Immortal Souls (The Immortal Souls: Magic & Chaos)

Book 2 - Chapter 22

Sam looked to the desk where Jamie had made himself comfortable. He had his legs stretched out in front of him and was leaning back in his chair, playing a game on a Nintendo DS, not paying any attention to the teacher's ramblings or to the people around him. And none of them paid any attention to him. They acted as if he was sitting there taking notes, or paying full attention. Sam stretched her senses out slightly; she didn't need to push too far to catch the scent of Magic in the air. And she knew immediately that it was Magic that belonged to Jamie.

Vampire Magic didn't have the same aura as regular Magic. Because technically it wasn't regular Magic, it was more of a psychic wave of energy. Regular Magic always made the air feel either light or heavy, depending on the type that was used, however, Vampire Magic felt completely normal.

It didn't change how the air felt, except sometimes in the moment the Vampire released the thought that influenced the minds of other beings. Everyone had the potential to be affected by Vampire mind tricks. The only reason Sam held an immunity was because of the sheer amount of Power she possessed.

The only way anyone else would know that a Vampire was playing mind tricks was to either have a will strong enough to try resist it, or to have heightened senses that enabled them to sense when Power had been used.

Sam sent a burst of her Magic into the air, an invisible shield that would protect her from sight. A perception filter of sorts that would make it appear as though she were sitting in her seat taking notes. Which she assumed was the same image Jamie was projecting into everyone's heads.

"What are you doing?" she asked, not making any attempt to hide her irritation at his presence.

"Playing Zelda," he replied, not taking his eyes off the game while he spoke.

Sam rolled her eyes and sighed internally. "I meant what are you doing here?"

"Had to be me," he stated, chewing his lip while trying to talk to Sam and concentrate on his game at the same time. "Danny's been here before, Jack looks too old, Jade graduated last year and no one knows me, so I was the only one who could do it."

"Why do you have to be here at all!" Sam yelled, instinctively turning to see if anyone had heard her even though she knew they hadn't.

Jamie paused his game and set the console down on the desk. He turned to her, biting his lip, looking as though he was deciding whether or not to tell her something. After a moment of silence, he sighed, his shoulders dropped, and he ran his hand through his hair, a gesture Sam had come to understand as him making an effort to think of some words. "Because . . . " he started, eyeing her intently. "You weren't you when you woke up."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, her expression showing her confusion. "Everyone was there when I woke up and I'm pretty sure I was me, if I wasn't I would remember it."

"Exactly," he said. "You don't remember it. You were awake the night you . . . " He chewed his lip again and hesitated before continuing. "That night you were awake. It was maybe two, three am, I was out in the woods, surrounded by Vampire Hunters, then you showed up, your clothes covered in blood. You killed three of them and sent one home with a message, and then you looked at me and you were . . . you looked different. You sounded different and . . . "

Sam was listening to what he was saying, coming to the conclusion that she must have woken up in a state of shock or something, then wandered off. "And what?" she prompted.

He gave her a look that was somewhere between confusion and trepidation. "You called me James." He spoke quickly, as if he needed to get the words out before his brain had too much time to process what he was saying.

Sam raised an eyebrow, not sure why calling him by the wrong name while she was half unconscious was such a big deal. Obviously she hadn't been thinking straight and got the words confused and blurted out whatever name she could think of at the time. Not that she could know for sure what her thought process had been considering the fact that she still had no recollection of this whatsoever.

"Um . . . sorry?" she said, wondering why he looked scared and confused by what she'd called him. Was he worried she had a secret boyfriend or something? Knowing Jamie, that was probably it. "You can't hold me responsible for calling you the wrong name when I was half unconscious and in a state of shock. And by the way, I don't remember any of this."

Jamie smiled a little, his fearful expression now holding a hint of amusement. "You weren't wrong."

"What?"

"For all legal intents and purposes my name is James. What's strange is that you didn't know that, yet somehow you did."

Sam shrugged. "Well, I must have heard you say it, or maybe I saw it written down somewhere," she rationalised, trying frantically to think of where she'd heard or seen it.

Jamie shook his head. "I haven't gone by James since before I was Turned. That was almost two centuries ago. The only place it is written down is my grave, which I highly doubt you've ever been to. I never told you, and I wouldn't have considering I haven't used it in so long. But that's not the part that worries me, the part that worries me is that the person who spoke used your body, but it wasn't you. I could tell Sam, until the moment you regained consciousness you were empty."

"What do you mean empty?" Sam asked louder than she'd meant to.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair again. "It's difficult to explain," he said. "When I got you home I went inside your head to make sure you were okay. When you go into someone's mind there's walls, and noises, and—"

"I know what it's like inside someone's head," Sam interrupted.

Jamie nodded. "If I tried to go into your mind right now, there'd be nothing but a steel wall, and behind that an electrified fence that surrounded another steel wall, you're full of barriers, you're closed off, even when you're sleeping—"

"And you know that how?" Sam interrupted again, eyeing him suspiciously.

"My point is," he continued without answering, "not only did you not have any barriers, you had no sounds, or words, or pictures. There was nothing in there whatsoever. It was like . . . " He paused for a moment to think. "It was like you were a body with no soul inside."

"But, I'm fine now," Sam declared, despite the fact that she didn't feel completely sure of that fact. Ever since she'd woken up she'd felt different, though she wasn't entirely sure in what way, she just knew there was something off.

Jamie gave her a sceptical look, indicating that he also wasn't completely convinced that she was fine. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Where do you keep going?"

Sam tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean? . . . I've been with you the whole time."

Jamie tapped on the side of his head. "Up here, where do you keep going? You've been zoning in and out non-stop since you woke up."

"I haven't been completely zoned out," Sam protested.

Jamie raised a sceptical eyebrow at her. "The other day, everyone had a conversation about you while you sat right there. Do you know what the conversation was about?"

Sam scoffed. "You're lying, that so didn't happen."

"We were talking about how you keep zoning out," Jamie said. "And what confuses me is how I seem to be the only one who thinks that it's not just a normal readjustment symptom."

"Who said it was?"

"Jack did."

Sam smiled confidently. "Well then, if Jack says it's normal, then it must be."

Jamiesighed in defeat, picked up his Nintendo and unpaused his game. "Whatever yousay."