by Dima Zales
The fur is light orange, which could be his curiosity or mine. There’s not a peep from him in my mind.
Pom! Pom, wake up.
No reaction.
I touch his fur and draw myself back into the dream world.
“What happened?” he asks when I reappear in the palace. “You didn’t do it.”
“I shouted from the top of my brain like a lunatic.” I shake my head. “I don’t know, Pom. I don’t think you can be roused.”
He huffs. “With all that lack of sleep, your mind is just too muddy.”
“Sure, blame it on me.”
He gives me a furry frown. “It’s a wonder you can function at all.”
I just barely hold back an eye roll. “You know what? Let me tell you the rest of it.” I proceed to explain about the bits of dreamwalker diary—my reason for coming here in the first place.
“Do you have a link to a werewolf to see this inner wolf business?” he asks when I’m done.
“Afraid not. I’ve never worked with their kind. I guess I’ll find out what they’re like when I have to deal with the werewolf on this Council.”
The tips of his ears darken. “Remind me not to join you when you do. Sounds scary.”
“Deal.” I scratch the top of his furry head until his ears turn purple. “Now I’m going to attempt the whole ‘double consciousness’ thing.”
“I’ll watch.” Flying up a few feet, he stares down at me intently—an act that makes him look borderline freakish, thanks to his tea-saucer-sized eyes.
I exit my body, becoming a dream ghost, and create an exact duplicate of that body. So far, so good. Next, I attempt to return to both bodies at the same time. I end up in only one—the original. The second body just stands there like a mannequin.
I exit my body again, give the two Baileys fiery hair, and will myself to enter both.
Nope. Still end up in just one.
Pom zooms down and pokes the second body with a toe. “Maybe you need to turn this into one of those dream characters you like to have sex with?”
“Pom!” I give him a menacing glare. “How many times do I have to tell you that’s private?”
He turns beet red. “You didn’t ask me not to spy on you every time. I assumed it was okay.”
Great. First, I’d forgotten to make myself invisible when dreamwalking in humans, and now it turns out I’d also forgotten to ask Pom for privacy during my R & R. Must be the sleep deprivation.
“Let me try your idea,” I say and replace the body in front of us with a dream character of me, something I’ve never tried before.
“Hello,” the new me says sensually. “How can I be of service?”
Pom looks between me and my creation. “Do they all want to have sex?”
I shrug. “They’re just like any person you meet in a dream.”
“What we dream characters say and do is driven by the dreamer’s subconscious,” my other self says. “That’s how I know she’s often wondered about this.” Leaping at me, she plants a wet kiss on my lips.
“Hey!” I push her away. “Not in front of Pom.”
She smirks. “I’ll stop if you admit it.”
“Fine. Guilty as charged. I have thought about it. You. Doing things with myself. But I’ve never done it because it seems a bit narcissistic.”
She strikes a centerfold pose. “Anyone you have sex with in this dream world is essentially me. I may pretend to be them, but we both know it’s really you, or a part of you, pulling the strings.”
This is not going as I’d anticipated. “Just stay still,” I command her.
She freezes in a comical pose. I focus to see if my consciousness is in both of us.
Nope.
I float out of my body and attempt to land back in both bodies.
Another fail.
I dismiss the second me. “Looks like I’m not powerful enough to pull off the double consciousness.”
“Or you might be too sleep deprived to use your power properly,” Pom suggests helpfully, flitting over to sit on my shoulder. “It’s like I told you. It’s been more than four months since—”
“You’re like a nagging husband.” I grab his furry body and hold him in front of my face. “I can’t raise enough money for Mom’s bills if I waste time sleeping. Now I also need to solve this case ASAP.”
His lavender eyes are unblinking. “So you’re not avoiding sleep because you’re afraid of bad dreams?”
Ugh. Who died and made Pom my therapist? “Remember that privacy thing we talked about a minute ago?”
His shoulders slump.
“Yeah, you guessed it.” I set him down. “Can I please get some for the next few minutes?”
“If you insist,” he says glumly.
“I insist. And you must promise not to spy. I mean it.”
“I pinky swear.” He extends a three-fingered paw.
Since every digit is the same, I guess the rightmost to be the pinky and solemnly shake it to seal the deal. “Now scram.”
He performs the slowest Cheshire Cat disappearance ever.
When I’m sure he’s gone, I change my surroundings to my favorite bedroom in the palace and let my mind drift to Valerian. Even if his looks were to impress me, they were impressive. Visualizing him is easy; I guess his mouthwateringly hot face is burned into my imagination.
Without further ado, I make a dream version of Valerian appear in front of me, dressed in the same suit as in the real world.
“Hi, gorgeous,” Dream Valerian drawls. “Miss me already?”
“Shut up.” I try to keep my voice steady. “You know what I want.”
He grins wickedly, and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, he comes toward me. Even though I’m in the dream world and he’s a simulation of what was likely an illusion, my body’s response feels quite realistic—down to every detail.
This will be fun.
Even if the real Valerian doesn’t look this way, I owe him for inspiring this dream design.
Moving with predatory grace, Dream Valerian closes the distance between us and kisses me. His sensual lips are as soft as I imagined. I melt in his arms, feeling his—
“Bailey,” Felix’s voice booms from all over. “The door.”
Seriously? I had no idea Felix was such a cockblocker.
“The investigation, remember?” Felix shouts from the outside world. “Someone’s here.”
“Fine,” I growl, and leaving a disappointed Dream Valerian, I return to the waking world.
The cooing of the cannibal birds is back, as is the stomach-turning smell of their cages.
I open my eyes. The door is already open, and Kit is standing much too close to me, a look of curiosity on her face.
I step back awkwardly. “Hi.”
“I’m here to take over for Kain for a bit,” she says, turning into him. “Did I come at a bad time?”
I plaster a smile on my face. “It’s fine. I was waiting to get out of here.”
“To do what?” she asks in Kain’s voice.
“I want to interview the strongest members of the Council. Anyone able to rip a person in half.”
“I see.” Kit morphs back into her anime character self. “Who would you like to start with?”
I prepare to watch her reaction. “You.”
Her face reveals nothing.
“With your power, you could turn into an orc and have its strength, right?”
She morphs into a giant green orc—a muscle-bound creature that Earthlings might confuse for the Hulk with tusks. “I’m a suspect?” she booms.
Being next to something this big activates primal fear in my amygdala, so all I can do is bob my head.
“Okay then,” Orc Kit growls and smashes a fist into the door. The heavy wood shatters into tiny pieces, answering my question about her strength. The birds stop cooing and blink at the orc with panic in their cannibalistic eyes.
I know what they’re thinking: We’re about to die.
&nbs
p; Then again, they might be thinking how delicious my remains will be.
“Now,” Kit growls, taking a menacing step toward me. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter Sixteen
My breathing speeds up.
Am I a victim of my own success? The first person I formally question turns out to be the culprit?
It could be. Kit could’ve turned into Leal, the dreamwalker, to get close enough to push Ryan, the elf, off the cliff. She could’ve turned into a bird, pecked Leal to death, and opened the cages to blame it on the doves. And she’s just proven that she could’ve turned into an orc to rip Gemma, the animal controller, in half. The only part I’m not clear about is how she could’ve shot Tatum, the succubus, with an arrow from so far away—but perhaps she’d turned into an elf and got their perfect marksmanship?
But if Kit is the killer, why did she root for me at the trial? Reverse psychology, maybe?
One thing’s for sure: If she kills me now, it will prove I’m right.
I back away. As much as I love to be right, this is too high a price. Maybe I can still run? She’s blocking the door, but—
Instead of lunging forward and ripping me to shreds, Kit transforms back into her tiny round-cheeked self. “I only get the physical qualities of whatever I turn into, not the powers.”
Does this mean she isn’t going to kill me? That’s good. Now if only my racing heart would chillax.
“Is elven marksmanship a power?” I ask warily. “Or is that like orc strength, something you develop by having the right body?”
“That’s a great question.” She turns herself into a female elf. “Do you have a bow and arrow?”
I pantomime patting my pockets. “Let me just pull out the bow and arrow I carry on me at all times. It’s right next to my sword and ax.”
“Don’t be mean.” Elf Kit walks past me and sits on a chair, seductively crossing her legs. “As flattered as I am to be a suspect, why would I want to kill those four? Especially Tatum.”
I take a seat across from her. “Why especially Tatum?”
“She was the best lover I’d ever had,” Kit says wistfully and turns into Tatum, but without the signature succubus scent.
“Kit’s a sex addict,” Felix chimes in. “No surprise there.”
I know that; it’s the reason she was in rehab when we met. How does Felix know, though?
Hmm, maybe I don’t want to know the details.
Kit shifts back into herself, and her expression turns unusually fierce. “Killing Tatum was an atrocity akin to destroying an irreplaceable work of art. When I find out who did it, I won’t just kill them—I’ll turn into a drekavac to do it.”
I suppress an instinctive shudder. Drekavacs are horrifying creatures that are said to kill victims through unspeakable pain. They’re even scarier than pucks.
“I don’t think she’s bluffing,” Felix whispers. “She’s killed someone that way before. Someone who deserved it, but still.”
So Kit can torture-kill if she feels like it. She’s looking more innocent by the second. Not.
“Can you please tell me where you were and what you were doing at the time of the murders?” I ask in as steady of a voice as I can manage. “Kain said Tatum died six days ago, at—”
“I know when every one of the victims died.” Kit’s face darkens further. “We all do. When Tatum died, I was having sex.”
I blink.
“Not with Tatum, obviously.” She turns into a blond bombshell. “I got embroiled with Lola two weeks ago and only wrenched myself away from her the other day.”
“Lola’s a nymph who’s an enabler for her,” Felix whispers.
I debate muting him again; he keeps telling me things I already know.
Refocusing on Kit, I ask, “What were you doing when the elf—”
“Lola. In every case.” She flashes back to her normal self. “As you well know, when Lola and I get together, things can spiral a bit out of control.”
A bit out of control? Sure, we’ll call it that. I saw some of Kit’s dreams featuring Lola when she was in rehab. To me, it seemed like Kit wasn’t the one with the addiction—Lola was. That, or being insatiable is part of Lola’s nature. The word nymph is the root of nymphomaniac, after all.
“Can you give me some details?” I ask as Felix uncomfortably clears his throat. “Was there anything memorable about those lovemaking sessions? What did the room look like?”
When Kit smiles at me in an overly friendly way, I also clear my throat, adding, “It’s for dreamwalking.”
She tells me about the rooms they used; then, with relish, she details the positions she and Lola got into, which toys went into which orifices, how many orgasms each of them had, and how often she changed shape into something or someone Lola felt like having sex with—as well as how many phalluses each of those forms had. Though Felix usually only faints at the sight of blood, he’s so deathly silent in my earpiece that I wonder if Kit’s details have knocked him clean out.
Pulling out my phone, I make a few notes to avoid forgetting anything, as unlikely as that seems. “I’ll have to check all this in your dreams,” I tell Kit when I’m done. “But if you were with Lola the way you say, you’re not guilty.”
“Great.” She stands up. “Now who do you want to interview next?”
“Who else is strong enough?”
She turns into Kain, hooked nose and all. “An old vampire?”
“You suspect him?” I glance furtively at the door.
She turns back into herself. “I’m just telling you who’s strong.”
“But still, would Kain be working so hard to solve this case if he’s the culprit?”
“Cute.” She turns into me—a well-rested version, without bags under my eyes. “You’re assuming that hiring you is the same as ‘working hard to solve this case.’”
I narrow my eyes at her.
“Don’t be mad.” She turns back into her usual self. “You’re an amazing therapist, don’t get me wrong, and you can surely steal secrets when you try. But since when are you a detective?”
Up yours, lady. “You yourself called me a detective at the trial.”
She shrugs. “I was trying to save your life. If Kain really wanted a detective, he could glamour a human one or find someone on—”
“But I can tell when people lie to me. I can go into dreams and compare stories with memories.”
“There are more direct ways to figure out if someone is lying,” Kit says. “I’d say hiring you isn’t that.”
She’s probably talking about the man I playfully call Bowser, a member of the Council who’s currently on vacation. He simply knows, without a doubt, if someone is telling him the truth. If he were here, the case would be as simple as having him ask everyone, “Was it you?”
I wonder if that’s why the killer chose to strike now, with Bowser away indefinitely. It’s his or her only chance to get away with it.
“Let’s see if Kain lets me dreamwalk in him,” I say. “As a vampire, he doesn’t need to sleep, so it would have to be voluntary.”
“Good thinking.” Kit turns into a giant, albeit a small one, and says in a voice deep enough to sing death metal, “Another strong person is obviously Colton.”
“Who totally looks like the giants from the Skyrim game,” Felix says conspiratorially.
“Who else?” I ask.
“There’s Eduardo.” Kit turns into a shaggy-haired man not much smaller than the giant, who then morphs into a huge wolf.
“I think Eduardo looks like Donkey Kong,” Felix chimes in. “But never mention this to him, or I’m dead.”
Sure, I was totally about to walk up to a werewolf and tell him he looks like a video game gorilla. I’m that suicidal. “Okay, who else?”
Kit transforms back into herself. “Does it have to be physical strength?”
“What do you mean?”
She turns into a striking black-haired woman with thick dark eyebrows, a small hoop in her right n
ostril, and silver studs in the upper and lower lips. “Nina isn’t physically strong, per se,” she says in a melodic voice that I assume belongs to Nina. “But her telekinesis is so strong she could use that to rip someone in half.”
Oh, a telekinetic too. Fun. “I’d like to speak to her as well. Who else could rip someone apart?”
“No one I can think of,” Kit says.
I stand up. “Then let’s start with Kain, Colton, Eduardo, and Nina.”
“Sure.” Kit assumes her big-eyed, overly cute anime guise and dashes for the door.
I follow her through a couple of corridors. When we reach a massive door, her phone rings.
She pulls it out. “Hello?” She listens for a few seconds, but I can’t hear the other side. “Sure, I’ll get the usual. If they have sashimi-grade salmon, five pounds.”
“Someone’s hungry,” Felix mutters. “Or, like me, has a cat with exquisite taste.”
Kit listens for another second. “Yep, she’s with me.” She covers the phone. “Kain sent Firth shopping. Do you need anything?”
I ask for a case of bananas, six gallons of distilled water, a dozen bottles of hand sanitizer, and—just to mess with Filth—every feminine hygiene product I can think of, plus laxatives and adult diapers.
Kit doesn’t blink an eye as she repeats my list to Filth. Sadly, I can’t hear if he complains.
I sneak out my phone and text Felix:
See if you can hack into the store camera to record Firth buying all that stuff. Bonus points if the adult diapers don’t scan, so the clerk has to look up the price manually.
He chokes with laughter. “I’ll try.”
Kit hangs up. “I think I know why you requested everything except the bananas.” She turns into a monkey and scratches her head with her foot before transforming back into herself.
Felix groans. “I can’t believe she just walked into that lecture. I’m going to put you on mute.”
“If you must know,” I tell Kit, “it’s one of the very few things I feel safe eating on this world. You can carefully peel bananas without touching the inside. Even if the outside is crawling with salmonella, you can be safe.”
Kit’s eyes widen. “Really?”
I’m unable to resist the opening. “The food industry here on Earth is an abomination. Did you know there’s human DNA in hotdogs? Or that the United States FDA allows maggots, rodent hair, cigarette butts, and mold in food? Did you realize that milk is allowed to have pus and blood in it, or that every meat you can think of has fecal—”