Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (39 page)

"Are you OK,
Jesse?" Jimmy asked.

Jesse's right eye
twitched strangely, and the entire right side of his face seemed to twitch in
response.  Then his face broke into a smile.  "I'm fine, Jimmy.  Please,
come on in."

Jimmy stepped
forward.  He tried to reassure himself that this was Jesse, the man he had
known for years.  This was a man who had, in many ways, been a father figure to
Jimmy.  He had spent so many hours in this library helping Jesse fix book
spines and putting cards back in the little slots pasted into the back of the
books.  He had also learned how to put those clear plastic book covers over the
hardback books to try and keep the covers nice longer.  Jesse had always been
there, always trusted Jimmy, and had given Jimmy nearly free reign over the
place.  This was a friend.

"Jesse,"
Jimmy said, “Devlin Little is dead."

Jesse's face did
that strange twitch again, and this was followed by a smile.  Jimmy was
suddenly sure that he was now inside some science fiction story.  This was a
robot Jesse who had murdered and replaced the real Jesse.  And every time that
twitch happened, the robot was rebooting.

"I
heard," Jesse said, crossing over to his desk.  "I’m not exactly sad
about it, as you can imagine."

Jimmy nodded and
stepped farther into the library.  He leaned against the same desk he had
leaned against the night he and Tabitha had been in here questioning Jesse.  Or
had it been morning when they did that?  Suddenly time and space were things
that seemed elusive to Jimmy.

"I thought
maybe now you could tell me what really happened that night," Jimmy said. 
"You know, with Sapphire."

A pained look
crossed Jesse's face, and both sides went into a kind of twitching war.  For a
moment Jimmy thought that Jesse was going to completely break down in front of
him.  Then, suddenly, Jesse's face relaxed, and he gave a strange, crooked, sad
smile.

"I told you
guys what happened," Jesse said softly.

"Tabitha and
I both think that you were lying," Jimmy said.

Jesse's head
whipped around and, for a moment, anger and hatred flashed in his eyes.  Jimmy
also heard the buzzing in his head get louder.  Sapphire was there, and she was
listening.  More importantly, she was worried.

"I'm hearing
all kinds of crazy stories, Jimmy," Jesse said, ignoring the statement. 
"I’ve been hearing stories that you can fly and bend the world to your
whim.  I’ve heard that Sapphire can suddenly manifest from the land of the dead
in the living flesh and also manipulate reality."

He paused, his
face twitching, then the smile.

"Crazy,
huh?" he finished.

Jimmy shrugged. 
"A lot of crazy things have been going on lately, Jesse."

Jesse's smile slid
off of his face like it was made of something slippery. "Are you telling
me that those things are true?"

"I'm not here
to talk to you about that, Jesse," Jimmy said.  "Let's just say that
the world as we know it is not the world as it really is.  I know, because I've
seen the other side and I've seen how fragile it is."

Jimmy extended his
hand.  A book on Jesse's desk suddenly flew across the room and landed softly
in Jimmy's palm.  Jimmy closed his hand around the spine of the book.  It was
some kind of how-to book about fixing your car.  Jimmy tried to hide the fact
that making the book do that had nearly caused him to pass out.  The world was
spinning and he felt like vomiting.

"Wow,"
Jesse said, his eyes wide, but that one eye still twitching. 
"Impressive."

"It takes a
lot out of me," Jimmy said weakly.

"I bet.  I've
never seen anything quite like it."

Jesse came around
the front of the desk.  He leaned against it and crossed his arms over his
chest.  He looked down, his chin almost on his chest for a moment; he appeared
to be thinking.

"Is it true
that Sapphire appears to you?" he said quietly.  "I mean in the flesh
and not as some ghost?  That the two of you can alter reality?"

Jimmy said that
was true, but weakly.  The buzzing in his head was getting louder, but he was
also feeling faint.  Was Sapphire trying to talk to him or had that simple act
of moving the book across the room wiped him out completely?  He reached out
his hand to steady himself.

"That is
remarkable," Jesse said.  He seemed to think for a moment longer. 
"You know, I really did love her.  I really did."

Jimmy felt alarm
bells going off in his head along with the buzzing.  He tried to stand up, but
it was impossible.  His limbs seemed to have lost all muscle.  Was he dying? 
Was this what a brain aneurysm felt like?

"I keep a
photo with me," Jesse said.  "I still have it.  I keep it here in my
desk."

Jimmy remembered
that after he had overheard the conversation between Devlin and Jesse that
Jesse had sat down at his desk and looked at something, weeping.  It must have
been the photo.

"I'd love to
see that," Jesse said.  "I'd love to talk to her again."

"I'm…I'm not
sure that I—" Jimmy said, then swallowed.  "I'm not so sure I can do
that right…right now."

Jesse looked up,
that eye still twitching, and a look of concern crossed his face.

"Are you OK,
Jimmy?" he asked.

Jimmy shook his
head.  "I feel a bit lightheaded."

Jesse's look of
concern got even deeper.  He stood up and came toward Jimmy.  The buzzing in
Jimmy's head got louder.  For a moment he thought he could hear Sapphire
calling his name, but his head was so fuzzy.

"Could you
use a drink of water?" Jesse said.  "I have a water cooler in my
office in the back."

Jimmy felt himself
nodding, but he did not feel in control of his own actions.  He stood up,
leaning a bit against Jesse.

"Yeah,"
Jesse said, his voice seeming like it was a long way away.  "That's it. 
Just rest easy.  That must take a lot out of you.  Come with me and get that
drink of water.  Maybe if you rest up, you can show me how you can bring
Sapphire here."

Jimmy again felt
himself nodding.  His thoughts would not coalesce.  He could not form a decent
sentence or thought.  The buzzing was getting so loud. What was wrong with
him?  Why did the air in this place seem so heavy?  Why was Jesse talking to
him so low and slow?  Where were they going?  They were headed back toward a
darkened, shadowy place.

"Just walk
ahead there," Jesse said, giving Jimmy a soft shove.  "You know where
my office is.  Just walk carefully.  I have to go back and get something out of
my desk."

"Right, your
desk," Jimmy mumbled, and his feet moved of their own accord.

Jimmy took several
steps down the short hallway.  He could see light coming from inside the office
that Jesse kept.  It was a small office, but it was warm and inviting.  It
always had been.  It was like a den in a big house, and Jimmy imagined that if
Jesse had a den in his home, it would look like this office.  There was an oak
desk and, in front of that, a big, soft leather chair.  That chair looked so
inviting.  And yes, there was indeed a water cooler somewhere in there, back in
the corner.  That would be good right now.  He was so thirsty.  Moving things
with his mind made him so tired and so thirsty.  If he could get a drink, he
would feel as right as rain.

Right as rain.

He took another
three staggering steps toward the office. 

Where was Jesse? 
What did he have to get?  What was that buzzing sound? 

Was someone
screaming his name over and over again?

Sapphire?

JIMMY!

Jimmy snapped his
head up.  It was like a slap across his face.  The sound of Sapphire screaming
his name cut through the clutter in his head.  The fuzz and the buzzing stopped
for a moment.  He looked around.  The hall was so dark.  The office ahead of
him was so bright.  Where had Jesse gone?

Jimmy turned
around.

When he did, he
saw Jesse standing at the end of the short hallway, framed by the darkness of
the library behind him. 

In his right hand
was a pistol.

"I'm sorry,
Jimmy," Jesse said.

"Jesse?"
Jimmy asked.  "What are --?"

Sapphire screamed
Jimmy's name again and again inside his brain.  It hurt his skull, the sound of
her screaming.

That was when
Jesse pulled the trigger.  The sound of the gunshot was actually louder than
Sapphire's scream.  At the same time, Sapphire was still screaming inside his
head, and then she was screaming in the hallway.  Jimmy saw Jesse suddenly look
up and cover his ears, and then books started flying off the shelves behind Jesse. 
Sapphire didn’t appear, but there was a sudden rush of wind just as the bullet
crashed into Jimmy's chest.

The force of the
impact caused Jimmy to spin around.  The entire world exploded in pain, and it
was suddenly hard to breathe.  Then his feet went out from under him and he
fell hard. The floor seemed to rush up to meet him and he felt the hardwood
floor collide with his head.  Jimmy saw stars, felt blood rushing out of his
chest and spread across the floor.

JIMMY!

Just before Jimmy
slipped into blackness he heard another voice.  It was not Jesse’s.  No, it was
the voice of Stan Little.

"Did you kill
him?"

"I think
so," Jesse replied.  "Help me move him."

Blackness took
Jimmy.

The
blackness
seemed to go on forever.  Then,
suddenly, there was light.  It was a bright white light mixed with blue. 
Although it felt as if he were walking on solid ground, Jimmy could tell that
the ground wasn’t actually there.  There was no "there" anywhere
around him, and yet, there he was.  He held up his hand and there it was, and
yet, at the same time, it was not there. 

"Jimmy!"

Jimmy squinted
into the strange, white, foggy nothingness that was not nothing.  Mists flitted
and floated past his vision, as if he were in a vast marsh filled with fog. 
Strange shapes and shadows darted in and out of his vision all around them.
Some of the shapes looked vaguely human, while others had eyes that glowed and
more than a few had mouths with shining, sharp, white teeth.

"Jimmy!"

Sapphire emerged
from the mists.  She was gorgeous beyond Jimmy's ability to comprehend.  Her
hair and eyes glowed, but not in a scary way.  She seemed lit from within,
shining like a sun.  Her dress had never looked so blue, and Jimmy could swear
he saw stars, suns, entire universes forming and swirling and dying within the
blue fabric that covered her.  The fabric itself was like the mists that
surrounded them.  It swirled and twitched and moved, covering her
strategically, but also shifting and changing as she moved.  Her skin was
beyond milky white, something ethereal.  She would be visible and then suddenly
vanish, swimming in and out of his field of vision.  Her voice was in his head,
not in the air between them.

"Sapphire?"

She floated to
him, her feet not even moving.  Her arms were open and he held up his arms that
were not really his arms, and yet were, and she was in them in a moment.  She
felt real, and he felt real, and the ground beneath them no longer felt unreal and
they were standing on something solid and real.  Her lips were against his
lips, and they felt solid; there was heat coming from both of them.

"Where are
we?" Jimmy said.

"Jesse shot
you."

"Jesse?”
Jimmy asked. “It was him?"

Sapphire nodded,
and then she placed her hands on either side of Jimmy's head. 

"See,"
Sapphire said, her lips close to his, the sound of her voice inside his head
and throughout the strange space that they both occupied.

The images came
fast.  Jimmy felt himself spinning around and around as if in a whirlpool.  The
images overwhelmed him.  He was lost in that moment, just like when he dreamed
of being in the car, but this time he was in the backseat and he was seeing
what was happening, and, just like in the original vision that had shown him
what Jesse and Sapphire had done that night when they were at the dance, he
could see what was happening, but not do anything.

Jesse was driving
and Sapphire was ranting.  This time, however, Jesse just looked angry.

"Can you
believe that they kicked us out of there?" Sapphire said.  "Can you
believe that they did that?  I mean, of all of the nerve!  What right do they
have to kick us out of the dance?  What did we do but try to defend ourselves? 
This is what happens whenever a woman tries to stand up to men these days. 
They get the shaft and the man gets escorted off somewhere."

"I
know," Jesse said.  Jimmy could tell that he was gripping the steering
wheel hard.  Jesse's knuckles were white.  "Just relax.  Come on,
Sapphire, I wanted to spend this night with you.  I don't care if it's at the
dance or not.  I want to be with you."