by Vicki Keire
“I was going to ask if she talked to you about the Compact between Light and Dark, or what makes Whitfield a refuge in the first place, or the four Guardian races. You know, the important stuff.”
“Um, no. We didn’t get much beyond Foretellings and my dreams.” Alcohol allowed me to say this without sarcasm.
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Figures she’d fixate on the embarrassing parts.” She frowned in concentration. “Is your brother going to kill me when he finds out I got you drunk? No, he’ll pretend, but secretly he’ll think it’s funny. And he’ll give me a ride home. But Ethan…” Her head snapped up. She looked utterly shocked. “There’s nothing there. It’s like… he’s just a blank space, or something.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, alarmed.
The door flew open before she could answer. Ethan was first. It was very hard to read his expression, but perhaps that had more to do with my difficulty focusing on moving objects. Logan was easier. He carried a stack of Chinese take out and stared, open mouthed, as the two of us giggled maniacally and rolled on the floor. We lay surrounded by gold foil chocolate boxes, piles of records, never-melting ice cream, and floating bottles of wine.
“She got me witch-drunk!” I managed to gasp, pointing at Cassandra through peals of laughter.
“I knew you were going to say that!” she laughed, curled on her side, shaking with mirth.
The two boys stared at us in shocked silence. “You got witch-drunk without us?” Logan finally asked. He sounded hurt.
“What do we do?” Ethan asked at last. I was eye-level with his boots. I gave them my most charming smile. From far above me, he looked more surprised than upset.
“Dude, I have no idea.” Logan sat the Chinese food down and came to perch on the edge of the sofa. “Torment them endlessly?”
Ethan finally cracked a smile. “I hear that shows you care.”
Chapter Seven:
Dreaming in Blue
Low haunting music woke me.
It came from the living room. Logan, I thought, aware of Ethan’s restless slumbering warmth beside me. My brother must be awake and playing records. I wondered why he couldn’t sleep. I buried my face in my hands and groaned, remembering my shameful behavior. “The witches made me do it,” I mumbled, trying out the excuse before I used it. It sounded pathetic, even to me. I groaned into my pillow. The least I could do was go apologize for my behavior. Dizzy and lightheaded, I forced myself out of bed and dragged myself into the living room with eyes at half-mast.
Someone stood over the record player, listening intently. He gave off a faint, unnatural blue light in the darkened room. “I love this song,” he said without looking up. “I think I miss music the most.” With a gasp, I backed away towards my bedroom. I don’t know why I didn’t scream. For a second, I thought he was a ghost. He must have been used to that reaction because he looked up sharply. “It’s ok. You’re dreaming again, but this time you’re not dying and we’re safe here.” I caught a glimpse of dark hair and eyes. His faintly golden skin was covered with tattoos from the waist up. Bare feet. Bare everything, in fact, except for a pair of loose black pants. He watched me through narrowed eyes, assessing.
The boy from my dream. The one who had helped me when I was Shadow-sick. I stared in shock, still inching backwards. “What are you doing in my living room?”
“Don’t you remember me?” He moved with Nephilim quickness; in an instant he was standing right in front of me. This close, his dark eyes held a sad urgency I’d missed before. I’d missed other things, too, like the cut across his lip and the bruise on his cheekbone, and the deep cut across his bicep. My blood throbbed, then roared at his nearness. This time it felt as if some deep part of me recognized him, rather than the searing heat of Shadow-sickness. I was as fascinated as I was alarmed.
“Yes,” I said softly. “I thought it was a dream.”
“It was,” he said.
“I mean a made-up dream. A not-possible kind of dream.” His face flared with reflected silver as I seized his wrist and looked at him, really looked at him: his tattoos, his minimal clothing, the way he prowled instead of walked. “You really are like me.” The first and only Nephilim descendent I’d ever met who was not a blood relative. I felt his blood calling to mine as surely as if he had spoken my name. I was excited, suddenly, but forced myself to remember how strange this was, that he was in my house and that he was injured. “You’re hurt. You weren’t before, in that other dream. Are you all right?”
He bowed his head. “I’m a Nephilim descendent like you, yes. This,” he indicated his face, his arm. “It’s not important right now.”
“Of course it is.” How very male, to ignore obvious injuries. “We’ve got a gigantic first aid kit in the bathroom. Ethan hurts himself all the time. It will just take a second.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of peroxide,” I teased.
“No. I’d very much appreciate some medical attention, actually, because this,” he shoved his bleeding bicep in my face. It was really a deep cut, right across a circular tattooed symbol inscribed with strange markings. The blood turned my stomach. “Hurts like hell. Could probably use a few stitches. But since I’m not really here, and my physical body is asleep and bleeding in a place I wouldn’t take you in a million years, we’ll just have to deal with it.” He spun on his heel back to the record player, but not before I’d seen a mixture of rage and hurt and frustration on his face. “Don’t worry. If I bleed on your precious furniture, it won’t be there when you wake up.”
“I didn’t mean…” I began, and then clamped my mouth shut. Just what the hell did I mean, anyway? Tension and anger radiated off him like heat shimmers over the highway in summer. It was like having a wild animal in my living room.
And yet, he had saved my life. His blood spoke to mine. And he was hurting.
I tried again. “I’m sorry you’re hurt. I don’t care what you bleed on. I wasn’t sure if you were real, if what happened the other night was real.” I slipped up beside him, watching the record spin. I tried to ignore his steadily bleeding arm. The jagged slash had begun to coagulate around the edges. Maybe it would heal on its own soon. I hoped so.
“It was real. And you were very lucky.” He relaxed a little as I drew near. Strange. It was the exact opposite of what I’d expected. I thought he would lash out like any wounded wild thing. Instead, I was the skittish one. “I love this band,” he said. “No one listens to records anymore. You have good taste.”
“They’re almost all Logan’s.” At his frown, I added, “My brother. He’s almost solely responsible for my musical education. Ethan and mine’s too. Ethan hasn’t been hu… uh, here… very long.”
His head snapped up. Stars flashed in his dark eyes. “Ethan. The one who made you Shadow-sick.”
As Mark Utley’s voice reached its whispery end, I reached around him and flipped the record over. “He meant well.” I started the B-side. Then, to distract him but also because I was interested, I asked, “Where are you, that you wouldn’t take me in a million years?”
The wild thing was back again; he looked at me with the desperation of a caged animal. “The Twilight Kingdom,” he said. My blood roared again when I accidentally brushed against him, as if the Shadows wanted to break out. “You were there.”
I remembered the endless expanse of twilit sky. I knew of two other worlds that brushed up against this one now. I wondered how many more I would come to know in my lifetime. “Why are you here?” I hugged myself, suddenly cold. “In my living room? Instead of that other place?”
“To find out if it was possible. If I could come here on my own without him finding out.” He smiled into the darkness, at something I couldn’t see. “So that next time we’ll make better use of our time.”
“Next time? What next time?” Did he have a head injury too? “And who is he?”
This boy with gifted blood dropped to
his heels. “Someone very unpleasant. Someone I hope you never have to meet.” Abigail streaked through the darkness and butted against his knee. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to petting her as if he was the one being stroked. I sighed heavily. Like it or not, Abigail had become our supernatural barometer. If it was weird and she liked it, it was probably going to stick around for a while. The universe had screwed things up with Abigail. Instead of being the cat that someone brought home, she was the cat who brought creatures home. “What is my brother’s cat doing in my dream?”
He cracked a contented eye. “Actually, this is my dream. I’ve just pulled you into it. And even in the Dreamtime, cats do what they damn well please.”
I smiled a little, at that. “Why should they be any different in dreams, right?”
He smiled back, laughter bubbling up for the first time. But it softened into something else. Something that reminded me I stood in my living room in my pajamas with a boy who was not my boyfriend.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, jumping up. I remembered Mrs. Alice’s Foretelling. Three is never balanced. When he touched my elbow, I jumped.
“I need to get back to bed,” I said.
“Of course.” He turned back to the record player. “Just wait for a moment, if you don’t mind.”
“Why?” I watched as he selected another record and slipped it carefully from its sleeve. The Strangest Colored Lights. A favorite. Of course he’d have to have good taste in music. Way to go, Caspia.
“I’m a Dreamwalker. It’s one of my gifts. I’d prefer to put you back to sleep myself, rather than have you go back in your bedroom.” He changed vinyl carefully, breathing deeply as if smelling something delicious when the music began to play.
I’ll bet you would, I thought. “Why?” I asked out loud.
“Most people don’t react well to the sight of their own motionless bodies. It’s rather like looking at your corpse.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of an objection to that. I didn’t want to see my almost-corpse, or Ethan’s either, for that matter.
The ink of his tattoos shimmered in the faint blue light that enveloped the rest of him. “You haven’t run into a friend of mine, by any chance?” he asked casually. He might as well have been asking for the salt and pepper, his tone was so deadpan. “A bald man carrying a sword wrapped in a leather jacket?”
“Um, no.” I tried to suppress the laughter and failed. “Nope, definitely not. Even in Whitfield, word of something like that would get around.”
“You’re serious.” He raised a single black eyebrow in my direction before turning his back to look at records again.
That’s when I saw it: a long, deep gouge across his back, like a single huge claw had taken a swipe at him.
“Oh my God,” I swore softly. I found myself right against him, my hands on either side of the gouge. It didn’t seem to be bleeding, but still… “What would… uh. Wow. Let me put something…”
He tensed under my hands. “When a Hellhound takes a swipe at you, the wound pretty much cauterizes itself.” He spun under my hands, his dark eyes bright with sharp silver shards. “Besides, this is just a dream. Remember?”
He had a symbol inked over his heart, something familiar, if I just tried a little harder to place it… It was the last thing I saw before my alarm woke me to one of the worst headaches of my life.
Chapter Eight:
Unwelcome Substitutions
They say one of the first signs of serious addiction is lying about your habit and hiding the evidence.
Unfortunately for me, Logan decided to take my coffee away the morning of one of the worst hangovers of my life. He gave me an innocent, puppy-eyed look when I accused him of trying to teach me a lesson. “But Caspia,” he said smugly, handing me a mug of healthy green tea. “Your body needs anti-oxidants and rehydration. Coffee does the opposite.”
Even if my head didn’t feel like it had been colonized by evil elves with pick axes and a brass band, I needed my early morning caffeine fix more than ever. I had a brutal schedule this semester, including back-to-back studio classes and three lecture series. As luck would have it, the most boring class of all was also my earliest. I needed coffee. How else was I supposed to get through it?
I smiled grimly at the gigantic Styrofoam gas station Big Gulp cradled against my forearm. As long as no one came up and sniffed, it would fool everyone into thinking I’d suddenly developed a healthy appetite for sodas. I didn’t have a problem. I just needed coffee to stay awake in class and deal with one tiny hangover. I could quit anytime.
“Images of Art in Literature” was a core class at Andreas Academy. Close to one hundred of us sat, in various stages of sleep and boredom, throughout the campus’ largest auditorium. Mrs. Kenner taught the class, just as she had for the last twenty years. She was a kind but unenthusiastic teacher who gave her lectures in a pleasant monotone. The cushy auditorium seating, dim lighting, early hour, and soothing lecture voice all combined to give her class the nickname “Organized Group Sleep.”
Amberlyn was my only fellow sufferer in this class, and she was late, as usual. Mrs. Kenner was too, which was highly unusual. If she didn’t show up soon, I was going to sink into blessed sleep before she even called my name for the roll. My phone buzzed against my hip. I had just enough time to scan the first few lines of Logan’s text when a freesia-scented arm knocked me on the back of my already-pounding head. My phone came perilously close to knocking over my forbidden, and therefore valuable, coffee.
Amberlyn, predictably. “Looking for this?” she teased, her spiral curls twisted into a messy bunch at the nape of her neck.
“Is that a paintbrush holding your hair together?” It hurt to look up, even though the light was dim. “I hope it’s paint free.”
She rolled her eyes as she slid into the desk next to mine. “I hope that’s not coffee in a Big Gulp cup,” she countered, tossing my phone at me. “Not only is that just sad, but coffee in Styrofoam? Nasty, Caspia. It’s got to be carcinogenic, or bad for the ozone layer, or something.”
“What isn’t?” I muttered. “Besides, even if it was, which I’m not admitting to, by the way, how else am I supposed to stay awake in here? Logan thinks he can cut off my coffee supply, and Mrs. Kenner is really late. I need it. Don’t tell, please?” Amberlyn shook her head at my pleading whine. The rest of the class had become restless, checking their watches and openly using cell phones. “Isn’t there a time limit when we get to leave or something?”
“I don’t know,” Amberlyn said, a tiny crease appearing between her golden-green eyes. “I heard that was just an urban legend. I know Dr. Christian gave an entire class zeroes when they tried to pull that once.”
“Yeah, but he’s evil,” I countered, reaching for the Big Gulp. What the hell, I was already busted. I took a deep sip and winced. Coffee and Styrofoam really did taste terrible together.
Amberlyn pulled a sheet of iridescent blue paper from somewhere and began to make tiny folds with the precision of an open-heart surgeon. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said lightly. “Temperamental often goes along with genius, right?” I stared at her in shock. The blue paper rapidly took on the dimensions of some kind of flower. “Do you have any classes with him this semester?”
I choked down the acrid, lukewarm coffee. “Um. You know this one already. The gods have smiled on me for once. So no. Remember?”
She didn’t meet my eyes. “Oh, right. Forgot. Sorry.” Her slim caramel-colored fingers made faster and tinier folds. All around us, students shifted in their seats and grumbled.
Suddenly, the back of my neck started to tingle. I wondered if this was some hangover symptom I’d never heard of before. The door to the left of the far podium flew open violently, exactly as if it had been kicked. Students, many roused from the brink of sleep, shifted uneasily around me.
When Dr. Christian came storming in instead of mild mannered Mrs. Kenner, I almost dropped my coffee.
Oh, hell, I had tim
e to think before he took the stage and glared straight at me.
***
I don’t know how he managed to single me out so immediately amongst all those students in that auditorium, but the second his hands clutched the podium and he turned to face us, I felt as if the room melted away and it was nothing but the two of us alone in a very dark universe.
I clutched my coffee, dimly aware that I was crushing it, but strangely unable to move. The class had come fully alive at his presence, as if they’d suddenly been given a wonderful treat. I could hear them buzzing at the edge of my hearing, like the soothing drone of insects on a pleasant summer afternoon. Only it wasn’t a pleasant summer afternoon. It was an awful gray morning and I should be drowsing peacefully through a power point lecture on ancient Egyptian tomb relics or cave paintings in France. Instead, Dr. Christian pinned me with his awful blue eyes until I had to remind myself to breathe.
“I am sorry to bring you all very sad news,” he announced. “Mrs. Kenner has been the victim of a very serious incident.” My classmates, especially the female ones, responded with an appropriate amount of rapt sympathy. Amberlyn was strangely quiet beside me, her origami flower forgotten. I could only stare at the impossibly attractive professor with growing horror. “She was brutally attacked in her home last evening. Whoever did it has not been caught and is presumably still a danger.”
Brutally attacked? In Whitfield? The only crime we ever had was the occasional act of petty vandalism. His words seemed even less plausible than the presence of angels and demons and tattooed Nephilim descendents. Blood roared in my ears. I fought the urge to bolt for the safety of my warded apartment and Ethan’s arms.
A girl with brown hair secured into a messy ponytail hesitantly raised her hand. Dr. Christian nodded sharply down at her, giving her permission to speak. “Will she be all right, sir? Do you know?”