by Tate James
“Except we’re the same age now, douchebag,” I pointed out, and he shrugged.
“Time passed in magical realms doesn’t count; you’re still the youngest.” Austin placed his own empty mug down on the bench and headed for the door, grabbing his keys as he went. “I’m going for a drive; call me if you have any luck.”
“Will do,” I replied as he breezed out of the house and left Cal and I alone. “How about you? Plans tonight?”
He nodded, not looking particularly happy about the answer. “Mage shit. I never realized how many issues Yoshi and Jackson had to deal with.”
I grinned; the idea of Caleb in any position of responsibility still made me chuckle. “Just keep your fangs to yourself and you’ll be fine. I’ll let you know what I come up with in regards to River, anyway. Hopefully something.”
Caleb clapped me on the shoulder in an encouraging way. “You’ll figure it out, Wes. You’re smart as shit, remember?”
I rolled my eyes at his teasing, but I was hoping he was right. Could I outthink this situation we’d ended up in? I needed to, really. Every day that passed without Kit and River was driving tensions between the five of us higher and higher. I hated to think what the state of our “team” would be if it went on much longer.
No, I needed to get a location on them fast. I didn’t spend three years in an alternative realm only to come back and lose both Kit and the team I considered family.
Draining the last of my coffee, I rinsed out my mug and then headed upstairs to my bedroom. It was time to get to work.
Opening my eyes into the familiar mist that was my dreamscape, I waved a hand and didn’t bother to form my surroundings into any particular landscape. My objective wasn’t to bring anyone else into my dream; it was the other way around. I was seeking to enter River’s dream, if he was indeed in a sleep-like state. It made sense in my logical mind, so hopefully I wasn’t wrong.
My fingers outstretched, I plucked at the dreamers’ threads, sorting through all the dreams around me. Searching.
As usual, Kit’s was nowhere to be found. Could she really survive on no sleep for over a month? Possibly. We really had only begun to understand what her species was capable of.
River was another matter. While his hellhound may not need rest, I was confident I would find him tucked away in sleep. It was likely to be the hound’s version of payback for all the years he’d been contained in a cage within River’s mind.
Sure enough, after sorting through countless threads, I touched on one that rang with familiarity and kicked myself for being idiot enough not to try this sooner.
Tweaking the thread with just the right dose of my badbh magic, I dove headfirst into whatever River was currently dreaming.
Which was... nothing?
“River?” I called out into the pitch black, hearing my voice echo as a chill ran down my spine. No response met me, so I tried again, “Alpha?”
This time something other than my own voice bounced back at me. From somewhere in front of me, a low, humorless laugh carried through the darkness, and I flicked my fingers to bring some light into the dream.
Manipulating someone else’s dream was nowhere near as easy as manipulating my own dreamscape. It was doable, but I needed to work within the confines of what the dreamer’s own mind would allow. In this case, the best River’s subconscious allowed was a naked light bulb hanging over his cage, casting all sorts of terrifying shadows.
“Hey, boss man,” I cautiously greeted the scruffy man crouched within the cage. The cage couldn’t have been more than four feet high and wide, so he had no choice but to sit or crouch; there was no possible way he could stand or lie down. Was this how he had been since we’d seen him last?
River raised his head, peering at me with bloodshot eyes as he scoffed. “Wesley, huh? This is new. Usually it’s just memories of Kitten that haunt me here.”
“Oh fuck,” I whispered, quickly working out that River wasn’t inside this dream of his own volition. This was revenge, no doubt, from the hound. And had he been deliberately sending memories of Kit to taunt River? Or were they a creation of River’s own guilty conscience?
“Hey, so, this doesn’t look like much fun. Want me to break you out?” I offered in a bright tone, hoping to give him a little hope. The desperation in his golden eyes was all but killing me inside. How could I not have thought to reach him sooner? We’d all been so focused on Kit...
“You’re here on a dreamwalk, huh?” River asked, scratching at his month-old beard. At least he still had his wits enough about him to know I wasn’t a figment of his imagination or something. That would have annoyed the crap out of me.
I nodded as I inspected the cage he was in. “Yup, I took a guess that although the, uh, other you was still awake, this part of you might be ‘sleeping’ so to speak. Looks like I was right.”
“Good guess, Crow,” River murmured, shifting his weight to lean on the bars. “Not that it does me any damn good. That bastard is having too much fun to let me out now.”
“You can’t let yourself out?” I asked, then felt stupid when River gave me a disparaging glare. “Of course not, or you would have done so already. Uh, okay well, where does this thing open? I’ll see what I can do.”
“It doesn’t,” he replied with a sigh. “Payback really is a bitch. This is the cage I constructed inside my own mind to keep him at bay when I first felt him back when I was a kid. There is no door or opening, I literally constructed it around him and just kept strengthening the bars. After Kitten...” He paused, sucking in a breath. “After she changed me, I had the briefest moment where I thought I had control and that it wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought. Next minute, the world went up in flames, and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was here.”
Running a hand through my hair, I processed what he was saying. “That must have been when Kit said you shifted into a white wolf... makes sense. That was when you were still fully in control, and then when the hound took over, you got booted out of the driver’s seat.”
“Sounds plausible.” River shrugged. He looked exhausted. Beaten and defeated. It was not a good look, and certainly never one I’d thought to see on our intimidating team leader.
“Are you aware of what’s going on in the world? Do you happen to know where you are right now?” He had just said he knew the hound was having “too much fun,” so maybe he had some useful knowledge.
River gave me a sad smile and shook his head. “I wish I did, Crow. You have no idea how badly I want to help you guys find him—me. Kit isn’t safe with him, despite the fact that he seems loyal to her. I’m scared for her safety, and I know you blokes are the only ones who can save her from herself.”
Frowning, I stared back at him for a long time. “I think you’re wrong.”
His brows shot up in surprise. “Pardon me?”
“I said, I think you’re wrong. Despite the fact that your hellhound form has manifested with what seems like a totally separate consciousness, you are, in fact, one and the same. His loyalty to Kit proves this. He won’t hurt her because you would never hurt her. I suspect the only way you’ll get out is by both of you accepting that the other is merely a different side of the same coin.” River scowled at me, and I awkwardly backed up a step. “But what would I know? You’re definitely the first hellhound I have ever met.”
He didn’t respond for some time, then his eyes softened somewhat. “Maybe you’re right,” he said softly. “But I don’t see that happening any time soon. In the meantime, will you visit me here? It has been a bit... lonely. To say the very least.”
“I can imagine,” I replied, glancing around the dark space. “Just all this blackness and the occasional visit from a Kit memory?”
“Trust me, they’re more painful than you think,” he muttered, and I didn’t press him any further on the subject.
He sighed heavily again and rubbed his face with dirty hands. “I’ll keep an eye out, in case he slips up and lets me see anything, but
in the meantime, don’t waste your energy here. Report back to the boys and come up with another plan to find us. We can’t stay off the radar forever.”
“Yes sir,” I confirmed, falling back into old habits.
“How is the team?” he asked, just before I was about to leave.
I hesitated, not wanting to tell him we were all falling apart and at each other’s throats, but that small pause must have said it for me.
“I figured as much,” he responded to my silence. “Hard as it might be right now, the only way you’ll get her back is if you all work together. Tell Vali he needs to step up and take ownership with Omega, and Cole needs to cut his brother some slack. As for the twins?” He paused then. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hazard a guess that Caleb is the one being responsible, and Austin is sulking?” I nodded. “Well, tell Austin to pull his head out of his ass, would you?”
“You got it, Alpha,” I agreed with a grin. “Hang in there. I’ll come back and visit again soon, hopefully with news.”
“Just keep the team alive, Wes,” he implored me. “I’ll get out of here eventually.”
With a small salute, I released my mental grip on River’s dream-thread and bookmarked it, so I could find it easily next time I entered my dreamscape.
While he hadn’t given me the easy answers I’d hoped for, it was a huge relief to have spoken with him. He was alive and still sane. So far. It gave me a hell of a lot more faith that things would work out than I’d had earlier in the day.
3
KIT
The thunderous boom of an explosion rocked through the hallway, and I clapped my hands to my ears in an effort to prevent my eardrums from bursting again. I’d learned the hard way how long it took to regrow fully functioning eardrums and was in no hurry to repeat the process.
“Sounds like that fire has spread,” Finn commented, rather unnecessarily.
“No shit,” I remarked, rolling my eyes and continuing in the direction we’d been heading already. Our infiltration of the top-secret military base was nowhere even close to subtle, and none of us really gave two shits. These humans with their guns and grenades were no match for us.
As if they’d heard my thoughts, a fresh wave of camo-clad soldiers came rushing around the next corner and opened fire on us with their fully automatic machine guns. Their bullets dropped uselessly to the ground as I threw up a shield of magic that essentially sucked the energy from them and halted their flight as surely as if someone had just pressed pause.
River wasted no time, leaping forward to lay waste to these men who were doing nothing more than their damn jobs. That frustrating piece of my humanity which clung to my mind was sickened by the death and destruction we were inflicting on the world, but darkness consumed the lion’s share of my consciousness... and the darkness wanted blood.
“Shit, he’s effective,” Finn murmured as we stood back and let River tear those poor men limb from limb until there was nothing left but a bloody pile of meat. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
Arching a brow at him as I picked my way past the remains of our latest challengers, I snorted. “I’d hope that message was already pretty clear in your mind.”
“No shit,” he said, repeating my sentiments from moments ago, and stepped up to force open the next cell door we reached.
Inside, a young girl sat on the edge of her cot, wrists bound in iron cuffs which linked to the wall on chains too short to be humane. She had nowhere near enough length to stand up, and if she lay down, it would be with her wrists in the air. Yet another reminder of why I shouldn’t feel guilt for all the deaths we’d brought to this establishment.
“Reminds you a bit of Blood Moon, no?” Finn remarked, and I grunted my agreement. It reminded me far too much of Blood Moon Labs, where a mad scientist had been working on creating her own supernaturals under the guise of fixing the world.
“Alright, kid, do you speak English?” I crouched in front of the girl and broke her cuffs off with a droplet of blood magic and a touch of super-strength. She gave me a terrified nod, not meeting my eyes and letting her hair cover her face.
I let out a long sigh, not in the mood for another crier. “Okay, here’s how it is. You’re here either because you were one of Doctor Florsheim’s experiments or you’re a natural born supernatural who had the misfortune of getting caught. Which is it? Answer quickly; I don’t have time for fucking around.”
“N-natural,” she whimpered, flinching when I moved my hand to sweep my hair behind my shoulder. “Ursoc.”
“Ursoc?” I repeated, frowning in confusion. “Never mind.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m giving you a choice here, kid. A war is coming, and I need people to fight with me. You’re either in and you can leave here free today, or you’re out and I kill you. What’s it to be?”
This made the girl look up at me in shock, and my heart clenched. She was no more than eleven or twelve, poor kid.
“I can leave?” she repeated, and I gave a curt nod.
“I don’t need you tagging along. When I require your services, you’ll know.”
Her brow arched in a sassy sort of way that I had to respect. “What’s to stop me from leaving and ignoring your war?”
I gave her a tight smile. “Magic, hon. If you agree, you’ll be bound to obey my call. What’s it to be? Quickly now, I came here with a mission and didn’t anticipate all of you captives along the way.”
The girl pursed her lips, giving me a look that betrayed far more confidence than her trembling frame had first suggested. “That depends. Are you the good guys or the bad ones?”
I had to admire her moxie. “The good ones. Or... as good as it gets in this war.”
“Prove it,” she insisted. “Free my brother first; he’s in the cell next door.”
“We don’t really have time for games,” Finn snapped from behind me, but something about this kid had me curious.
Turning to give Finn a black-eyed glare, I nodded to the door. “Get the boy; bring him in here.”
The demon hesitated only a moment before grudgingly doing as I commanded. He lacked a little finesse, kicking down the steel-reinforced door and then tearing the kids chains from the wall—all of which we could hear, but within moments he returned hauling a boy by the scruff of his neck.
“Well?” I turned back to the girl, and she gave me a hasty nod.
“We’re in,” she replied, giving her brother a look that clearly said, “Keep your mouth shut and trust me.”
I allowed my lips to curve up in a small smile but didn’t bother second-guessing her decision. It was really somewhat preferable to let them live rather than have to kill two innocent-looking kids. Not to say they were innocent, but it was hard not to see a little of myself in this girl.
“Good choice, kid.” Using the ballpoint pen from my pocket, I inked a rune on each of their wrists and watched as it lit up and disappeared. They were bound now as my soldiers in the upcoming war with my bitch of a mother. So help them. “Now get out of here; I have a scientist to hunt and kill.”
“You’re going after Doctor Florsheim?” the boy asked, speaking for the first time in a voice husky from disuse—or screaming. I gave him a tight nod, and his jaw clenched. “I’ll show you the way. He’ll be holed up in his panic room.”
I raised my brows and glanced over to Finn and River. “The good doctor has a panic room,” I commented with a sarcastic tilt to my lips. It was a little amusing that he was smart enough to be afraid of his own work.
“Yeah, he uses it every time one of his experimental soldiers goes wrong. He’s totally convinced they’ll turn on him if they get to him.” The young girl snickered a laugh, giving me an appraising look. “Then again, you three don’t look much like soldiers, so I guess he was wrong.”
“We’re not,” Finn replied in a curt tone, and River’s lips pulled back from his rows of razor-sharp teeth in what could have been either a snarl or a smile.
“Just s
how us the way, kid, then get the hell out of here,” I suggested, and the two youngsters nodded their agreement.
Crooking a finger at the boy, I beckoned him closer so I could remove his chains before we left the cell. Not that I really cared for stealth—given the path of destruction we had carved through the military base to get this far—but I didn’t need him slowing us down.
The kids set a brisk pace, leading us down the hallway before I called out to them.
“Wait,” I ordered, pausing and glancing at the locked cell doors we were passing. “Do you know who is in any of these?”
“No one, right now,” the boy replied with a shrug. “Seems Doctor Florsheim has been having a harder time catching us supers unawares lately.”
I nodded. It made sense, with all the movement in the magical communities, that supernaturals were getting smarter as well as bolder. Good for them, I guess. “Just tell me if we come across any cells that you know are inhabited. I intend to burn this place to the ground when we are done here, and there is no sense in losing valuable fighters if there are any willing to join my cause.”
“Wow.” The girl muttered under her breath but not quiet enough for me to miss it. “Talk about cold-hearted. You know she would have killed us both?”
Her brother gave her a wide-eyed stare and glanced back at me in fear. I did nothing to try and reassure them. Why should I? She was right; I would have killed them both had they not agreed to my spell. The time for compassion had long since passed.
Thankfully, no more words passed between them as they continued at a jog down the corridor. Stupid kids that they were, they didn’t even hesitate a second before charging around the corner and straight into the sights of a team of juiced-up soldiers waiting for us.
Rolling my eyes, I froze the first barrage of bullets which came flying at us, stopping them just inches short of my newest recruits.
“Mine,” Finn declared, darting past the terror-stricken kids and tearing into the soldiers hand-to-hand. These ones were most certainly part of one of the experiments, as they fought back against the demon with considerably more strength than the previous human ones had managed.