Echoes of the Past

Chapter 7

Madame Gwendolyn drummed her fingers on the tabletop as she gave Eric a superior look that clearly told him she’d been expecting him. He really, really hadn’t wanted to come back to her, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d contemplated bringing David along with him this time but he still wasn’t ready for the questions that would undoubtedly raise. So here he sat in the psychic’s little office, not too sure how to begin.

“You believe me now?” she started for him with a smirk. “I told you he was for you, and you him.”

Eric snorted out of habit and slid down in his seat.

“You act more confident than you feel inside,” she chuckled. “It’s okay. I expected that from you, too.”

The dark haired man rolled his eyes but said nothing, admitting to himself that the woman wasn’t so crazy after all.

“Ah, and I must say I’m relieved to hear you think that!”

Damn it! Get out of my head!

“I’m not the one in your head,” she laughed. “And there is no escaping my spirit guides.”

Eric shook his head and cleared his throat. As much as his cynical side was urging him into an argument, his logical side reminded him that he needed her help right now. Charlene was a huge pain in his and David’s asses and he didn’t see a way to get rid of her on his own.

“Yes, she is quite a problem, isn’t she?” Gwendolyn sighed. “I would have warned you that she’d be trouble, had I known she was that close to finding you.”

Oh, God! Oh, shit! It’s related to David’s reading!

“Yes, it is.”

“Stop answering my thoughts,” he pleaded as he massaged his temple with one of his hands to get rid of an oncoming headache. “It’s hard enough to come to terms with … this!”

“I understand, child,” she smiled beneficently. “It is all happening rather suddenly, isn’t it?”

“Fuck yes it is! Who is this bitch and why won’t she leave us alone?”

Gwendolyn didn’t seemed fazed by his outburst and he struggled to regain control of himself while he waited for an answer.

“You remember David’s reading, yes?”

He gave her a pointed glare.

“I’ll take that as an affirmative,” she laughed. “You remember that I told you the sorcerer had a sister that you were to marry?”

He gulped and nodded mutely, knowing instinctively that he wasn’t going to like what she was about to tell him.

“Well, this woman you are having problems with is her.”

Fuck!

“Is there any way to get rid of her?”

For once, Gwendolyn lost her cocky smirk. She frowned deeply and looked down in regret. “I’m afraid it won’t be easy at all,” she sighed. “She’s been searching for you and David for many a millennium. And now that she knows where you are, well, she won’t be deflected.”

The headache that had made its coming known earlier seemed to thrum in his mind now. Even talking about her seemed to have adverse reactions on him.

“Okay, don’t start with the ‘I can’t tell you more right now’ shit,” he grunted. “I need information – as much of it as you can give me!”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” she shrugged. “But what I know comes from the spirit guides and if they withhold anything, I’ll have no way of knowing about it until later, when they want me to.”

“Figures!”

“Please understand! They’re on your side in this war.”

“War?!” he cried. “It’s a freaking war now?”

“Of course it is! David deprived her of something she considered her birthright and she’s been searching for him ever since. She’ll accept nothing but his defeat … and death.”

“DEATH?!”

“There is nothing merciful about her, and he knows this, or knew it anyway … back then. If she wins, she’ll do it over his dead body – literally.”

“So, we’ll die then? If she wins?”

“You won’t,” Gwendolyn said, her aged eyes gazing at him in pity. “But you’ll wish you did. You are the key … the treasure she seeks.” She tilted her head as if listening to someone, then smiled. “Yes, I see it now! That’s why you are the bigger of the two. David’s very smart.”

Wish I died? David made me the bigger? What the fuck?

“Um, can you at least explain what the hell that means?”

“Of course! I told you I would explain everything the guides show me.”

“But if they’re on my side, why can’t they show you everything?”

She smiled at him again. “It’s not for me to tell them what to do. They’re the wise ones and they know how to use their knowledge to help you. You have to trust them.”

He thought of that sour faced-woman and shuddered. Better to trust them than go it alone.

“Exactly,” she smiled. “Now, here is what I know.”

-------------------------------------------

Eric sat back against his couch and swallowed a big gulp of beer as he contemplated everything he’d learned from Gwendolyn. It gave him another headache, but he knew what he had to do now. She’d explained it all carefully and he was following her instructions. He looked down at his blue shirt and his torn ultra cool Aeropostale jeans and smirked. Normally he didn’t waste wearing an outfit like this just for sitting at home. But he had a purpose.

The door to his place banged open and David marched in with purpose. He was wearing a pink t-shirt and a pair of pink slacks. No dress this time, but pink nonetheless. The pendant was again dangling from his neck. He looked Eric over for about two seconds before he pounced on him, pulling at the dark stud’s clothes.

“Hold on a sec,” Eric laughed. “We have to talk first!”

“Talk’s overrated,” David whined.

“Hey, this is the only way I can get through to you, the sorcerer.”

“Huh?” David stopped pulling at the blue shirt and looked down at his lover in surprise.

“I have to explain things through our dreams,” Eric sighed. “When you’re awake, you don’t believe me.”

“I do so.”

David looked hurt with the assessment so Eric pulled his lips down for a short kiss before he went on.

“I went to see Gwendolyn today,” he said. “And she told me what all’s been happening with Charlene.”

“Gah!” David shuddered and dismounted, taking a seat on the couch next to Eric. “Way to kill a hard on!”

“Can we try to be serious for a second?”

“You can if you want,” David sighed, picking a piece of lint off his trousers. “But I promise nothing.”

“I’ll bet you’ll find it interesting,” he said before taking another swig of beer. “Charlene’s your long lost sister … the one you saved me from.”

David’s eyes shot back to his and he stared entranced at him, silently bidding him to continue.

“Seems you intentionally swapped our body types to throw her off sometime before we were born,” Eric added. “But she’s onto us.”

“She thinks I’m the one she needs though,” David murmured.

“Uh huh. And that’s not all.”

David sucked in a breath and held it for a few seconds then exhaled slowly and nodded for Eric to finish.

“Annie’s a plant,” he said sadly. “Charlene sucked her personality … hell, her whole mind out. She’s in every way her slave, and her mission is to keep me occupied while Charlene goes after you.”

“But then it’s simple to cut the connection,” David smiled. “Dump Annie.”

“Not so simple,” Eric sighed and looked away. “Annie wasn’t her first attempt to get to us. She’s the second girl, but the first few attempts were guys.”

“She thought you were gay.”

“She knew I was. You’re the one who suppressed it in me so that it took Madame Gwendolyn to help me uncover it.”

David looked contrite as he sighed again. “I couldn’t stand to watch you date other men, okay? Women didn’t bother me because I knew when the spell broke they wouldn’t have a hold on you.”

“Yeah, well, guess what Charlene does with the slaves I resist.”

“I don’t know. Frees them?”

“No. She kills them. Remember Kevin Drake from junior high?”

“The kid who fell off his roof?”

“Uh huh. Right after I punched him for trying kiss me in the locker room,” Eric replied, not relishing the look of horror on David’s face. “And John Price?”

“He and Andy Gilmore killed themselves after high school in some suicide pact … no?”

“No. John came on to me in the bar one night and Andy followed up when he struck out. That must have been when Charlene realized I was straight in this lifetime.”

“Holy fuck!” David looked away then back quickly. “Who was the other girl?”

“Miranda Pitts.”

David groaned and shut his eyes tightly. Miranda had been the girl who’d accused Eric of fathering her child. Later on, when it was clear she hadn’t been pregnant, she’d disappeared and no one heard from her again. Eric had assumed she’d been humiliated and left town. Now he wondered where Charlene had hidden the body.

“So you see, if I dump Annie, she’ll die.”

“If you stay with her, Charlene has a connection to you,” David replied. “And there’s more of a chance for her to figure out I’m not you.”

“Gwendolyn couldn’t tell me what that would lead to,” Eric said. “But you know, don’t you?”

David looked back at him with an unreadable expression. “That’s not important right now.”

“The hell it isn’t!”

“It isn’t.” David reached out and tore Eric’s shirt off then repeated the process with his jeans. Eric tried to push him away at first, but he’d never been able to resist the redhead before and this time proved no different. “Just relax,” David purred as he pulled down Eric’s boxers and took his burgeoning cock in his hand.

He licked it from base to tip a few times, until he had Eric whimpering and pleading for more. Then he smiled just before he deep throated the hard shaft and sucked on it hard. When Eric was about to reach release, David slowed and pulled back a bit, causing Eric to whimper again and groan his displeasure. David suddenly sucked hard on the cock again, like a tornado, but again pulled back before Eric could come.

“Please!” Eric finally shouted out after the fourth aborted orgasm.

“That’s better,” David murmured. “I want you only thinking of me right now.”

He quickly deep throated the cock again and sucked hard, this time pushing Eric over the edge into an orgasm that had the dark haired man thinking he would burst into flames. He awoke on his couch drenched in sweat and cum … and screaming David’s name at the top of his lungs.