by Dima Zales
Nina floats a piece of shrimp into her mouth. “That’s hard to say. Maybe because he knew Leal would know his motives for killing the others. Or maybe Leal knew something else.”
I consider that. “You know, Leal was going out of his way to get into the dreams of werewolves.”
Her gaze sharpens. “There you go. Maybe he succeeded, and one of the windows is going to hold Eduardo’s secret.”
I look at said windows. “Which one do you think it is?”
“No idea,” she says. “My intuition isn’t making any more suggestions.”
“Puck. I guess I can try one at random.”
“Let’s just hope you don’t learn a secret that someone will later want to kill you over.”
“Great, thanks,” I mutter. Taking a breath, I eeny-meeny-miny-moe myself a window. “Here goes nothing.”
I fly at the black surface before I can change my mind.
This time, it would be more accurate to call the lake a sea. It’s so big I can’t even see the shore. Having no other choice, I swim.
And swim.
And swim.
When my muscles tire to the point of failure, I finally glimpse the shore in the far distance. The sight gives me a boost of strength to swim some more. But an hour later, I can swim no longer. The shore is five hundred yards away, but it might as well be across an ocean.
I grit my teeth and keep moving my leaden limbs.
A muscle in my leg cramps, and I begin to sink.
Puck. I’ve got to at least hold my breath.
Nope. That’s an impossibility with breathing this ragged.
Burning like acid, water flows into my sinuses, and pain explodes in my lungs.
A few agonizing seconds later, I drown.
Chapter Thirty-One
I’m in the hallway, my back to Kain and my heart drumming with terror.
I just died in my dream. Does that mean I’m homicidally insane?
Examining myself for murderous desires, I don’t find any—no more than usual, at least.
Whew. I must’ve merely lost my powers.
Touching Pom, I attempt to enter the dream world.
Nothing happens.
So that’s that. No more dreamwalking until tomorrow. With a sinking feeling, I face Kain.
“Who’s the killer?” he barks.
I brace myself. “I checked almost everyone. They’re all clear.”
His fangs pop out. “I didn’t ask you who isn’t the killer. I asked who is.”
“I think it’s Eduardo.” I wish I sounded more certain.
“You figured out how to enter his dreams?”
I shake my head. “He woke up before I could.”
Kain’s eyebrows snap together. “Then…?”
“I have reason to believe he was having an affair with Tatum. He was jealous of Ryan and didn’t like Leal for stealing some secret.”
Kain’s upper lip curls, exposing more of the fangs. “You could say that about most of the Council. How did you arrive at him?”
“By process of elimination.”
“That’s not much of a proof.” But the fangs slowly retreat.
Emboldened, I suggest, “Why don’t we go talk to him anyway? The least he can do is not fight me when I enter his dreams again.”
“Fine.” He grabs my shoulder and drags me to the werewolf’s apartment.
At the doorway, he sniffs the air and rushes in, leaving the door ajar. In the bedroom, Eduardo is still sleeping—or looks like he’s sleeping. Kain must’ve sniffed out something else, because he checks Eduardo’s pulse.
“Dead.” He spins around, his face a mask of fury. “Your alleged murderer was murdered.”
I back away.
His eyes turn into mirrors. “Do not move.”
The glamour roots me in place, despite every instinct screaming for me to run.
Kain rips open his own wrist and forces blood into Eduardo’s mouth. Just as with Albina, nothing happens, apart from my mouth watering in a disturbing way.
Kain curses and flashes out of the room, leaving me alone with the corpse.
I still can’t move. My nose starts to itch and I can’t even scratch it, which feels like a creative form of torture.
Soon, Kain comes back with Isis. As before, she shoots the victim with her power, but he doesn’t stir. They bustle out, paying no attention to me.
A while passes.
My legs cramp, and the itch on my nose gives birth to a daughter itch under my left boob. On some level, I’m grateful for the discomfort, because it keeps my mind off the fact that I’m standing next to a dead guy. And the fact that I’m going to be dead myself soon for so spectacularly failing at my job.
Kain comes back with a new group of people. Gertrude is with him, and the siren as well, plus a person I’ve never seen: a pale, ginger-haired dude with glasses so thick they make his eyes look tiny. He’s carrying a suitcase.
“Roger,” Kain says to the new guy. “Tell us why he died.”
Roger hovers over Eduardo’s body with a magnifying glass. Zooming in on the crook of his elbow, he says, “There’s a puncture wound. Strange. I didn’t think he was a drug user.”
“I don’t think he was,” Gertrude says.
“He used steroids to get even bigger than he already was,” Kain says disapprovingly. “Maybe that went wrong?”
Roger shrugs and sets about systematically searching the room. Kneeling to peer under the bed, he grunts approvingly and stands, clutching a syringe. When he holds it up to the light, there are a few ounces of liquid inside.
“Let’s have a look-see.” He opens his suitcase and takes out some high-tech gizmo that looks as though it came from Gomorrah. Placing a droplet of the liquid into the instrument, he waits.
Beep.
He pushes his glasses farther up his nose and squints at a tiny screen on the side of the device. “Interesting. I know this formula. I made this substance myself for Leal, your dearly departed dreamwalker. He was using it to try to put his birds into REM sleep for a few hours, at which point they would die. I’d been trying to improve the formula before he stopped needing it anymore. You know, on account of being dead.”
Right. Leal’s notes did mention someone named Roger working on the sleep drug—the one I couldn’t locate in his lab. And now I know why: because the killer took it and used it for one of the murders.
No wonder Eduardo had been in REM sleep and wouldn’t wake up.
Gertrude points at me accusingly. “It was her. She murdered poor Eduardo.”
If the glamour weren’t stopping me from speaking, I’d ask her why I would want to kill the werewolf—especially since he was my only suspect.
As if she heard my question, she continues. “I bet she found this drug in Leal’s lab and used it on Eduardo because she had trouble entering his dreams without it.”
I know I didn’t do it, but I guess it’s vaguely feasible. Keeping him in REM sleep for so long would give me the most opportunity to dreamwalk in him. But why would I be so dumb as to give a lethal drug to a member of the Council?
“It doesn’t matter if she did it.” Kain’s fangs are so prominent his speech slurs. “Besides, she couldn’t have killed the others.”
Gertrude puts her hands on her hips. “Still, if she—”
“What do you want?” Kain barks. “If she killed Eduardo, she’d be executed—but we’re going to execute her anyway, for allowing another murder. Do you want to kill her twice?”
Gertrude scowls. “I just don’t want her to weasel out of her rightful punishment like she did before.”
“Oh, she won’t,” Kain says coldly. He points his finger millimeters from my itching nose. “She’s done.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I am? If it weren’t for the damn glamour, I’d have lots to say on this matter.
What’s truly insane is that the glamour is even preventing my body from freaking out. My breathing is normal and my heartbeat is steady. The only
sign of my turmoil is Pom’s fur. It’s darker than a black hole.
“Should I call the Council meeting?” the siren asks in a heavenly voice.
“Give me a second.” Kain’s eyes turn into mirrors as he glances my way. “Walk behind me.”
I zombie-walk after him across half the castle to a familiar dungeon.
Of course. I should’ve guessed I’d end up here to await my execution.
The place still smells like fermented sewage, but thanks to the glamour, my gag reflex isn’t bothering me right now.
Kain makes a sharp right into the cell that was my original quarters. With the bed, table, and chair now gone, it looks even drearier—an impressive feat.
He catches my gaze. “I release you.”
Instantly, my heart begins hammering against my ribcage like a starved woodpecker.
“You will wait here.” He moves toward the door.
“Morning,” Felix says in my ear, drowsy but loud. “Did I miss anything?”
Puck. What horrible timing. I turn my back, fish out my phone as quickly as I can, and type out: Hush. Let’s talk in a sec—
A steely hand grabs my shoulder, spinning me around. “None of that.” Kain grabs the phone and crushes it in his grip.
“Bailey?” Felix squawks. “What’s going on?”
Kain makes pincers with his fingers and snatches the earpiece from my ear with a strike worthy of a cobra.
It’s as I feared. With his vampire hearing, he detected Felix’s voice. I wonder if he’s been hearing it all along but just didn’t bother to do something about it. I hope he at least doesn’t know who’s on the other end of the conversation—I don’t want Felix to get in trouble.
“Consider her dead,” Kain growls into the earpiece. “And if I learn who you are, you will be as well.”
Okay, so he doesn’t know. One piece of good news in this avalanche of manure.
Tossing the device on the floor, Kain grinds it into powder with his foot. Then he rips the camera Felix was seeing through from my shirt and gives it the same treatment.
“You should’ve solved the case,” he tells me grimly and strides toward the cell entrance.
My gaze falls on the sliding bolt on my side of the door. As soon as he’s outside, I lunge and snap it into place.
“That’s not going to help,” Kain sneers from the other side of the bars. “I can rip that door off the hinges. Or I could just let you sit in this cell until you starve.”
On that cheerful note, he padlocks the door on his side and leaves.
My breathing is so fast I’m inhaling too much of the foul dungeon air. Bile rising, I frantically locate the horrific hole in the floor meant to be a toilet and lose the bananas from my stomach into it.
Perfect. Now I’ll starve that much sooner.
Muttering obscenities under my breath, I stand up and begin to pace. I feel like a caged animal. The seconds tick by, each one longer than the next. It feels like an hour passes as I pace back and forth, trying to avoid the sewage hole. After the third time I nearly fall into it, I plop down on the floor and hug my knees to my body.
Puck. Puck. Puck. How could I have screwed up so badly? The goal was to save Mom. Now I’ll be executed, and without me, she’s as good as dead too. If I’d finished Valerian’s job, I could beg him to pay her bills, extending her life a while longer, but I don’t have my phone or my powers so I can’t even do that much.
My throat constricts, my eyes burning as a sob bubbles up in my chest. Another sob quickly follows—those bastards travel in packs—and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks. I cry for myself and for my mom, for all the dreams I’ll never walk in and the conversations the two of us will never get to have. For the apologies I’ll never get to make. I’ve never wished I could turn back the clock so intensely, have never wanted to rewrite history this much. But I only have that power in the dream world; out here, I’m as useless as a human, utterly at the mercy of the Council and their whims.
Eventually, my tears dry up and I just sit, beyond miserable. If I had my powers, I could at least escape into the dream world. But no such luck, at least not until tomorrow—assuming there is a tomorrow.
Of course, there is another form of escape, a way I could make myself feel better. The vial of vampire blood is still in my pocket. Even as diluted as it is, it would make me feel good. Very good.
But no. I’m showing signs of addiction—there’s no doubt about that anymore. Then again, I’m awaiting my execution, so does it matter?
I take out the vial. It’s so tempting. It would make me forget everything, if only for a little while. And when I’m dead, I won’t have to deal with the consequences of addiction.
No, screw that. I’m not dying an addict. Besides, using this stuff might’ve contributed to how I ended up in this hellhole. I can’t help the feeling that if I’d just let myself get a good night of sleep, with my mind fresh, I would’ve figured out who the murderer is.
Grimly resolved, I push up to my feet and step over to the hole in the floor. Unscrewing the vial, I make sure Nessie isn’t staring at me from the murky water and ceremoniously pour out the liquid.
“Never again,” I vow out loud.
To my surprise, I feel a little better—enough to resume pacing for a while instead of crying. Eventually, I tire and sit again, my eyes dry and gritty as I count the bars on the cell door.
A yawn tugs at my mouth. The effects of the vampire blood are wearing off. And for the first time in four months, I have no reason to fight the exhaustion, to hold off on the sleep I’ve been craving for so, so long.
Well, I guess there’s one reason.
Something tells me I’ll face my own trauma loop.
I yawn again. The weight of the world presses on my eyelids with a titanic foot. Without the vampire blood, fighting a four-month sleep debt is like holding my breath beyond a couple of minutes. Failure is guaranteed.
Fine. So be it.
I get as comfortable as I can on the stone floor, close my eyes, and instantly fall asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I’m in the apartment I’ve been sharing with Mom on Gomorrah. She’s looking at me, her pretty brown eyes sad as always. I know for a fact she’s had at least a week of poor sleep, yet she’s as beautiful as ever. Whatever pleasant facial features I have, I undoubtedly inherited from her. In fact, out of the two of us, she’s the one who looks like Halle Berry.
“Not this again,” she says, sounding tired.
“Your symptoms are worsening.” My voice rises an octave; I can’t help it. “I heard you screaming at night.”
Her face turns ashen. “Did you walk into my bedroom?”
I glare at her. “No. More importantly, I didn’t break my promise. I didn’t invade your precious dreams.”
She exhales in relief. “I just had a nightmare, that’s all.”
“About what?” I cross my arms in front of my chest.
“Can’t remember. Can we talk about something else now?”
“Was it something to do with my father?” I watch for her reaction.
Some emotion flashes in Mom’s eyes, but so fleetingly I can’t be sure I really saw it, let alone figure out what it was. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she snaps. “I don’t remember him, nor is it a topic I like to talk about.”
“If you don’t remember, how do you know you don’t want to talk about it?”
She shrugs and looks away.
“Fine. You haven’t been eating much, either. And haven’t left the house in forever. In fact, this is the first time this week I’ve seen you in real life.” I pointedly glance at the last-generation VR goggles on the end table.
Her jaw juts out mulishly. “Maybe it’s because no one pesters me in VR. I’m the parent and you’re the child, remember?”
I reach deep for my patience. “Look, Mom. I see your symptoms all the time. If you would just let me into—”
“
No!” She beelines for the door, throwing over her shoulder, “Don’t ever suggest that again.”
“If your symptoms keep worsening, I might not have a choice,” I yell at her back. “If your life’s on the line, I’ll break my stupid oath!”
She freezes and turns to look at me, her expression so full of betrayal I regret my words instantly.
“You wouldn’t,” she says hollowly, backing up toward the door. “Please say you wouldn’t.”
“Fine.” She’s been making me swear not to dreamwalk in her since I was a kid—and I’ve kept my promise, despite the overwhelming temptation. “But you have to see someone. A conventional shrink, perhaps? Maybe make a friend and talk to them? Or—”
“You don’t understand! I’ve tried everything.”
“Not everything.”
With a growl, she turns on her heel and storms out, slamming the door behind her.
“Well, good!” I shout to the closed door. “At least you’ll get some fresh air.”
I’m in the emergency room. Mom’s unconscious body is hooked up to an array of machines that do everything for her, from breathing to eating. Her brain activity is completely flat.
“She got hit by a car,” the elf social worker says, as if from a distance. “We’re figuring out what to do…”
I tune out the rest of it, my guilt and grief so overwhelming I can barely stand straight, let alone think. She went out because of my nagging. She went out angry and didn’t see that pucking car coming at her.
“…don’t have a lot of experience with this,” the elf’s voice reaches me again. “Self-driving car algorithms prevent pretty much all accidents. The last time—”
“Who gives a puck?” I bite out. “You think it makes me feel better that my mom is a one-in-a-million victim?”
The social worker backs away from me, mumbling platitudes—and I realize why she was telling me this.
Money.
Gomorrah has free universal healthcare, but on occasion, the free hospitals can’t handle something, so they defer to paid establishments, ones usually patronized only by the rich. Like this place. And given the extreme rarity of what happened to Mom, there’s no insurance that would cover it, just like there’s no insurance for getting hit by a meteorite.