I groaned inwardly, ashamed that this hot boy who’d probably never noticed me before was now seeing the worst of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Stupid, stupid, unreliable magic. In the daytime, Nightmares looked as human as anybody else, our unusually pale eyes strange but not alarming. At night, our eyes glowed white. The glamour I usually wore to hide the glow must’ve come undone.
“What kind of freak are you?” Eli said.
I glared at him, ignoring the sting of his words. “At least I’m not the freak dreaming about dead girls.”
He gaped. “How do you know that?”
Uh … More embarrassed than any one person should ever have to be, I decided it was time to make a break for it. I could hear loud footsteps outside his door and knew I had about two seconds to escape. His dad was a cop; I was certain he would shoot me first and regret later.
I ran to the open window. Rule number two in dream-feeding: always have an escape route. I climbed over the edge, grabbed hold of the ivy-covered drainpipe, and slid down as quickly as I dared. Thank goodness for all those gymnastic lessons when I was younger. Normally, I would’ve used a glider spell to get down, but with my magic misfiring, I couldn’t risk it.
As my feet touched the ground, I looked up to see Eli staring down at me, mouth open. I stuck my tongue out at him. Then I turned and sprinted up the sidewalk.
A few minutes later, I slowed to an easier pace. I had a few blocks to go until I reached McCloud Park, where I’d stowed my bicycle in some bushes. Would’ve been nice to have a car or motorcycle for these late-night dream-feeding adventures—hell, I wouldn’t have turned down a moped—but my chances of getting any kind of motorized vehicle were slim to zero. Arkwell was a boarding school with a strict no-student-vehicles policy.
I spotted my bicycle sitting between some bushes where I’d left it and dropped down to a walk. If Eli or his dad hadn’t caught up to me by now, they probably weren’t going to.
Should’ve known better than to trust my luck.
An enormous black sedan rounded the corner into the parking lot, and I froze as the beam of headlights struck me. It came to a stop, and all the doors opened in unison. Four hairy-looking men in matching gray suits stepped out.
Four werewolves, to be precise. Local law enforcement for magickind.
2
Dream Come True
They put me in the back of the sedan, a werewolf on each side. The guy on my right was Hispanic and the guy on my left black. Not that it meant anything. Most magickind didn’t come from any one ethnic group. We had enough trouble getting along without adding racial divisions. Our divisions came from our magical classifications. Think Carl Linnaeus, although instead of class, genus, species, we had “kinds.”
There were three main kinds with loads of sub-kinds, all under the generic umbrella of magickind. The divisions were based on how we get our magic. There was witchkind, like wizards, witches, and psychics, whose magic was self-fueled. Naturekind, like fairies, dryads, and mermaids, who derived power from nature and the elements. And darkkind, like demons, werewolves, and Nightmares, of course, whose power came from other living creatures. I was part-ordinary, considered halfkind, which put me one step above reject in the social hierarchy.
I cleared my throat. “Um, where are we going, guys?”
All four ignored me. Werewolves tended to be surly that way. They also tended to be big, even when in human form, as they were now. I kept my arms tight against my sides to keep from bumping into the two beside me as the car turned corners.
I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this conversation.
I leaned back on the seat, trying to ignore the smell of wet dog so prominent in the confines of the sedan I might as well have been locked in a kennel. My hair was so poofy from the late summer humidity that I had to pull the ponytail over my shoulder to rest my head. I spotted a leaf tangled in it and plucked it out. I was too far from the window to toss it, and I didn’t think throwing it on the floor was a very good idea, so I closed my hand around the leaf and whispered, “Cine-aphan.”
There was a loud crack, and all four werewolves jumped.
“Oops, sorry.” I opened my now empty hand and freed a puff of smoke from where I’d just disintegrated the leaf. I’d meant to vanish the darn thing, but after my dream-feed with Eli, my temperamental magic was on supercharge. Well, that and I wasn’t very good at spells in general. Most halfkinds couldn’t work magic at all, but were born magically sterile.
I tried to ignore the wolfish glowers fixed on me and zone out for a bit, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened with Eli. Temperamental or not, my magic should’ve worked on him. The Will was the gatekeeper for all magic usage, and its prime directive was to keep the existence of magickind a secret. The disaster at Eli’s house had to be the reason this werewolf police force picked me up. The Will spell must’ve alerted them about my magic misfiring. But it wasn’t my fault. It was as if Eli was made out of magic rubber. I didn’t doubt that this apparent immunity was why he detected my presence in his dream in the first place. He touched me. Surely somebody would believe the truth when they heard it.
But in my heart I knew that wasn’t likely. When you were Moira Nimue-Everhart’s only daughter, everybody was keen on you living up to the bad reputation. My mother was, after all, the girl who in her senior year set fire to the Alchemy building at Arkwell, an act she claimed was an accident, but which everybody else suspected had been revenge against a teacher who dared to give her a failing grade. Nobody could prove it though. Getting away with things was Mom’s special talent.
Too bad I didn’t inherit it.
After a while, the car slowed, then came to a stop. The driver lowered his window and spoke briefly to someone outside before moving on. When we came to a stop again a few moments later, the driver killed the engine and all four werewolves got out. I figured they wanted me to follow, so I scooted over and stood up, taking a big gulp of dog-free air.
I recognized our location at once. We were at Arkwell, on the northeast side of campus, parked next to one of the entrances into Coleville Cemetery. The stone archway leading into the cemetery looked three times larger than usual set against the backdrop of the night sky. Through it, I could just make out the first row of headstones.
My stomach did a nosedive as goose bumps blossomed on my arms and legs. If there was one thing I’d learned about the magical world, there was no such thing as coincidence.
“Follow,” said the werewolf who’d been driving.
“Where’re we going?”
He gave me a stern look then turned and strode off toward the archway. I fell into place behind him, the other three following suit. I tried not to panic, surrounded as I was by four creatures capable of turning me into Kibbles ’n Bits in about 2.3 seconds. I knew The Will prevented werewolves from attacking anyone without due cause, but given my current criminal status, I wasn’t sure that included me.
We followed a winding path in and around mausoleums, benches, statues, trees, and flowerbeds. The place was beautiful in a creepy, gothic kind of way. It was scary, too, full of shadows and odd noises.
Eventually the lead werewolf came to a stop out front of a gigantic mausoleum I recognized at once as the Kirkwoods’. A sudden sensation of déjà vu made me shiver with dread.
The werewolf pointed at a bench next to the door into the Kirkwoods’ tomb. “Sit. Wait.”
Did I mention werewolves were chatty?
I sat and waited.
He walked around the building, leaving me alone with the other three. They continued ignoring me and I them. We had a mutual understanding.
I focused my attention on the murmur of voices on the other side of the tomb. Lights flashed here and there above my head, reflecting off leaves and structures, but I couldn’t see anything from where I sat.
“Who found her?” a male voice said. To my surprise, I recognized one of my teachers, a wizard named Mr. Marrow. Knowing there was some
body I knew here made me a little less nervous. I liked Marrow, mostly because he taught history, a subject that didn’t require us to use a lot of magic, thereby lowering my chances for making a fool of myself.
The voice that answered him, however, I’d never heard before and hoped never to again, it was so horrible. Female and ancient, it sounded like the grinding of old gears in desperate need of oil. “The maintenance man found her. Mr. Culpepper was on his way home from fixing a plumbing problem at Flint Hall when he heard a disturbance.”
“This late? I’ve never known him to be so willing to repair something in the student dormitories after hours.”
“Yes, well, he says he was worried about structural damage if he didn’t fix it right away.”
“I see.” There was a long pause, then Mr. Marrow said, “I suppose, given the missing hand, she was one of the Keepers?”
Missing hand? Keeper? I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“Yes. I’ve been telling the senate for years they shouldn’t allow Keepers so young, but the families have started to treat it like a rite of passage, mere ceremony. They’ve grown complacent about the threat.”
“Well, now I imagine they’ll realize none of the Keepers are safe.”
The old woman took a deep breath. “Ambrose, I didn’t see this coming.”
“No sign at all?”
“No. It’s as if something’s blocked my visions. I can’t begin to fathom the kind of magic necessary to do that.”
“Yes, but best to focus on what we can for now.”
“You’re right. I’ll know more once I speak to the girl.”
Sheriff Brackenberry appeared from around the side of the mausoleum. He stopped beside the bench and stared down at me, so big he blocked the moon from sight. He looked like an NFL linebacker with some extra paunch and body hair. Not only was he head of the magickind police force in Chickery, he was also the alpha werewolf.
“Listening in, were you?” said Brackenberry.
I swallowed.
The sheriff shook his head. “I would think someone who’s been up to as much trouble this evening as you, Miss Everhart, would know better than to press her luck by eavesdropping.” He paused and smiled, his mouth all long teeth and snarl. “Then again, I guess it’s not that surprising after all.”
His condescension was a little undeserved, I thought. Aside from the night last March when I first came into my Nightmare powers and went on an unauthorized dream-feed on the neighbor boy, I’d never been in serious trouble. Nothing worse than a couple of detentions and a D on my alchemy final last year. Well, there was that incident in spell-casting class when I turned Katarina Marcel into a snake, but it had been an accident.
He must be judging me by my mother. Made sense, given he was a cop. He’d probably arrested her a couple of times before he became sheriff. Mom had been a social activist in her twenties, leading protests on magickind issues, such as when she tried to get the ban on romantic relationships with ordinaries lifted. She’d gone to all that trouble just to be with my dad, only to divorce him a few years later. Typical that her self-serving behavior would be causing me trouble now.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I swear.”
He grunted. “Like I’ve never heard that before. Funny, but I expected a little more originality from Moira’s daughter.”
“Yeah, well, the dog ate my notebook with all my good excuses.”
Okay, so mouthing off to the sheriff wasn’t my smartest decision of the night, but I couldn’t help it. Smartassitis might not be a clinically defined disease, but it should be.
Brackenberry growled at me. Seriously! He growled. I closed my eyes and pretended to be invisible. A small part of me half-expected it to work. There were spells for stuff like that. Not that I knew any.
“I think that’s enough intimidation for now, Sheriff,” Mr. Marrow said, appearing behind him.
Relief bloomed inside me, and I beamed up at Marrow. He didn’t smile back, but I detected a friendly twinkle in his eyes.
“Come with me, Dusty.”
I stood up like someone had lit a stove burner beneath my butt and hurried past Brackenberry. Marrow led me around the Kirkwood mausoleum, then came to a stop. He faced me, resting his hands on top of his cane. He didn’t need the cane to walk, even though he was kind of old. Silver threaded his storm-cloud gray hair and neatly trimmed beard, and his skin resembled aged leather. The cane was Marrow’s wizard staff disguised by glamour. All wizards and witches needed a magical object in order to use magic, sort of like needing a mouse to use a computer. I was glad Nightmares didn’t need wands and stuff. I would’ve just ended up losing mine—or breaking it.
“I must say, Dusty, one of these days your tongue is going to dig its way right into your grave,” said Marrow.
I sighed. “I know. I don’t mean to. My mouth just works independent of my brain sometimes.”
“Obviously. Though I’m glad you’re wise enough to admit your shortcomings. That’s the first step to overcoming them. However, I suggest you make every attempt to control yourself now. There’s someone waiting to talk to you who won’t be as tolerant as the sheriff. Lady Elaine is an oracle. Do you know what that means?”
I nodded. I paid enough attention in his classes to know that an oracle was a witchkind born with the rare ability to see far into the future. They were prophets whose predictions almost always came true.
“Good,” Marrow said. “Show her the utmost respect and be completely honest about everything she asks you. Understand?”
“Yep. Will do.”
He turned and walked on. Ahead of us, a woman stood in between a row of headstones. She was staring at me as if I were a science experiment starting to bubble over the side of the beaker. Behind her, I saw some kind of magical shield, like a wall of woven light, hiding the area beyond.
As we drew closer to the woman, I slowed down. She looked about four feet tall and seventy-five pounds, but I knew enough about the power of oracles to be afraid of her. Her arms, visible beneath the tight black turtleneck she wore, resembled broom handles, the bones the same width from shoulder to wrist. I reckoned it wouldn’t take much to break one, but I doubted very many people would try to harm her. She had a look in her pale, almost milky eyes that made me think of dragons and other creatures that favored teenage girls for dinner. Besides, she’d probably see an attack coming.
Marrow came to a stop a few feet away from the oracle. “Lady Elaine, this is Destiny Everhart.”
I cringed at the use of my real name. It was so important sounding, like somebody with, well, a destiny. Not me. That was why I went by Dusty—it fit better. Plus, my mom hated it.
Lady Elaine looked me up and down with a dire expression, her lips compressed into a tight line. “You were dream-walking earlier?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did something go wrong?”
I started to fidget with my hair. “Oh, you could say that, yeah. The guy woke up and then my magic wouldn’t work on him.”
“Yes, I see. Good.” She nodded to herself. “This confirms it.”
“Um, confirms what?”
But the old lady wasn’t listening. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”
Now, I knew the definition of everything meant, well, everything, but I didn’t see any reason why this old woman needed to know how distractingly hot I thought Eli was in his red boxer shorts. So I censored the more embarrassing details and spilled the rest—the setting at Coleville, Rosemary, even the way Eli had touched me, and kicked me out of the dream. If Lady Elaine was surprised by any part of my tale, I couldn’t tell. The expression on her face, grave with a side of crankiness, didn’t change.
Not that I looked at her much. My gaze kept drifting to the wall behind her. It didn’t take someone with less of an imagination than mine to guess it might be hiding a pale-haired fairy girl. But I didn’t want it to be Rosemary Vanholt. Not just because the idea of someone so young being murdered, especially so
meone I knew, was so horrible, but because if it was her, then that meant there’d been something special about my dream-walk. I didn’t want to be a part of anything special. Bad things happened to special people. Usually failure followed by an early death.
When I finished recounting the story, Lady Elaine asked, “Was Rosemary’s body intact in the dream?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to remember the missing hand business.
“Was she wearing a ring?”
I gulped, certain the ring in question was no doubt magical and probably dangerous. There was no shortage of magical artifacts hanging around. If it weren’t for The Will keeping stuff in check, a lot of those things could kill you just by touching them, like a cursed sweater designed to shrink the moment you put it on and not stop until it squeezed the life right out of you. Magickind was pretty civilized nowadays, but it didn’t used to be.
“Well?” Lady Elaine said.
“Um … I don’t know. Looking at dead people’s not really my thing.”
“I see.” She sounded disappointed. “What about this boy, Eli Booker? You knew him already?”
I forced my hands away from my hair and the knots I’d managed to put in the ends of it. “Not really. I only know who he is because we were in the same grade at my old high school.”
“But do you have…” She broke off as a terrible noise sounded behind us. A loud, piercing shriek. I glanced back, expecting to see a banshee or maybe a harpy, but it was far worse. A woman with the same bright blond hair as Rosemary was stumbling toward us.
“Tell me it’s not true.” She stopped when she reached Lady Elaine and grabbed the old crone by her bony arms. “Tell me it’s not!”
Lady Elaine didn’t respond, but I guessed that was response enough from an oracle. The woman let go and continued her stumbling walk toward the magical shield. I knew who she was, of course. Mrs. Vanholt, Rosemary’s mother.
I fought back tears, struggling to breathe as the woman’s grief filled the air around us. I watched as Mrs. Vanholt approached the shield. She stopped before it, raising her hands. The shield vibrated a moment like a plucked harp string, then vanished.
The Nightmare Affair Page 2