Beyond The Veil: A Paranormal & Magical Romance Boxed Set

by Multiple Authors

  She looks at me, eyes wide, then they drift off to the side. I open my mouth to ask her what's wrong, and she's off and running again.

  I don't have a reason to follow her, but I do anyways. She's the most interesting thing here.

  Aletta:

  At some point, we left behind the forest. All that remains is straggly undergrowth blunting decaying stone walls. There's a pattern to it, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is. The walls are too tall to climb over, but above them, I can see a cliff looming tall. The same one under which we made love?

  I hope from there I can see a way out of this, or at least glimpse the face of whatever vengeful god has torn my control away, and seen fit to torment me. Nothing brings out my superstition and Catholic guilt like the idea of being hounded by an unseen foe. The gurgling comes again, and I quicken my pace.

  Some part of me registers that he's still behind me, but I don't pay attention to him. Not with my ankle stinging, and my side, and the idea that I don't have a clue in hell whether or not I can die here. Normal lore says that I can't, that my dreamer will wake up and I'll be pulled back into Limbo to rebuild myself.

  Finally, it sinks in that he's talking to me. “Do you know where you're going?”

  I shrug and point. “Seems as logical a place as any.”

  His eyes widen. “I can understand you this time.”

  I have no clue what he's talking about, so I focus on my footsteps, tamped-down earth between my toes, and his body heat carrying through the atmosphere to touch me, molecules moving slightly faster to collide with my makeshift skin.

  I have no clue how long a dream is supposed to last; usually they come and go and shift, and it's impossible to tell whether the world lingers when the dreamer has moved on. I pray the world doesn't come unmade with us still here. I suppose it's an irrational fear, but it is still mine, and I will not give it up.

  It's impossible to tell day from night anymore. The sky hasn't changed from an overcast gray, but the overall light seems dimmer. He shivers, and I put my arm around him. Lacking my own body heat, I can't actually warm him, but I hope that if he has any control over this dream, it'll be a placebo that helps him imagine himself warmer. He stiffens slightly, so I remove my arm.

  I press forward again, and he stumbles into me with a mumbled apology. He puts a hand on the small of my back, and his presence gives me the strength to focus. By now, he can hear the creature stalking us, too, and doesn't complain at my fast strides. I put both hands in front of me in case the sparse light is concealing a dead end. Each time I have to turn around, it takes him a moment to catch up.

  He steps too close to me, and his naked body brushes mine. He flushes and smiles at me, hanging on to the flirtatious moment, but it only underscores to me how little I belong here. I was only here to be his, and now I can't even do that. Not that I wanted to in the first place; he was just another name on a list, sent to me as the first available succubus.

  Not that I ever wanted to be that, either.

  Han:

  Every time I try to pause, she presses forward and I force myself to go after her. I have no clue what to make of any of this, so I let myself get carried along in the moment. I'm uneasy about the idea of losing her, though I know that compulsion is stupid.

  It seems odd to be having a dream entirely based around following a stranger. A stranger I'd originally figured was just my brain telling me to watch more porn. I’m not the submissive type, and a part of me wants to shove her against one of the mossy walls and kiss her. Shouldn't I have a choice in what kind of dream I have?

  In some ways, the dirt only accentuates her beauty. She's no longer flawless, as she was back on the beach. Now her limbs covered in shallow cuts, smeared with mud and filth, but beneath that is a wiry strength originally concealed by soft curves that would have me eating out of her hand if she actually existed.

  We're nearing the bluff, and her steps have picked up the pace. My thighs scream from so much uphill walking, but her motions are fast, abrupt, as though we were moving downhill. I hold out a hand to get her to slow down, but it slides ineffectively down her shoulder as her eyes close, unseeing. Despite walking blind, she's still moving. And not so much as brushing the walls.

  Her movements are uncannily astute, some invisible force guiding her around obstacles and crossroads.

  It's only a dream. Just my mind keeping busy while my body rests. I have nothing to be afraid of.

  I can't quite convince myself of it.

  Aletta:

  The world around me changes, illusions falling into place, then lifting. This isn't a labyrinth; it's an amphitheater. Then it's an office building, decrepit. I shut my eyes to narrow the ideas down, limit my perceptions to the dirt underfoot. In the absence of sight, the gravelly ground feels so much sharper, bringing to mind the earth reaching for us on the beach.

  Then, the sensation changes. My legs plie in preparation for a leap, without my permission or guidance.

  I let out a shriek as my limbs move, as my body is yanked around, thrown through the air in something that might be a mockery of ballet.

  At first, he chuckles, thinking I’m trying to be cute, but when he sees the look of horror on my face, he runs the last few steps toward me. He attempts to catch me and hold me close, but I'm pulled away with barely a hint of his clammy, sweat-slicked skin.

  I dimly recognize the combination, a divertissement from an old opera. But it was not one I performed in or knew. Yet the steps work their way through me, my toes spasming from the strain, my limbs trembling.

  I try to fight it, scream at my feet to stay down, but all I manage to do is make myself stumble. My weight tumbles forward, with barely a second for me to realize how close I am to the edge of the cliff. As I fall, one of my calves scrapes the cliff's edge, and its shadow looms taller and taller above me as I slip away from it, toward the labyrinth hundreds of feet below. The temperatureless air feels cold, whiffling through my hair in little tugs.

  He looks down at me, fear and confusion in his face. He reaches for me, though he knows he's too late.

  Then he wakes up. The world ripples around him as it unmakes itself in expansive waves, but it doesn't finish in time to save me from the painful impact.

  Han:

  Sweat covers me, and my legs are sore from tensing and untensing my muscles. I shiver at the sensation of it, so close to the eerie tickle of the clammy air in my dream.

  The fucking dog days of summer always upset me. I'm too hot, then too cold, and overheating gives me nightmares. I run a quick shower to wash the worst of it off. There's not a mark on me, although my skin still rings from the stinging hail. I've never had a dream that felt that real. If I was closer to my grandfather, I'd ask him if he had any ideas, i there was any long-held belief seldom-voiced to the younger generation that might make it something understandable.

  It's still dark out; there's probably only a few hours before I have to be up for work. And I know no one will take it well if I'm yawning all the while. I make a mental note to shove another energy drink in my bag, just in case.

  Her eyes haunt me. Their hazel depths had first caught me with the assurance of an apex predator, but as she fell, they were hardly recognizable. I wonder which is the real her.

  I've gotta shake those thoughts off. It was a dream. There is no real her.

  Aletta:

  I drag myself through Limbo, too weak to take the more direct paths. I don't have the structure of bone; I can imagine how much worse off I'd be if I did. But even without it, my form is broken, muscles spasming and useless. I send a trill of pain to the nearest mental presence, and relief pours through me when Lorelei materializes in front of me, her toga flapping in an unseen breeze.

  “Tough gig?” She snickers.

  I don't respond; she knows damn well I don't take the enjoyment in my work that she does.

  “Guess not.”

  She helps prop me up, carry me to her slice of nonexistent heaven as I
begin to reform my skeleton and build an internal structure to manage my own body. I melt into her bed as she strokes me. “Talk to me, Letty.”

  She's testing me. She knows I hate that nickname. But I don't have it in me to fight. I can't form the words. I don't have the anatomy to.

  “Okay, then. Take it slow, show me.”

  When we're young, with little control over form, we can only talk in visions, forming them in the scenery. Older incubi can plant them directly in each other's heads, but usually avoid it—it becomes the greatest possible expression of intimacy or control. I pick a blank wall and poke at it with my mind, begging it to express the words I've lost as I fight to calm down, rebuild my body.

  Lorelei watches, remakes her form to put on more mass. It makes me wonder why; is it an attempt to look comforting or welcoming, motherly, or is it fear and a desire to make herself look fiercer and more sturdy? The older incubi's forms can be so fluid, shifting with subtle mood swings, except when they are on the job and need to maintain a single one.

  “Again? You shouldn't be losing control like that. The mark only has the power you give him. It's the fourth time this month.” Her voice is gentle, a little too gentle. My hackles go up, and I have to fight to keep a defensive note out of my newly-shaped voice.

  “I didn't lose control. He didn't do it, either. And it didn't hurt last time.”

  “If you say so. It still seems to me that you just have a mental block. You're tying yourself too much to the limits of your physical form, and not enough to the expression and ability of your spirit. You're not a Reaper. And if you didn't put that much of you into setting the scene—”

  I shake my head. “I'm certain that's not it. No one has ever mentioned it being like that, the very world fighting.”

  “Maybe they turned you out too soon,” Lorelei's tone is pensive. My eyes snap to hers, and she stops talking. But she can't apologize, and I can't let it go. I turn away from her and ignore her attempts to speak to me as I wait for sleep.

  Chapter Two: Relive

  Lorelei doesn't lay with me. I think she knows that right now, it would only hurt me worse. I'm tired, so very tired, of failing. Lorelei is the perfect succubus: voracious, affectionate, wild. Being found wanting to her eyes stings more than I'd like to admit.

  I spent as much time in the archives learning to be as anyone else, am as trained and competent as any of us. Except when the world attacks me. And somehow that's my fault.

  I know I'm acting like a sullen adolescent, but I don't choose to stop.

  Eventually, sleep claims me. Really, more of a trance state. Sleep is a biological thing, and I don't think you could really say we have that kind of biology. Certainly, I don't have a heartbeat, and breathing is at best a pointless reflex. But it amounts to the same thing. A resting mind casting about, creating stories and visuals with what's at hand.

  I'm back on that cliff, only I'm not the one falling. I'm looking down at a golden-haired sylph, large eyes wide as the air pulls her hair into haphazard spirals on the way down. She's young, still the kind of awkward-pretty that most women soon outgrow, faster and faster with every generation.

  I can't take my eyes off her, can't lift a finger to help her. And then, suddenly it's me falling, and she's gone.

  Lorelei shakes me awake, swearing as I sprout thorns, try to harden my skin to protect myself. I throw myself into a ball, knees under chin. “Easy, easy.”

  I sigh, and roll my head back, fighting to ease some of the tension. “Sorry,” I mumble, and she ignores it.

  “Bad dreams?”

  I shrug. “The usual.”

  She sighs. “So tell me about it again. There's got to be something we're missing.”

  I yawn, still not especially awake. “I'm watching Iniga fall. That's it.” I feel fuzzy, not entirely aware of my own tongue or eyes. Did I bother shaping them?

  “Wait. Iniga. It's someone you know?” There's an anxiety I don't fully understand in her eyes.

  “I think so?” I barely remember my mortal days; so much of me was lost in my rebirth. They say it might come back in time, or might not. The process is dangerously close to flashing, the mechanism incubi use to erase themselves—or each other—when their soul needs to die.

  “How.”

  “I—I don't know.” But that's not right. The fuzziness is thinner, but the more I wake up, the more my meaning eludes me. I direct my attention to the wall again, and try to open my mind to what was there a second ago, before it's completely gone.

  Two adolescent dancers stretch, their shoes not yet on their feet. I feel a spiritual connection to one, although I'm not in her, in vision.

  That one—me—casts a look at a male dancer at the other end of the room, mingling with a crowd of young female dancers. The other catches the look, and turns her head away sadly. The awkwardness of the moment lingers as they put their shoes on, until the leader stands from his seat in the audience, directs them to pick up at the first spirit solo.

  She stands, her golden hair already attempting to work its way free of her bun. A lone pianist accompanies her, standing in for the orchestra. She launches into the choreography, her toes articulate, segueing from perfect points to crisp flexes, and her toes clinking against the stage loudly. The contrast belies her seeming weightlessness, as does her stiff tutu, one of the flame retardant ones that half the soloists refuse to wear due to their rigidity and lack of movement.

  Her friend—my mortal self—watches her with a mix of jealousy and admiration. But eventually, her gaze drifts back to the other dancers, still quietly gossiping as Iniga rehearses.

  A loud crack rends the air, calling attention back to Iniga. She is falling off course, an ankle twisted at an unnatural ankle as she falls off the toe platform of her pointe shoes. And then, as she tries to catch herself on her good leg, she overbalances and falls out of sight over the edge of the stage. Dancers rush to peer down into the orchestra pit, their faces lit with hellfire as Iniga's tutu catches fire from a knocked candle. The smell of burning fabric, flesh, and hair sends several dancers into queasy retches. But she's not moving, not rolling to put the fire out.

  A man rushes from the side of the stage with a blanket and water, smothers the blaze, Although the burns are not serious, Iniga's eyes are glassy and lifeless, blood slowly pouring from her nostrils, and the back of her skull flattened.

  It all comes back to me as I stare at that last image. They said she fell off her pointe—in those days, pointe shoes had much less support than modern ones, simply a hard platform covering the top edge of the toe. It presented many issues of strength and technique for a dancer to hold herself in the proper alignment over that platform, without the support that later dancers would enjoy from stiffened box and shank. Those shoes are one of the few memories that I bear when not half asleep. Iniga had landed from her jump on the platform instead of the pad of her toes, twisted her ankle, and the rest was history.

  An accident that could have happened to any one of us, if our concentration flagged for so much as a wink.

  But it's more than that. Iniga and I were close, more like sisters, really, and I had been devastated by her death. I had nightmares of it, right up until the cholera outbreak that brought my own.

  The incubi watch for their own to be separated from their mortal ashes. One of them latched to me, pulled me into Limbo to rebuild myself in the archives, to learn about my new form and develop into my new person. I wish I knew who it was, if just to punch them in the face.

  After my rebirth, the nightmares just...stopped...as near as I can tell. I didn't feel connected to my mortal self. No hunger, no restraints to my form. No permanent injury. Just a life of sexual bondage, falling into line with the rest of the incubi to propagate ourselves through humans, not knowing which person might provide us with more family.

  “Do you get these dreams, too? About who you were?”

  Lorelei bites her lip, and takes a minute to think before answering. “No. I barely remember. O
nly if I think really, really hard, or if I meet someone who reminds me of myself.”

  It's not the answer I need right now. I need some kind of control. Or at least to know that the ways in which I lack it aren't down to some awful flaw in me. I love Lorelei for her honesty, but I also resent her for it.

  I sigh. “I don't think there's anything for me here. Among demons, I'm a freak. I can't seduce worth a damn, I barely fuck worth a damn, and I can't actually feel that this is me. Maybe I have these dreams because I am who I was. Maybe I've just lived too long; maybe I'm not supposed to have lived this long.”

  She raises an eyebrow, but doesn't interrupt.

  “Maybe I'm better off starting from scratch—flashing myself.”

  The eyebrow goes higher; suicide isn't exactly a shameful thing for incubi, but it's not a desirable outcome, either. Flashing erases the incubi's soul, memories, and form, but leaves their body intact to develop a new identity. Sometimes the spirit just gets weary, but this way, the body can go on.

  I wait for her to protest; there's plainly something she wants to say.

  But she doesn't. “Just, take it easy, Aletta. You'll feel better when you've repaired your shape.”

  Chapter Three: Borne in Flames

  I don't think Lorelei actually is disappointed in me, but it sure seems that way. I stay out of her sight, and try killing time walking the endless terrain in Limbo. I'm only ever a thought away from home, but I don't want to go back. With a bit more practice, or more natural aptitude, I could roam the alternate realities and dreamscapes of a million ideas, but I don't have that control yet. It's hard enough moving into the dreamscape with one strong connection passed to me through the name of my target.