Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1)

by Su Williams

  “Nick. Where are you?” I whispered into the night.

  In response, I felt a now-familiar tug in my brain, followed by an ominous cackle. “I have your boy. Let me show you what I’ve done to him.”

  “No!”

  Nick’s body slumped against a tree, the giant blue spruce on the outskirts of my property. His arms wrapped around his knees, the catatonic rock of a lunatic swayed his body. I didn’t have to see to know the images the Wraith plucked from his head. Felicia and Samuel were the only ghosts that still haunted him. The abstract images overpowered me anyway; the blood, the pallor of her face, the tiny little boy, smeared in red, dark hair like his father’s, still plastered to his tiny head. His skin looked waxy and unreal, a horror movie baby. It was a depraved violation of Nick’s most private, painful and sacred memories.

  “Please, stop!” I begged, but met only with more vicious, cacophonous laughter. The images faded and the glee dissolved.

  The knowledge that Nick was out in this dark frigid night, probably suffering on my account, savaged my heart. I wanted so badly to go to him, to rescue him. But how could I believe in the reality of the images? Maybe Nick was not truly hurt. Maybe he was okay. Maybe this was just what the Wraith wanted me to believe; an elaborate and agonizing ruse.

  I texted Nick a message. As my thumb hit the send button, a faint scratching at the kitchen door propelled my heart against my rib cage, an arctic flow of adrenalin through my veins. My heart leaped to my throat as I tiptoed quietly to the dining room and peeked around the corner. I could see no one through the windows or the door. The scratching came again, followed by a small whimpering sound. Oh, God! What if it’s Nick? What if he is hurt? I crept closer and peered out the window in the door. No Nick. Another whimper grated my heart, and there was no mistaking it. I pressed myself to the door, desperate to see what was huddled on the ground on the other side. Grievous tears blurred my vision, and I franticly batted them away. As my eyes cleared, I finally spotted it. Eddyson’s little white-tipped tail drummed faintly on the frigid cement. Oh, God. A wave of relief crashed over me, followed closely by a second—terror. His tail feebly wagged.

  “Eddyson?” I cried. What if it’s not him? What if the Wraith just wants me to believe it’s Eddyson and it’s really not? What if he’s in my head again and this isn’t real? Nick and Sabre would be furious with me if I opened the door to the dark creature they’d invested so much in protecting me from.

  The whimper pierced me again, and I agonized over the arduous wag of the stiff little tail. How could I leave him out there in this cold if it truly was him? My eyes scanned the yard and carport for any sign of movement. I disarmed the system and cracked the door open just enough to scoop up the little bundle of fuzz that felt half frozen in my arms. His fur was frosted, his muscles rigid with cold. I pressed him to the warmth of my chest and wrapped my arms around him. He wasn’t even shivering. That’s bad. My pups little body was beyond the point of even trying to warm itself.

  Clutching him to me, I launched us back into the house and kicked the door closed. A roar of brumal wind tore at the latch. The door burst open and hammered into me. My body flew across the kitchen into the wall. I clung to Eddyson as I tried to scramble away, but the force that had catapulted me, now dragged me by the arm across the floor into the living room. Grasping me by my arm and my pant leg, he pitched me onto the couch that groaned across the hardwood floor with the force. Stars danced in my eyes as my head struck the upholstered framework. I scrunched the pup’s Popsicle body to mine, curled myself around him as Nick had so often done to me. Now that I had him, I wasn’t giving him up for anything.

  “Aren’t you going to welcome me home, darling?” His voice was a deep rumbling from the center of the earth.

  It took a moment for my scrambled brain to focus on the back-lighted figure in front of me. But I didn’t need clear vision. I knew, without doubt, I had met him before. He was Rephaim, the dark angel of Nick and Sabre’s nightmares. His countenance was both human and inhuman at once; thin muscles stretched taut across his skull covered with sallow, leathery skin. His cheekbones jutted out in sharp contrast to cavernous and cadaverous eyes. They were black-hole eyes, lightless and lifeless, resident evil.

  I curled myself tighter around Eddyson, grateful, at least, for this small favor, fleeting as it may be. His shallow breathing was only faintly palpable beneath my groping fingers. I prayed the heat of my body would revive him.

  “You will be such a sweet treat,” the Wraith crooned as he ran a coarse finger down my cheek. I cringed under his touch; it brought back the vulgarity of his thoughts from our last encounter. I distracted myself, contemplated how much smaller he seemed now than he was in my memory.

  “A bit of a diversion for your boys, I’m afraid,” he answered my memory. “I had no doubt they would recognize me without some subterfuge.” He feigned consideration. “But you, my dear one, so sweet. The terror in your eyes provokes my hunger. So tempting, the horrors inside you.” Bony fingers squeezed my face. “Oh, but whether to devour you first—or save you for dessert. Killing Nickolas before your eyes would only intensify the fresh nightmares that will make you all the more delectable.”

  His familiar touch nauseated me, and I drew away instinctively. But he grasped my shirt and pulled me to him, face to face. Flecks of spittle spattered my cheeks. “Your Nickolas fairly sent up flares for all the power he has used around your little cottage here in recent days.” He sneered happily at the delicacy of my guilt. He dropped me back onto the sofa and stalked back and forth, an addict in withdrawal.

  I wallowed in a mire of guilt. If Nick had not been protecting me—if I had been tougher—none of this would be happening. Nick and Sabre were now in danger because of me.

  “And Mr. James,” he continued as he plucked the memories that raced through my head, “He is a Wraith himself for all intents, if only he would step over that fine little line to our side. But his morals,” he sneered, “keep him forever Caphar. Forever pitiful. Forever weak.” He spat the words as if they were a foulness in his mouth. “Perhaps I shall leave him alive with the glorious nightmares of witnessing the death of his beloved playmate and his playmates lover.”

  The door. If I could just make it to the door. Tuck Eddy like a football and just haul.

  The Wraith slithered sideways, opened my way.

  No chance in hell!

  Not against an immortal. Immortal may not mean vampire, but I’d never make it against his speed. My every thought betrayed me. And when he caught me…I’d be crushed, body and soul, probably in the most painful way.

  The depths of hell darkened his eyes; the leathery flesh of his forehead puckered in thought. Planning my death? He whirled and sauntered back to me. I cowered from his upraised hand and he paused, an evil smile stretched his lips. His sandpaper fingers raked down my face. “And you, you are a prize I had not anticipated.” He tapped his fingers as though ciphering an equation in his head. “Your endowments shall be a fine acquisition.”

  A flash at the front window caught my attention—a flash of Sabre. I cast a glance at the Wraith as he continued his rant, seemingly oblivious. When he turned away, I chanced another peek. Sabre clasped his head with both hands, willing me to understand. “Guard your thoughts,” he mouthed.

  Guard my thoughts! Is he insane! I am captive of a crazed, lunatic who can read my memories from a mile away, and you want me to guard my thoughts? Sabre scowled and disappeared. Geez, could I possibly be any more conspicuous?

  “My endowments?” I asked sweetly. “What do you mean?”

  He stopped in front of me and stroked my face again. I fixated on the loathsome feelings his touch evoked, and buried any traitorous thoughts.

  “My darling girl, have your boys been keeping secrets from you?” I remained silent and conjured a quizzical look. He chuckled, “Or is it possible the simpletons do not yet know what you are?”

  Is it possible he missed that? “What I am?” I feigne
d naïveté.

  “You, my darling,” he crooned, and squeezed my chin in his cold, bony hand, “Are a burgeoning Caphar, yourself, with a virtually anomalous and incredibly covetable gift. Do you have any idea what a treasure the ability to touch the future is to one who lives only in the past? To be a prescient entity? Anyone, human or Caphar, can manipulate the past, but to see, taste, touch the future…that, my dear, is a seductive endowment indeed.”

  I gathered my courage, and asked the first question that popped into my head to buy Sabre some time. “So, what’s your name?”

  “My name? You want to know the name of the one who is going to suck the life from you?”

  “All the same…” I pressed, and hugged the pup’s body closer to mine.

  “I am Thomas,” he said and gave me a grand and dramatic bow.

  “So, Thomas, why do you hate Nick and Sabre? Aside from the fact that Sabre’s an ass and you probably owe him one.” I hoped Sabre was listening; that thought somehow amused me even under the circumstances.

  “Nickolas’ talents will be an excellent addition to my own,” he continued. “It is all about power, you see. Some fools choose to remain Caphar, and some of us,” he gestured at himself, “Choose the higher calling.”

  Wow! Conceited much?

  “Their ability to memoryprint is truly a covetable gift that I have yet to find in many other ‘Weavers’, as they call themselves these days. I crave that gift, as well as your own.”

  With all this talk about appetites, I imagined him biting off my head. I shook it away. Keep your head, girl. Ha. Not funny. I had to distract him to give Sabre a chance, not go to pieces.

  “If they have power that you don’t, it sounds to me that you are the weak one.” I fought to subdue the trembling in my voice, keep it steady and challenging.

  “Weak?” he raged. His skeletal fingers clutched my shirt and he shook me ‘til my brain sloshed in my skull.

  Well, so much for the gentleman act. Hurry up, Sabre! No! Think fear. Repulsion. Horror. Panic. Hatred.

  He shoved me away, again. “They are children compared to me, and they lack the fortitude to become anything more.”

  “Because they refuse to use humans the way you do?”

  “I am a direct descendant of an angel of Heaven. I care nothing about humans,” he proclaimed proudly.

  The shadow of my savior, Sabre, lurked close-by in the dining room and I continued my meager attempts to distract. “If I remember correctly, I believe that the angels were created to minister to humans, weren’t they?”

  “Weak, sniveling plague of the Earth. We are stronger, more superior to humans. My forefathers left the task-master behind to serve their own kind.”

  I chanced another play on his conceit, hoped it would be enough to derail him without leading to my untimely death. “Your forefathers? I get it.” I knew enough about the Bible to know who the angels who left ‘the task-master’ were. “Then you’re not a son of God at all. More like a spawn of Lucifer,” I growled through my teeth. “Ascended from the fiery pits of hell like your father, Satan.”

  Thomas sprang on me, and grabbed me by the throat. “Even so, as Lucifer rules the underworld, my kind shall rule man,” he spat into my face.

  “You and what army?” Perhaps too far?

  His hands tightened, his fingernails dug into my cervical spine, his thumbs crushed my windpipe. “I do not need an army.”

  Without a doubt, I was going to die. He had allowed me to live earlier for his own tortuous pleasure. But now…

  Sabre hurled himself at the Wraith, slammed his body like a battering ram. Thomas’s hands wrenched free of my neck. I gasped for air and clung to the couch to keep from toppling onto the floor. When my vision cleared, Sabre stood above and behind the Wraith’s body. A noose of thin brass wire was wrapped around Thomas’s neck. The Wraith struggled fiercely, fought to free two of his fingers ensnared when he reached up to defend himself.

  As the two grappled, I scurried away to the kitchen, wrapped Eddyson up in a kitchen towel and stowed him in the sink. Furniture banged and crashed as the two men thrashed about in my living room. Sabre could handle this, and Nick would be back soon. I hoped. But I still grabbed the biggest knife from the butcher block as a weapon.

  As I returned the living room, Thomas wrenched his hand free, and severed the two trapped fingers. Blood spurted onto the floor. I gulped in air, fought to subdue the vomit that raced up my throat and clasped the wall for support.

  Thomas now had both hands free to combat Sabre’s attack. He was completely unfazed by the damaged hand. The pain only fed his rage. He reached over his head with his good hand, clutched Sabre’s head, and elbowed him in the diaphragm with the other arm. While Sabre gasped for air, Thomas flipped him over his shoulder. The wire disengaged from the Wraith’s neck and clattered to the floor like a sprung piano wire. Sabre scrambled to face his attacker, but Thomas’s hands crushed around his throat; his knees pinned Sabre to the floor.

  “Sabre!” I screamed. Oh God. Help him. Where’s Nick? He should be back by now. He should be here to save his friend from this monster. Was it too late? Had Thomas already disposed of Nick? No, he talked of him in present tense, as if he was still a prize to be collected. If so, where was he?

  Sabre’s face flooded crimson, then deepened to purple, then blue. Veins swelled at his temples, his eyes wide and bulging. With the savagery of a trapped animal, he kicked and clawed. His body bucked wildly for freedom. Though he continued to struggle against the Wraith, his movements slowed as the life and strength drained from him.

  Sabre!

  The dining room light glinted off the massive blade in my hand. This thing, this Wraith was going to kill Sabre, and only I could stop it. Steeling myself, I flipped the blade point down and grasped it firmly in both hands.

  Now! I have to do it now!

  Sabre was going to die if I delayed much longer. I stepped up behind the Wraith and raised the blade. I could hardly bear the thought of what I was about to do—kill someone. But, this was a war of sorts, wasn’t it? Weren’t there casualties in war? People did things during war that they wouldn’t normally do.

  Sucking in a frantic breath, I closed my eyes and thrust the point of the blade downward with all my might. The knife penetrated several inches and ground to a halt. It was harder to thrust it through flesh and bone than I’d imagined—as if I ever imagined such a thing. The heel of my right hand gashed open as the momentum of the thrust continued beyond the control of my grip and my hand slid across the blade. An unearthly screech ripped through the house. I covered my ears and staggered away. Blood, my own and his, drained down my arms and spattered on the floor.

  When he turned, he wore Nick’s face. I stepped back, confusion trembled through me. “Emari? Sweetie?” He held out his arms to me, a gesture of welcome. As if by compulsion, I slid a hesitant foot forward. This was my Nick. He was hurt, and I had hurt him. How could I have done that? He was trying to help me. Befuddled images of tender moments in Nick’s arms bombarded my mind; a gentle hug, an impassioned kiss, a comforting touch, so real I sighed at the comfort they brought me. Sabre groaned, still barely conscious, on the floor.

  “No!” I screeched at Thomas. “Get the hell out of my head!”

  Like a wrecking ball, Thomas crashed into me. My feet left the floor and I felt the sudden sensation of flying, until my head cracked into the hardwood floor. I opened my eyes and the Wraith hovered like a crazed demoniac over me.

  So much for descendants of angels.

  He clasped my head in his vice-like hands, crushed my skull like a wad of newspaper. My head ached inside and out. My body convulsed and I writhed under his touch, under the anguish. His eyes bored holes into mine; steel shafts penetrated my retinas into my brain. I was blind and unhinged with agony. Inside my skull, my brains scrambled, while his hands sucked out my soul. His fingertips seared my scalp with electricity. My vision blurred, then flashed brilliant white and slowly faded, pulsed d
arker as the pump of heartbeats grew farther and farther apart.

  I silently begged to die, if only to release me from this insufferable torture. It was my only cohesive thought—death. My life for the last nine months was all about pain and suffering. Darkness had become a familiar ally, ceaselessly bidding me ‘come’. Yet, I’d learned to live with the longing and the desire to succumb to its call. Now, I didn’t have to fight anymore. All I had to do was take the plunge and let the darkness envelope me. Surely, if I just let go of my pathetic grasp on this life, my suffering would finally end.

  Life, however, refused to release me so easily. Echoes of chaos penetrated my torture, and I clung to the sounds of destruction around me. Some semblance of consciousness drifted over me. Then, Thomas gave an abrupt, gurgling intake of breath and his weight crushed down on top of me. I gasped, battled for breath. My eyes dimmed again, and darkness pressed itself over me. Death clawed at me. My body and mind relinquished the end.

  Nick’s enraged face appeared over the Wraith’s shoulder as the weight of Thomas’s body released me. The vacuum in my head reversed and a Cimmerian haze swept over me. I rolled to my side and wallowed in an anomalous agony. My brain throbbed with each heartbeat. Tiny needles jabbed my entire body, a thousand scorpion stings to my skin. Motionless, I listened to the sounds of destruction around me; furniture crashed and glass from my built-ins shattered. I thrust my eyes open in time to see Nick and Sabre on either side of Thomas with Sabre’s wire, once again, wrapped around his neck. I forced myself to my hands and knees, my head still reeled and pounded.

  “Now,” growled Sabre, his damaged voice like gravel. The two Weavers roared as they heaved with all their might on, what I now saw, were handles on the ends of the wire. Sabre came prepared to take this Wraith down. Blood blossomed, crimson on white, at the line of the garrote and seeped downward as the wire sliced through the Wraith’s neck. Nick and Sabre snarled with the exertion. The head finally tottered once and fell forward. I stared at the macabre scene and froze in revulsion as the head rolled to a stop and rested on my fingers. It grimaced up at me in shock. Sudden erratic, scrambled images buzzed through my head; the railroad tracks, a vantage point overlooking my home, a red squirrel, a view of my parent’s crash from inside the car, the crash from my usual perspective, the crash from another’s perspective, the crash, the crash, the crash, over and over. I thrust the severed thing away and began to scream in absolute horrified hysterics.