Blood From a Stone Read online

  “You’re welcome. I only wish that I could promise you more. This time we’ve had….I will hold on to for as long as I exist….no matter how long that may be.”

  “We’ve spent all week just enjoying our time and not worrying about this curse. But when we get home, we’re going to find a way. There has to be something we can do.” she said firmly.

  “I can only hope you’re right, my lady.” He kissed her softly and then helped her back into the car.

  Twenty-four hours later their plane landed back in the states and they were all too happy to return to the cozy warmth of Willow’s house, where Cisco came bounding out and nearly knocked them over with joy at their arrival.

  “I missed you guys!” said Sasha as she hugged Willow and then Samson. “And…he’s been a good boy all week, but I could tell he missed you,” she added reaching down to pat Cisco’s soft golden head, once he’d calmed down enough to sit still for a moment.

  “Do you want to hang out for awhile so I can show you some of the pictures?” said Willow.

  “Oh, twist my arm,” laughed Sasha. “OF course I

  want to see the pics and hear all about it. But are you sure you’re not too tired. My God, that was a long flight back.”

  “Well, yeah…I’m totally spent,” said Willow as

  Samson headed over to the couch to plunk down. Cisco wasted no time bounding over and jumping in his lap.

  “Listen,” she continued, “why don’t we just wait til tomorrow or whenever? There’s no hurry. I’ll go home and you guys rest and I’ll call you in the morning. When are you back on duty?”

  “I’m actually off until Monday” said Willow. “But I may drop by before then…you know to say hi.” She smiled.

  What she really meant was that she might drop in to pick up some syringes and vials to collect samples of Samson’s blood. Because their time was running out.

  Sasha nodded. “K. I’ll talk to you later and maybe tomorrow we can have dinner. Bye, Samson!” She hugged Willow and headed out the door.

  Willow turned to Samson and his furry companion on the couch. “What time is it anyway? I’m so out of whack. I feel like I could sleep for a week!” She laughed then suddenly stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I guess that was pretty insensitive of me.”

  His brows knit together. “What?”

  “Well sleeping for a week. I mean you sort of….sleep…for fifty years at a time.”

  He laughed. “Well…it’s more like being under general anesthesia. But I guess it qualifies as ‘sleep’.”

  “Ha. Ha. It’s not funny,“ she said, giving him the school marm look. “We do have to get busy and spend some more time on this rhyme thing. And tomorrow I’m going to go pick up some vials and syringes. I’ll have to smuggle them out. But if there’s some kind of abnormal readings in your blood work, it will give me something to go by.”

  He nodded and stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to go check on the apartment and pick up my mail…run a couple of errands.“ He hesitated for a few moments before deciding to just tell her the truth. “I want to go check on the old man. You might want to contact the boy’s parents too…just to make sure he’s still doing alright.”

  She nodded and grabbed her house key and handed it to him. “Here. Just let yourself back in.”

  “I’ll be back in time for a late dinner. Do you want me to pick something up or go somewhere?”

  “I’d rather just take a hot shower, and stay in if that’s okay with you,” she said as she laid back on the couch.

  He walked over and kissed her softly before heading out the door. “I’ll be back in just a bit.”

  Samson headed out into the frigid air and straight to the shelter to check in on Harold. He walked through the door and looked a bit worried when he didn’t see him in the main room. He walked to the information desk.

  “There was an older man here last week….his name’s Harold. Tall. Thin,” Samson said.

  The short stocky woman at the desk nodded. “Oh, yes! He’s out right now. He’s found a part time job working at the grocery store. He comes back here to sleep and clean up. He’s saving money to get out on his own. Maybe in one of our half-way house programs.”

  Samson smiled. “That’s good to hear. What store is he working at?”

  “Well, I can’t really give out personal information, but if you come back here in about two more hours, he should be off work,” she said politely.

  “Maybe I’ll do that. But if I can’t make it back here tonight, please tell him I stopped in and give him my best.”

  The lady nodded and Samson walked back out the door. He was relieved beyond words to know the old man was still doing fine and it warmed his heart to know that he had in fact kept his word and was working toward a life of self sufficiency.

  And he found to his amazement, that despite the utterly shitty circumstances of the curse being the reason he was even able to help, he was indeed grateful that he’d had the opportunity to help Harold.

  As he walked by the side of the building he saw movement through the corner of his eye in the parking lot across the street at the convenience store. He heard yelling and a moment later three shots rang out and three youths ran from the site as another lay on the pavement in a growing pool of blood. He raced across the street to find a teenage boy of about 16 dying before his eyes. A bubble of blood came up through his lips as Samson held him there gasping for breath as blood pooled in his lungs.

  Samson inhaled deeply. He had only a moment to decide what to do…and of course, he knew that once again, it bore the possibility of passing on his curse. There was no time for thought only action. Samson bit hard into his wrist and squeezed a few drops onto the boy’s tongue desperately hoping it would take effect before anyone inside the store who’d heard the shots might step outside.

  A second later Samson felt the tingle as white hot heat and a surge of lightning-like electricity rippled through his veins. The boy sucked in a ragged breath and opened his eyes.

  Samson used his shirt sleeve to wipe the sweat off the kid’s brow, and sat steady despite the dizzying sensation ripping through his body.

  Samson could feel him: the boy’s name was Daniel. He’d been hanging out with his buddies and harsh words had soon turned to violence over no more than a bag of weed and a few beers. The boy sat up as his ashen pallor faded and was replaced by a more healthy color, looking a bit dazed and then horrified to see the blood on his white shirt.

  “It’s okay, Daniel,” Samson nodded. “You’re fine.”

  The young man slowly stood up examining himself all over before looking Samson in the eye. “You saved my life. I…don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. In fact I would be very grateful if you pretend you never saw me?” He smiled and nodded, knowing the boy could feel his mind right now quite clearly.

  Daniel shook his hand. “Thank you, Samson? Your name’s Samson isn’t it.” He looked slightly shaken as the sensation faded away and he could no longer feel Samson’s soul within his own. “I guess I‘ll see you around, someday, man. I know you‘re looking over my shoulder.”

  Samson smiled. “Not exactly. I was just at the right place at the right time.” He shrugged. “I’d better get out of here….there’s someone coming out of the store.” A police siren suddenly wailed in the distance, growing louder as it approached the nearby intersection.

  “What do I say about all the blood?“ Daniel said looking terrified. “What if they think I killed someone?”

  “Take off the shirt and toss it. Wash yourself up over there with the water hose and tell the cops they shot at you and missed. No one will ever know what really happened. Except the guys who did this to you.“ He smiled. “I’m sure it will scare the living shit out of them when they see you tomorrow alive and well. Karma has a way of kicking your ass….and it will kick theirs. Trust me on that one.”

  His face took on a more se
rious expression. “And, if you don’t get yourself on the right path it’ll kick yours too, son.”

  Daniel nodded as Samson turned on his heel and ran back across the street and jumped in his truck. Willow wasn’t going to be happy when she heard about this, he was sure, but he’d had to make another of those choices Maximus had predicted.

  Through the blood of thy will….

  Suddenly, that line really did seem to make perfect sense to him. Every time he’d given blood, it had been in an instance where death was imminent had he not intervened. And of his own free will…with no motive whatsoever, he’d stepped in and given the gift of life. And in those moments time truly did stand still. And apparently it turned time backward for the recipient as well.

  But that wasn’t the deeper meaning of it. It was instead: that no matter how little time we have, the only thing that really matters is what we do with it. Because it only takes one instant to do something powerful enough to equal an eternity.

  He wondered if this realization was actually the answer he’d been looking for. Was he now free of his curse? Ironically….only time would tell. He wished that Guardian Adrielle was here so he could ask her but her visits seemed to be as random and unexpected as the wind.

  He drove the short distance to his apartment, and stopped by the office to pick up his mail before heading back over to Willow’s house.

  He pulled in, jumped out and practically ran up to Willow’s porch and in the door, before Cisco even had time to bark a warning.

  Willow was sitting on the couch watching the evening news and was startled by his abrupt entry.

  “Hey! You scared me,” she smiled as he leaned in and kissed her plunking down hard on the couch.

  “Listen,” he sighed. “I maybe figured something out, but you’re probably going to not like how I figured it out.”

  “Say what?” she said looking confused. “Slow down.”

  He took a deep breath. “I stopped by the shelter to check on Harold. Don’t worry, he’s fine. And when I came out…something happened across the street.”

  “Go on,” she said cautiously.

  “This is the part you might not like,” he said matter- of-factly. “But here goes. There was some kids across the street and they got into a fight and one of them got shot.”

  Willow drew in a deep breath, because she already knew what he was about to say.

  “And you know what I had to do. He was….dying. He was lying there in a pool of blood. And I walked over there and well, you know what came next.”

  She nodded reaching out to take his hand. “It’s alright. You were given this ability for a reason. I know that now.”

  Samson continued excitedly. “Afterward, this kid….his name was Daniel, he got up and walked away and I told him that if he didn’t change his path he was going to end up in trouble. And I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I don’t know but I realized something this time. I realized that it’s not about how much time we have, it’s about what we do with it that matters. Time really does stand still, and it’s like there is no time at all when we are doing something in this world of value.”

  He sighed. “I don’t know if this realization will make a difference, or whether it will change my fate, but even if it doesn’t, it’s something that has changed me.”

  Willow snuggled in close to his body. “How will we know?”

  “We won’t for sure, until the full moon comes again.”

  She nodded. “I still want to get some blood samples.”

  “I know. Tomorrow,” He said quietly as he kissed the top of her head. “Now, how about if we get a pizza and find a movie?”

  “That sounds wonderful,” she said leaning into him. She sat up suddenly as she felt a shiver running up his body and noticed that he was drenched in sweat. She reached up and felt his head. He was cold and looked pale. “Are you alright?”

  He leaned his head back against the pillows on the couch. “Yeah. This happens every time I heal someone. It usually passes in a few minutes. I get really cold and weak.”

  He got up and padded to the bathroom. “I’m going to splash some water on my face, if you’ll order.” She nodded, but still looked worried.

  A few minutes later he came back from he bathroom looking like nothing had happened. Their pizza arrived shortly thereafter and they settled in for a cozy night in front of the television.

  C HAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was day twenty-eight.

  The sun peeked through the blinds of Willow’s bedroom window, and Samson woke up feeling an old familiar sensation in his bones that brought a sense of dread like none he’d ever known. The chill was starting…only his chill wasn’t like the one he felt when he healed someone. This was different and he instantly recognized the feeling. It always began as a cold sweat and a mild sluggishness in his muscles that would slowly grow over the course of the day, making his heart beat like a heavy piece of lead and his lungs strain with every breath as he struggled to keep going, and finally culminating in a complete shutting down of his body, his organs and his senses as he turned into a solid block of stone.

  He had given Willow blood samples over a week ago, and though she had tested for everything under the sun and looked for any possible abnormality, nothing showed up. His blood readings were completely normal.

  They’d shared something of a normal existence over the past several days as they cooked an early dinner every day before she left for work, and watched a late night movie when she’d get home around 11:30pm. They’d savored long nights wrapped in the heat of their passion and the warmth of each other’s arms. They’d touched each other’s souls, shared some good laughs with Sasha and watched videos of their trip.

  He’d hoped beyond hope that his realization about making his time on earth truly matter might be the answer he’d been searching for in breaking the curse, but in this moment, he knew that it was not to be. And he knew he’d better get his ass moving to get a few things done before his time ran out within the next 36 hours.

  He stared down at her there sleeping and the thought of leaving her behind…his beautiful, Willow, so full of life and love….nearly choked him with emotion. The vision of her trying to be strong while her heart was breaking as she watched him turn from man to gargoyle felt like a knife buried deep in his chest. But he also knew that she’d never forgive him if he abandoned her now to spare her the agony of it.

  He got out of bed and dragged his tired body to the bathroom to clean up. There were final preparations to be made in the next several hours.

  Even so, he wasn’t ready to let her know just yet, what was happening. Perhaps it was better to let her hold on to her hope until there was none left to be had.

  He got dressed and padded over to where she lay sleeping peacefully, kissing her cheek and nuzzling her neck. “Hey. I’m going to run out and do a few errands. I’ll be back in just a little bit.”

  She smiled, still half asleep and kissed him lightly before drifting back into her peaceful slumber.

  Samson patted Cisco on the head and walked out the door into the chilly morning air to go to his apartment to pick up a few things he’d prepared over the past week or so, in the event this day came despite his best efforts to thwart it.

  Adrielle looked worried. The Changeling had indeed come to some very important and life-altering conclusions. He was indeed a changed man in every sense of the word and had earned his rightful place among their kind. But, despite that great stride in his evolution, he’d failed to figure out the most important part of his curse. And, until he knew what that was, he was still bound by it.

  She was not permitted to tell him anything more…in fact she’d already told him too much… for unless he found out for himself, it would do him no good at all. And if he didn’t come to his epiphany very, very soon, he would indeed be condemned to another 10 cycles. The aura of golden light energy around her seemed to dim in parallel with her concern.

  Suddenly she smiled as an idea beg
an to form in her mind. The rulebook said she could not give the Changeling any more clues. But…it said nothing about the woman, Willow Dalton!

  Willow was walking along the beach and she could hear a far off song in the distance, as the gentle waves lapped against her feet and the warmth of the sun kissed her face. Where was it coming from? She couldn’t tell, but as she neared a large outcropping of rocks she could see someone sitting in the water.

  It looked like a little girl. As she drew nearer she could see that the girl was sitting down in the water and she gasped as she walked up and saw the girl had…a tail! She was a mermaid.

  Willow began to hear the sing-song in her head again. “Freedom is naught but a state of mind.” Over and over it played and a moment later the little mermaid with the long golden hair smiled and dove into the surf.

  Her eyes popped open and she sat up abruptly in bed. What a strange dream that had been! She shook off her grogginess and headed to the bathroom to clean up, before coffee in the kitchen.

  Samson returned a couple hours later, as Willow sat at her dining room table staring at the paper on which she’d written the words of the curse.

  He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling her neck.

  ‘Oh! Damn your nose is cold,” she said, turning around to greet him. But her smile soon faded when she saw how pale he looked and the dark circles under his eyes. She reached up and felt his forehead and neck. He was so cold all over.

  “Samson….” her voice trailed off as the realization hit her in the pit of her stomach as to what may be happening. She shook her head and took one of his hands in her own, bringing his palm to her cheek. “Please…please tell me it’s not time. This can’t be happening.”

  He stared at her for a moment as a feeling of weakness washed over him. “I think I’m going to have to go lay down soon,” he said quietly. “It’ll get worse as the day wears on.”