My stomach clenching, I began to weep. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Go. Go! Live, Maddy. Don’t give up everything because of a dream long gone.” And then, Tom shoved his doppelganger toward the edge. The creature roared up, dark and frightening, made of bones and blood, and it turned on him, looming over the Tom I knew in a terrible fury.
I stumbled back. “Tom! No!”
“Maddy, I love you. Now get the hell out of here. Never come back. You can’t save me, but you can save yourself.” Running, he took off away from the edge, back the way he had come, with that horrible creature thundering after him.
Weeping, I stared into the mist, down deep in the chasm. One step and I knew I’d be on the other side, with Tom, wherever he might be.
“Maddy? Maddy? Come back to me.” A voice broke into my thoughts and I turned around. Aegis stood there in the twinkle of dusk and starlight, holding out his arms. He was real and substantial, vibrant with love and energy. I glanced over my shoulder, across the chasm where my Tom was screaming. Aching, horrified by what I had seen, I forced myself to slowly turn back, to face Aegis.
“Aegis, take me away from this pain. From this madness. Take me away from the loss and the ache and the memories.” I ran to him then, and he caught me up and spun me around, kissing my cheeks and my nose and my forehead and, finally, my lips.
“Come back with me, Maddy. Come back and be my love. Tom begged you to leave this place. He loved you enough to let you go. Let me love you enough to enter your life.”
Weeping, I wrapped my arm around Aegis’s neck as he carried me out of my memories, into the present, and into his heart.
Chapter 16
“SO, GO WITH me to rehearsal?” Aegis asked. We had made love, and showered together, and now I was eating a bowl of clam chowder, along with a handful of crackers. Aegis had declined to join me—he wanted to change out the strings on a new guitar he had bought.
“I wish I could go.” Franny appeared, startling us both. “I never get to do anything.” Great, she was on another one of her jags.
“When things settle down, I promise to look into what’s keeping you tied to the house.” I didn’t have the strength—or the heart—to yell at her.
She smiled at me, which was a little ghoulish, and then let out a mournful sigh that would have rivaled any melodrama on the stage.
“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you, Franny?” Aegis grinned at her.
“How rude can you get?” She glared at him for a moment, then flounced away, vanishing into the wall through the refrigerator.
“That always gives me the creeps when she does that,” I said. “Since when do you play guitar in the band?” My heart felt lighter than in decades. Tom had let me go and that had allowed me to let go of him.
“I can play. I can play a number of instruments. I just happen to be the singer. But Jorge may have to take a trip to visit his mother and I’d like to be able to fill in for him if we can’t find a guitarist to take over while he’s gone. We’re holding tryouts next week, but it never hurts to have a backup.” He grinned at me. “You’re my groupie, you know that?”
I snorted. “You have a lot of groupies, dude. Do you even realize how gorgeous you are?”
“Yeah, I do. But we make a good pair that way. You’re pretty fucking gorgeous yourself. I love your boobs and your ass…and your eyes and your neck and your mind.” He set down the guitar and moved behind me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders as I tried to balance the clam and potato on the spoon. Whispering, he began to nuzzle my ear. “I love your ears and your toes and your fingers and your—”
Laughing, I shook my head. “You’re tickling me now. Stop!” But I didn’t protest too loudly, and I ended up wearing some of my soup as he continued to tease me. Finally, he returned to his guitar.
“Yes, I’ll come to rehearsal. I haven’t been down there in a while and with everything that’s gone on lately, I need a break.”
“Good. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes? I promised the guys we’d start at eight-thirty pronto, and that we’d end by eleven. Sid’s wife really needs him to be home at a decent hour except for performance nights.”
I raised the bowl to my lips and drank the last drops of my soup, then grabbed my coat and stuffed my feet into a soft pair of fuzzy boots. Bubba yowled in protest—he didn’t want me going out—but I ruffled his hair.
“We’ll be home in a few hours, Bub. You’re safe here. Be good.” To Aegis, I said, “I’m going to take my own car just in case I need to leave early for some reason. With everything that’s gone on lately, who knows what the fuck will happen next?”
“Hopefully, a peaceful rehearsal and then we can come home and work on some of the details for the opening next week. Have you received any more bookings yet?” Aegis held the door for me, then locked it behind him as we exited the house.
“Actually, there were two online bookings today. I think my Prosperity spell is helping. But I still need to cleanse and ward the yard, given Rose’s death. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that earlier.”
“I’d say it’s because you’ve been busy with other things, maybe?” Aegis waited until I was safely inside my car and locked tight before heading toward his.
I eased out of the driveway with him following, and headed into the cloudy night. The skies were overcast but at least the snow was holding off. Given how much had fallen so far, come spring we’d best watch for flooding once all the white stuff started to melt.
By the time we got to Utopia where the band practiced during the weeknights when the club was closed, I was already regretting my choice to come. Not only had the temperature dropped to a balmy twenty-three—Fahrenheit—but I realized just how much energy the past few days had leeched out of me. I just wanted to go home, climb into jammies, and curl up under the covers with a good book. But I had promised Aegis and didn’t want to go back on my word.
I hauled ass into the club with Aegis behind me. The band members were setting up, and they waved when they saw me. I found the most comfortable chair in the club, and the row of bottles that Jack-Az allowed the boys to plunder, pouring myself a large glass of wine. As I sank into the overstuffed beanbag and stretched out my legs, it occurred to me this might not be so bad after all. If I fell asleep, Aegis could drive me home, then bring me back to get my car before dawn broke.
As they warmed up, I realized how much better they were sounding than even a few weeks ago. There were still some rough spots—Keth kept a good beat with the drums, but once in a while he would trip over a particularly grueling part. And Jorge’s fingers were fire on the guitar, but every now and then a riff would send him stumbling. But all in all, the more I heard, the more I had faith that they would actually land a record deal or make it big on their own. I wasn’t sure what their end goal was, I hadn’t thought to ask, but if they wanted to go big, there was a good chance they could make it.
They launched into a weaving medieval piece they had sexed up but then Sid suddenly stopped, shaking his head. “This is all wrong. To get the sounds we want, we need somebody who can play didgeridoos, shawms, and bagpipes.”
“Where are we going to find someone like that here on the island?” Aegis asked. “I’m not being facetious—I seriously want to know.”