A similar taste lingered on his lips, though it was more herbal than bitter.
What had they done?
He curled up next to me.
Perhaps what they’d taken—whether it was some strange kind of herbal tea or a weird naturopathic hippy vitamin—was meant to protect me. Or protect our minds.
My muscles were nice and relaxed after Colton had turned me to post-orgasm mush. So maybe going to sleep wouldn’t be too difficult.
Colton relaxed next to me. As I listened, his breathing changed, and he let out little sighs that told me he’d fallen asleep. He muttered something, and I smiled.
That was right. He talked in his sleep.
On my other side, Oliver snored lightly. I was surprised he’d gone to sleep so quickly. Of course, they didn’t have to worry about the hag, or Mara, or whatever her name was appearing in their dreams.
My eyes got heavy and eventually closed.
“Lacey…”
The voices in the darkness. The children calling to me. This place…
“Took you long enough.”
I jumped. Colton leaned against a pillar. Oliver, next to him, waved at me. “We’ve both been dreaming, waiting for you to pull us wherever you were going.”
My mouth fell open. “How are you doing this?”
“Variant on lucid dreaming. Combination of mugwort, valerian root, and wild asparagus root. We essentially stimulated a temporary psychic connection while forcing your dreams to be intense enough that we could join you. Lots of write up about this on the boards, but I’ve never done it myself before.” Oliver’s smile was huge. “And the best? I don’t think the hag—Mara— will see us. But we’ll see her. And then we’ll know.”
I swallowed. “Know what?”
“Why she wants you, and how to kill her.”
10
That was—a lot. We’d get into why drugging me without warning me wasn’t cool, but that could wait until after we killed Mara.
“How do we do this?” I asked.
“Like with…” Colton swallowed as if the next word was painful, “Erdirg, this creature is drawn to you. There’s a connection. In this dream state, you can find it and follow it.”
Oh, sounded easy enough. Except I had no idea how to do that. Trust. This was lucid dreaming, which meant, I could do what I wanted here.
If I wanted to fly—I stared at the ground and imagined myself weightless. Slowly, I lifted into the air.
Then I’d fly.
Colton and Oliver stared up at me, huge smiles on their faces. “There you go.”
“Are you coming?” I asked.
I’d flown in my dreams before, but I’d never controlled it. Once, when I was little, I’d dreamed I was Spiderman and had used my webs to swing from place to place.
Colton and Oliver drifted up from the ground to hover next to me. “This is a little like Peter Pan,” Oliver said. “You just had to believe.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay.” I let out a breath. The next decision I made in this dream was going to be the one that mattered. “We’re going to fly to Mara, and she’s not going to see us. This is my dream. This is how it works. I’m in control.”
As the words left my mouth, I took off. The wind blew my hair from my face as I flew over Anchorage, only to land with a soft thump in the parking lot of the sleep clinic.
A second later, Colton and Oliver landed as well. “Do you see this?” Oliver asked.
It was the sleep clinic as I’d never seen it before. Colors—reminding me of lights on a highway—sped through the building, disappearing beneath the ground or in the air.
“Vortex,” I whispered. “A place of connection from one plane to another, one dimension to another. Show me Mara.”
In one blink to the next, we were inside. There was the hag, standing at a door. She was colorless, from her skin to her clothes, nothing but shades of gray. Her skin was sallow, and her eyes sunken.
She looked ill.
The door in front of her began to glow, and she shut her eyes, disappearing and reappearing in a flash. For that moment, right when she returned, I saw her in color.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly. “Who are you?” There was only one way to find out. Show me.
I stood next to a bed, watching as she crawled on a sleeping form. She crouched over the person before lowering herself to sit on their chest. There was a gasp from the bed as she changed. First her skin, blossoming with pink and gold, then her hair, her lips, her clothing.
She leaned down, kissing their face before straightening and whispering, “I am Mara. The nightmare. Codladh. Sleep.”
It came to me then. “We have to shut the doors.”
Colton’s studied the sleep clinic. “I don’t understand.”
I whirled around, reaching for his hands. Squeezing them, willing him to understand, I went on. “We have to trap her between dimensions, get her to go in one door, but when she tries to go through the next, she’ll be stuck. Then when she tries to backtrack, that door is gone, too.”
Oliver nodded. “This is a vortex. Your hometown is a vortex. Lacey, there is something about you and the vortexes.”
Colton snapped his fingers. “What were those things called? Lacey, what is your background? Like where did your people come from? Your mom? Your dad?”
He wanted to talk about where we’d immigrated from? Now? “Um. Some of my family came from England or an island off the coast, I think. Gran used to mention things, but I don’t know. I’m not sure she even knew. Why?”
Oliver pointed at Colton. “You’re thinking about the Pouque.”
“The what?” I grabbed his arm. “Talk to me not over me.”
Colton nodded. “You’re right. Pouque are fairies. Not the Tinker Bell kind that you’re thinking about. It’s hard to explain. And certainly right now is not the best time for us to all get into it with the Fae. But the Pouque lived near ancient stones—vortexes—in the Channel Islands. Between England and France. Your people came here. That blood is in you. And it’s addictive to Mara. Addictive to Erdirg. That’s why. And look at Mara. She feeds off people and whatever makes them unique. Maybe people with these special abilities don’t sleep well, who knows? She went ahead and found an in for herself.”
I had Pouque blood? I was going to give myself a headache. “How do we close the door? We can work out the why later.” With a huge Google search. “How do we do this?”
Oliver met Colton’s gaze. “Aaron. He can do it.”
And he wasn’t here with us right now. “Do I wake up and we get him?”
“No,” they answered.
“This is too good an opportunity,” Colton said. “We all got here with the same herbs. We drugged you without you knowing. I know that sucks. I’d never do that to you under other circumstances, and now that you know, I’m not sure we can do it again. Next time, she’ll be cued in because you know.”
Oliver stepped back. “I’m going to go try and get him. Do you think you can bring him in?”
I laughed. It wasn’t funny, and yet, it was. “Oliver, I don’t know how I did this to begin with.”
Colton put his arm around me, drawing me to him. “He probably has to kiss you. You’re not awake. Is that okay?”
Was it okay? “Yes, I mean I’d never say no to Aaron kissing me. Should we bring Thorn in too?”
Mara sighed. I’d forgotten we were even watching her, and I shuddered. I hated being this close.
“Lacey.”
This wasn’t Mara’s voice. It was different. Would I always hear these voices? I wanted this to stop.
“I’d rather he stay awake to wake us if the house catches on fire.” Colton looked around. Could he hear the voices, too?
“Are we not able to wake up if the house catches on fire?”
Oliver winced. “Truthfully, I have no idea.”
“Enough talking then, go!” I said.
And like that, Oliver was gone. One second there, the next blinked out of existence.
And somewhere, I was Sleeping Beauty, about to suck my prince into the netherworld with one kiss. That was quite the twist.
I held out my hands, examining them. “Pookie.”
“What?” Colton stared off in the distance but looked up when I spoke.
“The word ‘pouque?’ It sounds like you’re saying ‘pookie.’ Like a term of endearment.”
He smiled, coming toward me. “I’d like to think I could come up with a better one than that.” My breath caught in my throat. Even here, standing between Mara and countless dimensions, that smile did me in.
The world around us seemed to grow hazy. Colton’s mouth moved but there was no sound. Then—full volume, cranked to ten.
And Aaron.
He hurried to me, grabbed me, and kissed me hard. “Are you okay? You figured it all out, you brilliant woman.” He kissed me again. “Vortexes and Mara—the source of nightmares. You know how to pick ’em.”
“Actually.” I was a little breathless after that kiss. “They tend to pick me.”
That wiped all the humor off his face. He nodded. “Yeah. So we know what it is now, the thing that draws creatures to you.” His thumb ran along my wrist. “Your blood. All right then, let’s figure out this vortex shit.”
He closed his eyes, and we were suddenly in the hallway of the sleep clinic. It was lined by door after door, just like in my previous dreams. “We’re going to draw her here with your blood, but first, we have to close these doors.”
From what I could see, they were already closed. “Metaphorically?” I asked.
Aaron chuckled. “No, psychically. Astrally.”
That sounded way more advanced than what I could do. Aaron went to the door, withdrawing a marker from his pocket. As I watched, he sketched a symbol.
At first, I thought it was a rune—not that I really knew what one looked like—but it had the simple vertical and horizontal lines I thought of as rune-like. But he kept drawing, connecting lines, drawing curves and spirals, and then containing the whole thing within a circle. “No beginning or ending,” he said. “Circles are powerful.”
“What is this?” I asked, reaching out a hand to trace it.
He pushed my hand away. “Not yet.” He studied it for a moment. “Remember what you read about sigils? They’re not only ways demons use to communicate, but they’re also keys. And every key fits a lock. What I’m doing is locking the door.”
Okay. That made sense. “Will she notice that you locked her in?”
Aaron pressed his lips together before answering. “I would bet she will in a moment or two. But remember, you’re safe. You’re with us. You’re not alone. And even more so, Lacey, I want you to remember she is the mother of nightmares.”
My heart rate kicked up. “Why?” It was much nicer when he talked about how safe I was. He’d lulled me into a false sense of security, right before slamming home the danger of the whole situation.
The world tilted for a second, and then Oliver was there with us. He smiled when he saw Aaron. “Thank god it worked. Sorry, took me a moment to hook back in. Hard to do after you’ve just slept. What are we talking about?”
Colton sighed. “Aaron was just about to tell her why she needed to remember this was the mother of nightmares.”
This was like a whirlwind with them throwing information back and forth at each other while I was stuck on the outside. “Somebody start talking, or you’re all out of here and I’ll deal with it on my own.”
I would somehow figure out how to make that not an empty threat. They obviously believed me, because Aaron answered fast. “I don’t know what she’s been doing with you when she’s had you, but she can make you afraid. She could do that to all of us, but we’re connected only through you right now. If she sucks you into something terrifying, try to remember they’re dreams. The worst kind of ones, but only dreams. Also, it might be possible one of us could try to enter the dream and pull you out of it. We just have to figure out how, so it could take time.”
Oliver touched his temple. “Same page, brother.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that.” Colton rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe we’ll lock her out before that.”
There were a lot of doors in this hallway. “Let’s all get to work. Everyone draw what Aaron is drawing.”
My art skills left much to be desired, but so help me, I would get this right.
Staring over my shoulder—and seeing that Colton and Oliver had to do the same—I tried to copy exactly what Aaron had done on the door. Goosebumps broke out on my arms.
“Lacey.” Those were children’s voices. We needed to kill this woman. No, she wasn’t a woman. She was a hag. A nightmare. The biggest, baddest, worst one.
“Guys,” I called over my shoulder. “Will killing her stop all nightmares?”
“No.” Colton shook his head as he stared at what Aaron drew. “She just manipulates them. Nightmares don’t belong to her. They belong to the person having them.”
That was interesting. “What do you have nightmares about?”
“Waking up to find Erdirg killed you. Being stuck to the wall and unable to stop him from harming you.” Colton shuddered. “My mother’s meatloaf.”
“Mara isn’t the only creature associated with nightmares,” Aaron called over his shoulder.
I finished drawing another sigil on another door. The voices in my head had to mean something. There was her voice, and then there were the other voices. I’d assumed they all came from her, but what if they didn’t? What if those voices were from others? People who—like the person in this sleep clinic who’d started this whole damn thing—weren’t themselves.
“I think…” I paused and stared at the door. “I think maybe she’s trapped people in nightmares. I think those might be the voices I’ve been hearing. It’s not just her.”
Aaron stopped drawing to approach me. “Look at these doors, Lacey. If there are people trapped, we’ll never find them all. All we can do is mitigate the damage she’s already done.”
I didn’t like that answer. There had to be another way.
I finished drawing a sigil. There were only a few more doors. Imagine the traffic jam we were creating with all these locks. Every single demon, creature, ancient being, goddess, or their cousin was going to be re-routed toward these doors. And everyone would be stuck. The good and the bad.
I stopped, allowing my hand to drop to my side. That wasn’t right. But Aaron was correct, we had to do damage control.
Reaching up to finish my sigil, I didn’t notice at first that the door seemed farther away. I took a step forward, realizing at the last minute that the reason I had to stretch was that the door had opened. Before I could get away, a hand reached out, grasped my wrist, and pulled me inside.
“Lacey.” It took me a moment to focus as I stared at the scene in front of me. It was a little boy who spoke my name. He wore pajamas with dinosaurs on it. “Lacey, I call and call, but you don’t answer me when you’re not here.”
Here? I looked around. “When was I here before?”
His eyes were huge. “You never remember. But you will when you’re here permanently. Please, Lacey, stay this time. The monsters don’t hurt so much when you’re here. You always take care of them, and then you leave, and they come back. And I can’t leave.”
That was all interesting. I picked him up in my arms. He weighed almost nothing. If he was asleep and stuck here all the time, what did that mean for him in the real world? Was he permanently asleep? In some kind of coma? I didn’t suppose it mattered right at this moment. “What’s your name?”
I’d never been wonderful with children. But it seemed like he knew me, and I did feel a level of comfort with him that was unusual, like we’d run this race before. “What’s your name?”
He snuggled down on my shoulder. How old was he? Three? Four? Five?
With a sigh, he raised his head to look at me. “I don’t know anymore. I’ve lost it here. But, Lacey, the… the mo
nsters are coming.”
I was sure that they were.
There was a creak behind me. Then a second one. I stayed very still. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps broke out on my skin. The boy in my arms shivered, and I held him closer. He must have been one of the voices I heard. I had to be brave. I might not have picked this pookie blood, but I had to be brave.
The last time I’d faced a monster, I’d had to be dark, to bring out those parts of me that were buried because they were scary. This time, I would tap into something else—the part of me that wanted to be a hero, that wanted to know that I’d helped to make things better in the world, even if it was in a tiny way.
“Okay, nameless guy, you and me? We’re going to face this together.”
He cried out, and I swung around, looking to see what he did over my shoulder. And there it was.
A demon. Or something that looked an awful lot like one in traditional depictions, even though Erdirg didn’t look like this red-eyed guy.
I wasn’t afraid. I’d hated the noise more than the actual sight of the thing. But then again, this wasn’t my nightmare. It belonged to this poor, nameless kid—who we were not locking in this room. If we had to fight all her dreams, and all of the things Mara had done, to free these people, then so be it. No door would be shut until I was sure its room was empty.
“Hey,” I said to the demon. “You’re such a cliché.”
He ignored me, taking one step toward me, and another. Around his head, skin fanned out, like a snake, and it hissed. Beneath his feet, the ground cracked, revealing oozing red lava beneath it.
Great. All my favorite things.
The boy buried his face in my neck. And I wished I could just—I didn’t know—shoot this thing with laser beams from my eyes.
And it happened.
“Holy shit.” The demon was a pile of ooze.
“How did you do that?” the boy asked.
I had no idea.
“Lacey!” I recognized that voice. It was soft at first, and then louder, like they were yelling right next to my ear. “Lacey!” Thorn stumbled, and I reached out with one hand to steady him.
“How?” Back-up was something I definitely needed.
Voices in the Darkness Page 16