she saw chaos break out. Samantha hit Ryan before he h
ad any chance to defend himself, and as he crumpled, Samantha turned to the body on the hospital bed. Cooper, Brent, and Samantha were all shouting, the words overlapping each other but sounding muffled. All Delilah could tell was that Samantha had gone mad and was determined to kill the figure on the bed.

  “You don’t have to!” Cooper shouted. “If you don’t want to—”

  “She shouldn’t be here!” Samantha wailed. “She should be dead. She shouldn’t have lived!”

  To Delilah’s surprise, Brent stepped forward, taking charge of the situation. He gripped Cooper’s bare arm with one hand, and then reached toward Samantha’s form with his other hand.

  The shock waves that followed sent Delilah tumbling backward into darkness … and then again into memories of fire.

  Tears snapped and sizzled as they fell into the flames. What had she done?

  “Tell me where you are!” she shouted. She could hear the screaming, but she couldn’t find the source. “Please!”

  The fire was starting to get too hot, and the power she had summoned was starting to fade in the face of her despair.

  Delilah woke with a gasp, her body spasming as her lungs struggled to eject phantom water and smoke. Her lungs; her body. She was still in the hospital, but she was in her own skin. Now, what about everyone else?

  Cooper woke on a hospital bed, with his mother sitting pale-faced beside him. “How long have I been out?” he asked.

  “Only a few hours, and you’ve just been sleeping naturally for most of it. Long enough for them to check your wallet and call me. Thank God the hospital had the sense to tell me you were all right before they told me you fainted,” his mother said, gripping his hand tightly enough that he winced. “They ran some drug tests, but those came back clean, of course. They’ve scheduled you for a CAT scan and an MRI to make sure nothing’s wrong. Your father wanted to be here, but the doctors said he needs to be on antibiotics for twenty-four hours before he’s out and about.”

  Cooper nodded, the small movement causing his head to spin as he tried to piece together his jumbled memories of what had happened. Samantha had gone berserk. Cooper’s idiotic suggestion had sent her into a frenzy far beyond anything he could have predicted. Then Brent … well, he wasn’t sure what Brent had done.

  “How is Brent?”

  “I take it the two of you had stopped in to visit with a cousin of his? I heard him telling doctors he hasn’t eaten in a while, and I gather he fainted, too. The doctors think your reaction may have been a result of the combined stress of Delilah’s condition, and your friend’s sudden collapse. Delilah is awake, by the way. They say she’s going to be fine.”

  Well, that was something, at least. He just wasn’t quite sure what it all meant.

  Shouting suddenly began across the hall, audible through the closed door.

  “How dare you do this to me?” a woman shrieked. “Don’t you think I have better things to do than hike all the way here to pick up after you? Don’t you ever think about anyone but yourself?”

  Cooper’s mother’s eyes went wide, and she stood up, seeming indignant.

  “And they tell me they’re doing drug tests! Drugs! You’ve been stealing from the medicine cabinet, I’m sure of it. Don’t you know what I go through, when I get a call from the hospital, telling me my son has taken an overdose and passed out?”

  “Oh, that’s it,” Cooper’s mother said, pushing herself up and crossing the room in angry strides. “Excuse me,” he heard her say as she approached the woman who had to be Brent’s mother. “But do you really think that right here and now is the best time to yell at your son?”

  “How dare you tell me how to speak to my own child?”

  “First off, there has been no indication of drugs, so that’s quite an accusation,” she said. “Second, Brent probably passed out due to the fact he hasn’t eaten a decent meal in days. Third, he’s in the hospital, visiting his very ill friend, and obviously distressed. Far be it from me to tell someone else how to raise her child but you are out of line.”

  A nurse interrupted before the argument could escalate much further. “Ladies, why don’t you come downstairs with me, and we’ll get some coffee?” the nurse suggested. “This kind of disruption isn’t good for any of the patients.”

  Cooper was sure his mother only agreed because she knew it was the best way to convince Brent’s mother to stop yelling at Brent.

  As soon as the three of them were gone, Brent emerged. He was moving with a strange deliberateness, and seemed a little unsteady on his feet as he crossed Cooper’s room.

  “That was your mom?” Cooper asked.

  Brent winced. “Apparently.” He shook his head. “The doctors say I’m good to go, at least. I guess they want to keep you overnight for observation?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” Cooper said. “I gather they want to make sure my brain’s not about to explode from some damage left from the accident. What did you do back there, with Samantha?”

  Brent looked away. “I’m not even sure. I guess it was instinct. You’re okay though, right?” Brent tilted his head, making eye contact for the first time since he walked in. There was something unsettling about his expression as he put a hand on Cooper’s arm. “Can you sit up?”

  Cooper hadn’t even noticed he was still lying down. He was more out of it than he thought.

  He pushed himself into an upright position, only to then have to lean forward as a second wave of vertigo hit. Black spots danced in his vision. Brent kept him from falling forward off the bed by sitting next to him and looping an arm across Cooper’s shoulders.

  Cooper drew a couple of deep breaths, until the world stopped rocking beneath him.

  “How are Ryan and Delilah?” he asked, wondering how Brent was doing so much better than he was.

  “Haven’t seen them,” Brent replied. “The nurses didn’t want me to stand up at first, just kept insisting on feeding me and stuff to get my blood pressure back up. Then that woman—my mom, I mean—came in.”

  “What about—” Cooper stopped, distracted, when he realized Brent still had an arm over his shoulders. Had he always been this touchy-feely?

  “What about what?” Brent asked.

  “Samantha,” he managed to say. “Do you know what happened to her?” Before Brent could actually respond, though, the cuddling got to be a little much for him, so he just blurted out, “Are you hitting on me?”

  “What?” Brent blinked with surprise.

  Cooper deliberately lifted Brent’s arm off his shoulders.

  “Oh,” Brent said. But instead of moving away, he came closer, and leaned over Cooper as if to kiss him before Cooper shoved him.

  “Back off!” Cooper pushed himself to his feet and took a slightly unsteady step away. This could explain why Brent and Delilah hadn’t worked out. “You’ve been really cool the last few days, and I appreciate the help you’ve given me, and I’m happy to have you as a friend. But I don’t swing that way. Got it?”

  Brent started laughing. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

  “Cooper …” He took a breath, obviously struggling not to keep laughing. Eventually he managed to say. “You’re really not very bright all the time, are you? Maybe I should come back when you’re a little more together,” he said.

  “Yeah, you do that,” Cooper said. “Come back later.” When the world was back to normal, at least.

  “I thought you would be cool with this,” Brent said, slinking forward with a half smile and another chuckle. “You’ll laugh when you get over the surprise.”

  “Ha-ha,” Cooper said flatly. “Now go away.”

  Brent shook his head and turned, but there was something familiar about the movement that made Cooper frown. When Brent walked back toward the door—with a bit of a huffy flounce in his step—Cooper said, “Wait.”

  “Make up your mind,” Brent said with a smile.

  “I …” He stared at Brent, examining the way he was standing, half t
urned with one hand on his hip and his head just slightly tilted with teasing curiosity. He asked quietly, “Samantha?”

  He recognized her giggle now, despite its deeper tone and the form it accompanied. “I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out.” She moved closer this time, her posture still flirtatious, and more obviously feminine now that he realized what was going on.

  She reached for him again, and he leaped back with a yelp only partially caused by the pain that shot down his hip from the sudden tense movement.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “It’s not like I’m actually a guy.”

  “No, that would be far more okay,” Cooper retorted hotly. “I’d still say no, but … God, Samantha, what the hell? You’re a chick in a dude, who’s hitting on me, which is creepy enough. But that’s not just some random body. It’s taken already.”

  “It’s not like I did this intentionally,” she protested. “I wouldn’t know how to undo it if I wanted to.”

  Refusing to get distracted, Cooper asked, “Samantha—should I even call you that? Where is Brent? I haven’t seen him, the way I used to be able to see you. Is he okay?”

  Samantha sighed and flipped her hair, though it really wasn’t long enough for the gesture.

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” she said. “I’m sure he’s fine wherever he is. I managed it for months.”

  “Samantha—”

  “Cooper,” she crooned. She caught his hand, and held on to it tightly. “Do you understand what it’s like, to have a body? To be able to touch you—or anything, really,” she said. “They gave me applesauce when I woke up, and just a simple thing like that was incredible. I didn’t do this on purpose. I don’t know what you and Brent were doing or tried to do, just that I woke up like this. But I won’t regret it. I can’t regret it. I’m alive.”