by Jane Kindred
“That’s right.” Lucy tried not to react as Rhea went over a particular spot on top of her pubic bone for the third time.
“Sorry.” Rhea gave her a sympathetic shrug. “Without ink, I have to make multiple passes to make sure the scarring will be deep enough.”
“I thought we didn’t want it to scar.”
“Not long-term, no. But the lines have to be solid and deep enough for Theia to be able to pick up the image. Otherwise, it just looks like scratches.”
“So the creature wasn’t in Jerome?” Leo prodded.
“No, it was, but it wasn’t the only one. Apparently, Jerome is a secret haven for paranormal outcasts.”
“Well, there are no other killers. You asked me to point the way to a killer.” That was good to know, anyway. Maybe Oliver wasn’t so far off about the community he was protecting. “You didn’t send the diner waitress to hell, did you?”
“No. I was interrupted.”
“But you found the killer eventually. Or it found you.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know what it is.”
Rhea took her foot off the tattoo machine pedal and poked Leo’s calf with the toe of her shoe. “Leo, will you leave her alone?”
“It’s fine.” Lucy looked up at Leo while Rhea returned to her work. “I’ve tangled with it three times now. I’ve never dealt with anything like it before. It looks like a huge wolf, but it’s like no werewolf I’ve ever encountered, and it’s able to shift without effort.”
Leo frowned. “And you’re sure it’s from hell? Because it sounds a bit like Fenrir, the monstrous wolf brother of the serpent Jörmungandr.” He drew up his sleeve and flexed his arm, making the knotted serpent tattoo around his right biceps undulate.
“Leo, stop posing,” Rhea said without looking up. “She’s not interested in your snake.”
“It told me it was from hell,” said Lucy. “Or at least, that it’s hunting something that escaped hell, and it’s not of this world. If I manage to reach Lucien, hopefully I can find out more definitively.”
Leo nodded thoughtfully. “Let me know what you learn. I’d be interested to know what has those qualities.”
Rhea released the foot pedal and lifted the needles off Lucy’s skin. “All done.”
While she cleaned up, Rhea gave Lucy instructions on how to use the tattoos. “It’ll be easiest to reach Theia if you’re experienced with lucid dreaming, but as long as you keep her name in mind as you fall asleep, you should make contact even if you lose track of the dream thread. She’ll be able to pick it up from the tattoos.”
“The dream thread?”
“It’s like a story. If you’re directing the story, the flow of the dream follows the thread you spin. Maybe a better way to think of it is as a tapestry. The picture takes shape on the tapestry as you weave the thread. All you need to do is give it your intent, that you need to reach Theia so you can speak to Lucien.”
Lucy wasn’t experienced. She barely even remembered her dreams. But Smok Biotech had developed a drug just for the purpose of lucid dreaming. It had the added benefit of being a powerful sleep aid.
“What do I owe you?” she asked as Rhea started to close up shop.
“Nothing. Lucien’s family, and that makes you family. And I don’t charge family.”
Lucy thanked her awkwardly, never quite sure what to do with unearned generosity. Before heading home, she drove up to the lab in Flagstaff and picked up a sample of the dreaming compound.
It was almost midnight by the time she was back home and ready to try it out. She lay staring at the ceiling in her bedroom, convinced the sleep aid was faulty. Maybe she was just immune to them. Her wyvern hormones had wreaked havoc with her metabolism. Think of Theia, she reminded herself, and yawned. What was the point of thinking of Theia if she never fell asleep?
Something flicked at her ear, a moth or a mosquito that had gotten in when she opened the door, and Lucy brushed it away only to hear what sounded like a sigh beside her.
Warm breath exhaled against her ear, and something whispered in the darkness, “Shall I huff and puff and blow your house in?”
Lucy sprang from the bed and turned on the light, but nothing was there. All this stupid drug had done was make her hallucinate. And the raw flesh on her belly where Rhea had tattooed her was starting to burn. She pulled up her shirt to take a look and gasped. A bright orange glow began to trace over the lines as if molten lava were flowing through them. Instead of the images Rhea had tattooed, however, they were rearranging themselves and forming new lines, spelling out in a stylized script, Veni, vidi, vici—I came, I saw, I conquered.
Had Rhea’s magic animated the tattoos somehow? And what did the glowing letters mean?
They began to change once more. I huffed, I puffed, I blew your house down. What the hell?
She realized she was reading the words even though they ought to have been upside down and backward from her vantage point. Lucy went to the large bathroom mirror. They were readable there as well, as if they weren’t in reverse.
“Of course they aren’t in reverse,” her reflection said to her in a tone of irritation she was all too familiar with using. “You’re dreaming.”
“I’m dreaming.” Lucy let the shirt fall back over the glowing tattoos. “Holy shit. It worked.” Now what was she supposed to do? Weave the dream thread. What tapestry was she trying to create? What was the story she was trying to tell? She was already losing track. Lucy used the burning sensation of the tattoos to ground herself for a moment and think. She needed to find Theia and ask her to bring Lucien home so she could find out what the hell beast was.
Her reflection disappeared from the mirror in front of her, leaving her in the dark. Something growled behind her, and the hairs rose on the back of her neck.
There was just one problem with this lucid dream. The hell beast was in here with her.
Chapter 13
The bathroom disappeared, and Lucy was running through a dark, overgrown forest, with the hell beast’s warm breath at her back. She managed to stay just ahead of it while it panted and snuffled behind her on all fours, but the grade changed, the forest sloping uphill, and Lucy tripped and caught her shirt on the thorns of a briar as she threw her arms out to steady herself. As she yanked the fabric away from the thorns, the hell beast leaped and knocked her onto her back, standing over her with its tongue lolling in a grotesque grin.
“Did you really think you could outrun me?” He shifted into human form in the blink of an eye. Lucy’s heart sank. It was Oliver. She hadn’t wanted it to be him. Oliver licked her throat and grinned down at her. “You’re supposed to say, ‘My, what a long tongue you have, Grandmother.’ And then I say, ‘The better to eat you out with, my dear.’”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Am I? You’re the one who threw yourself at a hell beast. You knew it was me.”
“I did not throw myself at you.”
“I notice you’re not contesting the second half of that assertion. You sought me out, not because you wanted to do your job, as you keep insisting, not to return me to hell, but because you wanted hell itself inside you. You couldn’t be the mistress of hell. You’re always going to be second-best, second-rate, the second sex. That one little pesky chromosome, and Lucien stole it all from you.”
“What do you know about it?” She’d never told him anything about Lucien. “Get the hell off me.” Lucy kneed him in the groin and rolled out from under him as he doubled over onto his side. She scrambled to her feet, but he grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her back down to the ground. Taking advantage of the fact that he was still compromised by the pain radiating from his groin, she kicked upward with her free foot as he tried to climb over her, landing a solid kick to his jaw while she brought her fist and forearm to the back of his elbow. The joint made a nauseating pop as sh
e dislocated it.
His face transformed into the wolfish snout as he roared with pain and fell back. Lucy got to her feet and stood over him. This wasn’t the hell beast. As confident as she was in her own abilities, she’d been no match for it physically in the waking world. She was letting her own subconscious get the best of her when she should be concentrating on the dream thread.
“You think you have this whole dream figured out, don’t you?” the Oliver-wolf growled. “The problem with you is that you think you’re smarter than everyone else.”
“That’s not a problem, you ass. It’s just true. And right now I’m getting in my own way. I’m not here to psychoanalyze myself. I’m here to talk to Theia Dawn.”
The rest of Oliver transformed into the massive shape of the wolf, eyes glowing red, salivating as it rose onto its haunches and came toward her. “I am Death. I am Sex. And I am going to devour you.”
Lucy stood her ground. “Good luck with that. I’m just going to wait here for Theia.”
The hell beast paused in its low, stalking stride and began to convulse, its underbelly splitting down the center as if a sword had sliced it, and a female arm and leg emerged from the wound. Lucy watched with slightly nauseous fascination as Theia climbed out of the empty carcass.
“Lucy!” Her sister-in-law threw her arms around her but seemed to remember in short order that Lucy was not the hugging type and let go. “What are you doing here? I thought I was dreaming of Rhea, and the whole wolf thing confused me, because Leo has a wolf-dog aspect, but it’s nothing like this.”
“So you thought you’d do a classic Red Riding Hood entrance.”
Theia grinned. “Like it?” She brushed a little bit of wolf viscera from her checked skirt. The naturally dark chestnut bob that made her look as different from her twin as it was possible to be and still be identical peeked out from beneath a classic red hooded cape.
“Very nice.”
The grin faded, and Theia hooked arms with Lucy beneath her cape, walking her away from what now looked more like a cartoon corpse. “But you wouldn’t have gone to these lengths to reach me if something wasn’t really wrong. What is it? What’s happened?”
“I need to talk to Lucien. The breach Carter Hamilton took advantage of when he was trying to absorb hell’s power has had unintended consequences.”
Theia nodded. “Lucien has been having a hell of a time—pardon the pun—keeping the books straight. We’ve noted all the creatures you’ve sent back, and it’s very much appreciated.”
“There’s one so far that I can’t handle—the one I was dreaming of just now—and I need to know how to kill it.”
Theia slowed and glanced back at the hell beast. “A werewolf?”
“It’s not an ordinary werewolf. It shifts form without effort, and Soul Reaper bullets don’t do a thing.”
“You’ve shot it?”
“At least four times point-blank.”
“That’s not good.”
The menacing woods landscape Lucy had dreamed up was starting to lose stability around them, unraveling at the edges. The wolf’s body was gone, and trees were disappearing.
“You’re waking up,” said Theia. “I’ll see you soon.” She skipped away down the disappearing path in her red hooded cape.
Lucy opened her eyes and found herself on her bedroom floor. In her struggle with the Oliver-wolf, she’d apparently fallen right off the bed. After a moment, she realized the sound of knocking had woken her. Someone was at the front door.
She picked herself up and smoothed her hair with a glance in the hall mirror before opening the door to find Lucien and Theia on her doorstep.
Lucien gave her his lopsided James Spader smirk that he didn’t think anyone knew was carefully cultivated. “Theia thought you might be hungry after all that dreaming.”
Theia held out a basket covered in a red-and-white-checked towel.
Lucy looked under the towel as she let them in. “Cupcakes and lattes. That’s a modern twist on the fairy tale.”
Theia grinned. “It was all we could get on short notice.”
“How did you guys get here so quickly?”
“It wasn’t that quick. Did you just wake up? It’s been several hours since you left the dream.”
Lucy shrugged. “I guess I needed the sleep.” She took the basket to the kitchen table and passed out the lattes, taking a cupcake for herself.
Lucien sipped his coffee as he sat, studying Lucy for a moment. “Something’s different. Are you wearing makeup?”
Theia shoved his arm playfully. “Stop teasing. It looks great, Lucy. When did you cut it? It was still long in your dream.”
Lucy’s hand went to the back of her hair self-consciously. “Yesterday. I just got tired of washing it.”
“Ah.” Lucien nodded sagely. “That’s what’s different. You’ve stopped washing your hair.”
“Very funny, Lulu.”
“Don’t call me Lulu. I’m the King of Hell.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’ve been promoted, I see.”
“Only his ego,” said Theia. “So, Lucien, tell her about the list.”
Lucy sipped her latte. “The list?”
“I’ve been keeping a list of all the hell fugitives still at large,” said Lucien. “There’s nothing like the thing you described to Theia. There’s a pack of hellhounds missing, four of them, but they’re juveniles. They wouldn’t be able to cause this kind of trouble. In fact, they’re usually quite gentle unless someone’s directing them to attack. And I’m pretty sure even a regular bullet would do some damage given how young they are. Four Soul Reapers and it walks away? Not a chance.”
She’d gone to all this trouble of sitting through an uncomfortable tattoo and scarring her skin and subjecting herself to an untested psychotropic drug for nothing.
Lucy set down her cup forcefully. “Then what the hell is it?”
“Don’t get bitchy. I came all the way from hell to try to help you. But I need some more information if I’m going to be able to figure this out. Tell me everything you know about it. Everything it’s done so far.”
Lucy described her encounters and the incidents reported in Jerome but left out her suspicions about Oliver. “I thought maybe the Soul Reaper serum would work better with the crossbow, so I took that with me yesterday to the mine, but the thing moves too fast for me to line up a shot.”
Lucien’s head shook as he swallowed a sip of coffee. “I don’t think the arrows would be any more efficient than the bullets, to tell you the truth.” He scratched his head, considering. “I would almost think this thing isn’t physically in this plane if it weren’t for the fact that it’s obviously having physical effects on the living.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The way it shifts when it chooses to and appears where it wants to when it wants to—it’s almost like this thing operates purely on will.”
“You mean a projection,” said Theia. “Like Carter’s little trick of crashing Phoebe’s wedding last spring and his stunts in luring you to the Chapel of the Holy Cross to take advantage of your transformation.”
Lucy frowned, watching the paper cup as she rotated it slowly on the table. “You don’t think Carter could be behind this?”
“Projecting his will from the underworld?” Lucien shook his head. “No. That isn’t possible. And if this thing is interacting with the physical world, then the method of magical projection Carter was using before wouldn’t apply.”
Lucy ate a bite of her cupcake, pondering how much more she wanted to tell him. “What about Darkrock?”
His eyes narrowed. “What about them?”
“Could they have manufactured something like this?”
Theia glanced from Lucy to Lucien. “What’s Darkrock?”
Lucien’s jaw was tight. “They’re op
portunists. Paramilitary contractors that specialize in the paranormal.” He studied Lucy. “What makes you think they could be involved?”
“I had a run-in with a guy who claims to be ex-Darkrock, but I have a feeling he’s not so ex. He’s on the secret Jerome town council that hired me to track the creature. When I found out about his involvement with Darkrock, I got to thinking...what if they created it and released it at the same time the gates were open?”
“How would they have known the gates would open?”
“Carter,” said Theia with a sigh.
Lucien nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a possibility. I’d be surprised if their research had progressed to the point where they could do that kind of gene manipulation—and frankly, I’d be a bit disappointed that Smok Biotech hadn’t beaten them to it.”
“Lucien.” Theia glared at him.
“I mean the ability, of course. Not that we’d do it.”
“But they experiment on the creatures—and people—they capture,” Lucy reminded him. “So if anyone were to have progressed to that point, it would be them.”
Theia shuddered. “That’s horrifying.”
“That’s why we don’t do business with Darkrock,” Lucien snapped. He grabbed Theia’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as soon as he’d done it. “Sorry. I just loathe their business model. They’re despicable.” He nodded at Lucy as Theia stroked his fingers with hers in an irritating newlywed PDA. “I’ll try to find out more about what kind of creature might be capable of all this and get back to you—through Theia if I’m not able to get away myself. In the meantime, see if you can find out more about this Darkrock guy. If Darkrock is behind this, his role in bringing you to Jerome is very concerning.”
Lucy nodded, focusing on her latte so her face wouldn’t give away anything more about him. “I’m already on it. And thank you—both—for coming when I needed you.” Something in her face or her words must have betrayed her anyway. Lucien knew her too well.
“Theia, can I have a minute with Lucy before we go?”