“Never mind that,” Makir said. And, in an instant, she moved to the bed, pulling the computer on her lap. Malcolm blinked, never having realized how disorienting it was for humans to see dream thieves move at full speed. To the naked eye, she’d disappeared and reappeared in the bed. She must be agitated if she wasn’t trying to halt the supernatural speed. The dream thieves had long since made a habit of moving at human speed unless they were with a target and had to get away. She typed fast on the keyboard. The sound blurred, and the laptop groaned, close to cracking.
Malcolm waved Debbie inside. She shut the door and flung the broken keycard on top of the food containers. “What’s going on?”
Makir’s abuse of the poor keyboard halted. “I’m letting Halek know. He’s going to pass it along to Nimue and the others.”
Debbie sank down on the bed beside him and clasped Malcolm’s hand.
“Aelia showed up at Cos. You remember how I got while we were trying to fix the mess with Dharma?”
Debbie nodded. “The bloody nose, weight loss, and unconsciousness.”
“Yes. Aelia is like that now. Only hers is more advanced. She’s screaming in agony. I’m guessing the weight loss and bloody nose is worse.”
“That’s not half of it.” Makir didn’t look up from the computer.
“What do you mean?” Malcolm sat up straighter. He hated that he couldn’t hear Obadiah over Aelia’s screams, but Makir could. She must have been so bad that Obadiah wouldn’t risk leaving her for a few minutes.
“You already knew she was missing a finger. Apparently, she lost several more fingers and an eye.”
Malcolm’s stomach clenched. “She’s regenerating?”
Makir’s face transformed into a stony mask.
Debbie’s hand flew to her mouth. She let it slide to her chin. “How is that possible?”
“Clearly we’re in uncharted territory. We have been for a while. First Caelieus, then my change, now Aelia. Who knows what will happen anymore?” Malcolm stood, unable to remain still, and paced the room. “I just don’t get it. Was Aelia behind Tara’s murder or not? I mean, she ordered the kills of Tobias Miller and Wu Sun. Who she got to carry them out, I have no idea.”
The typing on the keyboard stilled.
Debbie leaned forward. “I thought you said it was Lother.”
“That’s our assumption,” Makir commented.
“You sure?” Malcolm asked.
“No,” Makir shrugged. “Lother’s whereabouts during those murders are unaccounted for. After the shift to Obadiah as Librarian, Obadiah ordered all of us to go pair up, Lother joined me in New York. Halek checked his phone GPS, and it confirmed that he was in the same cities when the deaths occurred as well.”
“I’m just now hearing about this?”
Makir sat the computer beside her, curled her long legs up, and wrapped her arms around them, making herself as small as possible. One of the few times he’d ever seen her vulnerable. “What would you have done about it?”
“Went after him. Captured him. Punished him. I don’t know.”
Makir shook her head. “As if there was a prison that could hold us. What about when he gets a target? He’ll disappear anyway. If we kill him, he’ll regenerate. Unless one of us wants to kill him over and over again each time he regenerates or capture him and hold him until he has a target from now until eternity, then what can we do?”
“This is ridiculous. How could they let this happen?” Malcolm grabbed a pillow and wrung it between his hands. If he’d had his full strength, it would have torn in half.
“They who?” Debbie’s shoulders slumped. Seeing her anxiety and confusion, Malcolm set aside his anger to concentrate on her, going to her side and putting an arm around her. “Whoever sends us the damn targets. How can they prevent such horrible things and let this happen?”
“I think they’re losing control,” Makir said so low Malcolm almost didn’t hear her.
Malcolm had no words for this. None at all. He rested his forehead against Debbie’s shoulder. Why couldn’t life ever be easy?
“That’s not all.” Makir uncurled herself and pulled the laptop over again. She hit a few keys. “It’s done.”
Malcolm raised his head, dread filling the room.
“What’s done?” Debbie asked.
“Aelia has had a few moments of lucidity. She’s asked for you. Says she’ll only tell you her story. Nimue and Halek are on their way here to help me. Zari’s going to New Orleans with the others. I’ve bought you two tickets to Rome. You leave tonight.”
30
Malcolm sat in stunned silence for several heartbeats. Feelings of fear and resentment, not entirely his own, flooded through him. He couldn’t leave. He had to find Jim. He couldn’t be killed, too. Tara would’ve wanted him to stay, would’ve wanted him found. The ghost of her memories haunted him, urging him not to leave, to see her put to rest. He couldn’t do that if he was a million miles away in Rome. Not only that, he didn’t trust himself to be around Aelia. They still didn’t know whether she’d been behind it all. What would this strange tie to Tara do to him if Aelia was responsible for her brutal and unnecessary murder? Would he attack her, and if he did, in his new semi-human form, would he survive?
He shook his head, making up his mind. “I’m not going.” As the words left his mouth, the singularity inside himself surged like a tidal wave, until he cried out in pain.
Makir launched to her feet, grabbing him before he could fall. Sounding far away, Debbie called out to him, but he could focus on nothing but the singularity inside him pulled taut, like a rope, connecting him to something far, far away. Perhaps an urge to transport, but without the ability. He sank into himself, letting his mind focus on the place inside him. With a mental hand, he reached forward and gingerly stroked the steel-like cable. His mind jerked forward, following the never-ending connection, flashes of light sped past, distant voices with varying languages called out, colors appeared and disappeared, and all at once everything halted. He stared down at a semi-conscious Aelia, blood pouring from her nostrils. He recognized the bedroom in the heart of Cos. Aelia raised her head and squinted where he would’ve stood if he’d been solid. Could she sense their link too? Her pale, trembling hand stretched toward him. “Malcolm, please help me. Malcolm.” Her hand fell down as unconsciousness claimed her.
He felt his mental-self snap backward, flying back, back, back until he crashed inside his own head, still in the hotel room in Florida. Makir eased him to the floor, and he curled in a ball. Debbie’s soft cries reached him while Makir’s series of very colorful swear words barely registered in his awareness.
He moaned, and the dream thief grabbed his shoulder. “What happened? Are you all right?”
The world around him swirled and eddied as his body and mind tried to reassemble themselves back together. Nausea rose in him in a hard, wild tug. He jerked the hotel trashcan to himself and revisited the wine he had while waiting for their dinner to arrive. This settled some of the vertigo, but he really needed to eat.
He slumped back, hitting his back on the leg of a desk. Sweat clung to his brow with a sickening, clammy feel. He concentrated on breathing while letting the singularity return to slumbering once more.
“Should we call someone? 911?” Debbie asked.
“No. Just give him a few more minutes.” The bed settled beside him as Makir sat to wait.
He didn’t want to do anything except sink into a deep sleep. The encounter had zapped what little strength he had left and disturbed him to the core. The familiar shakiness that came after a target began in his limbs. “Syrup,” he said in a rough voice, eyes still closed, and held up a shaky hand.
“Coke is going to have to do.” Makir stood from the bed, and he heard the suction of the mini fridge opening. At the sound of a can hissing, Malcolm’s mouth watered in anticipation. He managed to right himself before she handed him the cool can. The cold fizzy drink filled his mouth, driving away the horrible taste
in his mouth. Not wanting to test the nausea, he took small sips. The caffeinated, sugary drink settled him. When only half the can remained, he passed it off to Debbie, crawling his way off the floor. He slumped on the bed.
“You ready to tell us what the hell that was about?” Makir hovered over him, looking like an odd mother hen.
Malcolm relayed what had occurred, still not believing it himself.
“You’re trying to tell me you tried to transport?” Makir tapped her foot on the floor, staring him up and down. “But you’re different.”
“Yes, that’s why it didn’t work. But when have we ever transported to each other? It was more like my mind transported, connecting to Aelia. It happened when I decided I wasn’t going to go.”
Makir paled.
“Yeah, my sentiments exactly.” Malcolm accepted the can from Debbie, finishing the last of the soda, still feeling drained but functional, at least for now.
Debbie grabbed their suitcases from the closet and without a word began packing their bags. “What time is our flight?”
Makir put a hand on her shoulder, but Debbie shrugged it off. “I don’t need your comfort. It’s clear that whoever or whatever controls you all means for Malcolm to get to Aelia. When are Halek and Nimue supposed to get here?”
“They should be here by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good. I know you can take care of yourself, but I’d rather you not be here alone. Promise me you’ll stay here until they get here. Don’t go anywhere by yourself.” Debbie shoved their clothes into the cases.
Makir’s eyes turned glassy at Debbie’s concern. “There’s really no need for you to worry about me. I’m immortal, remember? If a human manages to get by me, I’ll regenerate.”
Debbie surprised them all by embracing Makir in a tight hug. “I know, but still, I don’t want you hurt.” Debbie stepped back and squeezed Makir’s hand. “Can you call us a cab? You keep the rental.”
“Of course.”
Debbie grabbed their remaining supplies from the bathroom while Makir finalized their travel arrangements. Malcolm’s phone dinged as the email confirmations for Debbie and his flights arrived. It would be a very long day and night since they’d have to make several connecting flights and layovers, but they had to go. After what occurred, all doubt vanished from him.
Malcolm hadn’t had time to process everything that happened in those heartbeats of time, but after they’d said their goodbyes to Makir in the lobby and rode in silence in the dark cab toward the airport, he let his mind relax a fraction. The connection had been more than seeing her. He could feel the mixture of haunted feelings and remorse emanating off Aelia. Whatever her story, he would be the only one to truly see it.
His mind struggled to decipher the little information he’d gleaned while Debbie led them through the airline check-in and boarding. Malcolm struggled through the information, trying to decipher it like a changed future. Only when the plane lifted off its wheels, turning upward and pushing his back against the seat, did some of it shift into place, giving him a sliver of understanding. Most of it remained unclear, like when he had only gotten part of the dream from Dharma, but he knew one thing. He wouldn’t have wished whatever had been done to Aelia on his worst enemy.
31
Malcolm dosed throughout their flights and layovers. They had one last flight before reaching Aelia and discovering her mystery. No more understanding came to him. The toll the connection had taken on his body left him staggering. During his bathroom breaks, he noted a sharper angle to his cheekbones. Debbie mentioned that she could feel each of his ribs.
He recalled a flight attendant asking Debbie if he’d had a bit too much to drink. She assured them he hadn’t and had only taken something to help his nerves, but he fought to keep his eyes open and his words un-slurred. The many hours of sleep restored him. Their final flight wasn’t due to leave for another hour, and he settled into a table and shoveled a loaded baked potato, his new favorite food, into his mouth. With a full belly, he felt almost back to normal.
“You should check in with Makir.” Debbie pointed with a spoon to his pocket where he kept the cell phone. She took another bite of loaded baked potato while he turned off the airplane mode. He waited through the obligatory dinging of countless junk emails until he could connect to the airport’s wi-fi.
“What’s wrong?” Debbie lowered the fork, still filled with her chicken spud, at the concern on Malcolm’s face.
“Text message from Obadiah. He wants to have a conference call with all the dream thieves who are available.”
“Has something happened?”
Malcolm shook his head, checking his watch. “He doesn’t say. The meeting is to take place later this evening after we’ve arrived.”
Forlornness stole across Debbie’s face. With a heavy sigh, she resumed eating.
“What’s wrong?” Malcolm sat his spoon down and clasped her free hand.
“Nothing really. I was reminiscing about the long, lazy afternoons at Eye of the Beholder. I miss staying in one place and showing off the books to collectors.”
Malcolm squeezed her hand, missing all the same things. “And you telling customer after customer that we don’t sell new books and then fussing at me every time to get with the times.”
Her eyes twinkled with amusement and a flash of her old sassy self reemerged. “Little did I know exactly how behind the times you were.”
He tapped at her hand in a playful reprimand. “Are you calling me old?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Her smile lightened his mood. “We’ll have those days again, and this will fade into memory.”
She shrugged one shoulder, dapping at her mouth with a napkin. “I don’t mind seeing the world. It’d just be nice to do it on an actual vacation.”
“Then we will.”
“Promise?”
The singularity inside him constricted, but Malcolm refused to concede, not this time. “I promise.”
32
Aelia’s desperate and pitiful screams reached his ears as soon as the elevator door to the heart of Cos opened. The sound ripped through him, vibrating on the thin connection between his singularity to hers. He dropped Debbie’s hand and sprinted through the elevator doors, running for her.
He knew what he’d find before he swept past a haggard-looking Obadiah into the Librarian’s bedroom. Aelia screamed and writhed on the bed, blood oozing from her nostrils and ears. What he didn’t expect was how seeing the multiple fingers missing in varying states of regrowth and a gaping hole where her left eye should’ve been would affect him. Their connection hinted at it, but he’d focused more on their mental connection and not her physical condition. Malcolm dropped to his knees in front of the bed. He placed a shaking hand tenderly on her shoulder. At his touch, the screams quieted to low moaning. “Shhh,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”
Obadiah inched to his left and leaned down. He stuck a needle into Aelia’s exposed bone-thin arm and injected a clear liquid. A few moments after the drug entered her system, the moans vanished, and her breathing became slow, deep, and steady.
“Oh, god,” Debbie said from the doorway. She dropped her suitcase on the ground and covered her mouth. “Malcolm, you never looked that bad.”
Malcolm wiped away tears, unable to fathom the torture his old friend had suffered, still suffered. No matter what Aelia had or hadn’t done, she’d always been his closest friend. They’d lived together off and on for decades, if not a century. He couldn’t stand to see her like this.
Obadiah steered Debbie through the doorway. “We don’t know how long she’s been like this before she came here.”
Obadiah gave Malcolm several minutes to sit beside the unconscious Aelia and watch her sleep. The blood from her nose slowed to a trickle. The connection between them lessened in her drugged stupor but still coiled tight in his own chest. He didn’t have a clue what it could mean.
Obadiah cleared his throat from the doorway. Mal
colm squeezed Aelia’s shoulder, stood, and closed the door behind him.
“I thought we should talk before the conference call.”
The power of the Librarian flitted pass his senses like a tickle in his nose. It hadn’t been a command, but the power transmitted the suggestion just the same. “How long has she been here?”
“She arrived maybe ten to fifteen minutes before I called you. Other than losing more weight, her appearance is unchanged. The rapid healing is gone, maybe?”
“Did she say anything? Is she like me?” Malcolm couldn’t imagine undressing her to look for parts.
Obadiah stepped away, slumping into a computer chair, and leaned backward, knitting his forehead together. “She landed over there.” He pointed a finger near the back where the most ancient of scrolls lay waiting for translation into the new software. “Took me a good five minutes to wake her. When she awoke, I asked her where she’d been and what she’d done. She stared through me, not seeing me. I shook her to snap her out of it. She shoved me backward, and I hit that wall over there,” he gestured with his head to the concrete wall with a new round dent. “She covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head back and forth calling out ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’”
A chill trickled down Malcolm’s spine like tiny spiders crept along his skin. If Aelia had shoved Obadiah hard enough to dent the concrete, she still had the super strength of the dream thieves, so why wasn’t she healing?
“I knelt beside her, telling her I was fine. She still sat there in the same way. I asked her to tell me what was wrong. At this, her head shot up and, for the first time, she peered straight into my eyes and said, ‘Malcolm. I can only tell Malcolm.’ That seemed to take all her energy because after that she slumped over and began screaming like you just saw her. I called you, and after I spoke with Makir, I found Aelia a sedative. Whenever she wakes, she’s like that.” His gaze drifted toward the closed door where Aelia slept.
The Dream Awakened Page 17