Face the Dark (Hunters of the Dark #3)

by Dave Ferraro

  ***

  “No!” Shanna screamed as she sat up straight in bed.

  “Shanna!” Jordan was suddenly hugging her. “You’re back!”

  “I’m…” Shanna felt her heart beating rapidly as the dream world came back to her. “How long was I out?” She looked around the infirmary, where Jade and Hunter sat at a counter on either side of a microscope.

  “Nearly a day,” Hunter supplied. Then he smiled. “It is good to have you back.”

  “What happened?” Jordan pressed, pulling back to look her over. “What was it like? Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember everything,” Shanna confessed. “At least, I think I do. Rachel was there with me. She pushed me out of the dream.” With a wild look around the room, her eyes zeroed in on Rachel, who lay in a nearby bed. “She saved me. But I don’t think I’m going to have another chance.”

  “So the demon’s still after you?”

  “I get that impression. And the dream was so…I don’t know. It was like a memory, but a dream at the same time. Even though there were some unpleasant elements, it was still sort of comforting. I didn’t want to leave.” She shook her head.

  “The demon was there?” Jade asked.

  “Yes, but it kept itself at a distance and sort of observed, like it was studying us, our minds.”

  Hunter nodded slowly. “Sand just appeared in Rachel’s eyes a minute ago. A lot of it. We were trying to figure out what it meant.”

  “Its whole body is made of sand, not just its face. But it still seems solid somehow.”

  “That might help the search,” Jordan said, nodding eagerly at the scrap of information and looking to Hunter for confirmation.

  “Sand…” Hunter suddenly looked stricken as he stood up and leaned over Rachel.

  “What?” Jade asked, noting the change in his demeanor. “Does that mean something to you?”

  Hunter looked up at her, then turned to Shanna. “I think I’ve encountered this before. Right before going to Greece with Krystal, we were to meet up with a hunter, but he was dead by the time we reached him. He hadn’t been attacked, but looked like he’d fallen asleep before he’d died. And his whole body had…been transformed to sand.”

  “Sand…” Shanna nodded. “Grant…I mean someone in the dream said that he liked girls, and kept them around. He said that if we’d been boys, he would have disposed of us immediately.”

  “Seems to fit,” Jade concurred. “So, maybe we’ll figure out what this thing is sooner rather than later.”

  “I already know who he is,” Hunter said. “I found the answer in a text that I recovered from that hunter’s house. I just hadn’t put two and two together until now. It’s The Sandman.”

  “The Sandman?” Brett echoed in the library as Hunter explained the situation to them a half hour later.

  “That’s right,” Hunter confirmed. “A demon of immense power who destroys men upon meeting them in dreams, but will slowly drain a woman of her life force, like he’s feeding off of her psyche.”

  “So, Rachel’s safe for awhile,” Cameron said, letting out a breath. “That’s good news.”

  “Probably not for too long,” Hunter countered. “And we have no idea what the long term effect will be on them. Make no mistake, we need to end this quickly.”

  “So, it’s back to research then?” Jordan asked.

  “Back to research. But at least we have more of a clue of what we’re dealing with here.”

  They broke up a few minutes later to continue their search, Shanna opting to take a quick shower before pouring over books again.

  “The good thing about seeing that demon in my dream was that I got some shut-eye finally,” Shanna laughed as she walked with Valor to her room. “I feel like I can start over again, and not fight to stay awake constantly. It’s nice.”

  Valor nodded, but didn’t say anything. All throughout the meeting, Shanna had gotten the impression that she seemed distracted, and that there was a general stillness over the group. If Shanna didn’t know any better, she would even say that Valor had been crying.

  “Is it worse than I think?” Shanna asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway. “Am I going to be brain damaged?”

  “What?” Valor stopped to look back at her. “No, no. Nothing like that, I assure you.”

  “Okay,” Shanna looked away. “Then why are you escorting me back to my room. I feel like there’s something you want to tell me.”

  Valor stiffened, then nodded. “I want to tell you in the privacy of your room. The others agreed that it was best.”

  Shanna felt her heart skip a beat. “You’re scaring me.”

  Valor sent her a stiff smile and guided her down the hall by the arm without saying anything else.