“Do I?”
The woman was a total wild card. “Don’t know yet. Give yourself time to acclimate before you try anything.”
The pavement crumbled at last into the boundary of a vast, empty plain, what agents called the Scrape, though who had initially found and named it, no one knew. Beyond the edge of her dream, the ground rippled like a desert or the ocean floor, grains pushed continually over each other by a constant harsh wind.
She gaped at the emptiness before her. Yeah, it had that effect.
“There are no rules in the Scrape. No one controls it. You can feel pain. You can die. You don’t go out here alone, not for a long time, you hear me?”
She shook her head like she didn’t want to in the first place.
“We’re going to cross into the Agora,” Rook said, which he could already sense as a wavering desert oasis of matte silver light, less vibrant and colorful than a real dream. It’d take only one step to get from here to there. “Agora is Greek for meeting place, and all legal shared dreaming that initiates in the United States occurs there. Agents come and go at will, and you’ve been granted temporary access with an escort.”
The fierce Scrape wind screamed in his ear as he stepped out of her dream, drawing Jordan with him.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she chanted as her hair whipped crazily around her head.
People got lost in the desert, which is why he shifted from holding her hand to putting an arm around her shoulders. He appreciated any excuse to pull her close.
In one electric pulse, they crossed into the silence of an inactive Rêve in the Agora. They arrived in an area where no dream was in effect, so the space was vast and dark. The Agora’s characteristic Corinthian columns created an infinite grid on a horizontal plane within the darkness. In reality, there was only one pillar repeating over and over again, but that was the stuff of popular trivia.
Marshal Harlen Fawkes was leaning against a pillar, apparently waiting for their arrival. As a tracker, Rook rarely stayed in one Rêve for long, but the Agora was Fawkes’s territory. After someone like Jordan was scouted, she would usually be given to a specialist for orientation in the different venues.
Yeah, not this time. Rook had no intention of giving her up.
“Coll told me to expect a new Reveler,” Fawkes drawled, shifting his weight in his big boots. “He didn’t tell me she was beautiful.”
“Jordan Lane,” Rook said drily, “this is Marshal Harlen Fawkes.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jordan said. “I didn’t know there were marshals in Rêve. Isn’t it supposed to be safe already?”
Rook liked the implication of her statement, If Rêve is safe, what’s this guy good for?
“Well, I keep it that way.” Fawkes swaggered forward while simultaneously putting on at least two inches in height and bulking himself up noticeably with muscle under his shirt. He had stretched a big, white cartoon smile. Must think he was so damn charming.
Likewise, Jordan chuckled, a gorgeous low sound.
Introduction officially over, Rook thought. “You got any Rêves going today?”
“In fact I do.” But Fawkes kept his attention on Jordan. “High-end dating meet-and-greet. I had to throw out a scammer who got in without paying the twenty grand fee,” he bragged for her. “Seems the elite want to make sure they only dream-hump other elite.”
“How very classist,” Jordan responded.
It was true: the wealthy got access to Rêve. The poor waited on lists or found illegal hookups, like Jordan’s little sister. Like him, too, before Coll scammed him into joining Chimera.
“Yeah, and the Army’s got some freaky History of War going, but I’ll steer you clear of that shit.” Fawkes shrugged melodramatically. “I don’t like violence. I resort to it sometimes, but I don’t like it.”
Rook put a hand to Fawkes’s massive pectorals and pushed him away from her. “Anything else?”
Fawkes swiveled his eyeballs in their sockets to address Rook. “Just the usual. There’s a boardwalk full of retirees—” He flashed those bright whites again at Jordan. “—but she’d probably enjoy something a little more exciting. Hmmm…. Jungle?”
Jordan merely blinked.
“Alien adventure?”
Rook wanted to laugh when a little line of alarm appeared between her eyebrows.
“Or do you go in for symbolic, existentialist bullshit? We could preview the Rêve co-curated by the Museum of Modern Art and NYU. Been babysitting them all week.”
“The existentialist bullshit sounds very intriguing,” Jordan said with a friendly wink, “but whatever Michael has got planned is good for me, thanks.”
Rook didn’t hide his smile this time. His girl saw through all kinds of illusions. Maybe that’s how her talent would manifest.
Fawkes’s thumb jacked Rook’s way. “This guy? Now don’t get me wrong, he’s a good agent and all.”
“Gee, thanks,” Rook mumbled.
“But you don’t want to go where he goes, darlin’.” The marshal was talking now, not Fawkes, the ladies’ man. “It’ll mess with your head. You have to be a little psychotic to track psychotics. Have to have spilled blood to cross into the dreams of someone who does it for fun.”
Rook didn’t contradict him because the good marshal had barely touched the surface of the things Rook had seen and done, both in Rêve and in the waking world. On behalf of Chimera, he’d become the killers they wanted to catch. He’d gone so deep that the nightmares stalked him now.
A warning was warranted, and since Rook intended to be as greedy as possible where Jordan was concerned—he was no hero, never had been, had no aspirations to be—this was all the caution she was going to get.
Innocent Jordan lifted her face, that sharp sparkle in her eyes, and repeated, “I’m good with Michael, thanks.”
***
“What a character,” Jordan said as Michael led her away from the marshal and toward another massive pillar, where he was going to show her how Rêves were built and maintained.
The columns of the Agora were common knowledge. A sketch of one was the logo on the official Agora website. And regardless of what company was hosting the Rêve, all had the column somewhere at the bottom of their advertising. But staring up at the massive things, how they vanished into darkness beyond sight, was a wow kind of crick in the neck.
“Rêve’s full of characters,” Michael said, “but you get in trouble in the Agora, you call for a marshal or you get to one of the columns and a marshal will find you. The columns are like home base. You’re safe there.”
The massive things couldn’t be in every Rêve, though. It would mess up the theme of the dream. To that effect, she chuckled. “Are columns in the alien adventure he mentioned?” Spaceships whizzing around them in a laser fight. Right.
But Michael was serious. “Yes, if you look for them. If you want to see them. No columns, you’re not in the Agora. Means you’re lost in the dreamwaters. Means no one knows where you are. No one can help you.”
“Couldn’t you just wake up?”
Michael looked at her. “Try to wake up. Right now.”
She didn’t want this to end, wanted to stay with him longer, share the dream, but she was suddenly worried. “How?”
“Exactly. You don’t know yet. And there are people who can hold you under if you’re not strong enough. What would you do?”
She had no idea whatsoever. The thought that she couldn’t wake up when she wanted to was the most frightening thing she’d learned yet. “Point taken. I’ll stay in the Agora or in my own dreams. For now.”
He didn’t seem to like her answer. He hesitated, looking at her, then grabbed her shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth. As soon as she tilted up into it—yes, more—he pulled away. “For now? God, Jordan. Don’t try anything without backup. Don’t cross anywhere.”
“But you do.” The marshal had said Michael followed psychotics and killers. “You cross dreams. You crossed into mine. Are you goi
ng to teach me how?”
“If I can, yeah. But you’re nowhere near ready. There are very bad people Darkside.”
“The ones you go after.”
“Used to go after. I’ve had enough.” He shrugged, the frustration easing out of his expression. “I like recruiting now.”
Hmm. She didn’t want him going into any other woman’s dream. Made her grumbly inside. “You could be a marshal like that other guy.” Just a suggestion.
“Well, technically, I am one already. I’m just assigned to a different task force. Usually I work alone.”
Oh. She looked away to cover her disappointment. She’d been thinking how awesome it would be to go to sleep every night and find him here waiting for her. There were lots of things she wanted to try, and the first thing on her list required his participation.
But this was his job. She was his job.
The memory of their kiss tingled on her lips.
Well, not just his job, she hoped. He’d felt something, too. She had to cool her jets, was all. Infatuation was what this was—the excitement of all these firsts. All of them amazing. Out of everything the Rêve had to offer, his kiss had definitely been the best. She was pretty sure seconds were going to be better. And thirds.
She wanted to hurry up and take it slow at the same time. She’d never been with anyone like him. For good reason, probably. The crash when this ended was going to be brutal. But she didn’t care. Nope, not one bit.
“Okay, so what would you like to start with?” Michael had called up a lightpanel in front of the column and was flicking though the screens. “Did any of the Rêves Fawkes mentioned appeal to you?”
But Jordan’s attention was caught elsewhere. There was someone else walking toward them in the dark space between the columns. Another marshal?
“You pick,” she said to Michael as she took a step away to get a better look.
It was a kid.
His torn jeans and dirty shirt said he was tough, but he still had that childlike, almost girly smoothness to his face. No hormones going on yet, so maybe ten?
What the heck was he doing out in the middle of the Agora? A person had to be eighteen to be able to participate in shared dreaming. Marshal Fawkes wasn’t doing his job.
She bent her knees and leaned forward as he came close. “Hey, are you lost?”
The kid’s eyes filled with tears—poor little guy—and he drew a breath to speak. Michael would know what to do. She almost turned to get him, but the longer she looked at the boy, the less kidlike he appeared. His eyes seemed old and sick. Very sick. So not a kid.
“Jordan!” Michael roared.
The kid leapt on her, rolled them both in mid-air, and brought her down in a dizzy drop, straddling her belly. He drew an arm back, as if to strike—
—but Michael grabbed his wrist and yanked him up and off her. Threw the kid a couple of yards away, where he hit another column with a bone-crack and collapsed on the floor.
Jordan was trying to sit up, when Rook reached forward, presumably to help her up.
But instead he pushed her hard on her chest. “Wake up!”
She fell backward into a stunned collapse, her vision momentarily blanking. When she opened her eyes again, the early pink of dawn illuminated her bedroom curtains.
CHAPTER 5
Vince Blackman clicked through the file he’d found in his morning email. “Yeah, Dad, tell them this should work well.”
The file detailed the history of the other guy who’d been following Jordan Lane. Hell of a childhood. He had to be Chimera, what with the way he’d disappeared from his life so long ago. There was no record of him past seventeen.
Chimera were supposed to be able to do strange things—both in Rêve and in real life. They were ghosts. They had powers. Or they had really good PR people making them into urban legends. The spin was smart, psychological. Would carry into dreams, where they were supposed to dominate.
“I’ll show it to her this morning,” Vince said.
“They think you should already have her,” his father growled. “Does it always take you this long to land a woman?”
“There are Chimera everywhere watching her.”
“We have people watching her, too.”
We? That was a laugh. His father wasn’t one of them, no matter how much he wanted to be.
“I can’t get close,” Vince said. “She has to come to me.”
“And here I thought you were a Blackman.”
His father had made his bed and was looking for anyone other than himself to lie in it. “Careful, Dad.” His own threat. Jordan Lane didn’t deserve a life of fear. Neither did Vince.
“Son, I’m sorry. I saw them hurt someone last night.”
Case in point. The only way to do business with people like that was to refuse to do so from the beginning. It was ego and greed that had driven his father to accept to so much money without the ability to repay.
“Please, son. For me. Bring the girl in.”
***
Rook glanced up at Jordan’s tall apartment building, a knife-twisting feeling in his gut. The kiss had been spontaneous—he didn’t regret it—but the nightmare that had followed him? Shit. That the kid would attack her? And in the Agora?
She’d had a very rude awakening.
Jordan seemed like someone who did a lot of hard thinking in the cool light of day, making decisions and coming to unshakeable, maddening conclusions. With every second that passed, it felt like she was moving farther and farther from him.
He’d know when he saw her.
Beside him, Coll sipped his coffee while they waited for a break in traffic to cross the street. Coll (aka Conner for the time being) had an appointment with the Lane sisters at 7 a.m. Maisie Lane had evidently told Jordan about Coll, and Jordan had asked to meet him herself. Jordan didn’t trust her little sister’s instincts where people were concerned.
Rook hoped she didn’t mind if he tagged along. All things considered, it wouldn’t hurt if she knew he and Coll worked together.
“Fawkes tells me there was a rogue incursion in the Agora last night.” Coll took another pull from his coffee.
The incursion in question was not a rogue. It was the nightmare that followed Rook around, and its name was Joshua. Joshua Kenneth Rook, little brother, deceased eleven years.
But Coll couldn’t know about that. He wouldn’t understand anyway, sticking as close to the surface of dreamspace as he did. To Rook’s knowledge, Coll had never gone deep Darkside. Never seen those kinds of nightmares or stirred them within himself. As far as Coll knew, some Reveler had simply broken into the Agora.
“I booted him,” Rook said.
“Did you track him?” Traffic broke and they both cut across the four lanes of the street.
No need to track. The signature of the rogue was his own, so Rook knew exactly where it came from. Himself. Which is why he’d switched from Special Cases to recruitment. If he stayed near the surface, in silly Rêves or orienting Jordan, then maybe the nightmare would fade away.
“Lost him at the Scrape,” Rook said, though he’d never lost anyone there, ever. Other trackers did. Not him.
Coll opened the glass door to take them inside the building. The agent posted in the atrium nodded good morning to both of them. Coll and Rook nodded back.
“All right. The Agora marshals have been warned to keep an eye out. We’ve got more and more people trying to sneak in. Had to shut down a website last week that gave step-by-step instructions on how to build a shared dreaming interface.”
“I’m glad that’s not my problem.” Rook hit the elevator button.
“Not mine either, but we are going to see more rogues. Did he bother Jordan?”
“Got a little too close. I woke her.”
Not the Rêve send-off he’d have preferred. He’d been going over and over the night in his mind, second-guessing himself.
The rules against fraternizing with marks, for example. He’d always been going to tou
ch her eventually—that was a given—but maybe he should’ve waited, gone slow. She didn’t seem like the type to do things on impulse.
But the electricity between them—that was just how it was. She’d have to deal with it, accept it. Or, hell, he would, when she shook her head and said, I made a mistake. In the waking world she was so stubborn. So reserved.
The elevator dinged, the door slid open, and the guard posted on her floor murmured the okay into his throat mic.
Had she been scared? What if she was scared today? He just didn’t know any girls like her, so he couldn’t speculate on what her reaction might be.
The knife in Rook’s belly twisted again.
Guess he’d just have to find out.
***
Awake.
Michael had woken her up.
Which meant that super-creepy kid had to have been bad news.
But Michael could handle him, was handling him. He just didn’t want a newbie in the way, which kind of disappointed her—she wanted to see the man in action so badly—but she understood. Another time.
Please, pretty please, let there be another time. It was going to kill her if she had to wait a whole day until she could see him again.
Jordan rolled over in bed and put her face into her pillow to stifle a squeal. All of her was smiling as if she were sixteen years old again and contemplating going all the way.
Michael Reese, the sexy bad boy of her dreams. He was the opposite of her type—the type she’d carefully weighed and decided upon a couple of years ago. She still had her Must List of qualities around here somewhere, now totally irrelevant.
She wiped the happy smile from her face. Time to get real. Set some parameters.
Rule number one: She wasn’t sleeping with him until they’d shared at least one meal together.
Smart decision. She felt good about it. Solid.
Rule number two:
Nothing else came to mind, and she was in no mood to strain herself. She’d had a very busy night.
She bounced out of bed and into the bathroom. She had a half hour to get ready for work. Had to choose clothes that were equal parts flirty, in case she saw Michael, and serious, for the first meeting with Vince Blackman’s SpiderSly team, the appointment set yesterday at lunch.
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Page 50