Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance (46 page)

Veronica sat behind him in front of
a different mirror, putting on makeup while packing up her other toiletries to
take on the trip.  Stephen paused to look at her.  His heart beat faster.  He
still loved her, but they just couldn't seem to agree on anything these days. 
Veronica was beautiful with long, golden hair, aqua-blue eyes, and a body any
man would have killed for.  Her face was one that belonged in magazines or on
movie screens, not with him.   Instead, she was down-to-earth and had no
pretentions about her looks.  Veronica did have one flaw, though, as far as
Stephen could see, and that was her stubbornness.

"Why don't we just call this
off?" Veronica suggested, her face a frown and her eyes narrowing in a way
that indicated to Stephen that she knew she was starting to get on his nerves.

"Because Jeremy is one of my
oldest friends," Stephen replied. "I don't want him to have to cancel
or change his plans."

"Then tell him I'm sick,"
Veronica said, "because I don't think I can do this."

"Damn it!" Stephen
cursed.  "Let's just do this one thing for us.  Let's have one more
weekend where we try to be what we were to each other.  Don’t wreck this. 
Maybe we can still manage to have a good time."

"You sound like a bad soap
opera," she said.

"Don't make fun of me,"
he snapped back.

"If this is what the weekend
is going to be like, you can count me out."

"Let's try not to fight
then."

"I don't know why we're
fighting anyway."

Stephen sighed.  "You know
why."

"I know why, but I don't
understand it."

"Yes, you do," Stephen
said quietly.

Veronica threw down the lipstick
she was applying and put her head between her hands.  She bit her lip, chewing
off most of the lipstick she had just put on and fought back the tears; but one
slipped out and ran down her cheek.  She fought her emotions for a long moment.
Stephen watched her reflection in the mirror as her shoulders hitched.  Then
she regained control of herself and returned to finishing her makeup.

"I can't believe you're
willing to throw everything away because of this," Veronica said.

"Let's not do this now,"
Stephen replied.  "It never gets us anywhere.  We just end up going around
and around in circles."

"Then tell me again why we're
going away for this weekend?"  Veronica said.  "Why are we
deliberately trapping ourselves in the wilderness together?   I'm sure they
expect us to sleep in the same bed."

Stephen walked over to his closet
and started grabbing clothes.   He pulled down a bunch of shirts and threw them
in the suitcase without bothering to look at what he’d chosen.     His stomach
was burning with anger which did nothing to lessen his urge to burst into
tears. 

"Yes," Stephen said.
"I'm sure they expect us to sleep in the same bed.  I doubt they have more
than two rooms up there."

"I don't want to do this,"
Veronica whispered.

"Do you think I do?" 
Stephen screamed, his anger finally cresting over the top of his mental dam. 
"Do you think this feels any better for me?  Do you think I want to look
at you all weekend and think about what I won't have anymore?"

Veronica stood up, walked into the
room, and looked at him.  She was gorgeous in her robe, opened slightly, even
with the mixture of hurt and rage that was etched across her face.  Veronica
had always kept herself in shape.  She was a dedicated runner and she looked
like an athlete. Stephen felt his heart hammering in his chest again.  He
wanted to grab her, throw her on the bed right now and make love to her.  The
frustrating thing was that Veronica probably would let him.  Despite the fact
that things were crumbling hopelessly around them, they still had an active sex
life. 

Veronica finally gave up trying to
fight the tears and let them flow down over her face. "Let's cancel,"
she said.  "Please, let's cancel this."

Stephen lowered his head.  He felt hot
angry tears pressing against his own eyelids.  He fought them back and bit at
his lower lip.  When he felt in control of himself he looked up at her again.

"I need this," Stephen
said.  "I need to try this one more time, no matter how much it
hurts."

"We always do what
you
need," Veronica said.  "Can't we do what
I
need this time?  
Besides, not two minutes ago you were agreeing that this was all a bad idea. 
You never stick to just one thing."

"We're already talking about
getting a divorce," Stephen said. "Isn't that enough of what you want
to do?"

Veronica stared at him for a moment
longer as her lower lip trembled and tears fell from her chin.  Then her
resolve stiffened and her eyes bore into him.  He turned away from her stare. 
Eventually, she walked back to the sink.  Stephen could hear her crying softly
in between the sounds of her throwing makeup and other things into a bag.

Stephen felt bad for a moment and
then decided it didn't matter.  He needed to get packed and that was it.  He
returned to his suitcase and began putting clothes in.

This is going to be a fun
weekend,
he thought bitterly to himself.

* * *

Mike drove the five
miles to the Liden house, spewing hate-filled epithets every time he reached an
intersection, drove through a pothole, or whenever the truck stalled.  The
engine was groaning and making many other disconcerting sounds, which did
little to dispel the anger Mike was feeling.  Still, he knew that the real
fault lay with the man from Illinois who was preventing him from watching the
Brewers.

Mike had fallen into the employ of
the writer from Chicago just over a year ago.  Jeremy had told him that he was
highly recommended, but when Mike asked by whom he got no response.  Mike
always suspected that the guy who had owned the place before the current owners
had given his name up.  The previous owner was from Chicago too, and he and
Mike had never gotten along.

"Damn flatlanders!" Mike
cursed out loud, spittle flying from his lips and spattering the windshield as
he made the final turn, bounced into a pothole, and headed down the road in the
final stretch toward the cottage.  At this point his cursing had almost become
nonsensical, running together into a continuous slur, “Damflalanners! 
Damflalanners.”

The weeds and grass were overgrown,
as Mike had suspected.  The idea of spending the afternoon chopping away with
his sickle was not his idea of a good time.  Once he got the weeds down to a
manageable level, he would then have to mow the grass, too.  Then he would need
to wash down the outside of the house.  If it were up to the flatlanders, he
would also go in and take the covers off of the furniture and unlock the
cabinets, but hell if that was his job.

Mike maneuvered up the driveway and
pulled the truck all the way up past the house, parking beside the wooden shed
near the end of the driveway.  Inside that shed was a bunch of tools he knew
Jeremy had never touched and probably never would.   He doubted the writer,
with his soft hands and limp-wrists, had ever picked up a tool in his life or
had the basic understanding of how to fix something by himself.  Mike grunted
his disapproval again as he shut off the engine, which sputtered and died as if
saying thank you.

"I can't believe I'm doing
this today," Mike muttered at the dashboard and then swung his leg out of
the cab.

The sun beat down on Mike’s head as
soon as he stepped away from the truck.  He lifted his cap, wiped his brow, and
felt the sweat spring out from every pore.  Mike went to the back of the truck
and removed the sickle from the pile of tools stored there.

* * *

Demon stood in the
trees, peering through the weeds and grass at the man standing in the yard.   
In his mouth was a still-twitching rabbit that he intended to bring back to the
house for Delilah.  The bitch was lying beneath the porch, shading herself from
the sun.  This was where they had been sheltering for the past couple of days.

A growl emerged from the back of
Demon’s throat as he watched the strange man wandering through his territory. 
He did not understand humans. Why didn't they stay in their own places?  When
the man reached into the back of his machine and pulled out a huge stick, Demon
knew for certain this man was there to do them harm.  Demon knew, immediately,
that the stick the man held was there to cause him and Delilah pain.

Demon remembered the biting,
crackling stick that their abuser had used on them.  He remembered how that
human would stagger out to their cages and start hitting them or shocking them
with the crackling stick.  He hit them no matter how much they cried or how
much they bared their teeth or how much they tried to placate him by
submissively showing their throats and bellies.  These humans did not
understand the way things were supposed to be.  These humans just hurt and hurt
and hurt; and the thought of all of that hurt made Demon angry. 

Now, here was another human with
instruments of pain, standing on Demon’s territory.  Demon’s eyes filled with
hatred and anger.  The dog’s fighting instincts, beaten into him through years
of abuse and constant battles against other dogs, rose to the forefront of his
brain.

Demon dropped his catch and bared
his teeth.  His twitching snout caught the scent of the man and he moved
forward, front paws scrabbling at the dirt and his nose low to the ground.

* * *

Mike reached into the front of his
truck and turned on the radio.  He turned up the volume so he could hear the
ball game as he wandered around the front yard.  Then he turned away from the
truck and carried his sickle to the first row of weeds.  The ones in the back
were as high as his chest.

Mike brought the sickle back and
swung it in an arc.  The saw-toothed blade sliced the base of the weeds.  They
flew over his shoulder, tumbling through the air and landing in a green and
brown heap on the driveway.  Mike continued steadily,   grunting in reaction to
the plays from the baseball match.  Although his anger at the writer still lit
a fire in his belly, he began to let his mind wander in the direction of the
radio.

As was usually the case, now that
he was out working, Mike found he was actually enjoying himself.  It wasn’t
taking as long as he’d thought it would (and certainly not as long as he would
tell his wife it did).  Mike had a knack for this kind of work and he was
cutting his way through the back yard and around the side of the house even
before the Brewers had managed to squander their four-run lead.

Mike rested for a second when he
reached the side of the house, leaning on his sickle while he wiped away the
sweat from his forehead.  He gazed up at the crystal-blue sky and slowly
lowered his vision to look out over the fields and down the hill toward the
lake.  Mike could make out the water shimmering gently in the wind, the sun
creating dapples and pinpoints of light on its surface.

He picked up his sickle again and
began cutting away at the front yard.  He moved slowly and steadily.  As he
worked past the front porch, Mike heard something move beneath the wooden
walkway.  He paused, mid-swing, and tilted his head sideways to try and see
into the darkness beneath the porch.  Had he really heard something?  Lots of
animals liked to come out of the woods and try to set up dens and homes beneath
porches like these.  Hopefully it wouldn’t be a damn skunk.  The last thing he
needed was to go home stinking to high heaven.

"Hey!" Mike yelled and
clapped his hands.  "Get out of there!"

Something under the porch moved
again; this time there was no mistaking it.  Mike frowned, bent down, and tried
to see into the intensely dark shadows gathered under the porch.  He couldn't
see anything for a while, but then, suddenly, he saw something shift in the
darkness. 

"What's under there?"
Mike asked no one in particular.  He figured if he looked bigger and acted
louder, whatever it was might get scared and run away.

Mike duck-walked around the side of
the porch, keeping his head low so he never lost sight of where he thought the
animal lay.  He peered underneath carefully, still unsure what was under
there.  Mike saw two tiny circles shining from about midway under the porch,
just close enough to the opening for sunlight to catch them.  There was
definitely something there, but it was too big to be a skunk.

"Is that…Is that a dog? Hey,
dog!  Get outta there!"

Mike heard a growl from beneath the
porch.  It was deep, guttural-- and put a stab of fear in his stomach.   This
was not a small animal or even a small dog.  The growl was from something big. 

Mike backed away slowly, heading
for the spot on the lawn where he’d dropped his sickle.  Once he had the blade
back in his hands, he advanced on the porch once more.

"Hey, now!" Mike yelled. 
"C'mon, dog!  Get out!"

Mike pounded on the porch with the
sickle’s wooden handle.  Instead of seeing an animal bolt from the darkness,
the growling resumed.  He knelt to look under the porch, the sickle ready in
his hands.  This time, in addition to the eyes Mike saw shining in the
darkness, there was a glinting set of teeth.

"Hey, now!" Mike said.
"You need to get out from under here, now.  This ain't your home!"

Mike shuffled forward, squeezing
himself under the porch, extending the handle of the sickle so he could prod
the dog into scarpering off. 

Mike heard something behind him. 
He turned to find himself face-to-face with another snarling dog.  Saliva
dripped from the sides of its mouth and pooled on the ground.

"Jesus!" Mike felt the
saliva in his own mouth dry up.

The dog pounced with amazing
speed.  Mike had just enough time to release a small whimper before wicked
fangs clamped down on his throat.  He felt another set of jaws tearing into the
flesh of his arm, yanking him into the darkness of the porch.