Stillbringer (Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1)

by Zile Elliven

  He closed his eyes. He’d still be able to hear them if they tried anything. For the count of one hundred and thirty breaths, he listened to his heart race. His captors stayed silent, allowing him the illusion of solitude. When his heartbeat slowed, he saw past the bloodlust burning in his mind. It allowed him to start thinking again.

  Fourteen’s first thought was that this fight wasn’t anything like his earlier battles with witches. From the moment the Blaikes arrived on the scene, they did nothing but throw spells, heedless of innocent bystanders. This skirmish, while brief, was nearly one-sided. Now that he wasn’t being controlled by the mess inside his head, he could see the possibility that the people he’d battled might not be part of the Blaike family.

  Everything inside of him stopped. His stomach lurched, as he realized he might have just attacked innocent people. It didn’t matter to him that they could easily take care of themselves. He wondered what Aeyli would think of him.

  Without opening his eyes, he asked, “Are you Blaikes?”

  An audible sigh of relief came from his left. “No, we’re guardians, actually. We were brought here by a blanket spell. We set one up over the city to let us know if another magical battle occurred. We almost didn’t come, you know.” He could hear amusement in the man’s voice. “The spell claimed that a battle was both happening and not happening at the same time. I’m guessing that had something to do with you.”

  “Guardians.” Fourteen opened his eyes. “That means nothing to me.” Which was a lie. He remembered Aeyli saying something about the Guard shortly after he met her. It wasn’t a stretch to assume the guardians were connected to it in some way, but he preferred to play dumb. It was his favorite method for gathering information from a potential hostile.

  The blue shield went transparent, revealing the face of the man he’d tried to murder in cold blood, moments earlier. Instead of anger, he saw calm in his eyes. “We are members of the Guard, an organization that oversees the magical community. Guardians are like peacekeepers. We try to keep everyone, including norms like yourself—” His speech was interrupted by a snort from the rainbow sphere.

  The sphere became transparent as Jack said, “If you think this guy is a norm, you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “I just meant that he has no inner magic. Obviously there is something different about him, er, you.” The man turned his attention back to Fourteen. “Forgive my rudeness, I’m usually better at this sort of thing. The past twenty-four hours have been . . . especially challenging. I’m Marshall, by the way.”

  The third sphere became transparent as well, but the woman inside stayed silent, her face radiating a calm presence similar to Marshall’s.

  Fourteen didn’t know what to think of these people. He’d done everything in his power to kill them. Up to now, that had meant the target died, sometimes horribly. His captors should be raging at him, torturing him, or even killing him, but instead he was getting an exposition. He rolled his aching shoulder and wondered if they would feel threatened if he reached into his pocket for some aspirin. Deciding not to chance it, he tucked the pain away behind a door in his mind.

  “Peacekeeper Marshall, huh?”

  “Guardian Marshall, actually, but yeah. We’re the good guys.”

  “You realize that’s something a bad guy would say, right?” He should know.

  “Ye-es-ss,”—Marshall drew the word out into three syllables—“but, for right now, let’s say for the sake of argument we aren’t. On the off chance that we are all on the same side, it couldn’t hurt us all to talk for a moment, can it?”

  “Being trapped doesn’t make me feel very chatty,” he said pointedly.

  “And having someone try to fill me with holes doesn’t make me feel very chatty, either.” The woman—Adelle, he thought he’d heard her called—was looking down at him with reproach.

  Marshall gave her a hard look and said, “Can we call a truce for five minutes? You promise not to attack us, and we’ll let you out. Sound fair?”

  Fourteen had broken promises before because, until now, they had meant nothing to him. Only a man could be held accountable for his actions; he had been merely a tool.

  Not anymore.

  After meeting Aeyli, he was more than a tool. He could decide what kind of man he would be. The only marker he had for being a man was the dim memory of his father—he couldn’t count anyone in the Company. What kind of man had his father been?

  He was hit by the memory of being swung around in the air by strong arms. He had been crying about . . . something. The memory flitted away as he tried to go deeper. In seconds, it was gone entirely, but it was enough. His father was strength and safety. If he had to, he would guess his father had been an honorable man.

  “Agreed. Five minutes.”

  Besides, Aeyli had likened the Guard to norm police officers earlier when she’d tried to fill him in about her family and he knew how to deal with them. It was worth the risk to gain intel.

  His prison fell away as his captors let their shields shrink back down to spheres. Fourteen took the opportunity to rise to his feet and position himself so he could face all three guardians at the same time. His hands itched to check his weapons, but it didn’t seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the truce. He refrained, instead taking a mental inventory.

  “Can you tell us what happened here?” Marshall asked.

  Fourteen told them the pertinent details but left out the parts between himself and Aeyli. He may not understand much about being a man, but he knew those moments weren’t for anyone other than himself.

  “So you just let her get taken while you ran away?” The blonde woman’s voice could have melted steel.

  He didn’t trust these people enough to tell them why he had no choice but to leave Aeyli. He didn’t care what they thought, but the accusation bounced around inside his chest, burning as it hit the places that could feel. Having an emotional landscape was crippling. How did people live like this?

  “She ordered me to go!” He began to pace as he felt the bloodlust rise once more. When he saw the guardians’ shields grow brighter, he realized he was growling again and stopped. “There is more to this than I plan on telling you. Suffice it to say Aeyli has been taken by her family, and I will get her back.”

  The three guardians looked at one another, frowning.

  Finally Marshall stepped forward and said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but there isn’t much you can do against the Blaikes.” He held up his hands at Fourteen’s snarl, placatingly. “Don’t get me wrong, you have some unique skills and features that have allowed you to make it much further than any other norm could have, but if you go in, you’re going to get yourself killed. Come back to the Chapter House with us. You can tell us anything else you might think that could help. We will get her back, I promise.”

  Adelle’s glare at Marshall told him exactly how she felt about him coming back to their base of operation.

  “Seriously, we’ll get her back, okay? Trust us, it’s what we do.”

  Fourteen thought about it and decided it had been five minutes, give or take. He pulled an item out of one of his pockets, casually tossed it on the ground, then turned and walked away. As the stun grenade went off, amid the sounds of cursing behind him as he ran for his bike, he heard Jack say, “. . . and he’s gone.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Fourteen

  He looked over his shoulder and swore—his bag was gone. That’s what he got for only doing a mental inventory. He had to remedy that immediately. There was no excuse for being caught flat-footed.

  Shading his eyes against the early morning sun, he sought out a safe place to regroup. After finding an appropriate alley, he pulled in and checked himself from top to bottom. He had his empty SIG, but no ammo, his loaded Glock and a spare magazine, two throwing daggers, a Bowie knife, three grenades, two packets of aspirin, medical tape, a pack of crackers and a granola bar. It wasn’t going to be enough.

  T
he warehouse with all its gadgets and secret compartments filled with supplies was useless to him now. He didn’t know enough about his shield to trust it to keep him from triggering any spells the guardians or Blaikes might set to alert them of his return. He could restock his supplies from one of his caches around the city, but he couldn’t replace his SUV. The loss made him wish he could have given Marshall’s pretty face a few new bruises for the trouble he was causing. It irritated Fourteen that all three guardians were completely unscathed after their fight and he was reduced to racing for his closest supply dump.

  Anger returned, a white-hot reminder that he could no longer control himself. How was he supposed to function when he kept getting blindsided like this? If he didn’t rein it in, would he return to the warehouse, intent on revenge? He couldn’t afford to rage out of control again. It was an enemy he had to defeat if he was going to get Aeyli back.

  Fourteen knew from experience, the first step in killing someone was to know everything about them, so he observed the emotion as it tore its way through his chest. The anger burned brighter at the attention, but he watched it, waiting to see what it would do next. To his surprise, it flickered and weakened, almost like it could only gain power over him if he were unaware. He continued to watch the emotion until it turned into a low pulse in his chest, easily ignored.

  Then other unfamiliar feelings burst to life inside of him. Uncomfortable as it was, he watched them, wary they too might try to take him over. He was interested to see that, after a short struggle, the emotions wilted under his regard just like the anger had.

  Could it be so simple? Was observation the key to controlling the ridiculous inferno of emotions that kept ripping him apart? He was no stranger to vigilance; it was part of what made him a good sniper.

  Unbidden, a memory came to him of being cold and dirty while lying in wait on top of a cliff. He had been there, unmoving for days, waiting for the president of a small country to sneak off to go hunting like Fourteen’s handler claimed he liked to do. After day four, Fourteen had gotten lucky and completed his mission with the simple pull of a trigger.

  The president had been a good man and took care of his people. His only crime had been standing in the way of a company that wanted certain mining rights. His death sent the country into chaos and allowed the company to install a puppet as their new president. And Fourteen had made it all possible for them.

  Fourteen’s head pounded, and his vision blurred as rage stomped on him with unforgiving, steel-toed boots. The anger had returned and brought backup. He was going to kill the Colonel for what he had done. What he had made Fourteen do.

  Against his better judgment, he allowed the emotion free rein and watched it as it rose and tore through him, rending parts of himself he couldn’t even comprehend. When pain lanced through his temple, Fourteen was caught off guard and staggered over to brace himself against the brick wall of the alley. All he wanted was to fight, to kill, to destroy everything and everyone in his path to vengeance. Emotion was a monster digging its claws into his gut, gleefully tearing out whatever it found. How could anyone survive this? He felt like he was coming apart at the seams—he was a fool to think this would work. His rage was going to tear him to shreds and destroy everything that made him a person, leaving nothing but a soulless killer.

  The stark terror on Aeyli’s face as she ordered him away shoved its way into the forefront of his mind. If he gave in to his need for revenge, he wouldn’t be able to help her. The Colonel would pay. But not today.

  The monster thundering through him had proven too much tackle head-on, so instead he focused on the pain in his skull—on the physical manifestation of his anger. His attention made it flare up, and he saw double as white-hot pain throbbed in his head. He focused through the pain—it was an old friend. Abruptly, it lessened. His mind went from uncontrollable chaos to a manageable whirlwind in seconds. It was still there, but it was no longer kicking his ass.

  He pressed his face against the cool brick and breathed a sigh of relief. Cautiously he poked at the anger, making sure it would stay in formation. It flickered defiantly but had none of the bite from a moment ago. When he was certain he was in control, he peeled his body away from the wall.

  This was going to work. He wasn’t sure if this was how civilians dealt with emotions, but it was how he was going to do it.

  Shaking fingers pulled out a packet of aspirin and tore it open, tapped the pills onto his tongue, and he dry-swallowed them. He considered the hole in the back of his shoulder—he could rig a makeshift bandage using medical tape and his shirt, but reaching it was going to be a challenge. He rolled his shoulder, testing it for impaired performance and found it to be satisfactory. Blood flow was minimal. Prognosis: it could be ignored with few repercussions.

  He swung a leg over his bike, hit the ignition, and pulled in the clutch. With now-steady hands and a mind—temporarily—under his control, he let out the clutch while rolling back the throttle and darted into traffic. Outraged honks and shouting faded swiftly as he gained speed.

  Would Aeyli like his Suzuki Hayabusa as much as he did? He had a feeling the freedom it gave would appeal to her and made a mental note to take her for a ride after he got her back.

  ✽✽✽

  The first place he went to resupply was a bust. The abandoned gas station had deteriorated so badly the ceiling had caved in, burying the floorboard he needed access to under tons of rubble. What had originally made it perfect for his purposes ended up making it unusable now.

  He had been banking on the gas station to resupply. The Company had no knowledge of this spot, so they wouldn’t think to come here looking for him. And they would be looking for him by now—it had been forty-eight hours since he had last checked in. Protocol dictated checking in once a mission was complete. After twenty-four hours passed with no sign of him or his handlers, they would send out a team to find out what had happened. The only reason they hadn’t found him yet was because they knew nothing about his warehouse. The other supply caches in town were a different matter. They were in place for any operative to use, so they were known to every agent in the Company.

  Fuck his luck to hell and back again. Why hadn’t he made a second backup stash? He was paranoid enough to do so, but it was nearly impossible for him to hide anything from the Company. He hadn’t been trying to hide the gas station; both it and the warehouse had been outfitted hastily out of need. Otherwise one of his handlers would have discovered them. The gas station had been from a mission five years earlier. He’d abandoned weapons there to keep from being incriminated in case he’d been caught after an assassination gone south. He’d ended up in New York before he’d managed an extraction, so he’d never bothered to go back for them.

  The warehouse had been for a mission requiring him to pose as an antiques dealer. It had been scrubbed before he had done more than set up his identity. The same day he had been pulled from the mission, he’d been given another and had been wiped of anything regarding the abandoned mission. He only learned about the warehouse’s existence after discovering mission notes and paperwork for it in a pocket of his equipment bag.

  It had been common for him to find random things he had no memory of, so it hadn’t fazed him. The fact that he kept it a secret from the company, rather than sharing it upon discovery, made him feel proud. At the height of their control over him, he had still managed to rebel. If only he had managed to rebel a little more. With one more secret stash, he would be ignoring the stupid plan forming in his mind, rather than feeding it.

  The Company had made sure each of its operatives was kept up to date on the location of the resupply stations that dotted every major city on the planet. To the best of his knowledge, there were ten caches in this city alone, but all of them were under some form of observation.

  After deliberation, he chose the one on West Broadway—it was out in the open and—he squinted at the angle of the sun cresting over the buildings— at this time in the morning it should h
ave enough people on the street so he shouldn’t have to worry about an open attack. He did a lap around the block to make sure it was free of surveillance then pulled his bike right up to the drop box on the curb. He could make a quick escape if he needed to.

  The donation box had been a good choice on the part of whoever had been in charge of disguising the stash. It was waterproof and not likely to be moved.

  A quick search of a side pocket turned up the key he needed to open it. He swore as a cascade of worn-out clothing assaulted him. Rooting through all of it to get to the secret compartment at the bottom was going to cost him more time than he was comfortable with.

  Rather than waste time lamenting, he dug through the heap, throwing aside a pair of battered purple cowboy boots and a bag of hand-knit doilies. When his hand rested on a small, pink hoodie with a cat embroidered on one sleeve, he paused, thinking about the thin tank top Aeyli had been wearing and how ineffective it would be against the fickle temperatures of a New England spring day. He stuffed it down the front of his jacket and added a pair of white yoga pants that looked like they might fit her as well. He had no idea what shape she would be in when he found her and knew it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

  When he reached the false bottom of the box, he ran his fingers around the edges until he found the catch that would expose the compartment below. With a quiet click, he released the catch and eased open the lid. Inside he found a dark duffle bag that could have fit a large body inside it. Instead of wasting time searching for what he needed, as was proper procedure, he hefted the whole thing out and turned to go back to his bike.

  Before he took a step, a voice from the bottom of the box said, “Initiate Protocol Seven.”

  The command washed though him, finding all the cold, numb spaces inside and filling them with ice, causing them to expand. As his body sprang to attention, the areas of his mind that kept plaguing him with emotions stirred angrily, unwilling to succumb to the cold. Instead of becoming a mindless puppet as the command was designed to do, his mind remained active, but incapable of affecting his body.